There is a crucial part to his success that needs to be mentionned, and it's not to diminish from what he's done: "create a success system" wouldn't even hold without the financial and psychological support from his girlfriend. That woman made him able to work full time without having to work for a score of years and we cannot understate how crucial she was in the success of Stardew Valley!
Couldnt agree more and this is my experience so far to with my partner. Ive been studying for 3 years while she has been hard at work. It does create another challenge when your having a rough month and are struggling to find bills or when an accident happens and we lose income for a bit. I've recently decided to dedicate my spare time to making a project to use as a portfolio or hopefully our own Stardew Valley.
I didn’t see this comment until weeks after I posted a similar comment, I’m glad this comment got some attention! Successful people more often than not have a group of supporting, patient, and challenging (I can’t think of a better way to word it, people motivating them to be better) around them.
@Tidder T every game rips off of another game, very few games nowadays reinvent the wheel. same for hardware companies, no wheels reinvented. rather the progression is toward perfecting existing technology
@Tidder T youre not wrong. But without ripoffs we wouldn’t have a lot of things we have today. I’ve played harvest moon. And I’ve played stardew valley. Like each one for different reasons.
@Tidder T I mean it’s still a ripoff of harvest moon but I watched a video where the developer of harvest moon and Eric had a interview with someone and he didn’t seem to mind and actually liked eric
I would like to mention another very important aspect of his success story. Contrarily to what most self-help gurus say, it's very important to not set big bold goals at the beginning of a personal project. Probably if he aimed to make a commercially successful game at the beginning of the project, his decisions would definitely lead him to a very different result and most likely frustrate him fairly quickly. Instead, in the beginning, he aimed to simply create a project that he could use at his resumè. Starting with a small goal in mind helps to remove excuses we constantly use with ourselves to justify our procrastination. Let's say, for example, you want to do at least 15 pushups every day when you wake up. You will probably say that this is too much or find a bunch of excuses if you're not an active person. But if you set yourself to simply do two pushups, it gets much easier. It's harder to find an excuse to justify why you cannot do only two pushups. And once you start doing it, you build momentum and it gets much easier to do the rest. So, I honestly believe, that in this case, the key is to set a goal that is big enough to get you motivated but not too big to get you frustrated before you're able to achieve it.
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 , even a 1 would be a hundred if you continue counting. . . its just that consistency is a whole new topic passion, motivation are probably one of the fuels to a moving car _any tips to keep the car moving?_
The keys to success: 1. You need luck. 2. Money is not a respecter of persons. But it loves lucky people. 3. Talent is as common as table salt. Luck is rare. 4. "Its better to have a lucky general than a good one." - Bonaparte
Excellent post. I'm in my 60's and have been programming since the early 80s. I went back to college 9 months ago to sharpen my skills in web development. While many say that all the good ideas have already been taken, I had an idea several years ago that I'm now refining with my college courses. Once I complete my courses in the next few weeks, I will have enough content to demonstrate and pitch my idea. Set a goal, focus on it, and drive it to completion.
Hey Aaron, just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the shoutout :D I couldn't believe my eyes when you said my channel name and showed my page! I really didn't think my small channel would be noticed by a bigger RU-vidr like you, let alone give me a shoutout, so thanks for making my day :D
True inspiration. If you are a beginner and struggling and learning to code like me, I will say this that todays gonna be better than yesterday. Just keep pushing.
Aww hell yeah, megaman battle network! You just blew my mind, too. I had that game on my mind when thinking about myself making a game (series) I can take inspiration from. If you do happen to work on a game and take inspiration from the series, there's an active discord community and subreddit that would likely be interested in playing it one day. Thanks for the vid!
A couple of factual errors: 1. I dont think he created the engine from scratch. From he Reddit AMA, he clearly said he used XNA Framework (newer: Monogame). Nevertheless, a fantastic achievement. 2. He has experience with creating and playing music. He even had a band when he was young. 3. His mother (or father) was an artist. He liked painting (creating art) too.
@@eon17was just about to mention the same thing. I'm a Monogame dev too. This isn't Unity where it's a game engine. You literally have to build the systems to make a game engine to then make a game from.
@@eon17game frameworks and game engines are essentially the same, the only difference being that Frameworks does not have a gui that you are going to work with so you will be writing everything in code. i have been a libdgx framework user back then and now a godot engine developer. its not like you are going to write the entire physics engine or rendering yourself anyways, there are 3rd party plugins that are available for your desired framework if not built-in already
I'm really enjoying your content. Like the three pillars you mentioned, you also seem to apply that here. It's not all just coding examples, you're adding a variety of topics related to development which really keeps this channel fresh.
I've been subscribed for awhile now and I gotta say I really like what you're doing with your channel. It's awesome to see things laid out so clearly and concisely. Keep it up man, we appreciate all the work and effort you put into your videos.
I'm not in game development at all (built some games when I was younger though) but you're analysis could be applied to so many things. Many, for example, forget that they need to love what they're doing to really continue working on it. The community part is as well critical nowadays. Well done.
Aaron! You're a prophet!!! I needed this video sooooo much! Thanks for this. I've liked and subbed and will watch your videos going forward! Thanks again.
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.
Great video! I'm an indie game developer myself and Eric has been my inspiration since Day 1. My initial goal was to see if I can learn game development and its related skills in 1 year, without any background in coding, art, game design, and so on. After I launched an early build to the public, it was well-received and I knew this was something worth pursuing. I felt the same things that Eric felt of being bored with the project, but knowing that I can't give up on this because of the community support. The primary motivation isn't really money. I'm working on the game that I want to make, something that I want people to experience. My goal isn't to make a million dollars, but it would be nice if I could breakeven with the costs or make a bit of profit as well. Passion really is the key motivation for me. If anyone's curious, my game is called Lawmage Academy. ^-^ Cheers and thanks for this wonderful video!
You should have so much more subscribers. One of the greatest RU-vid channels there are out there. Great content, man! Keep up!!! Also. Stardew Valley is awesome! One of my favourite games for its simplicity and story.
I think this one really resinated with us because not only was it coding news/information but it was helpful / inspiring in the spirit of why people watched you in the first place. I think that’s a special niche to have. Thanks for sharing.
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.
The story of TWIN brothers who made TINY LANDS "Find the difference" game, because their whole life were a "Find difference" between them twins for the people .
Hey Aaron. Pretty neat stuff yo. May bring criticism to you, but can you do a video about books we can read or problems we can solve online to help us better ourselves at programming/computers. Actual textbooks and not superficial intros.
its more risky as you know that if you are a solo developer which even has an original idea, and you spent a lot of time in developing your game, when you will finally finish your game and publish it on and online app or games store, there are many chances that your app will not be much successful and there will be other big companies who insist on copying ideas instead of buying that app (from which they are copying ideas). they will copy your idea and release their own game which would have more downloads than your game and that game could be much more fun and good looking than yours as they will spend a lot of money for its designing and advertisement .......
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
fantastic Aaron... thank you very much for this great video... one of the best video or rather the best video so far I have come across on RU-vid.. please keep going, cheers!!!
Very nice story, inspiring as well. Especially your (IDK whether if it was "inspired" from someone) abstraction of the "motivational triangle" out of it made is super scalable. Keep up bite-sized gems bro.
Making 34 million dollars in 4.5 years sounds amazing. I wish I had the passion for game development or for anything actually, so that I could devote myself like this guy did...
What's so interesting about this story is his patience and long term thinking. Its so amazing, For sure avg people would just give up within a year or so
Mega Man Battle Network was a huge one for me, too. If you haven’t already, you should definitely check out One Step From Eden. It’s a roguelike take on MMBN and it’s great. I think there’s still plenty of room to make games like it.
bro right as i was watching this i was thinking, damn how could I emulate megaman battle network 3? and then you casually mention that game... man they really need to bring that back, or i will
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.
looks like a lot of people are enjoying the new content, including me. i like how you put in effort into the videos but keep them casual too. hope to see the views catch up soon :)
4:20 Discipline is just a word that naturally motivated people use to make themselves feel superior. If you struggle with motivation, trying to force yourself to do things is just another way of setting yourself up for failure and ultimately making yourself feel worse about yourself. Focus on any thing, no matter how small, that gives you any amount enjoyment, and build on the positive feelings. And, who knows, maybe theyll eventually be something that keeps you going and kinda looks like motivation.
The difference between ripping someone off and being inspired by something is how much effort you put into creating something new out of the idea you're taking
Aaron, this is a really good move you did; from being a coder-youtuber to whatever this is what you're doing now (news youtuber? :D). Keep it up man. Your content is amazing and the path to success is paved. Just to note, sometimes in your recent videos the camera gets a bit laggy.
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.
Please make a video on how you'd be learning coding at an age of (15-17) including but not limited to things like what to get started with (web dev, data science, game dev), which resources to use (y hacker news, indie hackers etc. and how to use them), how to use github. And just in general things that you would have liked to know at such an age. I'd love to get some insights on this topic from you.
