NazGhuL
NazTaiL
Hi! There is a lot of game makers here. From young rookies to professionals. Some of them wonder how it's like to publish their lovely game and never did it before. I decided to share my own experience.
I could call this: The anxious path of a hobbyist game developer.
Anxiety: A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
I published a game (Space Ashes), October 8th 2018. To get you in context, I had a full time job and an extra one. That’s around 46 hours a week of work and 14 hours in my car. We are a family of four and I have a house to maintain. What’s left to work on game making is not that much, so the term hobbyist is much more appropriate.
I dived into the game making (2011) at first for fun then for the challenge. After a lot of work I was able to build some assets and sell them on Gamemaker’s Marketplace. I made a couple of short games and tons of smaller testing projects. It was the right time for a bigger challenge.
Creating and selling a game is a major milestone for a game developer. I had an idea. I had an inspiration. I don’t have any background in computer science or marketing but I know what a good game is!... Did I? Yes and no…
After a couple of weeks, the project started to shape and I released a small demo. That’s when the anxiety kicked in. I had a lot of “How much?”.
How much time would it takes to complete the project? I was very comfortable with Gamemaker. (GM8, GMS then GMS2). I worked fast. The harder part was art. Drawing is not my thing. My early estimation to complete the project was 200 hours. It turned out to be more. The best thing I did was to strip down features. Reducing the number of levels, enemies and powerups. I could add more later if needed. Coding took me around 175 hours.
How much time will I work on art? Budget was very low so art have to be done by myself. 100 hours. In my opinion, it was the hardest part. I bought some assets. Some of them were modified. I worked hard on certain aspects that I absolutely wanted and asked for help when I was stuck. Size, color matching, darkness, shapes….
How much time will I work on music? Around 25 hours. I’m a musician for more than 25 years. Creating music for my own game was a fun experience.
How much time on marketing? 50 hours. What kind of marketing? I tried keymailer. Didn’t liked it. I searched for active Youtube channels that review indie games. I sent them a formatted mail + a custom message. Tried to reach Curators on Steam. (2 reached only). I tried Rock Paper Shotgun and many other review sites. I also dealt with tons of fake reviewers who only want free keys. (You know it’s fake when you read things like: “The senior head in chief of game reviews of Russia want to review your game.”)… I also tried to tweet regularly. I talked about my game each time I could.
How much people would be interested in my game? I never really find out the answer. I targeted 2 platforms: Steam and Itch.io Steam because… well it’s Steam. Itch.io? Because it’s the place where indies are. (That’s what I was thinking!)
How much time to fill up all the legal papers? I did that in less than 5 hours. I took this part very seriously. With bank account check, taxes, etc… I didn’t want any surprises.
You want some math?
How much money will I make? That was THE question. Nobody share this. Well some do but it's like “You have to try it at least once to find out the answer”. Should I make games for a living? Certainly not! As a side-job? Yeah! Why not? I could leave my current side-job and work from home. But will it pays? How much? Of all scenarios that I was expecting, it turned out to be the worst. Space Ashes was a game lost in…space. A needle in a haystack. To the question “Is being on Steam is a sure bet to sell your game?”: NO! Are indie game, well made and nice looking, will automatically sell on Itch.io? NO! (By the way, I’m proud of my game and I believe it’s well made and nice looking. Whatever you create, be proud of it!)
The anxiety dropped after the release. All those questions were answered. The game started at -15%. I did the winter sell at -50%, the summer sell at -60% and a week sale at -75%. I’m still waiting for my first payment… … Haha. You know, if you do a quick google search, how much money it takes to get your first payment…. It hurts at first but in the end, life goes on and yeeehaaa! I created and sold a game.
I took a break of coding for nearly one year. Doing only support for my marketplace assets. I played a lot. Probably too much! I’m now back at coding for fun, doing smaller projects. I’ll see what’s coming next…
Some random and humble hobbyist advices: (That represents my own opinion)
-If you want to live of game making, take it like a business.
-Innovation of a Genre and Theme are risky. If you want to make money, target popular genres and themes. You can’t change the fact that FPS, MMO and RPG are far way most popular than Puzzle Platformers. You want to do a retro prehistoric simulator? You better add some zombies, crime elements and a survival kit otherwise you’ll lose a lot of potential players. (You can argue a lot on this point!)
-As an indie developer, you must put passion in your project. If you don’t…just quit!
-The most powerful weapon you have to sell a game, as an indiedev, is to build a better game. A player who had fun with your game must spread the word as fast as a terrible virus. Players must have so much fun they instantly share it with their friends. Build a better game, crank it and pimp it. First impression must be jaw dropping! Not a “Wait, you’ll see…” Or “Wait until the third level…” No! Instant wow. The first minute is all.
-Art is not your thing? Investing a couple of hours each month on art is a very good habit. Having a basic knowledge. Matching colors, resizing, drawing basic tiles, etc…
-Social media. Choose 1 or 2 and use it well. With popular hashtag like: #screenshotsaturday, #madewithgamemaker, #indiedev, #gamedev, etc...
-Don’t underestimate marketing. As a hobbyist, I would never ever put more than an hour in marketing. And that hour would be to find someone that his job is marketing. (Or a publisher)
-Final thing: Publishers. I tried to reach 5 of them. Space Ashes was rejected by all. (I thought I had a chance with Yoyogames but nope…) I had the same answer from 4 of them: “We are not interested in your game. Good luck with it and please keep us informed if you do another one.”
GOG gave me the best answer (seriously):
That was my experience. Good luck with your projects.
...
...oh! By the way:
I could call this: The anxious path of a hobbyist game developer.
Anxiety: A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
I published a game (Space Ashes), October 8th 2018. To get you in context, I had a full time job and an extra one. That’s around 46 hours a week of work and 14 hours in my car. We are a family of four and I have a house to maintain. What’s left to work on game making is not that much, so the term hobbyist is much more appropriate.
I dived into the game making (2011) at first for fun then for the challenge. After a lot of work I was able to build some assets and sell them on Gamemaker’s Marketplace. I made a couple of short games and tons of smaller testing projects. It was the right time for a bigger challenge.
Creating and selling a game is a major milestone for a game developer. I had an idea. I had an inspiration. I don’t have any background in computer science or marketing but I know what a good game is!... Did I? Yes and no…
After a couple of weeks, the project started to shape and I released a small demo. That’s when the anxiety kicked in. I had a lot of “How much?”.
How much time would it takes to complete the project? I was very comfortable with Gamemaker. (GM8, GMS then GMS2). I worked fast. The harder part was art. Drawing is not my thing. My early estimation to complete the project was 200 hours. It turned out to be more. The best thing I did was to strip down features. Reducing the number of levels, enemies and powerups. I could add more later if needed. Coding took me around 175 hours.
How much time will I work on art? Budget was very low so art have to be done by myself. 100 hours. In my opinion, it was the hardest part. I bought some assets. Some of them were modified. I worked hard on certain aspects that I absolutely wanted and asked for help when I was stuck. Size, color matching, darkness, shapes….
How much time will I work on music? Around 25 hours. I’m a musician for more than 25 years. Creating music for my own game was a fun experience.
How much time on marketing? 50 hours. What kind of marketing? I tried keymailer. Didn’t liked it. I searched for active Youtube channels that review indie games. I sent them a formatted mail + a custom message. Tried to reach Curators on Steam. (2 reached only). I tried Rock Paper Shotgun and many other review sites. I also dealt with tons of fake reviewers who only want free keys. (You know it’s fake when you read things like: “The senior head in chief of game reviews of Russia want to review your game.”)… I also tried to tweet regularly. I talked about my game each time I could.
How much people would be interested in my game? I never really find out the answer. I targeted 2 platforms: Steam and Itch.io Steam because… well it’s Steam. Itch.io? Because it’s the place where indies are. (That’s what I was thinking!)
How much time to fill up all the legal papers? I did that in less than 5 hours. I took this part very seriously. With bank account check, taxes, etc… I didn’t want any surprises.
You want some math?
My taxes rate are around 35%. (Canada). My total incomes goes like this: (Job_incomes – 35%) + (sidejob_incomes-35%) + (((marketplace_incomes-30%))-35%) + ((game_sale-30%)-35%). You see. It’s not a joke. It’s reality. Taxes have to be done right.
How much money will I make? That was THE question. Nobody share this. Well some do but it's like “You have to try it at least once to find out the answer”. Should I make games for a living? Certainly not! As a side-job? Yeah! Why not? I could leave my current side-job and work from home. But will it pays? How much? Of all scenarios that I was expecting, it turned out to be the worst. Space Ashes was a game lost in…space. A needle in a haystack. To the question “Is being on Steam is a sure bet to sell your game?”: NO! Are indie game, well made and nice looking, will automatically sell on Itch.io? NO! (By the way, I’m proud of my game and I believe it’s well made and nice looking. Whatever you create, be proud of it!)
The anxiety dropped after the release. All those questions were answered. The game started at -15%. I did the winter sell at -50%, the summer sell at -60% and a week sale at -75%. I’m still waiting for my first payment… … Haha. You know, if you do a quick google search, how much money it takes to get your first payment…. It hurts at first but in the end, life goes on and yeeehaaa! I created and sold a game.
I took a break of coding for nearly one year. Doing only support for my marketplace assets. I played a lot. Probably too much! I’m now back at coding for fun, doing smaller projects. I’ll see what’s coming next…
Some random and humble hobbyist advices: (That represents my own opinion)
-If you want to live of game making, take it like a business.
-Innovation of a Genre and Theme are risky. If you want to make money, target popular genres and themes. You can’t change the fact that FPS, MMO and RPG are far way most popular than Puzzle Platformers. You want to do a retro prehistoric simulator? You better add some zombies, crime elements and a survival kit otherwise you’ll lose a lot of potential players. (You can argue a lot on this point!)
-As an indie developer, you must put passion in your project. If you don’t…just quit!
-The most powerful weapon you have to sell a game, as an indiedev, is to build a better game. A player who had fun with your game must spread the word as fast as a terrible virus. Players must have so much fun they instantly share it with their friends. Build a better game, crank it and pimp it. First impression must be jaw dropping! Not a “Wait, you’ll see…” Or “Wait until the third level…” No! Instant wow. The first minute is all.
-Art is not your thing? Investing a couple of hours each month on art is a very good habit. Having a basic knowledge. Matching colors, resizing, drawing basic tiles, etc…
-Social media. Choose 1 or 2 and use it well. With popular hashtag like: #screenshotsaturday, #madewithgamemaker, #indiedev, #gamedev, etc...
-Don’t underestimate marketing. As a hobbyist, I would never ever put more than an hour in marketing. And that hour would be to find someone that his job is marketing. (Or a publisher)
-Final thing: Publishers. I tried to reach 5 of them. Space Ashes was rejected by all. (I thought I had a chance with Yoyogames but nope…) I had the same answer from 4 of them: “We are not interested in your game. Good luck with it and please keep us informed if you do another one.”
GOG gave me the best answer (seriously):
I'm sorry for late reply.
Thanks a lot for your submission and your interest in GOG.
We’ve taken a look at Space Ashes, it looks like a physics-based sidescroller, with fun mechanics and simple, yet eye-catching graphics.
Unfortunately, however, we feel that the game would not be a good fit for GOG, as we think that it appears to be too niche and a bit too small in scale in terms of production value for our users, which means that we aren’t confident in its release potential on our site.
For these reasons I’m afraid we will have to pass on Space Ashes.
If you have any other games in the future that might be a better fit for GOG, please let us know, and hopefully we’ll be able to work together.
Thanks a lot for your submission and your interest in GOG.
We’ve taken a look at Space Ashes, it looks like a physics-based sidescroller, with fun mechanics and simple, yet eye-catching graphics.
Unfortunately, however, we feel that the game would not be a good fit for GOG, as we think that it appears to be too niche and a bit too small in scale in terms of production value for our users, which means that we aren’t confident in its release potential on our site.
For these reasons I’m afraid we will have to pass on Space Ashes.
If you have any other games in the future that might be a better fit for GOG, please let us know, and hopefully we’ll be able to work together.
That was my experience. Good luck with your projects.
...
...oh! By the way:
