Shannon mixes both models, in a way, taking money from a few hundred patrons but distributing his work for free to the millions of people playing the game. To make a living, though, those modders have traditionally had to sell their efforts directly to interested players or use freely distributed mods to get noticed and hired by an established developer. In a way, Shannon's situation isn't too different from other mod makers who have built their game development careers quite literally on top of existing games.
He's not working for a developer, and he's not working for himself instead, he's working for a small subset of devoted Cities: Skylines players that want to share his work with the world. Right now, 233 members of the Cities: Skylines community are paying him to create new content for the game, to the tune of $735 per building created. Or you can go the indie route, creating a game by yourself (maybe with a few people to help) and selling it directly to the consumers (maybe with the help of a publisher).Īrtist Bryan Shannon seems to have hit on a third path to a successful living making games, via his unique Patreon campaign.
You can sign up with an existing game developer, earning a salary or freelance rate to provide some small part of the art, code, or design that goes into a larger product.
There are two main ways to make a living making games.
