It's also part commentary on the state of the indie developer and the potential market channels and some challenges I've had to deal with. If you're a new indie developer or thinking about becoming one some of these observations are going to be a bit scary.
Honestly ; if you have never had a release yet you should probably stop reading now. I don't want to discourage you. I am definitely not going to hold any punches back in this post ; so having been warned read on if you dare!
Some Background
First let me set the stage a little bit. I've been a full indie dev for just short of two years as of this writing; however I was an indie artist for 15 years prior.
This gives me a huge leg up in the art department; most indie devs are stuck with 'programmer art' and I'm limited only by my talent and time.
When I started on my endeavor to be an indie dev I had some prior experience of working with lots of teams from the art end who had dreams of grandeur of making an MMO or an FPS and had mainly failed to deliver even a quarter of their ideas. Intermixed with that I had a few minor successes; but nothing that put me in to a full time job as an artist so eventually I determined I would become a programmer as well to take full control of my game design destiny.
I knew that I had to 'go small' if I wanted to get something actually done ; most especially all by myself. So I did some research in to what was small ; also I did some research in to what was both small and profitable.
The answer appeared to be 'casual games'. And researching casual games I came to the determination that a puzzle game based on the 'match 3' style game play was small enough that someone with my level of experience could tackle it.
This made a lot of sense ; as a single developer I can not expect to compete with AAA studios. Hell even AAA studios can't stay in business over the long term many times ; if they get a single product that does not do well it can wipe them off the map!
So small , casual and profitable? What can go wrong!?
The Path
So first thing first I taught myself to program. Yep by myself, sitting at my desk at home. I bought a few books to help but often those are more of a reference than anything.
One thing I did smart though was in learning to program I made my first game prototype as the 'learning project'. Everything I read, everything I researched was always aimed at completing one of my goals for the prototype!
How do I make a graphic appear on the screen?
How do I make a graphic move across the screen?
How do I play a sound?
Questions like these fueled my research and eventually I cobbled together a sweet little working prototype:
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| yes thats my plants vs zombies Zombatar! |
Naturally I knew this couldn't be sold so I began to polish it up and create a much nicer version of the product with proper themes, graphics sounds and more enhanced game play.
This took me another 3 months but eventually I came out with Pirates Jewels 1.0 which was really satisfying and a victory in of itself. Unfortunately it was written in DarkBasic and performed poorly.
So I decided rather than release a good looking but poorly performing game I would teach myself C++ this time and re-write the game to be more performant.
Four months later I had a new 1.0 version of Pirates Jewels ; this time it met all my performance expectations and ran incredibly faster than the original Dark Basic version:
Unfortunately no one would publish the game. I sent it to many sites and eventually had only to self publish it on mobile platforms for iOS and Android. After another month of work I was able to get it on Indie City where I have sold 2 copies in the past year.
To be honest this game was a huge success for me but when compared to some market leading gem games like Bejeweled or Zuma or The Treasures of Montezuma it came up short because it only had one game mode!
The Victory
Undaunted by my lack of publisher response I forged forward and worked on a new 2.0 version that I released in October of 2013. This new version had 6 game modes including a Pirate vs Pirate gem battle! I really took things not just to the next level but as far as I could imagine. I put an intense amount of time, creativity, and effort in to making the best possible match-3 game that I could possibly make at this phase of my career.
For a developer who 18 months ago had barely cracked an IDE for the first time and was googling "how do I make a graphic display on my screen" you can only imagine how great it feels to accomplish something so amazing and complex!
This really is the definition of a personal victory in goal achievement. I wrote about how I achieved my 5 year developer goal and what techniques I used here if you are interested.
The Scary
So here I am in January 2014 : three and a half months after "shipping" this awesome personal victory and only two game sites have bothered to respond to my requests to publish the game.
One of those sites requested I make a small laundry list of changes, and the other site which accepted the game after some negotiations is Desura. I am extremely thank full for sites like Desura. because otherwise my game would be on zero sites at all.
And that my friends is the glorious agony. You can achieve something far beyond what you originally imagine your capacity for. You can create a game 600% better than your previous one. You can spend several hundred dollars on good soundtrack and some Unity store assets to use as props for backgrounds and renders.
Hell even Humble Bundle the so-called Indie site has not responded to my inquiry. You may have noticed they have gone fully commercial at this point with the "Humble Store" so I honestly expect the Humble Bundle will increasingly become a site that only responds to indie's who have already 'gone big'. Is the most recent Shadow Warrior or the THQ spoils indie games? I don't blame them - you go where the money is right?
And that my friends is the scary part. You can finish the best game you can possibly make ; and no one may take it, or even bother to respond to you!
I don't know if my game is great, mediocre, or horrible honestly. I'm so deeply inside it I lack perspective. I called it developer snow-blindness.
I do not blame those sites though -- honestly they are drowning in indie developer submissions. They probably have no way of dealing with all of us.
And that is scary too. We are an ocean of talent all screaming for attention to a small pool of sites who can't possibly listen to even 1% of us. So they will only listen to you if you've already started to go big.
So how do you go big? There are lots of videos and talks and blogs and sites about using social media and using hardcore first adopters to pick up your product (which honestly is not good advice for casual games because they aren't hardcore like RPG or Action players).
So if you aren't in the hardcore market what is left? Social seems to be your only exposure point and that is entirely dependant upon your network and their enthusiasm and willingness to share your media.
And this gets back to a point I've heard a lot of and believe more and more as time goes on. Making your game is only about 50% of the job. Marketing your game is a full 50% of it as well. If you do not market your game you can certainly release it to a dull thud of no one but your mother and two best friends downloading it and move on to the next product.
But even if you are willing to spend 3 months trying to get someone to take your game ; you may not succeed either, as I have not.
Being an indie game developer is a little bit like being a Zen Master. You get to ask funny questions like "What is the sound of a tree falling in the woods if no one is there to hear it?" or "What is the point of a game you spend 18 months creating if no one will publish it?"
Conclusion
I'm sure each of you will reach your own conclusion but in conclusion I wanted to share my own change of paradigm and thoughts based off of my experiences.
There is some small value in seeking market areas that are "big", "popular" and "profitable" I suppose.
You could get some attention and make money in those big areas.
However you are probably 99% likely to not be successful there just as you are in any other area.
For my part I have wanted to make an RPG since I was about 10 years old. I read all the AD&D 2nd edition manuals and taught myself to be a "Dungeon Master" and convinced all my friends to play table top RPG's. A few years later when we had moved away and I had no friends who played any longer I discovered the Gold Box D&D games on PC and was hooked.
I've been a PC RPG gamer ever since and this year in 2014 I have decided to not worry about what's big at the moment or what the big casual portals are doing.
I'm just going to make a game that I've wanted to make since I was a young man -- and I'm 43 now so I've waited quite long enough.
So my advice if any is make the game you really want to make as an indie. Seeking to get in the middle of the AAA studios market share is going to put you as a mosquito amongst pit bulls for attention and you probably won't get any.
Find your niche and wallow in it -- thats my plan anyways!
-- punchy out
Pirates Jewels II on Desura if you care to take a glance at it:
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