Thoughts You Might Have As Indie Developer

As indie developers, we love to create games, we love to keep making them, and we want to earn enough to make a living. When we start out we have a lot of thoughts running through our minds. In this article I would like to highlight a few of these thoughts I think we all share and try to explain what I think this means in reality

source: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d2/21/59/d221598e2db4f0a2980439af1d16cdff.jpg

We All Have "The Best" Idea For A Game

The Illusion

When you start out with an idea for a game, we might all think it's the best game everyone needs to play. You can clearly see the game work out amazingly well in your head. People screaming they want more of your game, and everything works out flawlessly. Beautiful explosions, amazing characters, stunning visuals, a mind blowing story and immensely engaging game play.

The Reality

An idea could be great. You can only prove this game can be a 'participant' to be called 'great' if you can actually 'play' the game.

Ideas usually include a lot of context that might not work out as well, or do not end up exactly as you expected. Let alone it's not entirely understood or received by an audience the way you intended it to. Actually making your ideas a reality will definitely help you understand potential flaws. Our mind has a way to 'gloss' our ideas by filling in how we feel and create detailed context. Otherwise this idea wouldn't feel like the best game and we wouldn't dare to think it's a great idea.

That is why we can easily 'review' someone else’s game. If their elaboration doesn't meet our definition of 'greatness' we will immediately place this game in our imaginary corner of 'garbage'.

One of the reasons I don't like mobile games, is because my mind is telling me this is not the way games are meant to be played or be designed, better yet, it's not the way I prefer to play my games. Then again; it’s just another iteration and type of game that might work out for another 'type' of gamer. It's why taste is so subjective. 

It's funny how we try to put our versatile game genres and types in certain boxes. "Pay To Play is a niche market!" and "Mobile Free To Play is for the mass!". Wait, What? These mobile gamers do not have taste? I think everything is a niche market, mobile and free to play games happen to be a very very large niche market. In my opinion it is just an audience sharing a certain taste in something.

source: http://inspirably.com/uploads/user/343-the-best-way-to-have-a-good-idea-is-to-have-lots-of-ideas.png

Everyone Wants "Remarkable" And "Innovative" Games

The Illusion

Nobody wants to play the same thing over and over again! Therefore my idea needs to be the most innovative and new thing ever. I do not want to re-use elements from other games, I want to be completely original.

The Reality

If we take look at the Call of Duty series, a large audience appears to crave the same gaming experience over and over again. Being innovative doesn't directly mean it's therefore a great game. It means you have found something interesting that nobody has thought of before. Now you should test this and clearly explain why this new thing is 'cool'.

I am experiencing this first hand - what it takes to make a 'remarkable' horror game. It's very hard to create something new, meaningful and remarkable. Coming up with 'new' and 'innovative' elements isn't the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is making them great and explain why they are great, making them consistent in the genre and system.

source: http://kcclaveria.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/remarkable-marketing.jpg

Creating Games Will Make Me Rich

The Illusion

If I create this game and millions of people will spend $10 dollars on it, I will become financially independent and all my financial troubles will be over. I could then finally do whatever I want to do and create a REALLY good game.

The Reality

If your goal is to become a millionaire and if this is the reason you decided you wanted to become a game developer; that would be a misconception in the first place. Your first goal should be to transfer your idea into a very great game. Creating games does not mean you will become an instant millionaire. It's just very unlikely this happens. Only a very small percentage of developers get to experience this outcome.

If your goal is to make a lot of money, you should take a look at "The Wolf of Wall street" and see if you can identify yourself with someone with his ambitions.

Have you ever considered the real consequences of having so much money? Again I can quote 'Alexander Bruce' about money destroying his 'drive' to survive and make games. Fighting for creating that game you always wanted brings a lot of situations where you have to survive many difficult situations in order to go on. This 'primal feeling' to fight for something you like doing is what can make it a success. It's also what drives you to make the right decisions. It's what makes you take initiatives. 

We all dream about having money to buy all these exotic things in high price ranges. Maybe some of them would be cool to have for a while, but what is left after you bought everything you 'thought' you wanted to have?

Just thinking about it makes me feel lonely and empty. The only solution to this feeling would be to share my financial success. It sounds like a noble gesture at first, but give it some serious thought.

Try to compare this to having experienced something really cool, for example you have 'skydived' from a plane. Aren't you dying to tell this to someone? Why do people always feel the need to immediately share these experiences that are out of the ordinary. Right, because it's in our 'core' that we like to 'share'. Social Media is the digital proof that we actually like to share nearly everything we do. I think it could be the same with money. I do not think everyone should share their wealth, and I am not saying everyone with wealth is sharing, but I think the people who share are the ones feeling most happy about their lives, I have yet to meet someone to prove me wrong on this.

source: http://www.rentcafe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/hatmoney.jpg

So, Let's Take 5 Months!

The Illusion

“I know how to make games, I am sure I am faster than other developers. If I would do this and that, it will just take 5 months, easily!”

The Reality

Even the smallest games take longer than expected. I once got some great advice on time management. "It's very likely that if you take two weeks to finish a project, it's going to take the full two weeks to accomplish this". If you took a week, it would have taken you the whole week. It's just a human way how we deal with deadlines. We take the time given for it and usually exceed this limit. When we develop games, it needs a realistic scope, and we have to fight against feature creep. Extra features are usually being developed when you feel a certain amount of dullness creeping into your project and workflow. New features let your project feel alive again, because they give you a refreshing boost. Very dangerous for the project scope.

I think therefore a second project could help you leave the old one for a short while and return with a much 'fresher' look. The hardest thing is to focus on the most important stuff your game needs during development. Usually the harder, or less fun stuff is demotivating you and logically you try to find 'happier' qualities about your game to motivate yourself.

Making games takes a while. You can definitely see the difference between certain developers in indie 'groups' advertising their new 'android' game release. It’s painful to see how many of these indie developers release their unfinished 'prototypes'. Patience is key! Making something beautiful takes time. 

source: http://i2.wp.com/simpleprogrammer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/111613_0015_NotEverythi1.jpg?w=960

Polishing A Game Is Just The Final 20%

The Illusion

“My game is nearly done, I think I’m about 80% into it, so it will be done very soon! I just need to fix a few elements, do a little bug fixing and it'll be ready.”

The Reality

What was that good old saying again? 80% of development is done in 20% of the development time, 20% of finishing your game is done in 80% of the total development time. The finishing time of a game will distinguish your game’s quality. A lot of games are rushed, and you can clearly notice this in the result. What would we think if our recently bought cars where rushed through development? "Well sir, here is your new car, I know the picture told you something else, but it's 'roughly' the car we promised you would get". Polishing your end result takes a long time and will bring a lot of frustrations and hard choices. It could even make you mentally crazy! If you become that crazy and do not know what's good or bad anymore, you are on the right track on delivering an awesome product.

source: http://guidetodetailing.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/PerfectShine8.jpg

Just Put It On Steam And You'll be Fine

The Illusion

“If I pass Greenlight or get Greenlit all my problems are over and 75 Million people are going to buy my game. If I just release my game on iOS or Android I am sure a small portion of the billions of people owning a smartphone will download my game.”

The Reality

A few years ago this was more likely than today or the future. iOS and Android are already heavily saturated and you are competing against many other developers. Also, these low price ranges and extreme competition are usually not profitable. So you would think; let's release this on another platform! Well Steam is also heading for a very saturated market. Even today you are already competing against at least 10 other games at the same time. Features on front pages are not really helping as much anymore than before. You could wait for these platforms to find a solution to this problem, but I think the solutions to 'your' problems start by strategically finding them yourself. 

source: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/10/CROWDS.jpg

Everyone Will Talk About My Game!

The Illusion

“If I release my game, everyone will talk and write about my game! It's a great game so people in the YouTube community will feature it on their channels, large gaming websites will write about it and I will become super famous and successful.”

The Reality

Yep, that will definitely happen! Only if YOU took the initiative and reached out to all of them long, long before you released your game. Many other developers will harass these press possibilities. The key is to quickly develop unique stories about yourself. Carefully plan these moments months in advance. Start interacting with some of them! Avoid saying things like "This is the best platformer game you've ever seen!" this is very unattractive.

Have your press kits ready, so they can grab anything necessary right from the kit. A very useful and easy way is "()presskit" by Rami Ismail. Many press related parties like the way this press kit framework is set up. Try to maintain a development blog, or even start a personal blog. 

source: http://www.tunisia-live.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/journalistst.jpg

Strategies Stay Solid

The Illusion

“If I keep all these strategies lined-up this way, it will exactly turn out as I expected and I shouldn’t have to worry about anything at all.”

The Reality

Nonsense! A year from now the game industry could look a whole lot different than today. I won't say all strategies need 'redirection'. I think you have to 'update' your strategies over and over again and check if they are still useful and going in the right direction. Development pipeline strategies could differ greatly since development tools become smarter and easier to use. If we take a look at the 'saturation' on several platforms, it could mean we have to push our 'marketing and promotion' way harder than it needed a year ago. All examples proving we have to keep 'shifting' within our strategies through the game industry wasteland.

source: http://coachwoot.com/images/quote-40-what-you-do.jpg

Concluding

It’s important that your goals are set-out to create a great game and develop strategies to make a living out of it. Everything needs initiative and as an indie developer you have to take matters into your own hands. Keep in mind you do not just make the game, but are also the promoter, marketer, business guy, the producer, the publisher and even the receptionist at your office. If you forget about all these illusions and start living in reality, you'll be fine - just don't give up!

What other illusions could starting indie developers have according to you?

/Koen

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