Does it matter where you live?

[Mike Boeh]

It occurred to me at the casual game conference that the city of Chicago is very poorly represented in the casual game space. As far as I know, the only attendees from the area were myself, and the guys at Snap2Play.

I have worked with them on many projects, including Spongebob Obstacle Odyssey and we are cooperating on an original Lego game too. They have only recently entered the casual game space, but part of their plan involves moving to Seattle, to be closer to the heart of the industry. Then I thought about Sprout, and wondered if the Popcap purchase would have happened if they weren't local to the area. The same goes for the Gamehouse/Real purchase.

So my question is, do you think your location matters at all? And if so, how much? My guess would be that it matters, but only slightly.

[kerchen]

I think it depends largely on what your goals are. If you want to remain small (where I define small to mean 'less than 4 full-timers including yourself'), then it probably doesn't matter much where you are. If you want to grow beyond that, you need to either go where there is a decent-sized talent pool or be in a desirable location. As locations go, Chicago isn't terrible, but the urban centers in California, Texas and Washington probably trump it. It could be worse, though; you could be in Detroit.

[Robert Cummings]

My location only matters because I miss out on meeting all you guys for pizza/beer nights

[jpantuso]

Like Paul said it depends on your goals. It may also depend on how you are structured. When we set up TrayGames one of the founding principles was to be as virtual as possible. 'Distributed' may actually be a more accurate word. I've only got one other team member in the same city as me, the rest aren't even in the same country. I have to admit though that it would be impossible if we had not all worked together in the same office at one point and forged a working relationship then.

For me the biggest geographic factor is costs. The west coast is lovely and full of my kind of geeks, but it is just too expensive to operate there. Having any sort of success as an Indie is related to being successful as a start-up, and if you are a start-up playing by the rules of reality then controlling costs is paramount.

If you are actually in Chicago proper that may be detrimental.

If you want to 'get big' then staffing would become an issue if you were in the middle of Iowa, but it is definitely not a factor in Chicago. Creative and Technical people are not a problem. There have been plenty of game companies, both electronic and otherwise in Chicago over the years. You know that :-)

[Stu]

Does it matter at all? Yes, I think so. Does it matter enough to move to Seattle? Nope. If I really want to have lunch with someone in Seattle, and they really want to have lunch with me, I can certainly get my butt on a plane.

I do think networking suffers a bit when a company is hundreds of miles from the nearest tribe-member. We've always taken comfort in the fact that PopTop Games did their thing just down the road in St. Louis. Thanks for the inspiration Phil.

[luggage]

From a networking point of view I think it helps to at least be in the US. It's certainly not a barrier though.

[ggambett]

We're in south america, and the only problem we have are the lack of nearby Indie Pizza Nights, the cost and complexity of attending the conventions, and the cost of phone calls, but that's it.

[arcadetown]

You know there's lots of guys in the industry down here in Los Angeles and San Fran but ran into very few up there at the conference. For example an Intermix/Grab.com rep was there but didn't even see him since got lost in the crowd. Maybe the Seattle crews brought a lot more guys since was right there thus skewing the representation. Shoot Mike why not just move to Seattle and get bought out for $10mil tomorrow.

[Sirrus]

Shoot Mike why not just move to Seattle and get bought out for $10mil tomorrow.

................

Word.

[SquareDanceSteve]

I think location matters a lot. I live in the Sierra Nevada of California and the nearest city is Sacramento 100 miles (that also happens to be the closest airport to). When I lived in Sacramento (about 2 years) I didn’t meet a single person interested in games. Hence the me going it alone, even when I had cash for an employee. Sacramento didn’t really offer anything (a city of 2 million people) a crude generalization would be that they are mostly interested in RAP and car wheels.


It appears from what I have gathered from observing California that the majority of game people live in nice urban areas in California IE Orange County, San Diego, Sunnyvale, unless of course you’re a huge company then your offices are in Los Angeles.

But for me to jump on a plane to have lunch, I need to spend 2 hours on curvy roads to the airport and then another 2 hours home from the airport. It’s pretty serious and pretty expensive for someone like me who is running on negative cash to make a game.

When I lived in Sacramento my single bedroom apartment 700 square feet cost me 800 a month plus another 100 for electricity and another 80 for water…

Indie games are hard in California

[DavidRM]

I've lived 19 of the last 20 years in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa has its upsides and downsides. it's big enough to get you access to just abount anything you need, and small enough that you don't really think you're in a big city. It's almost cozy sometimes.

I don't mind living here so much, but, overall, considering game development (indie or otherwise) or even just technology, this place is a flippin' backwater!

4 hours from Dallas. 5 hours from Kansas City. Technological civilization is a long, long way away.

That said...one big advantage of this Cultural and Technological Backwater that is Tulsa, Oklahoma, is that it is damn cheap to live here.

Location matters, I think. High speed internet access makes almost any location workable, but some physical locations definitely outscore even the best virtual connectivity.

-David

[Nexic]

Being English annoys the pants off of me. in the sense that I can never go to any kind of indie meet up. Not really because I feel the urgent need to in order to get important information, but just because I'd like to meet and greet most of the people in the industry on a personal level.

[Anthony Flack]

Yikes! Well I guess it's only even debatable if you're inside the US to begin with. Anywhere in the rest of the world may as well be Iowa I guess.

[svero]

Well I would have liked to have attended that last conference but its not easy for me to do so. How much would those extra contacts mean? Could mean a lot I think! I get by ok on the web though. Still I think it matters a bit.

[HairyTroll]

Being English annoys the pants off of me. in the sense that I can never go to any kind of indie meet up. Not really because I feel the urgent need to in order to get important information, but just because I'd like to meet and greet most of the people in the industry on a personal level.

This is something that I can't fathom. Most of the games in the 80's came out of the UK. What the heck happened?

Oh, I should also point out that you need a better rugby team.

[dislekcia]

Location definately matters!

Here in SA we've got pretty much no game development community to speak of, there's interest but not a lot of action. Also, our rather shameful net connectivity means that working online is a lot more difficult than doing things face to face.

We're only starting to see the begginings of south african indies starting up, one of the biggest problems is lack of support. There's a constant stream of new people getting excited about game dev, but they don't have anyone to show them the ropes or just share ideas with, so they keep making the same mistakes and getting demoralised.

Without the help of a local gaming magazine, there'd be a lot less going on: SA's only gaming expo is coming up in September and this time we're going to have a local game dev workshop to go with it. If I didn't live where I am now, I'd have to miss it...

-D

[svero]

Bad game business locations can be a benefit in other ways as well though. An indie living in new york city or seattle is going to have to make a lot more profit per game than someone living in indonesia just to get by.

[luggage]

Bad game business locations can be a benefit in other ways as well though. An indie living in new york city or seattle is going to have to make a lot more profit per game than someone living in indonesia just to get by.

Gah. Stop rubbing it in!

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Bad game business locations can be a benefit in other ways as well though. An indie living in new york city or seattle is going to have to make a lot more profit per game than someone living in indonesia just to get by.

Every time I note ggambett's sig/location, I think that every dollar of sales for him probably translates to 10X that in terms of what he can buy in his local economy (Uruguay), versus those of us in the U.S. I'm sure there are many hurdles to doing this from Uruguay, but the low(er) cost of living has certainly got to be helpful.

[Tom Cain]

I was able to go indie fulltime a lot sooner because I live in Mississippi. The cost of living is very low, even in the urban areas on the gulf coast and at the capital.

You can build a large, modern, upscale house in the suburbs here for under $200,000. You can build the same in more rural areas for $100,000 or less. And if you just want something nice but inexpensive, you can build a mid-range house on 2 acres for $60,000.

But, I may be the only game developer in the entire state, so I don't interact personally with anyone who does what I do.

[ggambett]

Every time I note ggambett's sig/location, I think that every dollar of sales for him probably translates to 10X that in terms of what he can buy in his local economy (Uruguay), versus those of us in the U.S. I'm sure there are many hurdles to doing this from Uruguay, but the low(er) cost of living has certainly got to be helpful.

Yes, of course! That's what allowed us to go fulltime relatively quickly, ie without any huge hits. We couldn't be fulltime indies if we lived in the US, with our current levels of profit.

[Curiosoft]

Edit: Post full of excuses has been removed.

Do whathever you need to do to network in the community.

Later,
Curiosoft

[Phil Steinmeyer]

ggambett - do you live in Montevideo? How does the economy and cost of living compare with Brazil (I lived in Sao Paulo at one point)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

curiosoft - I think you overstate the importance of location.

WRT to Microsoft, they moved AWAY from the then semi-hotspot in the southwest, to Seattle, which was NOT a tech city at the time, because that's where Bill and Paul grew up. It only became a tech center after MS's success.

You can get the same deals, by and large, by talking on the phone and flying somewhere occasionally. For a REALLY big company, like Google, being in the Bay area is helpful, but for this industry, any city of 1 million+ should have the resources and people you need.

The companies that are successful are successful primarily because of their development talents. The business/networking side is not trivial, but not nearly so important as the development. GGambett lives 10,000 miles away, yet has a top 10 game that I assume is profitable, probably with deals close to (or perhaps equal to) industry standards.

[ggambett]

ggambett - do you live in Montevideo? How does the economy and cost of living compare with Brazil (I lived in Sao Paulo at one point)

I think Montevideo, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires (Argentina) are pretty much even now. For us, there are minor variations; Buenos Aires is currently slightly cheaper than Montevideo, so a lot of people go to BA just to do shopping; a few years ago, Brazil was cheaper so a lot of people did their shopping there. But from a global perspective, comparing the US or UK to either of the three cities is probably the same.

[Anthony Flack]

Remember a while back I was talking about how big budget US-made games seemed to be doing most of the big business on big portals? Should I amend that to big budget Seattle-made games?

Meanwhile, people in other parts are building businesses based on less cashflow and keeping overheads way, way down (running a one-man studio out of a box on the side of the road). Some people might still manage to make a big hit game this way, but the way they go about it is different. Gabriel is still making his games on the cheap, with just him and his sister (is that right?)

Working in a large company with proper offices and salaried employees and seven-figure sales targets, is something I find difficult to imagine, having never seen it. In New Zealand, it's never been a serious option to get a job working for a game developent company, since we've never really had any. It's almost hard to believe this big-time stuff even goes on; but I'm sure if I was in the middle where it was happening, it would seem quite natural, and perhaps my whole attitude to doing business would be different. At the moment the only contact I have with this world is over the internet, so it seems like make-believe to me. As soon as I step away from the computer, it ceases to exist.

And of course different sorts of opportunities will present themselves in different places, too. The opportunities in Tokyo are just mind-blowing compared to back in New Zealand (I don't mean in game development, I mean in general. Just because this is a place where lots of things happen, and there are huge reserves of cash floating about looking for a home). So I'm sure that where you live does have an effect.

But I do think that what is going on with these big companies now, is quite different to how "indie games" have traditionally worked, and it sounds like it's all happening in one place. Elsewhere, people are still going the other way, trying to make a simple living on the cheap.

[Curiosoft]

Post full of excuses has now been removed.

[Anthony Flack]

I'm one of those people that think anything is possible. All I'm saying is that you have to decide what your role in the market will be...and then move appropriately.

I did infer that one can fly out to Seattle. The point is...that while online communication tools are decent, there is a lot to be said about the ideas/actions that stem from folks chilling after work, etc.

Well, for most of us that decision has already been made, for better or worse. Flying out to Seattle is a pretty big deal for those of us that live in other parts of the world. And moving there is virtually out of the question. But then, there are many ways to get by in the world:

If one wants to be making a living (50-500K/year), then anywhere is fine.

...like calling 50-500K a year "making a living"

[HairyTroll]

Peter Jackson. Weta. New Zealand.

Who would have thought that a special effects company to rival ILM/Pixar could be created from scratch in such a place as New Zealand.

So when it comes right down to it, no location does not seem to make much of a difference. I think location does however allow for excuses.

[Curiosoft]

Peter Jackson. Weta. New Zealand.

Who would have thought that a special effects company to rival ILM/Pixar could be created from scratch in such a place as New Zealand.

So when it comes right down to it, no location does not seem to make much of a difference. I think location does however allow for excuses.

You are right. I have removed my last two posts. I do think networking is important....but, if one really wants to do something, they'll find a way.

Remember, there was only one kindergarten dropout in the history of America.
One would think that the child would have it really rough in life....having dropped out of kindergarten.

Do you know his name?
Here's a hint....
he invented the voice recorder

Here's another hint...
he invented the film industry

Here's one last hint...
he invented the light bulb.

Yes, his name was Thomas Edison.

Later,
Curiosoft