I don't want a real job - Part 3.

[Mark]

The goal of this series of articles is to help budding game developers to grow a successful studio based on new and novel designs. For those of you that have been reading my previous posts, you should now have a good idea about what makes a good game idea, and also have a reasonable grasp of how to create a prototype. It’s now decision time. On the one hand you can sell the idea to a blood thirsty corporate monolith, sent straight from hell to cleanse the world of creativity and crush the souls of any who dare do something new or… you can try and sell the game yourself.

Perhaps that sounds like a simple decision. Perhaps there is no doubt in your mind that you want to fight the good fight for indie developers, and you have so much faith in your game that there is absolutely no way that you are going to hugely undervalue a massive percentage of your company by looking elsewhere for help. Perhaps you haven’t thought enough about the alternatives.

Publishers offer developers a number of services, and you need to be confident that you can find replacements for all of these services, before you opt to go it alone. You will need to handle:

• QA (usability testing, functionality testing, play testing etc)

• Launch planning (When will you launch? Which other games are launching at the same time? What time of year is best for your game?)

• Marketing (How will the public hear about your game? What will make them care about it? What will make them remember it?)

• Localisation (What about the millions of gamers in France, Germany, Spain, Japan etc.? Are you going to deny them the chance to play your game in their native language? How will this affect your sales?)

• PR (What will the press think of your game? Why should they give you a break? How many advertising pages will you buy to secure a review?)

• Retail Channels (Where will your customers buy your game? What return do you expect? How will you handle chargebacks? What about faulty stock?)

• Customer Service (Who’s going to explain to the Mum who’s just bought your game, that she needs to buy a new computer because the old one isn’t powerful enough?)

• Money (How are you going to eat whilst you write your game?)

No really. How are you going to eat during development? After the prototype stage you should have been able to put together a plan for main development, so you should have an idea about how long production will take. If you wan t to be realistic then you should take whatever duration you have calculated and double it. Now you will begin to understand the size of the task ahead. Perhaps you are prepared to tough it out for a few months without pay, but what about the rest of the team, are they as committed as you?

Perhaps they are, or perhaps you have found a way of writing the full game without need for external financial support (maybe you are at university, or you are working on the game during evenings and weekends, or perhaps you have some savings, or a rich aunt). If you can afford it, and you are prepared to find your own solutions to the above issues, then there are some massive advantages.

Creatively you will be free from meddling money men who’ll ruin your game as they pursue the latest trend. They won’t understand your game (many of them aren’t gamers) and you’ll get stupid requests that don’t fit your style – they may for instance ask you to put cute faces on your Darwinian stick men. You will be able to make the game that you want to make, and not forced to conform to industry standards that may be out of date or boring. You will own the game, meaning that you will retain a much greater stake in your own game – if it does well, you will be rich! You will also be able to license sequels or ports to different platforms that will be a great way to fund development of your next great title. You’ll build up your own relationships with the press and your distribution partners, and you’ll be able to control and drive your own marketing effort.
There are also the long term benefits. When it comes to your second game do you want to have to go through the pitching round again, desperate for funding? What if the publisher won’t fund your project, but has one of their own that they want you to work on? Will you take it? What does that mean for you creatively? Would you be happy as a developer for hire, working on other people’s game ideas? Isn’t that the same as working for an existing studio? Wasn’t that the reason you wanted to strike out on your own in the first place?

So which way to go? For those of you that want my view, take a look at this short clip: http://www.introversion.co.uk/articles/ ... speech.wmv

Going indie has been hugely rewarding for Introversion but not without its steep learning curves. We’ve learnt that if you want to strike it out on your own you will need to build a competent team that covers all of the major bases – a few programmers just won’t cut it! The decision comes down to whether you want to take the time to build a capable company that acts as both publisher and developer or if you want to spend the majority of your time coding video games (either based on your own ideas or those of others). If you are going to self-publish the road is very long and very hard, but ultimately, very satisfying.

[d37312m1n3d]

For the Localisation part, i know two person (one is myself) who would translate the texts to their own languages, but i don't know if there will be any speech in the game. I couldtranslate it to hun, and the other person would translate to japanese.

In my opinion, this board was a great idea, because the QA and the half of the marketing has done by this forum (as i see) Nice work!

[d37312m1n3d]

Although the suggestion is nice, you somewhat missed the point there. Wink

I don't think so, but inasmuch as i'm not a biiig company's leader, but i wanna help (or take part in development, this is the cause why i wanted to be a multiwinia-beta-tester ), and the idea was sympathic for me, i can only do this
(Or i am still missing the point? )

(Sorry, if my post not understandable at all, but i just woke up for about 10 minutes )

Also, that link points to a topic in the (closed) testers forums.

Hmm, it really links there, i forgot it... but do you think non-beta-testers could see it? Should i delete the link?

[d37312m1n3d]

Ohh, i get it. So i missed the place. And even the idea

Than talk about something totally different

For example, without so much economical knowledge, can a company be successful? Or if some people want to start developing some game, do they need somebody who really knows economy, or they will live happily with just marketising the game and picking the right publisher, and some other basic things?

Also Mark, what's the deal with naming every language surrounding the Netherlands but not mentioning Dutch? Razz

Oh, you must have been obsessed by the soul of beta-testing XD Should you add this to the bug-list?

[firelove]

Great articles, Mark

But I think I'll code other people's ideas before developing my own games. Just to gain some experience

Oh and btw, who does the translation from english to spanish of the IV's games? Just curiosity...

[elexis]

like firelove said, it's probably better to get a first hand idea on how the big gaming world works from someone else before attacking it on your own. I'll probably work for a company as well before my friends and I do any serious game development.

[d37312m1n3d]

But at which point will you think that "it was enough, i've gained enough experience, i'm going to start the development of my own idea"? When you have enough money to eat during the development, or when you feel you can do something cool, or both are required to quit?

(IMHO when i have enough money, i worked enough to have such experience. Any other opinion?)

[firelove]

But at which point will you think that "it was enough, i've gained enough experience, i'm going to start the development of my own idea"? When you have enough money to eat during the development, or when you feel you can do something cool, or both are required to quit?

I think it depends on the person.

I wonder: Why does the development of the game have to be a full-time job? You can work for someone else and do your games in your spare time!

Pros: You gain the money to eat during the developing time and gain experience at the same time.
Cons:... Don't know... help me with this one... Thinking and talking in English is burning my head

[ManE]

Nice one on the games you guys make, a very peculiar game of Defcon just finished,
and to find this post on the blog, was like the cherry on a cake, a bit sad, I like cake!

Assuming one can do Production and HR internally also, it sounds like you have a recepy
for making good games! Doing it with people you know from always helps sort out HR, etc.
Looking Fwd to playing the next one, and learning Lua, finally a good reason to do it!
You DO need a few programmers after all...

What about IP? Is introversion an Author? Your gameplay a franchise?

will you make an Open Source game?

Cheers,

SC

[d37312m1n3d]

Cons:... Don't know... help me with this one... Thinking and talking in English is burning my head Laughing

Let me help then...

Cons:
-you can't do your things in full-time
-you will finish your project more slowly
-you must keep things of two projects in mind
etc.

But, i think, the pros beat the cons, if you have fortune
And if you make some friends at the "real" job, they might help you in your development

(But i like to concentrate only one thing, not two or more, i'm not a multitasking system )

[brog]

I wonder: Why does the development of the game have to be a full-time job? You can work for someone else and do your games in your spare time!

It doesn't have to be, this is one solution to the problem of "how will I eat while I write my game?". I'm attempting this myself.
I think though, if you do this the other job should not be in the game industry, because they seem to be too consuming.

[Montyphy]

I wonder: Why does the development of the game have to be a full-time job?

To quote Mark, "or you are working on the game during evenings and weekends". No one said it has to be full-time.

You can work for someone else and do your games in your spare time!

Only if you're lucky enough to not have a contract which states that *all* programming you do (even outside of the work place) belongs to them or they aren't the type to pull you on it should your product/program become successful.

[brog]

You can work for someone else and do your games in your spare time!

Only if you're lucky enough to not have a contract which states that *all* programming you do (even outside of the work place) belongs to them or they aren't the type to pull you on it should your product/program become successful.

What the hell?
Do there exist such contracts? That's pretty evil. Last I heard most people's employers don't actually have legal ownership of their souls.

If you're stealing code from work, sure, that's bad. Or working on it while at work. But something completely unrelated written outside of working hours? Them owning that would be like them owning your blog, your music, your sporting achievements, your children..

Obviously if you're directly competing with your employer (i.e. working for M$ and writing Linux in your spare time) you can probably expect not to get much love from them. There could be some legal trouble there ("trade secrets" or whatever). But a game?

Not having such a contract isn't "luck". It's basic sanity.

[Montyphy]

You can work for someone else and do your games in your spare time!

Only if you're lucky enough to not have a contract which states that *all* programming you do (even outside of the work place) belongs to them or they aren't the type to pull you on it should your product/program become successful.

What the hell?
Do there exist such contracts? That's pretty evil. Last I heard most people's employers don't actually have legal ownership of their souls.

If you're stealing code from work, sure, that's bad. Or working on it while at work. But something completely unrelated written outside of working hours? Them owning that would be like them owning your blog, your music, your sporting achievements, your children..

Obviously if you're directly competing with your employer (i.e. working for M$ and writing Linux in your spare time) you can probably expect not to get much love from them. There could be some legal trouble there ("trade secrets" or whatever). But a game?

Not having such a contract isn't "luck". It's basic sanity.

Yes they exist and not as uncommon as you'd like to think. In fact it doesn't even stop there, I was once tied down to a contract that stated any video footage with me in it effectively belonged to the company despite me only being a programmer and not a presenter or actor.

[Dirty Harry Potter]

I know of a bloke (was a mapper for Natural Selection iirc) working for... I think it is Ravensoft. Anyway, his contract prohibits him from doing any work for competing companies.