Edy Zahid Blog The Thoughts of One Game Developer

5 Survival Tips for Indie Game Developers

1) Forget about big game project. Just concentrate on small game project.
2) It's hard selling commercial games nowadays. Why don't make freeware games and makes money from derivative such as item/merchandise, strategy guide and special edition version or just depend on advertising money.
3) Do not succumb to pressure selling for dirt cheap price such as anything below $9.95. Instead focus more on increasing value by providing lots of download contents to buyers.
4) Spend more times playing other unique indie games and get inspired. Come out with unique gameplay that other don't implement it.
5) Think positive. It's hard thing to do. Just do anything fun to kill any bad thought.

As you read this blog post on January 2010, the economy throughout the world face its worst condition in several decades. There's a lot of unemployment on the job market which means most of people has less money to spend on stuff. I will assume that on most people mind, they are only concentrating on fulfilling their basic need such as food and shelter and don't care too much for any frivolous activities such as playing games.

Even if they have some little time to play games, most of them don't have money to spend on games. That's why it's not surprising to read that even mighty game publishers such as Electronics Arts lost billion dollars. The real fact is most people don't have money to spend on games anymore. Oh yes, people still buy games but the number are way significantly lower now.

That's why I'm searching high and low throughout the Internet to find some useful survival tips that I can use since I am struggling as indie game developer right now. After been searching for quite some time and reading lots of information and opinion from way too many sources, I have collected some very useful survival tips that I want to share. I'm doing this so I can refer to it from time to time if I somehow get stumped. These survival tips might be useful to other indie game developers whose been struggling to figure out the best ways to handle the situation.

Small Game Project

I define small game project as the game that can be played in less than 5 hours irrelevant of many times developer spent on making it. I think this definition is relevant because it is measured from the perspective on player.

For indie game developer, making small game project make sense because the resources needed for it is less than big game project, there is a high chance of it being finished and most important of all, developer can build up a collection of games in short amount of time. Each games can cross selling each other which kind of good in term of marketing.

Any game no matter how big the scope is can be developed as a small game project if developer think about it from design phase. For role playing game, development can be separated to multiple episodes so each episode can be sold separately as a single game. Amanda Fitch has already done this on her Aveyond game series.

For strategy game, concentrate the first development on basic features and several game levels. For the next development adds more advanced features and more intricate game levels. I think this approach is less risky than devoting all your development time on a single big project.

Freeware Games

Did you know that Battle of Wesnoth, an old school turn based strategy games has been downloaded over 3 million times over the course of its development? What is even more surprising is that each download takes about 200 Mega Bytes of size. That's a huge number for such a niche indie game. I think one of the big reason is it's an open source project which means it's free and it's a good game.

The quality of the game is approaching or exceeding typical commercial game of its genre. This proves that if developer make a good game no matter how niche the market, the game will be well received by public. I think had the game been conceived as a commercial game, it would not reach the status like what it had today. That's the power of freeware games if you care to develop it properly. Freeware games does not have to be associated with low quality or be crappy.

The reason I'm bringing up the virtue of freeware games is because it's hard selling commercial indie games nowadays. Most of the indie games that can be sold nowadays are either belong to casual games market, has unique gameplay ( such as Braid or World of Goo ) or the games are developed by established game developers with a strong fan base. If your commercial indie games do not belong to these categories, then expect lots of disappointments.

Since selling commercial indie games are hard, why don't change a strategy by shifting the focus on making freeware games? I know this sounds like a crazy thing to do if you've been dabbling with commercial indie game for years. Just because the game is freeware does not necessarily mean you can not make money out of it. You can make money but that requires some crafty business model out of it.

The usual stuff is just asking for player to donate money through PayPal account. Well, this strategy might work if you consistently remind player about this in the game website or even in the game. Bay 12 developer has already successfully implement this strategy with their Dwarf Fortress game. To encourage player to donate, maybe you can throw some incentive such as strategy guide or walk through in PDF format to anyone who donate.

But I was thinking about more creative way of selling item or merchandise related to the game. You actually does not make much money out of this if you outsource the stuff to one stop shop but if you are willing to handle the operation by yourself, this can be a rewarding stuff. If you are willing to do this, you can advertise or mention it on your game. It's free marketing. I think the player will understand the logic behind this and if the deal looks good enough, they might check it out on the game website.

Another radical approach is to introduce a special edition version of the game that is bundled with digital goodies and item/merchandise. The digital goodies are something that does not included in the free version such as wallpaper, soundtrack, additional game levels and strategy guide/walk trough. The version should comes in a nice packaging box which also includes item/merchandise related to the game.

The last approach is to depend on advertising money. This approach works if your games can be developed with Flash technology. You can then submit your Flash game on many Flash game portal. You'll share profit with the portal on advertising money generated while player playing the game on the portal. So the more player playing the game or spend more time playing the game, the profit money will be higher. This is a win-win situation as all parties can benefit out of it but the problem is advertising money seems to be on low side nowadays. People and business don't have loads of cash to spend on advertising nowadays.

Increase Game Value

The current price wars between casual games portals really sadden me as indie game developer because the real victim here are developer themselves. The current price war force the developer to cut cost and force them to make their game shorter. But the biggest problem is this price wars create an artificial perception on player that they can expect to buy indie games at such a low price. Why pay $19.95 when you can buy games at $6.95? Heck, why even pay when you can get it free and conveniently on torrent sites?

A few indie games developer veteran has been complaining about this low price practice such as Jeff Vogel on his blog. This is definitely a sad time for indie game developer community because from now on it will become much harder to convince player to spend that $19.95 on indie games. Jeff Vogel suggests that indie games should be priced according to the estimated gameplay time. Well, I agree on his suggestion.

Do not succumb to pressure selling for dirt cheap price such as anything below $9.95. I think it's still OK selling indie games for $10 or more depending on how much content the game has and gameplay time player can get from it. If you believe your game is worth $19.95, than stick with it. Of course if your game can only be played in less than 5 hours, slapping $19.95 price tag seems like too much nowadays.

In addition, you can increase the game value by providing lots of download contents to buyers. Anyone who buy the game has access to private section of the game websites which allow them to download these DLC. These download contents need to be updated from time to time so this requires more work but will make the buyer a happy and satisfied customer.

Play Other Indie Games

I will suggest indie game developer should play as much as indie games they can get their hands on especially indie games that does not belong to their favourite genre. The reason why I'm suggesting this approach is because some of indie games has such a profound design innovation on it that you have to experience yourself by playing it.

One of notable example is Braid game developed by Jonathan Blow. Although the game looks like a typical platform game, its distinct game design that allow player to reverse his action and time gives it a new fresh perspective to platform game. The reason why I dislike typical platform game is because it is so easy getting killed and you have to restart the game level after your character death. With this game, I no longer have to endure that kind of experience.

Playing unique indie games will broaden your thinking horizon and can even inspire you in some ways. This is good because indie game developers need to be inspired from time to time. To survive as indie game developer, you need to come out with unique gameplay that other don't implement it. Jonathan Blow has already done this and he reaps the reward of it. This should be the essence of indie game developer - try to come out with unique gameplay that stands out from other me-too game.

I would say cut back your time on playing mainstream AAA game title because most of them are just old stuff in a new dress. There's nothing new and revolutionary gameplay can be found there as the developer can't have too much risk creating something revolutionary.

Think Positive

This should be self-explanatory but the hardest thing to do especially nowadays. Maybe you need to visit some self-improvement website to get some tips. Hope these survival tips can be useful to all you guys!