James Silva has won recognition from Microsoft, has co-authored books on XNA game development. He's another kid that in the middle of no where upstate NY that did a great job, made a good product and is doing well for himself.
Also if you just look for indie game developers -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indie_game_developers
alot of these games appear on STEAM (steampowered.com) and are distributed to many customers successfully for Win/Mac/Linux.
In fact most game developers started out as mod teams. Back in the Quake days, Team Fortress was made, and now the same people that made that made TF2. Left 4 Dead started out as a mod for HL2, and turned into a full fledged game on the OrangeBox engine.
Last thing that comes to mind is -> "http://sandboxgamemaker.com/ which is another production that has been very successful. My friend who's on the dev team has had stories come back from teachers in Europe and California that use this software with kids, and has helped them learn and find passion in their work.
If it pleases the court, I'd like to end with this. If you wish for me, I ask for a brief recess to prepare material. :-)
Man.. I'm sorry if this isn't the response you're looking for, but the only thing that comes to mind now is that if you enjoy what you do, you'll be more successful then the person who is only looking for success and not enjoying what they do.
All the people I listed were people that do this out of passion, and have become successful over time.
I dunno man, I admire them, they don't have a daily job, they have a daily dream.
Yes there are hard times, but everybody has their own difficulties, and when there is failure, you learn and try again towards success. I believe any entrepreneur will tell you that to win, you are going to lose, you are going to learn, and you will eventually be successful.
All I'm saying is that unfortunately "if you build it they will come" does not a good business plan make.
You will probably need to market your stuff even if you've produced something awesome, and it's not particularly easy to find success in the indie-gaming market in large part because it is attractive to so many other people.
James Silva has won recognition from Microsoft, has co-authored books on XNA game development. He's another kid that in the middle of no where upstate NY that did a great job, made a good product and is doing well for himself.
Also if you just look for indie game developers -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indie_game_developers alot of these games appear on STEAM (steampowered.com) and are distributed to many customers successfully for Win/Mac/Linux.
In fact most game developers started out as mod teams. Back in the Quake days, Team Fortress was made, and now the same people that made that made TF2. Left 4 Dead started out as a mod for HL2, and turned into a full fledged game on the OrangeBox engine.
Last thing that comes to mind is -> "http://sandboxgamemaker.com/ which is another production that has been very successful. My friend who's on the dev team has had stories come back from teachers in Europe and California that use this software with kids, and has helped them learn and find passion in their work.
If it pleases the court, I'd like to end with this. If you wish for me, I ask for a brief recess to prepare material. :-)