The value of money

If you can’t sell a game every 52 minutes, you will need a day job, basically.

That quote is from Cliffski. That guy make games and make a living out of them. Don’t get me wrong. I fully know the value of money but that quote still struck imagination.

So I know the value of money? Yep! You know I’m a cheap guy. Before buying something I always ask myself “how many hours do I have to work to buy this?”. It is often followed by “how many days of vacation could I afford by not buying this” since I know quite well what to do with a day of vacation … work that is.

So no I don’t buy a lot of things. My TV was given from the mother of my wife. My furniture is a mix of given stuff and low quality (but still not bad) bought stuff. I buy new clothes once every 3 years because my wife can’t stand my old stuff. I don’t buy much stuff because I know how much it cost. I also don’t need a lot to be frank. A bottle of wine and 1-2 friends and it’s all I need. The most expensive thing in my house is probable my computer because it’s my tool. I still have my last computer and it takes about 20 minutes to boot …

Oh I have a house! Yeah … the most expensive thing I have. That was a quality life improvement. I lived in a 3 rooms and a half apartment for 7 years and I did so because I didn’t want my wife to be to have to work while she was going to university. We offered ourselves some quality but it wasn’t “go to bars each friday” kind of quality. That was just “hey honey we still have time for ourselves”.

The day job I currently have but will soon leave is giving me $50,000 per year. I could probably make $60,000 if not $70,000 with 10 years of experience and excellent referrals. That’s not to sound arrogant that’s just the truth. I’m good at what I do and not afraid to say so. I’m bad at a lot of things but I still can say I’m good at some stuff. Problem? I just don’t feel like doing so anymore. It’s not enough challenge. It’s boring. Yep! I make a good salary and have a “good quality of life” but that’s still not enough! The more you have the more you want … Or the more you know yourself the more you make choices that will not sacrifice your quality of life.

Ask my wife … She doesn’t like to ask me how my day went because she knows the answer: “Same old boring stuff I was doing 10 years ago”. Yes I could just sit on it and shut my mouth. A lot of people do that as long as the money gets in. That might seems a wise choice … You don’t get to live with them every single day though … I surely wouldn’t be able to stand myself for more than a week …

So back to the value of money. Money is something that is hard to get when you’re really after it. I could just live in some sort of coma and make plenty of money to be happy … on the weekend. What if I want to be happy all week long? Each day I need to make $100 (give or take some). At the end of the day if I haven’t made $100 it means that I can’t keep the minimum I have (house, car, internet, electricity? …). That’s a real long shot if you ask me.

I’ve said it before and here it is again. I thought I was going to pull some kind Sherwood Dungeon or Kingdom of Loathing success and just make enough for me to be happy with it. That didn’t happened. Reality strucked but hey! I have that job bringing $50,000 a year! Yeah right … That worked for some time. Maybe I should have put orcs and dragons instead of clockwork gnomes and X-Rex who knows. Probably.

So where am I going with this? Well I recently saw a couple of “thoughts provoking” posts about “what if World of Warcraft was to go F2P”. No I don’t like seeing that kind of post in my RSS reader because I know the people posting these just do this to make the same kind of $50,000 I currently make (maybe less or more I don’t care). That’s just empty talk but I guess that brings visitors… Oh those people must love their job … However it sure does bring some anger. “If WoW because F2P I will quit!!!!” Pfff … The hate against F2P is so laughable that I already have laughed for a thousand years. Yes you would still play because the game would be the same anyway and it’s the perfect recipe for mindless time wasting.

Let’s for a moment consider Golemizer as a pay X per month game. I’m not saying that will happen!!! That’s just some random toughts! Let’s say you’d have to pay $10 per month to play. That’s 5$ cheaper than WoW! My last numbers are telling me that I had 1030 “active players” in June. Well Kongregate is messing up a bit those numbers so let’s say what if it would cost only $5 per month to play Golemizer and the real number of active players is only half so 500. Quick math tells me that it would mean $30,000 per year. That’s not $50,000 but it’s still not bad. That means I’d have something to hope for.

Now imagine I’d say all players they have to pay $5 per month to play … I can imagine some kind of riot. Funny hey? The opposite of WoW going F2P would bring the exact same reaction … I guess that I’m not wrong about that. Of course if Golemizer would cost $5 we could say that I wouldn’t have the same number of players … Really? Probably but there’s something telling me that I can’t be 100% sure about that. I’ll never be I guess …

So money is hard to get and hard work doesn’t always get you some. Good ideas neither. A mix of both is still not a guarantee for success. So what can give you hope? Trying honestly. If you don’t try then you’re sure nothing will ever happen. Trying honestly is surely not enough but at least you’re giving it a shot. That’s the least you can do. You can succeed or fail but by not trying you’re sure to fail.

So $100 a day … Can it be done? It can be tried at least. At all cost? No. But somehow you need to believe. I just said no to a bit more than $1,000 to have 2 weeks off to work on a game. That’s a start. Where will it lead? I don’t know but I’m giving it a shot … Will I give up my house and my marriage for that? No. But I think I know enough what’s the value of money to take a risk without loosing my shirt in the process …

Wish me good luck (because a lot is that … luck) and we might meet in some years when I don’t post this kind of things anymore …