I recently spent three nights porting a C++ game from Linux to Windows, and made $181.90 after RentACoder and Paypal fees, and it was the only freelance work I've managed to find.
I'm just trying to keep my cell phone on, but unfortunately it's very hard to find anyone who needs the services of a professional C/C++/C#/Python/Ruby programmer with 4 years of gamedev experience.
I hate to do the "shameless plug", but I'm sort of desperate for work. If anyone needs anything done (at all!), or knows anyone who does, contact me at shawnpresser at gmail.
Speaking from experience, the trick is to own the sales channel. If you've managed to end up in a room with lots of other developers, particularly lots of other unqualified developers (RentACoder), you've already lost before you've even bid on a single project.
What you've got to do is
A) Think very hard about where your clients are at this very moment, physically, in the world, and then
B) Go to that place.
Those two steps are more sales than 99% of the developers in the world will ever do in their entire lives. Nothing wrong with that, as a lot of them have work. But if you don't, that's how to get it.
I read through several of your blog posts --- very informative!
How'd you get your start? (If I understand correctly, you're a freelance iPhone developer living in Austin. Awesome! That's the next city on my to-live list, if I can just scrape together a way to get out of St Louis.)
How much work did it take before you could turn a profit as a freelancer? (Whatever 'profit' happens to be to you.)
I'm so bored, a couple nights ago I wrote my own Minecraft server in C from the ground-up. I'm chomping at the bits to work on anyone else's project, but it's hard to find clients (without doing what you suggested).
Unfortunately I don't have work for you but I might have a suggestion.
I have no doubt about your skills, but your skills seems to be very specialised. I don't know what your life goals are or what sort of work you're looking for but from your plea I understand that the type of work you're looking for doesn't present itself easily (otherwise why the shameless plug :).
I know it's uncool but a guy with your knowledge and experience can make a very good living working for digital advertising agencies. These companies are very Flash Platform and iPhone/mobile oriented. So adding these skills to your CV could easily land you a well paying job.
To get an idea of the sort of work you can expect working for a digital-ad agency have a browse through FWA: http://thefwa.com
You can build your resume here for free:
http://www.cvstash.com
and just spread it using the permalink. PDF download and print is also available.
I get my gigs usually through word of mouth and djangogigs (I do django at the moment). If you know python I suggest you take a look at django for web development. I have to say I compete by getting a very low, low rate, which I can afford since I'm living in a third world country (Philippines) at $15/hour. Translate that to local currency, enough spare time, working from home and learning more about python web development I could say it's pretty working good for me thus far.
BTW if you're interested for django work I can recommend you to some body, just haggle your price to him directly. Shoot me an email -> phektus at gmail dot com.
The $5000/two week deal of Mr.Granger sounds hardcore, and he does sound hardcore being able to stuff it out in Clojure.
Freelance game development is very focused on web and ios at the moment. I suspect the companies doing c++ work are working on big budget games and in need of full time employees. Contractors with quality ipad game experience, on the other hand, are proving very challenging for us to find.
Seems like the type of work you do is probably not something (good paying) companies often hire freelancers to do (though I may be wrong). Seems like you would be better off working towards finding a job with a company that does what you enjoy (I assume game programming).
Also you might try breaking into the mobile game development world (iPhone, Android). Mobile app development is pretty fertile ground still and you can use your current skills to develop you own products and sell them easily. Even if the games you develop do not gain great success on their own they at least make great portfolio pieces and could help you get noticed and find better work in the future. Just a thought.
That's a really good idea. I wish I could afford the $100 to join the iPhone developer program. Alternatively, I wish I had an Android phone. I only have $850 of savings left.
If you want cheap Android devices go to your local Verizon store, talk to the rep in charge/manager and ask that they give you a call when they get in a phone that won't be going for warranty repair still functions but just has some issue or another (such as the battery falls out, who cares for dev!) and get it for bottom dollar.
Friend of mine has acquired about 30+ Android phones using this technique (some duplicates in an attempt to Frankenstein fully functional ones).
Worst case you get a no, best case you get a cheap Android phone for development. Droid X's are great (and compare well to the HTC Evo).
You could use the Android emulator for free at least at first. I know how it is to be low on funds but, spending the $99 on the iPhone developer program may be an investment worth making.
$500 a day is alright. Especially if you're building a prototype which doesn't the polish the final thing needs. Most of your time is wasted on UI stuff anyway when you build the final.
I generally think it's a fairly good deal for people. While I could've priced myself significantly higher, I wanted to make this more open to just people with ideas.
Also, my hope is that the work will actually be quite fun :D
