你的职业规划三部：自己擅长某事，设法从中赚钱，尽可能久地做下去

导读

This article shares a senior indie game developer's practical experience of entering the game industry, including the differences between past and present learning paths, realistic expectations for entering the industry, suggestions for independent game development, emerging platform opportunities, and the criteria for recruiting developers by game studios. The core point is that entering the game industry does not necessarily require joining a large traditional studio. With the help of modern learning tools and emerging creation platforms, ordinary people can also realize their dream of making games as long as they have practical skills and a down-to-earth attitude. The most inspiring part for me is the author's attitude of lowering expectations and building a reserve fund, which breaks the myth of "getting rich overnight by making games" and gives very practical action suggestions for people who want to enter this industry.

这篇文章是资深独立游戏开发者分享的入行实操经验，涵盖了新旧时代的学习路径差异、入行的现实预期、独立游戏开发建议、新兴平台机会，以及游戏工作室招聘开发者的考察标准。核心观点是进入游戏行业不一定要加入传统大型工作室，借助现代学习工具和新兴创作平台，普通人只要具备实干能力、保持踏实心态也能实现做游戏的梦想。对我启发最大的是作者放低预期、搭建储备金的态度，打破了“做游戏一夜暴富”的神话，给想入行的人提出了非常落地的行动建议。

Every now and then someone tells me that their child loves video games and wants to get into the game industry, then asks me how they do it. So here's a blog that I can paste a link to.

经常有人问我，家里孩子喜欢玩游戏，想进游戏行业该怎么做，所以我干脆写了这篇文章，以后再有人问直接发链接就行。

I've got to say first of all that I don't know if I ever got into the game industry. It's my main job but I don't know how a real game studio works. I've never worked in a proper game studio. So if you want to work on FIFA or GTA, I have no idea how you get there, sorry. But if you just want to make games and not have to get a real job, I can tell you how I would do it.

首先得坦诚说，我其实都不算真正“进入过游戏行业”：虽然做游戏是我的主业，但我从来没在正规游戏工作室上过班，完全不知道《FIFA》《GTA》这类大厂项目的入职路径。但如果你只是想靠做游戏养活自己，不需要朝九晚五去公司打卡，那我可以分享一下我自己的经验。

Being an artist isn't a completely different beast. It's still about getting really interested and really good at what you do, and then doing it. Artists have quite easy entry points in the industry now like making Skins that get sold in Rust - and they can make a good living off that. But if you are thinking about being an artist, I would say that you can help yourself by being multi-disciplinary. If you're a 3d artist who is also a shitty programmer, you're still better than just a 3d artist. If you can model, rig and animate, you're more useful than someone who can only animate.

美术岗位的逻辑其实和程序差不多，核心都是要足够热爱、把技能练到足够专业，然后坚持输出。现在美术入行的门槛其实更低，比如给《Rust》做皮肤出售，做得好完全能养活自己。但如果想走美术路线，我非常建议做复合型人才：哪怕你是个3D美术，只会写点烂代码，也比只会做建模的人更有竞争力；如果你同时会建模、绑定、动画，就比只会做动画的人抢手太多。

When I was trying to learn how to program games it was the 1990s. There wasn't any internet. I had to get books from the library and read magazines. I had no-one to ask questions to. It was hard. When we did get internet, when I was about 16, it was dial up and we had to pay per minute. I had to set it up so I'd dial up, download a whole website to read offline, and then disconnect and read through it. Even that was hard. The tutorials from websites were written more at my level, but it was still one way. No questions asking, lots of wrong assumptions.

我90年代学游戏编程的时候根本没有互联网，只能去图书馆借书、买杂志看，连个能问问题的人都没有，特别难。16岁终于有了拨号上网，但要按分钟付费，我只能上线的时候把整个网站的教程都下载到本地，断网之后慢慢看。就算这样也很难，虽然网上的教程难度更贴合我的水平，但都是单向输出，有问题也没人问，经常会有理解偏差。

Nowadays, it's a mixed blessing. I've got to believe it's much much easier to learn anything. You have the internet, you have discord, you have youtube, and you have ChatGPT. I've got to believe that learning to program, or use blender is a million times more easier now we have things like ChatGPT. Not only can you ask it to break down stuff in a way you can understand, but it can know the level you're at and create a whole customized course for you.

现在的学习环境可以说是喜忧参半，总体来说学东西肯定比以前容易太多了：互联网、Discord社区、YouTube教程、ChatGPT都是现成的工具。尤其是有了ChatGPT之后，学编程、学Blender的难度直接降了好几个等级，你不仅可以让它把知识点拆解成你能理解的程度，它还能根据你的实际水平定制专属学习路径。

A lot of people, when they start programming, will be printing Hello World in a command line and be frustrated. When do they start coding the car physics in GTA? It's going to be hard. You'll be sitting on your own for hours, looking at a monitor. You need to be the kind of person who gets off on attaining knowledge. Does that sound like something you want to do? Wouldn't you rather be a streamer? Or mow grass, outside in the fresh air? Or be a rock star?

很多人刚学编程的时候，对着命令行输出“Hello World”就觉得挫败，总想着什么时候才能写出《GTA》里的车辆物理引擎。我得实话实说，做游戏是件很苦的事，你得一个人对着电脑坐好几个小时，得是那种能从获取新知识本身获得快感的人才能坚持下来。你真的确定要走这条路吗？去当主播不香吗？或者去户外割草呼吸新鲜空气，当摇滚明星不好吗？

You hear about Notch making 2 billion from Minecraft and you think, yeah, that sounds better than the sausage roll factory. But how likely is it that you make Minecraft? In 2024 there were about 19,000 games released on Steam. How many did you buy? How many people will buy your game? Why? How long will it keep selling for?

你可能听说过Notch靠《我的世界》赚了20亿，觉得做游戏比去香肠卷工厂上班强多了，但你能做出下一个《我的世界》的概率有多高？2024年Steam上线了差不多19000款游戏，你自己买了几款？凭什么会有人买你的游戏？你的游戏又能卖多久？

When I released Garry's Mod, I was living with my parents, and I figured out I needed about £700 a month to be stable, which was how much I took home from the dating website job I got fired from. So with that baseline, selling at $20, valve's 30% and 20% uk tax, I needed 80 sales a month. That's about 3 sales a day. Some days I might sell 5 copies, so then I'll only need to sell 1 copy the next day.

我当年发布《Garry's Mod》的时候还跟父母住一起，算下来每个月只要赚700英镑就够活了，刚好是我之前被约会网站开除时的月薪。按照这个基线，游戏卖20美元一份，扣掉Valve抽成30%、英国税20%，我每个月只要卖80份就行，差不多一天卖3份。有时候一天卖了5份，那第二天只要卖1份就达标了。

Keep your expenses down. You don't need an office, you don't need to go to GDC, you don't need a social media manager. It's a job. Sit at your desk every day from 9-5. Make a list of things you want to do and work through them. Improve your games. Don't gamble. Your game sold 1,000 copies in a week. That gives you over a years runway. Are you going to stop working on the game that is released and selling, or will you work on a sequel in secret for a year? Build a War Chest. While you're selling games, build a war chest. If you get to the point where your games stop selling, how long can you survive on your war chest?

做独立开发者一定要压低开支：不需要办公室，不用去参加游戏开发者大会，也没必要雇社交媒体运营。这就是一份普通工作，每天朝九晚五坐在办公桌前，列好待办清单一项项完成，持续迭代你的游戏就行。别赌运气：如果你的游戏一周卖了1000份，够你活一年多，你是会继续维护这款还在赚钱的游戏，还是躲起来偷偷做一年续作？一定要存“战争基金”，卖游戏赚钱的时候就多存钱，哪天游戏卖不动了，你的存款能撑你活多久？

You can make your own game engine, or use Unity to make your own game and release it on Steam, there are other emerging economies. These usually involve making a game in a bigger platform. The deal here is generally that they'll bring the players and you make the content. This is generally always a bigger win for the platform, since they get free content and free money, but if you can swallow your pride there, there's money in it.

除了自己做游戏引擎、用Unity做游戏上Steam之外，现在还有很多新兴的创作平台机会。这类平台的逻辑一般是平台带流量，你负责做内容。虽然肯定是平台赚得更多，毕竟他们免费拿内容还能分成，但你要是能放下身段，其实也能赚到钱。

Roblox is probably the most obvious. I don't really know the market, or the engine. I've heard developers make as little as 20% from stuff they release on there, but I don't know how true that is. They're all coded in Lua. It is said that the top developers earned up to $30m a year. Fortnite is headed in that direction too, now. Income is based on minutes played, from a global pool. Coding is via a scripting language called Verse, which is probably the worst scripting syntax I've ever seen, and it staggers my mind that anyone thought it was a good idea. The top developer earned $20m in a year, I would expect this to grow and maybe surpass Roblox at some point.

最典型的就是Roblox，我不太懂这个市场和他们的引擎，听说开发者只能拿到20%的分成，不过不确定是不是真的。上面的游戏都用Lua开发，据说头部开发者一年能赚3000万美元。《堡垒之夜》现在也在走这个路线，收入是根据玩家游玩时长从全球池里分成，用的脚本语言叫Verse，语法难用到我都想不通为什么有人会设计出这种东西，但是头部开发者一年也能赚2000万美元，我觉得这个平台以后可能会超过Roblox。

We're hoping that s&box will be worthy to be mentioned in this section one day. We have the Play Fund, which is paid to creators based on minutes played, like fortnite, but we're not at the $20m level yet. Our top earner is about $1,500 a month in our pre-release test fund. We're currently working with Valve to let creators release their games made in s&box as standalone games on Steam. It's Source 2 based, you use GameObject/Components, c#, net9 with热重载功能，特别好用。

我们也希望自己的s&box平台以后能进入这个梯队，我们也有创作基金，和《堡垒之夜》一样按游玩时长给创作者分钱，不过现在还没到赚2000万美元的级别，测试阶段最高的创作者每个月能拿1500美元。我们现在正在和Valve合作，以后创作者用s&box做的游戏可以直接作为独立游戏上线Steam，它基于Source 2引擎，支持GameObject/组件模式、C#、net9还有热重载功能，特别好用。

I can't speak from other companies, but I can tell you what I look at when we get an application. You should really see it from my point of view. You want me to pay you? What can you do for me? So when you're applying for a job, are you treating it like an apprenticeship? Are you expecting the employer to train you up and show you what to do? Or are you telling them, I can do this for you, I can take this weight, I can make this better?

我不知道其他公司的招聘标准，但我招人的时候看的点很简单：你得站在我的角度想，我给你发工资，你能给我带来什么？你投简历的时候，是抱着“来当学徒让公司教你做事”的心态，还是直接告诉雇主“我能帮你解决这些问题，帮你分担压力，把项目做得更好”？

来源：https://garry.net/posts/how-do-i-get-into-the-game-industry