251–260 of 346 posts
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The pixel art thing is quite trendy if the game is also good. Good Night Knight has been getting a lot of hype recently: http://knightdev.tumblr.com/
That game looks like it has some character, unlike the OP's game.
I feel for the guy and I hope he recovers from this with as little pain as possible, but he was incredibly naive to try to run a business like this.
Next article in this series; "How a postmortem gave me enough publicity to help me survive as an indie game developer"
If he's even a half-decent programmer - he'd be able to get a new job in an instant, keeping his business on the side, or doing freelance stuff with it - and maintain the game in his free time. This is way too much self-pity and begging for sales. He took a pretty small risk, it failed to pay off in the short term and now he acts as if it's the end of the world.
I took way bigger risks than that with a lot more money, and was fully aware of the possible consequences the entire time, even though I was in my early 20's. It managed to turn out ok-ish, but that took about 7 years of hard work, with the first 3 being on the brink of bankruptcy and 60+h work-weeks. Looking back on it, financial ROI was pretty bad, but it taught me a lot.
Isn’t it be better to start the article with something like “I made Ebony Spire”[1] which is a link to the store page or other part of a funnel then also have a few more links spread throughout the article? Obviously there is a Heisenberg like affect where maybe if the article is littered with links no one ends up liking it enough to share it, or they click through, say meh about the game and move on and fail build awareness of the game itself via this story about the developer behind it.
1: I’ll help him out and save everyone here a search: http://store.steampowered.com/app/725040/Ebony_Spire_Heresy/
Also one fun little rule of thumb for telling how many copies a game has sold on steam that I’ve picked up over the years: Multiply the number of ratings in its store page (10 for this game) by 50. So 10*50 = 500 copies sold, pretty close to his target. Now obviously that’s a noisy indicator especially when the law of large numbers isn’t on your side but hopefully he’s doing better now.
Quitting your job with only 4 month worth of savings, with a new mortgage, to enter an industry known for its oversaturation, extreme competition, and high luck element for indies ? That's insane. Maybe I'm just risk-adverse. That said, I think he actually succeeded, despite appearances. Managing to release a working game in 3 month, that actually got sales, is a feat in itself. The game will keep trickling sales, if…
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'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 wasn't going hungry poor, but I did have to buy my own clothes, pay for school, lunch, what ever, at 14 poor.
Now, I've been planning since I went to school to start my own business. Next year's bonus (which is 2 - 3 months living expenses), plus tax return (estimated 2 months living expenses) gives me right around 6 months living expenses. That's 3 years out of school. There is no reason people looking to start a company cant be patient and get some savings first. I actually have two websites making profit (albeit small) at the moment:
Both of those were completed while on vacation from work or weekends. And both are growing rather consistently and I should be able to leave my current role in the next year. I grant it's a stupid amount of work (I work ~80 hours a week, or 12 hours every single day), but there is no reason people from a poor background can't have savings AND start a business.
Just a different perspective. Kudos to you for making it work though.
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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 dollars is nothing compared to dev costs. It should have been just counted as startup costs and the demo should have been up since day 1.
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Nice link. I like Joel's writing. Haven't kept track of it in a while. The last para really rubbed me the wrong way ("sleeping with boss"). Most likely it was in jest but we need to have a zero tolerance to this kind of crap now (men and women).
Wait... you're offended by a non-gendered joke about the fact that interpersonal relationships in an office environment can impact the enforcement of contracts against you? Do you just look for things to be offended by, or is there a particular reason?
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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.
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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.
The author does say "I have been warned against going full time indie by everyone on the internet and by my friends and family. I believed I could make it, all I had to do was ship just 700 units of my game on steam." They also say "After more than 10 years of writing games I believed I had acquired enough know-how, knowledge and experience to make it in the industry on my own, on my own terms and on my own schedule." [my emphasis].
That implies they had thought about the financials, and were believed they'd be able to get a sufficient amount of revenue.