How to earn £12,000 in one year from game development?

I meant Arowx, but this is also good to hear. Don't forget to market your game. Don't come whinging on here that you had lackluster sales because of no marketing.

Okay, test time! What is it you need to do after you have finished writing all the squiggly code bits and drawing the pretty pictures and recording strange bodily noises?

 

Buy an iOS license (or find someone with one) and market via forums/twitter(the only way I know how )? haha

just get it out the door

 

JustinLloyd: (without quoting it here) There has been a good paragraph on press releases and contacting everyone and anyone re: the new game. And the note to use a professional press release company. Do you have anymore information or advice? Especially things to avoid that are just not worth the time (like spending time trying to talk up a title on the touch arcade forums).

It is clear, with the volume on the AppStore, that if you don't get the word out there, you don't get seen. If you don't get seen, you don't get bought, and you don't get paid.

Proper and achievable marketing seems to be (to me) one of the most difficult parts of this process, especially to someone who is either an artist or coder. Marketing is a third hat that many good artists and coders have no clue about. I understand the concept, but working through the reality of it is as difficult as developing the game with at least as much trial and error leading to that all educating failure state. (Speaking of which, who wrote and read that commencement speech? Was that yours?)

When reading an article by (iirc by Charles Hinshaw) in the sadly doomed Unity magazine about developing a new game, there is a quip that my the time the game is released you will have made such good contacts with people who can market your game, make sure they know it's done and that they get a link to a copy... but that presumes that by some sort of osmosis that one knows everyone important in the gaming market.

What is the best way to make these contacts? And how do you get them to see your game? And promote it?

 

Charlie: Don't get suckered down the glittering path too far. You are a good artist and your experience is growing fast to match your talent. If you can find a coding partner, team up; but don't stop your growth as an artist to try and take a trip down the yellow brick road. (^_^)


(I vote Charlie as the "most improved" on the What are you working on thread.) His work, especially his 2D work is really good.

 

I meant two essential things! What are the two essential things you must do after you have finished writing all the squiggly code bits and drawing the pretty pictures and recording strange bodily noises?

 

*Blank Face*

I think i've missed something.

 

Thanks for all the kind words angel but i'm really tired of being in the lower class of money making :L I want to start making some bigger bucks, I want to start driving this year/next year so the money would be great haha.

 

I understand marketing is hard for many people, if you haven't done it, it is this big, fearful thing that is to be feared with um... fear... and stuff! It's easier to bury your head in your keyboard or Wacom tablet and just keep plugging away at what you know how to do and not face that fearsome, fearful thing of fear.

But that won't put food on your family.

There are a few unusual one hit wonders out there. The one-man team or small team of developers have gone on to great success with a break out hit that just went viral, but you are playing the lottery at that point. Market, market, market, market, market, market and I will guarantee you, right here, right now, that you will make enough money off of whatever piece of crap you decide to sell (it may be good, it may be crap, but you can still make amazing money) to have a very comfortable lifestyle.

But...

the work isn't easy. There is no "do this one thing and you will be rich." It is a process.

I got fat! I got fat by eating donuts. But if I could find that one donut that made me fat, and not eat that one donut, I wouldn't be fat, no matter how many other donuts I ate. Sounds ridiculous, right? And it is. I didn't get fat on one donut, I got fat, little by little, on many donuts. And I won't slim down by finding out which one big exercise I need to do, do that once, and suddenly I am slim again. I need to do many small exercises.

That's the same with doing anything and getting good at anything. When I say "market, market, market, market, market" what do you see? Someone who types the word market too much? Someone who likes to say the word "market" an awful lot? You're seeing the wrong thing! You see "market, market, market, market, market" and think "ah, I have to market, that's the message I am being told.

No!

The message you are being told is to "Market *pause* market *pause* market *pause* market *pause* market!" Marketing is an on-going process, something you do over and over and over and over and over again, you never stop it, ever! Not until you retire your game. And then a little while later, you blow off the dust of ages from your old game, slap a new label on it, and start marketing it again. New! Improved! Twice as many Unities! Updated to run on the new Unity 3.4 Engine! Wait, didn't it just run on the Unity engine of 3.0 so it's just backwards compatible? Yes! It did! But this is new and improved with a 20% performance increase for the latest version of Unity.

Avoid low return endeavours. I cannot emphasise that last statement enough, so I won't. Fantastic, you just sent out review copies to every person on the planet with an internet connection. Next, somebody who runs a small gaming website that gets about 200 random readers of not very significant means, i.e. they aren't rich and interested in giving you a deal, wants to interview you, on the phone, for the next two hours. Should you turn him down? Well, all exposure is good I guess, but seriously, two hours? How about you email me your questions. Then you go and have your assistant type something up. You don't have an assistant? Then pass the buck to your press company if you can afford it, otherwise, be brief, avoid questions that are esoteric, don't ramble. The people who post on Touch Arcade forums probably aren't your primary audience and it's a small sliver of your market. Sure, write up a short post about your game. Focus all your marketing there? Nah.

Software updates, marketing, new versions, up-sell from other games, free versions, as many different platforms as you can hit, make a free web version that runs on a dedicated website that links to the app store, bundle deals, giveaways, competition giveaways, paid reviews, unpaid reviews, articles aimed at your target audience. Forget marketing your game to developers (unless it is a game specifically for developers) unless you are looking to get hired or looking to get contract work from them. Developers should only market to developers when you have a product that will be used by developers, .e.g a framework or an API or services.

It's a learnt skill, just like programming, modeling or playing the piano. It looks like voodoo because 1. Many marketers cannot or will not quantify what it is they do and 2. Many marketers are actually pretty crap at their jobs. Very few are systematic in their approach. If you ever meet a marketer who is "between jobs" or isn't doing exactly what they love then they probably suck at marketing. You want to see a couple of amazing marketers who are awesome at marketing themselves? Go visit Seth Godin's website, go visit Steven Pavlina's website, go visit John Scalzi's website. Okay, two of them aren't marketers, but they do an amazing job of marketing their product: themselves!

Yes, you can find it on one of my websites. I have a speech impediment but I stood up and delivered a strong speech without any signs of that impediment to a packed auditorium. I did it for marketing reasons (though not to do with games.)

Yes and no. You cannot just hide behind your keyboard and hope to make good contacts. You have to put yourself out there. If you don't have a business partner then you have to be willing to talk to people. Be ready to show off your game, talk about your game, have anecdotes about the game. Get little game business cards made up you can hand to people with a couple of details and a link (we call this part "advertising!") and give them to everyone. They don't have to be fancy. Give the person you are talking to something for free, a business card for the game, a free gift in the game via redemption code, anything.

"Hi! Here's a business card for my game! Go play it!"

SUCK!!!!

"Hi! Here's a card about my game, crap, it's my last one and then I'm all out. Also, let me write on the back a unique code that gets you a free hat in the game. This code is uniquely yours, nobody else can have that hat."

Present at conferences, go to conferences, wander around conferences but don't go to any sessions, you're there to work, not enjoy yourself, save that for when you get home. Dress professionally, talk to everyone, strike up a conversation in the lunch line, don't initially pitch your game, collect details, follow up on them about a week or so after you get back, but not before. It's never too late to follow up, but it can be too early to follow up.

Pick up the phone, talk to people, find out the editors and writers and various magazines and websites and court them. Ask them questions about who you need to contact to get exposure for your upcoming game. Take an iPad or laptop with you where ever you go and be prepared to show it off to people who enquire. If you are any place where people who can talk about your game to a larger audience will be, go there, and be prepared to show stuff off. You want to meet pretty girls who may talk to you? Stop hanging out in the store that only sells Dungeons Dragons games! Go where the pretty girls are! You want to show your game to movers and shakers to make a deal? Go where the movers and shakers go! They aren't hanging out in a programming session about the latest Shaders at GDC or Unite 2011, they're on the expo floor, they're standing in line for coffee, they're presenting what the state of the art is in marketing games, they're in the main hotel lobby bar wondering if someone will ever approach them and show them their latest game.

Go to meetings in your area that cover anything that interests you, even if it isn't game related, but be prepared to show off what you do when asked what it is you do.

Make a Facebook fan page specifically for your game, make a Twitter feed specifically for your game. Don't forget to fan yourself and don't forget to re-tweet your own game specific tweets. Got a webpage on your main company's website about your game? s'okay I guess... Got a dedicated website for the game in addition to the page on your main company's website? Better. Got fifteen websites talking up your game in addition to the dedicated website for the game which is in addition to the page on your main company's website? Awesome! Advertising!


There is not enough room on these forums to post all the things you can do to get exposure for your game.

 

Get it out the door and marketing!

 

Justin...you just blew my mind...I'm bookmarking that post lol. great stuff.

 

Three things! Three essential things! What are the three essential things you must do after you have finished writing all the squiggly code bits and drawing the pretty pictures and recording strange bodily noises and getting it out the door and marketing?

Blow people's minds!

P.S. Marketing, it works. Someone just bookmarked my post, two years from now they'll be at a company somewhere and they'll be thinking about hiring a small company and perhaps my name will come up "Hey! I read this post by a guy a few years back about marketing and software development and making lots of money. Think we should give him a call?"

 

@JustinLloyd cool post, just informations that have been needed. I am glad to read this and to even get stronger appeal towards PC development and getting even further away from IOS. I am just not a fan of marketing, it is just another load on development and it takes a lot of care. I rather preffer PC stand view where if you pick right distributor you are getting all views deserved depending on your quallity. Afcourse marketing is also important for PC but you dont get burned out so fast without it.

Well thats just how i feel.

 

Phew, I don't see myself taking a plane and going to any conferences yet. But heck first I gotta finish a game.

 

Without sounding offensive to you, that approach will get you nowhere at all, and your game will bomb. You can't sell, what people can't find. The PC needs at least twice the amount of marketing as does ios, because ios has a support network from apple: you've got features, whats hot, staff picks and collections as well as genius recommendations if your game is good.

On the pc you have nothing except optional marketing from a distributor - and everything costs.

Distributors won't market jack for you. They say they do, but they just stick a banner up and let it float or die. Unless you negotiate a % and so forth... no such thing as a free lunch with them.

You are anti mobile because you choose to be, not because you have any grounding in facts. The reality is the PC is a harsh mistress.

If you are going with PC there is tonnes of money to be made, but just relying on a distributor won't work, you will still have to market it hard, and constantly, the distributor can't lose, you can.

 

Updated my homepage with a countdown timer!

http://arowx.com

And the progress bar is up to date!

 

I'm really digging your site! It's a really fun idea. I'll follow your progress regularly hehe!

 

It's still just fun though, I want to see meat and potatoes not salad dressing!

 

I was thinking of already pre-marketed approach like IHB, maybe i should have put it that way.

I mean with distributor that is more likely a publisher and yes afcourse with that some percentage following.

 

How would that work? The humble indie bundle is only ever like 5-7 games that have already achieved some degree of commercial success or cult status beforehand, and they pick them by hand. They don't just take any games just because you ask to be a part of it, otherwise the bundle would be 1,000 games every year.

 

Great post, awesome info, already saved in my bookmarks!!
Thank you all of you guys for this real advices, you only get this from experience and most of the time, that cost $$$

i'm almost finishing my iOS game, very simple, lot of effort on that.. its a multiplayer FPS.. yeah i know.. not good for my first choice, but well..

i have 6 months working on it already, just me.. yeah now i know! no more than 3 months its the recommended.. ohh well.

but seriously, thank you so much for all this info!!

Greetings from Costa Rica!
=)

 

Don't you have a starter before the main course ;o)

I'm sure there are other games/app bundles other than the Humble Indie one!

Sorry back to work!

 

*cracks the whip*

Ensure any relatives nearby fuel you with endless tea or coffee. Always helps.

 

Humble has strong marketing, succes i dont know from where they gather all views on their videos, but i am sure that views dont come from games that have already been released. In first two bundles there was 50% 50% of games that have already been released and games that havent even been released properly yet. They dont accept any game, but if you have right game you will be accepted just like people that have been accepted no matter on commercial success.

 

Oh man Justin and Hippo, you guys just whipped the whole forum into frenzy......
Several months down the track quite a lot of them are going to hate you when their games don't sell and they can't pay back their investment...! They going to come at you with torch and pitchforks!

Not saying you guys are offering bad advice, but you know that thing called disappointment....

 

A doctor friend of mine brought me this photo:

 

But, all frivolity aside:

Whether you have the chops or not, the advice from Justin and Hippo is correct.

 

Ahh I see. So your current marketing strategy is "hope really really hard that I get accepted to be one of the 5 games out of thousands in a humble indie bundle next year"?

 

You raise a valid point, however, harsh though it sounds, their failure to execute is not my problem. A 300lb/150kg couch potato who waddles everywhere, standing up and declaring they are going to complete a marathon by next week is a ridiculous concept; thusly if anybody expects their first attempts at marketing to be a huge success, a subject they probably hate and have no experience at, it will likely bomb the first few times just like anybody's first few games. I have already said this, marketing is an on-going process. It doesn't happen overnight. I love marketing, not as much as software development perhaps, but if I had to pick one other profession it would be marketer; the ability to communicate a concept clearly and succinctly, to persuade someone to listen is just an amazing experience.

 

And what is exactly wrong with that?

 

The fact you have to be friends with them might help. Don't make the mistake of thinking its not a closed box, it is.

Life isn't fair and nor is the humble indie bundle. It's not a special everyone gets an equal chance thing, its a few devs and word of mouth, good connections and friends in the indie market that will get your game on there. Luckily I'm friends with a lot of them, so I might have a good crack if I even had a decent linux game they thought had a good shot.

Not only this, there aren't any unique games on the bundle. Thats right, you have to prove it's a seller. So you'll need to be selling first.

I personally do not think they will accept your game unless you can have some form of selling history, or that it screams AAA. So for now get yourself over to the indiegamer forums and have a chat, etc... build some bridges.

 

Have done already all of that have been talking with them a lot over past two months so trust me i know how situation looks like. I know what approach has to be done to get better chances in their acceptance. I also know that it is still possibility that it might not work, but with all gathered informations i have so far i rather stay positive and cross my fingers.
Thanks for tips anyways.

 

I really like the `cut the crap and focus on getting it ACTUALLY DONE` theme in this thread, it's very helpful.

With that said I've decided to knuckle down and work on a SMALL game using only existing Unity editor features, avoiding all extra dynamic this-n-that, all flashy fancy shader ideas, all `breaking things into little pieces to make it cooler` ideas and super-wow technologies, all level editors and built in fancy social features and `what it could be`. Just plain and simple, bare bones, one level at at time, rock basic, simple physics, simple textures, bam! And then I will release it on iOS and celebrate (after marketing ;-)

Thanks again for your expert advice.

 

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm here?

 

I've got a question for Hippo and Justin. If you set a target for fast game turn around with a max of a 3 month time span, wont that hurt the quality some what? I mean quality takes time, and if you're competing with many others then you have to have something of quality otherwise you simply have just another "crap" app on the iOS store.

So whats better: a bunch of S***ty apps that may not generate much income but have fast development time vs a high quality app that took longer to make but may generate more income.

Where is the fine line between crap app and great app?

 

That's 100% correct it will affect quality. But I am by default an artist, and my co worker is an artist too. So we can compete in those time frames. And that's more important than ever. What Justin and I say is true of course, but it's not down to us if your game doesn't look very good and consequently does badly on the store.

Always the high quality app + marketing. You need to set out times and goals that work for you and your team if you have one.

 

I think, my problem (with clients) is that I always try to be 'friends' with them. And I think that might be my collaboration problem too. I hope someone understands what I mean by 'friends' haha, need to start acting more business like.

and JustinLloyd ^_^ I said get it out the door and marketting! haha

 

I think you are missing an essential detail. Just because you released your game, and it is not Rome or eBay, doesn't mean you are done with the development of it. The full SDLC of your game is many years. The initial development period between "Aha! I have a neat idea for a Zombie MMOFPS!" and "Zibs the Zimbie starring in World In War: Who's Yo Daddy! MMOZFPS released today on AppStore" can be three months, and we can all agree that the quality has a very high probability that it will suck. But that's what updates, patches, tweaks, level packs and so on are for.

Short time frames for development do not mean all of your programming and art and audio are and integrated and then you walk away to begin your marketing. Part of your marketing, actually, one of the most important aspects of your marketing, is to update your game, which gives you an opportunity to talk about it some more and begin new conversations and win over those people who didn't pay attention the first time around.

Don't think of your game as Pacman but as World of Warcraft.

 

Man, thanks for all of the info! I've been planing to get into IOS development (first I need a Mac, ITouch, and Unity IOS (basic) ), and this is very helpful, thanks!

 

Questions what features would the ideal version of Lightning have (made with Unity)?

 

Forfeit, not forefit.

You may want to start a new thread rather than have your answers buried in this one.

I was channeling the Spanish Inquisition. Game developers should always demand that the comfy chair be summoned as early as possible. You are going to spend an awful lot of time in it.

Four! Four essential things are needed! These four things are what you must for your game. After you have finished writing all the squiggly code bits and drawing the pretty pictures and recording strange bodily noises and getting it out the door and marketing and blowing people's mind you must wear comfortable shoes when at conferences because you will be doing a lot of standing around on hard floors.

 

I like that kind of thinking. Makes you worry less about failure. So if our first game happens to give bad sales, that only means we should keep improving it. Releasing updates and whatnot, trying to slide it into people's radar as often as we can, (with stuff worth seeing of course).

 

Yeh updates are needed for every game, but not every game should be threated for updates with same priority. Actually there is huge gap in prioritising updates for game, depending on game type, game sales, your current income, and some other reasons.
So some platformer with only 1 time playing value should be lower on update urgency (or bug fixing) than some game with multiplayer.
Also updating game lenghtens your post-development time that you still have to spend on game, so you should make updates carefully again depending on game type. Also maybe one can be in very tight financial situation, game has sold well and you have to move on on next game. Updates are needed for every game, but not every Pacman should be threated like Wow.

 

Justin and Hippo are so freaking inspiring.

I'm just a lowly employee right now. But dang it, now I feel like I have to do something on my own!

Curse you guys for showing that there is an awesome challenge out there just waiting for people to tackle!!

I think I have the presentation part covered. I'm an artist.

I have the marketing part covered. My previous job before getting back in the industry was as a Marketing Manager.

Now about learning to code... lol.

 

I'm not sure there right, in effect the churn on iTunes and the Droid Market is massive as new games appear all the time, once your game has appeared as new it's there for what a day or two, and then it's gone, without five star ratings or Apple attention it's gone!

And depending on how good it played or looked those people have associated your game with that first look!

Unless updated bounce you back up again?

 

SDLC: Systems Development Life Cycle *(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_Development_Life_Cycle)

I think two of the practical tools not mentioned here are:

• A Game Design Document (GDD)
• A Breakdown

I think these may seem more complicated than they sound, and may scare some people as much as marketing scares me - they haven't used one and don't know what they mean or how to make one.

Game Design Document
A Game Design Document is simple a synopsis or treatment of what you want to make with your game. This should probably be a prose document. It can - or should - start off with a single one line sentence about what the game is you are making. If you cannot sum up your game in one line, one sentence, one statement - then your game is probably not focused enough yet. You should then lay out in the most simple of terms the scope of your project. You don't need to pixel fek it, but you should describe (and illustrations are ok) all the basic setup for your game. This document should be as simple, unemotional and straightforward as you can be while covering all the major aspects of your game. You don't need to include every level, fully designed, but you should have the scope of what a level will be and how many you plan to have.

This will the Necronomicon, Song Sheet, Prayer Book or what have you that you will follow.


Breakdown
This is a very important tool that will help you understand the document you have just written - the Game Design Document. This should probably be a spreadsheet. This isn't a traditional "budget" where you need to track every expense you expect to have while making the game, though tracking know expenses would be good. This is a tool to help you understand the scope of the project you have just written (yes, I have said it twice).

What you want this document to do is give you an overview of how many assets you need to build. If you can't build them, then you need to know you need to acquire them. You shouldn't break down your code into tiny details, but an over-view of the systems you will need would be good.

When the document is done, you should be able to have a very quick idea of all the assets and asset types you will need and this will get your mind working towards how long it will take. You can also tick them off and it will give you an idea of how far you've come and how far you need to go.


How this could work
In your GDD you have a section where you say: "The player must discover new items to help them. On this level, the player will scavenge remains and loot interesting items. Depending on what the player chooses to keep and discard, the player sets the style of game play. Will they choose a defensive role? Or an offensive role? Their choices are limited by the space in their inventory and the encumbrance of the items being carried. There are offensive, defensive and healing/repair classes. Each class will have 10 schools of items, each with 10 different items from that school."

In your breakdown you will need "Inventory System. Track Item Count (slots?) and Encumbrance. Combat System. Track Stats. Etc. ... " But where it becomes very useful is looking at things that could otherwise slip thru the cracks. "Icons. UI Icons. Move. Fire. Shield. Inventory Items 3 * 10 * 10 = 300 ... ... " Uh oh. 300 icons? Even if you could, without a wee break, make 1 icon an hour, thats THREE HUNDRED HOURS of art assets to create. Pushing hard at 50 hours a week, that's 6 bleeding weeks of icon making!

Now, admittedly, that's a bit contrived. One would probably be like World of Warcraft and recycle icons left right and center and leave it up to the text to differentiate the items, and painting in greyscale and using the overlay brush in Photoshop can do wonders... but still...

The point to this document is to highlight where you've gone astray. Just entering in the data for an item, much less creating the items in the first place, will take a long time to go through 300 of them.

It will also help sculpt the approach. What assets need to be prepped first, what can wait for later. What can be ganged together so when you have the painter's hat on, you can look at your list and see what else you need to do.


Focus
That's what these two documents will do. They will focus your mind and help focus your time. If you sit down in front of a new empty project and say "Space Fighter Game!" and then budge on over and fire up Blender (leaving the Open, Idle and Empty Unity project sitting there...) then you probably aren't completely focused.

And from what I'm gathering from this thread - focus is a good thing.

 

If you have A B and can execute on them, I can guarantee that C will naturally follow. As a competent artist you can create an awesome presentation and as a marketer you can create a huge marketing effort focused on your target audience before any code is written.

To show off what you want and what your goals are, visually, create mockups of game play using various animation packages, such Apple Motion, think of it as pre-visualisation. In fact, when a client comes to me and says "We want to make this game" and they usually have a limited budget, or limited vision on what that will be, i.e. no clue, I recommend they take the pre-visualisation route and mock-up what the final product will be. It lets them explore ideas in a safe, low-risk environment.

Go create that astoundingly succulent presentation that will wow your target audience (see first paragraph), realise that the audience you are communicating with over time will change. Your first audience is going to be programmers and you need to market to them first. You need the programmers to code your game so your presentation details should be aware of what gives them nerdboners. You can court programmers easily enough by showing them visuals, documentation, and progress that you have made because good programmers are a critical lot and will be looking at your feature set in terms of how interesting the problems are to solve, how long the various features will take to code, and whether there is something juicy in there they can get their teeth in to or is it just "ho hum!" work. You can still court programmers to do "ho hum!" work, you just have to change the conversation. You must reinforce two facts when communicating with possible hires: 1. You are utterly committed to your project for the next N years, e.g. five, seven, ten, even if the game will only take an initial six months of development, and 2. You have a laser-like focus on what features are needed to get your product out the door and in to the hands of paying customers.

 

Not enough people will be judging you from that first look for it to really matter. Some will check it out. Others will forget it in an instant.

You shouldn't build your whole business plan based on the one or two days it might be visible as a "new" game by Apple. That's almost like giving yourself an excuse for failure.

For most of your customers (hopefully), the "first look" will be when you do something that introduces them to the game. Not when Apple does something to introduce them to the game.

 

Well duh!

 

Actually updates have no effect on the new releases lists on iOS. They used to, but people abused that by releasing tons of "do nothing" updates just to continuously "bump" their apps.

--Eric

 

Crap. There goes my entire business plan!