How hard is it to get into the game market?

[FireGrey]

Australia has so little game studios that there is no chance of getting into an existing one, so my question is how hard is it to create an indie games studio after completing university?

 

[Pong20302000]

Indie studios start off normally with a group at there homes and work together until they release a game that everyone is like OMG MUST play
and thus the money is created and everyone gets paid and is happy

a few indie game groups i know started off all working with other jobs during there projects in the evening and free time, until a game they created earned them livable cash

 

[FAST6191]

I would not write off Australia just yet though you will probably have to move to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney or maybe Brisbane. I am not as familiar with the situation on the ground there as I am with Europe or parts of North America though so find someone that is before you do. Also game development is not just those that will make the next COD but does include people that make games for phones and similar devices, web games (webgl, javascript, flash, java and HTML5 are more than adequate to make games), so called serious games and much more.

As Pong20302000 intimated PC development tools at the level you need are free or cheap, art tools are not much worse and a PC that can do for development is basically anything at this point in time and does not need a fancy office building, workshop or factory to run in*. Sadly current consoles are not quite hacked at the level (XNA on the 360 aside and the 360 will probably not be current but the time you do this) to where you can make things for them so it probably will be the PC or android/IOS.
I will say you had better be good at building your own PCs from parts to OS, be familiar with content management systems (though fiddling with GIT is not that bad) all on top of general games programming and design (or artwork or music if that is what you are going in for).

*there is something to be said for not running a business in your own house but that depends on how you view things. If that means you travel with a laptop to a garage you borrow from your parents so be it; the difference between getting up and going somewhere vs falling out of bed and hitting the power switch is something.

I am not familiar at all with Australian business/self employment law but the basic rules still apply and the prototype is king whatever you end up doing. Also if you are working with someone else (and generally speaking you will want to - usually you can register for sole trader or the equivalent thereof by filling in a form, convincing another person to join in says volumes) you are going to want to figure out how you will divvy up IP rights, profit splits and voting abilities.

As with most other IP these days you have two options
1) Find a publisher.
Protoypes are necessary here though you may even want a full game. Here you get to shop it at conferences, to developers directly or you might find someone to pigg

2) Self publish.
Android and IOS are pretty self explanatory (android is a one time small fee, IOS is $99 a year I believe, do note IOS wants a reasonably current mac* to develop on if you actually want to code using lower level languages). *hackintosh or VM might pull through though.
Steam or one of the similar services might be an option though you do not have to tie yourself exclusively to one and can go it alone if you want/as well.

I warn you now though games industry pay and hours are terrible with the only thing worse being self employed games developer.

Either way you will probably want to find some way to have some money to live off. The four methods seem to be

1) Live with your parents if they allow it. Free or low cost food, bed and internet.... nice. Having a relative pop their clogs and leave you something also works here.
2) Work a bad job and do things in the evenings/your off time. I quite like security jobs where you stare at monitors and make a round every hour or so for this as you can do things at the same time. Never discount being a regular programmer/artist and working for a someone that needs such skills either.
3) Be a student. Lots of free time, lots of like minded people (that second person we spoke of earlier will tend to come from here), free computers and internet and your student loans cover living expenses.
4) Get investments from external sources. Sometimes grants happen (though you will probably end up making an educational game of some form here), sometimes more traditional investors happen (though probably not in this case), the kickstarter model is not new in the slightest but it is an option (again prototypes) and you might adopt something like the app developer model of publish early and provide lots of free updates.

Finally though I hinted at it above programming is not game design and game design is not programming so do learn game design techniques. Fortunately there are plenty of books on the matter from game theory right through to more directly applicable game design books.

 

[Originality]

So you want to be a game designer?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so-you-want-to-be-a-game-designer