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[Ian Morrison]

I want to start a business creating middleware for indies but I'm having trouble putting together a business plan. It's something I would enjoy doing; I've already developed several small game systems and associated tools (my last project was a 2D skeletal animation system with an editor) and I see some potential to scale that up somewhat and create something of real value for people. I'm already in the process of reworking and upgrading the animation system I've already built, and I have a few more ideas for systems and tools that would be both interesting projects and potentially useful to others. My goal here is to build systems that are useful and interesting while helping other people build their dream games. I'm not intending to go full-time with this (at least, not yet) but I would like it to be a source of income.

I know that there already exist many middleware providers that cater to the indie crowd at some level (Unity, Torque, and RakNet come to mind), but they all seem to be providing fairly comprehensive packages. What I'd like to do is something more narrowly focused (like the aforementioned 2d animation) and put my effort into making the tech and supporting tools more polished. What I don't know is if there's a market for that sort of thing, or how to approach it.

Since starting a business from a position of ignorance is rarely good practise, I'm trying to figure out is what the market is like. Would independent developers be willing to drop cash on a library and/or toolset that is fairly narrowly focused, and how much are they willing to spend? What sort of distribution model would work best... attach an up-front licensing cost? Give it away for free then get money from donations or support fees? There are so many possible ways to approach it, but none that immediately strike me as ideal.

I'd appreciate any insight you guys could give me.

[mikejkelley]

When I think "middleware" I think of OpenFeint, Gameloft, etc., stuff you bolt on to the game at the end of the development cycle. Also, plug-ins, add-ons, eg developed by third parties for use w/ a development package )http://www.garagegames.com/products/browse/tools).

I reject the middleware moniker for development packages (the wikipedia reference seems contrived and self-serving), but I might be alone on this.

If you just want to sell add-ons or art assets, a business plan isn't really necessary. Especially if you're not going to do this full-time. As pointed out elsewhere, business plans are typically for presenting to investors. Just give it a go and sell through all the usual suspects.

Creating your own engine; different story. Wouldn't try it.

BTW, if you develop an ad-on that more easily facilitates 2d isometric gameplay in Unity, get at me!

[dustin]

I can imagine being interested in buying something to create art assets
ie) I put in an arm/leg/torso/head etc and then can easily create lots of animations from that
which seems to be what your talking about.

Hard to say how much I would pay for it though, but I will say I like (and bought) tweenlight, so maybe take a look at his pricing scheme...
http://www.greensock.com/tweenlite/

If it's something like an engine i wouldn't buy it as there are so many great engines out there all ready (torque, unity, etc.)

So I would say my advice would be to do something very specific but useful (like a 2d skeletal animation tool), and charge tweenlightish prices, but that's coming from me as someone who might buy such a tool not as someone who has produced that type of thing in the past.

[Virion]

I think you should release a free version for non-commercial usage so that developers can try it out themselves and see if it can really reduce their effort. If it is really useful for them I'm sure they will pay for it.

[Pedrosanchau]

Do you intend to make coding free middleware or not?

[Ian Morrison]

If you just want to sell add-ons or art assets, a business plan isn't really necessary. Especially if you're not going to do this full-time. As pointed out elsewhere, business plans are typically for presenting to investors. Just give it a go and sell through all the usual suspects.

Creating your own engine; different story. Wouldn't try it.

Perhaps I misspoke when I said business plan. I didn't mean anything formal, just enough due diligence that I could be certain that I (the sole investor, as it were) wasn't going to be wasting my time creating products that don't have a market.

As for what I'm creating, I'm aiming between those two extremes. I'm not going to be creating assets OR engines, but tools and game systems that can be used to make game assets and then integrate them INTO engines.

My existing animation editor is actually a pretty good example of what I'm going for. It allowed users to put skeletons together, skin them, then animate them, and also included the C++ code that (in theory) would allow them to quickly integrate the whole system into their engine. A large point of my current rewrite is just to make the code I'm writing more general so that it can be used with any graphics library. So maybe "generic game engine add-ons" is a good description?


@ Dustin:
Thanks for pointing me towards Tweenlite as an example of a similar business model. I don't think I'd be able to charge similar prices right out of the gate (the company's business model seems to be built around getting a subscription to their substantial portfolio instead of to a single product) but it's really nice to have a data point to work off of.


Thanks for the input, guys! It's really helping me out.

[mikejkelley]

As mentioned, I think there would be a market for an add-on that easily facilitated 2d gameplay in Unity. Also, I've yet to find anything that automates the process of alpha channel editing .bmp sequences or sprite sheets.

I'd pay an undefined amount of money for such tools.

(if anyone knows of pre-existing solutions, plz let me know!)

[nico]

Well, there's no way to be certain that you aren't wasting your time. It's a pretty hard business to start up in if you haven't already identified a clear need in the market. Since you're doing it part time though I suggest you just go for it, as failing won't kill you economically.

One way to discover what people want is simply to try making a lot of new and interesting stuff, and see what sticks. And one good way to NOT discover what people want is to work from "what I want to make" as your primary motivation. Because chances are hundreds of people have already "wanted" to make that exact same thing, and nobody really needs yet another 3D engine, for example. (Not saying you're doing this, just general advice - goes for games too.)

So I'd say, try a lot of stuff, don't be afraid to fail, and take ideas from people even if what they say doesn't necessarily jive perfectly with your existing skill-set. What mikejkelley is talking about sounds like a killer idea to me

[Vino]

To use a bit of manager-speak I heard at a conference at some point, middleware is the lowest on the value chain. That means that in the context of how valuable you are to someone potentially investing in your company, middleware is the least desireable kind of company.

It looks like this - middleware < development capacity < distribution < original IP < publishing - companies that have products more to the right are more valuable.

Now I know you didn't say anything about finding investors but my point is that middleware according to investors isn't a particularly strong business model, and there's a reason for that. Middleware is sold to a very tight market, there's usually a lot of competition, and the returns are not usually that great without a whole lot of up-front work.

Since your market is so small (indie game developers) as a businessman you usually compensate for this by increasing the price. But in such a competitive market like video game middleware (or video game anything) increasing your prices is tough when there's lots of free or cheap alternatives. This problem is compounded by the fact that indie developers are typically known for being broke.

The moral of this long story is that you should think carefully of how you're going to turn a profit despite all of this.

[nico]

Another pricing model you could try, one I considered back when I was toying with starting my own middleware firm, is free up to a certain level of gross sales. This is sort of like a royalty, but binary - it's zero until they sell $x, after that they pay a one-time license fee (and by that time they can probably afford it.)

That sounds kinda risky in that less people will pay you, but you make it up in having loads more people trying it out.

[Bishop]

Garage games seems to do pretty well. I bought the 2D torque when I was young and foolish, only to have a problem with playing sounds and getting the cold shoulder from them. Since that happened and people in my class at uni went out and bought themselves a copy, I've always thought of it as more of a lottery thing. They're selling a dream rather than a piece of software. If you could tap the cancelled project market, you'd be a millionaire.

[Virion]

You could make a game of your own using the middleware you created and promote it alongside with your game. If your game is somewhat successful and get a lot of attention, people will have the confidence to use/buy your middleware.