Chasing the crumbs

Continuing from last time, because I managed to stumble upon a few interesting bits while I tried to save it all (my career and a project, either one would’ve been fine). Mostly will talk business again, much like last time, and a little bit of doodling with instanced meshes at the end.

The whole business of reaching out to scouts and agencies has pretty much ended the same way as with regular publishers or investors would’ve: Their requirements are essentially identical (e.g. need traction, gorgeous MVP), which I can't compete with.

[Read somewhere that it has more to do with their reputation, than what people might think at first glance. Which is interesting, because there was an interview I watched a few months back, I think it was at GDC or some other convention with a panel; tried to link it but Youtube was not so much of a help in my search. Where a scout was talking about their days at a publisher, where they explained the “walking on eggshells” aspect of scouting (they were explaining one of the reasons why so many submissions don’t get a reply, if they’re above the threshold, for months and years), where nobody wishes to end a potential viral game, but are also avoidant from introducing one that’s a massive failure as those are punished severely.]

So it doesn't matter if said project has been evaluated before (by a publisher exactly telling me how much it could minimum earn, so it wasn't just a rejection letter I’m taking things out of context all this time or stretching it out to fit my narrative, or not knowing if people are just kind to me and wish not to hurt my feelings), or being constantly validated by veterans in the industry (scouts, devs, business people), it all wasn’t enough in any shape or form. Everyone is telling me that the core is cool and I should work on it and figure out the rest later (because of the circumstances it was made under, it’s not fully done, the scope), or the very least build a community around it, brush it up and try again with publishers. Awesome to hear, but I’m still broke and have no money to live, let alone the equipment to use for something that others might buy (still running a Win7 machine that it's on the last leg), or the means to publish on Steam. (‘cos I don't own a business, which also costs money, just as food and rent).

[I often try to explain that it’s fair enough to expect better results from my work, but my last project (DSC) perfectly illustrates the challenges I had to overcome to be able to produce it. Graphics aside, as you probably know certain features require certain amount of computing. So, the more I add, the lower the FPS becomes; regardless of optimization, because simply there are a minimum cost for using things. So when people look and judge, they don’t see that I used particles, post processing, custom texture based lighting, running logic, massive animation systems (including root motion), materials, triangle count, and so forth; because making a proper game as you know, requires a lot of things to go simultaneously, and BPs especially are hard on the difficulty of making games. And each bit chomped away from the target 60 FPS. I managed to overcome, optimize (like with pooling) as best I could, and utilize engine features such as setting the viewport to render half the resolution. All of these are rather outdated requirements, but the only way I could min-max the capabilities of this old PC; which I’m still proud of, but are laughable for almost everyone, because the result is not what they’d expect in 2025].

So while I love the verbal support, very much so after years of “neglect”, thoughts and prayers aren't going to help me either; I’d do it otherwise on my own if I could, I learnt enough over the 5+ years as a solo dev that most of the roadblocks I managed to overcome. Also, you can't build a community with outdated visuals on Itch.io or wherever else (let alone make money these days, as most recently they’re withholding money from developers, which is fun); have akso spent years trying that, but it's impossible (especially if it's not a free product and up to specs). So while people say “just build a community”, I’m not sure they understood the severity of my situation, nor I think we live in the same universe (even in Europe), where WIP can suddenly build a large enough community that would wow publishers and carry everything on its shoulder. That alone, getting to the stage of MVP takes long-long months. Which is done full-time, puts additional strains on you; I’m not the first nor the last saying this. You’ve to have something before people start noticing; although I admit, I tried before working on just a concept and to see where it went (spoiler alert, nowhere). Getting people interested, especially on social media requires a certain level of effort and quality, which mostly comes from having money to spare “playing the dev game” (or spend decades in your free time). There's no way around that. All in all, this just made me believe more that I’m still just an amateur in the eyes of the industry; and being treated accordingly.

However, not all is doom and gloom, as I accidentally met an IGDA board member on LinkedIn just the other day, who was hoping to power devs like myself in Finland (if interpreted correctly). Because they also recognized the gaping hole in funding within the system; how crap it is, and mostly beneficial for those who already have money and connections. In some parts of the world, even alternative methods, like crowdfunding or grants aren't available; or fairly limited to business entities only (the EU is really a culprit on this, because even though they have plenty of programs dedicated to arts, all of them require a business, and none help to create one. There’s a tech startup opportunity, if you’re lucky to get in, but not for gaming). There's this great opportunity to encourage and swoop up talent who need that extra push, usually in the pre-seed/incubator stage. So I'm glad I managed to somewhat encourage Kim to continue on their agenda. There's a business opportunity here I’ve jet to rationalize the lack of interest in; saying this knowing a lot goes into this (I’m also supposed to be a business man by trade, so I’m not just talking out of my rear). So while I was excused from all of this, I hope future generations will have less of a pain in wanting to make a difference.

Oh and the other one came in the form of a YouTuber who was randomly recommended to me, whose most recent videos were centered around bashing AAA and their latest failures (think of Swen on twitter), and I managed to slightly encourage them to explore a little bit more about funding in the industry (as they mostly had a surface level of understanding of the whole situation was), which they took it as the way to progress forwards. How awesome is that? Feels like I did something greater than myself.

The rest of the story, the reaching out almost a hundred different options (publishers, VCs, angels, scouts, agencies, incubators, groups, associations, content creators, random people, etc.) all ended in nothing, well at the same spot: Too early [This stunned me the most, because it's not like I’m running around with an idea with no skills, no thought/effort put into the project, without a prototype at least, otherwise I wouldn't have been told that it would earn 6+ figures. Fascinating to see that even incubators are showing me the way out, ones who supposedly are there for the exact reason to help early stages. So early stages aren’t really that early after all? Can’t really comment on this, as said in the previous post, communication is strictly one way, and for the love of all, I can’t talk to people to understand their decisions, or make corrections where needed.], or not a good fit for their portfolio, etc. If only for once I’d be taken seriously (I know, lot of the things I say is just repeating myself over and over, making me feel like a parrot), because there's a reason why I’ve worked my ass off with nothing over the years, to prove it all.

However, the thing is (where family matters come into focus) that the deadline I was given ended on the 6th (today); if I remember correctly between two shouting matches. Which meant that now I'm in full panic mode (well, have been for weeks, which is fun on top of the sleepless nights) as I only a couple of days left (maybe a week or two if I can stretch it, again bit hazy on the details, ‘cos of the kerfuffle). Thus I’m currently scrambling to find a “real” job, as well as a way to move out somehow, far away from this hellish nightmare; completely uprooting my life in the process, without the possibility to go back to a stable job (which is another cool thing to worry about). All in all, wish at least I could utilize the years put into solo dev and not let it go to waste, but being a self taught generalist isn’t exactly a pedigree most studios want to see in their workforce; tried that that too as a last resort, but all were rejections (although I’ll keep looking, but not hopeful). So now the only thing left for me is to somehow save myself from this crap I’ve been sitting in as said, and hope for the best with nothing.

Which is why, as a last bit of tinkering, a form of a throwback to what was a massive pain in my rear all these years (the ability to have nice lighting in my projects, because I’m not good enough of a programmer to make custom GI solutions in Unreal, to fake real-time tracing), I booted up Unreal and tinkered with it a little bit, making the GIF you see below (was inspired by a similar solution I saw the other day):

It’s just the good old top-down ray test (with some lazy instanced meshes), which I might do something with, just as a tiny game jam type of thing; between two panic attacks. Because you always need a bit of downtime. Not sure how I’d use it, because I can’t think of any project that I could use it in (only to make a horror shooter type of thing, or something similar). Who knows.