I noticed more and more good quality shareware games, but still the generated sales volume is low afer a while. This scares me to be honest. Also it can harm the motivation seriously. What is your opinion about this.

You can read what Jeff Tunnell of GarageGames said about this during this years IGC by following this super secret pre-release link

http://www.rainfallstudios.com/articles/thefutureisnow/summary.aspx

You need more than just quality. A good quality tetris clone is still a tetris clone, and there just isn't much of a market for that any more. The indie market is getting saturated with one-off blocks games and shooters. Even the highest quality game isn't going to make inroads in that kind of environment.

Make something unique AND high quality, and you've got something.


You can read what Jeff Tunnell of GarageGames said about this during this years IGC by following this super secret pre-release link


Heh. I was going to link to that, but I figured that if you hadn't made the article public yet, then it wasn't up to me to do it. Jeff has some very good, if somewhat grim, views on the industry.

Dan, the first line of your article says IGC '04...

If low sales harms your motivation, you in a heap o' trouble ;-) What's your motivation for being an Indie? Are you wanting to make extra money? That's easy. Wanting to do it for a living? That's hard :-) (I'm getting close to doing it, but I'm not there yet - I still keep a day job.)

Siebharinn is partially right - make it good, and make it high-quality. However, you'll need to go further than that - it doesn't end at development. Marketing is a must - don't just put it on all the download sites, go find other ways to do it. There's a lot of other ways, and you'll need to use your imagination and lots of time.

The biggest thing that helps sales figures - getting that game in the hands of people. Putting the game on a download site really doesn't do it much any more. It used to. I've seen a serious decline in downloads over the life of the products I've released - much nicer looking games that I've put out get less downloads now than the crappy ones that I started with. Why? Too many people trying to get the same crowds attention at the same place. It's kinda like 500 people in a room yelling for one person who's out side of the room's attention - it's very easy for you to get overlooked in favor of one of the other 499 people in the room. However, if you are standing in the doorway, it's a little easier to get noticed. So, find ways to market yourself that not everyone is doing. Shout for attention from the air ducts, hanging on the ceiling, whatever it takes to get your potential customers attention :-)

I don't totally agree with Jeff's opinions - he mentions value publishers, and then mentions how all publishers want your IP. That's not completely true, and may not even be of concern to you. However, don't depend on publishers of any sort - treat them as yet another tool. If you have a product that's not selling well, or is at what you believe to be towards the end of it's life, see if you can get it bundled in a collection somewhere - squeek just a little more cash out of it. Publishers are evil, really, but that doesn't mean they can't serve a purpose.

While I don't completely agree with Jeff T.'s keynote, I totally agree with his comment about online publishers - they are begining the transition to be the same as real-world publishers. There's a reason why real-world publishers do things the way they do, and it's no surprise to me to see online publishers begining to emulate the same habits and styles. (Just realized - sorry, that's actually a bit OT - I'm still grossed out by listening to some of the online guys talk at IGC '03 ;-) But it's another tool you could make use of, depending on your product. Just don't depend on 'em!

Neither originallity or execution is everything. Having an original game that's a bitch to market doesn't do ya' much better than writing another Tetris clone. I already went through that once with a 2D puzzle game (back when those sold ;-) that was original - I couldn't even find a good way to describe it in the required 50 words for some sites, which meant it didn't sell well. (Later, I figured out how to market it better, and started getting some better sales on it.)

Just my $.02 on it - nothing that hasn't been said before I'm sure ;-)

-=-=-
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr
Owner, Midnight Ryder Technologies
http://www.midnightryder.com
I.R.S.: We've got what it takes to take what you've got!

Mark: Why do you think it was secret? ;-)

-=-=-
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr
Owner, Midnight Ryder Technologies
http://www.midnightryder.com
If I save time, when do I get it back ?

Well it was Super Secret, but after fixing the '04 it's been demoted to just plain "secret" ;)

Great articles, Dan, and I hate to bring this up, but you really should check better for spelling mistakes and typos...

This from the "How to Make Money as an Indie" article:

You're - should be your
loose - should be lose (twice)
you're and indie - you're an indie
rapt - should be wrapped

Sorry!

lol, thanks. During my formation in the woumb there was a slight misshap and somehow I failed to develop the portion of the brain reserved for spelling. You'll notice that those errors are just the kind that slip through MS Words spell check ;)

Plus, give Dan a break - he was transcribing David and I speaking... neither one of us speak with a nice, slow, easy to type at the same time cadence. :-)

Originally posted by Siebharinn
You need more than just quality. A good quality tetris clone is still a tetris clone, and there just isn't much of a market for that any more. The indie market is getting saturated with one-off blocks games and shooters. Even the highest quality game isn't going to make inroads in that kind of environment.I'm not poitive about that you are correct about a high quality Tetris game being just a Tetris Clone. The reason these games don't sell is because there is a glut of them, I don't think demand has reduced that much, we just have an overabundance of supply. Quality can make a diffferance here, but you have to be the best, and it really has to stand out. A good example if this is Z-Ball. How many Break-out games do you see? They are everywhere. Z-Ball succeeds by standing head and shoulders over the rest. Mah-Jong games are the same. There are a bunch of them but the ones that do well are the ones that nail the production quality.

Make something unique AND high quality, and you've got something.I've tried for a blend with my latest game Drippy (http://www.bigfishgames.com/downloads/drippy/index.html)
It's sufficiently different that I have trouble describing it (usually I start by saying "It's kind of like Tetris, but it dosn't play like tetris at all". It's an original idea targeted at those who like Tetris. So far results suggest that while many people don't care for it, those that do really get addicted. Importantly (for me), it's a game that I enjoy playing myself.

There are a bunch of them but the ones that do well are the ones that nail the production quality.



I would put forth the idea that the ones that do well were the good quality ones that were there first. They already have the mindshare. And as Davis (wisely) said, you have to market it better than the next guy as well, not just have a better product.

Originally posted by Siebharinn
I would put forth the idea that the ones that do well were the good quality ones that were there first. They already have the mindshare. And as Davis (wisely) said, you have to market it better than the next guy as well, not just have a better product. Could you explain to me how this mindshare thing works. If you are in a market competing with product X (which is not a consumable) customers have neither your product nor product X. If you present a product in the same arena how does the person have this mind-share thing work so that they choose product X. This isn't something like Coca-Cola where millions have been spent making sure everyone is aware of their product. If a customer if presented with your product and Product X Marketing and Quality will make the sale.

I will accept that an established game title will have had longer to distribute, build up marketing channels and reviews etc which would lead to better sales until you catch up, but that's established marketing. Mind-share is this etherial thing that I have a hard time believing has any impact at all on indie games.

Mind-share may also play a part amongst some publishers though since there is impetus for a publisher to take on multiple similar titles but may be loath to do so if they have a successful title in that niche.

How many breakout games existed before Z-Ball? More than a few. (Feel free to jump in here Mike and prove me wrong by saying Z-Ball Flopped)

This isn't something like Coca-Cola where millions have been spent making sure everyone is aware of their product. If a customer if presented with your product and Product X Marketing and Quality will make the sale.
Easy. Let's say you are into First Person Shooters. You have some money to buy one, maybe two First Person Shooters over the next six months. The first person shooters include:

1) Kill 'Em All
2) Hammer of Judgement
3) Operation Decimate
4) Fragmaster 2004
5) Doom III
6) Half Life 2

Now.... if every potential customer in the world is in the same boat, capable of purchasing MAYBE two but probably only one of the six... do you believe that the combined sales of numbers 1 through 4 are going to be even in the same ballpark as EITHER #5 or #6?

I'd be very surprised. Because id/Doom and Valve/Half-Life already have a heck of a lot of mindshare already. They are recognized names - they have half their marketing done with a single press release. Even if Fragmaster 2004 makes Doom III look like your six-year-old nephew's stick-figure family portrait, the makers of FM04 are going to have to pull out all the stops and go on a major marketing blitz to make even a tenth of Doom III's sales.

It CAN be done. After all, Half Life did it! Unreal did it! But if you think they did it based upon the quality of their products alone (which was EXCEPTIONAL - I think few could argue against that with a straight face), you need to go back to the library and look at some of the game-related media of the day. They spent millions in marketing. The quality was high enough so they knew they had a shot at it, so it was worth the kinda marketing money they put into it to capture the mindshare from id.

Duke Nukem 3D kinda did it too --- and through the shareware route, no less. I don't think it was nearly the success story of Half Life or Unreal, but it did okay. But they also did a marketing blitz of their own, put down some serious dollars pushing their game. And they also took advantage of an existing franchise... Duke Nukem had already been a successful 2D side-shooter series on the shareware circuit.

Now - if you are talking the indie game channels (as you istated)... let's talk about how many people have tried to make another BEJEWELED. I know there's been many. I've played many of the games. I haven't bought any of them, though, and I can't remember any of the names...

I think it's the same thing with indies, only on a smaller scale. After all, we're all here at Dexterity Software. WHY? Why here and not somewhere else? Answer: Dexterity has managed to capture some of the mindshare. That has led to getting a critical mass, which increases the mindshare. It's a lot harder for indies to achieve that "critical mass" of players and fans, which is probably why you don't notice mindshare being quite as strong in indie games as it is at retail. But it's still there.

Sometimes randomness and luck play a factor. A 5 star review or a large number of downloads when compaired to existing products can make a difference. Having spent only a couple of bucks on advertising once can make a difference. Knowing the right friend who does a review on an influencial website can make a difference.

I Google'ed "Z-Ball", and saw it's got 5k+ entries for it. (In fact, someone is apparently using ad-words to specifically target users looking for Z-Ball! Now that's success :-) Not sure how many are exact matches, but, some of the ones I saw were in much higher profile circles than I normally see most Arkanoid clones reach. I also saw urls like "/www.z-ball-gold.net-software-download.com" which usually indicate someone helped push it pretty hard on an affiliate channel (something else that can help sometimes - someone else is now helping with marketing, and increasing the number of hits you get when serching for something like "breakout game".)

There's a million factors here. Of course, a number of them that I mentioned are actually quite controllable factors - basically, marketing.

As for the question of mindshare - when all players start out 'even', then yeah it doesn't matter. The trick with selling Indie games is to not play on an even playing field. Ya gotta do what you can to skew it your way. I don't know the author of Z-Ball, but I assume based on what I've seen either him or his affiliates did just that (good for him! :-)

Oh, and something as simple as the text on the download sites can make a huge difference - make it blah, and you won't convince someone to download it if there's something with a more interesting description or screenshot. It's gotta spur a person into action, one way or another.

Go down to the bookstore, and immediately pick up a copy of Geurilla Marketing and Tactics. While it's much longer than my explenation of the situation, it will do a much better job of explaining it. Plus, it might give you some ideas how to unballance the playfield in your favor ;-) (GM&T isn't really geared towards Internet marketing on the whole - but that's why I like the book, it forces you to think outside of the norms of Internet marketing. Not that I'm marketing genius with my games - in fact, I suck at it and know it - but I've been told a couple o' times now that my advice helped. Of course, it's free advice, so take it for what it's worth ;-)

Coyote: While your example is spot on, it really doesn't much apply to Indie games nearly as much for most people who visit download sites looking for games. Rarely do most of us have a name that rings a bell with anyone when they are looking for games. (Hehehe - however, I'm working on that for Midnight Ryder Technologies at the moment ;-) There are exceptions to the rule - if it says PopCap Games, it's gotta be good, right? Same goes for GameHouse, Shockwave, Real1, etc. (But...)

Also, not everything is about money - sure, you can throw money at a situation to improve it generally when it comes to sales, but, that normally cuts too deep into our pockets as Indies for any sort of major marketing blitz. There are other options that make more sense, and spend less dollars (which means it's more feasable for most of us).

Originally posted by Coyote
Easy. Let's say you are into First Person Shooters. You have some money to buy one, maybe two First Person Shooters over the next six months. The first person shooters include:

1) Kill 'Em All
2) Hammer of Judgement
3) Operation Decimate
4) Fragmaster 2004
5) Doom III
6) Half Life 2

Now.... if every potential customer in the world is in the same boat, capable of purchasing MAYBE two but probably only one of the six... do you believe that the combined sales of numbers 1 through 4 are going to be even in the same ballpark as EITHER #5 or #6?

I'd be very surprised. Because id/Doom and Valve/Half-Life already have a heck of a lot of mindshare already. They are recognized names - they have half their marketing done with a single press release.
This is irrelivant regardless of it's accuracy. This only effects people competing head to head with multi-million dollar titles.

Even if Fragmaster 2004 makes Doom III look like your six-year-old nephew's stick-figure family portrait, the makers of FM04 are going to have to pull out all the stops and go on a major marketing blitz to make even a tenth of Doom III's sales. This I believe is uttter rubbish. If a game was to be produced that was clealy superior to the top games about to be released then all of the gaming magazines would be falling over each other to cover it. The very top end of the scale gets a lot of free publicity.

HL2 and Doom3 are at the top end of the FPS spectrum no game is currently better. Can you think of any FPS that was released that was undeniably better than all previous ones that flopped? That is what you are suggesting with your FragMaster 2004 example.

I disagree with part of your disagreement of what he said... ;-)

Seriously - part of the job of of guys like Mark Rein is to make sure Unreal is mentioned at every turn when something interesting happens. They hammer it into our brains. It's not just free press they get, part of it is connections and knowing how to get the right guy to mention them at the right moment. Sure, of course some of the press is free because of it's superiority. But trust me, most of it is done buy guys who get paid heavily to make sure they get that free press.

(EDIT: Quick addition) Considering the investment, no, I doubt any technically superior FPS engines... er... games ( ;-) ) have failed to get press. Why? Because the development of them costs money and backers. Part of your business and marketing plans for a product that requires that sort of resources is to... make sure you have lots of marketing and press! :-)

It's really hard for me to pinpoint exactly why Z-Ball has done so well. The project took only 3 months from start to finish, and my main motivation for making it was to have a third game out there. I tried to focus on high quality gameplay instead of bells and whistles.... It won't amaze or dazzle anyone, but people seem to enjoy it. So it's still a bit of a mystery to me.

A classic book to read about the "mindshare" conundrum is Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Scott Miller named this as one of the books that he felt was critical in helping him build Apogee. The book explains why being first in the mind often yields a serious competitive advantage. I agree that it's a great book to get idea ideas for how to market new games in a way that rises above the background noise.

You can often trump entrenched competition by redefining the market, thus creating a new and valuable position for yourself. 7-UP did this by calling itself the Uncola. Subway does it by going for the fresh and low-fat position, juxtaposing itself against the other fast food chains. I tried to do this with Dweep by positioning it as a nonviolent game (playing it off as an un-FPS game), which worked extremely well.

There are lots of ways to reposition the competition to create a position for your product. I sometimes use the shallowness of typical block-puzzle games to position our logic puzzle games as something deeper, more cerebral, and longer lasting. If you're creative, there are lots of angles to take. For instance, you could position your product as a game designed for women or one designed for seniors.

This is irrelivant regardless of it's accuracy. This only effects people competing head to head with multi-million dollar titles.
I don't think so, just because it doesn't make sense to me logically. If what you say is true, at what point does the one rule go away and the other rule take over? At what point can you draw the line and say, "Here, there is no such thing as mindshare. But above this line, mindshare is everything!"?

I guess I illustrated it kinda sloppily, but I was trying to illustrate what I imagine would be a spectrum that exists. What I'd agree with is the contention that at the indie game level, nobody owns a significant enough level of mindshare for it to be a major consideration.... YET. But it's still an issue.

After all, how do you make your download decisions? How do you filter through all the crap thats out there to try out the best stuff? Does mindshare not figure into it at all, even at the portal level?

Anyway - I could be smoking something right now. And I'm a newbie to the indie scene, so I'm happy to acknowledge that I could be totally out to lunch.

But trust me, most of it is done buy guys who get paid heavily to make sure they get that free press.
You have to advertise to get the attention of the press as much as you have to advertise to get the attention of the customer. When a journalist goes through dozens or hundreds of press releases per week related to their subject matter, all sounding alike, how does he decide to pursue one and not the other?

I've heard a few stories of how PR people wined and dined (and paid for lap dances for!) certain media folks in order to get "free" press. After their expense report is submitted (not to mention their salary), it doesn't seem quite so free anymore.

Coyote: Nod - pretty funny how expensive the 'free press' is :-)

Damn it, Lerc! I was going to make a Pnickies remake!!! :mad:

Originally posted by ggambett
Damn it, Lerc! I was going to make a Pnickies remake!!! :mad:

Heh... that's on my list of possible projects too. :) Oh well.

Steve P was right in linking the Al Reis book "positioning".

I got that after speaking with Scott M a few years back. Has some good insights into why positioning makes a difference, this "mindshare" thing actually is quite important.

A lot of us debate wether it works or not, but anecdotal evidence of it being highly valuable is whats happened with 3DR and Remedy.

3DR have spent an age doing thier game, with the knowledge that having something significantly better than anyone else will allow them to totally bypass any significant issues they would have faced. In the end, the customer will just think "what a cool game" rather than "damn this took ages". They also have the advantage that the press will still be interested in reviewing the game BECAUSE it is so late.

Remedy did a great positioning job with Max Payne, which is shown by the aquisition of the MP IP by Take Two for a significant amount > 40 million dollars.

My point is, that mindshare is one of the greatest things that can help you promote and sell your games. Look at how much great mindshare and goodwill Steve has built up by hosting these forums for example.

I'm definitely going to be spending a lot of my marketing efforts trying to build up a specific position, it helps that I've got a background from the commercial games arena that will only serve to strengthen that concept.

I think one of the other things I'd recommend is "Differentiate or die", which means, you must be able to get your customers to be able to tell your products from brandX's otherwise they have no way of knowing how to buy specifically your products.

This is all kind of academic until I get some damn games released, but still, its something that interests me as much as developing games does right now :)

Phil.