When I had a “real” job:
- made about $1k per month
- ran DFHack build server
- administrated a forum and a social network
- one of two lead developers for a free game on Steam
- spend most of each day monitoring multiple forms of communication for bug reports and other tickets
- running tech support for a product almost exclusively used by developers somehow resulted in the most information-sparse tickets ever
Now:
- make about $8 per month
- run DFHack build server
- administrate a forum and a social network
- one of two lead developers for a free game on Steam
- maintaining an online card game
- spend most of each day monitoring multiple forms of communication for bug reports and other tickets
- people seem to be better at explaining their bug reports when they’re just random people who might not even speak the same language as me
so overall the main changes are that I went from not being able to afford moving out from my parents’ basement to still not being able to afford moving out from my parents’ basement and that I’m getting better bug reports
oh also the main east-asian country my output is used by has changed from japan to china
sometimes I think about that $8 and what it means about the value of my work. and the hard truth is: it means nothing
if I had charged money for what I made, I wouldn’t be running a turing-complete online card game with dozens of custom modes. I wouldn’t be developing a game that has been played by millions of people with 94% positive reviews and thousands of first-time players every day. because there are a lot of other people out there who don’t have a lot of money to spend on entertainment, and seeing them happy means more to me than anything I could buy with money
I am incredibly blessed to be in a situation where I can survive on $8 a month, and I wish everyone could spend all day doing things they were interested in and not have to worry about where their next meal will come from or where they’ll sleep