

How to Be an Indie Game Developer - hk__2
http://www.mode7games.com/blog/2012/06/12/how-to-be-an-indie-game-developer/

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mbenjaminsmith
I'm 6 months into an independent game studio. Right now it's just me and some
freelancers.

I'm in the process of finalizing all of the paperwork for the business and
hope to have our game in testing by the end of the month. The bottom line is
it's way more work than I anticipated. I'm not inexperienced either, this my
third company.

I've been running a software business since the beginning of 2011. The amount
of work in one game dwarfs the amount of work in a utility app. There's just
no comparison. I'm confident we're making a unique and fun game (iOS first,
later Android) and I am paying a lot of attention to promoting the company and
our game, but I really don't expect to make much money this year on it.

Two years before the company is paying off seems about right. My first company
(bricks and mortar) took around two years before we were out of crisis mode. I
think the app stores give people a false impression of what it takes to build
a business and see your hard work turn into something meaningful.

The upside is there is _incredible_ upside potential in the video game market,
especially if you're running a lean shop. Having said that, I'm not doing it
for the money as much as I'm doing it to build something that I'll be happy
working on 5 or even 10 years from now.

I don't think people should approach it (unless they are just hobbyists)
because making games is fun. It's not really fun after the initial
conceptualization is done. It's mostly just hard work. Dull, repetitive,
never-ending work. I get through it by exercising religiously and paying
attention to my diet. I also take off at least every other weekend to relax
and hang out.

[promo] If you're interested in hearing about the game's progress, please
follow us at twitter.com/rapidfirestudio [/promo]

~~~
kenamarit
Same here! I'm about 6 months in and working alone, but inexperienced on the
biz end. It turns out that my simple project is way more work than I realized
up front. Definitely more than the last ruby on rails web app I built, and
that was moderately complex. Luckily with experience in code, art, animation,
and music, I can avoid major costs up front.

But the black art of game design is a little new to me (other than from
playing and observing other games), and really it is the trickiest part, it's
the glue that binds everything together. This could end up a lifelong
obsession, and one could easily spend a lifetime tinkering to master it.

I have a similar tactic for combatting the crazy amount of work: more
vegetables and long walks. I think it works...

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alanfalcon
How To Be an Indie Game Developer:

\- Make a game, release it

How To Stop Being an Indie Game Developer:

\- Procrastinate, ever

\- Let the marketing "take care of itself"

\- Have poor version control, then "take a break"

\- Finish only one game, ever

\- Let someone else handle your finances and shield you from the sense of
urgency you should feel as you approach the end of your runway without taking
off

\- Fail to realize that games are mostly a hit-based market, and plan
accordingly

\- Sell your one non-hit game for 99¢

\- Never update your one game

Anyway, an anecdote is just useless data with a sample size of one, but I'm
pretty sure I read this story plenty of times before I went and lived it
myself.

Still, in my case it's kind of nice that Blizzard left my name in the Diablo 3
credits. I can pretend I spent the past year being a part of something
productive!

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danmaz74
Up to where I read, this is excellent advice. Especially the "Unpaid
volunteers will, more often than not, give up when things get hard. They may
also not tell you that they’ve given up and waste a vast amount of your time."
is something I burned myself with many times.

But way too long as a blog post: I would would suggest to break it into many
posts, or even publish it as a free ebook and just link it in the blog.

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Paul_S
Awful article, brilliant advice but I value content over style. The density of
specific advice and tips is impressive.

"I believe it will take a skilled person with a strong work ethic starting
from scratch a minimum of two years to get any kind of significant financial
return from making indie games, probably longer."

I know it's impossible but I'd love to see actual statistics for this.
Especially on the average time and not the minimum time assuming all the
planets align correctly.

