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« Reply #82 on: September 09, 2013, 01:24:53 PM » |
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My journey into indie game-dom and some advice:
In 2009 I lost my full time game art job because the villain who was running the gaming company that I worked for culled staff after a big project. The joys of a "secure" job. He let everyone off. Well, he just stopped paying everyone but the founders-- which is much worse. (You make more money that way if you're at the top of it all-- bigger chance of avoiding unemployment claims, too, if everyone is scrambling to get food on the shelf and pay over-due bills .) My wife didn't want to move again to be closer to a city with a good gaming industry. I was stuck. I was faced with freelance hell or becoming a security guard or some such. (I had been telecommuting out of state full time-- a rare position in the industry.)
After failing to find a programmer who would join me in a new venture, I became very frustrated with other job prospects in my community/city/state. In retrospect, I don't blame the programmers, but I would say that it was largely an ego thing on their part. An artist to many programmers is a resource-- something you contract, not something that is the vanguard of a new gaming company. I learned quickly that the artist is often thought beneath the programmer in this industry. It was something that I knew was often true in large companies but was sad to learn was true "in the wild" so to speak.
On another note, I also learned that programmers do not all magically understand every element of programming. A great physics guy may understand little about network code and the vice versa. In the "non-indie" industry, I had worked with many brilliant generalist programmers in small teams. They had to do everything whether they wanted to or not-- whether they were particularly good at it or not. If they didn't know it, they learned it (or...ahem..."borrowed" it). The freelance programmers that I met, didn't have that pressure. They advertised the skills that they had.
No programmer. Okay, fine. I wasn't going to let what I couldn't do affect what I could do.
I taught myself the basics of scripting/coding-- 3D Game Studio script then Javascript/Uniscript. In addition, I could now draw,paint,sculpt,create textures/apply UV coordinates/create 3D models and animate etc.. Once on my own, for the sake of affordability, I started with 3D Game Studio by Conitec then quickly moved to Unity as Unity became the clear winner for indies. I knew a good deal about project management and web design as well. I had all the skills I needed to go alone-- well at least the skills for what I wanted to do.
With a part-time job and an $8000 loan from in-laws who believed in me after looking at a prototype, and with a wife with a good job (including benefits), I ventured out on my own in late 2009/ early 2010. My first year I made 1 PC game-- net $10,000. My second another. I later ventured into OSX/IOS/Android(Nook/Google/Amazon). I have made about 1 game per year since 2009.
I have made only ballpark $10,000 net a year since starting, but I'm...satisfied with this financial result. It has kept me from moving or getting a job outside of the industry.
My big problem has been marketing and business strategy. I have no will for marketing at all. By the time I finish a project-- making videos, writing press releases, writing review sites begging for attention, and interacting with people-- it just doesn't happen. I have no energy for it. Instead, I start the next thing. It's the one thing that I'm missing in my line up. I don't even have a facebook account. I hate facebook. I'm working on it.
Would I do it again? I think that there are easier ways to make money, but I have always loved games, and I'm a bit of a lone wolf. I love that games involve so many disciplines. I tend to day dream and get wrapped in details-- great qualities for creative and technical work. (Once between jobs, I tried a retail job at a bookstore. I couldn't do it. I found myself day dreaming while at the register. I daydreamed to dysfunction. I quit.) I make games. I have to. There are no more plan B's.
There are certainly things that I would have done differently. More or less, yes I would do it again. The best thing is that I can take time off to relax or address pressing family issues, and I still will make the same amount of money-- albeit not very much. Currently I'm thinking about transforming my indie efforts into something dependent on investors. In this way, I would not have to put on the marketing hat-- perhaps just the art direction/founder hat. I would be giving up taking time off at random; and, of course, in this way I'm not going to be indie any more. We'll see. I have a new game coming out soon. I am spending 5k on marketing. If I hit a wall (only net 10k for another year), I may try shooting for a team/big budget for the next project. Maybe Kickstarter. Oh Kickstarter, if you had only been around many years ago.
Going Indie Retrospective Advice:
Indie Business Advice:
1. Marketing is very important. I know what you're saying, "Duh!" For Windows: I did setup a custom affiliate program that paid web site owners for displaying ads (of my first game) based on actual sales. The challenges: The time to administer that were large, and the expectation of about 30% of the sale price and the downward economy were deal breakers. After two years of running it, affiliate members all dropped my ads when I dropped the price of the software to combat the slowing economy. They simply transferred the ad space to people who could afford their incredible flat rates. (PC software sales decreased, so I focused on mobile.)
If you're going alone, focus 80% of your effort and money on making a game and the other 20% on letting people know about it. Affiliate programs are often overlooked. I could have managed mine better-- perhaps giving a lower percentage of sales and increasing communication with my affiliate members.
2. Work in the industry a bit if you can before venturing on your own. Besides free training, you might get lucky and meet people you can develop a company with. I tended to meet jerks or nice folks who had no stomach for indie. The gods are cruel. (There are a lot of escapists in the industry with little or no personal skills. This is the added challenge of finding someone suitable for indie work. I'm not saying I'm free from some degree of those issues. I'm just saying that it makes it challenging to form a team.)
3. Artists, make sure that you get your "analog" art skills down before going digital. In this order: drawing, painting, sculpting and 2D animation then for the digital: vector illustration,digital painting,texture creation, 3D modeling, 3D animation and lastly, high poly sculpting (ZBrush)/normal maps. Learn to code a bit as well. High level languages and engine scripts are easier to learn than they ever have been. You can't go alone if you can't code. Youtube coding videos are great resources to learn.
4. Learn project management. Yeah, it's a skill, too. Use Microsoft Project or some such to guide your efforts. Consider this, if you take one hour to make a simple texture or gui code that you could have made in 30, you have doubled the time. No big deal, right? It's only an extra 30 minutes. But, if you do that for a year on every single task, you will end up working two years instead on tasks-- possibly the entire game-- that you could have finished in one. Setting time limits for tasks is key to meeting milestone deadlines. Yes, it's waterfall development. Be flexible during the prototype. Waterfall it for the rest. Some change to the plan will happen. Revise the plan to fit reality as time goes.
Planning will also clearly show you what is feasible and what is not with the time available. You may not realize the impact a feature will have until you a)list the tasks the feature requires b)assign time length to each task c) assign a specific date/time of day for each task.
Planning also makes each hour exciting. If you know you literally have one hour for a task, or it will domino and throw the week off, it's more exciting than if you have a general idea when an entire project should be finished and you're working on a small task.
Plan.
5. Ask for help after you get a working prototype. If you need money or advice or whatever, try and get the prototype first. That communicates more than any design doc that you could make. "You see, I want to make this game about these...angry birds hitting these...pigs, yeah that's it." It doesn't "sound good," does it? Of course the prototype for that was 'Crush the Castle."
6. Be nice. Nice people are more likely to get help and keep it. I ,at one point while working for a "non-indie" company, could have pushed an ex-associate towards a very lucrative contract with the company that I worked for. The company that I worked for needed an outside team. I didn't do it even though the guy and his team were good at what they did. He was a jerk.
7. Find your niche or a niche within a niche. That is, try to avoid saturated niches or if you need to hit a saturated niche, try to bring something new to the table in the niche.
8. Look for an effective way to do something-- not always the "text book" or "right" way or the most efficient. "Effective" allows for creative problem solving.
9. Be skilled in good luck. Yeah, make some yourself. You'll need some willingness to sweat/work hard.
10. Build a brand, not a game. Mickey Mouse is not just a drawing of a mouse.
11. I have always made games that I thought would sell well-- and ones that were more feasible. I should have made games that I was passionate about. I'm working on that now. I would suggest proceed with caution here. While bowing to your passion, balance your interests with feasibility and the public's interests/needs if you want to succeed.
12. Ideas are important. You will be musing over ideas, and some industry vet. will tell you, "Ideas are a dime a dozen, it's production and execution that counts." I will tell you that your ideas are important. In fact, when you start, your idea for a game may be the most valuable thing that you have for assets. Don't get depressed about "your idea." Celebrate it. Make it happen. (People within large companies will tell you that your ideas are not important, but within large companies you often sign documents that state that if you dream of, say...a game idea, at, say...3:00 a.m. Sunday morning, and you work full time salaried, it belongs to them. Big companies know that ideas are important.)
Yeah, sure you have to make and market a good game, but you have to start with a good idea.
13. There is statistical evidence that shows that on average mobile developers with at least 10 games in their inventory make it. I read it in an article. Don't have the link-- sorry. Consider this when/if you want to give up after your first game or two.
The Indie Lifestyle-- Advice:
1. Exercise and eat right throughout development. I was about 40 pounds overweight by 2009. My health got even worse after going indie. Focused on development, I ignored a tooth ache which ended up nearly killing me. A small portion of my jaw along with the tooth had to be removed it got so bad. You can't make games if you're dead. Follow the paleo diet. Drink only one caffeinated beverage per day. Brush your teeth after you drink coffee/soda or at least flush your mouth with tap water. Sweet drinks are what got my tooth. (Ahem, don't drink sweet drinks.) Exercise on a spin cycle while you play video games, read or watch tv. Exercise so that you can sleep-- 30 min on spin bike in the morning and 30 in the late afternoon should do it. It's hard to get fat doing that. I do it. I lost 20 of those pounds so far. Don't switch days and nights. You're not a baby!
2.Here's one for you that you won't read anywhere else-- one that could change your life. Eat fish in the morning. Yep. It will super charge your brain for the entire day. I suggest talapia/tuna and salmon. Talapia seemed to be the best. Can you do it? I don't know. While learning to code, I did it every day. Watch the movie Limitless (a thriller). It's the closest thing to that movie! Read below.
3. Don't do recreational drugs to take the edge off development. 99% of your trouble with drugs can came from 1% of your drug use. Try yoga instead of drugs.
4. Relationships. Ignoring the people that are close to you to focus on a large task runs a great risk. I don't have much advice here. It's a challenge. I will avoid details of my own experience. It wasn't a good thing. It worked out, but was challenging. Try and be somebody you would want to be married to...or close to. Proceed with caution. (Planning can help. Showing those close to you the plan can help govern their expectations of you. Planning will help you manage your time so that you have more time for family and friends.)
On all advice, results may vary. Go for it, if you dare. That's my story and my advice so far. Good luck.
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