
A Dark Room: From Sabbatical Year to $800k - nicoserdeir
https://failory.com/battle-scars
======
fragsworth
This is incredibly depressing. It hits home for me because I'm in a very
similar situation. I and one other guy almost went broke making Clicker
Heroes, but it turned out to be a great success.

But so far since then every project has not been worth doing.

> I didn't do ads, I didn't do micro-transactions, scummy energy bars, and all
> those other bullshit monetization tactics.

We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm learning
more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

I hope Clicker Heroes 2 does OK. We might have to find corporate jobs too if
it doesn't.

~~~
canes123456
> We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm
> learning more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

Props to for going against the HN hive mind. F2P is successful because most
people choose it and will not pay for software. There are real issues with it
but it not pure evil like HN thinks.

~~~
MattRix
I think you misunderstood what he wrote... He was saying that it's hard to
compete in F2P unless you use the same scummy tactics that everyone else does.
That's why he made Clicker Heroes 2 as a non-F2P game.

~~~
bringtheaction
> We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm
> learning more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

------
ghostbrainalpha
The math on this makes no sense at all.

>

\- Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just
save.

\- Do this for a year.

\- Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k
contribution.

\- Celebrate by living off of $30k a year.

\- Do this for three years.

\- Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k
contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year into that.

\- Celebrate by living off of $60k a year.

\- Do this for three years. >

He is talking about SAVING, $500,000. Then needing to liquidate your 401k,
just to take off a year?

If he is capable of living on 60k before this, he should be able to live
almost 10 years just on his savings without liquidating the 401k.

~~~
castle-bravo
Yeah it doesn't make any sense at all.

He grossed over 800k on a video game, loves programming, but after another
three years he has to go back to his day job? It sounds like he's burning over
100k/year and lying about his expenses in this report. In any case, there's a
lot of information left out.

~~~
amirrajan
I give you my Armchair Expert of the Year Award. Congrats :-)

Must be nice to live in a world without having to give Apple 30%, insurance
premiums, taxes, and royalties/partnership splits.

Take this comment in good spirit. We all make mistakes. Nothing but love for
you. Go build awesome things. Hire a CPA for all the math related stuff.

~~~
sremani
I see this every day, people take the gross income number to the bank. In
software world, the operational costs are less compared to other domains, but
there are still costs and taxes.

Apple taking 30% cut is insane.

~~~
Rapzid
YESSS.. By itself it's just business right? The price of doing business. Don't
like it? Go somewhere else. But that somewhere else is Android and Google ALSO
charges 30%? Hmmm..

This duopoly situation isn't really good developers. Apple taking 30% cut and
tossing it on their pile of 250b in cash; that's a depressing image.

~~~
tootie
It's interesting because Android is decidedly not locked in to Google's Play
Store, yet it's entirely dominant in the Android app market regardless.
Amazon's App Store is still kicking and side-loading is easy enough, but seems
like very few users take advantage.

------
matt_wulfeck
> _So here I am with a disgusting $140,000 in total compensation. A sea of
> cubicals, souless sheep that want nothing more than to do their time and go
> home._

We need to learn the art and skill of finding joy in any circumstance. This
detached, negative view of your coworkers does nothing but signal your
inability or unwillingness to become something apart from your selfish,
personal desires.

This entire generation is lost at sea. Can’t you see that your happiness is
dependent on none other than yourself?

~~~
l33tbro
Did you read the entire thing?

> The people I once called sheep, aren't that. They just didn't have the means
> to roll the dice.

Source: later in blog.

~~~
pyro2927
That's still an extremely opinionated viewpoint. Some people are happy to work
a 9-to-5 gig because it affords them stability in exploring their other
hobbies.

~~~
gregorias
I agree with your sentiment and find the judgemental, derisive attitude that
some entrepreneurial communities exhibit distressing. Going so far as to call
9-to-5 workers sheep is a display of arrogance and (perhaps) own insecurities.
It would be better for us not to foster such attitudes.

~~~
amirrajan
This has been a big regret of mine. I should never have preceived anyone in a
9 to 5 that way. And as mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with a 9 to 5
(dice or no dice). It’s a prefectly valid course of action to pursue the more
important things in life.

------
jblow
Yes, the game market is often hard. But I find this author's attitude
fatalistic and weird. (Also I agree that the numbers do not add up).

He seems to think that "rolling the dice" is the _primary_ thing going on, and
that he can't influence this substantially by any amount of development skill,
proper tactics, and so forth.

I wonder if this kind of mindset is a side-effect of modern-day political
correctness -- that if you succeed, it is 100% due to your good fortune
(combined privilege and luck) and not because you did anything special to get
there. The upside of such an attitude is that we recognize luck and recognize
that people who failed did not necessarily fail through fault of their own.
One major downside is that we feel a lack of agency, and this lack of agency
is almost certain to drastically decrease the chances of future success.

Be careful what you believe, because it matters.

For my part, I think talent and skill and grit are huge factors in success, so
if I want to succeed at something, I am able to formulate some kind of a plan.
I don't feel that I am "just rolling the dice", even when luck is involved
(which it is all the time, in everything).

~~~
SeanBoocock
I didn't draw the same conclusion from the article regarding whether the
author thought, or the article implies, that "rolling the dice" is the primary
element of success. The author emphasizes the sorts of elements you
highlighted - formulating a long term and reasonable plan; demonstrable
talent; grit and perseverance - not as necessary (or sufficient) conditions to
success but rather necessary conditions to have a chance at success.

As you know more than most, game development isn't a linear path from ideation
to release, and good games from smart people who worked hard on them often
find little success. You can increase your chance at success with experience
and talent, but games are an entertainment medium and sometimes your creation
just doesn't resonate - or increasingly rise above the noise of the platform
marketplaces - with enough people to be a sustainable career.

I've worked at AAA studios and am now at an independent game developer. I've
sometimes thought of doing something even smaller, an indie effort akin to the
author's or something of the scope of what you did with Braid. I found this
article aspirational and affirming, validating the idea of taking a chance on
something that is meaningful to you despite the (long in the case of the
mobile app store) odds.

~~~
amirrajan
>not as necessary (or sufficient) conditions to success but rather necessary
conditions to have a chance at success.

Exactly this.

------
krutzger
Finally created an account, just to say this

"A Dark Room recently hit the #2 spot _overall_ on Google Play (pro tip: stick
to iOS, the revenue is almost an order of magnitude better)"

I bought the game on android to support the developer despite the game being
VERY late to android. With that said, the android port is _horrible_. It's
behind garbage. Amir cannot talk about love for the code and release crap like
that.

So treating android user as idiots. We pay for good game and avoid crap. Don't
be crap.

Edit: ADR went quickly free on android because nobody would pay for that crap.
So that's why it didn't make much money.

~~~
amirrajan
That sucks. I’d spend more time on the Android version. But there is a really
high piracy rate. Buy a Samsung Galaxy S8, it was tested on there.

Both Michael and I appreciate the hat tip you gave us by buying it. Email me
and I’ll glady refund your $0.99.

~~~
qzervaas
My 2 cents:

1\. Charge more than 99c. Double the price and your sales will likely drop by
less than half, making it profitable to do so.

2\. If you’re going to half-ass the port to Android, why even bother? It will
do more damage than it’s worth.

~~~
amirrajan
It works great on the devices I’ve tested on. Which is like 4 out of the
15,000 possible OS+Device+Carrier combinations.

~~~
krutzger
If it looks like a half-loaded web page on a nexus (which is the reference
device for the platform) then something is wrong.

Please don't take offence, I'm just trying to explain why it did so bad on
android.

edit: you don't need to test your app on 1500 devices. They are all the same,
if you plan for it only two devices (big/small screen) should suffice. Source:
former app developer.

~~~
amirrajan
You’d be surprised at how many variations exist out there. Source: app
developer who has had 300k downloads of his Android port and has dealt with
death threats from people trying to run his game on a device that has the
processing power of a toaster.

~~~
briandear
I can feel your pain. I get aggressive complaints from my users when their 5
year old Android can’t use modern video codecs because they can’t upgrade the
OS. Somehow that’s my fault. (This is for secure video chat FWIW.) With iOS,
it’s a simple as ensuring their OS is current. Far, far less pain dealing with
iOS and Mac users than anything with Android. That isn’t a complaint against
Android per se — just a business fact. Android users quite simply cost us more
money in support and development time, not to mention Android users generally
are more “value conscious” which is another way of saying “cheap.” We have a
HIPPA compliant video system and it’s amazing that mental health professionals
billing $150 per hour still insist on attempting to conduct highly security
sensitive work on extremely outdated devices. I can only imagine how it must
be to deal with casual gamers without any professional motivation.

~~~
krutzger
I think ADR with its simplistic graphics should run on any android (even a
"toaster").

But your app seems more demanding, can't you limit it to newer versions of
android? Many banking apps for example require users to be on 6.0 or better.

------
dougmwne
His budget numbers & supposed savings vs. sabbatical runway shock me. The 401k
bit fits his "roll the dice" theme, but should never have been necessary. I
can't help but feel we have an unreliable narrator who's not telling us the
full story about finances and motivations.

The truth would be so much more interesting and instructive. What setback
really led to needing to clock out and cash out? What was really left of that
800k after the app store cut and taxes and marketing and mistakes? Was it only
money that pushed him back into the workplace or something more?

Real life is messy and I can see the hole where he cut that part out of his
story.

------
rubicon33
> I liquidated my 401k savings (took all the tax penalties up front), and said
> "alright, gonna live off of this for as long as I can until I figure
> something out".

This is the hard part in all of these stories. Props to him for having the
courage (stupidity?). I think this forum is full of people who would not just
love to quit their job and work on their own project, but would THRIVE in
doing so.

The problem is the paycheck. Do I want to risk it all, throw away my savings,
all for a chance at success?

~~~
cvaidya1986
Regret minimization framework. Looking back from your old age would you wish
you had done something like this? Can you earn it all back with a good fall
back plan on your expertise ?

~~~
toomuchtodo
And if you can’t earn it back, are you prepared to work until you die?

~~~
cdelsolar
Coding until I die? sign me up

~~~
toomuchtodo
Ageism.

~~~
cdelsolar
Contract work, side projects that make revenue, etc.

------
loteck
This guy made a lot of really questionable decisions. Put his future and
family at risk. His only hit was porting _someone else 's_ hit game to iOS. He
himself admits he is working again now only so he can build a stash and gamble
it all again.

I hope he finds success some day, but given his track record, I'm very
skeptical of his conclusions.

~~~
misnome
Whilst perhaps a little harsh in its tone, this comment appears to be the only
one commenting on the fact that it sounds like he only ported the existing
game from web, didn’t create it.

So, depending on how much split with the original coder/creator that 800k
might not have gone very far, and seems pretty good for “A port”. I wonder
if/why not forming a small studio with the original creator would have worked.

~~~
egypturnash
From the article:

> I redesigned so much of the original game. So much of me went into it.

I haven't played the iOS version of _A Dark Room_ so I can't speak to exactly
how much change there is between the original web version and this one, but it
sounds like it's not just a straight port.

------
throwawayyy9876
I am curious as to why some people think being paid $140,000 a year is
'disgusting'? I live in Australia so the comparison is a bit different, but
here electricians and carpenters will very frequently make over $130,000 a
year. Traffic controllers can make up to $180,000 a year, which is an
unskilled job with only two days training [1].

In the prime of their careers, dentists, lawyers and doctors can commonly make
over $300,000 per year. At the top end of the spectrum, specialist doctors and
commercial lawyers can make over $1,000,000 a year, as can those who work in
investment banking for instance.

What is it about software engineering that people think is less valuable that
these other occupations? Why do people think that earning $100k a year is
overcompensation? My personal theory is that it is because impressive wages
are a relatively new phenomenon in software (there is a much longer history
with doctors and lawyers) and people are not comfortable with the idea yet.
But I can assure you that there are many groups in society earning over this
amount and one shouldn't feel disgusted by doing so. (Of course, there are
many who are not - but that is a longer conversation)

[1] [https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sweet-deal-
traffi...](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sweet-deal-traffic-
controller-earns-a-shocking-130000-all-thanks-to-the-construction-boom/news-
story/ae3305f632a9b9d206f1dd99bbf2e840)

~~~
BigJono
That article is a crock of shit by the way. I know two traffic controllers and
they're both on $25 an hour. I'm sure there's a couple somewhere that are well
connected with the unions and get sweet gigs, or some actual engineers that
get put on traffic control duty and earn that salary, but you can't just walk
into a $140k job off 2 years experience doing traffic control like you can in
software in SV.

~~~
throwawayyy9876
A fair point. It was a silly example to use and seems to be limited to CFMEU
members which is not part of the market operating as normal.

Still - do you think $140k is too much for any one person to make?

------
namuol
Here's a funny satirical antidote for "bet the farm" success-story fantasies
like this one:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw)

~~~
lalos
Thank you for this. A great talk in youtube equating winning lottery ticket
with a successful business / startup. (want this indexed by my bookmarking
site google.com)

------
downandout
I have never been directly employed at a large Silicon Valley tech company. Is
it really that difficult to work on side projects on your nights/weekends
while working at these places? To be sure, it would take longer to get your
projects finished, but you would also be doing so with the benefit of a steady
paycheck and health insurance. If you happen to hit the lottery with your
finished project, great - quit your job. But it seems insane to me to just
gamble on something with such absurdly long odds, especially if you have a
wife.

Also, the sad reality is that only a very lucky few will create games that
become popular enough to generate a living wage without somewhat aggressive
monetization techniques, such as ads and in-game purchases. This guy seems to
really dislike his corporate job, but apparently not enough to monetize his
games well. If anyone else wants to follow in his footsteps, you should do
some soul searching before you put in your notice and decide if you can live
with a near-zero chance of success while sticking to your principles, or if
you want to have a much higher chance of success but with the caveat that your
users will be seeing ads and buying power bars from you. Life is full of
crappy trade-offs.

~~~
amirrajan
+1. This guy took a huge risk and is an idiot. He got stupid lucky.

~~~
downandout
I didn’t say you were an idiot. You bought a lottery ticket, and won. All I
was saying is that most people in the app business lose, especially if they
don’t use aggressive monetization.

~~~
amirrajan
No seriously. My current self would be slapping my past self in the back of
the head saying “you idiot, do you have any idea what kind of bullet you
dodged?!”

------
foxfired
> The people I once called sheep, aren't that. They just didn't have the means
> to roll the dice.

One thing I see often and often (I've done it too) is that when you quit your
job to pursue your dream, everybody else working at a job is a sucker. They
are too comfy in their life sucking job and one day they will get fired and
realize that they wasted their time making someone else rich.

I was lucky that failure caught up with me really fast and I realized I am no
better then others (so did the author).

But I've seen cases where the person believes in this so much that even after
catastrophic failure they can't go back to a job because, well, of all the
horrible things they said about being an employee.

I was in start up school this year and one of the common theme was about
people who where at the brink of losing their home for an idea that was not
even close to ready to launch. The instructor stress them to get a job.

~~~
amirrajan
>The instructor stress them to get a job.

This is really good advice. Additionally I'd say don't bet the farm. Some
times the best you can do is be that rock/stepping stone for your kin to build
a legacy with.

------
bambax
> _All code I see is beautiful in its own way. It tells a story of the
> reasonable programmers put in unreasonable situations._

I like that. I think it's kind of deep.

------
warent

      But if you really want numbers, here are some of the numeric 
      sacrifices I made to role the dice _once_
      ( ... big list of qualifications ... )
      Now you can take a year and a half off and roll the dice
      _once_
    

The author did great and should be proud, but I wholeheartedly disagree with
this part.

You don't have to have these ridiculous qualifications to take a risk (let
alone "roll the dice once") and be successful. Choose not to live a lavish
lifestyle and you can "roll the dice" many times.

------
alexashka
I'd like to think there's a middle ground between 'corporate america' and 'at
home alone'.

Hitting the jackpot the first time around may have actually led the author
away from a place he'd feel most comfortable in - a small company with other
people who love what they do.

~~~
amirrajan
During my free time I did a good amount of contract work with small companies.
They loved what they did and it was energizing. But what they love working on
isn’t what I love working on which is in essence: “artistic, evocative
experiences”. Yes I’ve invested in a closet full of turtle neck sweaters while
I continue my search for my “magnum opus”.

~~~
a_t48
There are companies like that, but they are tough to get into (generally small
company, low budget, low openings). I personally think it would be cool to
work on the next Journey/The Witness/Monument Valley/etc, but it’s a crapshoot
of knowing the right people at the right time with opportunity to jump on. I’m
personally saving up until that opportunity comes or I go nuts like you and
quit to do my own thing. Best of luck.

~~~
amirrajan
Thank you for the well wishes. You'd be surprised at how small/close knit the
game dev communities are (come to TouchArcade's after party at GDC and say
hello to figuratively every indie worth their salt).

There isn't really a company that any of use work for per se, but "all" of us
are collaborating in one way or another to make sure we succeed collectively.
It's pretty great, but you have to have the battle scars to join (actually you
just have to bring cool laptop stickers to the party and we'll tell you all of
our war stories in great detail).

~~~
a_t48
I believe it. Game industry is a small place. I miss shipping.

------
dankohn1
I spent every morning for several weeks playing A Dark Room while commuting by
subway with my 7yo, so I this story really engaged me. My biggest takeaway is
to think about this advice from Sam Altman:

[http://playbook.samaltman.com](http://playbook.samaltman.com) “A word of
warning about choosing to start a startup: It sucks! One of the most
consistent pieces of feedback we get from YC founders is it’s harder than they
could have ever imagined, because they didn’t have a framework for the sort of
work and intensity a startup entails. Joining an early-stage startup that’s on
a rocketship trajectory is usually a much better financial deal.”

There are so many good jobs out there that are not just being a corporate
drone. He has amazingly relevant experience for tons of companies.

He should find one that has already taken venture funding and ride the
rocketship (along with punching a lottery ticket) while still getting a
reasonable salary.

~~~
amirrajan
I'm really really happy that ADR gave you some (hopefully) great moments
during your commute. Seeing thing comment means the world to me (it really,
truly does).

If you get a chance, download A Noble Circle and play it with your child. You
may find that you can connect over it's ridiculous story and crazy gameplay.
I'd love any feedback you may have about it.

~~~
dankohn1
Thanks, my son and I really enjoyed playing A Dark Room, and were definitely
freaked out when we saw the workers had become slaves.

I'll try A Noble Circle with him.

~~~
amirrajan
This is exciting!!! All the random criticism from this post will be entirely
worth it if your son ends up smiling even once while trying to navigate Mr
Circle. Let me know!

------
jondubois
>> There is such a heavy dose of luck in success. There are those that will
give one thousand percent, and because the roll of the dice wasn't perfect,
nothing materializes. They have as much love for the game development as I
have... they've worked as hard as I have... but just didn't get a kiss from
Lady Luck. And it sucks. It just isn't fair that they want to create more than
their next breathe, but can't catch a good break to devote time to it. They
have to look over at those that have the privaledge to take multiple rolls of
the dice, eat their cake and have it too, and if everything still fails, they
get bailed out by mommy and daddy.

This is exactly how I feel.

------
phaser
I appreciate the honesty in this post and I'm pretty sure we people who make
games can all learn from this.

having said that, before relating to the story please take into consideration
he is going solo at it. Difficulties are very different if you are working as
a team: It's a lot more expensive but a collaborative approach to creation can
yield better odds of success if they can look at the game from different
points of view (story, graphics, programming)

I'm not in favor of either approaches to game development, but Please remember
that following your guts on creative work is both a blessing and a curse, and
teamwork is a totally different beast.

------
myth_drannon
Similar recent interview with him on indie hackers :
[https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/a-dark-
room](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/a-dark-room)

~~~
Apocryphon
If he's talking to the press, here's hoping he might restore some of the
content he removed in his data purge. There's got to be interesting, useful
knowledge in there for other game dev and future generations.

~~~
amirrajan
>there's got to be interesting, useful knowledge in there for other game dev
and future generations.

There is, but "the few ruined it for the many". Some who got access to that
information tried to "growth hack" their way to a successful app. They started
name dropping me to Apple as if they knew me. This isn't a very nice thing to
do.

~~~
ricardobeat
Can’t anyone name-drop you even without such “information”? I wonder what kind
of content that would be?

------
omot
Wow the ego in this guy is thick. It seems like he thinks success is only luck
and it's no wonder, not once did he mention his customers. He only talked
about how much he loves his work and his freedom.

------
yhavr
\- 215k$ in savings after game had succeed, according to the graph in the
article

\- managed to spend in few years

There's plenty of decent countries where you can live off this sum for decade,
at least, and have much more dice rolls.

------
imesh
His math for what it takes to roll dice once doesn't make any sense. If you
can live off $15k a year, than can't he just work one year for $30k and roll
the dice? It seems unnecessary to ever take the other jobs after his first
year of working.

~~~
infinite8s
Once you live off $30k/yr it's difficult to go back down to $15k/yr
(especially if someone else like a significant other is involved).

------
m3kw9
I think he meant 9/10 times a business will fail if trying the first time in a
field. If it is your 2nd time trying after a fail or success, the chance has
to be different because you’ve boosted your chance from the learnings

------
drdrey
> two years of internships, one year as a full time employee

2 years of internships? Is that a thing in some industries? Sure seems crazy
to me

------
cdelsolar
Privaledge? Role? Come on man, edit the article a little.

------
anigbrowl
_Then. A Dark Room went viral._

I suspect the author's lack of subsequent success with his other games stems
from his apparent lack of curiosity about exactly how his first and only lucky
break took place.

~~~
jng
It's not about lack of understanding. The viral success of a "one-off" type of
game like ADR is nearly impossible to reproduce. Sometimes people take a
liking to something because you hit exactly the right notes without even
knowing what notes they are (not that they do themselves even!), and it is
impossible to hit them again. ADR looks like that kind of success. Repeating
the success of GTA Vice City is very hard, but probably more tractable than
repeating the success of ADR. There are a few reasons: the high resource
requirements for the production and marketing create a moat, the type of game
is amenable to a near "extension" to repeat the success, etc...
notwithstanding that, most game publishers end up finding the way to kill a
franchise after a few titles.

~~~
anigbrowl
Sure, but I'd have expected at least some analysis of what happened - where it
got reviewed, or what the growth pattern leading up to the sudden spike was
like, or anything really.

------
evmar
"If we spend a second thinking about this, if 9 out of 10 startups fail, then
we only need to roll the dice 10 times and the last startup will (by
statistics) achieve success."

That is not how statistics works. :<

With a 90% failure rate, your chance of failing 10 times in a row is (9/10)^10
~= 35%.

~~~
mkagenius
Then according to stats it would take infinite attempts to succeed. That's not
how life works ;)

edit: a clarification, that's not how a single human's life works. It will
work if you take all humans together into account. If you apply that logic to
individuals individually then nobody succeeds ever.

edit2: a single human life individually doesn't get enough attempts to be
statistically significant enough.

~~~
jdblair
Actually, this is how life works: some people never succeed at what they try
to do. It does take an infinite number of attempts to assure 100% success.

Relevant in the NYT: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/opinion/2017-wrong-
number...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/opinion/2017-wrong-
numbers.html?_r=0)

------
angelsl
No one's mentioned it yet, so I guess I'll be the one.

I can't tolerate that many misspelt words and grammatical errors...

~~~
ryandrake
My guess is: English is his second language, but yes, I had a real hard time
getting through that one. That piece would improve greatly with a little
proofreading.

~~~
amirrajan
This comment made my day. Thank you :-)

I should have written it after my morning coffee.

------
senatorobama
Upper class privilege

