Bootstrap or Finding a Publisher for Indie Game?

if you can bootstrap it and support yourselves through the development of your first title um that helps massively because um you have 100% of that income from game sales coming in um you you are in a place to negotiate deals and a much better understanding of what it is you want to do when when you're if you're making your first project and you're not familiar with publishing agreement and just understanding how much uh makes sense to give away they can be really tough um decisions to make because you have no context you have no track record that that's a incredibly tough thing the only thing I can recommend is getting definitely getting some legal support uh we did not do that for first couple of games and uh there's lawyers out there that will help developers especially if they know they're bootstrapping they'll do some work for free up front uh I know that's the case

in the UK game Space so hopefully that's uh the case in some other countries but making sure you have um some legal suppor in your network I think is a useful thing but yeah if you can bootstrap uh I would definitely take that approach um it's tough it really helps you focus The Vision on what it is you want to create it's a a sense of achievement when you get it out the door um but the converse to that point is that I have seen teams um first of all the lean model of um developing teams as a startup is the same is applicable even when you're 12 years later and you're working on your teams like we we we have maintained a lean team like I said we're still 16 after 12 years so uh hiring for the specific skill sets that you need maybe not trying to create a team just

as friends because friends are there if you have multiple of roles on a small team uh that can lead to issues but I think the larger thing that I see smaller teams doing is sometimes trying to create a small version of a thing that they know they can ship which they may not be necessarily passionate about um but they know is achievable within the time and and the money available which is still an achievement but more often what you see is that the game comes out and it doesn't really have an impact because it wasn't necessarily either unique concept or it's pushed something forward it's just you know in quotations of product that they shipped um and if that falls flat it can be demoralizing it's tough for Publishers to buy in on their next title because the track record wasn't super strong and all these things can be a factor so either I guess from my perspective

taking one or two routes either Brute Force through it make the title that you really want to make and you'll have overs scoped it and underestimate at the time and it'll be brutal and it'll be tough to get out but it'll you'll release and it'll be something you're proud of making sure that you are doing all the non-game development sided things which no doubt you've had a hundred conversations on this podcast about make sure you Market making sure you're reaching out to press just you got to do the business side of that as well as just making a great video game so either you you take that approach or you do get early investment and you take some of the risk off the table you make sure you budget for what you expect especially for your first game I'd probably then double that and that's what your publishing budget would be um and then at least you have security and you still try and make something that you're super proud of if you can get it critically uh well received that really helps for your next publishing deal but essentially it's just okay we've got one game in mind okay now we shipped one

game now let's move on to the next game and for at least for us we never built um a studio that I fora a trajectory of 12 years I mean I mean it was never not that but it was always let's just make a game let's make the best game we can and then after that it's like okay what do we do next and it was always just that one foot in front of the other type mentality so yeah but it it's tough and I know that it's tough and it's more likely even tougher than it was in 2012 because there was that wave of Indie Games coming out as you said we we got the um the push of steam green light early on in those days where developers were now allowed on Steam and you could um you had an audience there that was interested in looking for these smaller games uh epic was doing a lot to support uh smaller teams especially in the early days going from udk to u4 um Sony was a big um a big kind of back of I think it was

like uh we love devs or something like that it was some kind of Indy focused push from Steam um from Sony sorry um again around that 2014 time so um yeah you kind of it was easier to get caught up in that Rush um so I appreciate the toughness right now of where the current industry is at but um like we said before Publishers are still making games but Publishers are still signing games for me I feel like it's almost easier to sign the sub 500k game so I don't know call it $700,000 or something like sub $700,000 or you know five million plus dollar games that middle that middle area which is actually where we land is a tough Market to be in um but um yeah it it's definitely a great thing

if small teams can create a little stop up and make a game that they're super proud of the I think the constant worry uh at least for firsttime developers that are looking or seeking funding is that obviously losing control um being rushed right I mean it is a creative process and especially for that first game it's hard to kind of estimate how long it takes to find the soul of the game right and as much a lot of the failures of these startups is that they accept money and you know that's the goal is like get the money we're good right but then obviously they a lot of them don't ship a lot of them fail or they uh it's a it's a it's a countdown clock and everything feels rushed Everything feels incomplete and people are crunching putting the heart in Soul uh and just crash and burn right so that that I would love to kind of hear you

kind of speak on those fears it's like well you know what the advantages that you kind of laid out it gives you security you know it gives you sometimes guaranteed time to keep the team together to kind of push this goal it forces you to budget it forces you to be more concise on your game design right uh as concise as you can be uh but how what would you say to these developers that haven't been through this process process of funding just thinking that anybody that are funding are evil which just can't be true right um what do you say to these guys with with these type of U fears so are you framing that in terms of how you should um Pitch your project to potential Publishers are you um asking how you kind of come how you

understand how to budget and scope your game before you've got investment like what what what kind of direction would you like to take that in um either or I I think you know at the Baseline is I have this idea I got this team but I've never been do this funding I just have this like General vague feeling about anybody that wants a piece of the game wants a piece of the company or more than more so about themselves than you obviously that's for obvious reasons right and uh we just hear so many games you know just crashing and burning before actually finding its footing and its Soul right which hopefully it can be done within six months or one year of pre-production but you know with games it's such a Enigma to it's kind of foolish to kind of feel that way sometimes um

it being such a creative Venture right yeah okay yeah so I think a few things on that is that um definitely expanding your network because there's a lot of really smart game developers that have written very Artic uh articles and and and posts on LinkedIn things like this like I only just came across ramy's blog uh I forget the URL I'm not sure if you know it but um definitely post that to your audience uh he writes about a lot of just um best practices when pitching um noticed he has templates um on how to budget your game um and know just a lot of really um strong advice uh especially for new teams uh When approaching those publisher conversations to decide about the creativity as aspect and and just

understand understanding the vision of the game I would definitely hold off publisher conversations especially if you've not a team with a proven track record until you know that vision of the game and that can take a while um it can take some prototyping ether one started off as um well not ether one ether one became ether one because we had to cut the game in a third and ether one there was still an ether 2 and E and we never went back to that so we already knew we we had to scope the game down by a third and that that's blatant in the name there um but it was also you know a Sci-Fi third person more platformy uh puzzle game uh we brought it into first person we kind of Ethan one still had some sci-fi elements but then we introduced some more narrative themes of um dementia with Louis bodies and then we also had themes of um one of

the family members having alcoholism and we had these strong themes in there that were wrestling with each other and it was only Midway through development where we realized okay we need to strip this uh alcoholism theme out not because it's not important but we need to be speaking about dementia with Lou bodies because that's that's the heart of the game and we wouldn't have known that going into publisher conversations we wouldn't have known that the scope was off and I feel like even if you you're able to spend you know nine months just trying to prototype start development and just have a strong vision for the game uh before you start speaking to Publishers I think that will be beneficial to you as long as you can articulate what you believe the game is it may shift and change after those publisher conversations but at least open the publisher conversations with a clear idea of what what you believe the game is right now um and you may get feedback and they may not understand certain acts and story or certain core

Loops that you're trying to design or any of these things and that's just good feedback a publisher know is still feedback in terms of they may be not yet I mean it's generally never a hard no unless it's just not a a portfolio fit or it's just the types of budgets you're looking for are way too small or too big conversely for them so generally it's just a not yet type of thing so don't get disheartened by drawing out publisher discussions again going back to the point where they may just keep you waiting for a few months um just to see see what's out there and it may it's never a yes until that contract is signed um and I know a few people have said that um so I'm probably stealing multiple sources there but until you have that publisher agreement uh signed and there's a contract that publisher is not saying yes