Indie or Hobby?

I have been asked a couple of times to explain what I meant by hobby developer as compared to an indie. Well, here we go, that should be quick :-)

Indie?

I won't define what an indie developer here, first because it is something quite well known nowadays, and then because it has already been discussed by Derek Yu (@mossmouth) on his blog here.
As a quick summery of his definition which I find quite relevant, an indie is  :
    1. “Independent”, as in no publisher involved.
    2. Small studio (roughly 20 members or less).

Hobby developer?

Now, I consider that there are many subcategories of indie developers: the ones who have enough money to finance their work for instance (probably because they already released a successful game), as opposed to the ones who are making games with no money (no success, yet ! :-), and many others. But let's focus on our current topic, Hobby dev.

Defining it is quite simple at first glance : that's someone making games as a hobby. Sure it is, but that implies some interesting facts, that will shape the whole development cycle of the game.
The main aspect of that subcategory is that the developer as a full time job beside his own game. This job can be anything of course, from teacher to bartender or bank employee. This main specificity leads to 2 consequences : time and money.

Time is Money?

Having a full time job means that the main part of your time is spent at your workplace where you must not work on your game (or just in your head). So then you have your spare time, that you should share between your family, your friends, relaxing (and sleeping!) and possibly making a game. You have to find a balance between all of these. The result is basically that you don't have much time to work on your game, so that progress is slow. Damn slow. Holidays and week-ends can help boosting your velocity, but just to a certain degree. So you'll have to be prepared for a long road, or make something quite small.

Time is flying. Not much time for hobby.

The other impact of having a job beside your game development is that it is not essential that your game becomes a success (at least not if you have a decent job) from a revenue perspective. Your style of living should not be impacted if your project fails. If you decide to quit your job to focus on making a game, well, the stakes are higher then, and you are no more a hobby developer :-)

Need money to live

Slow development cycle, combined to the fact that it is not crucial to complete the project compose the explosive mix that makes tons of hobby development to fail or to be dropped. This is probably the biggest difficulty for a hobby developer.



So there you are, hope it answers the questions some of you may have. Don't hesitate to make a comment or ask questions if you have any, I'll be happy to answer!