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[Majestic]

Hey what's up, came across an article on how this one dev is making a living from indie game development. Check it out...  I figured it would be useful to you indie devs

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/135065/principles_of_an_indie_game_bottom_.php

[devshawn]

This was a pretty nice article to read. I got out my Atari and started playing some of those games.

[True Valhalla]

Interesting article with an unique perspective. Good read!

[James Coote]

It's nice to know it is possible. Gives hope to many indie devs out there (myself included)

But as always, it comes with caveats. Remember, the guy has 15 years of experience in making games in his particular niche, and has built up a loyal following in that time. Music bands can spend years gigging around at small venues before they ever make any money off it

[Majestic]

Yep you just said it. The key is in the "loyal following".

That's why I think social networking is so important.


Think of a movie, you ever had somebody tell you how good a movie is and then you go see it? Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertisement and marketing. 78% of people trust peer recommendations online


A guy that tweets an indie game with 1,000 loyal followers . You know they're going to play the game and probably buy it, then they'll tell their friends about it.


I think a developer can take the first step by tweeting things other than their devlog, or at least have a personal account where they can connect with gamers, customers, etc.


Take a look at this video I came across





Money is soon not even going to be a issue. Just food for thought.

[True Valhalla]

Social media is extremely valuable to indie devs, but not enough are focusing on marketing. Loved that video you linked too, Majestic.

[James Coote]

A guy that tweets an indie game with 1,000 loyal followers . You know they're going to play the game and probably buy it, then they'll tell their friends about it.

You're missing the point. The guy in the gamasutra article says he only gets 5000 sales a year. Having someone with 1000 followers tweet about a niche game like that is useless. However, if you sent him a message on facebook or twitter or comment on his blog, I bet you'd get a personal response

[Majestic]

"Only" 5,000 sales a year? Those are pretty good numbers to me

If your making a niche game, that's even better. You just build a network of gamers in your niche and connect with them. You think if they like the developer and they like the game your making they wouldn't buy and support, as well as promote for you? That's how powerful loyalty is

Social networking is about building loyalty and relationships. Loyal customers will buy and support the game even if they can get it for free

If it works with ebooks and music, it works with games also

[True Valhalla]

I decided to write an article on social media for indie devs if anyone's interested: http://www.truevalhalla.com/blog/?p=211

[Eponasoft]

Excellent read, Majestic.

[aschearer]

Definitely an inspiring story and outlines an approach I hope to follow. That being said I would be very interested in hearing about other people's experiences? Does this approach really scale or is this a case of survivorship bias? Another concern I have, if we all decide to follow the author's advice and tomorrow there are 10 new old school RPGs on the market will the strategy cease to work?

[ANtY]

@True Valhalla: cool article, u just made a new follower 

[TeeGee]

Definitely an inspiring story and outlines an approach I hope to follow. That being said I would be very interested in hearing about other people's experiences? Does this approach really scale or is this a case of survivorship bias? Another concern I have, if we all decide to follow the author's advice and tomorrow there are 10 new old school RPGs on the market will the strategy cease to work?

He encourages you to find an unexplored, underserved niche, not to try to copy his or anyone else's success. Actually, that's something he specifically advises against.

[TomHunt]

find an unexplored, underserved niche

Sound advice for any small business

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

good but nothing he said seemed very new, but i guess it's good for those it's new to

i did think one particular part was important though, and deserves emphasizing. he talked about the cost of sales on page 3 of the article. a lot of people see sales as like free money, especially steam. but i experienced the same thing he did: if you are selling x copies a month, and then you have a sale, you'll get a short-term big boost in copies sold, but then the next month after that, you will probably sell fewer copies than you used to sell in a month. that's a hidden cost of sales that isn't recognized enough

let's say your game is 20$. you sell 100 copies a month, for 2000$. it goes on sale for one month for 2$. you sell 5000 copies that month, 50x as much, for 10,000$, 5x as much. then it goes back to 20$. a lot of those 5000 people you just sold it to might have bought the game for 20$, and a lot of other people who were wondering if they should buy the game at 20$ now may never buy it at that price because they'd be like 'i missed a sale, it'll probably go on sale again, i'll get it the next time it's 2$'. so the next month's sales at a price of 20$ will probably not be 100 copies again, it'll be less than that. so maybe it goes down to 1000$ a month instead. whereas if you never had the sale you may be still getting 2000$ a month for years. comparing the two situations, before 5 months, the sale is the better deal, but after 5 months, it would be better if you had never had the sale than if you had it

this is why i don't like indie games that go in pay what you want bundles or steam sales during their first few months of release. that seems very counter-productive and short-term. so i'd encourage any indie just starting out to realize that they should not have heavily discounted sales (pay what you want, 90% off, or whatever) in the first year of a game's release, since it probably makes the game worth less long-term to do that

[True Valhalla]

@True Valhalla: cool article, u just made a new follower 

Thanks

[ColeyWoley]

Everything I've read seems to say that going free temporarily (for a paid game) is a waste of time, ups your downloads but actually decreases sales, it was interesting to see that sales had a similar effect for him.

It sucks that $10 is a lot to pay for a game these days.

[Majestic]

In response to PaulEres, I think the focus should be about how many of those gamers are coming back to play your games again and again, not transient game-buyers who come and go.


I still think the best marketing and promotion are these 2 points:

Making a great game and building brand loyalty.


How do you build game developers brand/company loyalty?

1.) Provide excellent and human customer service ( connecting with customers/gamers via twitter, etc. )

2.) Taking customer suggestions

3.) Listening and responding to customer feedback

4.) Maybe even providing merchandise

5.) Rewarding customers, etc.


These loyal customers are the ones who will support and buy a game(no matter the price), promote it for you and even recommend other people to buy it

All the bigger companies like Rockstar are doing this

Social media is too revolutionary to overlook. People don't want a faceless brand



Here's another article that may interest Indie developer trying to market their game:

http://blog.raincastle.com/bid/85510/3-Steps-to-Building-Brand-Loyalty-Using-Social-Media

All this is just food for thought, I'm by no means an expert but just providing ideas

[Majestic]

I think the big picture here is to build a community of people who love you and your games

[theweirdn8]

Nice read.