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“I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

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Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#151

Post by Terretta »

muzani wrote: post #129
cousin_it wrote: post #49

His sense of what games are "cool" wasn't in tune with the public. That's the cardinal sin. Pixel art dungeon crawlers aren't cool. It's as if he was a musician and decided to release a glam metal album today. Low budget, poor marketing, uncooperative bureaucracy - nah dude, none of that matters, you're just too in love with glam metal and people aren't buying glam metal.

I love pixel art dungeon crawlers, but the competition is completely insane. I can't build something along the lines of Terraria or Starbound given a lifetime. Glam metal isn't really a good analogy. I'd say it's more like building cathedrals. The market isn't what it used to be. They're still admirable and today's tools are better for them. But they're monumental work, even for the experienced, and you'd be insane t…

> like building cathedrals

Cathedrals were AAA titles, took generations and the funds of a pope.

Pixel art indies are like Norwegian Stav Kirke, a cathedral made of wood. It’s concevable you could build one yourself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#152

Post by mynameishere »

ryandrake wrote: post #115
thelittleone wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a Partner position at a big four consulting firm. Leading up the Cyber Security practice.

What is a "Partner position"?

Something IT people dealing with cyber security never, ever get.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#153

Post by vlehto »

The target market is tricky. I'm in my early thirties and I feel too young to get any nostalgia from this stuff. Also I've noticed that as people age, they get less exited about wasting their time on games and more willing to spend money for something useful. So your target market is actually getting trickier as time passes.

But how about this:

There are probably around 50 000 people in Romania starting a business every year. And they experience almost the exact same problems than OP.

Build a web service that helps them. If you catch 1% of those people, that's ~400 people per month. If you can get them pay 5$/person, you get 2000$/month. You will have competition, but it wont be international. OP has extremely relevant experience.

I started a business last year and it's scary as fuck. Presenting the relevant info I need in small packages would have been lot less scary than wading through 100 page pdfs and wondering if I ever emerge alive from the other end of the bureaucracy. This is prime target for gamification. You also get to be actually useful for lots of people.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#154

Post by thelittleone »

olegkikin wrote: post #103
thelittleone wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job a few years back with around $150k in the bank to fund my startup. A few months later, still nervous about leaving full time employment, I took a job interview with a big four. I received an offer with a base salary of $600k. I turned that down and committed to the startup. A few months on, I receive a letter from the tax department advising that my previous employer provided corrected earnings informat…

You're mad to turn down $600K, unless the job really sucked. Even if you project to make millions with your startup, multiply that by the risk of ~90% failure, you wouldn't do much better than $600K/year. Still, very sorry about the situation, I'm sure you were hoping for the best.

Thanks I can appreciate your viewpoint. The point is money can't buy time. And in the years since, my time has been very well spent.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#155

Post by thiagoperes »

I think this is a common mistake developers make when creating products: when things start not working, blindly start to add features or improvements they think will be good. I've been on that path myself and had the pain of (almost) going bankrupt.

Most (if not all) of this can be avoided if you spend time after development on getting feedback from customers, doing interviews, usability testing and most importantly trying to find the right commercial angle to develop the business. For example:

- Is the game localised in different languages? - Why targeting Linux and Windows, and not testing/developing on Mac or mobile platforms? - Why not create a end-of-year sale or bundle the game with others for promotion?

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#157

Post by devotedtoneu »

sdenton4 wrote: post #16
bufferoverflow wrote: post #9

Yeah, quitting the job with no savings is a mistake. The things he could have done better are mainly 1) Proof that people want to play this game. Post the gameplay video on /r/indiegaming, see what people say. I remember the early days of Minecraft, people went wild for it, even though it was very basic. 2) Marketing. Tweeting is not enough. Submitting to reviewers is not enough. On the positive side, he is fast and…

I think for small games like this, there's a lot to be said for building up a corral if releases. Once one makes a decent splash, you'll have a better audience for future releases, as well as people exploring your back catalog. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm a hobbyist developer working on an upcoming large title. For reasons I can't explain programmers make up a huge portion of the demographic.

It's a monster-collecting game, so I really can't figure out what the link is there to programmers.

Thank god I'm only doing this as a hobby because I bet such a connection would be obvious to anyone more entrepreneur-like than I.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#158

Post by golergka »

thelittleone wrote: post #60
bufferoverflow wrote: post #9

Yeah, quitting the job with no savings is a mistake. The things he could have done better are mainly 1) Proof that people want to play this game. Post the gameplay video on /r/indiegaming, see what people say. I remember the early days of Minecraft, people went wild for it, even though it was very basic. 2) Marketing. Tweeting is not enough. Submitting to reviewers is not enough. On the positive side, he is fast and…

I quit my job a few years back with around $150k in the bank to fund my startup. A few months later, still nervous about leaving full time employment, I took a job interview with a big four. I received an offer with a base salary of $600k. I turned that down and committed to the startup. A few months on, I receive a letter from the tax department advising that my previous employer provided corrected earnings informat…

> A riches to rags story by traditional measure.

If you have marketable skills that at least once (even assuming that it wasn't typical occurrence) lead you to receive a $600k offer, you're not in the rags, regardless of what your financial statement says.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#159

Post by Klover »

dkersten wrote: post #83
tobltobs wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is called "targeting a niche" and makes sense if you can't compete against those big marketing budgets. Even the glam metal niche is still alive: hairmetalheaven.co.uk

But you need to make sure the niche is large enough to support your financial needs and that they want what you're making. Did he talk to his target audience or otherwise pre-qualify his niche? Also, did he promote his game or just rely on Steam? There is so much on Steam these days, what did he do to stand out?

>There is so much on Steam these days, what did he do to stand out?

Write a cautionary tale and get recognition even in auxiliary communities.

Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”

#160

Post by eb0la »

photonios wrote: post #44
ccozan wrote: post #25

The country he mentions is Romania. Well, bureaucracy is high, but like other said, no need to setup a company in advance. But, he saved anyway way to little money ( I found strange that he is counting in USD, since euro is de facto currency, besides the RON ) to be able to sustain him and an apartment. Lessons learn: don't quit your job until you have some sale volume. However, since he's in Romania, he will get a j…

That highly depends on which city you are in Romania. If you're in one of the bigger cities (Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi or Oradea) then it's going to be ok. If not, then you're screwed, unless you can work remote. At least, that has been my experience. There's also the thing that the average developer salaries are surprisingly low. They are well above the national average, but it's only the top 1-5% who really pulls in th…

I was in Cluj last year and was surprised to see an ad in the street saying "Are you a coder? Living in Floresti (a neigbothood)? Come send us a resume!".

Salaries are low compared to the rest of Europe (and the US). But it sounds easy to get a tech job there.

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