Ready To Start

[MibUK]

Hey all,

I'm currently a full time developer with a finance company, and am planning to start my own company and quit this job to work full time on my games by the 1st of August (Yay launch date!).

Anyway, apart from now hating my job, and not being able to wait until I actually start, I'm looking at our financial situation and working out how to best earn some money while I design and program my game.

Me and my wife have moved house, actually moved from a house to a room in a friends house to reduce our outgoings, we've also halved our food budget, and are now managing to just about live on my wifes income alone so that we can pay of some of my final student loans and prepare for me not earning anything.
Thats probably good advice to any others who are thinking of the smae thing. firstly, keep a track of your outgoings and work out what you actually spend money on. Then write a budget, and play with the numbers, see what the major things are and decide what your willing to cut money back on.

Anyway, we're financially going to be fine with me losing my income to work on my games full time, but we wont have a lot of spare money each month. So I wondered if anybody else is in this boat?

I remember reading an article by Steve Pavlina about how to survive as an indie software developer, and reading something like, "if you need money, try contracting for a bit, that will make you soon want to get up and finish your game".

I wondered what experience others have of trying to find contract work while writing their games, how one would go about getting the contracts. Or what other ideas people have.

I don't need a lot of money, but anything I can do that brings in a bit of money (about £200 a month would do) would just help a little, let us get out to the pub and stuff.

[berserker]

Don't quit your day job so soon. You may find out that earning £200 per month is not that easy for a newbie in this industry. Speaking of myself I was able to achive significant income only when I've released my second game. So aim at gaining maximum experience with your first game. This way your chances to hit it with your second game will increase.

[GREENhERMIT]

Don't quit your day job so soon. You may find out that earning £200 per month is not that easy for a newbie in this industry. Speaking of myself I was able to achive significant income only when I've released my second game. So aim at gaining maximum experience with your first game. This way your chances to hit it with your second game will increase.

Completely agree!! :eek:

I've release my game , and now I can't sell it.

I need more visitor on my site but now almost of my visitor come from this forum . . . . . :D

I need to find the right place to PR my game . . .

[princec]

There's no way I'd quit my job to write games. It's taken me over 3 years of hard slog so far and I've still not made enough money in total to even cover 1 month of ordinary living in the UK.

My advice to beginners these days is to use the day job for as long as feasibly possible to bootstrap your indie games business.

Cas :)

[Batley]

It sounds a bit unfair on your wife, she must be very understanding.

I think what you are doing is probably a bad idea. All i can see happening is that they'll be so much pressure on you to come up with the goods and so much pressure on her to work, well thats not exactly a good environment to work or live in.

I think you should either keep your job and program the game at the weekends or try going part-time first to see how you manage.

[Sysiphus]

cas, that's what I'm doing, and is not so good...at least if your job often gets 10 hours a day, 12 blocked...

I'd say, partime low income job, maybe better route. Like from lunch, free to do your indy project.

Heck, yup, if I had a wife she wouldn't have stayed around for long... 10 hours plus several more in my own stuff...

[princec]

svero also said in another thread - preferably a job that doesn't involve computers. When you spend all day coding... it's very hard to come home and do more of it.

I'd really quite like to become a motorcycle instructor.

Cas :)

[cliffski]

it can be done if your truly sad like me. I'd work 8 hours at Elixir/Lionhead, then come home and code for a good 3 hours.

[princec]

Funny you should say that but that's exactly what I do now too. It's crap though.

Cas :)

[MibUK]

Oh, two interesting points to raise.

Firstly, I am going to go self emplyoed. My wife and I decided that a while back, but it's taken a while to get to the point where it's possible to do.
The reason for that is that I really don't enjoy my job anymore. I just don't enjoy working for other people as a programmer. I want the freedom to make my own decisions, to use my time as I see fit, and the freedom even to make my own mistakes and starve as necessary.

Quitting my day job is not just about wanting to create games for a living, it's that if I don't do it soon, I'm literally going to go insane or get clinically depressed.

Ideally what I want to do is to write games, self publish and be able to make a living from that. But I have an enterpreunal spirit, and am looking at a number of other business oportunites, from setting up charities, to running an ISP. There are other opportunities out there, but I think that I need to focus as much as possible on doing games to actually get anything good out of it.

Anyway, my original point about starting my own business was that in the "Going Full Time" article by Steve Pavline (see I found the reference finally), he says

Take on consulting work on the side to make up for cash shortages. If you have even halfway decent computer skills, consulting work should be easy to get. Use your consulting revenue to supplement your income while you build your long-term business. I did consulting work myself for a while, and I hated it so much that it motivated me to make my business profitable very quickly.


What I wondered was did anybody here have any experience of doing this? I have a degree in computing (specialising in Games Development), three years of programming for touchscreen multimedia entertainment products, some experience programming two major current gen consoles and one next gen hand held, and my current job which is about six months programming experience. So I don't lack for any development experience. but short of contacting my previous employers, and I guess looking at some job agencies, I'm not sure that "consulting work should be easy to get" as a statement is necessarily true.

The other possiblity is to get a part time (2 days a week) manual job that requires no thought, as helpfully suggested by princec, and Svero in another thread. Probably Tesco or blockbuster or something like that. I'm certainly not averse to doing that.

Secondly, Batley,
I'm not sure I understand your point.
My wife and I are in agreement that I want to work for myself, from home ideally. We are able to live on my wifes income without any major problems.
We currently have no dependants, so we don't have any worries from that perspective.
I don't understand how this situation is any differant to the common situation of my wife quitting work to have children, something that most people would happily do. In both cases, there is a single person having to earn the money to support the other one. At least in my case I am possibly going to start to earn some money within the next 6 - 12 months, and that money will increase as I spend time on improving my games, working on the marketting and business side of things.

Ah well, I guess thats enough for now, although I have to say I'm suprised that so many of the response have been negative. I would have thought that most people here would have been more encouraging for anyone willing to step out and do the thing that most of us dream about, doing this full time, not as a hobby.

I figure that the risk is low (worst case, it doesn't work, and I have a year as Director of my own company on my CV, or have to declare bankrupt. am renting so no house to repossess so very little risk to me).
At middling, we earn a little money and I have to get contracting jobs on the side, also much better than the current situation of having to work for other people.
At best,I sell millions of copies, and am famous and rich for ever (well very unlikely, but I can dream).

Its better to reach for the stars and miss, than to never reach at all,

or as Henry Ford once said
"If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you can't".

[princec]

This isn't a negative response at all. This is what happens when you get a bunch of real people doing it for real and ask them their opinions!

There was a terrible tendency a few years back to evangelise the indie game development path as being an easy route to a comfortable life, and a lot of mindless optimism and mantra-chanting ("marketing! marketing! marketing! er... what is that again?") and people just sort of expected to succeed.

It's so totally unlike that.

You will be flat fucking broke for years. Really, really fucking broke. You won't even be able to afford your internet connection on the money you make from your first game, which will take you about 6 months to code. And so on.

If you can cope with that, or more specifically, if your wife can cope with that and earn loads of cash while you sit there and fail repeatedly, for fail you will for quite some time, then that's cool.

Cas :)

[Sharpfish]

You will be flat fucking broke for years. Really, really fucking broke. You won't even be able to afford your internet connection on the money you make from your first game, which will take you about 6 months to code. And so on.

If you can cope with that, or more specifically, if your wife can cope with that and earn loads of cash while you sit there and fail repeatedly, for fail you will for quite some time, then that's cool.


This should be posted on the entry page to indiegamer in bold letters. Then only the truly determined will enter. And though I haven't got a game released yet I can concur on all other points ;)

[mahlzeit]

Find a niche that has only crap software and write a better application for it. Sell it for $100 a piece, upgrades only free for a year, push site licenses. That's what I would do now if I was trying to make money from shareware. People pay more for applications than for games.

As for consulting, there are books and probably magazines about it. Ask your local chamber of commerce (or whatever government agency promotes business in your area) for information. Call local companies and ask if they need assistance. Offer to re-do their websites/free network check-up/whatever. Build a portfolio, get work through references. Befriend other local consultants and ask them to shove some work your way (if they are lucky enough to have to turn down work). Et cetera.

Or... learn how to play poker. ;)

[MibUK]

This isn't a negative response at all. This is what happens when you get a bunch of real people doing it for real and ask them their opinions!


OK, I agree, and I understand that I am likely to be broke for the next year. thats fine.

The only problem I have is that apparently, the majority of you aren't doing it full time.
I think theres a definate differance on this board, and in other writings by people who work on it full time versus people who work on their games in evenings and weekends.
The majority of people who work weekends and evenings seem to have difficulty finishing or selling their product.
the majority of people who work on it full time are also unsuccessfull, but they seem to have a certain something, an essence if you will, that their livelihoods depend on them succeeding, so they had better bloody get on and do it.

I've read an article where this was taken from, but I cant find it now, it was probably Matt Weston who blogged it, but i think it is very true.
Over the last 3 years I've tried a number of times to finalise my game, get it ready to be sold etc, and every time, things have come up that have made it too difficult to do on an amateur basis.
There is a certain freedom in knowing that my life, my business and my dinner will depend on getting it right and making it work.

I am not entering into this blindly. I have been reading indiegamer for the last year or so. I subscribe to Develop magazine, I keep up not only on the games industry, but I watch blogs like Seth Godin's, Matt Westons and so forth.
I'm aware of the "17 mistakes that startups make" (http://cpd.ogi.edu/mst/capstone/17Mistakes.htm) (Well worth reading)

This is a calculated decision to choose to go it alone, to strike out and take that chance while I am able to.

Yeh I guess that last section did sound a bit whiney now that I re-read it. I wasn't trying to sound petulant, I was honestly suprised at the reaction that I got.

[princec]

No, I didn't think you sounded petulant at all! I just worried you were about to make the same mistake I almost made 3 years ago.

3 years on and I've just made enough money to pay for 1 month's mortgage.

Cas :)

[cliffski]

you may find that most of the people you want to hear from dont post as often as everyone else. You would do better talking to thomas warfield and his ilk. Indiegamer is (Im guessing) 95% part timers. I'm full time, but have only been so for 7 months, and I worked for contract for the first two. Of course, the flipside is that the fulltimers are busier than the rest so its hard to get them to comment!

Dont discount the possibility of working as IT tech support. 90% of programmers know more computer tech than 99% of ordinary people. There are always local firms employing a dozen or so people who cant afford a full time tech support guy. Often they buy very expensive 'service contracts' just for the occasional bit of help. Thats a lucrative and easy market if you know how to sell yourself a bit.

[terenctb]

I recently left my job (which was as a Producer in a game company) to go into developing titles for the casual space. I am finding it tougher then I would imagine especially since alot of the funding will have to come personally from you AND finding good people willing to work on your title is hard. My advice is to:

a) Put away enough to survive for about a year without any income.
b) Put away enough to fund at least 2 titles. The way the casual/indie market is going, a title takes about 6 months to develop already. You may get NO revenue from those products to begin with. Revenue may only come after your 2nd or 3rd title.
c) Cost of developing for the casual market is rising. My friend estimates about USD 60,000 is now on the low-end of development. He's been doing it for almost 2 years now, 2 titles out but still supplementing himself with incoming teaching and from his wife working full time. He hasn't made any money out of it yet. Production quality on these games are getting very high now, so increase in costs are due to additional artwork, features and/or music needed to 'compete'.
d) Get a non computer related side job. Teaching a few hours seems double but try to not make it game related
e) Hug your wife alot because any women willing to put up with our stupid idea of being an indie game developer is amazing.
f) Be prepared to do everything (from programming, game design to even art). Take art lessons if you can.
g) Network to find people, so you can email them, talk to them and ask their advice. Most of people here are pretty friendly..hmmm..actually i only emailed one...and I have already abused him with playtesting my incomplete game...talking about how to mistreat friends.:)
h) DONT build an engine or toolkit..Use Pop-Caps or any other..I built my own cause I was stupid and wanted to re-discover my technical roots. It isn't as fun as I initially imagined.
i) Be prepared to give up things you did socially when you worked full time like watching movies, eating out, having expensive hair cuts, buying branded clothes, going to the gym, buying new games, having a car, going to the pub(unless you have very good friends)
j) Be prepared for downturns, loss of motivation, and revelations like 'wtf am I doing?'

Nuff said,

I'm going to go sit in the corner and sob now.

[puggy]

Think carefully about what types of games your going to make.

Most people here are on the casual side of things but the casual market is getting a bit crowded, esp with real and other simalar portals make there own casual games and promote them quite a bit.

If i was going to suggest any sort of game make it an online game (non mmorpg, there's too many). Not only is it more stable income wise but it seems to be the way the game market is starting to head towards. There are downfalls though, you need a good comunication system, a server which costs money, more time (client/server = more dev work) and you need to be continually developing the game, not to mention communicating with your players.

Also you need to do something your interested in or else your game won't be good and you need to set out a proper structure of work with decent break times.

If you do go down the path of an online game, keep in touch with me as i could help you out and give you advice on running an online game. It's not for everyone but it's a good avenue to go down (and if you want a game idea pm me, there's a game i want to make but don't have time too)

[GREENhERMIT]

I recently left my job (which was as a Producer in a game company) to go into developing titles for the casual space. I am finding it tougher then I would imagine especially since alot of the funding will have to come personally from you AND finding good people willing to work on your title is hard. My advice is to:

a) Put away enough to survive for about a year without any income.
b) Put away enough to fund at least 2 titles. The way the casual/indie market is going, a title takes about 6 months to develop already. You may get NO revenue from those products to begin with. Revenue may only come after your 2nd or 3rd title.
c) Cost of developing for the casual market is rising. My friend estimates about USD 60,000 is now on the low-end of development. He's been doing it for almost 2 years now, 2 titles out but still supplementing himself with incoming teaching and from his wife working full time. He hasn't made any money out of it yet. Production quality on these games are getting very high now, so increase in costs are due to additional artwork, features and/or music needed to 'compete'.
d) Get a non computer related side job. Teaching a few hours seems double but try to not make it game related
e) Hug your wife alot because any women willing to put up with our stupid idea of being an indie game developer is amazing.
f) Be prepared to do everything (from programming, game design to even art). Take art lessons if you can.
g) Network to find people, so you can email them, talk to them and ask their advice. Most of people here are pretty friendly..hmmm..actually i only emailed one...and I have already abused him with playtesting my incomplete game...talking about how to mistreat friends.:)
h) DONT build an engine or toolkit..Use Pop-Caps or any other..I built my own cause I was stupid and wanted to re-discover my technical roots. It isn't as fun as I initially imagined.
i) Be prepared to give up things you did socially when you worked full time like watching movies, eating out, having expensive hair cuts, buying branded clothes, going to the gym, buying new games, having a car, going to the pub(unless you have very good friends)
j) Be prepared for downturns, loss of motivation, and revelations like 'wtf am I doing?'

Nuff said,

I'm going to go sit in the corner and sob now.

WOW!! Great advice for newbie like me.

Thank you.

[Pluvious]

Think carefully about what types of games your going to make.

Most people here are on the casual side of things but the casual market is getting a bit crowded, esp with real and other simalar portals make there own casual games and promote them quite a bit.

If i was going to suggest any sort of game make it an online game (non mmorpg, there's too many). Not only is it more stable income wise but it seems to be the way the game market is starting to head towards. There are downfalls though, you need a good comunication system, a server which costs money, more time (client/server = more dev work) and you need to be continually developing the game, not to mention communicating with your players.

Also you need to do something your interested in or else your game won't be good and you need to set out a proper structure of work with decent break times.

If you do go down the path of an online game, keep in touch with me as i could help you out and give you advice on running an online game. It's not for everyone but it's a good avenue to go down (and if you want a game idea pm me, there's a game i want to make but don't have time too)


I tend to agree with you. It seems to me indies have an advantage with niche online games, as they can spend the necessary time on them without having to have a huge team involved. The larger mmorpg types the big developers are heavy into but smaller niche web games should be able to make indies some consistent revenue with subscriptions or a variety of other options with a relatively small player base (compared to the larger games).

But that is all speculation of course since I haven't done it yet. But that's what I'm trying to do. Any information you have Puggy would be helpful as far as player base, potential income, problems you have encountered, or whatever. I find all of that very interesting.

[Sakura Games]

I remember reading an article by Steve Pavlina about how to survive as an indie software developer, and reading something like, "if you need money, try contracting for a bit, that will make you soon want to get up and finish your game".

If you want to TRY to survive in the indie business in YEAR 2006 (not 1999) forget about those articles. They talk like if you finish your FIRST GAME = HOP you're done.
I know some devs who finished their 5th game and still can't live with their income. If all you believe are those articles, get ready to a big reality shock :D

[Sharpfish]

Well through circumstance and "luck" I am currently able to work on my games full time (i.e I'm not employed elsewhere) while living for "free". Because I don't have to pay anything except for food at the moment (which my fiancee' covers - and yes she is amazing for doing it) it means I can get a lot of stuff done without the worry of where the money is coming from.

However, it's not all great. As has been mentioned above, I fully accept that the chances of making good money (or even ROI) are slim these days and I know that realistically I will have to get back into other employment before this year is out. Even if it's a part time job to start with.

When I have 3 games out is when I can consider my project finished, my task if you will. If I am not making any money by game 3 then I will have wages from elsewhere to fall back on while I make game four. Importantly I won't give up until many games after that if forced to. Even if I have to go back to working on them in my spare time.

As for gametype I truly believe that casual games are not going to work for me. Due to their rising polish levels I could find myself (as a one man outfit with occasional help from my partner) spending half of my time attempting to reach a level of polish that other teams can "pay for" by hiring the right people. Which would result in a game that took twice as long to develop than is really acceptable to me, while also being left with a casual game that is somewhat portal dependent. I may give a "typical casual game" a shot in the future as a litmus test but already you can see it's not where my passion lies. I don't mean I want to make purely hardcore games but the stuff I will make, even if casual, will probably not be what portals are used to accepting. Direct sales will be my main target. Additional income (on top of a regular job after this year) will be my goal.

Of course if you can guarantee your game is going to be polished and not take forever then go for it. Funpause is a good example of doing well from casual games, but be prepared to throw creativity and innovation out of the window, suffer backlashes towards your "cloning" habbits and accept that your future is not really in your hands when trends change. Other one man teams have done OK (I think) from casual games like Raptisoft, but POPCAP were involved at later stages too. You have to be pretty smart/lucky/clever to get popcap involved with your game which will be the exeption rather than the rule.

So "being yourself" appears to be the new mantra for indiegame development. Pavlina talked a lot of positive stuff but I also think a lot of his words are out of date and it could be dangerous to take them too literally these days.

A lot of devs finish one game (if that) and base their decisions on it's success (carry on/quit). I think three games is a better "test" of if it's viable these days which is why I won't really take full stock of the situation until the third title. If I study things too closely for the first year or so I may end up not liking what I see! ;)

Development issues: It will take a lot longer than you initially plan to make a game that has certain standards expected today, especially if you are not making a cookie cutter game and/or you are attempting to polish to "pro" levels. So start simple! I started off far too eager and went straight to a title that would probably take 2 Years to finish.Then I downgraded to a year project (of course, just estimated), and not so long ago switched over to a very quick project (by my standards) that should be done within 4 months. It is far more basic and far more casual than the niche projects I will be working on as time progresses. Though it is casual, it is not a typical casual game, which is important to me for my own pride but I accept it will probably not make the kind of money typical casual games make. This doesn't stop you believing and striving however. Just be realstic so you are not dissapointed. If I got 5 sales a month from my first game I would be happy all things considered!

[princec]

I'm on my 5th game now and still not making enough cash to support myself on a shoestring, let alone my wife and Chaz. Granted they're not all particularly "normal" games but in 1999 when Pavlina ruled the roost I'd probably be pretty loaded by now if I'd released them back then. Times changed. New plan required.

Cas :)

[terenctb]

I agree that choosing the correct game is key to everything...Although I have taking the alternate route of developing a fairly simple match-3 game(because I started it and i'll be damned if i don't finish it), If you do choose a game do it with

a) Building of a community (An Online or community based game)
b) Finding a niche. Perhaps board war gamers? Magic the Gathering type card gamers?
c) Retro or arcade type games perhaps

It's hard when you know that there are people out there who want to play your products but don't have a way to reach them. Games in the online MMO webspace also seem to be doing well.

[princec]

No, no, no! The correct game has nothing whatsoever to do with it! At all! There is no correct game!

There is only one factor for success on the Internet and that is traffic and you only get traffic by providing lots of regular new unique content and this is why we're all a bit fucked these days, because developing games takes so long we can't generally produce enough of them to satisfy that criterion.

I predict my own continued total failure until I've got at least 10 good games on Puppygames and at the rate I can develop them that's another 5 years down the line at least. Can the OP cope with 8 years in poverty in the UK? Can the OP's wife cope with 8 years of manly failure?

Cas :)

[Applewood]

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, why not just start a proper company ?

Get some contracts in, do them well and you'll make a boatload of money even without royalty deals. Once you've enough to afford another guy, get him doing the ports whilst you work on your own stuff.

You won't get jack shit working from home - it's an urban myth by and large. Only people with seriously good CV's will be trusted to do this. However, as soon as you have a proper office, other companies take you a lot more seriously.

I still don't get why "going indie" means starving yourself. Do it slowly, make money for yourself out of commerical work, instead of your boss, and life will feel a whole lot rosier right there. Once you get your money, you can then be truly indie and go lose it again :)

[puggy]

I tend to agree with you. It seems to me indies have an advantage with niche online games, as they can spend the necessary time on them without having to have a huge team involved. The larger mmorpg types the big developers are heavy into but smaller niche web games should be able to make indies some consistent revenue with subscriptions or a variety of other options with a relatively small player base (compared to the larger games).

But that is all speculation of course since I haven't done it yet. But that's what I'm trying to do. Any information you have Puggy would be helpful as far as player base, potential income, problems you have encountered, or whatever. I find all of that very interesting.
At the minute i have about 100 subscribers ($10 per month each). 4 server's, one main server for the login and website, win2k3 ($89 per month), 1 p4 3.0 ht 1 gig mem win 2k3 ($130/m), 1 p4 3.0ht 2 gig mem win2k3 ($165/m) and one mail/dns/personal sites linux server ($30/m). The 1 gig mem server will probably need a memory upgrade soon.

Some of the main problems are:
server's going down when your sleeping so players get upset
keeping the community at peace with each other
getting time to play your game
developing new stuff that keeps players happy
trying not to get bombarded with questions suggestions etc etc when you are online ingame.

The game could do a lot better as i havn't really pushed on the marketing front (a few adverts on some small games sites). In fact gameorge has our game listed and we get quite a few people looking from there without paying a dime. I do have a freeplay server and client (client has ads but not really making anything off them atm) which has quite a few players who don't subscribe. I'm working on a few marketing bits atm (a build in affiliate system, external newsletter, forum sig graphics for users to show there game stats on other peoples forums). I also have 3 mpog sites which i keep meaning to get round on doing (regestered the domains back in august), 1 for fan site hosting, 1 for mag gamers (backend done, just getting all the data input is putting me off) and 1 for developers.

One thing i'm seriously thinking about is doing a MMO magazine, first edition would probably be me doing everything, but i'd be giving it away for free with adverts to support it, with the first main advert being my own game of course.

But the fact that the income is realtivly stable means it's a good option, and with decent promotion of the game it could be a steady increase.

(ps - if i ever get the pr side sorted, i may provide MMO publishing which would make it easier for dev's)

[dmikesell]

c) Cost of developing for the casual market is rising. My friend estimates about USD 60,000 is now on the low-end of development.

WHAT? Please show me a line item budget for that outrageous figure.

[svero]

There's no way I'd quit my job to write games. It's taken me over 3 years of hard slog so far and I've still not made enough money in total to even cover 1 month of ordinary living in the UK.

Yeah but not eveyone lives the life of skyboxes, high priced escorts, and caviar that you do.

[princec]

Bah, I live on meusli and potter to work on a motorbike. Charlotte on the other hand... ;)

Cas :)

[princec]

WHAT? Please show me a line item budget for that outrageous figure.
Well, if it takes 6 months to develop, and that's basically full time for an artist and a programmer, that's 12 months' salary right there.

Cas :)

[dmikesell]

Well, if it takes 6 months to develop, and that's basically full time for an artist and a programmer, that's 12 months' salary right there.


Are starting indies really hiring fulltime staff?

[Sakura Games]

I think he meant that if you work 6 months on a game FULL time, you SHOULD earn a salary to live :D

(unless you do it as hobby or you live with your parents)

[MibUK]

But thats assuming a $60k (£30k) a year salary.Any indie who starts out and needs that kind fo moeny to survive has a problem.

We reckon that given our budgeting I can survive for a year with no salary.
It would be nice to get up to being paid at least £200 a month, which is £2.4k salary.
To be honest for the first 6 months I wont earn anyhting, but the business has no costs either.
Once the first game is out, theres increased hosting costs, but hopefully I cna manage it so it costs me less than I make a month to host, so theres profit coming in.
That money will probably all be taken up on being reinvested into the company, not going to me at all.
Once I have two or three games starting to make a profit, thats when moeny starts coming to me, and I can give up the part time menial job that I'll probbaly need by then to make up my menial salary.


Anyway, it's BBQ weather here, and my wife is cooking (she's candian so gets the BBQ out twice a week in this weather, and always cooks).

Have a great one guys, and glad to see theres a lot more optimism now.
Anyone else planning to try this, my advice, get prepared.

[dmikesell]

I think he meant that if you work 6 months on a game FULL time, you SHOULD earn a salary to live :D

(unless you do it as hobby or you live with your parents)

Or do it like most people here do it - work a day job and develop games nights and weekends.

[Pluvious]

At the minute i have about 100 subscribers ($10 per month each). 4 server's, one main server for the login and website, win2k3 ($89 per month), 1 p4 3.0 ht 1 gig mem win 2k3 ($130/m), 1 p4 3.0ht 2 gig mem win2k3 ($165/m) and one mail/dns/personal sites linux server ($30/m). The 1 gig mem server will probably need a memory upgrade soon.

Some of the main problems are:
server's going down when your sleeping so players get upset
keeping the community at peace with each other
getting time to play your game
developing new stuff that keeps players happy
trying not to get bombarded with questions suggestions etc etc when you are online ingame.

The game could do a lot better as i havn't really pushed on the marketing front (a few adverts on some small games sites). In fact gameorge has our game listed and we get quite a few people looking from there without paying a dime. I do have a freeplay server and client (client has ads but not really making anything off them atm) which has quite a few players who don't subscribe. I'm working on a few marketing bits atm (a build in affiliate system, external newsletter, forum sig graphics for users to show there game stats on other peoples forums). I also have 3 mpog sites which i keep meaning to get round on doing (regestered the domains back in august), 1 for fan site hosting, 1 for mag gamers (backend done, just getting all the data input is putting me off) and 1 for developers.

One thing i'm seriously thinking about is doing a MMO magazine, first edition would probably be me doing everything, but i'd be giving it away for free with adverts to support it, with the first main advert being my own game of course.

But the fact that the income is realtivly stable means it's a good option, and with decent promotion of the game it could be a steady increase.

(ps - if i ever get the pr side sorted, i may provide MMO publishing which would make it easier for dev's)


:D Thanks for the info. That's funny with the mmo magazine. I was thinking (as I read your post) that there should be a magazine that discusses only online games...it being such a huge market and only going to get better. I'm sure there is something out there but I havn't looked much yet.

Have you considered other ways to make money with the free play server people? Maybe paying a 1-time fee for some content or something? Just wondering.

My idea for my game is to pay a "campaign fee" instead of a monthly fee. You pay say $10 and this gets you into one campaign (a map with wars, building kingdom, etc) and once it is over you can start another campaign if you like (can last a few months or so...maybe less). And all the campaigns are part of your "Immortal Kingdom". Anyway, a bit different than the monthly thing, so people don't feel forced to pay every month just to survive. But not as steady of income. Kind of in between.

And Starpeace looks very complex and interesting. I've looked at the website before (although I'm more into battle than economy myself). I think awhile back I wasn't able to click on any of the links. One thing I might suggest with the website (if you don't mind) is putting some of that nice screenshot art to better use on the main page. I think with a pay to play game you should dress up the main page a bit better so it doesn't look quite as "web-gamemy". Its a tidy main page but doesn't really catch the eye as a game site.

[Pluvious]

No, no, no! The correct game has nothing whatsoever to do with it! At all! There is no correct game!

There is only one factor for success on the Internet and that is traffic and you only get traffic by providing lots of regular new unique content and this is why we're all a bit fucked these days, because developing games takes so long we can't generally produce enough of them to satisfy that criterion.

I predict my own continued total failure until I've got at least 10 good games on Puppygames and at the rate I can develop them that's another 5 years down the line at least. Can the OP cope with 8 years in poverty in the UK? Can the OP's wife cope with 8 years of manly failure?

Cas :)

Yeah, but if you develop an online game based on a solid niche than you will be providing new content and developing a community and thus creating traffic. And less traffic is needed for an online game that is financed by subscription fees.

Anyway, it sucks that you have made several great games and aren't well off. Something about that isn't right. Well, maybe it makes you (us) keep trying even harder to make it happen...:cool:

[mahlzeit]

Maybe some of the information from Steve Pavlina's articles is outdated by now and no doubt it has become harder to sell games online, but there's something about the Pavlina "method" that most people seem to miss: after finishing his game (Dweep), Steve spent the next 6 months doing nothing but marketing. And then it took another several months to turn his initial tiny earnings into something comfortable. (Data gathered from things Steve has said in public. In the ASP newsletter archives you'll find actual dollar figures, but you have to be an ASP member to read those.)

I am under the impression that most indie developers don't do any marketing at all or at least the minimum. Imagine how much promotion you can do when you do it full-time for 6 months. Quite a bit. Have any of you done anything remotely like that or did you stop after the press release? I know that most developers are in it for the developing and not the marketing, but you can't expect to sell anything if no one knows how to find your products. The internet is a big place.

[Sakura Games]

Imagine how much promotion you can do when you do it full-time for 6 months. Quite a bit. Have any of you done anything remotely like that or did you stop after the press release?
What else there is to do beside PR, submitting to sites? concrete examples please... ;)

[princec]

But thats assuming a $60k (£30k) a year salary.Any indie who starts out and needs that kind fo moeny to survive has a problem.

We reckon that given our budgeting I can survive for a year with no salary.
It would be nice to get up to being paid at least £200 a month, which is £2.4k salary.
To be honest for the first 6 months I wont earn anyhting, but the business has no costs either.
Once the first game is out, theres increased hosting costs, but hopefully I cna manage it so it costs me less than I make a month to host, so theres profit coming in.
That money will probably all be taken up on being reinvested into the company, not going to me at all.
Once I have two or three games starting to make a profit, thats when moeny starts coming to me, and I can give up the part time menial job that I'll probbaly need by then to make up my menial salary.

This might, of course, take you 5 times longer than either of you expect, and that's where the trouble is. You've got enough money for 1 year - what if it took you 5 years?

At this point someone might chime in and say, look at Funpause, etc, who write games for portals and earn a steadier wage. But I bet your idea of being an independent game developer involved writing the games you wanted to write rather than, effectively, just working for a different Man writing the games he wants you to write.

Cas :)

[cliffski]

What else there is to do beside PR, submitting to sites? concrete examples please... ;)

its very very hard to explain, because it varies depending on the product. but if this is the only marketing you do, you won't sell many copies at all.

[princec]

This is the Big Secret that to be honest after 3 years I'm still completely clueless about. "Marketing" these days appears to mean "p1mp your game so that it looks like BigFish made it and let them sell it for you".

The only concrete examples I've seen beyond submission to download sites and getting reviews in the various places around is some developers pay for advertising banners on websites but the rates that sites appear to be charging for this is outrageous compared to the amount of traffic they drive. Hence for example I've not done any advertising yet, I'm just relying on the cheapass but sure method of releasing new content as frequently as I'm able to and letting gravity take care of it. Slow, slow, slow.

Pavlina reckons he spent 6 months "marketing" Dweep. Back when he wrote Dweep teh intarweb was a total novelty to most people and anybody with anything remotely interesting to p1mp would get lapped up by hungry geeks. The world has changed. It's just not like that any more. Release Dweep today and it'd vanish into a sea of dross, along with Dexterity.

<edit>Ah, I'd just like to add that affiliates is another way of selling games, and that can earn you a few bucks. Literally. The sum total of all the earnings from my affiliates, who earn a 50% commission so it's a bloody good deal for very little effort, is less than 5% of my risible puppygames.net direct sales. Affiliation generally is a complete waste of time, I'd say.

Cas :)

[puggy]

:D Thanks for the info. That's funny with the mmo magazine. I was thinking (as I read your post) that there should be a magazine that discusses only online games...it being such a huge market and only going to get better. I'm sure there is something out there but I havn't looked much yet.

Have you considered other ways to make money with the free play server people? Maybe paying a 1-time fee for some content or something? Just wondering.

My idea for my game is to pay a "campaign fee" instead of a monthly fee. You pay say $10 and this gets you into one campaign (a map with wars, building kingdom, etc) and once it is over you can start another campaign if you like (can last a few months or so...maybe less). And all the campaigns are part of your "Immortal Kingdom". Anyway, a bit different than the monthly thing, so people don't feel forced to pay every month just to survive. But not as steady of income. Kind of in between.

And Starpeace looks very complex and interesting. I've looked at the website before (although I'm more into battle than economy myself). I think awhile back I wasn't able to click on any of the links. One thing I might suggest with the website (if you don't mind) is putting some of that nice screenshot art to better use on the main page. I think with a pay to play game you should dress up the main page a bit better so it doesn't look quite as "web-gamemy". Its a tidy main page but doesn't really catch the eye as a game site.
I havn't seen any MMO magazines avaible now. When i got the domain i was intending to make a mpogd type site, with a magazine. Then in january there was an announcement of a new mag "massive" which would be dedicated to mmo's which is planned to be released in october i think (same people from CGM). I suspect there realy only be dealing with the bigger games though, where as i would rather be dealing with the smaller, less known ones which would be of more interest to people (you know about WOW so why tell you about it, you might not of heard about ballerium though). I'm hopeing to spend a week (thats 12 hours a day for 7 days) soon on the mag to get as much done as possible, i've already got 1 review done which wil also be on the main site review section. It will mainly be 3 client/server based (2 page) reviews and 6 browser based (1 page) reviews. I also hope to have a section on developing mmo's, game files lists, letters section (from the second edition), interviews with developers etc etc.

For the free server i do intend to sell adverts on it once the game becomes better known, as well as using it to promote my own sites. At the minute it's just some adverts (CJ ones which i should really log in and add more of to see if i can make some money) and some banner exchanges. Selling extra content would be quite hard the way the whole game is set out at the minute, though not impossible, but i'd rather have one world completly free and at some point make money from ads, then have multiple worlds where people pay for.

For the website, the menu use to used some code that was IE only, i had made an alternative menu fornon IE users, but recently i changed the whole menu (still some IE only bits in it but it works for other browsers, IE users get a partly transparrent menu so you can see the background :D). adding some new stuff to the site. One major thing i want to get ddone (but will take a while as i can't do 3d models) is to make a 3d viewer and redo the whole 2d images from the 3d models (so you interact with 2d which is the easiest way to do it) but you can walk around the world in 3d. When thats all done and ready i'll be giving the whole site a makeover to reflect the new stuff. But i may do some enhancements now and again on some sections like the front page.

[mahlzeit]

The world has changed. It's just not like that any more. Release Dweep today and it'd vanish into a sea of dross, along with Dexterity.
Is this what you think will happen, or did you actually try it? You might be right, of course. But unless you try it, it's just another opinion.

You also make it sound like Dweep is a crappy game and the only reason people bought it was because they were desperate for games, even crappy ones. But Dweep is actually a very good game. The only thing that is outdated about it are the graphics. Most indie logic puzzlers don't even come close to the quality of its level designs. So in my opinion, you can release a game like Dweep today and make money, because it's good enough to stand out from the sea of dross. But only if you let people find it. ;)

[mahlzeit]

What else there is to do beside PR, submitting to sites? concrete examples please... ;)
I have never marketed a game before, so I'm a little short on concrete examples. But think about this: the world is a lot bigger than just the internet. In another thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpost.php?p=93187&postcount=27), arcadetown says you have to try all sorts of angles. There are plenty of books that explore these angles: Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Abraham, etc. Read these books and try to apply the advice to your products. Note that "6 months of full-time marketing" doesn't mean that everything you do will be effective, but you do have to try all the angles to see which ones work. There is no magic bullet, just a lot of hard work and creativity.

There is this saying that goes around in the ASP newsgroups: if you do 3 pieces of promotion every day, and each of these results in just one sale in the next year, then effectively you'll be making an average of 3 sales per day.

[princec]

Yes, that is what I think will happen, but fortunately it's backed up by plenty of anecdotal evidence from many of the other indie developers out there :) Dweep's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but attempt to release it today and it's got to compete with 100x more products, and just like everyone else's products, it'll probably receive very little attention unless it wound up on a portal. In which case Dexterity would have gotten nowhere as he'd still have no traffic. Etc.

A very interesting question to ask is: if Dexterity started up tomorrow and released Dweep, what do you think will happen and what do you think his response would have been? Do you even think he'd start up Dexterity and write Dweep in today's market?

Cas :)

[mahlzeit]

Do you even think he'd start up Dexterity and write Dweep in today's market?
Dweep is definitely not a casual game, so there is little chance it would end up on a portal, unless there is a portal that expands its range to intellectual puzzles. Dweep's niche is tough logic games, like Zen Puzzle Garden and -- I suppose -- DROD. And that has always been a niche, even in 1998. I don't know how large that niche is these days and how well it is served, but I see no reason why there wouldn't be room for another good game. (But that's probably what you were thinking about your genre too. :))

No doubt it's more work than 5 years ago when there was still low-hanging fruit. And who knows, maybe Steve just got lucky. But my money is on the fact that he did all that marketing while everyone else didn't/doesn't.

[princec]

"All the marketing" being, it would seem, not much more than most of the rest of us do these days. Submissions to download sites, reviews, the odd advert, wave a copy under the nose of the occasional random person of influence.

Fact is, Steve did get lucky - he was in the right place at the right time. It's not like that any more. This is no longer a new market, it's a maturing one, and there's no chance of pulling off a Dexterity now.

If I were to start a games business now, without the legacy of Puppygames, I'd probably either get a site together of hundreds of little Flash games, or develop a single, large, dynamic multiplayer community game which I could nurture for years. The other markets - the standard "downloadable games" markets - are very tightly controlled by the portals and a general lack of interest from the consumers and press at large. In other words they have matured and it takes ages and ages and ages to penetrate them successfully, and this is what the OP's got to know.

Cas :)

[Savant]

I think the chasm between marketing and what most indies think of as marketing is that there is this belief that with search engines and adwords, the world will find you. Just throw your pebble into the internet pond and the masses will find you as search engines spider your site.

Steve, I believe, is advocating a much more proactive role than that. If you need specific examples of things to do, then start reading Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.com/sg/)'s blog (and read his books) or Hugh Macleod's (http://www.gapingvoid.com) blog, or anyone really who specialies in the current age of marketing. I know indies tend to bristle at the thought of marketing but if you don't get involved, the sales aren't going to happen.

And fair warning: Seth and Hugh won't give you specific things to do. You won't walk away with a checklist of people to call and email addresses to write to. What you WILL get is a new mindset and a new way of thinking about things and how your product is seen by the world.

I posted this before but this speech is a good starting point for Seth's work: Seth at Google (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294&q=seth+godin+google)

Also, read the interview I did with Tom Cain: Marketing (http://1goodgame.com/blog/developer-interviews/tom-cain-on-marketing/)

Success isn't a spectator sport.

[pmav]

At the minute i have about 100 subscribers ($10 per month each). 4 server's, one main server for the login and website, win2k3 ($89 per month), 1 p4 3.0 ht 1 gig mem win 2k3 ($130/m), 1 p4 3.0ht 2 gig mem win2k3 ($165/m) and one mail/dns/personal sites linux server ($30/m). The 1 gig mem server will probably need a memory upgrade soon.


Can you tell us how many subscribers did you have in the first year, and how many the following years? 100 subscribers sound very good, but I want to see how much time does it take to bootstrap a small community around such a game.

[Chris Evans]

What else there is to do beside PR, submitting to sites? concrete examples please... ;)

Banner Ads, Google Adwords, sponsor contests, run contests, participate in relevant forums, create a web game, write tech articles, have a dev diary, get on magazine cover discs, give a free copies to popular blog authors, create a MySpace account, contact your local newspapers, keep updating your game, and so on.

There's plenty of stuff to try, you just have to be creative and actually spend some real time brainstorming ideas. Last December/January, I recently spent about 2 months thinking about various marketing methods and opportunities. I have a list of things I want to try and now I'm just waiting for me to create a game that's worthy of giving a strong marketing push. Good/Great games are a lot easier to promote.

But I get the feeling that a lot of people here really do just give up after doing one PR and submitting to download sites. A few may dip their toes into Adwords but that's about it.

Steve P's articles aren't that outdated (I know, I read them again recently just to make sure). If you just focus solely on the literal examples instead of the overall message, then sure it may seem outdated. But he wasn't simply saying to spend 6 months doing PRs and submitting to download sites, he said spend 3-6 months marketing. Yes, marketing in 1999-2001 is different than marketing in 2004-2006. But there's still marketing opportunities to be found if you just sit down and actually dedicate some real time to it. (ie. not just a couple of days after release) I barely spent 2 months brainstorming ideas and I have a whole list of things to try. Who knows, maybe most of them will give little to no results, but it just takes one break to strike fire. If you keep trying different things you'll give yourself better chance to find (or stumble upon) success.

I think the real problem here is that a lot of people here are programmers and have little desire to be business men. You just want to create games or you want a clear logical path to generate sales. Create Game + Submit PR + Submit to Sites + Get Reviewed = 150-300 monthly sales

The problem is you can't rely on one clear logical paths for sales because it's ever changing. What works one year may not work 2-3 years from now. I think it's great that we share information here. It's a huge benefit to know that you should do a PR and submit to sites when you're starting out. But at the same time I think this sharing of information has made some of us lazy. After we've tried all the marketing techniques listed on Indiegamer, we simply don't know what to do. If we haven't gotten any significant sales, we just assume marketing is a waste of time or impossible to do in the current climate.

If you notice this is why some of the old successful guys don't divulge a lot of literal details about their marketing or other successful techniques. We assume it's because they don't want to share their "secrets", which is partly it. But it's also because people tend to latch on to literal examples without thinking for themselves. "Whoa! uses 'retro games' as a keyword for Adwords! I'll try that..." Next day... "My sales didn't go up! Adwords is useless! Keyword advertising sucks for Indie games!" Several years later... "No one makes money with keyword advertising like the good old days. Marketing is dead!".

I think we should keep helping each other on this forum take the first step, but we have to also realize PRs and submitting to sites is [i]only the first step in marketing and there's many other things you can try and it will change from year to year. If marketing bores you, then you can try your luck with portals. But as others have mentioned already, that's becoming risker and more competitive by the day. The truth is if you don't want to do marketing, then you shouldn't be self-publishing. There's a lot of self-development here but every little actual self-publishing. I think that's why you're seeing a lot of negative responses.

It's certainly not easy though. It will most likely take you 2-3 games to hit your stride regardless. Some people are capable of making a good/solid game out of the gate but it takes them several games to get their marketing up to par. Others have solid marketing skills but it takes several games to get their game-design skills up to par. I'm probably in the latter category.

But as long as you keep improving, adapt, and persevere, it's very possible to be a successful Indie in 2-3 years (or even less). I quit my day job and have been full-time for 2 years now. The advantage with quiting your day job is that it puts you in survival mode. If you still have your comfortable day job or a nice part-time job, it's a lot easier to avoid all those little marketing tasks that may seem insignificant. But when you're full-time and your game is your primary source of income, no marketing task is insignificant since every sale or opportunity counts.

The disadvantage of going full-time, especially too early, is that you may be tempted to rush your game or cut features you probably shouldn't cut. Since it's your primary source of income and you have no other games selling yet you'll want to get it out as soon as possible. This happened with me on my first game. So if you have 0 games selling on your website, you might want to hold on to your day job (or get a part-time job) until you finish your first game. Polish it up nice and good and then ditch your day job! Get to work promoting and updating your game like there's no tomorrow. If you do that, you might be alright even with your first game.

Don't listen to these Debbie Downers. If you're really committed to it (and I mean really) you can make it work. It won't be easy and you should make sure your wife knows that it won't be easy. Finally, try making games that you like instead of chasing a market that you're unfamiliar with. If you make a game you like, you'll know when it's good (good as in it's worth buying). Chances are they'll be other people who feel the same way. Then it's up to your marketing skills/persistence to reach them.

[princec]

Apropos the theory that the only thing that matters on the internet is interesting content in order to draw eyeballs, if you had 3 months to market your existing game and maybe draw a bit of extra traffic past the initial surge, or 3 months to write another game, what would you do?

I know what brings in more traffic than anything else these days. There's only one thing that brings in traffic. Releasing a good game. Affiliates do me no good at all, relatively, but fortunately aren't much effort. Advertising hasn't worked out, even on some very high traffic sites. Download sites ... well, who knows, I submitted to about 200 odd each time. The biggest single factor in my initial traffic rush is Joe Liebermann and his press releases. If I regularly cranked out a game every 3 months my traffic would be sky high. If I spent 3 months scratching my arse and brainstorming where I might want to throw a box of fliers out of an aeroplane or run naked through London with "Puppygames" tattooed on my forehead I don't think I'd get nearly the same results as just simply releasing a new game.

Cas :)

[mahlzeit]

run naked through London with "Puppygames" tattooed on my forehead
Ah, so you already knew the Big Secret? You're doing it wrong, though: the tattoo should be on your back. That's why it didn't work... ;)

[Savant]

The truth is if you don't want to do marketing, then you shouldn't be self-publishing.
I think this is very much hitting the nail on the head. If you're not going to do the marketing legwork and promotion work, then don't self publish. Either sell your soul to the portals or hire someone like Terin to handle your marketing/promotion.

The bottom line is that if you self-publish and don't do any marketing/promotion work, you're going to fail.

The internet is -huge-. You won't be noticed via magic or good luck.

[Savant]

I know what brings in more traffic than anything else these days. There's only one thing that brings in traffic. Releasing a good game. Affiliates do me no good at all, relatively, but fortunately aren't much effort. Advertising hasn't worked out, even on some very high traffic sites. Download sites ... well, who knows, I submitted to about 200 odd each time. The biggest single factor in my initial traffic rush is Joe Liebermann and his press releases. If I regularly cranked out a game every 3 months my traffic would be sky high. If I spent 3 months scratching my arse and brainstorming where I might want to throw a box of fliers out of an aeroplane or run naked through London with "Puppygames" tattooed on my forehead I don't think I'd get nearly the same results as just simply releasing a new game.
As much as I love Cas, this is short term thinking. If you're continually adding new games to your site in an effort to drive traffic and sales, that's a fast road to burn out.

Is there no other reason you could give people to come back to your site and recommend it to friends other than new releases? Nothing? I'm sure if you thought about it carefully, and designed your next game around those thoughts, you could do a lot better than that.

[princec]

As much as I love Cas, this is short term thinking. If you're continually adding new games to your site in an effort to drive traffic and sales, that's a fast road to burn out.

Is there no other reason you could give people to come back to your site and recommend it to friends other than new releases? Nothing? I'm sure if you thought about it carefully, and designed your next game around those thoughts, you could do a lot better than that.
Well, I have an irrelevant blog, too :) Hopefully will become more relevant in time when I get some more interesting stuff on it. But no, basically, my website is like many other indies' sites: the basic Thing Of Interest on it is new games. No real reason ever to come back. So I have adjusted my risible business model to make really small games that I can release more often.

Cas :)

[Savant]

Well, I have an irrelevant blog, too Hopefully will become more relevant in time when I get some more interesting stuff on it. But no, basically, my website is like many other indies' sites: the basic Thing Of Interest on it is new games. No real reason ever to come back. So I have adjusted my risible business model to make really small games that I can release more often.
I think, even within that business model, there's room for other options.

User created content? A level editor for Titan Attacks might bring people back on a very regular basis AND give them a reason to tell their friends to buy the game. It works well for Reflexive.

Contests? This isn't something you could do all the time but people love to win stuff.

I'm sure with enough thought and creativity, many more ideas are out there waiting to be capitalized on that don't involve working yourself into the ground.

[princec]

I think, even within that business model, there's room for other options.

User created content? A level editor for Titan Attacks might bring people back on a very regular basis AND give them a reason to tell their friends to buy the game. It works well for Reflexive.

Contests? This isn't something you could do all the time but people love to win stuff.

I'm sure with enough thought and creativity, many more ideas are out there waiting to be capitalized on that don't involve working yourself into the ground.
User created content implies an application that can generate it, and that would take as long to develop and support as... another game. Though there is of course that potential none of my game designs currently involves letting users meddle with the internals.

Tried a contest just recently - total flop, got 1 entry despite $100 prize.

I plan to do more TIGsourcey like reviews in the blog etc. but the fact is every thing I do takes effort and there's precious little time in the day. I'd rather develop tons of games and then worry about marketing them. At this stage in my development - 3 years in with 5 or so games under my belt - the biggest return for effort I still get comes with a release by a massive factor. The OP will likely be in this situation for at least as long. Not forgetting he'll be competing with all of us, too, and we're all trying to compete with each other.

Cas :)

[Savant]

Cool, do what's best for you. All I'm saying is there are options out there.

No, they're not all going to successful. Yes, some will outright fail. But some will work.

I wish people would explore more of them.

[princec]

I think Brian Fisher has said it best, over and over:
Build great games and they'll sell

Cas :)

[Savant]

Well ... sure, but he's running a portal. His priorities are very different. Short term gains are perfect for what he's doing. Any single game surviving long term past it's selling window on the "What's New?" page doesn't really concern him.

[cliffski]

Not forgetting he'll be competing with all of us, too, and we're all trying to compete with each other.
Cas :)

I'm more focused on competing with EA, Activision etc. I dont worry about rivals who sell 1000 games a year, but those who sell a million. Its a big market out there.

The problem with marketing is that 90% of the things you try don't work. I've found that on the whole it's worth doing though. I've sent so many emails to politicians offering them free copies of Democracy. Didn't get me anywhere, but you never know till you try.

[spellcaster]

Well, I have an irrelevant blog, too :)
Cas :)

Well, I was checking your blog quite oftren, but it seems like you're not updating it much. Adding some game-dev info here with some preview screenshots might help to create some excitement.

And you should sell some new levels for TA. I'd love to see some new levels. And a quick office survey told me that 100% of all TA owners would love to get some new levels as well ;)

[HairyTroll]

At this stage in my development - 3 years in with 5 or so games under my belt - the biggest return for effort I still get comes with a release by a massive factor.

Cas, a new release causes an increase in sales for all your releases, correct?

So really the effect is:

1 existing game + new release == Jump in sales for 2 games.
2 existing games + new release == Jump in sales for 3 games.
etc, etc.

[princec]

Basically that's right, yes. A new release is just like a new magnet to draw punters to the site. The plan I've got is just to keep releasing games. Small ones, so I can do it more quickly. And flog 'em cheap so I can get that customer base built up.

Cas :)

[Davaris]

My 2c:

1) I think its crazy that programmers have to do their own marketing. Programmers aren't social, so they won't enjoy it and won't be good at it. I think you need to find someone who has a passion for it and pay them to do it.

2) Why do these inexperienced people always quote Steve Pavlina? That guy must have led more kids to their doom than anyone else in the industry. And isn't he some kind of a motivational Guru now? The only people that get rich from that motivational stuff are the gurus themselves. :)

3) What a lot of guys miss is marketing doesn't start after a game is made it starts *before* it is even designed (even the great Steve Pavlina said this). You have to find out what people want and then the product will be easy to sell. If a guy knocked on your door and tried to sell you something you didn't want, would you buy it?

[Coyote]

Programmers aren't social people so they wouldn't be good at it.
Right.
And they never bathe and they are always pale and have bad complexions and would feint if they saw a real girl up close!

All all marketing people are weaselly lying used car salesmen.

And all artists are flightly, illogical, and can't begin to understand code.

And women only want to play solitaire and match-three games. And they are terrible drivers.

[Davaris]

Right.
And they never bathe and they are always pale and have bad complexions and would feint if they saw a real girl up close!
All all marketing people are weaselly lying used car salesmen.
And all artists are flightly, illogical, and can't begin to understand code.
And women only want to play solitaire and match-three games. And they are terrible drivers.


Sounds like I hit a nerve there. :)

All I'm saying is its foolish/inefficient to do something, if someone else enjoys doing it and can do it better.

[UnknownGuy]

And they are terrible drivers.

Nope, men are the terrible drivers.

:p

[Coyote]

It's just much more complicated than that.

It's got nothing to do with being social. Or even about being a good marketer. It really comes down to dollar and cents (sense? :) ) It really comes down to Return On Investment of the time & money you are putting into your game.

If you are a great programmer but a lousy marketer, you ARE investing your valuable programming time when you take time out to do your own marketing. If you do a crappy job of it, your ROI is low. If you find someone affordable who will do a much better job than you, then YES - you will probably end up with a better return in the long run.

But if you spend millions in advertising budget on a game thats going to sell at most 40,000 copies (like ... ummm... DAIKATANA!), you are screwed.

The trick is finding the balance point when things are somewhere in-between.

I'd say many of the programmers who actually post on these boards ARE a pretty social bunch :)

[Davaris]

If you are a great programmer but a lousy marketer, you ARE investing your valuable programming time when you take time out to do your own marketing. If you do a crappy job of it, your ROI is low. If you find someone affordable who will do a much better job than you, then YES - you will probably end up with a better return in the long run.


Yes you've said it better than I could.

I'd say many of the programmers who actually post on these boards ARE a pretty social bunch

Yes but we hate pimping our products. ;)

[dmikesell]

Right.
And they never bathe and they are always pale and have bad complexions and would feint if they saw a real girl up close!

All all marketing people are weaselly lying used car salesmen.

And all artists are flightly, illogical, and can't begin to understand code.

And women only want to play solitaire and match-three games. And they are terrible drivers.

Nine out of ten ain't bad...

[mahlzeit]

I think its crazy that programmers have to do their own marketing.
You don't have to do anything. But if you start up a business, you'd better get out of your programmer mindset and into a business person mindset. So you're right: it's crazy for a programmer to do his own marketing. And if you're a programmer that doesn't want to wear the business person hat, then you'd better go look for someone to help you out. But whining about "oeh, I'm a programmer so I can't be bothered with all this marketing stuff" doesn't really get you anywhere. That's what amateurs do.

[U-Brothers]

Hi MibUK!

Completely understand! ;) Your motivation is good and you have experience.. Nice post and what a mass of reactions
If you can survive 1 year without any sallary and work fulltime with a friend that is graphic artist (and a musician in one person :cool: ) - It is very probable you will create 1 (or maybe 2 - depends on design) game(s) (during 1st year) and then if you dont want to spend money on marketing and promoting, give the game(s) to the portals. It is very important to get a publishing deal for the 1st game. Then after those experiences you will be probably (maybe) able to sell your next games by yourself.
I think it is very important to creat 1st game in very small team - programmer and artist - like we are (http://www.ubrothers.com- with our game FlowerMan:D ) with the lowest possible expenses. Dont forget to cooperate with an artist that has the same vision like you and is stable (!) and will not give up. (and is very good too).

Take care;)

[Sakura Games]

It is very probable you will create 1 (or maybe 2 - depends on design) game(s) (during 1st year) and then if you dont want to spend money on marketing and promoting, give the game(s) to the portals. It is very important to get a publishing deal for the 1st game. Then after those experiences you will be probably (maybe) able to sell your next games by yourself.
I don't see how putting your 1st title on a portal can help you sell yourself later... :D

[cliffski]

I agree. Cas has a good plan, building his website traffic by many small games. If you want to be in it for the long run, you want to build your own traffic not anybody elses surely?

[princec]

I've got to say, even my plan is shit in todays' market. The portals plan is considerably more effective than mine. I really can't create decent content quick enough. Having said that I work (very) part-time on it.

Cas :)

[Davaris]

You don't have to do anything. But if you start up a business, you'd better get out of your programmer mindset and into a business person mindset. So you're right: it's crazy for a programmer to do his own marketing. And if you're a programmer that doesn't want to wear the business person hat, then you'd better go look for someone to help you out. But whining about "oeh, I'm a programmer so I can't be bothered with all this marketing stuff" doesn't really get you anywhere. That's what amateurs do.


Damn straight. The way I see it the market has moved on and the pro's are moving in. Amateur hour won't cut it anymore. Doing your own marketing when you have no training, experience, or interest in it is a recipe for failure. Its like doing your own art when you have no skills or interest in learning them. There's no way you can compete with a pro-artist. I need to hook up with someone who has marketing skills.

I've got to say, even my plan is shit in todays' market. The portals plan is considerably more effective than mine. I really can't create decent content quick enough. Having said that I work (very) part-time on it

I can see a flaw in your business plan Cas. If you keep adding content, you'll wind up a mini-portal with tons of demos for people to try and *not* have to buy. So if you plan on continuing this route, have you considered carefully selecting a few titles (made by other people) and adding them to your catalogue? It would be a damn site more efficient than making them from scratch. Then again, the portals will most likely cut you off if you do that.

[terenctb]

I've got to say, even my plan is shit in todays' market. The portals plan is considerably more effective than mine. I really can't create decent content quick enough. Having said that I work (very) part-time on it.

Cas :)

I suppose you have tried it but...but alot of other mini portals stick other peoples products on as well. Although IMHO, it's better to a have portal or configure your portal to cater to niche audience. My take on the whole thing after reading and agreeing with alot of what is being said here is that it is too late to setup a portal..

My inspiration prior and still now is Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb. He has a core community of people who like his RPG's, and has been going on for years. Long term wise he could go on forever creating these games but the power he has in attracting RPG'er (old-school/new) is pretty strong. Most RPG'ers I know suprisingly know who he is (even talking just paper based guys).

That's pretty much what I would called niche community, where you personallly service the people who buy your product. Same reason you go to the small little cafe where you know the cakes are home-made (Sad actually you don't see enough of these).

[Davaris]

My inspiration prior and still now is Jeff Vogel and Spiderweb. He has a core community of people who like his RPG's, and has been going on for years. Long term wise he could go on forever creating these games but the power he has in attracting RPG'er (old-school/new) is pretty strong. Most RPG'ers I know suprisingly know who he is (even talking just paper based guys).

Yes Jeff's been around for a long time and has had a lot of time to build his customer base. I saw an interview with him where he said his games sold well right away, so this gave him a great start. Also the guy has a business manager. :)

If I were to start all over again I'd make it easier to push out RPGs with my engine and stick to Fantasy. While I personally find Fantasy tedious, it has 90% of the fan base in massively multiplayer games, so I figure the same is true for single player RPGs.

I guess I can start all over again, if I change my engine slightly and get some fantasy artwork for it. :)

[Jack Norton]

Yes sure but don't underestimate the time that takes to make a RPG like Spidweb ones. I guess that even with a ready-made editor you need minimum 5-6 months to have a beta version...

[Davaris]

Yes sure but don't underestimate the time that takes to make a RPG like Spidweb ones. I guess that even with a ready-made editor you need minimum 5-6 months to have a beta version...

Yes RPGs are a *ton* of work so you want to be sure they're going sell well. :)

One thing Jeff normally does is fill them up with big mazes/areas. So this cuts down on the amount of custom scripting he has to do, which cuts down on testing. However I read that his next RPG is going to have more dialogue, background info and quests and less of the big dungeons/areas to explore and clear out. I hope he doesn't screw up on this one. I think the majority of RPG players (non-hardcore) want giant areas to explore. ie they prefer hack and slash to reading. But then again he has a large fan base to rely on so he'll probably be alright. :)

I'm working on my first casual game now and I estimate it will take me 2-4 months. However with a decent tile editor, I could ship another RPG in 4-5 months and I'd enjoy doing it a hell of a lot more too. :)