making money with custom maps !?

We had a similar situation albeit with a different product, being poor people creating Ham and Jam and having spent months looking for someone to lend us a SVN server we were out of luck and rapidly running out of space on the graciously donated server by cvsdude.com

They said they'd happily give us the next level of service/server package but we'd have to pay for it. We were also due to renew our vBulletin licence as well as domain names. We spent a while trying to think of ways to pay for all this (probably about £150+) from splitting it between the team (£20 each or so) which we knew would be hard to sell, to having adverts which would be hard to stomach and then we just decided to have a donate button just to see if it worked. We expected nothing from it.

By pure chance/luck it turned out the devoted forum members we had were really devoted and we raised that money in about a week, we paid the bills and we've almost got enough for next years ones too. We also said come the time when there's nothing to spend it on, we'd donate it to WW2 Veterans charities too.

I guess a single map is too small a thing to actually donate money for. For something like a map pack full of all sorts of custom goodies there's a higher change that people would donate some cash for all the effort gone into it.

The only place where donations work really well are community-based websites like Interlopers.

I feel your pain warby. I've been wondering about making some kind of returns from my mapping also for a while. An idea i had was to create and sell custom content for mods - i.e. textures, models, sounds etc available ready to use for a number of different engines (people are always looking for props to use in garry's mod, machima etc).

Whenever i release a new map, the amount of people I get emailing me and asking me if they can rip all my assets to use in their mods is huge and im thinkin there may be something in it. It would all be microtransaction stuff really, low prices for individual items but I kinda get put off by the fact people will probably just share the stuff around once one person has downloaded it though but that seems the nature of things in this day of age.

Quote from robert.briscoe

I feel your pain warby. I've been wondering about making some kind of returns from my mapping also for a while. An idea i had was to create and sell custom content for mods - i.e. textures, models, sounds etc available ready to use for a number of different engines (people are always looking for props to use in garry's mod, machima etc).Whenever i release a new map, the amount of people I get emailing me and asking me if they can rip all my assets to use in their mods is huge and im thinkin there may be something in it. It would all be microtransaction stuff really, low prices for individual items but I kinda get put off by the fact people will probably just share the stuff around once one person has downloaded it though but that seems the nature of things in this day of age.

Don't you work at DICE, though? What does a bit of money for a custom map matter now?

Exactly dux, allot of the people posting here work for good developers ...

I suggest finding something else other than level design to do in your free time. Theres obviously no harm in making custom maps for fun, but it's not the only thing you can do start playing a musical instrument and within a few years you can be gigging after work and make yourself a healthy little on the side

Sounds a bit like a couch potato's dream to me. Why not just do what everyone else does and retire on a pension? Besides you're a good Level Designer and at a good game company. I'd happily get up at 8 to do what you do but instead, and I'm sure KoKo can relate to this - am constantly being rejected by every company I apply to or seeing my position getting handed out to people with less talent or experience purely because they got lucky. Bit of a rant, sorry but it just annoys me to hear that when you're in a good position earning some good money (I think?) when guys like me and KoKo can't even get our foot in the door and are really struggling for money and a position in the games industry no matter where we apply.

To be honest if you think landing a game industry job is the end to all your money and life's problems then I think you'll be sorely dissapointed. Dont get me wrong I love what i do with a passion, it one of the reasons I continue to do it even as a hobby even with a full-time job, but I think Warby is just looking for some kind of financial and creative independance as do many people, Games industry or otherwise.

Personally I worked for a year freelancing before I came to sweden and even though Dice is great, nothing beats being your own boss and having control of your own work. That being said it's a tough world going out on your own, and one of the reasons I left it behind was for some stability finacially and most importantly getting some valuable industry experience as well as doing some travelling while im young(ish)

If you want to make money on the side, then steer clear of the games industry surely? If you're complaining that you don't get as much as you want from being a paid employee of a large studio, then surely doing it for fun on the side will never touch the salary.

Fix computers for £30-50 a pop, there's always dumb people downloading stuff and breaking their computers. Undercut the nearest store such as PC World here in the UK by a bit to make it tempting.

Quote from robert.briscoe

To be honest if you think landing a game industry job is the end to all your money and life's problems then I think you'll be sorely dissapointed. Dont get me wrong I love what i do with a passion, it one of the reasons I continue to do it even as a hobby even with a full-time job, but I think Warby is just looking for some kind of financial and creative independance as do many people, Games industry or otherwise. Personally I worked for a year freelancing before I came to sweden and even though Dice is great, nothing beats being your own boss and having control of your own work. That being said it's a tough world going out on your own, and one of the reasons I left it behind was for some stability finacially and most importantly getting some valuable industry experience as well as doing some travelling while im young(ish)

There's no job in the world that any of us could get that would make us financially stable until the day we die. What I do think though is doing something you enjoy for money is great. Especially seeing your name on a title that sells well. I look around this forum though and see a lot of very talented guys in industry jobs, is it what you expected? Has it not really lived up to your expectations?

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There's no job in the world that any of us could get that would make us financially stable until the day we die. What I do think though is doing something you enjoy for money is great. Especially seeing your name on a title that sells well. I look around this forum though and see a lot of very talented guys in industry jobs, is it what you expected? Has it not really lived up to your expectations?

I think you're really getting the wrong end of the stick, and you also you seem to be missing the point slightly. Im sure that most people that work in the games industry have the same attitude as you - they do it because they love what they do. But you seem to assume that because someone has ambitions to do more that they niether appreciate where they are or are satisfied with what they're doing. I sympathise with your situation and I can understand where you are coming from but I think you need to understand that getting a job in the industry is only the beginning of your career and not the end.

Gabe Newel is a good example of my point and im sure he is pretty finacial stable.

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Getting a job in the industry is only the beginning of your career and not the end.

Hits the nail on the head, but most of people (including myself) first start to realize this once they are hired. Not sure how this is going to help Warby's bank account, but the phrase is too good not to point it out!

Quote from Warby

i talked with koko about this very issue in icq a couple of weeks ago and i think i kind of shocked him by implying that i sort of envy him. because the time between jobs were always the best times of my life

I remember that discussion , but hey as the good old adage says : the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I have my liberty, sure, i can actually artistically do whatever i want. But i can't conceive a life stuck at home working on freelance stuff, i'm 22, and i feel i need to travel, meet new interesting people and get some life experience.

Unfortunately, and i say unfortunately because i wasn't thinking like that one year ago, i feel that i need to make myself a life, a career, kinda "have a plan" and know where i'm going. Have a life you know. Don't get me wrong, i know i could do that more easily in another industry and still making videogame stuff on my freetime like i was doing back then. But i've made a choice, and that's all what counts .

Working in studios give you this stability and make you travel and meet new people, so that's really what i want to head for. But hey as i told you warby, it all depends why you are doing custom maps, community sharing ? to get you a job ? passion ? but if you want to make money, you better find some freelance stuff.

Of course I meant getting a position in the industry is the beginning and not the end, absolutely! There's a lot you can go on to be from an entry Level Design I guess. But I often get the feeling I'll never know!

Quote from dux

Of course I meant getting a position in the industry is the beginning and not the end, absolutely! There's a lot you can go on to be from an entry Level Design I guess. But I often get the feeling I'll never know!

There are a lot of external factors atm which are most likely making things hard for you than they would have been, say, a year ago (Economic crysis, doom and gloom) and I wouldnt take it personally. Just dont give up - use your time to continue to push yourself and improve your skills.

Back on topic, what do you think of the making and selling assets instead of whole maps Warby?

While we're on the topic of wise comments, don't put all your eggs in one basket. meaning ... find a way of earning money outside of the computer industry. The chances of one industry collapsing is very small, the chance of both is even smaller

reading this thread i saw several reasons why i don't make maps or 3d anymore. for my future i want financial security as good as possible. that's something the game industry does not (yet) offer. comparing sallaries of friends who started with the same degree i can say: the game industry is not half as good as for example the IT-Services landscape.

i noticed your donation button a few weeks ago and my first thought was "noone will donate."

custom maps are like free beer. everyone might enjoy it but nobody will pay for it (even though they might feel a bit guilty)

I don't give a fuck honestly... As long as I have enough money to pay for my home, my food and the oportunity to work on what I really love!

From where I come from, Portugal, I've seen a lot of poverty, I've listen to my grandmother and grandfather's storys of their childhood, where they had to split a single fish for a whole family for dinner, they started to work at the age of 12 to help out at home, etc. Even my own parents had a poor life, and they went through very difficult times, seriously, some people have no idea...

I've seen enough to not be ungrateful towards life, my motto has always been the following: Grab the thing you love, and make it your life!

I wouldn't leave this industry to work on anything else in this world, just because I will receive a better income, that's not how I want to live my life.

And sure, a game artist / game designer salary is nothing extraordinary, but It's more than enough to keep you going. Besides, it's a matter of time until you grow up on the company's hierarchy and get a better salary.

Call my naive, but It's my way of seeing things...