Has anyone been successful, or even made a little bit of profit, on a game that only took them a week or two to write? Just curious on that, let me know what you all think :)

Sure - when the game involves pictures of naked girls.

You can slap together a game in 3 days no problem and sell it for high prices if it's naughty. :)

Heh

But really, I mean you would think that some very good ideas could be developed quickly and be fun, and the developer could charge a small fee like 7$ for a game like that.

I'm surprised that no one has done something like that. Has anyone even tried?

that's impossible (http://www.phelios.com/ptk)

:rolleyes:
pat.

My little game BrainWave (http://www.dexterity.com/brainwave/) took only two weeks to write from initial concept to final launch. I released it in late 1996, and it's still selling today. I still get occasional orders for version 1.0, even though that version is almost 8 years old now. BrainWave was written for Win 3.1 and is about 1MB in size.

It was never a huge hit, but it continues to sell around 10 copies a month (so far this month it has sold 6 copies). BrainWave has probably made somewhere around $10-15K in total sales to date. In its best month (January 1997) it brought in about $900 in sales.

But in the grand scheme of things, this little game was quite a success for me. It proved to me that the shareware model worked, and it gave me a small passive income stream that has lasted almost a decade. When I released its sequel in the fall of 1998, I did a direct mailing (via postal mail) to all the customers of the original game and got a 25% response rate. And many of these customers have since gone on to buy other Dexterity games. So in strictly financial terms the initial game was probably worth at least double or triple the direct sales it generated.

In retrospect I'd say this project was definitely worth doing. Although I didn't know it at the time, those two weeks would turn out to be an excellent investment. Back in 1996 around the time I was writing the game, I read an article or a post somewhere where Diana Gruber was saying how she was still receiving registrations for an 8-year old shareware game she wrote, and I thought that was really neat. Now I've been able to experience the same thing. Even a game that's a relative flop at the time of its release can still generate a reasonable sum of money if you give it enough time. Perhaps take all that money and stick it in an investment account, or use it to treat yourself to a professional massage once a month or something.

Wow! Awesome experience, Steve. Thanks for sharing. The reason that I asked this question, in full honesty, is that I have been working on a game called "Used Car Lot" in my spare time recently, and it is shaping up EXTREMELY fast, because it is not very dependent on graphics or anything. It is very numbers based, and uses a lot of standard windows controls and such.

Anyhow, I think the game is really fun, yet it looks like it will be done within a week or two. I figure that I will try to price it somewhere between 7-15$, depending on how much investment is needed by the time the final product is done. I'm thinking of contracting someone to make an mp3 for the music, for instance.

I figure this would be a great tester to throw out, and if it works out well I may focus more on this type of game. In any case, it will be something out there while I finish up some of my larger projects, and then I can evaluate what strategy will work out better for me.

I think the estimate that you can write a quality game -- i.e. a game that people wish to pay for -- in one or two weeks' time is a little too optimistic. If you're a good programmer (with a good bag of tricks) and have a good artist, four weeks sounds more realistic, and even that is pretty fast.

Not too long ago, I wrote the prototype for a word game in a single day. It had the full gameplay mechanics and everything. Then I spent six weeks polishing and tweaking it. This was a pretty simple game. I could have "finished" it earlier, but then the end result would have been a lot worse.

Anyone can throw together something crap in a few days, but a quality product takes a little longer than that. However, once you have your game, you can easily sell it for $15-20, just like most of the other indie games. I think it is certainly possible to make a new game every one or two months and sell it for a decent price.

Originally posted by Ktulu
<a href="http://www.piebert.com/">Piebert Entertainment</a>

By the way you may want to fix your signature so that it appears correctly. These forums use BB code instead of HTML. See this page (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/misc.php?action=bbcode) for full details.

Originally posted by Matthijs Hollemans
I think the estimate that you can write a quality game -- i.e. a game that people wish to pay for -- in one or two weeks' time is a little too optimistic. If you're a good programmer (with a good bag of tricks) and have a good artist, four weeks sounds more realistic, and even that is pretty fast.

It really depends on many factors, including the developer's skill and the type of game being developed.

BrainWave was developed with Borland C++ 4.0 and used Windows GDI for graphics and MCI for sound and music. I did all the programming and artwork myself, using an old program called Aldus PhotoStyler for the art. Aldus was later purchased by Adobe and PhotoStyler was discontinued.

Erin, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife), wrote the MIDI music -- I think it's only four tracks total, with each track taking her a few hours. I created the sound fx, pulling some of them from a royalty-free sound fx CD I owned. There are probably less than 10 different sound fx, so that was only a few hours work.

I never wrote a game design document for BrainWave and started coding and doing artwork from day one. In the first couple days I coded all the basic infrastructure: animation, collision detection, I/O, etc. The whole concept for the game was to make a Galaga-type game where the enemies would gradually learn from their mistakes and become smarter over time. I maintain a journal/logbook for every game I've ever developed, so even today I can look back and see what I did each day to develop the game. In fact, I can see that I was wrong about the year -- I wrote and released the game in 1995, not 1996, so it's been selling for almost 9 years instead of 8.

I only spent one week developing the full version of the game. The part that took me the longest was designing and implementing all the different enemy layouts, and I also have a lot of notes dedicated to designing screens (main menu, level selection, dialogs, etc). I would design a screen, make the art for it, code it, test it, ... then design another screen, make the art, code it, test it, and so on. Every day I was doing a mixture of design, art, programming, and QA. I didn't use any stub art -- I just made the final art right then and there. If I needed a new sound effect, I went and made it immediately and dropped it into the game. The methodology I used was to develop the game screen by screen instead of separating out coding, art, design, and sound creation as disparate activities. In my mind I was just the creator and did whatever had to be done.

Week two was spent coming up with registration incentives, creating the demo version, typing up documentation and the help file, making the order form, and doing all the other stuff needed to actually sell the game. I only took mail orders back then where people had to send a check or money order by postal mail.

I really don't see why this process couldn't still be used today by a talented developer. Certainly it could be used for rapid prototyping. I sort of wonder what would have happened if I had spent an extra two weeks polishing the game instead of rushing it out the door. But my original idea was just to test the shareware model rather than to try to create a hit game, so I don't lament the lack of polish in the game. I accomplished what I set out to do.

I should also mention that a year later I did something similar with a 4-pack of games called Fortune Pack. But this time I worked more closely with Erin. She did most of the design, art, and music, while I did all the coding and documentation. All four games together took about four weeks total to complete, and one of them (Cash Quest) took us a whopping total of 12 hours to create after the design doc was finished. Each game had a design doc of about 4-5 pages. Fortune Pack is a collection of Win 3.1 games that's still selling at dexterity.com today.

I must say that after doing a few projects like this, I sometimes wonder what the heck is taking me so long today to develop a new game from scratch. I think I may actually be infected by some limiting beliefs from working on the retail side of the industry for too many years (which started around the time I was finishing up Fortune Pack). Maybe projects take me longer today simply because I expect them to take longer.

I think it would be an interesting experiment for me to take two weeks today to make a new game from scratch and see what I can come up with. Even if I don't make something that great, it will probably still be selling in 2012. :)

If I recall correctly, Scott Miller wrote in his blog that a good brand dies with the first bad product of the brand. This is presumably why they won't ship Duke Nukem Forever until they are absolutely sure that the game won't dissapoint the fans. That might be true, might be false, but there's an interesting question in there..

Say that Steve develops a new game in 2-4 weeks. Chances are that the game won't be nearly as good as all the other Dexterity games. In what way will this affect the overall reputation of Dexterity? How important is it to maintain a good and solid quality throughout all your products? Will fans and customers turn away from you if/when you release a not-so-good game?

Both Digby's Donuts and Flip Words were developed in 6 weeks each--however, this is with a full-time team of 3 people (2 programmers and 1 artist).

Digby's Donuts was an average seller but Flip Words has been a decent "hit" for us.

I used to think a game worth buying couldn't be made in less than 3 months (although, this mainly came from my experiences developing big AAA retail titles). HipSoft has changed my perspective on that a bit. :)

Of course, there's always exceptions to every rule (such as Steve's example) ...but generally I think it would be tough to make a strong selling game in only 1 or 2 weeks (with only 1 or 2 developers on the project).

Just my two cents...
-Scorpio

I tend to disagree with Scott on this point when applied to downloadable games. But I can see it being true for a retail developer where their brand is only applied to a new title every year or two and where their titles are overhyped before launch. If Halo 2 is no good, it will dimish the Bungie brand, but I think that's largely due to all the hype and expectations about the game rather than the brand itself. Daikatana hurt Ion Storm, but that game was way overhyped to begin with. I think customers' expectations of downloadable games are much more reasonable, mainly since the games aren't so overhyped pre-launch. If Popcap or GameHouse releases a game that isn't great, I really don't think it will hurt their brand too much in the long run. The game will simply be forgotten as new titles are released.

That's the main effect I've been seeing at least. We discontinued a half-dozen games over the past several months that weren't meeting sales expectations. But I don't think these releases hurt our brand much in the eyes of our customers -- with a rapid enough stream of releases (14 new games in one year at one point), players don't expect every single game to be a hit with them. A flop does hurt a little of course, but it's far from fatal.

I think the overhyping problem is probably the real culprit. If Duke Nukem Forever was suddenly released out of nowhere after never having been previously announced, I think the market would be much more forgiving, and the brand wouldn't suffer as much if the game weren't perfect.

Originally posted by BitBoy

Say that Steve develops a new game in 2-4 weeks. Chances are that the game won't be nearly as good as all the other Dexterity games. In what way will this affect the overall reputation of Dexterity? How important is it to maintain a good and solid quality throughout all your products? Will fans and customers turn away from you if/when you release a not-so-good game?

I think that depends. Just because a game doesn't take a long time to created doesn't mean that it is bad, or lacks quality. It just means that it was created quicker.

If it is obvious and upfront what the game is about, is priced fairly, and delivers no less then what is expected, how could it hurt a company?

Its kind of easy to fire up a game prototype even in a day. One of the programmers I have the luck working with now, did just that. The hardest part is polishing so you dont have to make excuses that is was done in a day.

So in the end we have spent approx week and a half polishing the game and its still not "really done", as we decided to go even deeper and add some more "cool factors". Although the very spine of the game hasnt changed a bit, we have been sweating on the game, when initial idea was for both of us to spend one afternoon (him on code, me on art assets).

At the end, changes become less and less noticable while the fun factor adds up much more with every spit on windshield.

- Dexterity -
I think it would be an interesting experiment for me to take two weeks today to make a new game from scratch and see what I can come up with.

I had the same thought while banging away on the Ludum Dare contest over the weekend. If someone were to take two weeks instead of two days, and apply the same intensity, you could easily have something worth selling.

That would even make for an interesting contest of sorts: the metric being the number of sales (or amount of money from sales) of your game after a specific length of time.

It definately made me rethink my indie strategy going forward.

I think an important point too is that i'm not really worried about creating something that will be a "hit." I'm interested in testing the waters, trying to pick up a few sales, and most of all, trying to put out something fun! The game i'm creating has barely any graphics, but it is extremely fun to play. It is pretty clean looking, and will be much moreso once I am done.

Also, I plan on getting others to do the music, and possibly some of the artwork.

Basically, if I manage to get $100.00 off of it, i'm happy. I have 3 jobs. And the way I figure it, if I manage to get $100.00 off of it, then surely I can at least expand that to $1,000.00 with some work.

I think people are drawing the conclusion that because something was made fast it can't be any good. The customer won't know how long your game took to make and the final product will be judged solely on it's merits. Is it fun? Is it accessible?

I hate to see the "good graphics make hit games" mentality seeping into the indie community because it's a false assumption.

We discontinued a half-dozen games over the past several months that weren't meeting sales expectations. But I don't think these releases hurt our brand much in the eyes of our customers -- with a rapid enough stream of releases (14 new games in one year at one point), players don't expect every single game to be a hit with them. A flop does hurt a little of course, but it's far from fatal.

I suppose if you release 10-14 new games a year, a flop or two won't hurt as much. But what if you only release two games or less a year. I think a flop could damage your reputation even with a downloadable title if your release output is low. (I'm assuming though)

Flops don't tarnish online publishers so much, but I'm guessing it could still hurt the developer.

Well... Check out what can be produced in just 48hrs with the right talent. The last Ludum Dare 48 hr game contest has an entry by bluescreen called InfeXion which is better than a lot of indie commercial releases I see.

One can spend two months polishing a two week game that sells half decently - and expect a good return for that work. But what can one do with a three months fully polished game that doesn't sell?

Originally posted by svero
Well... Check out what can be produced in just 48hrs with the right talent. The last Ludum Dare 48 hr game contest has an entry by bluescreen called InfeXion which is better than a lot of indie commercial releases I see.


All I can say is "Wow!"... Are you sure it took them only 48 hours? All the coding, music, graphics??

Wow! :)

Originally posted by entell
All I can say is "Wow!"... Are you sure it took them only 48 hours? All the coding, music, graphics??

Wow! :)

Well I suppose people could always cheat, but I for one am pretty confident that most if not all entries are legit.

Hey Steve, did you do any beta testing on Brainwave, or was that all done inhouse? Did you just correct bugs as customers discovered them, or was Brainwave pretty much bugfree from the start?

All the testing for BrainWave was done by myself, Erin, and maybe a friend or two. The game is very simple, so there wasn't much to test. There were no serious bugs found after launch. I think all that needed to be fixed after the launch were some minor typos in the help file. So the game was pretty much "bug-free" from the start. I attribute this mostly to the simplicity of the game. The code really isn't that complicated, so it isn't hard to give it a thorough workout.

The idea of making quick games intrigues me.
Luckily I am pretty fast at doing things. The fact that I finished my last game, UBM (http://www.winterwolves.com/pc_mac_games3.htm) in 2 months says it all.
I surely can come up with one game / month, but I'm not sure that it's the best way to approach the market.
You remember Blizzard? it has a great reputation because he release FEW games, but every one (well almost) is a huge hit.
I prefer spend some more time polishing a product, and manage to sell 1,000 copies of it at 24.95$, than quickly rush out a crap game and sell even 2,000 copies at 9.95$ (still won't be a bad result, hehe!).
I honestly, when I see games that look made with Visual Basic Forms, or extremely cheap graphics, I don't even download them...!

The biggest obstical to the two-day-game for me, would be the time spent tweaking and polishing the game at the 'end' of production.

Almost any game I've worked on has had the core game up and running in a very short time, probably close to a few days to a week, but after this, the amount of time spent adjust small effects here and there, moving menus, changing fonts etc. etc. means the production time has suddenly gone from weeks to months.

I think to do these rapid production games, would have to be very strick with your time, and force yourself to move on, when would usually be still adjusting that particle system.

I competed in the Ludumdare (http://hamumu.com/LD48/ld_entrants.php) competition last weekend (my first), and it's a real eye opener. I kind of feel that it's a good example of the 80-20 rule. Since you can get a good amount done but you just have to forgive yourself the small issues (like breaking your GUI code in the last 15 minutes). There were some great games produced for the time frame. If i'd had to hazard a guess it would take 2-3 times longer at the same intensity to 'finish' my own entry. But remember we start with nothing (no external resources, music, graphics, textures etc.).

I started working my usual way, strong OO etc. and by the end of the first day I just able had my 'engine' done. Then second day way building the game, and I really didn't have time to do this properly. I think seeing my code would kill some of my old OO teachers...

The main reason I did this is so I could see if I could 'complete' a game. And although not 100% accurate it did give a good flash experiance of the entire game dev process.

I think 'small games' are an excellent way for an indie to go. Releasing a good product is about half the battle, but it's still much further along than not having released one.

If you can release a '2 week' product it provides a very easy item to 'measure' against your costs / goals. And when the small continual revenue streams mount up, that is when things should get a lot better! :)

Another advantage to making several quick games is that you learn about your market much more quickly. One six-month project could be a flop or a hit, but how much have you learned from that one release? But a dozen two week projects would teach you much more -- those that sell poorly could be killed off, while those that do well could be further developed. Downloadable games are very pliable compared to retail games.

In a sense this is what I did by moving into publishing in 2001. After putting out about 20 different titles, I learned a great deal about the market. Some of these releases lost money for us, but all of them provided valuable lessons that increases the odds of publishing or developing hits.

And it's not only the sales data you can learn from but also all the customer feedback. In one sense you can view a series of small releases as "intelligence gathering."

Weirdly, I'd kind of come to the conclusion myself that I wanted to do a few small "taster" games.

Mainly to iron out a few wrinkles in the website/buying process. But also, well, because I enjoy shipping products! and there's nothing in the world as good as a cheque coming in for a game :) (or more recently book royalties).

So I'm heading in the same direction, doing a few "2 week" style projects. Mainly just the run-of-the-mill things, like pattern matchers and bubble poppers.

But i have a plan to differentiate myself :) hahaha.

Its a good idea I think, to iron out the whole selling process with some essentially "throw away" games. Frankly, i dont see why anyone wants to spend ages writing puzzle style games anyway, I'm writing my epic space-sim-fps game for the love of it, I dont want to do puzzle games at the same intensity or even for the same reason.

So now I just need 4 solid idea's.

I plan to alternate. 1 extendo project followed by 1-2 'quickie' projects that take 3 months or less. It's hard to do because I've still got a full-time job (and a family), so it takes me 3 months to write what someone else can do in one. The quickie projects could be an enhancement or expansion to a previous project, or something completely new but short.

We'll see what happens. All I know is I *REALLY* want to work on something smaller now that Void War has gone into overtime.

Originally posted by Carrot
[...] but after this, the amount of time spent adjust small effects here and there, moving menus, changing fonts etc. etc. means the production time has suddenly gone from weeks to months.

I think to do these rapid production games, would have to be very strick with your time, and force yourself to move on, when would usually be still adjusting that particle system.

I think mockups can help alot to speed that part up. Just create the menus (with fonts etc) in your favorite drawing application and if you are absolutly satisfied with it, you can start coding it.

Also minimalistic game design documents can also help. Game mechanics, scoring system, what is needed (graphics/sound) and stuff like menu flow.

Hm. I think it's time to change my workflow a bit.

Man, I'm amping to get some smaller projects happening. By smaller, I guess I'm hoping for <6months. That would be very enjoyable...

I plan to alternate. 1 extendo project followed by 1-2 'quickie' projects

Me too! Once I get the darn extendo project out of the way that is...

Me too! Once I get the darn extendo project out of the way that is...
I hear ya, Anthony. I *THOUGHT* that it would be a semi-quickie 6-month project. But as it's only a part-time project, real life and a BUNCH of design enhancements conspired to grow it by a significant margin.

Not that this couldn't happen with another 'quickie' game project. If you don't let it get too far out of control, it can be a beautiful thing when "feature creep" transforms a fairly simplistic game into something "really cool!" But it can also cause a project to melt down in a bad way.

I have a couple of ideas for small projects. One is a meta-game and expansion on my current big project (assuming sales are good enough to support it). The other is kind of a neat idea from my past.

despite being 2.5 years in the making, katsu's was supposed to be a 7 month project.. what happened?! ;)

Let this be a lesson to all: shoot for 3 month projects so you can finish them in a year. ;) Actually, Brickster was supposed to be a 2-3 month project, but it took me a whole year before it was released. This is partly though because I was in my last year of college when I started it. There were months when I didn't work on it at all.. :(

Wow. I've just been trying out some of these 2-day and 2-week games, and they're pretty neat. I've found myself playing InfeXion quite a bit lately, and BrainWave is a fun blast at times. As your resident non-gamer I'm really impressed!

I think I'll keep these games on my hard drive as a reminder of what can be achieved. My first two shareware programs were written in about 2 weeks each, but my following programs took about 6 months. I'm quite embarrassed! So thanks for the inspiration folks - here's hoping my next release is in early May ;)

Ilya, tell me about it! I am having quite stressfull time now, trying to finish my master's thesis ( about shareware BTW ) and my first game. When I was starting my bejeweled clone (YES! :D But when I started the market was not so saturated with them!) I wanted to make a quick game. I planned it would take me 2 months max. But two reasons - school and doing things for the first time - strongly extended that period for 10 mths (and growing).

Just a little experience from my part:

Meeklits (http://www.meeklits.com) Version 1.0 was completed in 3 weeks. I got one guy to help me a bit with art and another guy with music.

My tip: use MMF (http://www.clickteam.com)

Also, by setting weekly milestones, I was able to finish the game within that brackt of time. It was a good investment, the game sold fairly well. The downside was getting a flopped GPA that quarter :(

I *THOUGHT* that it would be a semi-quickie 6-month project. But as it's only a part-time project, real life and a BUNCH of design enhancements conspired to grow it by a significant margin.

Yeah! Me too!

it can be a beautiful thing when "feature creep" transforms a fairly simplistic game into something "really cool!" But it can also cause a project to melt down in a bad way.

And this is the upside. I DO think my game is turning out rather nicely for it. But sometimes I feel like I'm having a meltdown myself. I still haven't got to the stage where I can handle thinking about my whole to-do list at once without feeling a bit queasy and panicky...


shoot for 3 month projects so you can finish them in a year.

Or rather, instead of estimating how long it's going to take, just try to design something 10 times simpler than the last one...

That's my plan. I'm going to try writing my next game in 2 weeks now and see how it goes. I've realised after the revelation of Brainwave that all that spit & polish in my other game was truly a waste of time if the purpose of the whole excerise is to make money writing original games. AF will probably never make $10k and yet it's taken approximately 30x as much effort as Brainwave to produce. So sod that.

Cas :)

We should REALLY get a compo going :)

Incidentally, yes, I'm writing some 2D games, not quite now, but in the near future..

A quickie game is appealing to me because I loathe long development cycles, and its a fun intellectual exercise that can help 'recharge the batteries' in my mind a bit. And I believe a simple game can be just as fun (if not more so) as a "big" game. And I don't believe a game SHOULD have to take months and months and months to develop.

But since I'm not relying upon game development to pay the bills anymore, I don't like the idea of dashing off quickie games just to make a buck (or pound, as the case may be). Been there, done that, got lots of T-shirts. I still consider myself my first customer, and if it's not a game I want to play, I won't make it. Even if it just takes a week.

We should REALLY get a compo going
I would really like to participate in one. *AFTER* I get Void War out the door.

I'm going to go against the stream in this thread with this 2-week dev time love-fest and be the devil’s advocate...

Though let me preface by saying, I'm not implying, "bigger is better". Great games can be made in a short period of time.

With that said, I'm somewhat disappointed to hear that a mass of Indies here are going to be making 2-week games. Because I'll be perfectly blunt, the great majority of these 2-week games are puzzlers or ultra casual games. Again, nothing wrong with those games themselves, but I personally want to see the Indie scene expand into other genres.

Currently, downloadable/independent games are almost exclusively associated with puzzle/casual games. Almost every industry or press article on Independent games goes on at lengths about "casual" card and puzzle games. I'd like to see (hopefully soon) the Independent game scene have a more complete view. Casual games can be a strong aspect, but I'd like to see the Independent game industry also be known for RPGs, strategy and action games that the retail industry afraid/refuses/neglects to make. When this happens, I think we'll start to get noticed more by the mainstream gaming media, which could make it easier to reach a particular target audience for some games.

So I find myself annoyed reading in this thread that the Indies here who are going to be responsible for the future games in the Indie scene are going to focus on two-week quick projects (which I'll be honest, most of them will probably be puzzlers). For heaven's sake, you even assimilated Anthony! :eek:

However, if some of you guys plan on doing 2-4 week strategy, sim, rpg, or action games, then I look forward to playing them. :) I don't know how you would make games in those genres in such a short time, but I'll be happy to play them. Again, I'm not necessarily against the short development cycle, but do we really need another glut of puzzle games? Let's do something different...

As someone else mentioned, I rather see fewer Indie games, which are polished and somewhat unique that took 3 - 9 months to make, instead of a derivative release every 3-4 weeks. I hope that's not where we're heading. Let's not get stuck making "safe" games like the retail industry.

I'd say the 80-90% of the Indie games I'm looking forward to have a >5 month development cycle. The ones where I'd actually pay $20-24 out of my wallet for.

A two week project doesn't have to be a puzzle game.

The whole point isn't to necessarily make a game in two weeks. It is (to me at least) to do it as fast as possible. Game developers tend to have the "it's done when it's done" mentality. Projects that should take a month turn into a year. Projects that should take a year turn into three. The type of game is irrelevent.

You don't like puzzle games, that's apparent. And that's ok. But don't assume that everyone is going to make one, because I don't think that's the case. Few of the LD entries were puzzle games, and that was an even shorter dev cycle.

Besides, that's a silly argument anyway. If the goal is to make something and generate income quickly, and that can be done with a puzzle game, then so be it. I for one am more concerned with the goal of making a living making games, not necessarily furthering the "indie cause".

responses are in order of thought:

furthering the indie cause, not only helps other people, but helps you aswell... the more people you get interested in indie games, the more likely they are to buy games from indie developers...


BUT the majority of the world has what I call "permanent stereo-type syndrome".

thats where you can spit out a word to them, or a phrase ("Los Angeles") and they instantly spit out what they have associated with that ("Corupt Cops, Road Rage")... and their idea never changes... they could even GO to Los Angeles and SEE that its also "hot women on beaches" and "lots of shopping and oppurtunity" and "nice cars" and even "some nice people"... but never REALIZE it, because they are paying too much attention to STRENGTHENING their stereotype....

Puzzle games are great, and everyone will make one, Ill probably make one... and not making one will not help the world realize that indie games are not just about puzzlers... we'd have to get rid of ALL of them, to stop that stereotype reinforcing, and then reforge the industry, and this would take too much coordination...

all is not lost... new people with no experience with indie games at all, will be fresh blood, and can be treated accordingly. and with that said, can be interested in buying other indie genres... so we need to just work on building a base of people that see indie differently, and I dont think that will be too hard... just have to be careful not to release a bunch of REALLY crappy rpgs... make them have substance, build the genre. and cheer up :D

Besides, that's a silly argument anyway. If the goal is to make something and generate income quickly, and that can be done with a puzzle game, then so be it. I for one am more concerned with the goal of making a living making games, not necessarily furthering the "indie cause".


I guess we just see things differently. I see "furthering the indie cause" as actually making it easier to make a living. Maybe not overnight, but soon.

Case in point, Pom Pom. Bongpig mentioned on the board recently that when PC Gamer reviewed his game Mutant Storm, sales spiked tremendously and he was getting 30-40 sales a day while the magazine was on newsstands. It also helped him get other business opportunities as well. He's now "making a living" from games, even though by Indie standards his game is fairly hardcore. By expanding the type of games we make, it opens up the doors to promote our games in avenues, which had been exclusive to retail games. This makes it easier to reach your target audience if your game is somewhat hardcore. So eventually you won't be forced (or think your forced) to make puzzle games in order to make a living. You'll make puzzle games because you want to.

Look, I'm also trying to put food on the table with games. I'm not trying to further the "indie cause" because of some personal ideology. I want to see diversity in the Indie scene, so I can make a living making games I want to make, instead of being forced into the casual/puzzle sector in order make ends meet. Otherwise, why did I leave the retail industry in the first place if I'm just going to end up making games that I don't enjoy simply for the money.

Again, I have nothing against short development cycles (I said so in my previous post). It's just I don't want to see us focusing solely on casual/puzzle games again for the quick buck because then that limits what the rest us can make a living from since it will be hard to get exposure doing other genres. If we're not afraid to make games in other genres, then eventually it will be possible to make a living and get exposure as an Indie whether you develop casual or hardcore games and we all win.

I can see your point, I guess. Although I would tend to look at a glut of puzzle games as a *good* thing, if you're not doing a puzzle game. You stand out more. If everyone were doing hardcore shooters or rpgs, that would make it tougher to sell one of those games, because you'd have more competition.

I guess what bugged me about your initial post was the assumption that a short dev cycle will result in puzzle games. That's not what happened in the LD competition. There were more zombie shooters than anything else.

I wonder how long DopeWars took to make...

NewStarSoccer 1 & 2 took about 18 months combined, so i'm craving some short-term projects. Updating my first game World Cup Manager 2002 and converting it into Euro Cup Manager 2004 should take roughly 2 weeks and should sell ok. This is one advantage of sport related games. People crave realism so yearly updates with the correct player names will always sell. (Who says i'm following th EA business plan? :) )

For heaven's sake, you even assimilated Anthony!

Heh, well not quite:

I was dreaming of a 6 month cycle rather than 2 weeks... of course 2 weeks would be wonderfully terrific fun, but realistically, I'm *always* going to want to put more polish in than that...

And still envision doing even bigger games than ever, in amongst the small ones.

Oh, and I'm thinking of a frentic top-down shooter for the next one, not a puzzle game... shooters are always fun to make, and let you focus on the game mechanics withough getting too bogged down with animation. A shooter feels like just what I need to recharge the batteries.

strategy, sim, rpg, or action games, then I look forward to playing them.
Chris it sounds like your after a comercial game! I'm not real big on puzzlers myself and I do think there's too many of them about the indies, but I'm keen to see some 2 week games.

I hope they're a little more quirky and of the wall than the general stuff up for sale. I wrote Rhys Invaders for my nephew's birthday in two nights, sure it's not fun for long and has no sound but it got a few laughs out of the family.

http://www.madprops.org/poo/files/rhysinv.zip
(Win32 1.2Mb)

Have you guys ever written a small game (2-3 weeks) and given it away as an advertisment? Have ads in it for you other games and plenty of links to your website...

- pleahy -
I wrote Rhys Invaders for my nephew's birthday in two nights, sure it's not fun for long and has no sound but it got a few laughs out of the family.

Woot! 607010 points!! I rule at blowing up your family!! :) Actually, as birthday presents go, that would be pretty special. Not something you can just get at the store.

Hey, downloading now! Yeah, that is a great idea for a present.

But you know, I think most of us here *are* in the business of producing commercial games...

@Chris_Evans

It's not like everyone will switch to make only 2 week games. I'll definitively try it, because I think I can learn alot this way about streamlining my dev process. Right now I'm not really satisfied with it.

Maybe it can lead to something similar to XP - "extreme game crafting". Would be nice if you could cut down a 6 month dev cycle to something like 4, wouldn't it?

It's worth a try. After all we are talking only about 2 weeks here (wich doesn't necessarly have to be a total waste).

Originally posted by Chris_Evans
If we're not afraid to make games in other genres, then eventually it will be possible to make a living and get exposure as an Indie whether you develop casual or hardcore games and we all win.

I am with you Chris! I even had a thread on this issue a while ago:

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2544

I should go re-read it. It's been a while.

I am not so sure what can be done in <6 months, but I think it is worth trying.

Every now and then I see an interesting puzzle game, but mostly they are all the same to me. That might also be because I am not into them that much. Especially card games...

well the issue most of us developers have with puzzle/card/"casual" games is that, we are at heart, part of the hardcore gamers... casual gamers never have the desire to develope their own games, its the hardcore gamers that play some game and go "you know what, this game would be cool with X feature" and then they either develop a mod, or create a new game, similar, usually horrible graphics :P but with their new feature, and a game developer is born.

so unless its a "puzzle game tailored to more hardcore gamers"... sort of like puzzle games on consoles...

Im thinking, mini games in mario party, super monkey ball, tetris battle gaiden (jap)... (batou? I forget,,, but its an awesome game)...

but I think its entirely possible to make an indie game that appeals to the hardcore gamers, and I know this because I have friends who are hardcore gamers and they often send me links to games they are thinking of buying, and 7 out of 10 of them are indie games, or at least small studio developed games... yeah sometimes they are sending the same doom 3 link over and over, but you get my point, there are hardcore gamers willing to buy indie games :) off topic I know, just had to respond to the puzzle subtopic in here.

I dislike the 2 week game thing, if you are thinking of entering any market you better have something special, either intellectual property or some other barrier to entry that is going to keep others from jumping into your market when they see you making money. Outside of some compelling intellectual property, like a franchise (sponge bob square pants?) I don't see any barrier to entry that's going to set you apart from the competition.

Read Brian hook's postmortem on why his company failed...

http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html

I think that's basically the future of any company who's big idea is to bust out one or two games every month.

If you want to have staying power, you need to be a market leader. You'd better end up in the top 10% of games in your market, if you’re smart like MikeB you'll target the top games in your market and try to beat them. Same goes for our resident clay boy Anthony, or svero, even goodsol. They are attempt to be best of breed, none of this proliferation stuff.

I find Brian's postmortem interesting. After his first game was released, it was only a couple years later he was closing up shop. I wasn't even making a reliable income until I had been running Dexterity for about five years full time, and I know I'm not alone. Brian brought up a lot of problems in his postmortem, but whereas he seemed to ultimately view them as insurmountable, they're really the same problems that everyone else in this industry has had to face on a daily basis -- there's nothing unique about Pyrogon's situation. I face those exact same problems every day, as do most other successful indies. The only difference is that Brian gave up while those who succeed just sort of skipped that part.

When I read Brian's postmortem, I saw an undertone that he is looking for security first and foremost... trying to envision that path that will virtually guarantee success for minimal risk. Many entrepreneurs would say that a focus on opportunity is much more important than a focus on security. Usually when you focus on security, it's because your in an unresourceful state to begin with, experiencing fear and anxiety instead of prosperity and passion.

I guess the main component that Brian seemed to be missing as an entrepreneur was what you might call a hardening of the will... or faith... or stubbornness... or 100% commitment. Every entrepreneur is going to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. When success seems certain, when money is pouring in, and when the road ahead looks smooth and problem-free, anyone can succeed. But what separates those who give up from those who prosper is what happens in those situations where you can't clearly see the road ahead and where success seems impossible. Those who succeed simply refuse to accept the no-win situation. They press on even when it seems that there's no way to win. And in so doing, they draw upon inner resources they never knew they had, and they triumph in the long run. The story of Fred Smith starting Fedex is a great example, and there are countless others.

If I focused on all the problems in running an indie studio, I'd give up right now. They're all the exact same problems Pyrogon faced. But all that's accomplished by focusing on problems is to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and succumb. When you focus on opportunities and solutions instead of problems, running the business is a joy instead of a burden. Instead of fear and anxiety, you shift to experiencing abundance and gratitude. And in those positive states of mind, you'll be able to overcome obstacles that would have otherwise seemed insurmountable because they'll cease to look like obstacles to you. Instead, you'll see that behind every obstacle is an equal or greater opportunity.

I know this kind of mindset isn't easy to adopt, but I think it's essential for any entrepreneur. At some point every would-be entrepreneur is going to have to face their own "trial by fire." But when you pass through this stage, you gain a tremendous boost in self-confidence -- you have much more faith in yourself and start to feel that whatever the universe throws at you, you can handle it. This isn't a belief that you're some kind of superman, but rather a sense that you'll be able to focus on the opportunity in every situation instead of being dragged down by focusing on the obstacles.

while I'm not as new age "touchy feely" as Steve, I think Brian hit one thing that DOES make a huge difference.

They had a HIGH BURN RATE.

This equates to the necessity to have a hit. The hit mentality is why many developers fail. Not being able to take a flop and come back from it.

As Jeff Tunnel keeps saying in his keynotes. "Rightsize your life". And thats sage advice, if you lower your cash burn, you can keep holding out almost indefinitely, even on the lower return.

If Brian had actually moved to a REALLY cheap state, started Pyrogon from there, things might have been different.

As it is, they came out about even, which frankly, you pretty much do in almost any job. So good on them.

The other suggested alternative, is to simply do it part-time until you build up a portfolio that at least gives you SOME income. Brian basically did the "go the whole way" sort of thing. Evidently it didnt work, but thats not to say it wouldnt work for everyone.

As for Dans assertion that it bodes ill for 2 week games.. thats just not what I'm reading. 2 week games that give you a return over and above what you spent on the 2 week dev, are fine!

As with most things, picking your products is probably the most key part of development. This is evident from Brians postmortem. Its also clearly not easy (that I can definitely attest to).

So I dont see Brians experience as any sort of portent for others, but more an interesting tale with some useful insights. Perhaps a wise fable that tells a useful moral tale with an interesting twist.

Ok, now back to Steve and he can get new-age on your ass!

Thanks for posting that Dan, it was a very good read!

Also, you raised a great point about establishing a barrier to entry. With a two week game, you're very vulnerable to a competitive or crowded market, even if you stumble onto a great idea.

SpiderWeb Software may not have the best looking RPGs, but they rule the roost in the RPG Indie scene. This is because the barrier to entry for RPGs is deceptively high. There are tons of failed Indie RPG projects there were too ambitious thinking they had to make the next Final Fantasy. But SpiderWeb has found the right balance between creating a game with hours and hours of gameplay without getting bogged down creating "fluff". That's their barrier to entry, knowing exactly what it takes to create a RPG full of content while actually releasing it to the market place in a reasonable amount of time.

As Dan pointed out, almost all the successful Indies here have some barrier to entry that prevents the rest of us from emulating their success in just a 1-2 month span. So creating a 2-4 week game might be a nice experiment or break from a larger project, I think it's a bad business plan to start churning out monthly games as your primary source of income. I don't think you can make the size of your software lineup the barrier to entry either. There's already a lot of developers with 5-7 small games in their software lineup. And once your software lineup reaches a certain size, you're then competing with online publishers who have 100s and 100s of titles in their lineup.

I think if you're an Indie developer, the barrier to entry has to be in the actual software itself.

Also I think it comes down to you need to decide if you want to be an Indie developer or an Indie publisher. Even when SteveP released 14 games in one year, he didn't personally develop all of them :) (If so, he really is Superman! :eek: ). He shifted into publishing (which isn't trivial) and that's why he was able to have a high release output.

Developers and publishers have different priorities each requiring a lot of planning, so you can't flip-flop back and forth with what you want to do (Cas are you listening? ;) ). Publishers want to get the largest customer base as possible and provide their customer base with frequent releases. They make a living by satisfying their large customer base with numerous titles developed in-house and externally. Developers want to make a living from the software they create, plain and simple. This doesn't necessarily require a large customer base, just access to a profitable market (this can be a niche market). But each software release for a developer is much more important than a publisher's. You really have to strive to be the best and not just run with the pack. Otherwise, even with a good game you'll get lost in the mix. Likewise, if you come out with a great game, but your barrier to entry is too low (ie. 1 month dev cycle), then you'll be swamped with competition in no time.

That's why aside from the desire to be a publisher or to do a quick experiment, I don't see the long-term value of doing 2-3 week games as a developer.

I dont expect it really makes a difference how long a game takes to make, as long as the execution hits the mark.

I'm sure there are plenty of short dev cycle games that sell well. Well enough to recoup thier costs and a good percentage.

Dont get into the mindset that everything has to be huge.

Likewise, I recently had a good think about the puzzle genre, deciding to have a quick blast at a few of them (which sounds weird, given I dont actually like them). But its an interesting experiment for me, because I can be dispassionate about it.

The way i see it, is that the casual gamer, doesnt actually CARE much where thier games come from (developer wise), so they are just as likely to buy puzzle game X as well as puzzle game Y. Given that X and Y are of the same quality.

So you dont have a long history or historical relationship with the customer with a casual game, so there is less of a barrier there.

What steve (and other successful devs) did was to actually harness the media so that he DOES get that history. Essentially adding value to his products by having a close relationship with the customer base.

So if I release a few "competant" puzzle games, that dont light up the sky, or sell like hotcakes, at least I'm building that historical interaction. If I can get some products into thier hands, then at least I'm on thier radar.

Of course, releasing a complete suck product might be bad, but we're taking it as read that aint gonna happen :) right?

The original question posed was "is it possible to make a profit off a game that only took 2 weeks to produce?". The answer to that of course is yes. Development time is irrelevant, it's the final product that matters.

Someone with a good code library who also appens to be a Photoshop whiz should have no problem whipping out small games on a tight schedule. Heck, the Blitz Basic community routinely pumps out classic arcade and puzzle clones, usually in the course of a 4 - 7 days, tops. Would they sell? Probably. Would they be hit games? Probably not. But if you're just starting your company it's a safer to gamble on creating 2-3 moderate successes than creating one mega-hit game.

At any rate, I don't know that anyone is advocating a 2 week development schedule for all their games all the time but it might not be a bad strategy to get your company up and running, or to test the waters in a new genre or business.

If you are an inexperienced developer though, it's better to take your time and not try to adopt such a rushed schedule. I know it feels like the situation is urget but learning to settle down and give everything it's due amount of time is an important lesson, too.

I've always been a bit worried about developers who decide to "crank out a puzzle game" as a means to get money flowing. On one hand, it can seem like a valid short term strategy. On the other hand...it can be a long term trap.

Sometimes a little success is worse than a complete failure, especially if it's doing something you don't really want to do, and didn't start out to do, in the first place.

The Pyrogon postmortem demonstrates this pretty well, I think. They stopped work on a project they believed in to create something they thought might make a bit of money. And it did make money. What happened then? They looked at their original project, which was still months from completion and generating $0, and they compared it to Candy Cruncher which was generating >$0. The winner of such a comparison is predictable.

For you Computer Science/heuristic geeks, this is referred to as a "local maxima" problem. ;)

Or, in the words of a Product Manager I worked with once, "Once the board of directors sees a trickle of income they don't want to let go of it."

Or, to put it one more way: Money creates a positive feedback loop. Even a little bit of money is enough to get your attention and make you start thinking of ways to turn that into more money.

So...be careful when you consider something to get a quick buck. Unless you're very careful, that quick buck could stand all your plans on their heads and leave you wondering what happened.

-David

From reading your post David you almost picked up on something I did while reading the post mortem, and that is all they did was "churn out" puzzle games. It looked to me like from their post mortem on the way they did things was to make a puzzle game release, add a patch or two and then move on to the next puzzle game, basicly leaving the old one dead in the water. A shareware company can't really afford to do that, from the little I know anyway.

The prime example of this is their second release. The churned it out and released it and it didn't really start to sell well. Now although I probably don't know any of what really happened, he doesn't make any reference to getting feedback to why it was "tanking" per se and improve the game, buying proceedure or what ever. He just wrote it of almost straight away and started a new project.

From what I've seen from the guys here who are pretty successfull, there is one key thing to making things sell, and that thing is revision. Release a game, get feedback, improve it, release a newer version, get feedback, improve it. This should be a repeating cycle until the game is deemed successfull. It looks like from that post mortem he didn't bother reworking the releases to improve sales at all.

Anyways just my 2 cents :-)

EDIT-- Statements like this:

And I'm not sure they would have been, the problem was the market, not us.

Also to lead me to believe he wasn't bothering to keep up with who is target audience is/was and what he had to do to reach them.

To respond to the original question, yes it's possible to make money from a 2 week game. The InfeXion entry from this recent LD48 (48hr game programming competition) was very close to being a complete product.

This thread has grown large with a lot of posts, as I read I detect a slight hint of group think. A subtle feeling of "yeah what was I thinking trying to make these 6mo - 1yr games, I should just be making 2 week games". It was that sentiment that I wanted to speak to. Weather that sentiment is actually there is entirely a matter of opinion, but I thought I sensed it so i posted :)

The more I see the more I'm starting to believe in this concept of a "flagship title", especially in the indie scene. If you look at Dexterity, do you think Steve intended to become a puzzle game portal when he started out? When you look at how Jeff Vougel got started with SpiderWeb, or ThomasW with goodsol, their stories are all very similar. They created a game for fun, not thinking too much of it, they made a few bucks, one thing lead to another and now the run companies that specialize in that product.

Pyrogon had no intention of catering puzzle games for the casual gamer when they started. Pyrogon shares a lot of similarities with Dexterity in that. In fact there are a lot of parallels between Pyrogon and Dexterity, and I think Steve correctly identified why Dexterity has been successful and Pyrogon wasn't.

There are some exceptions to this, ID software and Apogee to name two. There were other situational factors to led to that though, the emergence of 3D graphics as a viable game development technology etc.

So to those who want to build a quick stable of games by busting one out every 2-3 weeks keep in mind that you may be defining the future of your company. When you have a certain type of game and you start learning how to sell it, the more you do it the harder it becomes to change gears. You get contacts in the industry circles where people who sell games to customers who like the 2 week game hang out. You learn how to get on the sites that cater to those customers; you learn how to market etc. Now you want to switch and do a totally orthogonal product, like well an RTS ;) you have a lot of momentum in one direction that actually becomes a barrier to going in the direction you really want to go.

The one guy, who I think has it right, is patrox from www.phelios.com. He’s made a number of smaller games (6-8month games I would say). But he didn’t fall into it accidentally, each game adds something to his codebase that will enable him to make the big “dream games” he’s been planning from the beginning. If you want to take the 2 week game route, this would be one avenue, release 2 week games who’s audience at least has the possibility of overlapping with the audience of the big “dream game” you want to make. Still I think the risk of developing a reputation for and momentum as a 2 week game developer may be a greater risk then the short term profits.

Originally posted by ScrewBall
From reading your post David you almost picked up on something I did while reading the post mortem, and that is all they did was "churn out" puzzle games. It looked to me like from their post mortem on the way they did things was to make a puzzle game release, add a patch or two and then move on to the next puzzle game, basicly leaving the old one dead in the water. A shareware company can't really afford to do that, from the little I know anyway.

You'll run into this blindspot in a lot of industry veterans. They're used to the "deliver and forget" paradigm. It's the nature of developing for retail. A game is designed, developed, released, and forgotten. Retail shelf space doesn't allow time for a product to find its market, or go through a cycle of release-feedback-revision over and over. A product sinks or swims within a very short timespan. If it swims, a patch or two might be released. More commonly, though, it has a single, short revenue spike and then disappears. In that kind of arena, you don't wait around. You get on with the next project ASAP.

-David

Actually selling the product was implied in the two week experiment. SteveP didn't write Brainwave to see if he could write a game in that amount of time, he wrote it to see if he could make money with a product in that amount of time.

It would be difficult to make money with a thrown-together puzzle clone. No argument there. So...don't...do...that. I think it's silly to get worked up about two week indie games; if they don't make income, they will go away. It's that simple. If the quality is poor, people won't buy it. If it's a cheesy clone that people have seen a million times over, people won't buy it.

Personally, I am interested in the entire indie process, not just the game making. Making money is part of the process, and a puzzle game is probably not the best way to do that. For me, the experiment would be much like Brainwave - is this a viable model? If I crank out another Tetris/Breakout/Bejewelled clone, and it doesn't sell, what have I learned? That that kind of game doesn't sell well. Time to find something else. If I crank out something with low quality, and it doesn't sell, what have I learned? That low quality games don't sell. If nobody buys a game, then for that game, the experiment failed.

On the other hand, if you invest a year or two in a game, and it doesn't sell, what have you learned? The same lessons possibly, you just took longer to get there. There are no guarantees that a six month, or a twelve month, or a thirty-six month development cycle produces a better game.

Pyrogone proved two things: Yes, it's possible to make money, even with simple games. No, you're not going to get id-style money over night. They started with a six month reserve. Six months!! Very few (any?) indies are going to be self-sustaining in six months, regardless of the length of the dev cycle. Regardless of the type of games.

It's not about trying to get the quick buck, it's about trying to get multiple passive income streams, perhaps individually small, but combined into something you could live on.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. I'll see where this takes me. What have I lost, a couple weeks? :)

For you Computer Science/heuristic geeks, this is referred to as a "local maxima" problem.

I'm envisioning that old cartoon with a robot sitting in a tree gazing at the moon, saying, "My goal is the moon. This tree is closer to the moon than the ground. Therefore, I shall stay in this tree in order to be closer to my goal."

You'll run into this blindspot in a lot of industry veterans. They're used to the "deliver and forget" paradigm.
Speaking as an industry vet, I'll say... 'yer dang right!' Absolutely! Because the guys who profit from long-term sales in the retail world are the PUBLISHERS. Unless the game sells phenominally well, the developer is ONLY going to see their advanced money, and at best a trickle of back-end royalties. Not enough to pay for enhancements / bug-fixes. So many SMART developers actually write this into their contract - a maximum period of time (usually 1 year) during which they can be made to patch the product. Beyond the one year mark (or to get actual enhancements), the publisher has to sweeten the deal.

It's a whole 'nother ballgame when you are receiving a straight cut of the royalties. But I think the article was clear that Pyrogen was, at least initially, thinking of taking the traditional developer / publisher relationship.

I can't help but notice that Candy Cruncher looks just like "Sweet Tooth". I didn't download the demo or anything, so I am not sure what it actually plays like.

Hey, I'm not flip-flopping between being a publisher and a developer! I'll always be a developer. Charlotte takes care of the publishing side of things, but it seems right now no-one's got any Java games to publish, so she's not publishing anything!

I've got a bigger motive for my "2 week" game than many here - I've got a "one year" game that I spent the whole of 2003 on which gets 0 sales, largely due to lack of downloads. A great big flurry of activity releasing a second game - even if it's much less ambitious - is going to drive thousands of people down to my site, and the chances are they'll pick up both games.

My strategy now is to lure visitors to my site with new and interesting stuff. You won't find me publishing Alawar-style games that everyone else has all over the internet because ... you can find them everywhere else on the internet. You can be assured that when you are lured to Puppygames there will be some good reason to be lured there.

A 2-week* game that rocks should do the trick :D

Cas :)

* and yes, I've started one, 4 hours evening work into it so far so it's 5% coded. I expect Chaz will spend 2 weeks on art too and we'll all spend another 2 weeks of tweaking but it's still a lot less time than last time eh?

Princec: yeah, I'm kind of thinking the same thing. Use a simple 2 week (lets call any small timescale game that) as a driver to boost website visits.

Think of it as a loss leader.

One thing that struck me about re-reading Brians postmortem, he said he only had 6 months reserves? I seem to recall in the dim murky depths of memory, him saying that he had 100k or so to play with, or requiring at least 100k or so as a startup per person.

Now, if your burn rate is 100k in 6 months, its not exactly surprising that youre going to have problems as an indie in the first few years.

I'm holding around 5 years of cash reserves, if I rightsize my expenses (pretty easy for me, I dont really spend too much). I expect a viable business to take around that length of time.

So anyone who is thinking that there is a quick way into having a stable business, better be sure to get a "hit" game. Personally, I just want a few games out there (casual games wise) to test the process. Maybe get a few names into a newsletter, iron out the wrinkles on the website, get the whole business "process" down.

I guess I'd rather spend this time doing small games, making sure that every part of the process works (payment processing, website usage, hosting, copy protection or whatever) so that when I deliver a bigger game, I know the routine.

Thats what it is for me, not practice at doing the game, but practice at selling it online.

I've made a number of quickie games, but I've never tried to sell them. Instead I put them out as freeware titles in the hopes that they'll draw in some traffic and new customers for my commercial releases.

Not a dig at you Steve but I do believe that the funamental difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional charges for their work. Why give anything away for free if people will pay for it? Just look at Brainwave if you need validation of that idea!

Cas :)

Our current project was supposed to be a month. Then 2 months. And now 4. Damn!!

Im beginning to realise that my pride is the bloody problem here. I cant seem to do anything unless its polished like a diamond.

As Cas said earlier, whats the point when no-body notices except me!?

I need to figure our a way to crush my pride into a small box in the back of my brain for a while otherwise ill never be able to produce anything smaller scale.

Sometimes its hard being an artist. Putting out graphics that dont blow my own mind is a difficult thing to get past. Bloody pride.

What you need is someone like me, who is at best a mediocre artist and so is perfectly happy as long as the graphics turn out ok. Yes folks, the secret to a speedy turnaround is making sure you get crappy people in to do the work. ;)

Originally posted by princec
Not a dig at you Steve but I do believe that the funamental difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional charges for their work. Why give anything away for free if people will pay for it? Just look at Brainwave if you need validation of that idea!

Cas :)

You have to look for the biggest payout. In my view a game like Halloween is worth more as an advertisement than as a commercial game product, and works more effectively as an advertisement if it's freeware. So in my judgement I'm actually making more money in the long run.

A number of successful shareware developers have one or more freeware titles. This strategy can be effective because a freeware product may generate many more downloads, partly because it's free and partly because you can list it on freeware-only sites that don't accept shareware. So it's good for traffic generation and increasing search engine link popularity.

I'm not too sure on this, and it is just something that poped up in my mind, but wouldn't it be possible to produce a game in those two weeks and release it free, then do this for 2-3 more games. Then from user oppinions and feedback, pick one of the games to improve and polish on and then sell?
I know there will always be users that will shun on freeware=>shareware transition but from what I read, it is usually a minority.

This strategy would probably allow you to weed out a game that never had a good chance to be (financially) sucessful and work on the one that users really want.

It was just a thought!

Bruno

Indeed, why not write a game in 2 weeks and release the demo as freeware and the "full" version as proper shareware?

Cas :)

Originally posted by BSousa
I'm not too sure on this, and it is just something that poped up in my mind, but wouldn't it be possible to produce a game in those two weeks and release it free, then do this for 2-3 more games. Then from user oppinions and feedback, pick one of the games to improve and polish on and then sell?


Sounds like Pop Idol for games. ;)

Although it might well be a good idea...

Indeed, why not write a game in 2 weeks and release the demo as freeware and the "full" version as proper shareware?
Consumer perception. You don't get the goodwill that would be generated by giving away something completely free, no strings attached.

brainwave is actually a pretty good game and its better than most out there.

the biggest factor in brainwave is the buying-system, this is very very popular among casual gamers. I completely loved wing commander because you can buy parts and goodies.

Im beginning to realise that my pride is the bloody problem here. I cant seem to do anything unless its polished like a diamond.

Tell me about it. But someone has to do it.

It's always worth it in the end, though. Prossibly not financially. But, er, karmically, or something.