Shitty situation but I mean, you had no plan. The five P's: "Proper preparation prevents poor performance".
“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”
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDC: How to Survive in Gamedev for Eleven Years Without a Hit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c TL;DR: prepare for this to happen, and build a long tail of games/sales. I don't want to sound mean but I don't think anyone should buy the game because they feel sorry and he is begging. I can't condone it. It has become trendy for people to make GoFundMe campaigns or write articles begging people to help. Assum…
It doesn't seem like a business story really, it seems like an artist / craftsman wanted to practice his craft and ran into commercial realities. It's a starving artist situation. There wasn't any market analysis, financial analysis, etc upfront. He wanted to make a game, and he did, so he should be commended for that. It wasn't really a business venture.
I think it became a business story as soon as the developer quit his job and risked his future livelihood on sales. He could have worked on the game in his free time and released it for free, otherwise.
Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Afaik Romania's IT is doing very well thanks to outsourcing. Oracle moved a big chunk of stuff there. Education is alright, salaries are low, timezone is European and authorities are accommodating; if you can get over the language barrier somehow, you get a good bang for your buck, probably better than in more expensive Czech or Poland. The country is hungry, so to speak; it's the new frontier of labour-cost arbitrag…
You mean the language barrier between your own native language and English? Because from what I've experienced, most younger people in IT speak English very well.
EDIT: Yeap, Romania has been doing well. However, I'd argue that the biggest risk is not corruption. From the Romanian workforce's point of view, its becoming too dependent on outsourcing. As salary costs rise, it becomes less and less attractive for foreign companies to outsource work to Romania. Right now, in the city where I live in Romania, 80% of the IT companies are outsourcing companies. It's getting better and better, and most good programmers know to avoid the outsourcing companies as they generally pay peanuts and the work is boring and repetitive.
Re: “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”
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The developer said he had four months of savings. And then he said $500 of expenses cost him a whole month.
And can you get by on $500 a month in the bay area if you don't live under a highway overpass? In Romania you definitely can.
Definitely. Even in East Germany, I could get by on about €600 a month as a student.
Re: “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”
#177Next article in this series; "How a postmortem gave me enough publicity to help me survive as an indie game developer"
I'm pretty sure most of these "My recently released game failed. Here's why" posts are just self-denigrating ads. I remember a couple years back posts like these blew up pretty much weekly and completely average, boring games got thousands of people playing them who wouldn't have otherwise. It all started after that "The Game That Time Forgot" video on youtube blew up.
Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”
#178The 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…
>>Lessons learn: don't quit your job until you have some sale volume. Don't quit your job until your side gig is fully self-sufficient and you are being paid enough to cover bills/food/necessities and you have a few months saved up for emergencies and such. If you can't work 40 hours per week at a basic job (and squeeze in a few hours of at least thinking/reading about your side project, if not actually coding/writin…
> you probably don't like it enough or have enough passion for it to sustain it even if you hit your stride.
With all due respect, I am obliged to invite you to ingest excrement. Whilst there might be some people out there who have everything they need to spend another 20 to 60 hours a week on a side gig besides passion, I believe that one needs to have a set of not so common circumstances to be able to devote 40-60 hours a week to something other than a job.
Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that I disagree, especially with the opinion that the gaming industry is over-saturated and that a lot depends on luck in that industry. But I'd say that 4 months worth of savings is in the better end when starting a new business. Most people who do startups or who otherwise become entrepreneurs have much less than that. And I think having too much of a cushion can lull you into a false sense of "doing somet…
Maybe I'm just way too risk-averse, but 3-4 months of expenses in savings is what I'd consider a minimum while in a stable full-time job .
I completely agree. There's a hell of a lot to be said for having a buffer like this for your mental health. When a long-term relationship I was in collapsed and I was struggling with a bad environment at work the one thing that stopped me from spiralling back to a more dangerous form of depression was the comfort and knowledge of having immediate expenses covered. It gave me enough breathing room to know I didn't have to panic or run away from it all. I really couldn't imagine taking on a mortgage with so little cash in the bank and relying on Steam sales. If the author could go contracting instead it seems like they'd be able to carry on with their journey between contracts. It's not perfect but would be preferable to the situation they're in now.
Re. the GP's comment though - I don't understand how you could do this without any savings, there must've been some? At least rent (assuming you don't live with parents), food, internet connection - it has to be paid somehow surely - either by "you" (through savings) or family/friends taking the hit (eg letting you crash, using their facilities). With the right setup and network you could live extremely cheaply but someone is going to be paying for it. I don't think this is limited to rich kids or upper middle class teenagers (not sure of the focus on children rather than independent adults?) - if the average person can save for a holiday or whatnot - they could equally save towards living expenses, even if only "paying for my own food whilst I stay on my friends sofa rent free".
Re: “I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business”
#180I assume part of his problem is the Steam description - some of it reads like nonsense (the twist/USP makes no sense, “fervent goddess,” “20 levels of pure mishap”) and the rest is actually discouraging, describing it as “back-to-basics” (read: not many features) and literally has a section entitled “why you might not like this game”. Overall the concept is confusing. It’s a “coffee-break game” but also a really diff…
Yes... the pitch seems confusing, and the game itself seems uninspired. I'd try a demo because this is the sort of thing I might like but I see nothing there worth paying for up front.
The first thing that rang alarm bells, for me, reading through this article was:
> I even released a small 5 level demo on itch (can't afford to pay steam's 100$ fee to get a free version up on the platform)
How much larger is Steam's market than itch's? I'm guessing the answer is "very". How many conversions do they need for the $100 to pay off? 20-30? Seems like a no-brainer to me, and not even being able to afford $100 for what would almost certainly be positive ROI marketing is a pretty big blocker. Heck, I'd even front the $100 myself if I can get some kind of commission on copies sold :)