

Quitting your day job to make video games. - mparent61

I recently quit my day job working for a major search engine company, in order to pursue my passion for making video games full-time (http://monkeywrenchgames.com).<p>We're targeting the iPhone, and hoping that we didn't miss the gold rush.<p>Has anyone else taken a similar plunge? What have your experiences been?
I'd also be happy to answer ANY questions you might have about getting started on the iPhone.
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mparent61
Thanks all!

Yeah, we're learning that the App Store alone is not enough marketing -- I'm
amazed at how many games are released every day.

We've reached out to app review sites (avoiding sites that charge $$ for
reviews), which seem to be the lowest hanging fruit (if your game gets good
reviews!). Facebook and Twitter are all the rage these days, and we're trying
these as well.

However, by far, the most important thing that we did was release a free
"Lite" version. Our best single-day sales had been about 75 copies, until our
demo version was released yesterday and had over 1300 downloads in a single
day, and drove up our sales. I highly recommend this approach.

Funny story about trial versions -- don't call your free version a "DEMO" --
we were rejected by the Apple store last week ("DEMO" phrase is bad,
"Lite/Free" is good), and had to wait 7 days for our renamed "Lite" version to
be approved and put up for sale.

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e1ven
Good luck, games are fun, but it's a very tough business since it's so hit-
based. I'd recommend working on your marketing strategy, particularly if
you're working on iPhone games.

Repeat after me: The App store is NOT a marketing strategy.

Create a webpage, do advertisements, etc. Good luck, and keep us informed!

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bendotc
I presume you're asking about quitting your day job in order to become an
indie game developer. As it is, making videogames _is_ my day job, as it is
with a number of other people who post here, but in my case, I'm currently not
working for a small independent company.

Having not done the indie game entrepreneurship thing myself, I can't speak
with any certainty, but I know enough about the business to know that some of
what works for web startups won't work for game companies, and yet this
industry has a lot to learn from the cutting edge of how software gets made in
other sectors. I'd be interested to hear if you've got any thoughts about all
this that might be interesting to the HN crowd.

I'm happy to say I've heard of Kids vs. Zombies, though I don't remember in
what context (I don't own an iPhone, so I don't keep up much with games
there). Given that indie games seem to be a growing segment of the industry
(or at least an increasingly coherent cultural force and identifiable
subsection within the industry), I hope you're doing your best to get indie
and casual game press on your side. A lot of free publicity can be gained that
way, and can really help word-of-mouth advertising.

Best of luck!

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ido
I'm also interested in doing that, but with windows/mac/linux & possibly
browser games.

The problem is that people seem to be somewhat averse to paying for a browser
based game (like a Java applet or webstart app), even when they'd have no
problem paying for the same game as a standalone program (literally simply
using a JPanel instead of a JApplet, or providing an installer to a local
version instead of a webstart link).

Of course browser games still get a lot more hits than locally installed ones.

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EvilTrout
I run a moderately popular browser game. We have over 175k registered users
and get millions of requests a day.

Our conversion rates are low, but we've managed to get enough people playing
to sustain itself, one full time employee (me!) and a few contract employees.

It's been a lot of fun. If you are passionate about games I highly recommend
it since it can definitely be sustainable. Having said that, I'm not sure it's
necessary a lucrative path for most people.

~~~
ido
Cool! Care to provide a link?

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EvilTrout
Oh I thought the HN standard way was to provide a link in your profile instead
of spamming up comments.

The site is <http://www.forumwarz.com>

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lacker
When I saw that Mafia Wars was one of the most popular games on Facebook, I
went to check it out, and before long thought "Wow, this is just like
forumwarz except with mafia." Apparently html rpgs are now a viable genre.

Have you ever considered making more games that are essentially gameplay
clones of forumwarz but with different themes? That seems to be a lot of what
Zynga has done with their facebook games - Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Zombie
Wars, etc. Also have you considered social network integration yourself. I
hate to suggest such un-innovative strategies but it might work.

~~~
robotron
Zynga has one trick, that they don't always do well. I would suggest NOT
emulating them.

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hboon
I left my day job at a major search engine company a few months back. I was
wondering if we are colleagues? :) Drop me a mail?

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lacker
Good luck!

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mrbgty
Just downloaded your lite version. Well done.

