As some of you who have watched my YouTube channel may know, at the moment I make games as a one-person studio, though I do hire other people from time to time. Now I really don’t like labels very much, but most people would call that a solo game dev. By my best guess, there are more solo game devs in the world than non-solo game devs.
I don’t really think being a solo game dev is anything to brag about, though it is certainly difficult. I rarely use this term when I’m talking about what I do unless it’s to make a point, like in this article. In fact, I think you should strive to not be a solo game dev. There are way more challenges than advantages to working alone.
Working together
I think a large reason why so many people decide to stay solo is cost. Let’s look at it this way though.
The time you have to work on your game is finite and if you can parallelize this work somehow you can get it out there faster. You have a finite set of skills which you can build in a finite amount of time. As a one-person show you are the biggest risk to finishing your game. If you get sick for a week, nothing gets done. As a solo dev you are trading an incredibly finite resource, your time, to get the result you want.
By combining skills with other people you can greatly improve both the quality and quantity of the work you produce. Sometimes this means trading money, a non-finite resource, for time. As the famous saying goes:
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
I’ll go over a few options you have as a solo game dev for banding together with others. These are in order of commitment to help you gauge what’s right for you. I won’t go into the legal details on each of these as that’s going to vary quite a lot from place to place (plus I’m not a lawyer).
Freelancers and short-term contracts
You can hire someone on contract as a freelancer to do almost anything. Need capsule art for your Steam page? Covered. Want to spend less time managing your schedule and more time making games? Also covered. Need a late night snack? Got that covered too.
You get the picture. Hiring a contractor to handle something for you can be a great way to temporarily give your game (or life) a boost where you need it. It can also be very affordable especially when you consider the value of your time relative to what you are getting in exchange. What may take you a month to do could take another person just a few days.
In terms of commitment, hiring freelancers is typically quite low. This can be of course be a more long term engagement, but more or less the freelancer is coming in to do one very specific task based on your contract and then moving on.
Employees and long-term contracts
Comparing to hiring a freelancer for a specific task, bringing on another person as an employee of your studio is a much higher commitment for both of you. It can of course be very rewarding if they have complementary skills to yours, but even if you hire them part-time the costs can add up quite quickly.
This can get a little murky, as you could only hire the person for several months during development while they stay as an independent contractor. For sake of conversion, I’ll still consider this to be an “employee” though that isn’t strictly true. The important part is the amount of time you expect them to stay around as opposed to my above discussion focused more on discrete, single-task contracts.
For you as a solo game dev, if you have a long term need for a particular set of skills this could be an option for you. The cost for this option can also be quite high as you will be paying the person some wage for an agreed upon number of hours per week. You can set weekly maximums to help you control expenses, but unless you have quite a large budget you most likely want one of the other two options.
Co-founders and partners
The final and highest commitment way to work on your game with others is to work as partners. While this can be a great way to work towards long term success, you have to recognize that it is a long term commitment. You very likely will trade equity in either your studio or your game in exchange for the extra firepower of working with multiple people. In this case, you and your co-founders are responsible for making the thing happen. This could be shipping the single game, where you might share royalties, or building a gaming studio which you share ownership in.
This isn’t something to take lightly. You need to make sure you work well together and you are aligned on your common goals. Doing a trial run, like a game jam or a very small game project, can be a good way to determine if there is a mutual fit. You’re going to either succeed or fail together after all.
Find of the Week
It wouldn’t be much of an article on working with people if I didn’t mention Fiverr. As you may have seen, I do have an affiliate link with Fiverr. I also use it to hire freelancers for discrete tasks, for example making capsule art for Steam pages.
Overall I’ve had fairly good results working with Fiverr freelancers. If you choose to partake, I absolutely encourage you to reach out the the person via the chat feature before you book a job. This helps both of you get on the same page about what you want to get done.
Communication is absolutely key when working with others after all.
Affiliate Links
Use these affiliate links to support my work. There is no extra cost for you, and I receive a small commission if you make a purchase.
Fiverr - https://go.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=1055753&brand=fiverrmarketplace
Ovani Sound - https://ovanisound.com/discount/KYLEMMG?rs_ref=5pMzsiuF
Also with a built in 30% off Discount code on any of the Ovani Royalty Free Music packs! You pay less; I receive a commission. It’s a win, win. PS: Ovani has some great packs for setting that horror game mood.
Carrd - https://try.carrd.co/5wmj71kf
I love Carrd for making simple landing pages. I’ve used it for years and it makes the process super simple.