The Icehouse collective was asked:
“I have been wondering how Friends & Members of the Icehouse Collective find the time/money to make games, music, & art? I know some of you are students, others are unemployed. But are there people with fulltime jobs as well?”
Thanks to Siska for asking us!
As you might expect, everyone’s situation is different and it is also quite complicated for us to be able to manage on a day to day basis. That’s why it is so important to all of us to be able to work on our games and ideas with passion. Let’s explain a little further who we are:
Simon is a French freelancer , working under the title of Simon Says: Watch! Play!, who focuses completely on his own concepts. For him, making games and other related work is his everyday purpose. This, subsequently, means that he doesn’t receive any income other than from any sales relating to his games and projects. The most difficult situation is that he now needs to work 7 days each week without knowing exactly how the future will turn out.
Beckoning Cat (Yves) was in the same situation as Simon, but he has been recently moving to Paris for personal reasons. As a result, he has suspended all activity in regards to game development for an undetermined period of time. TheIcehouse is trying to find ways help him with his game Chilie, which has been greenlit on Steam but is still , as yet, unreleased. He hopes to be able to work on a new game using Unity during his free time, sometime in the near future.
Andrea, aka Ape Marina, is making his point&click games during his free time. He works as an Engineer in Italy and is employed full-time, which allows him to earn enough money to live each month, but he almost never sleeps (as you may know, Italian people tend to drink lots and lots of coffee). Honestly we don’t know how he can manage his personal life, his job, and work on his games: he’s amazing! He’s currently finalizing his next title: Tales.
Luminy Studios is a newly formed Spanish studio that is in the process of expanding and creating more and more ambitious games. Initially composed of just our Members Juanjo and Andy, they have recently been joined by 2 new artists: Carlos and Ibai. They have other full-time paid jobs and are working together in their spare time on their ambitious first title Bloodwood Reload, which they hope to soon release for free in order to show what they can do. Using Unity 5, they have the potential to create games with impressive graphics, and they are confident that they can reach a AAA level of quality in their next projects. They’re currently the biggest team within our collective.
Our Manager, Roger, who also runs a blog under the name RogerCAKT (aka RKT), is helping us from his home. He became unemployed over four years ago, and devotes his time to helping us to work effectively as a collective, drawing from his lengthy experience whilst working in business. Thank you so very much Roger!
As you can see, everyone is in a different position but we all work very hard and with little or no money.
Similarly, our Friends also have their own problems. Atelier Sentô is a duo of artists who live together and help each other. They currently work fulltime on their projects, and put a lot of energy and passion into them. Yawen Zheng used to be a student until very recently, with everything that brings as a consequence. She has had a lot of success lately in Festivals, so she’s really overwhelmed. Finally there’s Amir and his comic book The Legend of Novo. Happily Amir could crowdfund his second book on Kickstarter, so that helps!
Our other Friends have as many different positions as we do!
Our Members: http://www.theicehouse.fr/members
Our Friends: http://www.theicehouse.fr/friends
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