Reply With QuoteSorry, 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.
Your biggest mistake ?
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.
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.
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
follow me on twitter facebook google+ youtube
computer games - visual novels - dating sim games - mystery games
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!
follow me on twitter facebook google+ youtube
computer games - visual novels - dating sim games - mystery games
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
My biggest mistake: trying to do the artwork myself.
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.
Slashdot ..... what a time suck.
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.
Damon DuBois
www.wizardslab.com
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.
Gabriel Gambetta
Google Zürich - Formerly Mystery Studio
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).Originally Posted by Sillysoft
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.
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
Settling down in an expensive city like London.
Mike
PomPom games UK
Most of the "dont's" in David R Michael's book...
Nemesis
There is a $20 discount for people with RegNow accounts.
Gabriel Gambetta
Google Zürich - Formerly Mystery Studio
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
Taking on too many projects (both internal and external) at once.
Downloading Soldat.
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.
Rampant Games: Games With Personality!
Tales of the Rampant Coyote: Adventures In Indie Gaming
Frayed Knights - a 3D RPG that refuses to take itself seriously.
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.
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
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.)
Last edited by Greg Squire; 08-10-2004 at 09:01 AM.
The book is Indie Game Development Survival Guide.
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 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..
Last edited by Valen; 08-10-2004 at 09:20 AM.
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
Or just click David's signature.
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!
Last edited by Greg Squire; 08-10-2004 at 12:12 PM.
Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...
Cas
Dude, that's a chick magnet name.Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...
Cas
Anthony
At least it's not "artist formerly known as prince."Ah, now if you were only called Caspian Rychlik-Prince...
Cas
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