Which personal skills do you need to develop if you want to be succesful as an indie game developer?

A bit of personal background. I have been an indepent software developer for almost three years, mainly doing web applications. Now my business partner and I are working on our first game. It's a rather simple puzzle game. Development is well under way and we hope to start selling the game before the year ends.

Obviously, creating your own game is a lot different from creating an application for a client. I'm currently doing research on what it takes to sell our game. One question remains in my mind: how do I personally need to develop to be succesful in this business? Any thoughts, experiences or the like?

I'm not sure whether this really answers your question, which is an odd 'un, but:

1. By waffling prolifically for about 3 years on the internet in various high profile forums I've become known as a) a waffler and b) knowledgable in certain specialist areas, to the point where I'm now being actually invited to moderate in other people's forums and being asked by industry leaders to provide expert advice on some matters. That coupled with a few high-profile interviews both online and in print and a very thorough CV is lending me an air of credibility in my areas which in turn will prove very convenient when I need to ask a favour or raise interest in something, particularly when I might get interested in looking for investment in some of my more ambitious plans.

Creating and figureheading a very popular open source library has further increased exposure of my activities and should be attracting attention from a number of industry heavyweights around now.

Actually writing a game and doing the whole indie-game-developer thing by the numbers has elevated me from the status of wannabe to someone who has actually been there and done that (and failed). Quite apart from the fact we've got a product and a company and a website and a few fans we've also got a load of great experience in failure. Failure is just as important as success when it comes to getting help.

On the whole the big plan has been all about networking and learning who's who and whose ear to bend to get the right effect.

The ultimate plan is that I will become respected in the technological and business circles in which I move; and that the networking I am attempting to make is with people who overlap in both circles.

Some tips I can offer on winning friends and influencing people are:

post often on forums
use very clear English
don't flame anyone, ever

-or-

2. I r0xor and you sux0r.

demonstrating a complete lack of interpersonal skills :)


As far as other areas of personal development go with respect to running a business, I'm sorely behind, having completely failed to: rightsize my life; get super motivated; work regular and hard; concentrate on marketing and selling; etc.

Cas :)

Hello Ronkes

I'm probably in about the same position as you are. I've been working developing applications for a few years now and running a reasonably successful shareware business. I'm branching out now and working on a small puzzle game that should be done soon. Here's some of the qualities that I think are most important when working in this industry:

1) Optimism - I believe a number of top business executives have ranked this as the most important quality. Even though other people might be telling you how you can't make a living selling indie software, you really have to go ahead and give it your best shot. You always have to be able to look on the good side of things. If sales drop for a little while or you get a bad review, you can't let it knock you down. Things will get better if you are willing to keep going.

2) Determinism - This is related to the number 1. Don't give up! Set goals for yourself and keep them. Work hard - make no joke that this is an easy business. To be successful requires a lot of time, commitment, and focus.

3) Learn from your mistakes - I don't think anyone gets it right on their very first try. If something isn't working, check it out and see how you can improve it. Find out what other people have done and what works and what doesn't. Learn from them and keep learning.

I believe if you have the above qualities, a lot of the other technical things will fall into place. Best of luck!

Graeme

I want to add only one thing:
- have an original idea

if you're going to make the same old variation of "align three balls of same color" you can spend your time better watching TV ;)

I'd add another item to that list too.

Professionalism. Whatever you do, take a professional attitude to it. How you treat customers making unfair comments in your forums, how you approach QA, marketing, development. It all adds up to make or break for an indie IMO.

Hee hee, sorry to laugh at a typo, but "determinism" means:

a philosophical doctrine holding that all events are inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes; often understood as denying the possibility of free will


Which I think is more or less the opposite of what you're trying to say - "determination"

Once again, I must apologise. Just thought it was funny.

Whoops! That's what happens when you try to write a quick post at the end of a long day :p. Thanks for catching that, Anthony! Cheers!

Graeme

Ah, a good sport.

You know, the other day I reread an old post of mine where I'd actually typed "you're" instead of "your". I felt so dirty...

Thanks for the input guys. Most of the skills you mention make sense for about every business owner. Are there any skills specific to either game developement or shareware development?

3) Learn from your mistakes - I don't think anyone gets it right on their very first try. If something isn't working, check it out and see how you can improve it. Find out what other people have done and what works and what doesn't. Learn from them and keep learning.

Is this something you can actively do? Do you document your poor decisions in something like a post mortem?

I want to add only one thing:
- have an original idea

Can I translate that to creativity? Or is it not the same?

Professionalism. Whatever you do, take a professional attitude to it. How you treat customers making unfair comments in your forums, how you approach QA, marketing, development. It all adds up to make or break for an indie IMO.

Is that something you can learn, you think? I mean, we all have a basic idea of when somebody is being professional or not, but how can you improve that skill? Is it possible to assess your own professionalism?

I tend to think that professionalism is something that is part learned, part practice, but mostly attitude.

You can learn professionalism by watching others, and seeing how they go about things. You can tell someone has a professional website because they have looked after the details. When someone writes you a letter full of spelling and grammar errors, does that look professional? A professional programmer makes sure that she is properly testing her code, not just writing it and if it looks like it works, then it's done. A professional musician doesn't just write new songs, he practices the olds ones... and the basics.

Doing courses in things that you need help in is also a good way to improve your professionalism. For instance, my current employer brought in an outside trainer to teach a course in business writing. As a big company they wanted the correspondance being sent out looking as professional as possible.

I think you also have to practice it. Make it part of your lifestyle. Using the example of business writing. Don't get lazy when you aren't writing business correspondance. Check spelling and grammar when you post a message on a forum, or when you fire off a quick email to a friend. (I'm not saying write in formal business-eze every time you write something, just make sure it is properly done.)

None of this is worth a grain of salt if there is no attitude of professionalism. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if someone doesn't have the proper attitude, they won't really care about doing things right in the first place. And really, the biggest thing about the attitude is that you are always looking to do something better than before. It's not about being perfect, it's just caring about improving.

cheers

Originally posted by Ronkes
Is this something you can actively do? Do you document your poor decisions in something like a post mortem?

Never stop critisize yourself and remember that there is no such thing as failiure. you fail only if you dont try to understand the lessons of the past and other people experiences.

also, open up http://www.gamasutra.com/ , or to be specific, the postmortem section ( http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=5 ) where you can see that even the pro's (especially them) after *every* project and even during, analyze their actions and mistakes.

Originally posted by Ronkes
Is that something you can learn, you think? I mean, we all have a basic idea of when somebody is being professional or not, but how can you improve that skill? Is it possible to assess your own professionalism?

if you look back to the definition of profession, is doing something for living. sure, theres the fun factor here, but when you do something for a living you just have to do it right and in a good way so you can earn money to pay the bills.

when you look at a professional work, you know its pro if you'll pay money for it, your OWN money. be cruel and think why you wont pay for it. be cruel and ask your friends what they think of this junk game you found on the net. look at other similiar games and see why they worth money and how you can make your game make money too. and then, its not cruelty, its realism.

sorry if i sound harsh, but professionalism is knowing when to say: "its not good enough" even if you did your 100% because "good enough" is defined by what your client expect. and not just that, its saying 2 seconds after: "and now i'm going to learn how make it better".