Career in Amiga Computing
 

Hello everyone, say if you were a qualified Video Games Designer with experience of Designing Games for commercial platforms such as the PC, Playstation 3 or Wii U, how could you transfer your skills to the World of Amiga Computing and get a paid job out of it. I guess my real question is how do you get a career in the Amiga industry from a novice position. I'm finding it difficult to turn my hobby into a paid passion. Any advice would be much appreciated ;)

I'm afraid you've missed the boat by over a decade, probably longer. You could probably do a game as a hobby, and sell it if it was high enough quality, but it's doubtful you could make a living off it- just some extra cash to encourage you to make another one ;-)

companies like:
http://www.protovision-online.de/gam...hp?language=en

do this sort of thing.

If your program idea was strong enough and drew enough interest, then kickstarter could always be a possibility.

Or look at what the guys at Entwickler X are doing. They are developing using their own cross platform engine and getting revenue from other, mostly mobile platforms. The Amiga market is a little too small to solely rely on revenue from that platform I believe.

A-Eon
 

How could I become a member of A-Eon by working for them? Could I do a job that was online so that I could work from home such as writing articles or designing future products.

if I could get paid for writing in m68k I'd be very happy

Sure, right after I get my job as chief crisp taster (working from home) ;)

Seriously, you're wasting your time even thinking about it. There are probably a few thousand active Amiga users worldwide, and even if you made the best game ever you would only sell a few hundred copies at best which won't pay the bills. If you want a career in coding you'll need to stick with the times like the rest of us do (I'm now a mobile developer, started off in Flash.)

Sorry for the offtopic... but it might be a useful information...
@edd_jedi, is flash a good platform to make games for a living?
Thanks!

I never made games in Flash (well not professionally anyway) but it's a dying platform. I used to do 75% Flash work, I haven't done any at all for the last three years. You'd be much better off learning HTML5 or native app programming.

Only one way I can think of and that would be a commercial Amiga Emulator for Android, iOS & WM which could be packeged up with disk images to make stand-alone game titles.

Offering software games houses the ability to release the Amiga versions of their games for mobile platforms as if they had been written for them and at the same time adding advertising etc. Perhaps even net based multi-gaming.

RetroInfinity Inc. (What was left of Amiga Games Inc.) is in the process of doing this.

I have been waiting for something like this I remember people talking about such a thing a few years back.

I have some time on my hands and would like to finish off were I started many moons ago.

Started developing a game on android last year nearly finished a level of the game but become very board so ...

Was into flash and done some sites e.t.c I released a demo to the flash community and it was slated because most said it reminded them of old 16bit demo LOL that was the point :laughing I can not find the code I would show, I remember doing a part like the balls in Mental Hang over by scoopex but mine was all fake 3d :p.



Edit: Sad but very true edd_jedi is correct.

C++ and C
 

If you want to create proper, professional and crisp games use C++ and C as your interactive pieces will play and look alot better than those made on Flash.

Oh I dont know..

http://rickdangerousflash.free.fr/
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55064

Not sure if you can compare HTML 5 or Flash with C(++)... there's that saying about apples and peers.

Yep I'd steer well clear of learning Flash at this stage of the game (pun intended).

If you want to make some money writing games these days then you'd have to be looking at Android/iOS and mobile platforms.

Even C/C++ is almost worthless in the commercial scene these days, the 'big boys' are more game designers using software tools than actually coders developing software routines. They mostly just use an off-the-shelf product with an API that plugs into the 'game creation' studio.

All a million miles away from Classic Amiga game development.

Thanks for the info!

@fondpondforever
Don't let these guys discourage you from the Amiga market. You have to look at the bright side of Amiga programming and game creation:

1) No competition!
2) Low expectations because crap games are better than no games!
3) Possibility to get market penetration of over 50% (unheard of since DungeonMaster)!
4) Cheap advertising!
5) Free professional development and creation tools from 20 years ago!
6) Instant fame and name recognition in the community (like the legendary NovaCoder)!
7) Skills will be honed to make the big bucks when the Amiga makes it's come back!

Yea! Now go get em' tiger!

If you just want to make your best next game with all the passion you've got, just choose the platform of your choice. If the game ends up being stellar, you can always try to find a publisher who is willing to invest and develop it for other platforms.

That being said, if your goal is money, your chances are better if you develop for the next dull company, in a 9-5 job.

But do chase your dream!!!:)

Including the Amiga in a Multi-platform release i.e. using portable languages (C/C++) and re-target-able graphics routines (SDL) can earn a bit of money. (I dunno if you divide the number of hours by the amount you get minimum wage?)

Someone has released two commercial games for the Atari Falcon (Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS and Android) recently.

http://onorisoft.free.fr/elansar/elansar.htm

Market Blizzard
 

I guess the Amiga Market is just waiting for an innovative prodigy to fill the big gap with a blizzard of creativity and rainbow spirit that will stun people and put them in awe.

P.S. Nobody still hasn't answered my question about getting in to Aeon for a job. Thanks. :banghead