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http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/540743757393426960/

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it ain't easy being cheesy

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Alpha games with not much effort being put into them, then being sold so the creators can make there profit and then continue onto the next alpha.

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DOs and DONTs for Indie developers starting up

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DOs and DONTs for Indie developers starting up

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The Realities of Life in Game Development

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Chris Avellone - DOs and DON'Ts for indie game development startup companies

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Would you like to see more videos like this? Help New Media Rights fund a second season of game developer videos: http://bit.ly/WRkQ5y DOs and DON'Ts for indie game development start up companies Would you like to see more videos like this?

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/

This was made on kickstarter with a budget of around $50,000

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- Ethan Supporter

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Indie Game Developers Vs. Big Game Publishers

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http://www.lockergnome.com/media/2012/03/30/game-publishers-are-obsolete-so-why-havent-developers-ditched-them-yet/ - Indie developers are cool. They think up an idea for a game. They develop the code and art for a game. And, when the game is complete, they sell the game all by themselves.

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Indie Game: The Movie Trailer - WATCH NOW at IndieGameTheMovie.com

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http://www.indiegamethemovie.com Available for download & Stream at: http://www.indiegamethemovie.com Direct from the filmmakers. (multiple encode options, multiple language options, DRM-Free). Also available on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/indie-game-the-movie/id522421254 And also available on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/207080 Indie Game: The Movie is a feature documentary about video games, their creators and the craft.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/

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StudioBento is raising funds for GAME LOADING: Rise Of The Indies on Kickstarter! A feature documentary about indie game developers rising up and changing the way we see games.

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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-07-29-indie-games-should-be-cheaper-zeboyd

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by Scott Steinberg The video game industry comes under the microscope as Game Theory with Scott Steinberg takes a detailed look at the current reality of game development and publishing, including how just how cutthroat today's market has become.

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You Can Make Games: Indie Developers Talk About the Industry

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The gaming world is changing. These developers talk about life without a publisher, the future of gaming, the state of the gaming world, etc.

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Pixels and Polygons: An Indie Game Developer Story

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DISCLAIMER - The film is very language heavy(i.e. I say the F word a lot), I have a clean version of the film up here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O41xQco1wbA - if you are offended easily or have kids around PLEASE BE WARNED. Thank you! Before you critique! READ! No TL;DR! and ignore the first thing.

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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements. Following Isaac on his journey players will find bizarre treasures that change Isaac's form giving him super human abilities and enabling him to fight off droves of mysterious creatures, discover secrets and fight his way to safety.

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http://projectzomboid.com/blog/the-game/

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50 minutes of gameplay from the PC port of the Phil Fish's and Polytrons indie retro platformer with a twist.

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They're literally copies of Castlevania levels

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They're literally copies of Castlevania levels

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Opinion by Guillaume Boucher-Vidal Jul 31, 2014, 2:51pm EDT More on how Polygon writes opinion pieces.

It is common to hear about game companies having crushing financial woes in the games press.

It can be observed in companies of all sizes, from THQ going under to 38 Studios defaulting on millions of debts to the recent Yogsventure project fiasco.

I've seen the people behind these projects judged very harshly in comments from readers (I know, I know, I shouldn't read the comments) and usually, it seems to me that people grossly underestimate what it costs to run a game studio.

For about as long as I can remember, I've been planning on starting my own game studio. It's an ambition I nurtured throughout my youth. Game developers were my heroes and Squaresoft, Bioware and Blizzard were the embodiment of everything I wanted to create. Being naturally drawn toward game design, I oriented my education toward that field and at 20 years old I had scores my first gig in the video game industry as a tester for Activision.
People grossly underestimate what it costs to run a game studio
Meanwhile, I'd keep reading about the state of the game industry, a subject matter that has been as intriguing to me as the game themselves. I'd read and frequently discuss about the working conditions issues, about the realities of the market, about the success and failures of different companies, etc.

I was getting pretty comfortable, had a very nice team, my bosses were happy with my work and I was climbing up the ladder rapidly, although I was still in the field of QA rather than design. I was working on a side project with a few colleagues, until Activision said we had to stop due to our non-concurrence agreement. So for my 24th birthday, I went to my boss office and resigned in order to start my own business and do things my way. That was over three years ago.

I hope that by using my own company as an example, more people will come to understand the realities of this industry and help them better appreciate the complexity of managing a budget. Many factors change from one company to another depending on its geographic location, business model, level of ambitions, and so on. But this is a good place to start.

Breakdown of costs

Initial costs:

Incorporation: $500 (Varies by location, does not include attorney fee)

Equipment (per workstation)

at least $800 per PC (that's not high-end stuff, just good enough for the job)

$150 per monitor (you need 2 monitors per person)

$20 per mouse

$20 per keyboard

$100 per desk

$80 per chair

roughly $1800 in software licenses

Total: $3120 per person

Not to mention:

$1,000 or more for a company laptop (You'll eventually need to be portable)

$200 for a printer/scanner

$80 for business cards

$3000 for miscellaneous stuff (paper, ink, router, tools, air conditioner, gaming peripherals, etc)

Ongoing costs:

Rent/electricity: $776 per month

Cellphone/internet access: $180 per month

Bank fees: $20-40 per month

Insurance: $250 per month

Salaries: about $3250 per employee per month (includes taxes and other "hidden costs")

Other costs:

Participation at PAX East: About $8,000 total

Legal fees: About $3,000 per year

Accountant fees: About $3,000 per year

Music: About $150 per song, prices vary greatly

Sound effects: $10 per sound effect, prices vary greatly

PR Firms: $1000 per campaign, prices vary greatly

Travel expenses (not counting PAX): About $2000 per trip, depends on location and timing

That's a very basic overview of the costs to start and run a studio. Obviously, there are ways to reduce these costs. Maybe you already have some computers and some software available to you, or you use open-source solutions. We use Blender for 3D instead of 3DS Max, for instance.

Many studios start with everyone working from their home, which saves a lot of cash on rent, insurances, hardware, etc. To be honest I would recommend for most studios to have the whole team work in the same physical space as much as possible, even if it means using someone's home as headquarters. When we started, we were five guys working in an 86 square-foot office at my apartment. It was cramped, but in the end we benefitted from improved communication, productivity and motivation. It helped to build a stronger studio culture.

What it "really" cost me to start my studio

All in all, when I started I had a little over $20,000 in savings. I already had access to three PCs and two other members of the team came with their own hardware when they joined in. So it didn't cost me as much to set up our workspace as it could have.

We were extremely fortunate to finish a $16,000 crowdfunding campaign, but that campaign had cost me $2000 out of pocket. It was a risky move that paid off, mostly due to being at the right place at the right time.

I still don't know if I'll be out of a job before the end of yearFor the first three years everyone on my team who worked full time did so with equipment purchased on their own expense. Meanwhile, the company itself ran on three things: my savings, the crowdfunding money and a bank loan. The totality of revenue we made from the sales of the first game, Brand, was redistributed among the members of the team who worked on it. It wasn't much.

After the first year, we expanded the team and needed a new office, so we moved the business out of my apartment and used that opportunity to gear up in a more appropriate manner. I got a 3-year loan to pay for the new equipment we needed, which allowed me to make sure I still had some cash on hand.

In three years, I personally went from having $20,000 in savings to $35,000 in debt. After two unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns, I was on the verge of bankruptcy before signing a deal with Bandai Namco. After three years of work with no income, we finally could pay ourselves a salary.

Just to clarify: our deal with a publisher didn't make us millionaires. In fact, only the sales of our upcoming game, GoD Factory: Wingmen, will determine if we'll even be sustainable at this pace.

Every month scares me as I watch our funds melt at an alarming rate.

Cost in opportunity, cost in security, cost in time

Today my team makes a salary. Our operational costs are somewhere around $40,000 per month for a team of 7 salaried developers. But looking back, it's important to think about what it took to get there.

I had to spend roughly $80,000 over three years to get the business going until its first significant source of income. Had I been able to pay for salaries during the first three years, it would have cost me about $700,000 more.

But cash was far from being the only cost in this venture.

There is something called the opportunity cost, which is the difference between the choice you made and your second best choice. In my case, I already had a job in the industry with a comfortable income. My second best choice would have been to stay where I was instead of quitting. While I can't disclose the exact salary I made, I don't think Activision would sue me for stating that I was making more than $30,000 a year. My opportunity cost was at least the $90,000 I would have made by now if I had not started my business.

For all the (very valid) complaints about job security in the video game industry, I am pretty confident that, had I wished for it, I could still be working at Activision. It was a stable job and I could make plans. In fact, I was on the fence between starting either a family or a business.

Cost in security means postponing other plans. It means not buying a house or having a family. It means not having confidence in your ability to spend money. These are all sacrifices you have to make when you have no job security.

Even to this day, I still don't know if I'll be out of a job before the end of year, and I won't have any idea before the launch of our next game.

Having your life in a purgatory state for three years is a very long time, especially considering all the hours put into such a project. I've been told that any entrepreneur should expect to spend anywhere between 2 and 5 years before knowing if your business will really take off and I do believe it's true.

Investing an unknown amount of years into something is not for the faint of heart and that stress needs to have a value attached to it. Whenever someone accuses independent developers of being greedy, they should stop to take into account what that developer is going through, about why they would even think about making all these sacrifices in order to try and turn them into something that ultimately pays off.

Emotional cost

Being at the helm of a game company is exhilarating. It is also nerve wracking. Given the very high attachment a developer has to his project, the emotional roller coaster can be nearly unbearable at times. The pressure makes you feel like glass about to crack at any moment.

Good news makes you jump up in ecstatic enthusiasm and bad news makes you feel doomed to fail. You feel these extreme highs and lows sometimes multiple times in a single day. This intensity is difficult to bear and you need extra care to ensure people close to you don't become victims of your mood swings.

I've been extremely fortunate to have a supporting girlfriend, family and friends to help me go through this. Without them lending me their strength I wouldn't have been able to hold on. To be honest, there have been a few times when I could tell I was on the verge of burning out.

Social cost

Leading a company is a very isolating experience. First, as an entrepreneur you must show confidence at all times. Expressing your doubts can lead to a contagion of pessimism that you may not be able to curb before getting back to the highly enthusiastic stage of your mood swing cycle.

Secondly, people will just not understand what you are going through unless they are also starting out their own company. It's not a matter of snobbery, but just like when a parent tells you "you'll understand when you have kids," it simply is true. There is also a part of you that just stays in PR mode whenever you get to talk about your business. It makes you feel like you're trying to sell yourself rather than just enjoying the conversation.

People will often ask you questions about it and you'll make it your mission to always say something positive, even though internally you might be extremely scared of an upcoming launch or you might be preoccupied by an unforeseen development issue.

There have been times I could tell I was on the verge of burning out

Another obstacle to social life is simply not having money. When you can't afford to buy a drink, there are only so many times that you'll let a friend pay for you before you start feeling embarrassed about it. You won't be able to afford the new game they are playing, or maybe you just can't afford buying more bus tickets to reach your friends. Everything is invested in the business.

Obviously, some days are so draining that you just don't want to do anything but crash on your couch. Eventually, it adds up to many missed opportunities to see your friends, especially when you're crunching for a few months.

Some of those friends will move on and take for granted that you are too busy for them.

At first, when I was running the business from the office, it meant that I had 5 people in my home at least 40 hours a week. Their constant presence in my home lead to a craving for intimacy that was harder to satisfy for both me and my girlfriend.

Living in my office made it harder to disconnect from my work even when my "working hours" were over.

Conclusion

There you have it, a breakdown of all the costs I can think of related to starting your game studio.

Far be it from me to dissuade anyone from reaching for the stars and trying to contribute to the video game industry. For all it has cost me so far, I wouldn't be doing it anymore if I didn't feel like I was gaining even more out of it. I learn a lot and I am part of an incredible community. I've had musicians, a lawyer, a mentor and many more lending their help for free because they believe in us. This is priceless.

However, no matter the takeaway, the process itself is intense. The pressure is constant and the internet is ready to pounce on you as soon as one misstep is made in public. So while it's quite okay to be demanding toward game developers (I'd be quite a hypocrite to say otherwise), please be supportive, because happier developers make better games.

Next time you read about a studio failing, keep in mind that they've probably been doing their best and what they went through wasn't easy. It's just not possible for everyone to succeed.

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What does it really cost to open an indie studio? All your money, most of your life

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Opinion by Guillaume Boucher-Vidal Jul 31, 2014, 2:51pm EDT More on how Polygon writes opinion pieces. It is common to hear about game companies having crushing financial woes in the games press. It can be observed in companies of all sizes, from THQ going under to 38 Studios defaulting on millions of debts to the recent Yogsventure project fiasco.

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Creator of castlevania Koji Igarashi creates a castle vania like game after KONAMI makes a horrible slot machine out of the original title.

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Bohemia interactive both created and published the game

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http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq/

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Koji Igarashi is making levels on Mario Maker

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Koji Igarashi is making levels on Mario Maker

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He's seen better days

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

I got a bit tweet-happy recently because I had read yet another "post-mortem" on why someone thought their game was such a "massive failure"

I just read stories of devs giving up or feeling dejected when their first game doesn't reach their expectations. It's sad. Don't give up!
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

These posts are indicative of unrealistic expectations by new indies on the business of indie game development.

It's not the first time I've seen people go into making indie games thinking that it would make them money immediately. I've watched people I know pouring their hopes, money and time into a game that doesn't sell and then seen them give up shortly after. I've also talked to talented amazing people who have decided not to take the plunge because they are so scared that will happen to them.

To be fair stories of success and failure give a confusing picture to people starting out. It seems that either you will become a glorious indie super star or you will fall by the wayside and everyone will point and laugh at your game as the "failure". It's either doom and gloom or glory and fame, boom or bust. And there seems to be no one logical reason why it happens to one person and not another, it's often a bunch of reasons that some people spend a long time trying to deconstruct.

It is not a healthy way to view the early days of any business and it isn't a realistic representation.

I am a designer. I design websites, games, products and services. I have been running a freelance design business for 7 years, been an employee at several companies in industries ranging from IT consultancy to tourism to science. I've seen many different approaches to running businesses. I've seen different amounts and types of success.

A few years ago my husband and I set up our own games development business "Utopian World of Sandwiches". We work in our shed. I support him to work full time in the business. So I have given this a lot of thought...

We need more good businesses in the world. I believe a good business provides a sustainable, encouraging environment for its employees and creates meaning and value in people's lives with its products and services.

Indie game development will drive the future of games. Indie game developers will be the ones to take games beyond what we know, to create truly innovative and interesting experiences. There are indies who are starting out now who will be the business leaders of the games industry in 10-20 years. We are already seeing a rise of indies, we will see more.

Innovation is about failing, learning and getting better, it takes time & persistence to build a strong foundation for a business.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

Failure is a good thing if you plan for it. Failure can teach you lessons that no success will ever teach you and I believe it is our ability to take those risks,"fail" and learn as indie game developers that will result in the innovations that the games industry needs.

I don't think any business should be built around making money alone. I don't think it has to be about high stakes, all or nothing, win or lose. We need to do more. Indie game developers are free to do more because they don't have to answer to anyone and they can take the risks that AAA companies dare not take. We can build innovative, creative, sustainable businesses. But only if we stop chasing an impossible idea of success and embrace failure.

New indies coming into this need to know the realities. They need to be prepared and able to make decisions that will help them to do this.

I want to present a constructive, useful, honest view of indie game development business. I've learnt a lot from the past 2 years, so here are my 7 truths about indie game development and starting a business.

1. None of us know anything.

Games companies encourage people to take paths, to become awesome at a specific skill. Indie game development is different. Indie game developers have to be good at everything. They are polymaths, constantly learning and adapting.

You might have researched, you might feel prepared. You aren't. You will learn something new every single day. Everything constantly changes. You will learn through experience and you will mess up along the way.

Roughly 30% of your time will be spent making games. The rest of the time will be everything else you need to do, especially if you are a one man band. You might find that you spend 4 months a year actually making games if you are lucky.

You probably don't know a lot of things about running a business because it's likely that you've never run one before. And even if you have, you haven't run this one.

You probably won't know much about marketing or networking, because honestly it's a kind of science where you have to try things out, see what the results are and then build on that.

You know nothing about the future, what platforms there will be in 5 years, how the technology or audience will change.

We are all figuring this out as we go along.

Find someone different to talk through your business decisions with and find objective people to look at your game.

You are not your customers. Respect your customers. Let them teach you. You will need other people to help you, so ask for it.

It is impossible to please everyone, not many people will like your game. It will be specific people with specific needs, tastes and preferences. It's not unusual to figure out who those people are as you go. It might be a surprise when you realise they are different to who you intended them to be.

You will find your audience as much as they will find you. They aren't already waiting there for you.

Be prepared to change direction really quickly based on things you find out as you go along. You are not a massive corporation it will cost you relatively nothing to change your mind.

We don't have a 5 year business plan written down anywhere, because every week things change, it's like trying to predict the future. We do know where we are starting, where we want to end up and we know the ethos and vision of how we want to get there. We just figure it out as we go.

We may know a lot of things, but we will never know enough.

2. It takes 3-5 years for the average business to make money.

It takes most businesses 3-5 years to become profitable. Releasing one game and expecting the money to roll in is not a business strategy.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

Indie Game development isn't in a bubble of prosperity. It is the same as any other business. Even Tesla motors didn't make a profit for its first 10 years.

Each game is a gamble. A huge chunk of why any game is successful over another one is luck. There are very few people whose first game makes them a lot of money. There aren't any guarantees and even if you do make lots of money you will want to reinvest the money to make the business more sustainable.

You will want to get on to different platforms, be seen by more people, travel to conferences then there's marketing, running costs, software, hardware, the next dev kit... whatever it takes to get the business to the next level. All of this costs a lot of money, to gain a more sustainable income you will need to reinvest. Your wages will be the last thing you will want to pay.

At the same time you need to have a roof over your head and you will need to eat. So you will need a plan that will keep you warm and fed until you can pay yourself wages.

There are a bunch of ways that you can do this, and you need to research and find a way that suits you and how you want to work. You can get investment, grants, join an incubator, run a kickstarter, get a loan, use savings, or just do it in your spare time.

We chose self-funding. I'm supporting my husband, Woody to work full time. We take on extra contract work and we're living hand to mouth for now. That's OK. We're not planning on doing it forever, but we're secure enough for now to ensure that we can do this for as long as it takes.

3. No one knows who you are and no one cares.

The bad news... no one knows who you are and no one cares!

You have to build a reputation from nothing. You have to earn people's attention. You have to make something that those people will care about. This all takes a lot of time.

I said earlier that a lot of success comes down to luck. You make your own luck. You have to get out there and make connections and meet people, because they will be where that luck comes from.

You have to ask yourself a lot of questions every day; Do you have an idea that matters to your customers? Are you selling game features or are you selling something that will make someone's life better?

Give people something to care about. Give people an experience that they will want to share with others. Then take time to let them know about it.

The good news... no one knows who you are and no one cares!

You are so free! You can try all sorts of things, you can experiment and see if anyone notices.

You have nowhere to fall if no one likes it, because if no one likes it then no one will know. You have no one to answer to if you do mess up.

You can release a rough prototype that looks a bit buggy. You should! Because when people aren't playing your games you are learning nothing. No one has any expectations of you. No one will steal your ideas. No one knows you.

4. You need to reframe how you measure success.

All too often I see people base the value of their game in how many people have bought it. They spend their money in their heads before they get it. They are convinced that their first game is going to be their big break and they'll be rich enough to sustain themselves at least. They have researched the figures, a game really similar to theirs made loads of money. Their game is really good and their team is talented. Of course it is, they wouldn't be making it otherwise.

Sales forecasts don't help either. Crystal balls are more reliable. Especially if they are based on other people's game sales.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

Basing an idea of success in sales figures from someone else's games is not a good idea. It is a path to low morale and inevitable disappointment. Doing all that research is time you could spend making the game and releasing it.

It's better to release early and often, get data from being out in the real world, learn about YOUR game, and most of all just keep trying.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

I have not seen an indie game do the same as the sales projections or heard anyone say that it mattered in the end.

Success is a consequence of certain conditions. Each game and situation is very different. You can look at other people and maybe see how they did, perhaps use it to judge whether a platform is worth your time, but by no means can you base your idea of success in theirs because it will be an entirely different set of conditions.

We know there is more to life than money, isn't that why we make games? We want to make good products that make people happy.

I will be the first to admit that we had hoped that Chompy Chomp Chomp would sell better than it did. Yet, we stand by it as a good product. It does make people happy, that is what we set out to do. We wouldn't be making Chompy Chomp Chomp Party if we didn't believe that it was a good product. We don't see the lack of initial sales as proof that the game can't make money in the future either. It's a timeless game. We have so much we can do with it. We can keep building on our fan base for years.

We have planned all along for this to take 3-5 years so we had entirely different criteria for success than how much money we would make. We measure our success by how much we've learned, and how far we've come towards our goals.

We wanted to do a few things when we started out:

Create a game with IP that can be used for merchandise and other games

Get our own figures/data on as many platforms as we can

Build a following and a strong google presence for our IP

Have a game to prove we could make a game to people who might be able to give us more opportunities

Here's what happened:

We're working on a few other games and a board game with the IP. We sell T-shirts and toys. We have learned that Chompy fans really want Chompy merchandise.

We have data on Flash, XBLIG and the various stores available on PC and we're planning to be on at least 3 more platforms by the end of next year.

We have done alright on google for our crazy names and we have started to build a following on facebook and twitter.

Chompy Chomp Chomp has opened up all of the opportunities that we hoped it would. We are now registered Nintendo devs and have signed many NDAs.

We have learned a lot. We met lots of people, did talks, went to expos, we played our games with lots of people and we were interviewed. All of which would have been really scary to me 2 years ago. We now have a good idea of how to keep building on this experience to learn even more.

We see these steps as our first steps towards becoming the sustainable business that we want Sandwiches to become. We are taking this one step at a time so that it is less likely that we go down the wrong path.

We're on our way and we're enjoying the ride.

5. It's your job to make sure you are your own best boss.

We've seen these bad things happen or been there before:

People working so hard that they end up broken and drained. It impacts their relationships and they are stressed all the time.

People working with clients/staff who stress them out.

People forgetting about why they started doing this in the first place. They end up chasing cash rather than dreams. They feel jaded, regretful, like they sold out.

So we've set ourselves some rules to make sure that these don't happen to us.

Don't work for a living, live for a living.

Work with people who understand you and care about what you care about.

Live what you believe. Don't compromise your values.

If you are running your own company it's your responsibility to create an environment that YOU enjoy working in. It needs to be an environment where you can learn & get better, innovate, create and enjoy your life. You need to believe in your purpose. Even if you never plan on getting any future employees, the culture of your company and the way you work is entirely up to you to establish.

It's the journey that is the most important thing, not the destination. You can aspire to have a successful game, but if you don't enjoy getting there then it's not worth it.

Let's be honest. The only thing that really matters in the end is love. You started this because you love games. You started because you want to have more time to be with the ones you love and you wanted to love your job. Don't forget that.

Stay true to what you want and what you believe, it's easy to get lost and misdirected when you have no money and you are worried about the future, but that is exactly the kind of future you don't want.

6. You will need to take measured risks.

Everything you do is a gamble. You have to weigh up a lot of options and sometimes just take leaps of faith.

The sacrifices that lead to a sustainable long term business tend to be the ones that serve yours and your business's potential rather than immediate success and gratification.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions that may sound like idiotic business decisions to some.

We knew that releasing on Xbox and PC wasn't the best platform for Chompy Chomp Chomp. It's inherently a console game that appeals mostly to kids and people who like cute characters. No one plays multiplayer on PC and the XBLIG market was saturated. We were right to make those 'crazy' decisions.

We needed to start building our experience. It's like building a CV for your company. You need to show that you can make games before you can make games. You have to start somewhere. We needed a cheap, easy way to get experience of making a game for a console and XBLIG provided that.

Sure, we could have made a game that we thought would sell well on XBLIG & PC. We decided we wanted to make Chompy Chomp Chomp anyway because we believe in its purpose and its value to people. We want to bring people together and Chompy Chomp Chomp is exactly the kind of game we want to be making in the future. If the players aren't there yet, we just have to take the time to find them.

Our measured risk, bearing all of this in mind, was 6 month development (approx 3 months over about a year while we had jobs, 3 months full time for 2 people). A game that we call Minimum Viable Awesome.

You might have heard of Minimum Viable Products, we approach games slightly differently. We aim for the features to be as polished and awesome as we can get them, we only put as many features in as we can polish in the time frame.

We had a million ideas but we knew that if we waited any longer before releasing then the learning to effort ratio would not be balanced.

We wanted to start collecting information about the games we wanted to make and start learning as soon as we could. The best learning is the learning we get from our own experiences. So we make small games, we release them into the world and we learn from them before we decide to invest more time in it. Those are the measured risks that we take. We try to invest just enough time to learn what we need to know in order to progress. We build on our previous experience and lessons learned.

Sometimes we just do something to answer a question e.g. "How much would we learn if we released our prototypes on newgrounds?" It's important to incorporate the idea that you have to get things wrong to get them right into your business strategy.

That's why it's important to prioritise learning and integrity. That's all we can plan for, because we don't know what the future will hold.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

7. It's always harder than you think it will be. Even if you already think it will be hard.

It takes a lot of courage to take the plunge into becoming indie, and even more passion and drive to make it work. Yet however tough you think it will be, you cannot prepare yourself for every eventuality. It all takes a lot of time, mostly it will take longer than you ever expected... so the sooner you start the better.

It is a really scary, stressful, exciting, fun, boring, fulfilling ride.

You will need to find ways to persist through all the hits and bad patches because otherwise you will end up quitting and it will all be for nothing.

Then again, this has been our approach to the indie game development business...

Don't do it for the money and success. Do it for the art of making games. Have faith that getting better at this will pay off eventually.

I guess only time will tell whether this is a good strategy for us or not. We may not be getting thousands of sales but we're getting by and we're doing what we believe in. It is what feels right to us and honestly, that's what you should do. No one else can tell you how to run your business. Every game and every business is different, you just need a quick, cheap and easy way of figuring things out as you go. It takes time, effort, patience and persistence.

Every overnight success will have years of failures, learning and experience behind it. Starting a business & making games is a long game.
- Sarah Woodrow (@sarahofsandwich) December 6, 2013

All you can do is get started, keep trying and do what it takes to make sure you can keep trying. Keep getting better at this. Believe that you will get there in the end. The ones who succeed are the ones who don't give up.

Good luck!

Related Jobs

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

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Hi everyone! I don't post very often but I hope you enjoy the videos. I sometimes get reports of other people impersonating me on Twitch and Twitter, etc. Listen folks, anyone can impersonate ANYONE on the internet. Please only trust accounts that are verifiable, such as Steam pages created by me and my official youtube account.

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http://supermeatboy.com/

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Today's blockbusters could be tomorrow's one-hit wonders

When Mike Bithell started working on Thomas Was Alone, his first solo game, he imagined three possible tiers of success. At the low end of the spectrum, he hoped the game would earn enough money so he could buy an iPad, because he'd wanted one for a while. If the game sold better than that, he would take his girlfriend on a vacation to Disney World. "And then the far flung idea, kind of, 'oh my god it'll never happen, but if it does, it'll be an awesome dream,' was a year's salary," he says. "I might actually be able to quit my day job and spend a year making any game I want."

It took six months, but the moment came - Bithell remembers the day clearly. It was New Year's Eve, and he decided to stay home and avoid any parties, just so he could watch the sales counter go up and possibly hit his self-imposed goal. The moment occurred almost exactly at midnight. "It was brilliant, actually," he says. "Fireworks going off outside, and me going 'I'm going to quit my day job!'"

Thomas went on to sell more than a million copies.

Bithell has become one of a growing number of prominent indie game developers known by name after releasing a hit game. New platforms like Steam and iOS have made it easier than ever for a single developer to create a successful game, and sometimes those games really blow up - developers like Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson have become fast millionaires solely off of a single title. But after the elation of a hit game comes a sudden realization: you need to make another one.

"It's definitely easier to make games when no one is watching," says Bithell.

That kind of success can bring a new kind of freedom, where developers now have the time and resources to create their dream projects. Jonathan Blow created Braid, one of the early hits in the new wave of indie games, and it turned him into a millionaire. Today he says that he's spent all of that money building his next game, a Myst-style adventure called The Witness.

For others, that freedom and attention can make focusing on any one thing an almost impassable obstacle. Notch is the most prominent example, and his post- Minecraft struggles have been well documented. After distancing himself from the game, he went on to try other projects, like the sci-fi game 0x10c, which was never released. These days, after selling Minecraft to Microsoft, Notch has a new studio, but one that rarely does much actual game development, and doesn't seem to really want to. "It's like a daycare for us," he told Forbes of the company's office. Like Notch, other developers find it hard to settle on a game after realizing how it will be compared to their past work. "I have pretty high standards for myself," says Asher Vollmer, the designer of mobile hit Threes. "And I want to hold to them."

"I'm scared of getting attention again."

Vollmer says that he felt the pressure of Threes' success "pretty much right away" after the game hit number one in the App Store. He had planned to start working on a new game about a month after release, but found himself tied up with his hit creation for much longer - dealing with bug fixes and press obligations, traveling to festivals, and porting the game to new platforms ate up most of his time.

When he finally got the time to work on something new, his first post- Threes project was a real-time strategy game for the PlayStation 4 called Close Castles. And it was created to be very different from Threes. "I decided consciously after Threes that the worst thing that I could do was release another minimalist, abstract puzzle game on phones," says Vollmer. "Because it would be compared to Threes relentlessly, and probably not to its benefit. I'm pretty convinced that I'm never going to make anything as clean and tight as Threes ever again."

After announcing the game on the PlayStation blog, Vollmer has since put the project on hiatus - though he's careful to point out that it's not canceled. "I think there's still fun in it," he says, but adds that there are some fundamental flaws that may be a result of him having no distance from the game. It turns out that, for some developers, the near-unlimited freedom that comes with a successful game can be a problem for creativity. "I've never really had just one project," says Vollmer, "so when I sat down and had the freedom to work on just Close Castles, I'm pretty sure that was a mistake, because suddenly I had no distance from it ever."

With Close Castles on hold, he's currently working under a system that lets him focus on multiple projects at once. Three days a week he works on what he describes as a bigger, more ambitious game, one that he's assembled a small team to work on. And the rest of the week he plays around with smaller game ideas and also continues to work on Threes-related stuff; the day I called him, he had just finished working on a new bug that only affected people who had played more than 1,000 games.

But he also knows that eventually, if the prototype for his bigger idea turns out to be something worth pursuing, he's going to have to make a choice and decide to dedicate himself to the idea full-time. "I don't know how to do that," he says, "and I'm scared of getting attention again."

For Bithell, meanwhile, the decision of what to work on after Thomas Was Alone proved to be comparatively easy. He had an idea of the game he wanted to make, and he knew he wanted it to be something much more ambitious than the one he built his reputation on. "This might be the most money I ever have," he explains. "This might be the peak, financially, so this might be the one chance to make something that costs this much money. And I kind of have to try."

He started thinking about the next game about six months after Thomas came out, and work on it began in early 2013. It's called Volume, and it's a vastly different game. Whereas Thomas was a charmingly narrated platform game about rectangles with personalities, Volume is a puzzle-like stealth game about sneaking past guards using all kinds of high-tech gadgets. It's sort of like a more fleshed out version of the VR missions from the Metal Gear Solid series, and based on an early version I played, it's shaping up very well.

"This might be the most money I ever have."

But while the pressure of his past success didn't deter Bithell from starting his next game, that doesn't mean he hasn't felt it. "Very quickly, the pressure starts to build, because you notice that when you put out a trailer, people are excited about it and talking about it," Bithell explains. "And the more I shared about Volume, the scarier that became, because it does get an inappropriate amount of attention because of how successful Thomas was. With Thomas Was Alone, no one cared."

It's also a much bigger production. Bithell developed Thomas by himself; the only other people to work on the game were the narrator and composer. But Volume has had around 25 people working on it, ranging from full-time coders to voice actors who only spent a week on the project. The cast includes big-name actors like Andy Serkis. Volume is three times larger than he initially imagined, and also a bit late; Bithell originally planned to launch the game in 2014. As he continued to work on it, his ambitions grew. And while a bigger project means bigger expectations, it also helps alleviate some of the stress for Bithell - despite the fact that it's still his name associated with the game, he's not the only one making it. "Distributing ownership also distributes the pressure a bit," he says.

Game developers are more visible to the public than ever before, and for indie developers with a sudden hit, that means that they're often suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Some handle it better than others - you only need to look at the abrupt cancellation of Fez II to see how challenging it can be to work under such scrutiny. "This is as much as I can stomach," creator Phil Fish said when announcing the cancellation. Nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder, but in the world of gaming, where it's impossible to predict the next big thing, maybe you just have to accept that.

"I have to convince myself that this game will be a failure, just so that I can not stress out about how successful it's going to be," says Vollmer. "I'm not in that state yet, but I think I need to be."

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After a hit game, indie developers struggle to replicate success

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Today's blockbusters could be tomorrow's one-hit wonders When Mike Bithell started working on Thomas Was Alone, his first solo game, he imagined three possible tiers of success. At the low end of the spectrum, he hoped the game would earn enough money so he could buy an iPad, because he'd wanted one for a while.

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NOCT is a thing you should look at

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http://www.keenswh.com/about.html

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Today's blockbusters could be tomorrow's one-hit wonders

When Mike Bithell started working on Thomas Was Alone, his first solo game, he imagined three possible tiers of success. At the low end of the spectrum, he hoped the game would earn enough money so he could buy an iPad, because he'd wanted one for a while. If the game sold better than that, he would take his girlfriend on a vacation to Disney World. "And then the far flung idea, kind of, 'oh my god it'll never happen, but if it does, it'll be an awesome dream,' was a year's salary," he says. "I might actually be able to quit my day job and spend a year making any game I want."

It took six months, but the moment came - Bithell remembers the day clearly. It was New Year's Eve, and he decided to stay home and avoid any parties, just so he could watch the sales counter go up and possibly hit his self-imposed goal. The moment occurred almost exactly at midnight. "It was brilliant, actually," he says. "Fireworks going off outside, and me going 'I'm going to quit my day job!'"

Thomas went on to sell more than a million copies.

Bithell has become one of a growing number of prominent indie game developers known by name after releasing a hit game. New platforms like Steam and iOS have made it easier than ever for a single developer to create a successful game, and sometimes those games really blow up - developers like Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson have become fast millionaires solely off of a single title. But after the elation of a hit game comes a sudden realization: you need to make another one.

"It's definitely easier to make games when no one is watching," says Bithell.

That kind of success can bring a new kind of freedom, where developers now have the time and resources to create their dream projects. Jonathan Blow created Braid, one of the early hits in the new wave of indie games, and it turned him into a millionaire. Today he says that he's spent all of that money building his next game, a Myst-style adventure called The Witness.

For others, that freedom and attention can make focusing on any one thing an almost impassable obstacle. Notch is the most prominent example, and his post- Minecraft struggles have been well documented. After distancing himself from the game, he went on to try other projects, like the sci-fi game 0x10c, which was never released. These days, after selling Minecraft to Microsoft, Notch has a new studio, but one that rarely does much actual game development, and doesn't seem to really want to. "It's like a daycare for us," he told Forbes of the company's office. Like Notch, other developers find it hard to settle on a game after realizing how it will be compared to their past work. "I have pretty high standards for myself," says Asher Vollmer, the designer of mobile hit Threes. "And I want to hold to them."

"I'm scared of getting attention again."

Vollmer says that he felt the pressure of Threes' success "pretty much right away" after the game hit number one in the App Store. He had planned to start working on a new game about a month after release, but found himself tied up with his hit creation for much longer - dealing with bug fixes and press obligations, traveling to festivals, and porting the game to new platforms ate up most of his time.

When he finally got the time to work on something new, his first post- Threes project was a real-time strategy game for the PlayStation 4 called Close Castles. And it was created to be very different from Threes. "I decided consciously after Threes that the worst thing that I could do was release another minimalist, abstract puzzle game on phones," says Vollmer. "Because it would be compared to Threes relentlessly, and probably not to its benefit. I'm pretty convinced that I'm never going to make anything as clean and tight as Threes ever again."

After announcing the game on the PlayStation blog, Vollmer has since put the project on hiatus - though he's careful to point out that it's not canceled. "I think there's still fun in it," he says, but adds that there are some fundamental flaws that may be a result of him having no distance from the game. It turns out that, for some developers, the near-unlimited freedom that comes with a successful game can be a problem for creativity. "I've never really had just one project," says Vollmer, "so when I sat down and had the freedom to work on just Close Castles, I'm pretty sure that was a mistake, because suddenly I had no distance from it ever."

With Close Castles on hold, he's currently working under a system that lets him focus on multiple projects at once. Three days a week he works on what he describes as a bigger, more ambitious game, one that he's assembled a small team to work on. And the rest of the week he plays around with smaller game ideas and also continues to work on Threes-related stuff; the day I called him, he had just finished working on a new bug that only affected people who had played more than 1,000 games.

But he also knows that eventually, if the prototype for his bigger idea turns out to be something worth pursuing, he's going to have to make a choice and decide to dedicate himself to the idea full-time. "I don't know how to do that," he says, "and I'm scared of getting attention again."

For Bithell, meanwhile, the decision of what to work on after Thomas Was Alone proved to be comparatively easy. He had an idea of the game he wanted to make, and he knew he wanted it to be something much more ambitious than the one he built his reputation on. "This might be the most money I ever have," he explains. "This might be the peak, financially, so this might be the one chance to make something that costs this much money. And I kind of have to try."

He started thinking about the next game about six months after Thomas came out, and work on it began in early 2013. It's called Volume, and it's a vastly different game. Whereas Thomas was a charmingly narrated platform game about rectangles with personalities, Volume is a puzzle-like stealth game about sneaking past guards using all kinds of high-tech gadgets. It's sort of like a more fleshed out version of the VR missions from the Metal Gear Solid series, and based on an early version I played, it's shaping up very well.

"This might be the most money I ever have."

But while the pressure of his past success didn't deter Bithell from starting his next game, that doesn't mean he hasn't felt it. "Very quickly, the pressure starts to build, because you notice that when you put out a trailer, people are excited about it and talking about it," Bithell explains. "And the more I shared about Volume, the scarier that became, because it does get an inappropriate amount of attention because of how successful Thomas was. With Thomas Was Alone, no one cared."

It's also a much bigger production. Bithell developed Thomas by himself; the only other people to work on the game were the narrator and composer. But Volume has had around 25 people working on it, ranging from full-time coders to voice actors who only spent a week on the project. The cast includes big-name actors like Andy Serkis. Volume is three times larger than he initially imagined, and also a bit late; Bithell originally planned to launch the game in 2014. As he continued to work on it, his ambitions grew. And while a bigger project means bigger expectations, it also helps alleviate some of the stress for Bithell - despite the fact that it's still his name associated with the game, he's not the only one making it. "Distributing ownership also distributes the pressure a bit," he says.

Game developers are more visible to the public than ever before, and for indie developers with a sudden hit, that means that they're often suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Some handle it better than others - you only need to look at the abrupt cancellation of Fez II to see how challenging it can be to work under such scrutiny. "This is as much as I can stomach," creator Phil Fish said when announcing the cancellation. Nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder, but in the world of gaming, where it's impossible to predict the next big thing, maybe you just have to accept that.

"I have to convince myself that this game will be a failure, just so that I can not stress out about how successful it's going to be," says Vollmer. "I'm not in that state yet, but I think I need to be."

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After a hit game, indie developers struggle to replicate success

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Today's blockbusters could be tomorrow's one-hit wonders When Mike Bithell started working on Thomas Was Alone, his first solo game, he imagined three possible tiers of success. At the low end of the spectrum, he hoped the game would earn enough money so he could buy an iPad, because he'd wanted one for a while.

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http://robocraftgame.com/about/

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We tend to like to talk about 2013 as a transitional year, mainly because two major new game consoles arrived. But while those launches were vehicles for some overarching trends in the game industry this year, they weren't the sole source of transition.

In 2013, we saw new ways to share, new ways to involve the community, new ways to experience games, across various platforms and systems. Here are the trends that shaped the year in video games, and that will influence game development and business in the years to come.

Livestreaming games and sharing gameplay videos had been around before 2013, but it was this year that video game voyeurism gained real traction and headed towards mainstream acceptance and usability.

Twitch has been leading the charge. Game developers, from Sony Online Entertainment to Mojang to CCP and others, have updated their games with Twitch integration, for easy livestreaming of gameplay. PlayStation 4's controller introduces the "Share" button, which makes broadcasting gameplay a seamless, simple experience. Xbox One is a little behind on Twitch livestreaming, but the Upload Studio and ability to yell "Xbox, record that" to save gameplay to share later is still a little next-gen miracle.

Moving forward, integrating the mere functionality of livestreaming and video sharing will become standard for games and platforms -- the next step is for game developers to design games with observer-friendliness in mind from the start.

The new wave of virtual reality excitement has been going strong since summer 2012, when the Oculus Rift became a big crowdfunded success. But 2013 is when thousands of Rift dev kits shipped to developers, and the potential of this hardware began to materialize.

The company told us before that it's indies who would be pushing the capabilities of the VR goggles, experimenting with new kinds of interactive experiences, and that's exactly what happened this year. Developers are bringing holodeck-style experiences to the Rift; they're giving users the feeling of getting their heads chopped off; they're creating horror games in horror games, just to name a few examples. Momentum is gaining, too -- the already-talented team at Oculus VR recently added former id technical head John Carmack to its ranks.

The marriage of VR and video games isn't limited to Oculus VR. Sony is rumored to have a PlayStation VR solution in the works, and other startups, including former Valve engineers at Technical Illusions with the augmented/virtual realty CastAR system, will be exploring the mainstream commercialization of VR in the years ahead.

This year, we saw major video game console makers give small independent developers more attention than ever before. Particularly with the introductions of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this year, there were significant shifts in publishing policies and overall attitudes toward small developers -- instead of game developers begging to be let into the walled console gardens, console makers were courting indies, inviting them in to help them boost their software lineups.

One of the biggest components of this trend has been the ability to self-publish on consoles. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's strategies for self-publishing vary (Microsoft famously heeded the cries of game devs and changed its self-publishing policy for the better), but the main point is that none of them require a publishing partner to get onto these heavily-marketed game consoles that control a sizable mindshare of the video game market. That's good for players, and it's good for game developers.

Alpha funding -- allowing players to purchase early, in-development games essentially as they're being made -- become considerably more commonplace this year.

Mojang's Minecraft is one early example of the practice, but a big factor for alpha funding in 2013 was Valve's introduction of Steam Early Access. Kerbal Space Program, Planetary Annihilation, Natural Selection 2, Project Zomboid -- the list of alpha-funded games goes on and on. Developers are finding that players are willing to pay to experience a game while it's being developed, as long as the developer is transparent that the the game is a work in process. Alpha funding is yet another way that developers are able to include their communities in the game development process, and it will continue to shape the way modern video games are made.

Indies made a lot of great strides in the past year, but as the video game market matured, finding financial success has become even more difficult than before.

I could talk in-depth about how certain platforms, namely mobile, are increasingly crowded, how a small amount of larger companies are dominating top-grossing charts, how paid games have given way to metrics-driven free-to-play, how production quality, and therefore cost, is ramping up on "indie friendly" platforms. I could talk about how we're not halfway through the month, and dozens of Steam games have already released in December, and that the churn will only get more intense.

But instead I'll link you this recent, excellent Gamasutra comment from Dan Cook, lead game designer at Triple Town developer Spry Fox. It'll give you some perspective on 2013, and some realistic expectations for the year to come.

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The 5 trends that defined the game industry in 2013

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We tend to like to talk about 2013 as a transitional year, mainly because two major new game consoles arrived. But while those launches were vehicles for some overarching trends in the game industry this year, they weren't the sole source of transition.

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The gang from Supergiant gives us an update in our continuing Bastion coverage.

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Why Supergiant ditched publishers for the release of Transistor – interview

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Why Supergiant ditched publishers for the release of Transistor – interview

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Transistor is the first self-published release from Bastion developer SuperGiant Games. Dave Cook speaks with Greg Kasavin about how it feels to go it alone, and gets fresh information on the game's bold art directon, compelling plot and tactical combat mechanics.

"It is humbling that Sony thinks so highly of us as a team. At this point many of our fans have put a tremendous amount of faith in us, based on what little they've seen of Transistor plus the one game we've made."

Following up something as well-produced and critically-acclaimed as Bastion was never going to be easy, but for all intents and purposes, SuperGiant seems primed to knock it out of the park again with its next action-RPG Transistor.

Launching May 20 on PS4 and PC, the game stars mute protagonist Red, a former singer who is being pursued across the city of Cloudbank by a mysterious group called The Process.

Her travelling companion is the Transistor, a talking sword that serves as the game's primary voice and the player's means of defence. Together the pair must seek out the weapon's former owners to make sense of why Red is suddenly under threat.

Like SuperGiant's Bastion, Transistor plays out in isometric fashion as players explore the romanticised urban sprawl of Cloudbank's lavish architecture, daubed with colourful hazed lighting and futuristic utopian design. The journey is interspersed with battles that incorporate both real-time and pause-based attacks, giving the game more of a strategic edge than its predecessor, and enabling players to think laterally about how Red uses the Transistor in combat.

"You can play Transistor like an action RPG though within the first few minutes of play you'll discover you have access to some rather powerful abilities," SuperGiant's Greg Kasavin tells me over email. "One of them is called Turn(), which is like a strategic planning mode where you can freeze the world and everything around you, plan out your next set of actions, then execute them in a supercharged fashion.

You'll find examples of how Transistor's battle skills work in this trailer

"You'll be facing fast and powerful foes, though by using Turn() you can control the pace of the fight. Positioning and cover are important factors as you do so. If you end Turn() out in the open, your foes may punish you for it as the ability takes a few seconds to recover. Turn() is there when you need it, and is not something we force players to use. We want it to open up the gameplay for people, and we love seeing different players use it in different ways."

Though Kasavin won't be swayed into telling me exactly why Red is being hunted by The Process, or the true extent of her powers, he teases that there is a mystery shrouding the Transistor's growth as the player gains experience through victory.

"We wanted to see if we could combine the pleasure and suspense of classic turn-based games and tactical RPGs with the immediacy and intuitive feel of an action RPG. We liked the idea of putting that in a science fiction context."

He explains that the game's suite of powers, such as Mask() - which offers a variety of damage output buffs and brief invisibility - along with other tactical boosts helps keep SuperGiant's combat system out of mindless hack-and-slash territory. I'm told there are literally thousands of power combinations to experiment with.

But what of the Transistor itself? It's clear that something has happened to those who have come into contact with it previously, and SuperGiant's decision to make it sentient poses further questions. While the device serves as the game's primary speaker, it is not an omniscient guide like Bastion's narrator, and as such is only able to comment on events as they unfold before Red. It's a compelling dynamic to say the least.

"There is no narrator in Transistor, so from our point of view the methods of storytelling here are rather different," Kasavin comments, and adds, "Of course there are similarities in that voiceover is used extensively in both games. We came around to using voiceover as a primary method of storytelling in Transistor for a couple of reasons.

"We really like the immediacy it provides, as it lets players go through the game at their own pace without getting interrupted by cutscenes or other non-interactive forms of storytelling. We like the reactivity it provides, as we love those moments when you feel like the game you're playing is responding to the way in which you're playing it, and we love working with Logan Cunningham, who was the voice of Bastion's narrator and plays a principal character in Transistor as well. We hope the way we're using voice in this game feels distinct to Transistor."

Distinct is a good word to use with Transistor, because this is a game that exudes a clear identity, a unique, obscure world and SuperGiant's unmistakable art style. In an industry top-heavy with clones and spins on worn concepts, that's certainly something to be thankful for, and it's interesting to learn that Kasavin and the team never start with a base pitch or overarching theme for its games. It's an organic process that flies in the face of focus testing and 'box-ticker' design.

"Self-publishing felt like a logical next step," he states, "as digital publishing has evolved to some extent in the last several years to make it easier for smaller teams like ours to get their games onto different platforms."

"Our games don't really start with a pitch, and we shape them over time," Kasvin explains. "When the dust was starting to settle on Bastion's launch and we realized enough people liked it and bought it that we'd get to stick together as a team and make something new, just like we hoped, we then sat down together and started talking about what we wanted to do next.

"Specifically, we started listing what we called our 'preoccupations'. These were things we were thinking about, which could be anything in any way pertinent to a game... an idea for a character, an emotional state having to do with a certain style of play, ideas for new tech, or anything else. Then we looked for common ground between what folks on the team were thinking about, and took it from there.

"One thing that became clear was that we wanted to make a whole new world from scratch. We really enjoyed creating Bastion's weird fantasy frontier setting, and wanted to see if we could come up with something different. Part of it was that the gameplay direction we were thinking about wouldn't have made much sense in Bastion anyway.

"We wanted to see if we could combine the pleasure and suspense of classic turn-based games and tactical RPGs with the immediacy and intuitive feel of an action RPG. We liked the idea of putting that in a science fiction context."

Transistor's sci-fi setting Cloudbank is both foreign and familiar by design. Its neon hues and far-reaching metallic horizons recall Ridley Scott's vision in Bladerunner, and perhaps foreshadow the evolution of real-world design, but there's something endearing about the flickers of gothic stonework and motifs that dress the environment in such a way that it feels unique.

"While I think it makes sense for Sony to court small independent developers working on interesting games, I also can't think of what else I'd do if I were in their position. There are far fewer big studios around these days than when the PS3 launched, and consoles needs content"

The debut trailer above sets out that stall wonderfully, while 2D scenes such as Red's silhouette-laden bike ride across a deserted highway provide introspective narrative breaks. These side-on moments were once filled with action, but now they serve as artistic traversal stages that offer a new perspective on the city, if only to make Cloudbank's scale and dense nature clear. The city looks like it will be a well-defined character in its own right.

As Transistor is coming to PS4 and PC initially, I ask Kasavin about SuperGiant's decision to forego publishers and fly solo throughout the project. He tells me that Warner Bros' involvement with Bastion was primarily a pre-requisite to get the game past Microsoft's Xbox Live certification process, but now that several barriers have been lifted on consoles, the team decided to stay entirely self-sufficient this time around.

"Self-publishing felt like a logical next step," he states, "as digital publishing has evolved to some extent in the last several years to make it easier for smaller teams like ours to get their games onto different platforms. At this point we have a good-sized following of fans interested in what we're up to, and we love talking to the gaming press directly. And above all, we love our independence, being able to control and be responsible for every aspect of the games we make. We'll see how the rest of this process goes for us, though thus far we've enjoyed it."

d

He recalls that Sony first saw Transistor at the same time it was revealed at PAX East last year, and revealed that the company's enthusiasm for the game was both "clear and immediate," with negotiations to bring it to PS4 starting as soon as the show ended.

"The more we learned about the PS4 and the more we saw how serious Sony was about working with a small team like ours, the more we realized it just made a lot of sense," Kasavin stresses. "They've let us do our thing and just wanted Transistor to come out on PS4 whenever we decided it'd be ready, and we decided it'd be ready on May 20. Sony's put a great deal of faith in our team and our game, as evidenced by how prominently they featured us as part of their E3 presentation this past year.

"While I think it makes sense for Sony to court small independent developers working on interesting games, I also can't think of what else I'd do if I were in their position. There are far fewer big studios around these days than when the PS3 launched, and consoles needs content. Where else is there to look these days but smaller teams? It helps that smaller teams are responsible for some of the best, most memorable games of the past few years.

"It is humbling that Sony thinks so highly of us as a team. At this point many of our fans have put a tremendous amount of faith in us, based on what little they've seen of Transistor plus the one game we've made.

"We hope they'll find very soon now that their good faith was well placed."
Transistor launches on PS4 and PC May 20 in North America, before rolling out across other territories. Stay tuned for our final impressions soon.

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Why Supergiant ditched publishers for the release of Transistor - interview - VG247

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Transistor is the first self-published release from Bastion developer SuperGiant Games. Dave Cook speaks with Greg Kasavin about how it feels to go it alone, and gets fresh information on the game's bold art directon, compelling plot and tactical combat mechanics. "It is humbling that Sony thinks so highly of us as a team.

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'Braid' creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game

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'Braid' creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game

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" still sells well on platforms that are thriving, but two of Braid's big platforms were the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, both of which are sunsetting at this point," Blow tells me in an email interview.

Braid was pivotal on Xbox 360. It launched as an exclusive on the digital storefront Xbox Live Arcade and ushered in a wave of successful independent games for the console.

"Not so many people are buying digital games there," Blow says. "So the Braid income is not nearly enough anymore to fund the team. I have borrowed a bunch of money to finish The Witness. So I hope when it's done, some people buy the game."

The current console generation kicked off in late 2013 with the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and these systems now dominate the market. Previous-generation games do sometimes make their way to new consoles; so far, Braid isn't one of them. It's still available for PC, Mac and Linux on digital distribution service Steam, where it's now six years old.

GROWING PAINS

Since starting development on The Witness in 2009, the game has at least tripled in size, from eight hours to 25-40 hours. The Witness dev team, nine people credited in full and eight additional contributors, hit a development milestone last month: All of the game's puzzles are complete. There's still plenty to work on, but the creative heavy lifting is done. There are 677 puzzles in The Witness currently.

Blow generally keeps gameplay details vague for fear of spoiling The Witness' main focus, but he says there are 11 different puzzle areas, and to "beat" the game, players will need to solve seven or eight of these. Each section has a different number of puzzles, and some areas can be completed without solving every puzzle therein.

"It's a pretty flexible game that way," Blow says. "But if you solve all the areas, of course, you might get a little something extra. Or a lot."
The Witness
The Witness' premise may sound familiar to some of you. Late last year, The Talos Principle launched on PC: a 3D, first-person puzzle game composed of separate puzzle areas and a mysterious, overarching story.

The Witness is also a 3D, first-person puzzle game bathed in mystery, but Blow says it's a completely different experience. The Talos Principle, for instance, involves communication with a booming, god-like voice and others via computer terminals. The Witness is about the experience of being alone on an island, finding beauty in that solitude and solving puzzles along the way.

"There are some similarities between The Witness and Talos Principle, but most of those similarities are on the surface," he says. "I think these two games are ultimately about very different subjects, and were made for very different reasons, and you feel the differences when you play. That said, it is likely that someone interested in one game may be interested in the other game."

Clearly, there's not a case of any developer "stealing" ideas from another, as Blow has been building The Witness for six years. That's a long time to tease fans, and Blow knows it.

"If there is such a thing as taking 'too long,' we have probably already done that," he says. "20 years from now, I am not going to care about whether we took an extra six months or a year in development; I am going to care about the quality of the game people got to play. It'd be a shame to sacrifice some of that quality just to squeak the game out a little sooner. Though I do sympathize with people who have been waiting a long time to play."

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'Braid' creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game

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" still sells well on platforms that are thriving, but two of Braid's big platforms were the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, both of which are sunsetting at this point," Blow tells me in an email interview. Braid was pivotal on Xbox 360.

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It's not hard to imagine why Double Fine might want to reform the publishing business from the inside. Psychonauts and Brutal Legend were both dropped by their initial publishers, leading to a dash to find new ones. THQ went out of business, which meant that Double Fine had to broker deals to get back the rights to their games Costume Quest and Stacking.

In an email to the press, Double Fine described Double Fine Presents -- which is what it calls its publishing business -- as a "new initiative to help out other independent game developers." The word "publishing" is absent from both the name and the explanation.

Still, that's what it is. Gamasutra asked COO Justin Bailey if this new business had anything to do with its past experiences. Nothing specific, he said -- it's a reaction to the general shape of publishing today.

"We believe the best games will emerge from arrangements where developers control the rights to their IP, own the creative vision, and where a publisher is incentivized to act like a partner. One of our aims with Double Fine Presents is to help be a catalyst to bring this change to the industry."

"We've been publishing our own titles, and we know there's value there, but we're feeling around to figure how, or even if, we can leverage that externally to help other indies," Bailey says. "Publishing used to be very rigid." He hopes that Double Fine, as a developer, can shake things up by keeping up with developers' changing needs.

"I would say everything was tailored to my specific position."

It's fair to say that, at least in the experience of its first developer partner, Double Fine has been anything but rigid: "I would say everything was tailored to my specific position," says Ian Stocker, creator of Escape Goat 2 -- the first game published by the studio.

That flexibility is key to the Double Fine Presents process, it seems. In my conversation with Stocker and Bailey, it kept coming up again and again:

"We've now done a straight promotion/distribution deal, provided advisory help on a Kickstarter campaign, and next we're looking to support an Early Access project," says Bailey. That list doesn't include its Day of the Devs festival, a press-focused indie showcase at its San Francisco headquarters. While the games there weren't published by Double Fine, it's not business as usual for a studio to show off others' games to the press.

What Double Fine considers "publishing" will naturally evolve based on what developers want and what works, Bailey suggests, "in a flexible a la carte style where their needs intersect with the value we bring. And we're not looking to define that model by ourselves, but work as partners to define it together."

Defining what a publisher does in this day and age is difficult. Not only are there a host of possibilities -- "publishers traditionally have provided a greenlight process, funding, development guidance, promotion, and distribution," notes Bailey -- but not all of them are necessary or even desirable.

Distribution is free and ubiquitous, and there are other, less restrictive ways to get funding, too. "I think a lot of us find ourselves asking whether or not we need publisher support after all," Stocker says.

"Indies these days seem a bit skeptical of publishers, when I talk with them one-on-one."

When you add in the fact that many developers have been burned by bad publisher relationships, things get even more complicated. "Indies these days seem a bit skeptical of publishers, when I talk with them one-on-one," says Stocker. "Some have gone through horror stories involving lawsuits or losing the rights to their game, and many who have done publishing deals speculate on whether it was worth it."

"Because distribution is free these days, what publishers can offer (aside from funding, of course) is a publicity campaign in exchange for revenue. This is a tough deal to evaluate ahead of time -- nobody knows the real impact of media coverage these days, and it's a difficult thing to get a guarantee on for legwork from the publisher." It's enough to make a developer want to avoid publishers altogether.

So why did Stocker go with Double Fine Presents?

Escape Goat 2 was already nearly complete before Stocker signed up with Double Fine. Though he had talked to other publishers, he wasn't planning on using one. "We didn't really need funding, or help getting distribution deals -- we were already on Steam. So exchanging a cut of revenue for help with media coverage and publicity didn't seem like it was in our interest."

He's glad he went with Double Fine, however: "The DF marketing machine snapped into action and get me an unreal amount of buzz on the internet for our launch day. I had never seen so many tweets about one of my games." Tim Schafer took time out during GDC to help Stocker make an Escape Goat 2 video ad, Stocker notes.

All this helped Escape Goat 2 get noticed by the press, but it's not just the media that Double Fine leverages its relationships with, says Bailey. "We have great relationships with all the press and major platforms and that's key to helping get the word out and securing a feature spot, which in turn can lead to early sale success and pave the way for more opportunities down the road."

That personal generosity is one thing that wowed Stocker, but given his comments about what publishers can offer a developer, it's clear he's satisfied with the business end, too: "their offer was very flexible and generous. I didn't see a scenario where it wouldn't be in our interest to join forces with them."

It's worth noting that Stocker is in a stronger position than many indies are: He has several successful games under his belt; his latest had hit the PAX 10, was already funded, and nearly completed. He just wanted a partner to take him across the finish line.

"Finish line" is a misnomer, of course. These days, things don't end with a single launch. Stocker's relationship with Double Fine continues to the newly announced PlayStation 4 version of the game. Stocker told Gamasutra that Double Fine counseled him on the ins and outs of a console port from early on.

Bailey is keen to highlight the fact that as Double Fine has learned so much -- from its successful Kickstarter campaigns, from taking its Amnesia Fortnight game jam to the web and turning it into a public greenlight process -- that it not only understands the way indies work now, but knows when to let them handle what they can handle, and step in when needed.

"From a development perspective we can help evaluate art, design, animation, and programming," Bailey says. Double Fine not only develops games internally -- it works with partners on things like ports, QA, and localization. "We can leverage our experience and these relationships to provide feedback to indies and help make their games better," Bailey says.

Finding the right partners to work with is not easy -- and that goes for Double Fine as much as the developers it partners with.

"It's a bit squishy at the moment, and we're likely to keep it that way."

Since opening up Double Fine Presents, the company has been inundated with requests. How does it select who to approach? "There's definitely not a hard-fast criteria. It's a bit squishy at the moment, and we're likely to keep it that way," says Bailey. "From a high level, we're just looking for developers who are passionate about games and dedicated to a strong creative vision."

That can be seen in the second Double Fine Presents game, Last Life. Currently, Double Fine is consulting on its (successful) Kickstarter campaign, which has a week left.

The other challenge is getting to know potential partners. Double Fine is, unsurprisingly, demanding about this too: "Ideally, we'd like to hang out with the developer in our offices and have an opportunity for them to share their games with us -- and we want to do the same, and have them play some of our builds as well. Even if we don't decide to formally work together, I think we can both benefit from the experience, and our games will be better for it," Bailey says.

The doors are closed for the moment, however, as the company evaluates what to do next.

Escape Goat 2 came to Double Fine as it neared completion; Last Life is just crossing its starting line. That's as good an indicator as any that the shape of the Double Fine Presents business is still not fully formed -- something Bailey admits.

"So far I'd say the initiative has been a success and shows a lot of promise. Roadmap-wise, we're looking to help out just one more project and then regrouping to see what worked best before adding additional titles and potentially expanding the program," he says.

Whatever happens, the studio is not in a rush to metamorphose into a publisher: It will chart its course based on what opportunities arise and what lessons are learned, and do so cautiously.

"For the short term, we just want to test the waters out and grow organically. We don't want to force anything. If it turns out to be successful for both parties, and there's adequate demand, then we can always ramp things up, but it's likely to be a slow process for us."

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It's not hard to imagine why Double Fine might want to reform the publishing business from the inside. Psychonauts and Brutal Legend were both dropped by their initial publishers, leading to a dash to find new ones. THQ went out of business, which meant that Double Fine had to broker deals to get back the rights to their games Costume Quest and Stacking.

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Going from a big studio to being a single indie

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Going from a big studio to being a single indie

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

I've just dropped my game, Captain Kaon, on Greenlight ( vote here, you know you want to), and it seems like a good time to take stock of where I am. It's been a little over two years of near ceaseless work to get to this point and my life now is very different to when I was working in a big studio.

I used to work at The Creative Assembly as Lead Tester on Total War. After 12 years there, it was time for something different, so I left to work on my own little game.

In my experience, a lot of devs like the idea of being indie and making their own games, everyone has a little project they wish they could make. But it can be a big daunting step. I'm hoping if I write about the things I've learnt and would have liked to know at the start, it will help other people who want to make that leap. Finger's crossed it isn't a bunch of rambling nonsense (or tl;dr).
Working from home
One of the common things I've been asked about is how I handle working from home. There is this fear people have that they will just end up sitting around watching Netflix, or otherwise being distracted by the infinite depths of the internet. It's easy to think that this will be the case when you work in an office, but I've mostly found that it isn't. We make games because we enjoy making games. At home you're in a more comfortable environment, more relaxed, less stressed and pressured. It's easy to stay focused and throw yourself into the thing you enjoy.

People also think they'll just end up sleeping until noon. It was certainly tough for me to begin with, I'm more of a night-owl than a morning person. I kept trying to get up and start work by 9, every time I over slept I would stress out about it. I'd end up working later to get enough done, which would lead to going to bed later. This would then spiral out of control until I'm getting up at noon and going to bed at 3, which lead to stress and worry and problems sleeping.

Then I realised that the 9-5 paradigm is something rigidly enforced by the corporate environment, and I was no longer in this environment. It didn't matter when I started or when I stopped, all that mattered was the amount of work I got done during the day. As long as I kept track and did about 8 hours, it didn't matter when I started.

Because I use Gamemaker for my game I have my usage hours tracked by Steam. With this I've been able to estimate that I work at least 40 hours a week. Or course, if I'm creating art in photoshop, or working on my website, these hours aren't logged, so the true figure is probably a little higher. Whilst they might not have been the same hours every day, and they might have been broken up and spread about, it was still a solid amount of work that was getting done. Once I realised this I became more relaxed.

I also realised that I'd effectively spent the last two years in a 'light crunch', without really noticing. I hadn't been feeling any of the stress or pressure normally associated with crunch.

There is still a downside to these high working hours, I've got no reserve when I have a lot to do in a little amount of time. I can't work much more hours than I do at the moment. If I have a deadline and I'm falling behind, there's not a lot I can do about it.
Doing everything yourself.
Large studios have highly talented people; one's who can do specific tasks with a high level of skill. They have teams of coders for the Ai, UI, or graphics. Smaller studios might only have people with a broader skillset. They will have to take care of several areas of the game. Everyone is a cog in a machine that works together.

I'm doing everything myself, I'm every cog, and it's a lot to juggle. I can't just focus on what I'm good at and make that area of the game great. I also have to do the things I'm not good at, simply because there is no one else.

You have to be smart with your design and play to your strengths. I'm better at 2D pixel art and not so good at texturing 3D objects, so a 2D game was an obvious choice. But, there's only so far this can take you. Sooner or later you need to do something you struggle with or something new, you don't necessarily need to master it but you will need to reach a certain level of competency.

I've had to learn animation in the past year, which was fun. I've had to learn how to make music and sound effects, which has been taxing.

I'm fortunate that I've always had an interest in learning every aspect of making games, and I spent many years learning and practicing. If you want to be an indie you need to learn to be flexible too. Broaden your skillset, everything you learn makes you better.
No-one to bounce ideas off, no-one to help with problems.
This is a really useful thing at a studio, instant feedback from the people around you or help when you hit a brick wall. Any time you have an idea you can bounce it off any number of people around you. Anytime you're stuck finding a solution to a problem you can ask someone for help. If you've added a new feature and you want to know how it plays, there are people there to do it. Even in a very small team there are a couple of other sets of eyes to spot problems and mistakes that you have missed.

When you're in a team of one you're relying entirely on yourself. There have been so many occasions when I've been sat at home, I've finished a level or feature and I need someone to playtest it. I need to observe someone playing it and see what they do, but there's just me.

I'm fortunate that my QA background makes me better than most at spotting problems, but it's not so helpful with solutions. If there's one thing that I find helps, it's giving yourself time. When you have an idea, write it down. I always have a pad handy to scribble down ideas or keep a 'to do' list. A couple of days after writing something down, go back and look at it again, trying to be objective, and ask yourself if you still think it's a good idea.

You can do the same with problems. Take a break and have a cup of tea, or work on something else for a couple of days. Usually I find the answer pops into my head, suddenly, without me thinking about it. Sometimes at 2 a.m. when I'm trying to go to sleep. This is always better than staring at the problem and getting yourself stressed.

As an indie you need to find a source of feedback. There are several internet forums available, TIGforums is a good one, but you need people you can sit down with and observe.

I resorted to keeping the android version of the latest build with me on my phone. I'm fortunate that I socialise with a lot of developers and gamers so there is always someone to show it to and get some feedback. You always need to be looking for the answer to the most important question, is your game fun?

Some friends of mine found another solution to this problem by forming the Brighton Indie Collective.
How does marketing work exactly?
This was a problem I knew I'd have right at the start. How do you market a game? How do you get people to read about it? It's also pretty important, I'd go so far as to say that it's more important to market your game well than it is to make a good game. Think of it like this, would you rather have a great game that no-one plays or an 'ok' game that lots of people play?

It's easy, as a developer, to be singularly focused on making the best game you can. We're passionate about games, it's the thing that drives us. It can make marketing the game seem like a secondary concern, something to do later, a little job you'll have to get around to. But it's not.

You should be thinking about it right from the start. I've heard, and agreed with, lots of people who criticise marketing being involved in the initial concept level of design.

Often, when games are pitched to publishers they have to go through a process where the marketing team decides if they think they can sell it. This always seemed a little backward to me, surely they are there to take the great game you have made and find a way to get people to buy it. Not cherry pick their way through games and select only the ones that are easy for them to sell. The ones that already fit within the current market trends. Doing it this way would just lead to a stagnant industry, a lack of innovation, and a whole load of games that imitate the latest hot gaming property.

I've recently been gaining a better appreciation for why it works this way. If your concept isn't compelling or interesting enough, you will struggle to get people to engage with it. In your head the game is a great idea, but to other people, it may not be. If I could go back and start my project again I would think about how compelling a concept it was, maybe I would have made a different game, maybe I would have made Captain Kaon slightly differently.

When I worked in a studio I'd been around marketing people, many of whom were friends who started out as one of my testers. I picked up the odd things here and there, nowhere near enough to be ready for my own game, but enough to know I needed to think about and learn how to market games.

There's lots of websites out there with tips and guides, pixel prospector is excellent, so I followed some of these as best I could. But reading about it and doing it are two very different things.

Until you've actually gone through this process it's hard to picture just how hard and time consuming it really is. I've certainly learnt a new appreciation for my former PR colleagues. Promoting Captain Kaon is the most mentally draining thing I've had to do.

One of the most important skills I've had to develop, which I hadn't given much thought to beforehand, is writing about my game and making it sound exciting. You need to be able to write a short paragraph about your game that gets people hooked.

Standing in front of someone and enthusing on your latest project is easy, your excitement for the project you're passionate about will be contagious. But writing it down in a way that isn't stilted or forced, this is hard.

There were two things I did to get the hang of this and produce useful text. Firstly, I got a pen and paper and wrote, continuously, about the game and why I liked it. When you do this you have to pour every thought you have onto the paper, non-stop, for ten minutes. No planning, just a pure outpouring. When you're done you underline key phrases, little bits that are interesting, and you use them to form your descriptions.

Secondly, think in terms of interesting verbs. What verbs can you use to describe you game, write a list of them. Once you have this you can look through them and switch out any boring ones for more interesting ones. You don't 'run' you 'sprint'. You don't 'shoot' you 'blast'. Some verbs are more evocative than others, build a vocabulary of these to use when describing your game.
Money, money, money.
Probably the biggest problem you have is supporting yourself. To go from employed to self-employed is the massive step that stops most people from being indie. You need to have a good look at your finances and know you can support yourself. You should also double how long you think it will take you to make your game when you figure out the budget. No matter how simply you think your game is it will take twice as long as you expect.

I haven't had any kind of income now for 2 years. I'm fortunate, my monthly outgoings are low and I'm able to survive on my savings.

If you switch to indie on a whim, without any financial plan in place, you'll rapidly find yourself broke.
Scope
It seems like scope is a problem no matter what the size or experience of a team. Estimating the work required for a project is generally hard to do, especially when there can be so many hidden factors that pop up along the way. The human mind is actually pretty rubbish at estimating stuff, the less we know about something, the less time we estimate it will take.

Everyone has little dream projects that they really wish they could make, if only they had time. Trouble is, these ideas are only constrained by our imaginations, not the limited resources of reality. If you plan to go indie, try to pick as small a project as you can to begin with. Refine to down to a simple, pure, concept and execute that.

You're probably thinking that's obvious. But when I sat down to figure out my first project I tried to think small. To pick something that wouldn't take long to do. I thought I had, but it didn't really work out that way though, Captain Kaon has taken me two years so far. Everything just starts to spiral away from you. To begin with it took me a day to design and build a single level. Then I started to add more gameplay features, the day became two. I realised I needed to add little bits of polish and detail to make the levels pop. Then there's play testing and balancing. Now the levels take about 4 days to do.

Whatever your starting point is, your project will only get bigger from there. If you start with something that pushes your resources, you're going to struggle.

Hopefully you made it this far, hopefully this was useful to you, or at least interesting.

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments.

If you'd like to support my indie journey, vote for my game on Greenlight, after all, it won't cost you anything.

Related Jobs

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Going from a big studio to being a single indie

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. I've just dropped my game, Captain Kaon, on Greenlight ( vote here, you know you want to), and it seems like a good time to take stock of where I am.