Your biggest mistake ?

[patrox]

What is/are the biggest mistakes you've made for your business.

Mine was probably to use a non cookie affiliate merchant when i started ( had no clue about the affiliate world ) Which lead in a big loss of exposure.

pat.

[Greg Squire]

Sorry, but I'm confused here. What do browser cookies have to do with the level of exposure that your game gets? Forgive my ignorance, but I don't see the connection.

[Jack Norton]

Because nowadays no clever affiliate is going to accept a broken referral system like esellerate ones, for example.
You need to have cookie reg system (regnow, plimus) if you want to hope to have your game on some affiliate site.

Lot of affiliates for your game = lot of more exposure. easy ;)

[Jack Norton]

Ah sorry, forgot to reply about the question: my biggest mistake was probably developing a big game like USM instead of making a simple one, not having done a decent market research, and finally ignoring completely the mac world :)
Three big mistakes in one product, yay! :D

[Mark Sheeky]

For the first several months or so my 'buy now' links linked to the product page on my payment provider ShareIt, not the actual purchase page. Thus customer had to click on a second 'buy' button which definately lost sales.

Mark
Sound Effects For Game Developers
http://www.indiesfx.co.uk

[Rainer Deyke]

My biggest mistake: trying to do the artwork myself.

[Chris Evans]

I haven't finished my game yet, but so far my biggest mistake was that I under-estimated the time it took to design levels and other game elements. If I thought I could design something in 3 days, it took a week. If thought it would take a week, it ended up taking over 2-3 weeks. This was simply due to my inexperience developing a game by myself from start to finish.

Fortunately, I over-estimated most of my programming tasks, so I haven't strayed too far off schedule. But I definitely learned for my next game to allow a lot more time for design.

[HairyTroll]

Slashdot ..... what a time suck.

[Damon DuBois]

Attempting to do a really big, ambitious RTS as my first game. After pouring a year and a half into it(averaging 15 to 20 hour weeks), it was nowhere near being done and had some major design flaws in it. Finally had to retire it and move on to a smaller project.

I then started a much smaller game that I thought would take me a few months. It took me a year :/

Really important advise here for someone just starting out as an indie: START SMALL.

[ggambett]

Not paying attention to the "ideally, few people should notice your 1.0" and therefore losing sales initially, before fixing some issues with the game.

Not implementing stack trace & automated crash report from the beginning.

[Sillysoft]

I have seen reference to an ebook about such blunders, taken from some established shareware authors including Steve Pavlina of dexterity. I haven't bought it yet, but have been planning to

More info at: http://swb2.com/

[Greg Squire]

I have seen reference to an ebook about such blunders, taken from some established shareware authors including Steve Pavlina of dexterity. I haven't bought it yet, but have been planning to

More info at: http://swb2.com/

Ouch, $47 for a 127 page ebook. Seems a bit much. I guess if you avoid those blunders, then it might be worth it. I think I hold off on that one for now (limited resources).

[KNau]

Thinking a publisher could do a better job selling my game on-line than I could. That one cost me :)

Spending all my time coding and daydreaming game designs and not enough time engaged in the nuts and bolts of running a real business.

[princec]

Spending a year on one game that I didn't have the resources or backup to market successfully. I will rectify this mistake by writing a bunch of much less ambitious games which will hopefully help the original game sell on the back of them.

Cas :)

[BongPig]

Settling down in an expensive city like London.

[Nemesis]

Most of the "dont's" in David R Michael's book...

[ggambett]

Ouch, $47 for a 127 page ebook. Seems a bit much. I guess if you avoid those blunders, then it might be worth it. I think I hold off on that one for now (limited resources).
There is a $20 discount for people with RegNow accounts.

[Cogin]

Making game for mobile phones first, finding out that you have to go through 2 steps (publisher/operator) to reach customer afterwards.
Another mistake - expecting that money from customers will reach me back through these 2 obstacles :)

[lexaloffle]

Taking on too many projects (both internal and external) at once.

Downloading Soldat (http://www.soldat.pl/main.php).

[Coyote]

1. Failure to examine what "off-the-shelf" code was already out there before sinking development time into reinventing the wheel.

2. Developing my graphics engine in DirectX, making a future port to Mac very costly.

That's about it for now... we're not released yet, so I'm sure I've got mistakes to be made.

[cliffski]

signing games to a deal with a dodgy european publisher who gave me no money up front.
never again.
no up front cash == no game. Ill sell them myself.

[Mark Sheeky]

Too right Cliffski. Signing exclusive royalty-only deals that do nothing for 2 years was probably my biggest mistake. Trusting publishers to do what, in retrospect, I could have done myself with less effort than the bad deals cost in the end. And doing lots of box art work for a certian European publisher on trust... I'm sure I did some art for one of your games Mr Harris.

Mark
Cornutopia Games
http://www.cornutopia.net

[Greg Squire]

Most of the "dont's" in David R Michael's book...

Which book is that? If you don't mind me asking. (too many differenct combinations of David and Michael on Amazon.com, so I couldn't find it.)

[Valen]

Which book is that? I you don't mind me asking. (too many differenct combinations of David and Michael on Amazon.com, so I couldn't find it.)

The book is Indie Game Development Survival Guide (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584502142/qid=1092157130/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9434917-5599165?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

I have a feeling that my biggest mistake (so far) will be not quitting my job sooner than I'm planning to. I spend virtually all of my free time after my job to work on my business. The amount of work I have to do (not counting the amount of books and articles I have to read) is huge. And as I mentioned in the Perils of Fulltime Job thread, I still have no time to work on a new game, which is something that is very important. It's not to say that my efforts haven't been paying off, they have in fact been paying off quite well. But without my full commitment I'm progressing much slower than I could otherwise.

So why am I still at the job? Well I honestly can't even answer that to myself (employee mindset?). But I've set a deadline for when I'm quitting (which is only a few months away), and I might even have to quit earlier because I'm doing a lot better than I expected. The bottom line is once I leave this job, nobody's going to pay me anymore for it. But if I make a game, I'll be getting money from it for years. A job is not an asset. A game is. Thus logically it makes more sense to work on the game, even if it takes more time for it to pay off.

By the way, the Shareware Blunders eBook is excellent. When I saw Al Harberg (http://www.dpdirectory.com) recommending it at the ASP newsgroups, I instantly bought it. I've only gotten through half of it so far (so little time...) and I've already written a few pages of notes. I've learned a while ago that spending 10-50 or even 100 dollars on a book will pay off exponentially if it's good. Think about it -- this book costs $47 (and you even get a $10 discount if you're an ASP member) but how many sales is that for you? For a $20 game that's less than 3 sales. Yet you could be losing dozens even hundreds of sales from just a few mistakes in your site design, or order form, or product description, etc..

[DavidRM]

Which book is that? If you don't mind me asking. (too many differenct combinations of David and Michael on Amazon.com, so I couldn't find it.)

Nothing like having a name composed of two of the most common English first names. In my next life, I'm going to shoot for a much more distinctive moniker. ;)

To find the book on Amazon, you have to search for "david michael indie" or "indie game development".

-David

[Chris Evans]

Or just click David's signature. ;)

[Greg Squire]

The book is Indie Game Development Survival Guide (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584502142/qid=1092157130/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9434917-5599165?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

Thanks! I should have looked at the cover better, as I started reading this book just last week. I noticed that it was recommended highly around here and ordered it a couple weeks back. I should have paid more attention as to who wrote it. I'm about half way through, and it definitely has some good info in there. I've read other game design books and business books (more general), but there's nothing like the specifics here that really apply to this business. I’d recommend it as well. I’ll have to look into that Shareware Blunders eBook as well.

I guess I should add that my biggest blunder (even though I'm new in this business) is that I should have started down this path earlier. I have wanted to do this for years now, and I just haven't brought myself to do it, until now. I still have my day job, which I will keep for a while, until this other takes off (hopefully). Hopefully I can avoid some of these blunders myself, although I know I'm bound to make some. Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you!

Edit: Thanks again David for such a wonderfully helpful book! I didn't realize the author was here amongst us. This community here is great!

[princec]

Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...

Cas :)

[Mithril Studios]

Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...

Cas :)

Dude, that's a chick magnet name.

Anthony

[Valen]

Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...

Cas :)

At least it's not "artist formerly known as prince." :)

[HairyTroll]

At least it's not "artist formerly known as prince." :)

Try having 'Luke' as your first name. Almost everyone I meet does their best Darth Vader impersonation "*kshaaaww*.... Luke, *kshaaaww* I am your father."

Actually, a guy I know named his first born Luke, just so he could do that.

[Screwball]

Try having the nickname "Polly"

[GameStudioD]

Biggest mistake, thus far: Underestimating the development time for my game. This is my first big project, so its to be expected.

I have gone from 'its a month away' to 'its two weeks away'. Improvment.

[Mark Fassett]

Heh - I've gone from being a month away, 16 months ago, to being two weeks away, a month ago, to being a week away (today). We shall see.

My biggest mistake was spending 4 years trying to get into the retail game industry, and always doing tech demos instead of just trying to do a game.

[Mithril Studios]

My biggest mistake so far has been not getting enough buy-in from the shareholder (the missus).

Anthony

[Wayward]

Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...
Small world! My window-cleaner is called Caspian Rychlik-Prince! No, not really. That's a very posh name you've got yerself. My parents almost named me Peregrine Falconer.

Back on topic, my biggest mistake was using C++ (since rectified).

Oh, and connecting to the Internet was a mistake (for productivity), but kind of essential for an online business.

[cliffski]

why was C++ a mistake? and what did you use instead?

[Wayward]

Why was C++ a mistake? and what did you use instead?
C++ was a mistake in my particular case because C++ lets me do anything. It does nothing to stop me indulging my programming demons. I found myself spending all my time on engine-coding, library design, algorithm research, class refactoring, and optimization (all things I know I shouldn't be doing) instead of good-to-honest game-coding in Lua.

I also reached the conclusion, after using C++ on and off for 5 years, that C++ is an evil, broken mess of a language. I wouldn't recommend C++ to anyone. I'm so glad I packed it in.

I'm using Blitz now. I find Blitz more productive than C++ for the simple games I make because I have little choice but to accept the language and the engine the way it is and get on with game coding.

[PoV]

Ack! Aparently not making a commercial version of a proven original game concept. I released a freeware 'prototype' last year that's been hugely successful, but I've been delayed getting my commercial version together. And I've just been informed I've just been cloned. Aww...

[Jack Norton]

Fun, I made the opposite path :)
I started with "easy" languages like VB and Blitz to approach finally C.
I am NOT a good C/C++ programmer: but that language let me do anything I want. I suppose that for small games blitz is better, but they aren't my target.
A quick comparison: USM took me 5 months to write (version 1.0) on Blitz3D, UBM took me 2 months with C + PTK. PTK complexity is comparable to Blitz, but I had to learn C almost from zero. I found that having a powerful debugger, for complex simulation games, was much better than having a simple language like Blitz.

I never seen any strategy/simulation game done in Blitz... even if with LOT of patience it should be possible ;)

[svero]

I think the choice of language depends a little on who you are. When I started I had used c++ for several years in other jobs so I was well aquainted with it. I would find using a procedural language like blitz limiting. I did spend a lot of time get the tools up to par though so there was a price to pay. I'm pretty sure I can go faster now though than I would in blitz.

I would probably still use something like blitz for the right job though if there was a particular game I wanted to do that seemed like a good fit.

[Valen]

As far as languages go, I think the important things to consider (in no particular order) are: performance/power, development speed, and scalability. To that end there are no languages that will excel in each category. In my opinion Blitz is essentially a scriptable engine without a specialized backend like that of Torque. That's a double edged sword. On one hand it means you're free to write whatever you want, on the other hand you have to write your whole game in a scripting language.

In my opinion one shouldn't be writing their whole game in a scripting language, because they're slow and not scalable. Most of them don't support OOP, which to me makes it impossible to create a complex game architecture. That said I don't think that scripting languages shouldn't be used at all. I think they're great actually, but not for writing the whole game unless it's very small. My preferred method is to combine C++ and a scripting language to get the best of both worlds.

[Chaster]

1) Trying to take on the big boys in retail with our first project (burning TONS of money on a demo which failed to get us anything..)

2) Taking too long to fire a terrible employee (kept giving him "the benefit of the doubt" over and over again while he basically screwed me and the whole project in general). :mad:

3) Failing to reject subpar artwork because I didn't want to hurt the artists' feelings (or I was getting tired of saying "do it again" for the umpteenth time).

4) Failing to understand the target market (with our last project. Now rectified.)

Chaster

[tentons]

C++ was a mistake in my particular case because C++ lets me do anything.... I found myself spending all my time on engine-coding, library design, algorithm research, class refactoring, and optimization (all things I know I shouldn't be doing) instead of good-to-honest game-coding in Lua.

I agree with that mostly, although my initial investment of developing a framework should pay off by allowing me to skip straight to the game proper on subsequent projects. What I'm creating may be overkill for the first game I'll release, but I intend to increase the sophistication of each game.

I find Blitz more productive than C++ for the simple games I make because I have little choice but to accept the language and the engine the way it is and get on with game coding.

I have a really hard time doing that, just ignoring the deficiencies and getting on with it. But maybe that's one of my (recurring) mistakes. I'd rather be in control and know that things can be done a certain way, so I feel compelled to build it myself.

This would apply only to things like a game logic framework. Something like a graphics library, as long as it's fast and has a nice interface (there's the catch!), I don't care how it works.

My other big mistake is wasting too much time trying to get into "traditional" retail game development when I should have been doing this the whole time. :rolleyes:

[Bluecat]

My other big mistake is wasting too much time trying to get into "traditional" retail game development when I should have been doing this the whole time. :rolleyes:I reckon that this one has been my biggest mistake.

I've been interested into getting into game development for ages, but I bought into the lie that says "games cannot be made by individuals and small teams anymore." I think that it was a favorite quote of Scott Miller or George Brousard. I'd seen a number of interviews where they made that comment.

It was quite obvious that modern retail games had assets that required NASA moon landing sized teams to do. I had a lateral thinking block that didn't let me see that indie games could indeed be created by small teams or individuals, and could also do quite well in a (different sort of) marketplace.

Now the blinders are off, and I've seen da light! ;)

[cliffski]

it can be done. Starship Tycoon just went into retail in russia and the US (different publishers) and ive already got several thousand dollars in advances for it.
hurrah ;)

[EpicBoy]

When Scott or George say "games" they mean "AAA retail games". Small indie teams can't pull off games like UT2004 or Doom3. It's just not viable...

[gmcbay]

I think one of the biggest mistakes an indie can make is to not heed the advice when people say that selling an indie game is closer to binary than analog in terms of how many sales you will get.

You're either going to be a top seller and raking in the cash, or you're going to sell next to nothing. And even if your game is extremely polished and fun, it still might not be one of the ones that catches on for whatever reason.

The indie market isn't so different from retail in this way, now. From what I understand (though I wasn't following it as much back then), it used to be different like 2-3 years ago and there was a wide range of different sales levels, but now there is almost no middle ground between huge hits and dismal failures.

[Mirage]

My biggest mistake is that I did not start this business much earlier. :rolleyes:

My other big mistake is wasting too much time trying to get into "traditional" retail game development when I should have been doing this the whole time. :rolleyes:

I've done this mistake too, but got a lot of expirience. :)

Concerning languages :) I'm using Delphi+Oberon 2 as scripting language. And hope to move one day entirely to Oberon.

[ggambett]

there is almost no middle ground between huge hits and dismal failures.
Hmmm... I'm not so sure. Case in point, our Betty's Beer Bar isn't a dismal failure (nor any kind of failure) but it doesn't sell nearly as well as Rebound/Ricochet or PopCap's games.

Of course, part of this can be because Real Arcade didn't want to publish it, despite selling well in almost everywhere it is, because "it feels like work" :confused: :confused:

Many other games I know more or less how they sell also fall in this middle ground.

[dan]

A $45 price tag on a commerical version that didn't look much different than the freeware precursor was not our finest move....

[Jack Norton]

Of course, part of this can be because Real Arcade didn't want to publish it, despite selling well in almost everywhere it is, because "it feels like work
Hehe well as soon as I started to sell well UBM, I didn't even think to submit it to BFG or Real...(also because they won't ever accept it) I think that ricochet sells well because is EVERYWHERE (I've found it on lot of sites) but I could bet that has not a great CR % ... ;)

[ggambett]

I think that ricochet sells well because is EVERYWHERE (I've found it on lot of sites) but I could bet that has not a great CR % ... ;)
With all due respect, I don't give a damn about the CR of the game if it sells 100 copies a day, as James said. I don't want a high CR, I want lots of sales (sure, the CR determines the cost of the bandwidth, but that's not the point)

[Diodor Bitan]

I don't think a game can be EVERYWHERE in the first place without a great CR. Had Ricochet or any other game had half the CR it would yield ten times as few sales. (IMHO, etc.)

[Greg Squire]

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm not familiar with the acronymn "CR". What does it mean?

[Wayward]

...I'm not familiar with the acronymn "CR". What does it mean?
Conversion Rate. See the Indie Glossary (http://www.indiewiki.org/index.php?IndieGlossary).

[Greg Squire]

Thanks that helps a lot.

[mkovacic]

Hehe well as soon as I started to sell well UBM, I didn't even think to submit it to BFG or Real...(also because they won't ever accept it) I think that ricochet sells well because is EVERYWHERE (I've found it on lot of sites) but I could bet that has not a great CR % ... ;)
Bigfishgames rank the games in their lists by the CR. Lost Worlds was #1 for a while when it got out. I'd say you lost the bet. ;)

[Greg Squire]

Bigfishgames rank the games in their lists by the CR. Lost Worlds was #1 for a while when it got out. I'd say you lost the bet. ;)

Hmmm. I always thought that these publishers ranked them by pure number of sales. But I guess there's another meaning for "best selling".

[Curiosoft]

This is a post-mortem of Jr. Doctor....

It'll highlight many of the mistakes I made. I wrote this kind of fast, so expect imprecise and meandering language. Feel free to ask questions on thoughts you want me to clarify...

I also have a design document for the Jr. Doctor project that I am willing to share with anyone that asks. Drop me a PM and we'll go from there.

Let's begin...

First and foremost, I did not ask the right questions for development.

I also had ego issues in the beginning.

My mistakes can be broken down into the following categories:
1) Associating the success of the project with the struggle of creating the product. I thought...the more I struggled...the more success I would get.

When I first started, I focused on developing the technology from the ground up. I saw other "engines" for $100 bucks and figured I could save money. Well, if your time isn't worth anything...then yes....you will save money.

If you don't expect to make $100 bucks off your game, then don't think about selling it anyway.

I also wanted to have a sense of pride that comes with "coding" a game. The "struggle" of coding would make me a better person. This is not a productive way of thinking. Now I work smarter rather than harder.

Additionally, the question I ask now is...
"Do I want to impress my peers or do I want to impress my customers". Nowadays, the customer always wins out.

2) Focusing on the wrong "value"

When I first started the project, I focused on spending a lot of time on a design document. Because of a previous project, I realized that having a strong sense of organization helps. So I tried to design everything up front.

My process at the time was...
1) Design
2) Code
3) Test
4) Refine

Now I realize that only works when you're copying someone else's idea/game.

If you are trying to create a new game, then the process is severely flawed.
My new process is...
1) Prototype (keep on iterating until I find a prototype that offers the most fun (value) to the customer)
2) Design
3) Code
4) Test
5) Refine
(loop 1-5 until the project is done)

*** Throughout each stage, I *document* the results in a document...so that it's archived and I can go back to it later for thoughts/ideas ***
As one other designer said..."I believe in documentation, not design"

So instead of having this 100 page document in the beginning, I document my actions/thoughts/experiments on a game. After the game is done, the final design doc may span 100 pages. But it's based on the results of actions...not just thoughts and vague ideas.

I focused on technical design rather than providing the game play designs that my customers valued.

When I first started out, I wrote down all these crazy game play ideas...but never tested them. I had all these thoughts and did not take actions towards prototyping them. When I wrote them down, I figured they would work. Many of the ideas did not work at all. Next time, I will come up with game play ideas and quickly prototype them soon after.

3) Focus on developing/prototyping the one thing that provides the most value to your audience.

As I mentioned before, I spent a lot of time on a solid technical design. However, that design proved useless when I made the game...as I had very poor game play. In fact, the game was not fun at all. Even with a solid technical design, a non-fun game will not offer much value to the customer.

Nowadays, I ask myself..."Why will the customer buy this product". For games, people buy them because they are *fun*. So...now I focus on prototyping ideas that provide "fun". (If I was making some kind of tool for developers, I would focus on creating a feature set that provides the most value first...then I would care about how to implement it.)

This seems to work much better. Focus on the one aspect that the customer values the most. Do not proceed until you get that down.

4) Failure to have realistic timelines

I enjoy working in teams. With many of my projects, my team loses faith in it...because they see delays/etc. that I know are normal. At one point, my artists quit the Jr. Doctor project. I told them it would be done in a few months, but it was 6-months after the fact...and we still didn't have a game. Luckily, one of the artists pulled an all-monther (one month of 20-22 hour days) to get the basics done.

After the game got released, the artists got back on board. After we started getting sales, the artists finally got into the whole game idea.

Still, I learned to avoid getting artists in on a project until you have a solid game play idea. That way, they (and you) know that you are making something that will sell...and the artists will feel confident that you are going to get things done (because you have some sort of decent prototype).

5) Fear of being decisive

When I started the game, I would be very vague with things because I didn't want to appear wrong (wrong to myself and wrong to my artists). So I would hesitate on decisions that needed to be made because I didn't want to take the wrong path. This fear -- like all fears you have -- will come true if you keep on thinking about it.

*Ask tons of questions about every aspect of the game and write down the answers; this one activity is the reason why I got the project done*

The one month that my artist and I spent working 20-22 hours each day....yielded more results than the 6 months previous (of course, those 6 months set up the groundwork). At that time, I knew that I had to make a huge amount of progress quickly or else my artist would quit. And then I would have severe challenges. So I started making decisions. I didn't care if they were right. I had a basic process and starting shooting from the hip. Sure some of them were wrong, but I was taking so much action that I would quickly correct them.

6) For every thought, take an action that generates feedback for the thought.

This goes with #5. Stop thinking and start doing. In the early stages of Jr. Doctor, I would have a game play idea and ask 100 people for their opinions/thoughts before I coded it; I also wrote down all these game play ideas and figured they would magically work.

When I was in "get this project done mode" for that one month...I came up with a set of ideas...asked a few folks...and coded it the same day. I then tested it on some children. At that point, I didn't care about getting it right. I needed to get it done. And done fast. Due to a big decision I made…I had to finish the project.

7) Believe in the project

If you have any doubt about the game/project, don't do it. You don't need a crystal clear road-map to finishing it. But you must believe in whatever the project is..and believe that it helps you towards your goals. Sure it's fine to have doubt, but don't let it linger. Doubt slows down your ability to take action. Look at #5....being indecisive comes from doubt....and that leads to bad things. If you have doubt and fear, figure out why you have it...and then work to take *actions* on the project that eliminate the doubt and fear.

Don't do a project you don't like...for the sake of some elusive market that will disappear by the time you release. I am guilty of doing this recently. The thing is...I did learn a lot from the project.

8) Work in a team

I would not have finished the game well had I not found some artists that handled a lot of the artwork well. I know of another indie that does not work in teams...and he keeps on working on a game. It takes him 10 times as long to do something because....when you don't have a team...you don't have the feedback from the other members (and the commitment to them)....that drives you to move forward.

9) The teams need to be in close physical proximity for the first stages of the project....

or else you'll get a lot of flakes. You will also lose out on a lot of communication that transcend words. For the project I recently finished...we had a very poor game play implementation. We only got it resolved when we met in person and brainstormed ideas. All of those hours on AIM didn't do the trick...it was *meeting in person* and talking about stuff...that finally led to ideas that improved the game.

10) Failure to read literature related to making games...

When I started out, I ignored reading the books relevant to making games; I failed to read up on critical ideas like game play.

I should have spent 100 bucks and bought books related to game development. The insight from those books would have cut down development time by 33%. Secondly, the insights would give me a better understanding of the game domain the challenges ahead.

Sure, I did play some games in my domain area...but they didn't help much.

For future projects, I now play with games/products in the specified niche...along with reading literature that would help me reach my goals more effectively (such as game design books, etc.)


Hope this helps,
Curiosoft

--
http://www.curiosoft.com
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http://www.ibeonlife.com

[rmxsteady]

I reckon that this one has been my biggest mistake.

I've been interested into getting into game development for ages, but I bought into the lie that says "games cannot be made by individuals and small teams anymore." I think that it was a favorite quote of Scott Miller or George Brousard. I'd seen a number of interviews where they made that comment.

It was quite obvious that modern retail games had assets that required NASA moon landing sized teams to do. I had a lateral thinking block that didn't let me see that indie games could indeed be created by small teams or individuals, and could also do quite well in a (different sort of) marketplace.

Now the blinders are off, and I've seen da light! ;)

amen to that.

i think my biggest mistake was not getting into programming sooner. yeah im still young but it seems like everyone who programs started doing so when they were like 12 [laughs]. in high school i was given the option to take an elective between web design or programming. being as how web design was sooo in, i opted for that. if i had chosen programming i'd probably be knee deep into developing games right now instead of always feeling like im just 'starting out.' oh well you live and you learn, mistakes are mistakes, the best thing you can do is learn from them.

*yay* first ever post.

[Mark Sheeky]

12 year olds make rubbish games. Starting older is not starting from behind.

Mark
Cornutopia Games
http://www.cornutopia.net

[EpicBoy]

The one month that my artist and I spent working 20-22 hours each day
I liked your post except for this. I'm betting that sort of pace is physically impossible...

And if you WERE working at that pace, I would wager you could have gotten the same amount of work done in half the time if you'd actually slept.

[arcadetown]

12 year olds make rubbish games. Starting older is not starting from behind.
Hey I was once a 12 year old making rubbish games so I resemble that remark :) Actually made a good game on Atari 800 that sold to publisher at 15. It may have caused an early burn out but 15 year later got back into it and definitely feel that early experience helped. Now that am 37 being much older and wiser... just scored 800k on Robotron 2 days ago at Gameworks so this old man's still got it!

[Scorpio]

Actually made a good game on Atari 800 that sold to publisher at 15. Hey, I got my start on the Atari 800 as well. When I was 15 I made a BASIC program called "Text Adventure Maker" and it got accepted to be published in an upcoming book of games from Antic (and the developers would share in the royalties).

The book later got cancelled and I'll I got was a t-shirt...but the course of history had been changed for me...I realized I could make money from developing games...and I've stuck withn it ever since. :)
-Scorpio

[GhostRik]

Hey, I got my start on the Atari 800 as well. When I was 15 I

I made money with games written for the Sinclair ZX81 a million years ago, but have, thus far, found the current market hard to crack. Things were simpler then. The only genre was Arcade!

So - back on topic - maybe my biggest mistake was not sticking with it (got interested in other things).

[ggambett]

12 year olds make rubbish games. Starting older is not starting from behind.
At 5 or 6 I made stuff that could vaguely be considered game attempts. At 12 I was making rubbish games (a complete, 1st person graphic adventure which I'm terribly proud of :D).

Of course these were crap. But that's not the point - years after years of being exposed to computers and programming in particular ends up giving you a deeeeeeeep understanding of how a computer works (especially since at 5 or 6 I had a ZX Spectrum, whose programming was FAR closer to the hardware than it is now). No university course gives you that almost innate empathy with a computer.

Starting older is starting from behind, experience-wise.

[rmxsteady]

Starting older is starting from behind, experience-wise.

i agree. that's why i feel this was my biggest mistake. since i opted to learn html rather than programming in high school i feel more comfortable with it. i can sit here with 'notepad' and 'ftp' and build some serious webpages with the aid of photoshop of course. but i think it'll be a long time before im ever comfortable with programming. ya know, without having hundreds of books of c++ programming surrounding my desk as i code. but it's ok. i know that if i was to have started sooner i probably wouldn't have gone through with it. i mean back then i felt like i had the attention span of a rock!

[Curiosoft]

I liked your post except for this. I'm betting that sort of pace is physically impossible...

And if you WERE working at that pace, I would wager you could have gotten the same amount of work done in half the time if you'd actually slept.


Actually...it was 3 weeks. It was almost impossible. Sure, I could have done things more effectively with next time. But I have a special mode called "Chaos" mode where I only think about one thing all the time. I find that after doing this for 2-3 weeks hard-core....things begin to flow and I can do things in three hours that would normally take 3-10 days (as long as the thing is related to the project).

Later,
Curiosoft

[gmcbay]

rmxsteady,

I clicked the link to what I assume is your blog and read bits and pieces. The reason Super Mario Brothers II was so weird compared to the others in the series is that it wasn't originally a Super Mario Brothers game. Nintendo took the Japanese game "Doki Doki Panic" (which had nothing to do with Mario) and replaced the sprites with Mario characters and released it as a Mario game here in the US.

[rmxsteady]

rmxsteady,

I clicked the link to what I assume is your blog and read bits and pieces. The reason Super Mario Brothers II was so weird compared to the others in the series is that it wasn't originally a Super Mario Brothers game. Nintendo took the Japanese game "Doki Doki Panic" (which had nothing to do with Mario) and replaced the sprites with Mario characters and released it as a Mario game here in the US.

ahh, i see. that would definitely explain it. i was wondering why it didn't relate to I or III. thanks for your insight on the subject.

[FlySim]

Starting older is starting from behind, experience-wise.
I also agree - got a late start myself. Did one class in undergrad - FORTRAN
on punched cards ( yea I'm old ). Didnt do much else with computers
till grad school. I do OK with the logic and algorythms but Im still not
great at bit twiddling. Oh well, having fun...

J.R.
www.flysim.com

[DavidRM]

Starting older is starting from behind, experience-wise.

Eh? Maybe this is a viewpoint of the young...like the 6th-grader who snubs the 3rd-grader who has a crush on him. "3 years younger? Ick. Much too young." That is, until you hit about 21, then 3 years doesn't seem such an uncrossable gulf. Then you step over the threshold into your 30's and find that even 5-10 years younger isn't too much. And so it goes on...

Anyway, by the time you've been developing a decade or more, a few years makes very little difference.

In this day of 80+ year lifespans, you can do the same thing for 20 years and then do something else...3 or more times if you want. Or you can just get damn good at one thing. Lots of options.

When you start makes no difference, so long as you *start*.

-David

[Bluecat]

Starting older is starting from behind, experience-wise.Nope. Don't agree at all.

Starting older is starting with a wealth of experience. Just because it isn't in developing software or developing games doesn't make it worth less than the experience of someone who starts when they are twelve. :)

cheers

[otaku]

Of course, part of this can be because Real Arcade didn't want to publish it, despite selling well in almost everywhere it is, because "it feels like work" :confused: :confused:

Same problem here, a publisher stated, and I quote, "When they come home from work they don't want to play this. It feels too much like their life or day job, trapped in a hopeless situation wandering around lost."

Excuse me? It's a freakin' 2D tomb exploration puzzle game! What part of their day job entails this?!?!

[moonpxi]

Same problem here, a publisher stated, and I quote, "When they come home from work they don't want to play this. It feels too much like their life or day job, trapped in a hopeless situation wandering around lost."

Excuse me? It's a freakin' 2D tomb exploration puzzle game! What part of their day job entails this?!?!

Oh my!!!! :D And I really wonder what this publisher would think of The Sims....

Well...my biggest mistake so far is, basically, not starting to do it earlier. And this is something I am quite ashamed. I guess I was a bit afraid to do it, and always thinking I didn't have the touch for it. Well....I might not have it after all, but I am sure that now, trying my best, I will find out sooner or later...

[Coyote]

Oh my!!!! And I really wonder what this publisher would think of The Sims....
Heh - probably as little as EA themselves thought of The Sims before they got cajoles, manipulated, and pretty much force-fed the chance to get rich.

[otaku]

Moonpxi, et al: I tend to agree with you with regard to starting late. I "officially" started this indie stuff after the 2003 Game Developers Conference. If you had asked me six months prior to that whether there was any money in doing it, I would have emphatically said "No way!" Here I am 18 months later putting everything on the line for the company. I'm scared each month by the amount of money it eats through just to get a product out there with a decent amount of marketing behind it. Don't feel bad about "starting late." It took a good while before I opened my eyes & mind to the possibility, having worked for large developers & publishers and getting very much set in the ways of big teams, big budgets, etc.

[Mark Fassett]

What kind of money are you spending that you're scared of it?

[otaku]

What kind of money are you spending that you're scared of it?

I'm not willing to get in to specific dollar amounts on a public forum, but three full-time staff, two part-timers, plus contracted work where necessary, plus software, desks, computers, servers, internet, phone, travel, etc doesn't come cheap. I am bank rolling the entire endeavour personally as I am treating it like a professional development company (but still thinking of it as an indie company, we just happen to have some money to pay wages that comes from a consulting gig). It's fun, and the amount spent doesn't keep me sleepless, but it's still pretty scary to make out the cheques each week in the hope that it'll pay out in the future.

[ggambett]

Let me clarify. I was talking about "starting early" or "starting late" to program computers, from a programming point of view. That, I started at 5 or 6.

As for developing games, it always had been my impossible dream given our geographical location, until late 2002 (I was almost 22 at that time), when a series of fortuitous events (including finding Dexterity) made me aware that my crazy lifetime dream could become real! So in that sense I started "late" as well. I don't know whether to call it a mistake - in any case, I wasn't aware it was an option.

About the costs of beginning : we made two games in 12 months with zero money and before seeing any money in return. We did it while doing other stuff (full or part time work, taking university courses, and teaching university courses). We all worked for free, agreeing to share royalties, if any. Yes, it's extremely unusual to find talented artists that way, but I had the luck of finding a good 2D artist, a good 3D artist, and a musician in my sister and a very good friend. I had (and still have) to wear all the other hats (designer, developer, marketer, PR, support, QA,...).

But the morale of the story is that you don't necesarily need to spend a "scary amount of money".

[arcadetown]

Hey, I got my start on the Atari 800 as well. When I was 15 I made a BASIC program called "Text Adventure Maker" and it got accepted to be published in an upcoming book of games from Antic
Sweet! Mine was Starfire Warrior published by Datasoft that wrote in 6502 assembler. Boy programming is a breeze these days in comparison. Sure wish would have kept a copy lying around to use with Atari emulators... too bad the only archives found around hold just cartridge games and no diskette games.
Of course, part of this can be because Real Arcade didn't want to publish it, despite selling well in almost everywhere it is, because "it feels like work"
Perhaps their work is not being Betty serving the drinks, but being the drunk at the end of the bar :D

[Mark Fassett]

but three full-time staff, two part-timers, plus contracted work where necessary, plus software, desks, computers, servers, internet, phone, travel, etc doesn't come cheap.

Alright - just wanted to know if it was more than the couple grand (not counting the savings I lived off of) I put into my game :) If you're paying wages - well then I believe feeling that it's scary is a fine thing.

[henning]

My biggest mistakes:

Underestimating how long it takes to do something.

Procrastinating too much and watching TV instead of programming.

Starting a project with a huge scope that in retrospect I could never have finished in any reasonable amount of time. (Coming straight out of university I definitely had rose-coloured glasses.)

Getting sidetracked by cool ideas to put into my program that weren't needed.

henning

[Sunshine]

:eek: Does it worry anyone that this thread is longer than ANY of the others?! :eek:

[ggambett]

:eek: Does it worry anyone that this thread is longer than ANY of the others?! :eek:
Not at all! There's a lot of very insightful comments here. Learning from your past mistakes is great, learning from other's past mistakes is even better.

[roygon]

Definately agree with ggambett - the best books are always the ones that say what went wrong whether it be a book on business, programming, indie development etc. I think that this thread has probably helped more people (consciously and subconsciously) than most of the other threads combined and that is saying a lot because these forums are a wealth of information.

"Learning from your past mistakes is great, learning from other's past mistakes is even better." is exactly right.