That tv-movie is quite cool, I watch it every week here on pay-tv. It does talk well about married men problems. I’m not married but recently I saw so many discussion about relationships etc. I can only give you my honest opinion from the indie-developer point of view. If you want to ask yourself, what is the best situation to be indie? there’s no doubt about the reply: the best condition is to be single or at least not living together.
Why? there are tons of factors. Here’s a brief list:
- if you are engaged, you will have bad moment and discussions (if you know a couple that never has problems let me know, I’m curious to meet them). Does I need to tell you that programming (concentrating) in such moment is impossible? so if you’re angry for 2-3 days, in those 2-3 days you won’t work
- if you are engaged, you’ll have to listen to partner’s wishes. Don’t tell me that you always do what you want! that’s not true. you can’t ignore all the partner’s requests. If he/she wants to go out tonight, or go to last concert or … anything else, you’ll have to accept them, and organize your work… maybe when you are in a good productivity moment. People don’t realize that being indie, is more similar to being an artist – than a database programmer. Speaking with many successful developers they really “got insipiration” in particular moments and that can really make the difference from a topseller to an average game.
- being indie is really a particular job. People think is fine not to break balls if you’re in a office, but if you work at home (or the home is your office) then voilà , doesn’t count. Like they are entitle to distract you every possible way (if you live together).
- being indie means also dealing with bad periods. There can be moments where sales stagnate, and what will happen usually? unless your partner understand you well, he/she will complain about it and maybe the classic phrase will get out “why don’t you get a regular job?”.
Ok I think is enough – there are many more possibilities. Living in same house 24/24 can be very stressing if you’re indie! I’ve warned you 😉