Working Alone

[Phil Steinmeyer]

So, after many years of being the boss of a company that grew to about 20 people, I've spent several months working alone on my indie game.

At the end of my run at the bigger company, I was burned out on managing people (including some who, though talented, were difficult personalities). I planned (and still do) never again to go that route.

So now I'm a (reasonably) typical indie - working out of my house, using a couple of remote contractors who I mainly correspond with by e-mail.

From a production and biz standpoint, this is fine - I get the work I need done, I'm happy with the game and think it will do well.

But, while I don't miss the stress of having to deal with occasionally problematic employee situations, I do miss having daily professional interaction, or even just people to shoot the breeze around the water cooler with.

Some of this, of course, comes down to fleshing life out with non-work social relationships. But still, as much time as I (and most here) spend working, having work be more of a social outlet would be nice. Yes, there are forums, conferences, and e-mail and phone calls with past and current colleagues, but that's still not quite the same thing.

I guess I'm wondering if other people who do this full time and basically alone feel the same way, and what, if anything, you do about it.

Early on, I contemplated getting office space outside of the home, thinking it'd get me out of the house and allow me to bring contractors onto the project easier. But when I started working with remote contractors, I shelved the idea. And I'm still not sure that I want to have employees again, nor partners. But I might be interested in something like some lawyers have - where a bunch of lawyers are NOT partners, but share a big office suite, divvying up common area costs and perhaps a receptionist. This provides some biz benefits (makes certain things that wouldn't be justifiable for a single person easier to absorb when you only pay, say 1/8 the cost). But I haven't really heard of this arrangement outside certain professional practitioners (lawyers, doctors, etc.) There are virtually no other game developers in my city, but I wouldn't mind sharing an office suite with some other general IT professionals/sole practitioners.

For those of you working solo in fairly game-dev isolated situations, do you have any clever suggestions/solutions on this front?

[ggambett]

I'm in a similar situation, and I do feel the same way you do about being isolated, although I never worked in game development with other developers.

I have an advantage though - I remained attached to my the university where I graduated, as the Computer Graphics lecturer and tutoring degree theses (or whatever you call these in english), so I have human contact with a lot of people on a regular basis - students (my lab classes, 50% of the course, are very interactive), other lecturers, staff, and so on.


But still, as much time as I (and most here) spend working, having work be more of a social outlet would be nice.I'm not sure I agree with this - having a more social job would be good, but I don't think your main social group has to be work-centric or work-related. In fact, while most of my friends are also engineers, they're not into game dev at all, and I think that's even a good thing.

[Bmc]

extra curricular activites. find something that involves something you like to do for fun and join up. that way you don't have to worry about managing people, you just have to have fun and socialize + it will give you a break from the work day.

[arcadetown]

I think the answer you'll from almost everyone here is yes and yes ;) Hated the work at my last fooltime job (over 2 years back now) but sure miss hanging out with everyone, the lunches, and of course the foosball table.

[Jesse Aldridge]

I worked alone for about a year and have just recently begun working with a friend. I think working with others can make trudging through endless bugs for 6 hours a day much more bearable, enjoyable even. As for extra-curricular activities, I have yet to find anything that I find particularly enjoyable - other than games, books, and surfing the internet (but then again, I'm broke).

Anyhow, I would take working with a few others - maybe like 2 to 4 - over working alone any day. Perhaps this is a good size for an indie team? I've always thought that if I were to build up a company to where I had 10-20+ people working for me, I'd want to break everybody up into seperate units, working on a few smaller games rather than one big game. Anyway, my point is, working alone sucks, and judging from you're experience (and some intuition), I'd say working with too many people sucks. So is working with just a few, carefully selected people a good solution?

[NuriumGames]

I feel that same Phil, before being an indie I was a consultant so I would meet a lot of people, most of them stupid enought to give orders without knowing what were talking about but there were some nice people too.

I'm currently thinking about it, but can't find a solution. I want to work alone but would like some people hanging around :) A friend of mine is a designer and works 'where a bunch of designers are NOT partners, but share a big office suite' I could go there but it's 30Km away from home and I like to work from home as I can do what I want at the time I want (not sure if this is a really good thing :rolleyes: ) also this would imply new costs.

[Anthony Flack]

Although I'm not full-time yet (barely any-time at the moment), the idea of sharing some working space with someone does appeal. Wouldn't have to be game related (unlikely to be). Any one of my friends who's self-employed would do.

[Cicero]

I'm in a similar situation, full time working on my own, which has its benefits and drawbacks. Isolation being the main drawback for me, since communication and just the option of throwing ideas around and getting face-to-face feedback are pretty essential to get a project off the ground.

That's why I pretty much take any opportunity I can to jump on a train and meet with others involved.

As for non-partners sharing office space, this sounds a bit over-idealistic to me and could cause problems. Since each person would be financially reliant on everyone else sharing the costs, there'd have to be some sort of written agreement which would (correct me if I'm wrong) make them partners in the venture itself, if not in name.

I think 2 or more indies sharing office space is a great idea though, but why not go the whole way and form a full partnership?

[mahlzeit]

You could do it like these guys (http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66276,00.html), who started their company from a coffee shop. Free internet access, a good caffeine supply, and lots of people to interact with. :)

[ManuelFLara]

You could do it like these guys (http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66276,00.html), who started their company from a coffee shop. Free internet access, a good caffeine supply, and lots of people to interact with. :)
As long as it's has free wi-fi Internet connection and electrical sockets to connect the laptops, this wouldn't be a bad idea, but I can see some problems like not having any actual office space to place a whiteboard, put papers, a printer, etc. But I guess that can be at home.

[Mike Boeh]

I have been working alone as an independent game developer for 5 years now. I do lease office space because I was having productivity troubles at home (when you hear a 2-year-old say, "daddy, will you play with me?", it's impossible to resist). But yes, for the most part, I do work alone. Occasionally, the artist for Water Bugs and Cosmo Bots, Jim (http://www.optigoncg.com), will come over and work here, and sometimes Scott from mking.com (http://www.mking.com) comes over too.

However, most of the time, I am alone all day, not speaking a single word- and it's less fun after 5 years than it is after a few months. The coffee shop idea is good in theory, but there are far too many distractions to be very productive there. I have tried it maybe 50 times.

So I guess splitting an office with someone would be ideal, but I have yet to find anyone needing to do the same and also being in the financial position to do it. It also has to be someone who can resist the urge to socialize most of the time and just work.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

You could do it like these guys (http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66276,00.html), who started their company from a coffee shop. Free internet access, a good caffeine supply, and lots of people to interact with. :)

Yeah, I talk to Brian Hook sometimes, and he does this. He was into casual games early and has drifted away, but is still basically a solo developer working on various projects. He spends pretty much 8 hours a day working out of a Starbucks. Obviously he knows the employees well, but it seems a bit unusual to me.

Re: sharing the office space - Sometimes it's the landlord who does this - charge $15 a square foot for your pro-rata share of a 5000 square foot office instead of $12 a square foot for 1000 s.f. mini-offices. St. Louis has a group of 'business incubators' (partially funded by govt. grant, I think) that's something like this, but it's really just a bunch of separate office suites with a few shared conference rooms and such. Plus there's lots of other strings attached (they want you to go through all this biz planning with their coach, they want you to grow quickly and move out, etc.) that don't appeal to me.




So I guess splitting an office with someone would be ideal, but I have yet to find anyone needing to do the same and also being in the financial position to do it. It also has to be someone who can resist the urge to socialize most of the time and just work.
Yeah - I'm hardly a social butterfly, but the routine of 5-10 minutes of chat with colleagues at the beginning of the day, around lunch, and towards the end of the day seems to be good for the brain and makes the work day a lot more enjoyable. Plus, it's nice, when you either have made something really cool or have a thorny problem to resolve, to have someone to show it to (if not over-abused).

I'm married with young kids, and so I obviously talk to my wife and sometimes show her game things, but I'd like other adults to interact with, too. My kids are pretty good about not bugging me until 5 pm-ish. And it's nice being in the home when I'm needed (i.e. a kid gets sick or something) - I wouldn't want to work 15 miles away.

Still, I think my ideal would be a shared office within 5 miles or so of my house that I could go to 3-5 days a week, but without partners (so no sense of obligation), and I could still work out of the house when needed or when feeling a bit lazy.

[Sysiphus]

I work for games(doing all kind of artwork you can think of) today, in a company. And worked several times before, in other companies, also in web design companies, and in pc maintenance ones, and...etc...

Man, how do I envy those who can live just as indy artists, or programmers. I have worked as freelance, too, and I miss it a lot. And while then, I never ever missed that kind of things...If I could get rid of the cofee machine, the ugly barman, the parking "quest"...the boss whim of each 15 mins...man, would I be happy..... I guess I don't need that diary feel with people, I get in touch with my great friends at any time, in a very different fashion on how I deal for work. When being freelance, was so too.

I never was a boss (neither I wish!) and consider myself quite a bearable, patient employee(and even so..).. but we usually have no good luck with bosses, though I have had at least 2 good ones in my profesional life... Imho in this kind of stuff, specially small sized companies(merely small studios) is better if none plays too much the boss rol.

Today I'd kill for not working under my bosses, and just organizing the work alone at home, as I did before many times. But $ don't come allways when being a freelance, in my case. I had the discipline of working full day like a machine, when being an indy, so have no probs with that.

IMHO being an indy and able to pay everything without spending all your life time hours in it...is...simply paradise. I almost got it some years ago. Enjoied the situation for some months, but every good thing finds its end.

If you'r finding that kind of nostalgy (I've felt at some point of my life, long ago) then is just all about of organizing your social life in the time you do must reserve for leisure, getting out with firends, etc, and keep just producing at the work hours...imho.

my 2 cents

[arcadetown]

Yup after 2 years it's getting old but you know what... I recall the same thoughts at all the past jobs. Hoped on the beach cruiser yesterday, took baby down to beach today, etc. Basically this recent new freedom is very valuable and wouldn't trade it for a million bucks.

Would be nice to share an office with someone but I'd get far less done as couldn't simply walk into office and do work whenever feel like it.

Trying to spend more time just doing various things. Heck I might drive up to the IGC last minute just to get away.

[dislekcia]

I work from home after having left a reasonably busy office too, but I'm lucky in that I've got options to get over that "non-office" isolation feeling.

To get "real" income, I write monthly for two magazines that are produced from the same office: The one is a gaming mag and the other PC hardware/office focused. They're really cool about me going through to visit and come up with ideas, etc. A friend of mine sometimes joins in with the development when I sit and build games there, it's a very open office with a lot of creativity, comments and a phenomenal amount of work gets done there... Charges me right up for the next month or two ;)

[Vorax]

I am not exactly working alone, as I still have a full time day job, but a few months back I joined a gym and try to do an hour a day during my lunch. It's getting me in shape and I have met lots of other people with diverse backgrounds and since were all going to the gym we have something in common.

It's a thought - it gets you out, it gets you in shape, it clears your head from the programming problems and you can interact with other people. It's done wonders for me and I don't think I've ever been more productive.