1 hour ago, dpadam450 said:

From the original post: get a job. I know so many people that work at game companies and still go home at night to work/fund their personal projects. I know 4 coworkers plus myself do this.

Freelance work can be more profitable in various ways. There's the increased payout, but there's also tax benefits that you don't get with a normal salary (simply having a company can grant you some of those, but making revenue is a large portion of that). The total difference can easily be a factor of 3.

Finding freelance jobs for business related applications (usually .Net and/or web based) shouldn't be that difficult if you check your local freelance websites. The payout can vary quite a bit, low range is below €40*, mid range is up to €60*ish and higher end can go up to about €100* (can go way higher for experts, but not likely to find through freelance websites). Getting those mid to higher end paying gigs can be difficult if you don't have any demonstrable experience. In my personal experience, hobbyist games/engines are way underrated by not only business people, but also programmers who don't have any first hand experience with that, so showing of your game might not be enough.

A way to get around that is to offer a 'no cure no pay' solution, where they only pay you if you actually solve their problem. If you are confident that you can, there's little risk for you and more reason for them to take you on. Another way to increase your odds is by investing personal time to make a quick prototype of whatever is required to demonstrate you're the right person for the task, this comes with the risk of wasting your time, so be mindful of how much time you're willing to put in.

* Based on my experience in the Netherlands

8 hours ago, Magogan said:

I don't think that my company is big enough to work on any project. I am basically alone, "my employees" refers to people who work for me for free on my game and who I want to pay. Not sure why I wrote it like that, I meant that I want to employ and pay them by doing freelancing alone. Should have wrote "future employees".

I unfortunately don't have any money to employ anyone, even if I manage to get a contract. I can't even pay someone to set up a static website for my company with my budget. I don't even have enough to pay my own salary, so I currently work for exactly €0. Minus the money I put into the company and the game already.

Everything looked fine, I had some sales and could have made enough money by improving my game and increasing the sales, but Valve decided to change something and, by doing so, cut my traffic by 80-90% compared to September. And I'm not the only one, this also affects bigger indie developers with tens of thousands of units sold per year.

Magogan,

If you take a contract it could lead to others, better paying ones.

You can finish your game much faster if you could afford to pay the best on your team full time.

If you get a contract, and an advance or milestone payment

(50%), you can afford to pay them. With more people you may be able to finish your game

in the next year or so. 

But see how many people are not employed at the moment, land a contract saying "we have X people in our company."

Where X is the number of people who work for free, and who could be employed right away. Larger companies get larger contracts.

Superman fighting games made by Blizzard were made in 3-5 months. They only had 10 people.

If you do not pay your volunteers, they're going to find work eventually, then your project will be hurt by having to bring new people up to speed. 

Your people could be poached. But if you pay them, even minimum wage, they will stick around.

This will cost you time. Time is money. Game developers flock to money like dwarves to gold. They're attracted to success.

Land the contract and then pay or hire people you've worked with before.

Do not underbid the contract, or you will be working at a net loss.

Once you have the contract, you can subcontract work. Like how a building renovator contractor, subcontracts the electrical and painting.

You only need to guarantee you can manage a small game project, deliver on time, with your company, freelancers, and subcontracters.

And be accountable for the work, behind schedule, on schedule, at or below expected quality.

Speaking of quality, provide the minimum features expected for contract projects, no point in adding features, for free, you won't be compensated for.

You never know, you could get a contract that is so good you can afford to hire new people. 

Have you tried retargeting animations to speed up production? You only need a male and female walk cycle, for example.

You can also find people at game jams. This might be a good way to get a feel for how long an animator take to complete their work.

You do not need a 3D modeller to take 3 months to do a simple prison cell, and an animator 1 year to do a horse walk cycle, for example. 

You've been working on this project for 4 years, how many more years can you afford to do the lions share alone? Everyone in the industry gets old.

You have one plus for you're company, you're a computer science major, not a non-coder, you can do the work yourself and attract people to work with you.

That is a big plus. You've managed to inspire these people.

Using Unity3D you can finish contract projects fast, and move back to your game. Companies have not reduced the contract rates of getting their 3D minigames done,

although your cost has reduced by using Unity3D.

Just don't make the mistake of hiring unproductive people, unreliable or insubordinate egos. They will cost your company money, and your contract reputation.

The biggest mistake you can make after getting the contract is hiring, or subcontracting to unreliable people.

I think it is time to put on another hat besides producer and director.

You're going to need to put on a suit, practice a sales pitch in the mirror, walk into a room with a computer, plug it into a projector, play a demo reel, and land a contract.

Selling without fear.

Think of what you can gain for your team, paid employees, an office for them, and an employee kitchen stocked with icecream, pop, pizza Fridays. Happy hour Tuesdays.

Wolfhound

I can't find anything... Everyone wants app programming or web design or desktop apps and only hires people with experience in those fields. I have experience in C++, graphics programming with DirectX, network programming, game server programming, and other game-related things. While I can write websites, I lack the skills to do the actual design, so this is kind of pointless...

What can I do? I need money desperately...

Omg... I just realized that the Unreal Engine exists. And they have a forum where you can find jobs...

I guess I'll just learn how to make games with Unreal Engine and then apply for one of the jobs. I need to learn this anyway because I want to make games with UE4 in the future.

So... Problem solved, I guess?

Btw. why can't I edit my previous post?