Quitting my day job.

I, like many others, dream of quitting my day job to become a full-time game developer; writing little casual-style games for a living. What could I realistically expect? Of course, the popularity of the game would dictate the number of sells. But if the game was somewhat original, with decent graphics sound; how much would it be worth? Is there anyone out there reading this that is actually living the dream? Please enlighten us wannabes! :roll:

 

Yes.

There's been quite a lot of discussion about this, and I think it's safe to say that casual/small/non-hardcore/downloadable/shareware/whatever games are big and growing.


GooBall just dropped off the top-downloads-of-the-week at MacGameFiles, 7 moths after its release!


Combining the market potential (growth), with great technology (say, Unity ; ) that allows you to:

1) Evolve a fun, solid gameplay (because of great workflow and tuning tools)
2) Stay ahead of the pack technology-wise (GooBall is still and will remain fir some time one of the fanciest looking casual games in the universe)

You can do this. A couple of pieces of advice:

1) Playtest on your target audience. Don't ask them. Don't just make a mailing-list where people can give you feedback. Make them try it, and either stand behind them quiet as a mouse, or better, film them.

Don't ask them what they thought (okay, you can do that afterwards too, but don't believe them). Just look. Take it in. Feel when they get bored, see when they fail to understand, hear when they are frustrated.

I can't stress that enough. If you influcence them in any way you end up just making them tell you what you already "know" (compare Clever Hans Effect: http://skepdic.com/cleverhans.html ). If you just make them tell you, you'll get a mishmash of "this is great" (you "allowed" them to playtest, they're thankful, they want to make you happy), and mostly irrelevant "if I were making a game I'd make the horse red". Okay, the last point is exaggerates, sometimes they tell you useful things.. but be critical... looking at them is more important.

2) See 1)

3) Find a good outlet. If working with a publisher, make sure to pick one that has successfully sold games to *the same audience* before. Selling to geeks, hardcore-gamers, women 35+, children, is a pretty diverse task. Success on one guarantees not success on others.

If not working with a publisher, you'll need to work hard and smart. If you don't have better ideas, let yourself be "inspired" by the strategies of the best of breed in your area.

(We worked with Ambrosia (very cool people, trustworthy to the max), so we don't actually have experience with marketing games.)


d.

 

OK I can't restrain myself any longer. Call it the last bottle of Chateau Margaux last night or the fact that I have put my first ever Mac up for sale here in the OTEE forums. :cry:

I just decided to do this..(strike out on my own)...although targeting a very specific market. I would caution several things however:

1) This isn't all fun and games. It is a lot of really hard work and I'm sure that you know that already but in addition to the grueling efforts in developing a game the business side of game development can be even more brutal.

2) Read up on business start-ups in general and be ready to swallow the associated risks. I personally like 3 basic threads: Guy Kawasaki in books like The Art of the Start, the books by Clayton M. Christensen on the Innovator's Dilemma, and the book Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. These give a good balance between strategy and hard core practical advice forcing you to confront both the more theoretical (but brutally real) value proposition of what you plan to do and the practical 'you need to eat' side. I know that it is cliche but "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

3) Find a niche (as defined by Kim Mauborgne) and build a business plan around it. Understand your customer demographic and make sure that your vision of games coincides with their needs.

4) And finally something that I think is as critical as anything, make it your passion! Pursue this because you love it; because you can't see yourself doing anything else and you'd rather live on Ramen noodles in your cardboard box with your iBook and no high speed internet for the rest of your life (unless you marry wealthy ) then do anything else. And I am NOT kidding! The development cycle of even a simple game is quite long (depending on your skill set and how many people you can Tom Sawyer). And you are more than likely going to have very few customers. So if this isn't a passion for you then it may end up being something that drains the life right out of you.

However, I obviously think it is a great idea and in part because I believe that there is hope. The game industry in my opinion is experiencing a profound change. The AAA game over provides, in many aspects, for a great percentage of the audience. Major development houses such as EA can't afford to tackle niche audiences and have to see certain growth rates. So they pander to the 'needs' of their primary customers and produce Madden 2015 because they need to gain percentage points in growth on their base revenue. But look at the pattern that Christensen identifies, smaller more efficient companies that find ways to economically meet the needs of the over served groups 'steal' the customers out from under these giants that the giants no longer want or rather no longer can serve.

The margin on these consumers has dropped so dramatically for the giants, at their cost per title rates, that their whole infrastructure can no longer sustain marketing to these consumer segments. This includes for example, again IMHO, the casual gaming market. The volumes are not high enough to support $20+ MM budgets. But EA et. al. need the revenue impact that a $20+ MM dollar budget game brings. So they do not enter the casual gaming market. Although they might buy one/some of the major players in that arena as that brings the revenue in one mighty single swoop. But I would expect that continued development investment in these areas remains as unattractive for them as it is now.

What is our advantage? It is what happens with tools like Unity! Slowly tools that were, at one point (Blitz 3d, etc...), insufficient to cater to any of the giant's consumers become more sophisticated. The powerful low price and free tools (OS X, ZBrush, Silo, Blender, Unity, Torque (sorry ), Flash, VoodooPad, TikiWiki) that rely on next generation ideas become capable of meeting the needs of the bottom layer of the customers that the giants include in their customer base. However, for the giants, these customers are the least profitable so they gladly exit that market space to focus on their 'major' customers. Hence broadly appealing crap like Madden 2015 and Halo 16 (the game AND the movie). :twisted:

So here is where we enter! Catering to the niche crowds with wild, weird, innovative and original titles. Gaining a few $ here and there against our cost base. But profitable at $10 per game not $50 even at 1% of their sales volume*. You can use different numbers but the result is the same; we need only a fraction of what they do to break even and we have no investors' blood..errr money lust to satisfy with sickening margin rates.

And slowly but surely the tools will become more powerful and it will take less and less to chase the bottom end of the giant's profitable customer base. I am amazed that the giants are not more concerned about the Xbox live arcade program that will let us in that door.

So is there money to be had? Your absolutely right there is. But it takes creativity, a strong skill set, determination, innovation, careful investment in tools and careful planning to do so.

Good luck!!!

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Best regards,

Doc

* Granted this is purely hypothetical but the math I used is:

AAA Title:

• ($20MM game development + 15% gross profit)/$50 per game = 460k units
  Keep in mind that 15% gross may be way to low as they still need to cover management overhead, marketing, etc...
  With these numbers you can easily see the pressure to raise the cost to $60 per game!

Indie Title:

• 1% of 420k units = 4600 units
  Assuming development costs of $50k (including the money you live off of)
  $50k / 4600 = $10.87 per unit sold

 

I totally agree with you.

Casual game development attracts creative, artistic people. Tools like Unity enable these types of people. It allows them to focus more on their creativity and less on the machine's technicalities. Unity totally excites me, it gives me a sense of freedom and a new view of, and I hate this phrase, the Gaming Industry.

Some may say that the gaming industry is becoming similar to the movie industry, and I agree. Big budgets and marketing made to appeal to the masses. That’s OK... let the gaming industry grow and become movie-like because I think the casual gaming market will split off and evolve into a something different. I'll even be as bold as to say A New Art Form.

I had an interesting thought this morning... as time passes and even better tools (like Unity 2.0 maybe) come along that allow creative people the ability to more easily create computer games, game developers will becoming more like authors and/or painters. For instance, anyone can operate a typewriter, learn to use a word processor, or spread paint with a brush - the difference between 'normal' people and artists is talent.


What do you think?

 

Excellent point. I've been doing game development for 10 years, and it's true that game development is becoming bigger at the same time that it's capable of being 'smaller'. It's increasingly in the determined hands of the auteurs who chose to throw themselves into their craft and express their own voices to make a difference.

Being successful =! selling 1 million copies, and it can actually be a benefit to not have a group of stockholders determining your every move.

-G

 

I think that you hit the nail on the head. While it is still going to take some specialized skills, talent and creativity the immense barriers of huge budgets and having to build/modify your tools before you can get to the act of creating are slowly being removed.

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Best regards,

Doc