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[JuniperRane]

Hi,

I'm a student at DePaul University and I have an assignment in which I need to talk to indie developers about their release and game promotion experiences.  

If you have the time to speak with me that'd be great.  Alternatively, I've copied some questions below, so if you have a moment, you could reply here.  I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Questions:
1) Name of company/game?
2) What were your expectations about developing a game and getting into the Indie game industry when you started?
3) Have your experiences aligned with your original expectations or has the reality been different?
4) Did you find promoting your games difficult?
5) Did you have a plan of how to promote your game? If so, what did it include?
6) Were there any specific lessons that you learned from releasing and/or promoting your game?
7) What was your biggest challenge?
Any other advice, words of wisdom, or really anything else that you’d like to include

[WarpQueen]

1) Name of company/game?
- Warpzone Studios, no game announced.
2) What were your expectations about developing a game and getting into the Indie game industry when you started?
- I've been working in the industry for ten years. My expectation is that it will be awesome to get to make every decision, whether game design or strategy, by myself. (Well, or by my husband and myself, we are two people in the studio)
3) Have your experiences aligned with your original expectations or has the reality been different?
- So far, yes. But let me get back to that once we have released a game...
4) Did you find promoting your games difficult?
- Probably
5) Did you have a plan of how to promote your game? If so, what did it include?
- Yes. It includes social media, pressreleases, tours and maybe a PR firm, Kickstarter or publisher? Not sure yet.
6) Were there any specific lessons that you learned from releasing and/or promoting your game?
-I hope so!
7) What was your biggest challenge?
- So far, setting artificial deadlines for myself.

[ViktorTheBoar]

About time I did this

1) Name of company/game?

Studio Spektar / Viktor, a Steampunk Adventure

2) What were your expectations about developing a game and getting into the Indie game industry when you started?

Author wanted to make a huge 40 hour game with tons of minigames and a whole world of things to do. Unfortunately, drawing and brainstorming doesn't tire you out nearly as much as programming and making conversation trees etc. so we reduced our expectations.

3) Have your experiences aligned with your original expectations or has the reality been different?

Reality is much worse, every step of the way. But we still had tons of fun and I think we did a great job, under the circumstances.

4) Did you find promoting your games difficult?

That was, by far, the worst part.

5) Did you have a plan of how to promote your game? If so, what did it include?

Failed crowdfunding, tons of "pr experts" we tried working with, but they just didn't know how to sell a point&click adventure, big journo/streamer lists, promo pics, animations, copy writing etc etc.

6) Were there any specific lessons that you learned from releasing and/or promoting your game?

Aim at the USA market
Nepotism is important, meet as many superstars as possible
Forums are much better than social networks

7) What was your biggest challenge?

Actually getting people to buy the game

Any other advice, words of wisdom, or really anything else that you’d like to include

Start tiny, move up to small. Gather a fanbase before even thinking about a medium-sized project

[ioanasima]

Sweet
1) Name of company/game?
Lite Microsystems/ CompliKATed

2) What were your expectations about developing a game and getting into the Indie game industry when you started?
Work my ass off, fight my own ignorance, bang my head agains a ton o' walls. Game dev wasn't my first choice of career, so I kinda knew my lesson.

3) Have your experiences aligned with your original expectations or has the reality been different?
Hell, yeah.

4) Did you find promoting your games difficult?
Everything is difficult when you do it for the first time. Gettin' to gamers when all you know is how to make a game and when Greenlight is giving its last breath, it's a challenge, all right.

5) Did you have a plan of how to promote your game? If so, what did it include?
Well, it goes like this:
.
Just kidding
The plan is to learn what I'm supposed to do about promotion and to actually do it.

6) Were there any specific lessons that you learned from releasing and/or promoting your game?
If by" specific lessons" you mean something valuable for all Lil' Grasshoppers trying to break through indie game industry, no. I'm no wiser than when I started. Instead I learned a lot of specialized and technical stuff.

7) What was your biggest challenge?
Every unknown thing was at that moment the biggest challenge. But the top trial is when 10 of "biggest challenges" occur simultaneously. And, trust me, they do.
Among some of the most unpleasant: undocumented engine sudden crashes (we rely on third party engine), one time occurrence bugs (they gimme night terrors) and greenlight going bye-bye.

Any other advice, words of wisdom, or really anything else that you’d like to include
Just get to work, a game isn't going to make itself. And it's not gonna promote itself, either Good luck!