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[Majestic]

What's up TIGSource. I just signed up on this site. I am an aspiring freelance game musician, I'm currently doing music for a small indie game now to be released on xbox live and windows 7 phone.

But let me get to my point. Why is everyone so negative on gamedev forums? They make it seem like it's damn near impossible to make money from your passion and sell Indie Games. It IS possible, it's just most don't have the proper information.

There are some talented folks on here, and I want to see the Indie scene thrive. I want to see people release their creative power , make their vision come true, and make money doing it.

I lurk around Indie game forums and I see people listing their team members, ( the graphics artists, programmers, composers, level designers, etc. ) But I always see a position missing that, in my opinion, constitutes whether a game makes money or not.

Marketer. If you don't know how to market, your most likely not going to make any money or make very little money. This isn't just for Indie video games..this goes for ALL creative artists: musicians, animators, filmmakers, artists, recording artists, etc.  

Your game company is your brand, and your game is your product.

People don't just buy products because their good, 95% of purchasing decisions come from the subconscious. It's the emotional appeal that makes people buy.

Now that you have your brand and product, after your game is finished and you have it on your website, you need to advertise..this lets people know about your brand and your game. You need the views..if you upload your trailer or demo on youtube, you need VIEWS so people know about your game...1,000 views isn't enough, you need to be at least in the 100,000's and you can get those numbers easily if you pay a marketer and promoter. There are literally Promotional teams with websites that will definately get you known. Marketerss will set your brand up on social networking links like twitter and facebook.

Another marketing point..Once a lot of people know about your game, people buy on emotion, not with logic. If you have a game, you need something that appeals to them emotionally when your showcasing your game that will charge them up to buy, whether that's the gameplay or the trailer music, or even the storyline.

When you see a movie trailer, it's not just the action or the storyline that makes you want to go see the movie, there's music in the background that is building energy which causes an emotional impact. All of these things work together.

IMO, This is the main advantage the majors had over the Independent scene. They have the big budget, and they have the right Marketing.

This is how important marketing is. If you really want to make a living from your passion your most definitely have to hire a marketer or learn marketing yourself.

Take a look at this game Hawken..this is an Indie game..so it's definitely possible for you to make money off your passion. One of their videos has 900,000 views, their definitely going to see some revenue off their game.






Not saying that you need a marketer to make money from your game, but I believe having a marketer on your team or even knowing some marketing techniques will increase your profits enough to maybe even live off your passion alone.

That is all, thanks for taking the time to read all this. I know this seems like a lot, but i think it's clear now that if you want to run a successful game company and be a CEO your going to need a budget. So whether that's get a loan, get a 9 to 5, Prostitution(jk), or finding someone that will invest their money in you, It costs to create and release games, no one wants to work for free.







 

[Booger]

I dunno... maybe because we're humble?  Why should I bang my drums when I have a good friend who created a superior game but doesn't want to be so vocal about it?

The thing is, when you have a website feature your game, whether or not its true the automatic assumption is that they were PAID to feature your game?  And that reflects badly on the developer.

In an ideal world, 4chan will make your game go viral.  Basically anyone else marketing your game out of their own free will because your game is just that good.  Anyone and everyone except yourself.  But this isn't an ideal world, and it's not so safe to assume a good game will automatically click.  If you design a game to be popular and it fails, what you have left is shovelware.  But if you design a game to be good and it fails in popularity, at least you have art.  At the end of the day, I'd rather have art.

But you are right.  The most financially successful indies were the ones who banged their drums the loudest.  It's just that, for me personally, I don't want to over-bang my drum to make it seem that the game is more awesome than it actually is.

[Christian Knudsen]

The thing is, when you have a website feature your game, whether or not its true the automatic assumption is that they were PAID to feature your game?  And that reflects badly on the developer.

Huh?

[Leroy Binks]

Majestic, that is my role in my current motely bunch of game builders.  I had an idea a friend in video game school heard, pitched it to an artist, we picked up an animator and a sound tech and away we go.  All of the game design is out of my head and research on similar games, but right now the team is hard at work, and so I too am researching how and where to show off our goods. They have their talents and I have mine.

I think most people consider advertising and marketing, but by the time they are done building they are so exhausted from the work they are just happy to get it out there and pray for word of mouth.  It is as much work selling the finished product as it is finishing the product.

[Nix]

Take a look at this game Hawken..this is an Indie game..so it's definitely possible for you to make money off your passion. One of their videos has 900,000 views, their definitely going to see some revenue off their game.

That video has ~1,000,000 views because it's cool shit, not because they put a ton of effort into marketing. And no one hear doubts that money can be made off of games. Quite a few members of these forums do make regular money in the indie sphere.

[eclectocrat]

Say again?

I'll hire a marketer after hiring developers, artists, musicians, writers, level designers, etc, you know, the people that make the game. It's true that emotion sells, and you get emotion across with images, music, and story; made by artists, musicians and writers. Is it good to know how to promote? Of course. Should indie's pay a marketer to sell their game? WTF? I say again... W...T...F?

[Majestic]

No one said you can't be humble, make money from your passion, and keep your creative freedom.

That's all I hear about is Indie game devs complaining how they want to make money off their passion and keep their creative freedom. Now people act like i'm some sort of evil person because I suggest having a marketer/promoter on your team

I think most people consider advertising and marketing, but by the time they are done building they are so exhausted from the work they are just happy to get it out there and pray for word of mouth.  It is as much work selling the finished product as it is finishing the product.

Exactly, people think just because they make a good game or product it's just going to sell automatically. It doesn't work like that, it's true you may have some people that will buy because it's good, but the whole point is that you also want to live off your passion, not just side money, although that's perfectly fine as well and you don't need to put forth any marketing efforts. And also, having a youtube video of your game IS marketing.

I shouldn't have made this post, I should not interfere or try helping other people or even giving knowledge...I should have known I would have encountered negativity.

If people refuse to listen and live in their own egotistical world, then I guess that's on them. I was only trying to help.  

[Smithy]

People in this thread aren't being negative.

I don't want to be the guy to have to tell you this but a lot of what you outlined isn't super secret information that the people here don't know about. Good marketing campaign=Commercial sales. Got it.

I think you may be looking at the idea a little bit simply.

To illustrate my point:

The most popular things are often bastardized. The things that most people can agree on usually doesn't have extremes. People don't have extreme love for it, people don't have extreme hate for it. The most popular beer around my region isn't a specialty craft beer--it's bud--the most bland.

That might be a bad example for what I'm getting at. Here's a better one:

The most popular flavor ice cream in the world is vanilla. Therefore, if you're making iced cream and want to receive sales in sheer volumes--you make something like vanilla. You cut uniqueness out. Creativity is staunched when you try to go for a sheer volume of sales. This isn't the fault of 'marketing,' exactly--this is the fault of bastardizing your product for maximum appeal, which is a certain effective kind of marketing. I think that's what people are reacting to, if they seem to react negatively.

In some places, people sell anchovy ice cream. The idea never was to compete with Big Vanilla, but to appeal to a niche that doesn't have its needs met by Vanilla. Some people love it, some people hate it. There's a polarity to it. It's not the kind of thing that everyone merely agrees upon and tolerates.

Most indie games appeal to niche markets. They're making anchovy ice cream. And marketing to niche markets can be complicated.

[mirosurabu]

It's not like people are negative because they underestimate the power of marketing. I have yet to see anyone who thinks like that. It's more along the lines of "we don't have money to pay a marketer" or "learning how to do marketing is boring". And that's fine, if you ask me, because, fortunately, you CAN make living of games with little to no marketing effort (or at least sustain it for a while) [see flash games].

[Majestic]

People in this thread aren't being negative.

I don't want to be the guy to have to tell you this but a lot of what you outlined isn't super secret information that the people here don't know about. Good marketing campaign=Commercial sales. Got it.

I think you may be looking at the idea a little bit simply.

To illustrate my point:

The most popular things are often bastardized. The things that most people can agree on usually doesn't have extremes. People don't have extreme love for it, people don't have extreme hate for it. The most popular beer around my region isn't a specialty craft beer--it's bud--the most bland.

That might be a bad example for what I'm getting at. Here's a better one:

The most popular flavor ice cream in the world is vanilla. Therefore, if you're making iced cream and want to receive sales in sheer volumes--you make something like vanilla. You cut uniqueness out. Creativity is staunched when you try to go for a sheer volume of sales. This isn't the fault of 'marketing,' exactly--this is the fault of bastardizing your product for maximum appeal, which is a certain effective kind of marketing. I think that's what people are reacting to, if they seem to react negatively.

In some places, people sell anchovy ice cream. The idea never was to compete with Big Vanilla, but to appeal to a niche that doesn't have its needs met by Vanilla. Some people love it, some people hate it. There's a polarity to it. It's not the kind of thing that everyone merely agrees upon and tolerates.

Most indie games appeal to niche markets. They're making anchovy ice cream. And marketing to niche markets can be complicated.

Ok, that was a good post. Your right, I think that was what they were reacting too.

I don't want people to think that I'm one of "them". I also love creativity, I like to be humble also. I just want to see people make money off their games, I want to see more Indie game studio...It excites me how a bunch of us can work together and come out with a finished product like the majors. Let's face it, the white collars don't care about creativity, loyalty, fun, or any of that..they only care about $$$

Like you said, some marketing, even just a little marketing is effective.

For example, reminding your niche market about a time when video games were fun and addictive and how they can experience their childhood days again with games from the heart. This can put someone in an emotional mood to buy. This is not selling out.

I think the whole thing about niche markets is to build a loyal fanbase. A loyal fanbase won't pirate your games and will support you and buy from you faithfully.

So I apologize if I have offended anyone. I just see the Indie scene is getting bigger, and it really excites me. I want us all to work together and make enough money to live off what we love to do.

[Evan Balster]

I'd like to slightly rephrase Smithy's last point for clarity:  most "fervently" indie game developers (the type who would refuse industry jobs if offered them) rail against the notion of designing a game around how it will be marketed, with the reasoning that damaging a game's quality in favor of its marketability is bad.

That sort of trade-off isn't a natural implication of hiring a marketer, but it's a worry many of us have.  And pressures to that effect are nearly inevitable; for example, in Plaid Notion's current project our producer (whose main contribution will be press and marketing) has been encouraging us towards the inclusion of various "casual gaming" features such as avatar customization.  It's the sentiment of everyone involved (including the producer) that it waters things down a bit, but (sayeth the marketing experts) it improves the appeal in our target market.

[Nix]

You kind of popped up out of nowhere and wrote an essay for your first post. Who are you? Do you make games? Have you sold any before? What is the context of what your opinions?

[MattG]

I dont know about all that marketing mumbo jumbo. But SketchBrawlers is the greatest media since the BIBLE! Sketchbrawlers is more important to humanity than Jesus himself!

(hows my marketing any tips?)

[Majestic]

So how do we make money from our passion? Do we just grind away trying to get in the industry to be a slave? Build a loyal fanbase, what are your thoughts? How can the indie scene strive? I know everyone in here must want to live off their passion.

Or is everyone on here ok with just having a day job and doing this for fun?

I seen some people giving away entire cd's of video game/film scores for free

It's not just like that with video game music, even with beats and other music. People are giving their art away for free.

[Evan Balster]

Yes, but it isn't great practice to use assets that weren't made *for* something.  It's done plenty but doesn't promote cohesiveness.

Matter of fact I rather dislike the term "assets".  Implies too strongly there's a clear separation between code, art and sound, when once you get to playing there really isn't.