What do YOU want from me?
How can I earn money from the creative skills I've spent years refining, despite my lack of employment and life at experience in my late 30s?
My mother recently told me that she’ll be retiring in two years - maybe one - and that I should find some way of earning money myself by then.
It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?? She should have been pressuring me to find employment in my teens, as seems to be the norm, rather than enabling my avoidance for years then expecting me to figure it out somehow in my late thirties.
And I wish I had been pressured into getting a job back then. I often wish I’d never released MARDEK, as that gave me an excuse to stay in my room making games instead.
Then I made Fig Hunter, and spent the first half of my twenties getting traumatised by badly running that.
Then I went to uni to do a Video Games Art course at age 25 thinking it could be a step towards using my skills to get a proper job in the games industry, but dropped out after a year because - while I excelled at the work - I didn’t fit in socially, and all the industry guest speakers we had coming in seemed miserable about their chosen path.
Next I tried Psychology. Did okay! Even made friends, for the first time in years. Then I found out I had brain cancer.
Moved back home, took a while to recover, started making games in Unity from my bedroom… and I’ve just been stuck there since, for, what, six or seven years at this point?
I’ve never grown up. I’ve probably missed my chance to find a partner, or build a family, or a career. I don’t even know what I can do at this point.
I’m making a bit of money currently from a few sources, like Patreon and game sales, but it’s not much. I just checked, and I earned £570 last month. Some googling suggests the average UK worker earns more than that in a week (£637, apparently).
(It may be slightly above - or about the same as - what someone could get on benefits/welfare, though.)
So what do I do? Seek out some dead-end unskilled local jobs? I suppose a lot of people have to. Go back to uni to get my Master’s and hope that leads to something more specialised? I don’t even know what kind of Master’s I could or should do, though, and I don’t know if I’d be mentally healthy enough to endure the inevitable social isolation (it’s unlikely I’d find someone who’d want to befriend some late-thirties nutcase).
Building on what I’ve already done and can do seems wisest, maybe, though what even is that currently? Am I making games? Other stuff? I’ve been quite aimless for a while now. I still do see myself as a ‘games developer’, but I also feel like I just can’t afford to spend the time toiling away at a game that I’ll be lucky to earn peanuts from in the end. It’d be a very different situation if I were paid a decent salary for my efforts! But I’m not.
I’d rather work on something shorter, that I could make quickly and more reliably, and I’ve been working towards that for a while now - with the talky/singy things, for example - but I’ve yet to settle on anything with that either.
I keep worrying that my creative work is a reflection of having never grown up; whether it’s the sort of thing that’ll appeal only to people much younger because people my age or older have moved on from such things and replaced them with more adult concerns and interests. I don’t know.
Recently I revisited my old music; for years, I’ve been wanting to make an archive of all my compositions organised by creation date, so I could, say, look through how I’d developed over the course of 2005 or whatever. So I’ve been building such an archive. I’m surprised by how quickly I seemed to get the hang of things.
I technically composed half a dozen pieces of ‘music’ in 2003, when I was 15 or 16, though they’re so chaotic as to hardly count. Then I did just one piece the year after that (Hymn of YALORT), following some piano lessons; that had more structure. In the January of 2005, I composed this piece, called ‘Village’:
I didn’t realise - or had forgotten - that that was (arguably) my first ‘real’ composition. It’s not great, obviously, but it could at least pass as music. It has a semblance of structure and everything. I’ve heard worse in published games!
I really got into the whole composing thing, and have 73 finished pieces from 2005. I was doing a lot of adventurous exploration inspired by Classical music, such as this - Ramble 11 - from near the end of that first year:
I still had no idea what I was doing - and it shows - but I’m really proud and envious of teenaged past-me for sticking with it, propelled by the pure pleasure of the creation process.
Inspired while going through that archiving process, I revisited my first of the Rambles (Ramble 0, my 13th piece of 2005). I’ve already done so maybe half a dozen times already as part of other compositions (mainly other rambles, but also an ‘Ardrung’), though this is the first time I’ve ‘Remastered’ an old composition - in the same way an old game might be remastered - instead of completely reworking it.
Here’s the original, from early 2005:
And here’s the Remastered version that I made a few weeks ago (I also posted it on Patreon recently):
I’m proud of the progress I’ve made in my 20 years as a composer… though I suppose that’s hardly the best example of it; if anything, in some ways (eg I’m still using the same program I used by then - Sibelius - rather than a modern DAW) it just shows I’ve stayed the same, never grown up.
Recently, I’ve been composing unsung songs, I’ve written about before, with some for characters such as Spryad’s:
There’s also this that I’ve posted a few times (and nobody ever comments on so I just wonder if it makes people uncomfortable!), which was an attempt to convey potentially relatable emotion through a song of sorts:
Actually, I suppose that piece is a perfect encapsulation of my current predicament. It’s a year or two (or three??) old now, though, which says a lot about how successful I’ve been at addressing it thus far…
I keep wondering whether to just focus on music somehow, maybe by trying to build attention on YouTube or Bluesky or whatever with things like those and then building my Patreon… I thought maybe doing that while also using the emoting 3D models would be a great way to bring together many creative skills I’ve learned over the years. Little shorter-than-a-minute character-related songs with accompanying animations! A way to tell a story over time. It has potential, I feel.
But… I don’t know. I keep worrying that things like the AI takeover will get in the way, or I’ll attract negative attention about something or other, or nobody will care for it because the lyrics are text-only, or investing for more than a handful of seconds while mindlessly scrolling will be too much, or I’ll have to do some constant marketing effort I’m unsuited for to attract enough attention to get by, or-…
There’s also visual art; I do that too. And most people I see trying to make a living from their art online are doing so via visual art. It’s not something I’ve really focused on all that much, though. I did try, for a while in my twenties!
In 2005, I was making art that probably has a lot in common with my music compositions from that time:
It has a semblance of skill to it, it looks/sounds like something rather than random chaos, but anyone with skill in the area can see the naivete through the clueless details.
By 2013 - aged 24 or 25 or so, after a lot of tutorials, reference studies, and thousands of hours of practise - I was making stuff like this:
But I started neglecting my skills a lot, and these days I barely draw at all. When I do, it’s mostly just concept art for 3D models, like this:
I tend to rush the process, feeling that if I’ve spent more than an hour or so drawing, I need to finish off what I’m doing ASAP. And I never return to drawings either. I used to treat music the same way, though in recent years it’s been the norm that I’d spend days on a composition. I don’t know why it’s never been that way with drawing, though. It takes days, weeks, or more to render something like the highly impressive art that skilled, popular artists produce. I could probably produce much better results if I spent the time. I just never feel I can afford to.
I do 3D stuff, too; I suppose I typically make models over several sessions, like music but unlike drawing. Since I went over music and drawing progress, here’s an early model from 2013, around the time I went to do the Video Games Art course:
I liked the deliberately low poly look back then, and still do! That model’s quite cluelessly constructed though.
That’s another thing - Spryad, from the Dreamons game - that I’ve shared several times, from last year (really? Feels like longer). Still low poly, but more competent. Plus it shows off stuff I’ve been doing with animations that I’m really proud of. I’m really proud of the Dreamons game in general, and wish I had the time to devote to finishing it!
Anyway. I didn’t intend for this post to be a trip down memory lane combined with a sort of portfolio of my skills!
I do think it’s worth reminding myself that I’m not without value, though. I’ve just had bad luck, and haven’t been able to find my place in the world.
I often wish I’d got into a creative field somehow. Maybe I’d have met My People and found a Purpose there? Or maybe I would have been stifled by having to bring other people’s ideas to life instead of my own and been driven to offing myself due to the pain of social exclusion? I don’t know.
I don’t know if or how I’d pursue that at this point. Or whether I could or should try to use these skills to make money some other way.
Freelancing is a fairly obvious suggestion for how I might do that. I’ve read up about it. My biggest concerns though would be that I’d have to do a ton of marketing to attract attention to myself - the same issue as with game dev or making money from creative stuff in general - and I’d be competing with much-cheaper but maybe equally-competent creators from countries with a much lower cost of living. Why would a client pay UK rates for me when they could pay Indian rates for probably equivalent results? I’ve also read that the big platforms like Upwork and Fiverr are also crawling with scammers. So I don’t know.
There are commissions, I suppose, but aren’t they typically for 2D work? I’ve also read that you pretty much have to do niche fetish porn stuff for anyone to be willing to pay for it. I don’t know that I’d have the stomach (or sexual experience) for that!
I could also go out and get some local part-time job doing something mundane while also working on creative stuff on the side, as most artists presumably have to. I just worry I’ll have no energy to do either if I try to do both. My youth is behind me. And currently it’s tough for me even to go in the local supermarket, so working with people for any duration feels beyond me.
Or I could go back to do a Psychology Master’s in the hopes of that leading to something, though I don’t know what to do and dread the inevitable social exclusion.
I don’t know.
I know that some people follow me here and elsewhere - some have for many years - so I’m curious to know what it is you’re hoping or wanting to see from me. Or what you think I could or should be focusing on.
Are you all just here out of fondness for MARDEK and hoping one day I’ll return to that?
Are you open to my post-MARDEK game ideas, but only interested in games?
Would you actually be interested in the music-related direction I described above?
Do you not really care what I produce and only support me because of fond memories?
I’d really like to hear your thoughts!
My aim for this week was/is to look into finally redoing my website. I’ve been meaning to for weeks now, and I feel it’s the first step I should take because I can incorporate a portfolio into it that I could then use to find employment.
I thought though that I should use the opportunity to modernise my webdev skills, thinking maybe that could potentially lead to paid work too. ChatGPT suggested a modern PHP framework called Laravel, so I’ve been looking into that… but I watched some ‘beginner project setup’ videos which are packed full of jargon I don’t understand and techniques I find aversive, like using the command line. It all feels like something for people who are more ‘techy’ than I consider myself to be.
Currently I’m trying to decide whether to use Laravel Herd or Laragon to manage PHP, databases, etc locally, and can’t find an obvious answer to which one’s best. The jargon-filled Reddit threads I’ve seen don’t show any kind of consensus. It means I haven’t got to the point of coding yet since I’m stuck at the setup stage.
I wish I could reignite the eagerness to learn and explore that fuelled me during the start of my art journey. Now I’m older, bitter, jaded, depressed, and everything’s harder. When I’m not getting instant results, I just feel impatient, defeated, overwhelmed. Such a great state of mind to be getting my life started at long last!!!
Hi Tobias! If you're trying to find employment - something I recently had to do myself - you shouldn't downplay your own contributions in the world, but acknowledge the impact you've made on other people. Looking at your skills in a vacuum tends to disappoint, but the impacts of those skills are irrefutable.
I say this because you want to do something meaningful - something that creates meaning for you, and as a result, other people. And also because you tend to underrate yourself.
Your creations have inspired hundreds of people, even decades later. Is this a good time to tell you that I got married because of you a couple years ago? No, really. My wife and I met in a MARDEK discord server.
You have a talent for creation that goes... well, well beyond the average person. Since 2020 I've studied your music, trying to find ways to recreate your style, and I've come sort of close, but honestly I'm still not fully satisfied. Your musical ideas and theory were and are incredibly complex! It's not uncommon for me to take multiple weeks to try and write something in your style, then log on to read your blog post and that you've casually written 6 pieces of music in the last week.
To answer your question - should you find "regular" employment and create on the side? While I could see you doing some kind of remote data or coding/IT work, I think you're right that any retail job where you'd have to go out and interact with people would likely drain you, from how you've described your reactions to that. You can always try it as a last resort, but personally I wouldn't suggest it before then.
When I think about it, though, your current route is killing you as well, albeit slower. You should go out and test your boundaries. It does seem like you're making a fair bit of assumption on what working in games dev on a team is like, or what being a professional composer/artist would be like, despite admittedly lacking direct experience in those areas. This may be antithetical to how you have approached things in the past, but I think the best use of your time would be to jump in and try a few things (don't overthink this, you probably have a list of them in your head already) and see what you can tolerate that will also get actual results.
I can't tell you who you are. Only you can do that. But I can tell you that your work has been incredibly impactful, creating memories that will last for the rest of my life, and it would a real shame if you stopped that.
Hi Tobias,
Firstly, as to what drew me here, I’m a huge fan from a long time ago, back when I played MARDEK. It’s always been mind-boggling to me how a single individual was able to create a such a massive game with so many secrets and things to do. I played many 10s or maybe even 100+ hours, and I still never even got around to finishing chapter 3. By the time I wanted to, I didn’t remember everything well enough to coherently continue, but I never forgot just how good a game it was.
As for my suggestion, and I apologize if this has already been said before: have you considered programming as a profession? You say you’re worried about being forced into ‘low-level’ work, but in my opinion this is far from it. I’m sure you already have a good amount of skill here with the considerable amount of work you’ve done on games in the past, and whatever you don’t know, you can learn. It wouldn’t be an end unto itself necessarily, but would give you the stability and comfort to work on the things you love doing the most. A lot of indie game developers have main jobs for this reason, so that their livelihood is not dependent on their games’ successes, and can work at their own leisure. Last I checked, which was admittedly a while ago, there were many bootcamps whose aim is to ramp you up quickly on skills that are valuable in the workforce.
On a personal note, I’m more than a little envious of your creative talents. One of the reason I personally went into software development is that it was one of the few ways I felt I could use my talents creatively, like problem-solving and building software systems (coding can very much be an art form, as well). Because, well, let’s just say the limits of my artistic talent is quite literally drawing smiley faces, and virtually zero musical talent either.
That said, it’s always been a dream of mine to be able to create original music, in the vein of all the wonderful video game soundtracks I’ve listened to in my childhood. The only reason I still hold out hope for music is because, unlike my artistic sense (literal zero), the soundtracks of all of my favorite games are imprinted in my brain, like to the point where I can recall certain soundtracks that I’ve listened to over 20 years ago with uncanny accuracy. Even now in my adulthood, when I’m hooked on a soundtrack, I will have a phase where I listen to it obsessively. That definitely happened with the MARDEK battle themes after I rediscovered them recently. I listened to parts of the non-battle OST too recently, and even many of those really stuck with me. All of this is to say that you’ve got a ton of talent, and the ability to create such wonderful things, especially if it’s something you love, is something that shouldn’t go to waste. Plus, it’s got the potential to make a lot of people happy.
I know you’re often down on yourself in these posts, but I think all the pieces are there, they just need to come together in the right way (easier said than done I know, I’m a perpetual procrastinator). From my vantage point, I wish I had a fraction of your talent, being able to do what you do :)