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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”

#331

Post by ekianjo »

abootstrapper wrote: post #329
ekianjo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how people still think that just creating and publishing a game is enough to sell enough copies or make a living from it. Back in the 80s even the crappiest games sold relatively well. Infogrames made a whole publishing company out of it.

Back in the 80s the bar to create and publish a game was incredibly high. That market is nothing like todays.

Yes and no. Back in the 80s you could do a game on your own, from scratch, and it was not completely awful there was a good chance you could get a publisher - if that were not the case how would so many crappy titles find their way to the market back then? Sim City was one person's game. Another World was basically the work of Eric Chahi. And examples like that abound - leading to major commercial success. In 2017, sure, there are still folks doing games mostly alone, but it's rather small teams than anything else, even for indies. It's easier to publish things nowadays, but there's way more competition too.

> That market is nothing like todays.

Of course it's not. That was not the point of my comment at all.

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

#332

Post by jblow »

deafcalculus wrote: post #295
jblow wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really worth it -- if I put in effort to write a substantial comment here, it's just buried in the noise of all these people who think they can give advice on how to build and launch a game.

Jon, there are many here who would very much like to hear what you have to say. If you think it'll get buried, please leave it as a comment to the main thread. BTW, Jon Blow is the creator of Braid and The Witness. He is also working on Jai, a programming language.

Thanks for the nice comments.

But I only think this because I have had the experience many times in the past!

I feel the best place to focus my creative energy is on making livestreams, doing speeches, and just on day-to-day programming.

Putting effort into a posting here often doesn't take too much energy, but it does take some, and I'd rather put it into something bigger than mostly toss it away.

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

#333

Post by lap42 »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #218
chii wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it wasn't a business venture, then don't treat it like one. Needing sales means it's a business venture.

Unfortunately we don’t live in a society where people who are passionate about art can pursue their passions fully and avoid starving or otherwise risking their quality of life. In our society merely choosing to pursue your art to your fullest extent is considered a business venture and not an artistic venture, and even choosing not to because of money reasons is itself a business decision.

It's fortunate that society is like that.

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

#334

Post by fred_is_fred »

shimfish wrote: post #163

Just to add my personal data point of experience... 6 years ago, I took a break from doing webdev freelancing and spent around 3 months developing a kids app. At that point the money ran out so I released the app even though it wasn't entirely finished and quickly went back to doing web freelancing in order to be able to feed my family. The app sold in small amounts but it was getting great feedback from the people w…

My son loved this game. He's no "too old" but this was a game I got him to play on my mom's (his grandma's ipad). They really bonded over it.

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

#335

Post by virgilp »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #280
SyneRyder wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an old link, but here's Apple enforcing that against a developer who developed an app in their spare time, and Apple wanting to take ownership of the app & source code: https://web.archive.org/web/20060316084454/http://www.thinks...

That app is competing with Apple's iTunes, so that seems more like a non-compete issue. I'd like to see an example of an employee developing something completely unrelated to his employer's business.

Well, this guy was working in the gaming industry...

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

#336

Post by pers0n »

lettergram wrote: post #255
flexie wrote: post #72

Earlier 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…

I mean, I'm 25, married, about to have a kid, a nice house, full-time job, two months emergency fund in the bank (after buying my house this year), and a stupid monthly payment in student loans (larger than most mortgages with my wife and I combined). I'm also from a poor class family, who worked up, got a job, etc. Because I'm white most burden scholarships I couldn't get, so I got a fair amount from research etc. I…

Just because your white doesn’t mean you don’t get scholarships, trust me many minorities don’t get squat

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

#337

Post by gerardnll »

bolololo1 wrote: post #39
gerardnll wrote: post #35

"... just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550 more dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out." You saved 2000$? OMG I would wait until 10000€ at least (Spain). At the end, he says: 'I know I can get hired for a good salary again but I don't think it will happen this year' . What do you mean by good salary? Because if you say you have a low mortgage in a low cost cou…

He leaves in Romania not in Spain.

It doesn't care. I'm talking about income/outcome or savings. The problem here is if you have a bad sense of what you think is 'enough' for going all in.

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

#338

Post by gerardnll »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #106
gerardnll wrote: post #35

"... just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550 more dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out." You saved 2000$? OMG I would wait until 10000€ at least (Spain). At the end, he says: 'I know I can get hired for a good salary again but I don't think it will happen this year' . What do you mean by good salary? Because if you say you have a low mortgage in a low cost cou…

The average salary for a developer in the top cities in Romania is around EUR 1,000 or $1,100 after taxes (that is about $2,500 in US before tax - yes, taxes are that high, actually a bit higher). A very good developer gets double. $2000 in savings are 4 months of living on the edge, not regular living. Getting a full time job as a developer in Romania is extremely easy if you have any decent skills, there is a short…

We don't need to get into difference between countries. The question is, which quantity of money you spend every month and if you think that 4 months of savings are enough for going all in. I wouldn't go all in with 4 months of savings... life is full of uncertainties... just that.

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

#339

Post by dr_zoidberg »

estomagordo wrote: post #31

What gets me about this is the tiny scale of things. This is the first time it really dawns on me just how small of a success a game might have to be and still have the developer going (hard as it may be to reach 700 sold, apparently). Honestly, this puts things into an entirely new light for me. I feel like buying, playing and then thoroughly interacting in the community of a game can really have personal impact on…

Actually, he played everyone for fools: http://steamspy.com/app/725040

(he already had the "magical 700 buyers" by the time this article was published). Funny thing, it seems some ~700 more people decided to take a go of it, and then refunded.

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

#340

Post by inDigiNeous »

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.

Definitely. Although I appreciate this article and him writing honestly about his process, in all seriousness the game is a pixel art dungeon crawler with Wolfenstein 3D -style graphics, how do you expect that to sell ?

The games market is so saturated with actual good, polished content, everybody knows this, making an indie game you need to really stand out from the crowd from the view of game mechanics in a spectacular way, or you need really good graphics and sound, and still you are not guaranteed even to make your own investment back.

Been working at a big mobile game company myself and seeing this shit first hand, you make like 50 games and maybe 1 or 2 were like good or really good, not even great. It's a brutal business, and oversaturated like heck, how are you going to stand out with this kind of game ?

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