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Never go full indie! I did anyway. How'd it turn out?
(Cross posted to my blog)
Well, that's 2011 finished. This marks the end of Going Loud Studios first full calendar year of business, so I feel it's time to take a glance back before moving on.
I released two new games in 2011:
Lair of the Evildoer (June 2011): Trailer
DLC Quest (November 2011): Trailer
Both games were picks for "Kotaku's Favorites" list on the dashboard, which was sweet.
It might also be worth noting that the Windows Phone 7 version of Zombie Accountant quietly (very quietly) had its price slashed from $1 to $0 in... July? To be honest, I did this just to see what would happen - the game was long dead anyway. I kinda forgot to follow up on it though, so here are the stats:
Zombie Accountant WP7 Downloads
Frankly, I think it's awesome that I even have anything to write here. DLC Quest won Official Xbox Magazine's Indie Game of the Year 2011.
OXM Indie GotY 2011!
I've been making indie games for over a year now but I only looked into my city's "indie scene" in the past few months. Turns out, it does exist! I started attending the monthly meetups put on by the fine folks at Dirty Rectangles which has been a ton of fun. Locking myself in a room to make games has been reasonably successful, but it's great to meet new people and talk about making games in person. I look forward to doing that a lot more this year.
Or, "Why you came here". Here are some stats!
2011 Sales
Mmm, 2011 pie
Quick analysis: pretty acceptable! Granted, it's pretty much all on the back of DLC Quest at the end of the year, but I'm okay with that. Not taking a loss on the first year of business? Sounds good to me.
Interviews! Podcasts! Print coverage! Youtube views! Twitter subscribers! 2011 was a great year for establishing myself on the internet. A few highlights include having some featured blogs at Gamasutra, coverage at big sites like Kotaku, Game Informer and Games Radar, a brief spot on Attack of the Show on national freakin' television, participating in a few podcasts, and numerous interviews, including one in print in the January 2012 issue of OXM. I made some great contacts along the way too. The Going Loud Studios Twitter account (@WeAreGoingLoud) and Facebook page have also seen a nice bit of growth, sitting at 410 and 156 followers respectively. Oh, and the trailer for DLC Quest has racked up over 31K views so far.
So not quite famous, but it's a nice start :)
We're already three days into 2012, so enough with the retrospective! Here's a quick look at some thoughts for the upcoming year.
This is a no-brainer. Everything above comes from making fun games that I want to play. That's the driving force that has gotten me here and it's the passion to continue making games that will take me forward. I'm itching to make something new right now!
If you study the releases above carefully, you'll notice that 100% of all games I published in 2011 were for XBLIG. That's a market that has its fair share of problems and has a bit of murky future. Even without that, it just makes sense to spread my games to more places where people can play them. PC is my prime target - heck, I have PC ports of both 2011 releases essentially ready to go. 2012 will be the year when I start publishing beyond the Xbox.
More platforms is great, but I'm thinking of ways to take diversifying a step further by exploring things beyond just making games. Don't get me wrong, making games will always be first and foremost for me. But there are some complementary things I could be doing to spread myself out. At the moment, I'm thinking along the lines of more blogging and YouTube videos. There are benefits to that kind of exposure that might not directly generate income, but are useful for expanding your contacts, popularity and so forth. I don't have any concrete plans just yet, but it's something I'd like to experiment with this year. For science.
Can you believe I've never participated in a game jam? Everybody always says you should do that. I'm going to do that.
As always, I plan on continuing 'being indie' in the philosophical sense. I picked up some great books on game design and engine architecture over the holidays that will be going to good use. Always learning, always trying new things, and always willing to throw out all of my plans if the need arises.
It'll be nice to revisit this post a year from now and see how 2012 measured up. Now, follow me on Twitter @benkane!
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