A millionaire solo game developer’s keys to SUCCESS

I know this is well meaning, but PLEASE don't follow this advice if your a new dev. Trying to be successful by replicating what a millionaire did before is almost always a recipe for disaster. Consistently pulling 12 hour days over 4 years on your passion project is a great way to burn out and demoralize yourself. While Eric is clearly a very talented and inhumanly determined guy, but the stars also aligned for his game to take off this way. You could put in those hours and have close friends test your dream game in the same way and it totally flop. Could be nobody saw it, could be it wasn't that fun and you needed more testing!

Focus on smaller projects to build your skills first, don't start with your dream game. Avoid the burnout!

Fascinating, thank you.

Lucky gf. Eric is hot af.

Good point.
As a guy who worked hard on a game during 4 years (without community and any public exposure), slept less than 5 hours a day over a year straight and received literally nothing in the end:
1) Do not expect success. This will probably destroy your passion when you will realize that you are not a lucky guy. I've quit hobby developement for a year+ and burned out at my full time game dev job as well.
2) Start small - build up later. Otherwise - 1)
3) If you want financial success: dont make "games" - make "products". Marketing and monetization before everything else, otherwise you're just depending on luck. Players will not even install your game if marketing fails.

The only question I have is what source of income he had while developing the game for 4 years?

I hate crypto devs so fing much. All they talk about is money, they would never do anything like this.

Good day everyone, are there any legal issues when you are "copying" a game?

Aaron you rock 🤟💯. Thanks for the motivational video. I'm 51 yrs old who super determined to be a game developer. I have over 20 years of audiovisual experience, from tech jobs, set ups, break downs, editing, also lighting and some basic computer skills. However I still have a hunger to learn at this age. One of my hobbies is playing video games and I'm always fascinated by excellent video games.
Anyway, my goal is to become a game developer. I truly believe I can become one. I already applied for college to study game development at SNHU.

I haven't made my first million on any of my games yet, but he sounds a lot like me.

this video is extremely motivating... Loved the transparency...

He wish he was billionaire. No... Billionaire is only one game complete.😂 No more chapters in the game.

Striking luck is probably more important than skill in making a good game. Realizing a game idea early before others come up with the same. Getting featured by a big streamer. Other events that make the game go viral. Etc. And of course proper marketing.

I guess its time to re make my favorite game that I played 5 years and quit from it bec ubisoft bought it and make it worse and then there another inspired game came out and this one was way harder than old one so most people stick with old one

Did he have any capital to be able to work on this project and at times dedicate his life to a possibility for at times 12 hours per day? Because I can see inspiration to finish something in game dev here. However, he did the job in the most unhealthy way possible and that isn't exactly positive motivation or realistic to those would more than likely fail going anywhere close to the same route. The unlikeliness of it all could harm or be destructive to 1000 out of the 1 devs who actually was successful completing something like this on their own. His method is more than a bit unnecessary for your first commercial game and that should be what we learn from his story. I'm a solo dev but I by no means will be making each and every little thing from scratch. I perfer to be able to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome and not burn out my eyes and my mind by the time I'm in my mid 40s.

I work 18 hours a day … but I don’t like the job , does it mean I love my boss ? ( whos looking at us behind the desk )

Bro this guy loves that jacket

Nice video. I love Eric’s story, it keeps me going. Someday, ladies and gents, we all will have our chance at success ;)

You really went to the store and bought pedo glasses then decides to grow a pedo stache?

Nice tale of success.

My family would be a perfect storm for a company. My son and I are IT. My husband is a musician with 4 albums and my two daughters are are artists

How he had money to work 12h per day on this?

He has a supportive and trusting girlfriend who paid for his daily living for 5 years sttaight. There, that's it. Without that sole foundation everything else is meaningless.

Get a girlfriend that will let you move into her home for years and financially support the both of you while you spend 95% of your time working on your passion project. Got it.

Aaron Jack is the man. I bought into his program awhile back and had to back out due to a big new job taking my time away. He refunded me no problem. He also has a ton of great sound advice. Dudes the man!

Please don't put the mic so close
It results in a supressed bassy sound.
And no more bass is not equal to a better voice !

He picked like 3 villians

First time watching your channel, and wow it's great, keep up the good work!

🦃

Turkey emoji. Points invalidated.

Dude you give me Thomas brush vibes lol

yeah he did it but ALSO thousand of pepole didnt

solo game dev milionaire what a rockstar

if he sold 10 milions copies he obviusly got more than 34 milion dollars. The game was way more expensive than 3 dollars for him, even after all the cuts

This guys a phony. Doesnt even have a github

And now Unity want to steal all devs money

ehrenmann!

Incredible video; inspiring and captivating with valuable nuggets sprinkled on top.

stardew valley was written in XNA as far as i know. it is not really from the deepest scratch. XNA is a ready to use framework for games. its just not an drag&drop editor like experience like unity

earned my sub when you said your childhood was mmbn. loved those games growing up and always wanted to remake them, but co-op

This was actually a great video. Thanks

For my own notes
1) Emulate success (new + old)
2) Growth mindset
3) Create a success system - love the project, community, variety

Others: Tested the prototype, got feedback, build in public

This is exactly what I'm doing, except I'm an artist by nature and have 2 degrees in game development.

Most world population can't do this. I mean how many people can spend so much time not working, not earning money only to work on a game 12 hours a day. Oh sure anyone can do this.... Who are gonna pay the bills ? Who paid his bills ?

This was a great analysis on his success

This video is somewhat misleading. Eric's girlfriend had financially supported him for years, believing in his abilities. Most people don't have that level of support. His girlfriend deserves far more credit than she gets for the creation of Star Dew Valley.

Sometimes copying someone’s work gives you the confidence to try your own ideas out…

Apart from passion and hard work which is also needed, he had time, money background and people who supported him while doing the game.

Can you NUMBER the "keys" next time so newbies have actual steps to think about?