
“I thought I could ship at least 700 units to stay in business” - Impossible
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ConstantinBacioiu/20171121/310012/Post_Mortem_I_thought_I_could_ship_at_least_700_units_to_stay_in_business.php
======
ajnin
Quitting your job with only 4 month worth of savings, with a new mortgage, to
enter an industry known for its oversaturation, extreme competition, and high
luck element for indies ? That's insane. Maybe I'm just risk-adverse.

That said, I think he actually succeeded, despite appearances. Managing to
release a working game in 3 month, that actually got sales, is a feat in
itself. The game will keep trickling sales, if he's a developer he can
probably find a job in a few weeks and enjoy the now-passive income so I'm not
too worried about him. Keep cranking out games like this one and the income
will pile up.

~~~
flexie
It's not that I disagree, especially with the opinion that the gaming industry
is over-saturated and that a lot depends on luck in that industry. But I'd say
that 4 months worth of savings is in the better end when starting a new
business. Most people who do startups or who otherwise become entrepreneurs
have much less than that. And I think having too much of a cushion can lull
you into a false sense of "doing something right" and that needing revenue
soon can be an excellent motivator.

I was about to get married when I quit my job and started by myself, and my
wife also had to quit her job because we moved country. And we honestly didn't
really work out whether we were in a bit of debt or if we had savings for a
few weeks. Sure, the first 6 months without pay were hard, and so were the
next few years with low pay, especially when we had kids.

But if having 6 or 12 months worth of savings is a requirement, then you can
rule out just about everyone except rich kids and upper middle class
teenagers.

~~~
zelos
Maybe I'm just way too risk-averse, but 3-4 months of expenses in savings is
what I'd consider a minimum _while in a stable full-time job_.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Yes, our mortgage advisor recommended a certain buffer amount in savings, and
it was quite a lot. Either one year or 18 months, and I think that was
combined income. That was just to ensure the mortgage could still be paid for
a while if we both lost our jobs.

I'm personally planning for an exit strategy which will see me working for
myself in about 6 months time. I have roughly one year's take-home pay and
will ideally have 18-24 months by the time I quit.

~~~
rahimnathwani
It sounds like the mortgage advisor encouraged you to borrow a larger sum, so
that she/he could get a larger commission.

There's no need to keep that much money in the bank just in case you lose your
job and can't pay your mortgage. Most lenders (at least where I'm from) will
arrange a payment holiday if you tell them you've lost your job. After all,
they benefit by earning more interest whilst you're not making payments.

Of course, there are many other good reasons to want that much liquid cash in
the bank.

~~~
milesvp
1 year in the bank (CD/savings) is for multiple reasons. Mostly it's for that
really nasty scenario where there's a major recession leading to household job
loss, when it can be particularly hard to find an equivalent replacement
salary. And cash equivalent is important because selling assets in a down
market is doubly expensive. Worse is a down market may make the mortgage
lender even more likely to foreclose in the hopes of extracting some short
term gains to offset losses in other investments. So you risk a losing your
equity just by missing a single payment.

I certainly don't drop every dollar into my mortgage every month, it's just
not worth the risk for a potential 4% return on investment.

~~~
rahimnathwani
I don't know if these exist in other countries, but some banks in the UK offer
an 'offset mortgage', where any balance in a specific current account at the
same bank deducted from the loan amount when calculating interest. The last
time I looked, they were a little more expensive than regular mortgages, but
would be worthwhile for someone who keeps 6 months or more of mortgage
payments in their current account.

------
shimfish
Just to add my personal data point of experience...

6 years ago, I took a break from doing webdev freelancing and spent around 3
months developing a kids app. At that point the money ran out so I released
the app even though it wasn't entirely finished and quickly went back to doing
web freelancing in order to be able to feed my family.

The app sold in small amounts but it was getting great feedback from the
people who had tried it. In my spare time, I added to it and improved it and
would pester bloggers to try it. Marketing beyond that isn't an option as the
costs are too great and if you're lucky you make a dollar per app sold.

It was a depressing and disheartening thing to put something out there which
you felt was good but almost nobody was buying but I realised it was a gamble
up front. I didn't bet the farm on it. I bet three months wages and
immediately went back to regular work as soon as I was in financial danger.

Even if your game is amazing, there's no way anyone is going to instantly and
magically know about it. Are there really so many people spending every day
looking at the Steam new releases ready to just buy anything that appears? At
the Indie level, only word-of-mouth means anything and that can take a very
long time to build.

As it happens, after 9 long months of very little sales, my app got a small
write-up in the New York Times. The piece was by one of the bloggers I had
pestered particularly hard to try it and later happened to have a one-off
article published. Since then, somehow the word-of-mouth effect kicked in and
I've been blessed to be able to work on the app full-time as my sole source of
income.

TL;DR: Don't ever plan on anyone buying your indie-game on day 1 even if it's
amazing.

~~~
shimfish
P.S. [https://itunes.apple.com/app/my-
playhome/id439628153](https://itunes.apple.com/app/my-playhome/id439628153) in
case anybody was wondering.

~~~
dagw
For what it's worth my daughter has sunk countless hours into that game and
its expansions, and loved every minute of it. Even though she now considers
herself a bit 'too old' for them, she'll still occasionally fire them up and
play.

~~~
shimfish
Thanks! It's so nice to get actual feedback from parents. I live in the middle
of nowhere and very, very rarely actually get to witness the app being used in
the wild.

------
aedron
I feel like relying on a big splash release is an intuitive, obvious, and
wrong approach. It's like a kind of waterfall methodology, where we should be
doing iterative: Release something early to a limited audience, gauge
reactions, fix the obvious mistakes and implement the feedback from players.
Then keep doing that. If you can't even get a small audience (like a small
gamer forum) to play, then you're already in trouble and should revise your
idea. Once the game starts to look like something with mass appeal, start
planning a real release. If you want a splashy go-live at this point then
change the name of the game and do it as a clean new release, but this time
you are releasing something that has been market tested and proven to have
appeal.

Also, and this is encapsulated in the ideas above, don't freaking rely on
family, friends, or acquaintances, to tell you what they think of the game.
Not even other devs. Nobody wants to be the asshole that shoots down someone's
dream. Again, if you can't even get actual players to try your game then you
have big problems that you need to work on.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Can confirm. Tried big splash release, didn't work, gave up. Don't do big
splash releases.

~~~
jblow
I recommend being careful from whom you take advice.

~~~
aedron
I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a
little.

~~~
jblow
Not really worth it -- if I put in effort to write a substantial comment here,
it's just buried in the noise of all these people who think they can give
advice on how to build and launch a game.

~~~
deafcalculus
Jon, there are many here who would very much like to hear what you have to
say. If you think it'll get buried, please leave it as a comment to the main
thread.

BTW, Jon Blow is the creator of Braid and The Witness. He is also working on
Jai, a programming language.

~~~
jblow
Thanks for the nice comments.

But I only think this because I have had the experience many times in the
past!

I feel the best place to focus my creative energy is on making livestreams,
doing speeches, and just on day-to-day programming.

Putting effort into a posting here often doesn't take _too_ much energy, but
it does take some, and I'd rather put it into something bigger than mostly
toss it away.

------
cousin_it
His sense of what games are "cool" wasn't in tune with the public. That's the
cardinal sin. Pixel art dungeon crawlers aren't cool. It's as if he was a
musician and decided to release a glam metal album today. Low budget, poor
marketing, uncooperative bureaucracy - nah dude, none of that matters, you're
just too in love with glam metal and people aren't buying glam metal.

~~~
tobltobs
That is called "targeting a niche" and makes sense if you can't compete
against those big marketing budgets. Even the glam metal niche is still alive:
hairmetalheaven.co.uk

~~~
dirktheman
Nothing wrong with targeting a niche, IF the niche is willing to pay a hefty
sum for their needs. In this case he sold 90 copies on Steam, I think that
every pixel art dungeon crawler fanatic on Steam has a copy now.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
It's not a hefty sum at all, though. £5 (or the dollar equivalent) is nothing
for a game _aimed at a niche_. If it's good enough, those 90 people would
probably have paid a lot more, maybe 2 or even 4 times as much. The real issue
though, I think, is that niche markets require recurring payments. So, as
others have said, you either release a lot of games (or sequels) targeting
that niche, or you move to some kind of subscription model, but that's very
difficult with an indie game.

------
ccozan
The country he mentions is Romania.

Well, bureaucracy is high, but like other said, no need to setup a company in
advance. But, he saved anyway way to little money ( I found strange that he is
counting in USD, since euro is de facto currency, besides the RON ) to be able
to sustain him and an apartment.

Lessons learn: don't quit your job until you have some sale volume.

However, since he's in Romania, he will get a job in no time, there's a
chronic shortage of good developers.

~~~
photonios
That highly depends on which city you are in Romania. If you're in one of the
bigger cities (Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi or Oradea) then it's going to be ok. If
not, then you're screwed, unless you can work remote. At least, that has been
my experience.

There's also the thing that the average developer salaries are surprisingly
low. They are well above the national average, but it's only the top 1-5% who
really pulls in the money. The latest numbers I have seen is an average of
5300 RON net (1185 EUR). While the national average is at 2100 RON (485 EUR).
The top 1-5% pulls in more than double the average: 10000 RON (2170 EUR), if
not more. You're gonna need a salary like that to live comfortably.

It makes sense for him to count in US dollars because even though prices for
apartments and cars are expressed in euros in Romania, the rest off the world
is still very much US dollar centric.

~~~
eb0la
I was in Cluj last year and was surprised to see an ad in the street saying
"Are you a coder? Living in Floresti (a neigbothood)? Come send us a resume!".

Salaries are low compared to the rest of Europe (and the US). But it sounds
_easy_ to get a tech job there.

~~~
toyg
Afaik Romania's IT is doing very well thanks to outsourcing. Oracle moved a
big chunk of stuff there. Education is alright, salaries are low, timezone is
European and authorities are accommodating; if you can get over the language
barrier somehow, you get a good bang for your buck, probably better than in
more expensive Czech or Poland. The country is hungry, so to speak; it's the
new frontier of labour-cost arbitrage. Their only challenges are political
stability and corruption.

~~~
photonios
You mean the language barrier between your own native language and English?
Because from what I've experienced, most younger people in IT speak English
very well.

EDIT: Yeap, Romania has been doing well. However, I'd argue that the biggest
risk is not corruption. From the Romanian workforce's point of view, its
becoming too dependent on outsourcing. As salary costs rise, it becomes less
and less attractive for foreign companies to outsource work to Romania. Right
now, in the city where I live in Romania, 80% of the IT companies are
outsourcing companies. It's getting better and better, and most good
programmers know to avoid the outsourcing companies as they generally pay
peanuts and the work is boring and repetitive.

------
1ammergeier
I assume part of his problem is the Steam description - some of it reads like
nonsense (the twist/USP makes no sense, “fervent goddess,” “20 levels of pure
mishap”) and the rest is actually discouraging, describing it as “back-to-
basics” (read: not many features) and literally has a section entitled “why
you might not like this game”.

Overall the concept is confusing. It’s a “coffee-break game” but also a really
difficult roguelike with permadeath? Why? People don’t like to experience
frustration in their coffee breaks, in my experience!

~~~
krapp
Yes... the pitch seems confusing, and the game itself seems uninspired.

I'd try a demo because this is the sort of thing I might like but I see
nothing there worth paying for up front.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
The first thing that rang alarm bells, for me, reading through this article
was:

> I even released a small 5 level demo on itch (can't afford to pay steam's
> 100$ fee to get a free version up on the platform)

How much larger is Steam's market than itch's? I'm guessing the answer is
"very". How many conversions do they need for the $100 to pay off? 20-30?
Seems like a no-brainer to me, and not even being able to afford $100 for what
would almost certainly be positive ROI marketing is a pretty big blocker.
Heck, I'd even front the $100 myself if I can get some kind of commission on
copies sold :)

~~~
albinofrenchy
I am moderately familiar with video games but have no idea what itch is. I
have a largish steam library though.

$100 dollars is nothing compared to dev costs. It should have been just
counted as startup costs and the demo should have been up since day 1.

------
koliber
There is a success hiding in what you call a failure.

You've built a fully working product in a short amount of time. It went pretty
much as you have planned it. This speaks volumes to your abilities as a game
developer.

You discovered that you are not that great at launching products, marketing,
and sales. These are the areas you need to spend a lot of time improving.

It sounds like the plan right now is to get up on your own two feet,
financially wise. Get a job that will cover your expenses, so that stress
disappears. Start saving up again.

Start learning about sales, marketing, and product launches. They may seem
like a second thought to you, but _each_ of these areas is as important as
product development.

Another thing to consider is when to quit your job. In general it is said that
one should have about six months of living expenses saved up, just in case.
This is to cover a situation where you have a job and lose it unexpectedly.
That six months of savings will allow you to spend time to find a new job.

To quit your job and self-fund, you need a lot more savings. How much is tough
to say. But let's say you give yourself six months to break even in your game
venture (no guarantees!), you need to plan an additional X months of savings
to find a new job.

The good news is the next time, you possibly will not need to quit your job
altogether. You already have a well-built game. Tweak it, redress it, and
spend 90% of your time launching and marketing. Perhaps you can do it while
you have a job and reduce your financial risk greatly.

------
mindfulplay
The main advice should be: not another pixel art game. Please. We have enough
of these. Folks let's move on from the 1970s.

Also this is getting tired seeing honest, hard-working, self-motivated
talented individuals push themselves into the same tried and tested crappy old
corner of 'indie pixel art games'. It's quite difficult to see anything
innovative or even remotely enjoyable from this genre anymore.

It's not Romania. It's not boring buearacracy. Its not the savings. Hell it's
not even you.

It's pixel art crap that passes off as indie games. I hate AAA games but now I
hate these indie pixel art games even more.

~~~
rootlocus
> It's quite difficult to see anything innovative or even remotely enjoyable
> from this genre anymore.

You probably haven't seen Undertale then
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/Undertale/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/Undertale/)

~~~
misnome
But surely this is part of the problem; Exceptions to the rules, that have
succeeded due to an unpredictable combination of luck, timing AND developer
inspiration.

Nobody should look at Undertale and say "Yes, this is definitely a good
area/style/genre to go into to make easy success.

------
estomagordo
What gets me about this is the tiny scale of things. This is the first time it
really dawns on me just how small of a success a game might have to be and
still have the developer going (hard as it may be to reach 700 sold,
apparently).

Honestly, this puts things into an entirely new light for me. I feel like
buying, playing and then thoroughly interacting in the community of a game can
really have personal impact on the indie developer.

~~~
lrem
That's when your developer is in Romania. If your game developer lives in bay
area, that's a full order of magnitude of difference in cost of living.

~~~
stephenboyd
The developer said he had four months of savings. And then he said $500 of
expenses cost him a whole month.

~~~
timthelion
And can you get by on $500 a month in the bay area if you don't live under a
highway overpass?

In Romania you definitely can.

~~~
majewsky
Definitely. Even in East Germany, I could get by on about €600 a month as a
student.

------
mfrommil
The biggest mistake was the assumption that he could ship 700 copies in a
couple months. It seems this was based more on what he needed to pay the
bills, not in any way tied to what demand would be. This is a fundamental
mistake in setting business goals, product pricing, revenue estimates, etc. He
could have scoped out similar games in terms of quality, complexity, genre,
etc. and based his estimate off of this, or looked at other games conversion %
of wish list to paid purchases.

------
bufferoverflow
Yeah, quitting the job with no savings is a mistake. The things he could have
done better are mainly

1) Proof that people want to play this game. Post the gameplay video on
/r/indiegaming, see what people say. I remember the early days of Minecraft,
people went wild for it, even though it was very basic.

2) Marketing. Tweeting is not enough. Submitting to reviewers is not enough.

On the positive side, he is fast and can deliver. I feel like he can develop
minimum viable games even faster, just to prove the gameplay is addicting.

~~~
thelittleone
I quit my job a few years back with around $150k in the bank to fund my
startup. A few months later, still nervous about leaving full time employment,
I took a job interview with a big four. I received an offer with a base salary
of $600k. I turned that down and committed to the startup.

A few months on, I receive a letter from the tax department advising that my
previous employer provided corrected earnings information and that I now owed
them most of what was left in my savings account. Grim news.

That big four job was already gone so I ended up in another interview process.
Leaving that interview for the train station, I realised the coins in my
pocket were not enough for the train ride home.

I set out walking, it was about 5 kilometers, 30c degree heat and equatorial
humidity and then it started raining. I was in a suit. Strangely enough I
found myself smiling. I thought "is this all you've got?". I actually felt
happy... with nothing.

A riches to rags story by traditional measure.

~~~
ninjaroar
600k base salary? What type of position is that?

Developer salaries in the big four (I assume you mean
Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple) are high but that is still twice what I normally
hear (and have gotten offers for), and that's assuming you're talking about
total comp. I'm not doubting you, i'm just curious what type of experience you
need to get that.

~~~
speedplane
If I had a nickle every time a HN commenter said they make 500k+/yr as an
engineer, I'd make 500k+/yr.

~~~
ryandrake
Don't you know? Everyone on HN makes $500k+, drives a Ferrari and has a
supermodel partner.

~~~
thelittleone
Funny enough, I now live in Bali, earn less than $150k, drive a $3k scooter
and have a supermodel partner. She just made me pumpkin soup.

------
zapperdapper
Of course given you can crank out a game that quickly it may have been better
to not quit your job and release the game on the side. If it had been a
success then quit. Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it?

There are some strong positives here - you shipped a game! That alone is
awesome. You built up a community. You were prepared to take a chance. All
great things.

The harsh reality is the casual games market is brutal from a business
perspective - that's not your fault.

Better luck next time!

~~~
maccard
I don’t really see the same positives as you do here. I see someone who really
didn’t think through the decision to quit their job, may have lost their house
over it, and who still appears to have not found a replacement despite running
out of money already.

It also appears he would have launched the game without quitting his job,
seeing as he seems to have done most of the work before he quit.

> The harsh reality is the casual games market is brutal from a business
> perspective - that's not your fault

It’s not his fault for the market being tough, but it is his fault for
launching another rogue like 2d pixel art rpg, with no real unique feature
into an over saturated market, with no marketing, and not enough cash to deal
with a single business expense. He’s lucky his girlfriend put him up
afterwards, and this piece might even net him a few sympathy sales, but this
is definitely his fault.

~~~
indymike
My hat is off to anyone who takes a big risk to pursue building a business.
You learn so much, so fast. And sometimes you make it. I hope he tries again
and leverages what he's learned.

Who cares about who's fault it is anyway?

------
eXpl0it3r
I don't understand how people still think that just creating and publishing a
game is enough to sell enough copies or make a living from it.

Maybe a few years back, that barely worked, but even then, if you didn't have
an audience, your game never sold as much.

~~~
ekianjo
> I don't understand how people still think that just creating and publishing
> a game is enough to sell enough copies or make a living from it.

Back in the 80s even the crappiest games sold relatively well. Infogrames made
a whole publishing company out of it.

~~~
abootstrapper
Back in the 80s the bar to create and publish a game was incredibly high. That
market is nothing like todays.

~~~
ekianjo
Yes and no. Back in the 80s you could do a game on your own, from scratch, and
it was not completely awful there was a good chance you could get a publisher
- if that were not the case how would so many crappy titles find their way to
the market back then? Sim City was one person's game. Another World was
basically the work of Eric Chahi. And examples like that abound - leading to
major commercial success. In 2017, sure, there are still folks doing games
mostly alone, but it's rather small teams than anything else, even for indies.
It's easier to publish things nowadays, but there's way more competition too.

> That market is nothing like todays.

Of course it's not. That was not the point of my comment at all.

------
tom_mellior
This is very much of a tangent, but I was really surprised by this part: "At
the beginning of the year I opted to buy an apartment for myself. [...] The
developer behind the apartment did not do his job properly and I found myself
having to pay for many things out of pocket (like getting electricity)."

Where I live, nobody owning an apartment would ever expect _not_ to have to
get an individual contract with an electricity provider and to pay for
electricity based on individual consumption. There are some rental contracts
that include a flat fee for electricity consumption, but I don't understand
how an owner would expect not to pay.

Maybe the author expected electricity to be covered by other charges? But that
would still be a misunderstanding on his part and not mean that the "developer
behind the apartment did not do his job properly".

~~~
jaymzcampbell
I read that as the apartment was a new build of some sort and had not yet been
connected to the main supply. So he was then left with that expense as the
owner.

I was surprised he paid for such an apartment, it sounds like he didn't get
any sort of survey done before handing over funds/agreeing what would actually
be completed before moving in. Combined with then quitting a job with so
little savings I think this year will be a stressful but worthwhile lesson in
planning and being more long term in thinking.

~~~
BacioiuC
Hi, OP here! Just now got around to check Hacker News and reply. The thing
with the apartment is, I've wanted to buy one for a while and in Romania
there's a state aid that allows you to buy one with just 15-25% advancement.
At the beginning of the year I had enough money saved up for the advancement
and I was making about 1.5K euros monthly through work and another side-gig.

The thing is, a salary in Romania outside of tech is between 300 - 600 euros.
With most people who have non-tech jobs (cashier, seller, construction) and
even some it jobs being on the low end of that spectrum (even lower). I was
making 4 times what most people make. My first job as a game designer gave me
about 400 euros. With a 200 euro mortgage nowadays and savings it was a no
brainer to finish up the game in the remaining month working full time on it
and release it. However there were some problems on the developers side:

\- The building had power, via a contract with the local power energy and a
written promise from the developer that he will handle all the legal documents
to connect me to the power grid properly and handle all the payments.

\- The same thing as above with gas.

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail informing me (and all people who owned
property in the building) that the contract they had with the power company
will expire and we need to get our paperwork sorted out. Now again, I met with
the developer and have in writing the fact that he was to take care of things.
It turns out, he did but he just applied for all the permits and did all the
paperwork but he didn't pay for anything. And I got word of this 1 week before
the plug was about to be pulled. In that situation I had to run and pay for
everything so I can keep the power up and work on my things. And gas since we
all use gas for heating here during the winter - same story.

~~~
jaymzcampbell
Jesus, that sounds like a nightmare! Hope you get it all sorted out. Probably
even more expensive but any potential of suing the developer collectively with
the other people? Sounds like they'll have annoyed a lot of people!

~~~
BacioiuC
There are 5 other people in the same situations (the other ones had experience
with friends/relatives on things like this and sorted everything out
themselves). It's costly to sue, takes a lot of time and it's not a guarantee
to get the money back (corruption and Romania go hand in hand). And even if I
want to sue it's me vs him because the other people cannot afford the costs.
Not worth it in the end.

Edit: There's an entire article to be written about buying an apartment here
when the developer pretty much has a monopoly in this part of the city. For
example, you can rarely find a already-built new building (that's not in
shambles and will fall at the next big-ish earthquake) to buy. Most people pay
for it in advance (before it's even built) and in the end can end up with a
shit hole (it happens). And you pay mortgage on a building that's not even
completed.

------
hutzlibu
He simply did too many new things at once:

1\. finishing the game

2\. setting up a buisness

3\. marketing the game

4\. buying, setting up and moving into his own apartment

he did good with 1, but underestimated 2-4 and it went over his head. But now
he has HN attention, so he should survive (or even prosper). But like others
said, the whole thing sounded very whiney and attention grabbing..

------
trzmiel4
Sad as it may be, it's just such an obvious rookie mistake.

Just don't quit your job unless you have enough savings and good grasp on your
finances.

It's so much easier to make things than to sell them, even more so from an
unknown underdog on a crowded market.

------
tw1010
Next article in this series; "How a postmortem gave me enough publicity to
help me survive as an indie game developer"

~~~
koffiezet
Exactly, this entire article is way too dramatic. The closing sentence with "I
won't be able to survive this Christmas" did it for me.

If he's even a half-decent programmer - he'd be able to get a new job in an
instant, keeping his business on the side, or doing freelance stuff with it -
and maintain the game in his free time. This is way too much self-pity and
begging for sales. He took a pretty small risk, it failed to pay off in the
short term and now he acts as if it's the end of the world.

I took way bigger risks than that with a lot more money, and was fully aware
of the possible consequences the entire time, even though I was in my early
20's. It managed to turn out ok-ish, but that took about 7 years of hard work,
with the first 3 being on the brink of bankruptcy and 60+h work-weeks. Looking
back on it, financial ROI was pretty bad, but it taught me a lot.

------
gerardnll
_"... just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550 more
dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out."_

You saved 2000$? OMG I would wait until 10000€ at least (Spain).

At the end, he says: _' I know I can get hired for a good salary again but I
don't think it will happen this year'_.

What do you mean by good salary? Because if you say you have a low mortgage in
a low cost country but that only gave you like 2000$ savings for the game...

~~~
AdrianB1
The average salary for a developer in the top cities in Romania is around EUR
1,000 or $1,100 after taxes (that is about $2,500 in US before tax - yes,
taxes are that high, actually a bit higher). A very good developer gets
double. $2000 in savings are 4 months of living on the edge, not regular
living.

Getting a full time job as a developer in Romania is extremely easy if you
have any decent skills, there is a shortage of skilled people, but anyone
reading the story will not hire him; he made absolutely all possible mistakes,
including the ones specific to Romania (like his new apartment), so anyone
that is looking for an example of how you can screw up big time can point to
his article as an example.

~~~
jorams
> The average salary for a developer in the top cities in Romania is around
> EUR 1,000 or $1,100 after taxes (that is about $2,500 in US before tax -
> yes, taxes are that high, actually a bit higher).

Can you explain that ratio? €1000--€1100 is roughly equal to $1200--$1300, and
some quick searches tell me income tax in Romania is a flat 16%. That ends up
very far from $2500.

~~~
AdrianB1
The income tax is one of the many taxes you pay; on average for $1 you keep
after tax, the state takes $0.85 on the pay day and another $0.19 when you
spend it. You pay 2 health taxes, 2 pension taxes, unemployment tax and some
smaller ones. Only a part appear on the payslip, so most people don't know the
real cost they have for the employer.

People think that Europe has free goodies - there is nothing free when taxes
are 60-70%. The free health care is actually a tax that does not give any
guarantee you will ever receive anything, you may die waiting for treatment
and it happens a lot.

I have included as taxes everything the employer is paying for you to the
state without you having any decision power. Nothing of what I mentioned is
optional or giving you anything guaranteed. The pension is also a tax because
if you live to get something in return or you die before retiring, all the
money you paid during your life are lost. The beauty of socialism is that the
state takes almost everything from you and then it gives you some back, making
you dependent on the state's good will.

------
butler14
I take no pleasure in saying this - and I wish the author all the best - but
this is a story of someone who had deeply naive and flawed view on the
practical realities of running a business and making a game at the same time.

Let alone shortly after taking on a mortgage and without taking the time to
have the business largely underway before quitting your day job. That includes
accountancy, which you really do not need to pay for at your scale in this day
and age.

Hindsight is always 20/20 etc., but surely grinding evenings and weekends to
complete that last month's worth of dev, and seeing how that went with a
regular income as a back-up, would have been an infinitely better idea :/

------
vlehto
The target market is tricky. I'm in my early thirties and I feel too young to
get any nostalgia from this stuff. Also I've noticed that as people age, they
get less exited about wasting their time on games and more willing to spend
money for something useful. So your target market is actually getting trickier
as time passes.

But how about this:

There are probably around 50 000 people in Romania starting a business every
year. And they experience almost the exact same problems than OP.

Build a web service that helps them. If you catch 1% of those people, that's
~400 people per month. If you can get them pay 5$/person, you get 2000$/month.
You will have competition, but it wont be international. OP has extremely
relevant experience.

I started a business last year and it's scary as fuck. Presenting the
_relevant_ info I need in small packages would have been lot less scary than
wading through 100 page pdfs and wondering if I ever emerge alive from the
other end of the bureaucracy. This is prime target for gamification. You also
get to be actually useful for lots of people.

~~~
princeb
>If you catch 1% of those people,

[https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/03/11/the-1-percent-
fall...](https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/03/11/the-1-percent-fallacy/)

~~~
vlehto
Good point.

I think there is essential difference between "100% need it but only 1% is
going to buy it" and "Everybody wastes time playing games they enjoy, somehow
magically 0,00003% of them will end up playing my game." Or maybe it's just
the same fallacy over again.

Do you have any resource of making good market analysis?

------
thiagoperes
I think this is a common mistake developers make when creating products: when
things start not working, blindly start to add features or improvements _they_
think will be good. I've been on that path myself and had the pain of (almost)
going bankrupt.

Most (if not all) of this can be avoided if you spend time after development
on getting feedback from customers, doing interviews, usability testing and
most importantly trying to find the right commercial angle to develop the
business. For example:

\- Is the game localised in different languages? \- Why targeting Linux and
Windows, and not testing/developing on Mac or mobile platforms? \- Why not
create a end-of-year sale or bundle the game with others for promotion?

------
dotdi
I'm pretty sure going to the top of HN will sell a nice amount of copies.

So while this might be an accurate account of what happened in the last few
months and the suffering of the OP, it's also an effective, albeit obvious,
marketing move.

------
qnzy
I'm pretty sure being number 1 on HN will give him some sales. So a post-
mortem can be part of a good marketing campaign.

~~~
rplnt
It has been for a long time, I mean part of it, not necessarily good. I'm glad
people do it because it makes for interesting read. But the issue is that
other (game) developers aren't your audience 9 out of 10 times.

------
icantrank
Not being rude, but we've see this shit before and we've played a load of
similar games. What made you think your retro style dungeon crawler was going
to perform well?

------
sindaccos
There are few things come to mind:

1\. Is it necessary to setup a company and accounting procedures before you
even make your first sale?

2\. I think this is a great game, however the failure to launch is rooted on
marketing: not enough marketing research, tweeting and emailing publishers are
not enough. Who is your ideal customer? Where do they spend their time at?
What features distinguish you from other competitors?

You can PM me for pro bono advice regarding digital marketing, it is far from
too late.

~~~
Laaas
I am very sure that you don't need to setup a company before releasing a game.

~~~
dingo_bat
Especially if it's just a single dev working on it. You can just sell it
without making a company.

------
tnsengimana
Not trying to sound mean, but I think something is wrong here. You can’t just
quit your job without any proven means to sustain yourself. It’s like jumping
in an ocean hoping not to drown even if you can't swim.

I feel like there was no indication whatsoever that would have compelled him
to quit and focus on his own game(s). Ideally, he would instead have released
the game while still employed, and then quit only if the game becomes a
success.

------
Nokinside
If you are poor, getting into business is always hard.

Why so many famous actors and musicians come from wealthy families? Because
they can afford to travel from auditioning to auditioning and promote
themselves non-stop.

Why do so many prestigious companies hire young only from wealthy families?
Because they have non paid internships. Poor can't afford to get in.

When you can't afford to lose, risk taking requires real courage.

~~~
fapjacks
Absolutely the truth. Starting my business was the most stressful and intense
thing I have done in my life outside of combat, and I don't even have kids to
support. Staring down the barrel of rent and bills with _no one_ to back you
up financially... It is incredibly intense. It seems common to have some kind
of benefactor ready to throw a parachute if there's trouble. Which makes me
think that's part of the reason I find I just can't connect with a lot of
business owners out there. Hard to describe, but those people are from a
different kind of substrate. In a similar way, I can sort of tell who is a
combat veteran at parties.

~~~
Nokinside
My father gave me sizeable sum of money when I was starting my business.
Enough to live several years without worrying about income.

I started to make 25 - 75% more profits just because I had the luxury of
saying no and avoid orders that didn't move my company towards the goals I
wanted it to go. Usually the ability to stay relaxed and equal in negotiations
was enough to convince customers that I was a success. Everything was so much
easier even when I didn't have to touch the money.

------
dreta
If you're going to quit your job, and put your savings on the line, do it for
something that doesn't look so generic and uninspired.

------
JabavuAdams
First of all, congratulations! You shipped, and in four months. This is
already an impressive accomplishment.

There are certainly 4-500 people who would buy your game if they knew about
it. The main problem you face as an indie (aside from completing your game,
which you've done) is that no one knows about you!

So, part of development needs to be marketing. Months and months of marketing!
You really don't want to just release a game and see what happens.

I would say -- don't look at this as a failure. You've shipped, and you've
learned. You're very employable. If your worst case is to use this as a
portfolio piece for your next job, then that's not too bad. And, what you've
learned, once the pain and disappointment wears off, will make you that much
more fearsome in your next business attempt.

Flip it -- you're a winner!

EDIT> Dude, you made money while you were sleeping. Think about that! That's
true capitalism. Once you taste the forbidden fruit of product (vs. service)
income, there's no going back!

------
j-c-hewitt
I think one thing you learn from selling a lot of different products is that
when the market is oversupplied, the suffering of selling into an oversupplied
market is not worth it. Selling stuff is just selling stuff and creatives
often have trouble understanding that the value of their work to other people
is not entirely dependent on their own individual powers: it's based on a
bunch of factors that are entirely out of their control.

He could have bought socks wholesale and sold socks retail while huffing
gasoline, causing major brain damage, and sleeping 16 hours a day and still
made more money. He could have driven a truck for Walmart and made way more
money while getting health and dental (probably not possible in his country
but I am sure there are equivalents).

------
z3t4
First save up for at least a year, or better two. Then go down to half time on
your regular job or ask for unpaid leave, in some countries the employer must
say yes and then let you back, unless you're starting a competing business.

------
TheSithMaster
Hmm, it looks to me like you got very close to 700 units on day one according
to Steamspy. 696 units to be exact.

Link: [https://steamspy.com/app/725040](https://steamspy.com/app/725040)

~~~
ramy_d
i think we'll see better results in the next few days as the numbers update

------
ramtatatam
In your country do you have to register the business if your business does not
make any money? In UK you can make money for 3 months before registering...

I feel for you, I can only give you an advice to try to turn your mind into
anything positive. You are lucky you don't have kids to feed, or pregnant wife
to look after.

Robert Kiyosaki has written in 'Rich dad poor dad' book, that it's good to
default before 30 so you learn the lesson and can become millionaire. You
started your venture and you learned your lesson, don't panic and you will be
telling this story as good anecdote with big smile.

~~~
tudorw
If like me you are from the UK it can be hard to appreciate how well aligned
our country is to starting businesses, the origins of protection for companies
originates with corporate activity around the 13th Century with the
[http://www.merchantsofthestapleofengland.co.uk/](http://www.merchantsofthestapleofengland.co.uk/)
and since then, with corporations holding large amounts of wealth and power,
UK law has developed in step with the demands of corporations, coupled with
historically low corruption in government and civil service, beneficial tax
arrangements for new businesses, a tax system that helps recoup losses on
investments and high level of security we are well supported in starting
businesses and should appreciate that others are not so fortunate.

~~~
ramtatatam
I can compare how this system works in UK to how it works in other EU country
and cannot agree more. In UK it's very simple and straightforward.

------
Tomte
"Every small little detail that the buyers wanted I took a look at it and did
my best to serve their needs."

"The buyers" are mostly "one buyer", if he even bought the game at all, right?

That's devastating. You need to prioritize features, you cannot do every
little thing probably not even the reporter really cares about.

And "DO NOT GO FULL TIME UNLESS YOU CAN AFFORD A HUGE HUGE FAILURE! MAKE SURE
YOU CAN SURVIVE SELLING CLOSE TO 0 COPIES."

That's not a "huge failure". That's expected. Many more than zero would be a
huge success. Not the other way around.

------
doppel
The games industry is a harsh mistress. With the number of games coming out,
being a great game is not enough to make a "hit", even with modest goal of 700
sales.

I feel like he put a lot of faith on his effort instead of looking at the
results. 187 e-mails and 10K tweet impressions does not translate into games
sold. How many of those e-mails got a positive response? How many previews on
Youtube, Twitch, other channels? From what I have read steam wishlists have a
1:6 ratio to sales on good days, but again it's all empty promises.

------
mmcnl
He did succeed, only he didn't define success very well. 1\. His game got good
reviews and did quite well. 2\. He set a target at 700 units. He should've set
the target at x units / month. Or, even better: x% growth / month. 3\. Why did
he quit his job? Why not make the game in your spare time and release it a
year later? 4\. 4 months worth of savings is way too little. I sometimes get
nervous with ~1.5 years of savings and I'm not aspiring to start on my own.

Seems like he was a little bit naive in the financials.

------
garganzol
A failure? Nope, this story talks about success. Yes, these are humble digits.
But there is plenty of time to develop, improve and widen your offerings.
Kudos to author for writing this.

------
benjaminjackman
Reading the article on mobile the first actual link to his store page is at
the very end of the article. I don’t think he mentioned the name of it until
the very end either.

Isn’t it be better to start the article with something like “I made Ebony
Spire”[1] which is a link to the store page or other part of a funnel then
also have a few more links spread throughout the article? Obviously there is a
Heisenberg like affect where maybe if the article is littered with links no
one ends up liking it enough to share it, or they click through, say meh about
the game and move on and fail build awareness of the game itself via this
story about the developer behind it.

1: I’ll help him out and save everyone here a search:
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/725040/Ebony_Spire_Heresy/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/725040/Ebony_Spire_Heresy/)

 __Also one fun little rule of thumb for telling how many copies a game has
sold on steam that I’ve picked up over the years: Multiply the number of
ratings in its store page (10 for this game) by 50. So 10*50 = 500 copies
sold, pretty close to his target. Now obviously that’s a noisy indicator
especially when the law of large numbers isn’t on your side but hopefully he’s
doing better now.

------
beautifulfreak
I wonder if he'd find supporters on Patreon. The way supporting a musician is
like pledging to buy the next $1 single, would it be possible for him to make
downloadable games instead of relying on Steam? His needs are modest, he loves
making games and wants to devote himself to it, so it seems worth a try. I'm
impressed how he wrote updates and did bug fixes, just to please game fans.
With a little support, he could flourish.

------
etherwhitelable
The idea of creating a spreadsheet and projecting future Sales projections are
not where the focus of a new venture should be. Instead answer the challenge
of how to create value for others. If the value (in a saturated market) was
high then the sales would be the result. How to create value is the key to
success not spreadsheet projections.

------
tudorw
He should mention it's essentially reboot of the classic Dungeon Master game,
that was a very popular title,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_\(video_game\))

~~~
harel
I didn't see the game as that, but now that you mentioned it you actually
pushed me into buying the game and finding out if your claim is true :)
Dungeon Master was one of my favourite games growing up (Amiga version).
Scared the crap out of me at times.

------
hultner
Reading this post saddens me, I think if he linked to a profile of his
skillset and provided a way to contact him in the article he could easily land
a few consulting gigs until he can stand on his feet again.

We have a group of strong developers here and many of us are looking for
personal, i.e. I need people both to hire permanently but could also use a
consultant with matching skillset for shorter term to back me up in some
projects, and since I'm thinking it I bet there's dozens of others reading the
article thinking the same thing.

Consulting is a solid way to earn a living while building up your product
portfolio and it's a great way to stay independent while still having a more
reliable income for basic needs.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
> it's a great way to stay independent while still having a more reliable
> income for basic needs

You should be careful with that -- you can get _nastier_ IP agreements through
consulting firms than you might at full-time employment.

Similarly, even if it's not in the contract, you probably want your
contracting work to be fairly orthogonal to your side projects, so you don't
get sued for something by a client. It never looks good if you work on say, a
networking project, and then a month later, your networking related product
appears on the market.

~~~
hultner
I’m not saying join a consultancy but rather offer consulting services. Thus
one can make their own contracts.

------
bdz
Should be on sale right now for say 4.99€ in the current black friday sale to
get some exposure

------
mstade
> All in all just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550
> more dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out.

Damn son, $550 won’t last me a week – let alone a month! I should look into
where the money is going, clearly.

~~~
scott_karana
Cost of living and wages are different around the world... ;)

He implies that he lives in Eastern Europe.

------
BacioiuC
Hi everyone OP here. Just to clarify some confusion/mentions from the
comments.

I'm from Romania. I used to make around 1.5k euros monthly from my last job +
a small side gig. An average salary here is between 300-600 euros. My mortgage
is around 200 euros. I was in the extremely lucky position to be the tech
field and do so well pay-wise. When I took the decision to quit my job and
finish my game the following statements were true:

\- I had money saved up to pay 4 months of mortage + living expenses + a few
beers in the weekends

\- I was making games for about 10 years now and launched a few games before
hand, smaller projects that had success (for me). I worked on bigger titles in
the industry at a few big studios and even at small ones.

\- And my game was supposed to sell 300 copies in the first month so that
together with my savings I could test the waters and scratch an itch I had.

I was in a position that few other devs are: I live in a low cost country.
Again from the scores I heard in Seattle and other US cities 1 month of
mortgage there would cover my expenses for a year! I had the benefit of being
able to live off of 500 euros a month which ties back to the previous
sentence. And I had a game I was close to completing (I started it last year
but stopped when I went to my last job).

I targeted a small niche in a specific subgenre with a backup niche in the
roguelike genre. Dungeon crawlers are indeed a small niche but not so small
that I couldn't sell 700 copies. My biggest problem was having no experience
with the way steam works right now (as opposed to the experience I had when I
was freelancing a few years back after Gameloft).

If you google right now that average amount of copies and indie game sales on
steam google points out 12,000. Not that it's not true anymore (because it
isn't) but from where I was standing (and a few other devs who have other
games in progress) moving 300 to 700 copies should be easy.

And I targeted my niche specifically: Older gamers (even developers), who
don't care about the graphics that much and who want a short, fast game they
could play during breaks (or in my case while the compiler is busy).

I went over this facts quite a few times and it sounded doable. Worst case
scenario come January I would go in search for another job. And this is were I
was wrong, it sounded way too good and easy. At worst I'd finally scratch
steam off my todo list and just do software again.

Now I understood, I took a gamble and it turned out to be worse, way worse
than I ever expected. I could loose my apartment and all the money I put into
it. And I was afraid of screwing even more things up (when things go wrong,
they go wrong it seems).

A few days before launching my games (and way after the dice have been cast) I
saw tweets from other developers on why people shouldn't risk their lives and
go full time. And I thought: "It can't be that bad". Turns out I can't just
release a game nowadays and have it sell directly. I was banking a bit on
getting covered by a few specific niche websites during launch (it didn't
happen). And after I realized what hole I dug myself into I only had one thing
on my mind: "There's a bunch of people like out there who still think it's
2012-2013 when you could move decent money in releasing a small, niche, game".
And there are. I have been speaking to a ton of devs since the post went live
that did not see the reality factor here. The whole point was to warn a few
other people that it's not at easy. And I wanted to give me as an example
because, again, I had a ton of things going for me: Low mortgage, I can live
on peanuts and I don't need to sell a whole lot of copies + some savings and a
backup plan come January.

And with all the things going for me I still failed so what chances does
someone else living in a higher cost country to succeed with a similar plan
like mine?

I said this a few times since release on twitter, I just wish someone would
have woken me up from my dream. Those tweets from my friends/devs came too
late for me. But maybe with the exposure this story is getting I can keep
another passionate yet fool-ish dev from going through what I went through
this month.

Edit: Small edit. The amount of devs who reached out to me with a game in
production for about 2-3 years - part time for a few - is huge. And they are
all scared because the math they did at the beginning does not line up with
where things are today. Back then STEAM WOULD guarantee a huge amount of
eyeballs on your game. Now all those eyeballs are split between so many
releases. It's scary for many, especially those naive (like yours truly).

~~~
forsakenkraken
I bought a copy today. As I suspect did a lot of others. Hope it helps some. I
look forward to playing the game this evening.

------
rkagerer
Maybe Steam isn't the best distribution channel. Get creative. e.g. A big
selling point of your "coffee break" game seems to be that you can easily jump
in, step away, then resume later. Find someplace where people spend time bored
and waiting, and get them playing your game there. It would sure make for a
more entertaining alternative to those boring progress bars at websites where
you download big files. Point is, find someplace your game will stand out as
being unique and cool. Even if you have to go back to work for a while, hope
you don't give up!

------
dipjung
I believe it is a business problem. A developer with not much knowledge of Go
To Market thing. I would suggest you get a freelance Growth Hacker in revenue
sharing or equity basis. Focus on target audience, do some digital
marketing(which would cost zero like extensive blogging, super SEO, social
media, go to gaming community and promote it), ask people in your network to
buy it, etc. Try this and work on the feedback which you are already doing it.
Am sure you will get to that 700 units to stay in business. Thanks.

------
nopacience
Nowadays the easy part is "to create it". This part depends on the devs, team
and can be fixed by $company.

The other part which the company has no control is to sell the game and create
a big user base.

------
geku3
I wonder why his game has no Steam trading cards, seems like a comparatively
easy thing to add to boost sales a little bit and generate some money from
Steam market transactions.

------
foxhop
I wonder if the developer would consider selling the game to another developer
or studio.

7 * 500 ~= $3,500

It didn't go viral due to his very short runway, he could sell the game, or
get a partner that could pay him for a stake in the company or game or
something.

I always wanted to do game development (I've built a few toys in my spare
time) buying ownership of a game could be fun, and I could take on the sales,
and marketing, and web design and whatever else.

------
lerie82
Shitty situation but I mean, you had no plan. The five P's: "Proper
preparation prevents poor performance".

------
eXpl0it3r
> All in all just getting the business prepared ended up costing me about 550
> more dollars than I was expecting. That's one month out of the 4 taken out.

Either I'm misunderstanding this statement or he really calculated $550 for a
whole month. How or in which country is that enough to survive a whole month?

~~~
brg1007
Romania - without paying rent - 550 USD will suffice for 1 month of daily
spending. He mentioned that he has a low mortgage which probably splits with
his girlfriend and for a 1 bedroom apartment can be as low as 250 USD per
month. 750 USD is the average gross monthly income (before taxes ). Usually
software developers earn double that.

~~~
eXpl0it3r
Okay, but then it's just naive to think that it's enough to have the most
minimum amount of money to survive. Before I'd quit my job, I'd make sure that
I have at least x months of at least the average income on the side, plus
calculating all the required spending for taxes and fees.

~~~
brg1007
Totally agree with you. But based on my experience most Romanian people do not
have a very good "plan ahead" culture. Usually they start something as soon as
they have the minimum requirements met and that is because they really want to
not let the opportunity pass, because in the past opportunities were very very
scarce (in every domain) . And this lack of opportunities made a very deep
dent in the Romanian culture.

------
tener
Give this post a little more exposure on the top of HN and he may well be soon
past his target of 700 copies.

------
gambiting
Wow, opening a company wherever the author is is fucking expensive. Over
here(UK) you can do it online in about 15 minutes and it will cost you about
~$20 for the registration fee and that's it, you don't have to do anything
else.

------
golergka
That's why you need a publisher in this saturated market. A love developer
without any contacts won't get any reviews and probably won't every realize
why people don't want to buy his product or review it.

~~~
tobyhinloopen
How do you get a publisher?

~~~
patio11
It's structurally similar to getting an investor for other software companies:
you find someone in the business of publishing and convince them that giving
you money is a good idea.

Generally, this will be by pointing out "I was introduced to you by someone
you trust, which is why you've read this far. I clearly have the capabilities
required to ship a game which will sell a lot of copies. I have lined up a
team which has done this before, professionally. We have produced some early
artifacts which suggest that we're capable of executing on this in a more-or-
less professional fashion. Give us a small amount of money now, plus more if
we hit some milestones, in return for the lion's share of our profits from
this venture."

The true answer for "How do you get a publisher given that you're an
enthusiast who hasn't worked in a professional capacity in the gaming field
before?" is "You don't, unless you already have a hit on your hands."

------
forkLding
This makes me wonder if indie game developers should get some experience in
marketing games or working with marketers/people on indiehackers.com first
before trying to launch their own game to make it more successful.

------
Dolores12
> No one I've sent the game to wrote, mentioned or even played the game.

Shouldn't you pay to get your game reviewed? With all these paid posts in
instagram i doubt someone big will want to review your game for free.

~~~
meheleventyone
Paid posts on Instagram are advertising and need to be disclosed as such in
many countries. Reviews are generally not paid for because it presents a
conflict of interest between the person reviewing and the product they are
reviewing which is detrimental to the people who want to know if they would
like a product.

That said you can definitely pay for advertising through 'influencer'
coverage. Probably out of the budget range of all but the most well funded
individuals though. Which is part of the issue as most people assume making a
good game is enough rather than looking at the business holistically and
properly budgeting for marketing.

------
FrozenVoid
Commercial game development is expensive. Author went from indie dev to a
company, just for a single game and risked all his savings for phantom
success. He could of avoided all of this, just stay indie.

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tonyoconnell
Your girlfriend doesn’t sound very supportive saying that you should get a job
the day after you launch. Sometimes a few words of encouragement can be the
difference between failure and success.

~~~
crummy
Sometimes being supportive means helping people face reality.

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saverio-murgia
He surely made a lot of mistakes and was too optimistic. However, I know the
feeling. I don't know how many people bought the game because of this post,
but I certainly did.

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ggggtez
$550 pays for a month of living and development expenses in this person's
country? So he only saved up about $2000 to last 4 months???

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danschumann
I can relate to this article. When I went into business for myself (writing an
app, similar to his situation), I had 6 months+ of expenses, and stupidly, I
was even willing to go into retirement money ($10k savings, $10k retirement).
I was very foolish with money, and did not cut down lifestyle at all(after
leaving a higher paying job). I regretted this, but have since made peace with
it.

After 6 months, I had a series of days where the realization that I would not
make it in time and needed to find a way to make money washed over me like a
sea of fear. I quickly was able to find freelancing, cancelled my expensive
lease I had just renewed(luckily and thank you to my property manager). I was
making a small, but consistent amount of money per month. I cut expenses by
2/3 and had to move back home for a while, where I stabilized.

It's been over a year since this happened, and I've been making enough doing
freelancing to pay the bills, and not much more, without taking unneeded time
away from writing the app. I spend about $1300/month to live, all-in. During
the first 6 months, I think I was spending $3k+/month.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have cut expenses, day one,
freelanced day one(to remain neutral spending), and would still have some
retirement and some savings in the bank. $10k savings was my emergency fund,
but the only the only emergency I had was a "what to do next" crisis, where I
treated it like a business runway.

All that being said, even without profitability yet, I am very happy I went
this route, and I see so much profit and value for all involved, that I am
just thankful things worked out, and are still working out, as well as they
are.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Also, just a random, jokingly stylistic note:

> My girlfriend realized what's going on and said: "Babe, you need to get a
> job. You won't make it".

In the article, his girlfriend talks in all italics. He should have only
italicized "won't", being the operative word. It doesn't really take away from
the article, but I just think it's funny if she actually talks in italics all
the time. Maybe he's trying to say she was being forward, which it is quite a
forward statement, which she is in her right to say, if he's living with her.
Very not ideal situation for him.

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shamaku
Hopefully you got a few more sales after posting this. =)

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tzakrajs
The dude had $2,000 in savings and was like, "yup this should be plenty."
Post-mortem complete.

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skaplun
interesting author never considers getting help for art and marketing.

------
eire1130
I bought a copy.

------
Feniks
Gamers are just like people:

The most marketed, hyped and memed games will make it. Folks play what
everyone else is playing because humans don't really like to express their
individuality nearly as much as we like to pretend.

------
almonj
This guy is overreacting. He didn't fail that badly, he managed to create
something that sold hundreds of copies. He said his experience was "soul
crushing" and that being an indie dev is some hopeless thing now, yet you got
a decent outcome for only a few months work and only a few thousand dollars
spent. Just keep hammering out small games, only try to add something slightly
unique to each one, nothing complicated, but enough that it would catch the
attention of simple minded people enough that they would spend a few dollars
for a novelty approach. People bashing the pixel art angle are very very
stupid. People LOVE that stuff. The people who post here are generally smart
and have high level tastes, which isn't your audience, and it doesn't need to
be. You aren't gunning for critic approval or the next hot thing. You must
realize that there are millions of people with questionable taste that want to
be given the same tropes over and over again. You just need a slightly more
novelty approach. You have a good thing going here, with a little tweaking you
likely can make enough to survive full time in your country. Get a job for a
while and figure out how you can bang out more of these types of games which
take a few months to develop. Its probably good to ignore most of the negative
advice you are getting here as well. Do not fall into feelings of hopelessness
when you almost fulfilled your goal. You will get better which each successive
project.

