How He Made $3,000,000 From His Indie Game — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 020

all right Mr Julian thanks for joining me on the podcast um how you doing man good good thanks for having me excited to uh to chat about stuff yeah I'm I'm really really excited to hear man you've had you've had a heart attack from Game Dev like literally which dude don't I don't want to sound unsympathetic because it sounds horrible but it's it's very it's very interesting I want to hear what happened there um it sounds like you had a rough go of it um and I also want to hear all about your YouTube channel and lens Island which you're working on links in the description by the way for those of you listening if you want to check out lens Island and wish list it um but anyway tell us a little bit about yourself and and sort of what you do sure um so yeah I'm Julian uh I'm a game developer I own the studio flow Studio we make a game called lens Island I actually started off in YouTube similar scene to I guess you Thomas sort of did um graphic design art tutorials and then did a uh a

bachelor's degree in our game design sort of fell in love with it but then um when like the marketing and business world for a little while and then it just annoyed me that I wasn't making games I felt like it was the thing I was the best at in life and I wasn't really doing it uh so then I saved up all my money for like a year quit my job and um and then basically made the biggest most complex widest scope game I could possibly think of because that was was the only thing that could get me attached enough to the idea to fully commit I couldn't make a small scope game I had to make a big one and then um and then yeah and then everything is sort of like just been a wild ride since that point so then sort of went on my own uh developed the game initially by myself then brought on a programmer took us around 2 to 3 years to then bring it to Early Access and then released lens Island promoted it through the YouTube channel did Dev vogs showed a lot of the development in the early stages and then pretty much after we released into Early

Access that's when I really realized that I made a game so big that we can't keep making it with two people um and uh I guess yeah I brushed over the part that Pride I guess like 6 months before release um yeah Health took a really big hit the grind The Game Dev grind and then yeah the crunch really took a toll on me um to the point where it's just like yeah like my life was at risk and went through all of aals and um yeah and then grew a studio released the game grew to around a dozen people expanded development um and yeah now we got our 1.0 release coming up in December um well hopefully we hit December it's been a very very big effort and I've sort of just been underground with the rest of the team for the past couple years just making this like gigantic game that we set out to make and um we're finally almost done it's been around like seven years 7 and a half years in development so far so

yeah it's like honestly getting pretty close to sort of closing this chapter and moving on to the next one but I guess that is the the story yeah that's that's the that basically gives everybody an outline of what we're going to talk about today I'm going to try and break down all of that because there's so much there and honestly when you talk about the grind and it I don't know if it led to a heart attack um maybe it was a contributing factor um I I am fully sympathetic of you Julian like so much like this I'm getting emotional honestly right now thinking about how difficult this summer has been for me and and my team um the game industry is is difficult right now at least from my perspective I don't know how you perceive it but it's been um just you know it's a it's a riskier business than it used to be for indie games and

so the first thing I wanted to ask you about was we we we'll get into the the grind and and the health scare that you had um but let's let's start at first off I want to know how did you fund flow Studio because a lot of people listening right now are thinking how can I go full-time and how can I make an indie game fulltime um so do you mind if I ask where the money came from and how you're how you're funding a team I mean my goodness that's very expensive you know yeah I'm pretty transparent so any questions you got I'll answer okay yeah let's do it um but yeah so I guess there's multiple stages uh in the sort of the funding and the journey and some of those stages are sort of quite unique to my position or just like a YouTuber's position but I guess becoming less unique nowadays um so yeah initially I had a YouTube channel that was relatively successful I think completely prior to Game Dev and lens Island I had I don't know a couple hundred thousand subscribers and it sort of made me like a equ on a salary is like a low-end sort

of salary maybe like 40 Grand a year or something so when I quit my job like that helped support me a little bit and then we um we launched a Kickstarter for like the very first iteration of like Early Access lens Island um we raised around $60,000 so that money basically got us to so from like me quitting my job to launching Early Access and it took around like a year and a half 2 years um that's what sort of filled in that void and then like the launch was like successful like um I think we sold I'm probably going to misquote the numbers now uh we sold like 30,000 copies in the first week or something like that and like that's like a good amount of money um and then at at this stage now we've sold like 200,000 copies um so like you know I think it's like $3 million gross so like that spread over you know x amount of years of like three or 4 years is what keeps the studio alive um but I quite literally did grow from just sort of like the money in my

account was just paying rent and food and that's that was like the running costs of the business to one stage like we burning like 100 Grand a month you know and that was a running cost of the business so I've sort of gone through the whole pipeline oh my um but just honestly just having a successful game is what is what is like the main thing that has funded the whole thing like the initial creation was just my savings my YouTube and then it kickstarted to get it over the line and then since then it's just selling the game and trying to keep it growing and um making sure there's just enough left in the tank to get to 1.0 wow that's um it's a big gamble dude like it's a lot of it's I mean I'm sure you're saving money and and I don't know maybe you are uh or maybe you're not saving money but it seems like a big gamble to just spend that much money uh on a game for 5 years you know do you feel like it was a big gamble by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an game as a full-time job I

have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time Indie and thanks for watching um no like for me it's just well like in the lens of someone outside of my shoes it probably is a big gamble um but for me it is just like inevitable which just like it's it's just like the necessity of the situation it's like I want to make a big game I'm inexperienced and I don't have a big game Studio behind me that's made several games before therefore there's literally only one way to go ahead it's like um you know if if I want to do it this way and self-publish and not have any external funding it is just put everything into that game um which just means like we've got raise within margins I you know my savings are just the game the business's savings account you know if there's

um any money that needs to come from somewhere that sales don't cover it's always my personal money and um and my like my sort of saving up for a house longevity all of those sort of personal um financial decisions just don't really exist to me right now all that exists is like pushing the vehicle of the business of the game forward because all that stuff could just come as like a as just like an inevitable outcome if the game if the sort of game Studio reaches the point that I want it to reach um but I can't like can't sort of play it safe keep a really small team you keep a bunch of the money myself as well as sort of be successful and launch a game quickly and do I sort of kind of my cake and eat it too so for me it's not really risky I'm fine with it it's what I signed up for it's fine yeah so when you did you mention YouTube as a source of income for you prior to Early Access yeah yeah okay how are you

making money from YouTube if I'm if you don't mind me asking it's like AdSense and sponsorships like I literally you know I sponsor shed you like you sponsored me to a couple videos right yeah I did yeah but uh yeah really just that and then I also like I worked as a graphic designer prior to YouTube um but then I also sold like graphic design packs and like some other stuff like that yeah but mainly just like AdSense and sponsorships mhm sweet that's great so people listening right now if you want to start a YouTube Channel That's focused on your game per Julian's history you can sell assets you can also do sponsorship gigs and for me in my experience it's like 200 bucks to like three grand depending on what you do um for a video that gets like 10,000 views which that's a pretty good it's a pretty good rate for me I used to do it and and then I eventually just started sponsoring myself like you said with with uh resources you know selling resources and stuff um great okay so that's how you're funded the

next big question I have that I'm so excited to ask tell me about Early Access first off I want to know what kind of game per year experience is good for Early Access oh I don't know I don't think it's a I think that's really like subjective like a good game that's good for Early Access is just whatever the game that is that you want to make um because you have tiny Scopes games in Early Access and then they can grow in scope or grow in Polish and still be successful you have really really large scoped games that start off as like a a small vertical slice or small fragment of that finalized vision and then you use Early Access to actually just get to that end point of what is the fully realized game I guess that's a bit more like what lens island is um the game has grown exponentially throughout Early Access like the the game we launched in Early Access is literally like less than 10% of the game that it is now and it is launching in 1.0 it is like like magnitudes above like as far as

development time systems like the technical ability to get it to that point so like I don't I think it can work for anyone I I think really the most important thing is just like uh having a game that you treat with care and that you're passionate about and you take it seriously I think Early Access is just if you take it seriously and really do it right it's amazing um but if you don't take it seriously and you just take it as like a a soft launch and then if people don't like your game initially then you just run away um then that's that that's not what Early Access is for so from the moment we hit that launch button I felt very much tied to the project that the project is not complete the job is not done until we get it to exactly the vision which it was sort of projected forward at that point um which we very very close to now so yeah so that I'm a little confused there because I've talked to other developers who say that early access is only good for games that are like created or you know crafting and your game is is

that right it's very um the player has a lot of control over it's not a linear game I'll say that right yeah um whereas the game I'm making is a linear firstperson shooter that throws back to like half like halflife and Bioshock do you agree with me that that's not necessarily a good game to launch on uh Early Access I think on the like on the surface most people would think not but I definitely think it could still work like it all depends on how early access is structured for example you have like a really really tight sort of game Loop really fun core gameplay let's say you've got one or let's say you got three awesome levels s of three hours of gameplay and then thir Early Access every couple months you release a new level it's a new hour of gameplay and you just sort of you you make a linear sort of um story driven game or whatever it is that typically people don't think has the replayability ne Neary for like Early Access but you could just develop

it over a timeline in bite-sized pieces and almost act like Early Access updates are like free DLC um and it might not be like the perfect way to digest the story but it's early access right like the whole point of Early Access is that like you don't have a finished game and you're trying to release the game anyway like it is the whole point is that it is not the most optimal development pipeline therefore you're trying to release into Early Access to make something that otherwise would not be possible possible so like in my sort of standpoint um pretty much any game can fit into that formula if it is a difference between that game existing or not like then it should definitely be an early access if um if it would sort of compromise the game or if it was never made to begin with it's better off entering Early Access so this the reason I keep asking so many questions about Early Access is it's something that's just it's foreign to me because I I've never touched it you know when it comes to making money for me it's like you know doing deals or getting funding from Publishers or doing a Kickstarter or

crowdfunding campaign would you consider Early Access like similar to a Kickstarter where you're kind of like it's like an extended Kickstarter campaign where people are just funding the game by buying it and then they're also offering their feedback in the community section of steam is that kind of what your thought process is there yeah like it's similar it is just much higher risk because like you have um like instant feedback like they have access to the product straight away like with Kickstarter you can sell a vision and and and it is relatively low risk it's like you can just do a really good job at selling something and there's literally no delivery at that point when the money exchanges um but with Early Access it is just like yeah the entire like a Kickstarter page or whatever crowdfunding sort of service you use it's like you curate that page you can say whatever you want a steam page is curated but then it's like you have reviews of the game you have you know reviews on YouTube like you have this whole plethora of people and their

opinion on the game that also colors like your entire perception of it so if it sucks and you don't meet that Vision like you're just not going to get that money like that just boom just never existed you don't get that sale but you can you know explain a vision and sell it really well on a Kickstarter campaign and then you will get the money even if you don't deliver later you will still get the money to some extent so there is just like it's a lot more brutal Early Access however if you treat it seriously if you do deliver then the ceiling is much higher you can make a lot more money you can be a lot more successful um it is just like a very brutal one:1 ratio as far as exactly what you put in is exactly what you sort of get out um yeah yeah okay what what what kind of well first off are there any other negatives associated with Early Access that you can quickly think of like what are the what are the risks um you mentioned a few just now but can you think of any others like

negative reviews for example it's like I I see you have reviews now uh do those reviews count as much as a normal review of a of a 1.0 launch uh like honestly I don't think it's like inherent negatives like the negatives just sort of amplify the negatives built into what you're doing like if you have a game and you have a trash update and it sucks uh guess what you'll get bad reviews but if it's a fully released game you'll also get bad reviews but if it's early access maybe you'll get even more um people tend to be a little bit like raw with their feedback even though it's sort of counter to what um you would sort of think people would sort of usually like think oh yeah we'll give the Early Access game a little bit more sort of padding um would be a little bit nice usually the people are pretty brutal they don't change up their opinions based on the fact if it's early access or not but like I don't think it's like inherently different I just think like if you have a game and it has flaws those flaws will be like exposed no matter how you sell your game um if

anything it's it's a really good thing for those flaws to be exposed before development's finished you release An Early Access you find a big problem get a bunch of feedback fix the problem and then a couple years later you release the game and that problem does not exist in the final product But If You released if you sort of worked on it completely internally and then released at a later stage you might ship the final game with that same problem that people gave feedback on before so it's just like when yeah so Julian when you launch FLIR uh when you when you launch um uh lens Island uh you're doing the 1.0 launch in December right yeah okay when you launch it do all those Early Access reviews get wiped clean do they count no they they'll count yeah okay so that to me yeah that to me is the risk uh if if you if you launch something that sucks but you know it's not going to suck when you launch 1.0 um the negative side is if you're getting like mixed reviews it's going to

be potentially hard to combat those when you launch because you're going to have a game that already has mixed reviews even though 1.0 might be amazing you're stuck with those mixed reviews right well I think it's all based on like ratio is right I think the only time that that's really going to matter where you're stuck with a bunch of negative reviews and that basically forever ruins your ratio and you have a hard time coming back from that is if you're Amazon and you have unlimited marketing budget and you throw millions and millions of eyeballs at a game which is bad and then it's really hard to come back from so such a last vast sort of amount of players um saying that your game is bad but if you're like an indie Dev and like 10,000 50,000 whatever amount of people play your game and they're like H like it could be better maybe it's mixed may maybe it's mostly positive or whatever maybe it's overwhelmingly negative like you can absolutely come back from that because like the whole idea is that like 1.0 is supposed to be more successful like magnitude more successful your Early Access so like the majority

of your players should come from 1.0 and afterwards and then that should basically even out all the reviews and then you know if if you get 10,000 bad reviews um what does that matter if over a few years you make the game amazing and then at 1.0 you get a million amazing reviews it's just like a drop in the pond so I think like the ratios unless you are have a very very big following and like a lot of hype like unless you're like that what was it that like the day before game um yep yep like unless you're that sort of like level of success like I think you can always come back from it gotcha so yeah what I'm hearing there is there's also potential risk which is your demo or your whatever the first thing you launch on Early Access is amazing and it creates so much hype that suddenly you're you're kind of at a loss because you can't quite fulfill that hype with a full game do you know what I mean yeah it's sort of a great problem to

have though like selling too many copies at your Early Access launch like I think every developer would love to have that problem I like valheim I guess would be a perfect example of that like it launched Early Access and like just the the first iteration of the game got tremendous success and now they've kept developing the game for several years I think they're planning a 1.0 next year and like it's probably already sold 90% of all the copies it will ever sell in its entire lifetime like it's reached the pool of players it did its job I'm sure the game is you know a lot better than it was before um it's like they got the success like it was done and like I don't think we ever would have been that successful if it sucked so it's sort of like if you sell a bunch of copies usually your game's pretty good in some sort of way um or you just had a killer marketing campaign which I don't think it's sort of just like it's nothing to worry about in my mind in that sense but you also get two releases like if you get an early access release you Lally just have two releases like the the 1.0

release on Steam um from an early access game it's not it's not any different than a normal 1.0 release like I've I've asked the steam reps myself in person and I said like is there any technical differences like surely if an early access gets an early access launch and then they launch into 1.0 like do they just simply get two launches like obviously there's some subtle differences in um being in like the new and trending and sort of featured sections but as as terms of like the actual exposure and Impressions and how steam promotes your game across the steam store it's exactly identical to a game just releasing straight into 1.0 with no Early Access so you really do have two chances like two 100% shots at at sort of being successful which again is another big thing yeah okay so what about wish lists does Early Access help wish lists yeah yeah like absolutely can be like it it's sort of like the better your game is um and the bigger the promise at the end the more wish lists

like we launched lens island with 200,000 wish lists I think now we have around 400,000 so basically just like well we doubled our wish list so um that's sort of the straightforward impact that early access had for us it's like we basically now get to recreate our launch all over again but just with like double the amount of bullets loaded in the gun ready to go um and now the game is like 10 times the game that it was so if it's done properly if you really treat it seriously uh it can just be like the perfect launch pad for a game that would be otherwise impossible to make um but with the cave art like you really do have to do it properly it's it's a lot of work a lot of effort it's a tight rope but it's definitely uh definitely possible and definitely can lead to some like really good outcomes so one of the ways that uh is common right now to get wish list is to launch a demo during next Fest right yeah um there's next vest coming up in October and I think

there's another one in February I believe and so um the strategy is launch at the launch a demo at the next vest that is prior to your 1.0 launch uh and it hopefully brings in hundreds of thousands of wish lists if you've got a good demo right um have you launched a demo are you planning to launch a demo or is Early Access does it sort of kill that for you um yes so we pretty much did that exact same formula so we yeah we launched with a nextfest demo um and uh we're like sort of like the the third most downloaded demo of that nextfest so we're pretty high up on the list and we stayed there for the whole next Fest um and that's what got me from like 10,000 wish lists to 200,000 really um I think like the first day of the next Fest we got was like 25,000 wish lists in a day and for me like that was the that was still the biggest moment of sort of like satisfaction and success I've felt since during the entire game even like through the Early Access launch and everything

like that moment was like when I officially went from just some little kid being like oh maybe I'll make this game maybe it'll be successful I don't know like a few thousand people might buy it like oh [ __ ] like this is a game like like people are going to buy this and I've really got a shot here at like big success and um that was huge for us but uh but yeah we just we did that exact same formula we sort of did it like before it was cool when like the nextfest was still in its first sort of iteration um so it was a lot less competitive and a little bit different sort of three or four years ago I think it was like four years ago or something the next vest we did maybe longer um it's a little a bit of a different Beast now like it's a lot more competitive uh but at the same time like the good games rise to the top whether you have a big marketing budget for nextfest or not um but I guess I got lucky I also could use my YouTube channel to just like throw a bunch of eyeballs at our demo straight away so harnessing like yes like the fan base from YouTube for the next fests

definitely helped cuz I could sort of Hit the launch button on the demo and then like the first minute that nextfest opened um I was like live streaming the game and I was like everybody it's free to download and then I just got like a couple thousand like installs like instantly and that got us towards the list and then it sort of snowballs from there so I love that yeah so okay so this is so great the reason I do this podcast the secret reason is so that I get free consultation from Geniuses so thank you thank you very much this is helpful um uh I'm being a little tongue and- cheek there but the thing is is that I want to know why you so what I've been told by Publishers and also friends is to launch at the next bestest prior to your 1.0 launch now I've got one buddy who he's he's killing it he's got like 200,000 plus wish list um however he launched at the nextfest he just launched it one of the next

fests and he didn't really think about when he was going to do a 1.0 launch and so it might be a year or two from now before he even launches which is counter to the strategy I've heard which is hit the next Fest prior to your 1.0 launch so as close as you can do you think there's Credence to that uh that piece of advice yeah like with anything like striking while the iron iron is hot um definitely amplifies like the actual conversion so it's like you know if you convert people a week or a month after they wish list a game there will be more conversions than a year 2 years um so that is like the one caveat with Early Access is like the pool of wish lists that you have if it is a long Early Access phase I would consider our one relatively long or medium would be an LA access for it basically be like exactly 3 years um so those 400,000 wish lists at face value may not be as well converting as like 200,000 wish lists gained over a nextfest that could

convert like a couple months later um but like the difference is not so big that you you don't wait like it's it's a way to amplify what you have but also the same game at the same like having a good game is a way to amplify what you have just having a good marketing strategy like there's a million other things you can do having the right you know sort of price to launch with like there's so many things that get people through the door as far as converting um that I I would say like a lot more important than just simply like someone that may have like slightly is forgotten about your game like if they're interested at at one point they're probably still interested yeah um but there's things like you know localizing your store Page in multiple languages and like maybe having like steam deck support or console support like well controller support other stuff like that um they can get you a lot more players um and can convert a lot more than just simply trying to adhere to some sort of rule of time frames yeah um so it's like

I wouldn't use it as a hard and fast rule but like it definitely affects it to a degree yeah that makes sense okay so if you had to pick one would you pick 400,000 wish lists over the course of three years or two years or whatever you said or would you pick 200,000 wish lists uh two months before launch which one would you pick well like it I guess it depends so like the absolute version of that question in which the the rest of the game doesn't exist um I'd prob I'd maybe pick 200,000 but at the same at the same sense um practically 400,000 means that you have developed the game for longer which means the game is probably like more ready to Market like you've actually developed it a longside a player base and it's had more time to mature it's probably a better game um and then in that case just having a better game is I would pick above any other metric like I don't care about what the marketing metric is I would rather have a killer perfect game with zero wish lists then have an okay

average game with half a million wish lists um I just don't care about wish lists and that is like every other developer that I've talked to with games a lot more successful than mine um everyone agrees it's pretty unanimous it's just like the game is the thing that matters like all the marketing is generally a multiplier it's like if you have success if you are going to sell a th000 copies you do some killer marketing like maybe that can do it a times two on your copies or whatever yeah um but you have a killer game like that adds to the the pool of copies before the multiplier so if you got like a really really amazing game maybe you can sell 100,000 copies on its own and then with some killer marketing you do a time two and guess what like that time two marketing just made you 100,000 copies extra rather than 1,000 copies extra so they both need to do be like be done in tandem with each other however like I don't get too caught up in the numbers um I use like wish list and everything it's more of like indication as far as like the trends and like how

people are sort of responding to and liking the game in its current state I see it less as um as some sort of absolute value that like predicts the success um accurately it's more about like the game itself I think is the best indicator of future success brilliant so right now do you agree first question is do you agree that the indie game industry is struggling right now I would say no I don't agree okay see uh Gavin who made chooo Charles um he agree he agrees with you um he he's he's said as much as well that it's like it's not struggling what's struggling is Publishers in Triple A um I agree so do you agree next question is then do you agree that a good game can get buried and not see the not see uh any eyes on it on Steam just

because they didn't Market it well or is it do you think no if it's a if it truly is a good game it's just going to rise to the top I think like it really depends on the definition of good I think there's a lot of able a and AAA games that are making good games and good as a definition of like solid games like technically if you look at a whiteboard and you look at the feature lists you're like yep it's it's got the bones there like it's got everything it needs to be a good game but then a lot of them are quite uninspired not necessarily groundbreaking they don't have unique hooks like they don't actually have some sort of like value proposition outside of the fact of like this is a solid gameplay experience it's like people don't want solid gameplay experiences they want like good games like they want a game um that provides them something they haven't been provided with before so I think in general or like double A and AA are taking less and less risks um

and it's sort of like a self-perpetuating cycle where it's like because the industry for that sector has been a little bit more Cutthroat big studios are try trying to do like take less risks so they're making more like wed down mundan sort of just like solid games um and solid games like used to sort of cut it when there was 100 games launching every year but now there's like 30,000 games launching every year and um like that doesn't matter like your solid just standard run-of-the-mill game doesn't really uh like maybe before just due to the fact there was such little games it could have had a chance for sort of Medi mediocre success but now less so but I I just really think that like those games in general were never going to be truly successful they were almost just like filling a void in in um in like media consumption where it's like no I got nothing else to do I'll just play this average game I think like Indies um and just like you know

people just out in their own uh they don't have like 100 Master feed of like a big Studio they don't have necessarily like shareholders and like this whole structure imposing all of this like Risk so they they take more risk and they they choose more unique Visions um they sort of like break the boundaries a little bit and create just more get like games with hooks like Indies are just better at creating games of stronger stronger hooks across the board um because they're low risk exactly and it's like they don't even care about the risk it's like if you just like quit your job at McDonald's to like make a game it's like what's the risk to you like you go back to McDonald's so like you try anything you can to just like make the craziest most amazing game possible but like if you're heading up a large studio the risk of like a game failing is like I'm going to ruin like hundreds of lives like I am going to cost millions and millions and millions of dollars like it is just like exponentially greater the risk so like I think it's all about just like Risk in the industry and what larger Studios Define as risk um I just think like that

mentality is what is failing um it's more just like game design companies and game design culture and um game design is an art I would say like that is the mechanism that sort of is is bad and failing to a a degree at the moment in some studios and that's not really mechanism that exists inside of Indies for the most part so okay yeah yeah that's really encouraging seriously and I I've because I'm part of the publisher World cuz you know all of my games get published um I I see how the sausage is made and I I experience the corporate uh the corporate it's like a it's like a just a a mess of communication sometimes and then you've got like sea level people and you've got shareholders who want changes in the game on the Indie side right so all of that corporate nonsense funnels down to the Indies that they're publishing M and suddenly you you're in a situation

where you've got a watered down vision of an indie game which is like the worst possible thing yeah because an indie game's not going to make $100 million most likely or 50 million you know and so you've got this game where it's watered down and so it's not going to compete it's not going to be able to compete with the other indie games that are not watered down because those those games were willing or or able to take risk because they didn't have the corporate structure right so what I've discovered this year is that getting a publisher is a great thing if you need the money but right now in particular getting a publisher means that you might you're probably going to get uh bogged down with corporate nonsense that will then water down your vision thus in creating more risk for your games launch does that make sense yeah yeah I totally agree

yeah like um Co Publishers are like that glue between the AAAA and the Indie scene like they that that sort of like tear in the middle and sometimes it can really leak down and defect um and that just like all depends on the publisher right or like sometimes not even publisher sometimes it might even just be um there's also marketing firms that do sort of royalty based stuff and then you also just get investors and and stuff more like traditional business sort of model but either way it's like when there's a larger business imposing their uh risk assessments onto an indie then it's like boom like you you're like yeah you're being sort of controlled um by that sort of scene and by those decisions and it absolutely will affect the Indie um and that just comes down to like yeah like Publishers are like a tight rope I've always really um steered away from Publishers however um there are amazing Publishers out there like have a lot of friends uh that have worker Publishers and you know

the right ones like they have nothing but amazing things to say about them um but there's also a lot of hor horror stories right so there are there are yeah yeah and you know for me I've found that some of the maybe I'm trying to think here two two really crucial things it might just be one but two really crucial things here about picking a publisher is number one if the publisher is a big time publisher that could be a huge red flag because the big time Publishers are funded by these Huger companies like much bigger companies and so again that corporate structure funnels down into your project and it becomes a freaking nightmare um that's one side of it the second side is or second point I'd like to say is that just because a Publishers offering you a million dollar in funding that act like I would rather get offered $100,000 in funding at a really low royalty fee

because as opposed to a million dollars at a higher like a 50-50 split and the reason why is because with $100,000 you're you're not really going to be controlled that much because it's low risk for the publisher that's that's pennies to a publisher but the moment you go up to like a million bucks in funding or maybe a half a million dollars in funding suddenly that publisher is going to be much much more involved in your project and so all those beautiful hooks that you've got all those idiosyncrasies that make your game strange and unique they might be offensive to a publisher uh or not offensive but it might scare the publisher right because they're investing all this money so my my sort of advice to people listening now if they do want to get a publisher and based on what you've said as well is that steer clear uh or or be be very um Vigilant about Publishers who are throwing around big lump sums of cash because you're going to become kind

of their slave and you don't want that not with an indie title you know yeah yeah I totally agree I think like Publishers in general they they feel like the Delta between what is possible for you to make on your own and then what is the ceiling of your potential success with that thing that you could potentially make so it's like if if for example like when I had started making lens Island and got traction by myself had a few hundred, wish lists the game was fun and I was like I think I have the potential to finish this game um I had an idea of what our future success could be like I could sort of extrapolate where I was now to like okay the the future version of lens Island released could sell half a million copies like it could it could do like really well in certain ways um and like that's what I'm playing with right now like my decision making isn't this game that hasn't being built yet that's earned 0 my decision- making is

around like a game and an IP that's worth millions and millions of dollars because like the future version of the released product is what actually matters here so um and then it's like can I get to that by myself and then if I can't get to it if I could get to like 50% of that Vision by myself then what does that future projection like sort of look like am I okay with that if I'm not okay with it would it be better to get a publisher to get to that top projection but then after minus what the publisher is going to take and it's sort just like what what do you think like your potential for success is on as an individual or as a team versus like the potential success and if you're like it's sort of like a sliding scale right um and like sometimes if you're lucky if you have a Kickstarter if you have sort of like alternate sort of income streams um you can go a lot further like completely on your own without a publisher so you can just like yeah that that Delta is a lot smaller um but if you're trying to make a really big game with a big team and you have nothing to back you then it's like yeah you basically don't ow that game you know like you're you're you're giving a

development team and an idea to a publisher and you're getting a little bit of a little cut out of that dream game cuz guess what like you don't have a game studio built that has the money to back this so like that's just not how the real world Works um so it's all about like the assessment on that Delta is like the big thing cuz yeah like I was approached by a lot of big publish Publishers you know like I like 505 games like like ones that were like oh [ __ ] like these make some of the biggest games in the world that like I've played and um and now they want to like own my game or publish it but um you just got to like take those Rose Colored Glasses off it's like the decision you're making that like it doesn't matter like you don't base it off what your current state is you base it on what the future state of the successful released product is like that's what you base your decision making on so well you know to sort of wrap up this and then I want to get into to the the heart attack you had um you know I I I think about how so many

game developers right now um they might be a fearful they might have a fearful predisposition like they're just like for me personally um I'll admit that my most of my life I've been someone who's very risk averse and I know that people listening probably don't believe that because I started my own game Studio but I've always I've always approached every decision with like well how do I have enough money in savings and how do I survive for the next 5 years if nothing comes of this game you know and so I'm always sort of storing up for like a hurricane or or a really bad season you seem to be somebody who's just really confident in what you're making and you're going to put everything into that and not worry about the future um is that true yeah like to a degree I think it describes me but like I definitely like I stress I'm very anxious like I'm a very organized like forward planning sort of person but at

the same time I am confident in my own ability and I do take risks one big thing I think is just like a practical difference though like I don't have a family I I think just having a family and having a kids is just like a fundamental difference in like being risk adverse and it's like and I think it quite literally is like if you have a studio and there's 20 people on your payroll or if you're one person with a family they're probably pretty comparable like you're probably in similar sort of mental situations as far as like the risk profile um because like yeah like I've been I've had the time we've been at points where I've had like I think 12 or 13 people on like the payroll for Flo studio and then yeah like I definitely had some like different sort of risk taking different decision making at that point um now we're seeting around like five people and it's a bit different um I do think family really matters and like the scale of theany matters however like I really really truly believe in just like I'm a

very motivated person and um the thing that motivates me the most is just like how far like the will of a person will get you like I just think it's like the biggest most important thing in life in general is just like willpower it's just like doing the thing that you're thinking about doing I think that's like the most special secret source to life and I have a lot of confidence in just willpower like I have a lot of confidence in um what someone can do if they actually do the thing that's in their mind like the thing they tell themsel that they want to do if you really put 100% into that thing like I think it is just extraordinary the results that can come from that and I think over my life I've somewhat proven that to myself that that is like a system that I can be confident in so I am confident in it um because for me it's just like the point of life is just to really do what I want to do so that to me is worth more than anything else and sometimes they're worth more than like putting my life at risk because

it's just like even if I run my body into the ground I'm fine with that because it's like for me this is everything like like the culmination of my life is exploring my passion and exploring my motivations and giving my life meaning through those ways um so therefore like I don't really care if I was if something negative was to happen to me like if if I was to die um because I was too motivated and too passionate working too hard then it's like okay I'm I'm okay with that like at the end of the day like that's just that that was me living my life the way that was was Through My Lens worth living so yeah sure you know and that's so funny you talk about family because for me I can't think that way you know it's like um I can't run my body into the ground because my children want to jump with me on the trampoline at 5:30 p.m. you know uh my wife needs me as well and so there I have three kids now and so you know the for me now I have to be like how

much can I work how how beautiful can I make this game how amazing can I make this game without it affecting my family yeah you know and there are seasons like right now I'm in a season and me and my wife we have to discuss this you know we sit down and we talk about okay you know this quarter is going to be rough I'm going to have to work late nights and I'm going to have to get up early and I'm going to be kind of uh uh stressed out even in the evenings and so we have to plan for that and budget emotionally for that whereas if people are listening right now and you're you're in your 20s or you maybe you don't want a family then sure you know go for it you know go nuts but let's talk about that you you did take that risk and your body took a toll can you give me the story there about what happened yeah I SL off by saying just like quickly adding on to what you said like um I do believe that is like a working hard or effectively is a skill and it's say like I don't do I don't

sort of run myself into the ground these days in the same way that I used to I have like my fitness and eating and everything is like a massive priority I'm like a much healthier different person that I used to be but I still work just as effectively because like I found ways to do it in a more sustainable way so for me it's all about like effectiveness of what I'm doing whereas when I was more of a novice it was all about hours it was just like I I I just keep throwing my body at the wall and and that was the way that I filled the Gap and skill right cuz like I was fresh out of University just started working on this project it's a first game I've ever made like I never made a game before lens Island that was released in any way and um and like clearly I was just like a no this game developer I had a huge gap of knowledge and the only way that I could feel that was like cool so I'm just going to work and and just sort of do nothing else like I'm just going to only work and just fill it up with hours and sort of like that whole like 10,000 hours to become a professional it's like cool let's speedrun those 10,000 hours and

just like smack them all out and at the same time make a game that's going to propel my life forward so the inevitable outcome of like really giving my all was that like yeah like over like a course of a couple years um all of like the body maintenance all of the mental maintenance just sort of degraded and degraded and degraded like I just like lost weight over me I'm naturally like a pretty athletic sort of skinny guy and um I just like lost more and more weight 12 was like the lightest I'd ever been by far in my life at one point I was like pale I was clearly not getting like basic vitamins I was like not eating good food I was eating junk food and eating just very little cuz I was trying to have as few meals as possible I was trying to just make everything in my life was like efficiency based on time it was like how can I maximize the amount of time that I'm at the computer I'm working U my relationship took a tall like my mental health took a allall like everything just like kept sliding downhill um and I sort of like was like I I understood that it was I was sort of

okay with it and it just was like necessary because like my mindset at the at the time that I was sort of in the early stages making lens Island it was like this is my future like nothing else exists for me I've always had the mentality where it's like if I have a if I have a really good idea late at night I would just like wake up go on my computer and stay up all night to do the idea cuz for me it's just like like like what's the the sort of the value proposition it's like okay so I'm like I'm tired the next day and the next day is like a little bit ruined but then I don't get some sort of action on this amazing idea versus like like it it's just I would much rather have this this idea come to life and I take some sort of like little negative um sort of like impact so then like that scaled up over years and years it's like all of these micro decisions where you just like your body and your mental health is just taking all these hits and it got to the point where it's like I really never really realized that um I think this is ultimately like the big mistake like I

just I really did not realize that uh mental health could cross over into physical health so so drastically like I just did not think that that was possible I was like I can meditate and willpower away my my sorrows and I'll be fine sort of thing and it just doesn't work like that combined with the fact that I was very physically unhealthy at the time yeah um it just sort of created a scenario where like my body was so adapted to stress and like high stress that like my heart my resling heart rate was just got higher and higher and higher I started getting so much like arhythmia and just like irregular heartbeats and just all of these symptoms of just um of just really high level chronic stress just became like normal life for me and I started to accept them um but yeah then it got to the point where it was basically uh yeah like one night I just had such like yeah real really really bad um sort of like arhythmia and my heart was sort of going all over the

place and this was a night I was trying to spend with friends I was like here's the one night to take my mind off things um a couple M months out from launch and I was like okay I've just been grinding I just I need some sort of quick little relief so had some friends over had a couple drinks and I think it was just like the the combination of just sort of like alcohol and just me being so unbelievably stressed and not really um not really doing anything about it clearly just like bottled up to a point um where like yeah like I just got like I've had sort of like high anxiety and I will get like a cute little panic attacks over my whole life over various things and they're fine it's like ah and then I'll get over it 30 seconds later I'm back to normal um but then this was a whole different Beast like this was like I sort of was just like in the toilet washing my hands and then I was just like oh like my vision's getting blurry and my heart's beating out of my chest and then it's got to the point where like my whole body just felt like it was just literally shutting down like

I was like felt my pulse and my heart was just um going I was like it was going so fast I was like okay my body cannot keep my heart beating this fast for very long before something really bad's going to happen wow and um yeah I started like losing my vision and I sort of like couldn't stand ight I was thinking like oh okay like maybe this is like a really bad panic attack like I don't know and then it's got to the point where my body body was just in so much discomfort and pain that I was like oh okay like this is actually like a next level like and I call my my now wife's St to like call an ambulance and then um yeah ambulance comes and then I'm sort of like in and out of Consciousness and for yeah they put me in the ambulance and then they do this thing called like the vola maneuver where it's like they sort of flip you onto your back and get you like blow as hard as you can into like this thing this stick and then they sort of quickly flip you forwards and it's basically like a to try to like reset your heart so like I had like a really bad like

cardiac arhythmia so I was like watching on like the heart rate machine that um it was like 200 plus and then it would just like dive to just like 20 beats a minute I just like go like this and just start to like pass out and then they would like flip me up and then my heart rate would like Spike back up to 200 and yeah it was sort of like around an hour or so of me just like yeah man it was crazy um sort of like battling my heart and it quite literally was felt like to me like um every time I was sort of out to pass out it would just felt like the movies like I was just watching my heart rate Goot like exactly like they do in the movies and I just thought okay here it is like it's it like I'm like I'm dying this is it and then um yeah and then that would sort of flip me up and then I got to a point where like it was getting worse and worse and then they shut the doors and start like racing to the hospital and um and like yeah and now the ambulance people start like Panic a lot more and I'm starting to get a bit

more uh concerned and um and they like rip off my shirt and then they basically hook up all of like the electrodes and stuff to me and then they start having to like um it's like not defibrillating but it's like a different version of defibrillating to like reset your heart rather than I guess like yeah they're basically just like shocking me over and over and I was sort of like stuck in this Loop where I was sort of basically just dying and my heart was stopping and I kept having shock me to sort of like trying to get it back onto Rhythm and um and yeah like when they closed like the ambulance doors like I said goodbye to Steph and like I really I really like thought like that was it you know like I thought yeah yeah yeah [ __ ] it's yeah hard to talk about but like I you know just like the moment of like saying goodbye to like your loved one be like see you Steph I like had the thought in my mind like I think this is probably the last time I like say goodbye to her and um I just realized I literally haven't told this story since um we did our

documentary so it's pretty pretty difficult to talk about CU I don't really talk about that often but um but yeah basically several hours this whole old deal and um I I sort of had like this severe cardiac arhythmia and I said I had these multiple like mini strokes or something like that and um yeah I sort of put in the hospital for like a day or two and all this like um surveillance and stuff and all these heart rate machines and everything there was a team of like a dozen doctors around me when I got to the hospital and yeah um yeah they basically like put me on all this medication and all this stuff because my heart for then like a long time after that um had like really severe sort of arhythmia throughout the day and um yeah it sort of slowly it slowly got better um over time uh but like it it yeah like I I I could barely sort of like see straight and walk and move the next day like it was like it completely just flawed me that experience and um I think

it really put into perspective for me like yeah just like the perspective of of of quite literally being like okay this is it like 100% ready to die yeah um it put in perspective for me I guess two things and it was really like I'm I'm happy with the choices and I'm happy with what I did like I I'm confident in the person that I am I'm confident that like you know Julian would just if if Julian had the same life over and over and over he just would have made this decision every time and I'm I'm okay with that because Julian's just doing what Julene wants to do and at the same time it's like okay how can we keep this mentality how can we how can I give myself to what I want to do in life 100% but then um have longevity at the same time have sustainability within that environment so then yeah like I guess ever since then that was like 3 or four year probably like four years ago go now I've sort of just been on like this journey to be like okay how can I really make

sure Stress Management and my physical health and my mental health is a priority and it's like a non-negotiable you know going for a run working out eating healthy having time with my wife um like meditating like being able to like talk about my problems all these things are now like cornerstones of my life that I can't give up like they're foundations that are like a locked in part of the day where it's like I can going through the craziest Crunch and I'm still going for my run like doesn't matter like that the time that I'm going for my run doesn't exist like that time is not optional so I've had to sort of slowly build up this sort of foundation of good health and a good mental health over time but it definitely took like a severe learning experience to really work out um just how bad it can get because I guess when you really give your all to something it's like there's nothing left like once you've given your all you realize that like there's nothing left in the tank and um and you really start to sort of uh

realize what it's like to um to just like have nothing left no energy no health no nothing and um and like my body just shut down like it literally was like no they just can't do it any longer well man that's just dude that's so wild and and I'm glad you're okay I'm glad you're were with friends dude man imagine if you were working on your game and you were alone yeah oh yeah yeah like that was that was like a real fear of mine for like a year or two afterwards was just like I was too scared to sort of go for a run or hike or anything cuz I was just so scared about just getting a heart attack um so it took a while to build up that confidence and now it's like I I ran a half marathon the other day just I just sort of felt like it and I felt great and like I couldn't dream about doing that you know before like I'd run a colomer and be like and like on the ground and um so yeah so like it it quite literally just just changed my life for the better game design as a weird little symptom that I did not

expect exactly um yeah and I'm very happy to say that like I'm I'm a very watch a healthy healthier happier sort of better person now and I'm very very glad that experience happened uh for me like experiencing the full spectrum of life is is I think like for me like necessary and an important sort of important part of life to actually understand what the real good parts are like and what the real bad parts are like so the silver lining for me is being able to sort of understand that full spectrum um really puts into perspective like the little the little things throughout the day that feel big at the time and you go they're nothing like that's fine I'll get over it man I I totally agree I was just talking to my wife about this cuz this summer like I've said and I'll probably do a video about what what exactly this summer what happened but for for for my studio but um I I was talking to my wife about this and just how grateful I am for the hell

that this summer was because I'm like Thomas brush 2.0 now you know like I'm just I've upgraded um and for you it's like it sounds like you don't really have any regrets about how you did things because you're just better for it now you know definitely um sort of to wrap this conversation up here I wanted to ask you you've given us the solution for for game developers listening now who might be overworked and burnt out and the solution is non-negotiable exercise non-negotiable diet and meditation all of that what do you think is inherently stressful about Game Dev well I I I think the inherently stressful part is really just building a thing without a blueprint it's like whenever you're trying to make

something and you don't know exactly what it is you're trying to make or exactly how to make it whatever judgments you make will always be wrong so like the the really difficult part about game design and this is also applies to like making movies and and other forms of media but sometimes it can be less so because they're at some points less technical um but it's very very difficult to estimate time money just to estimate anything anything like there's like any aspect of the project you have to just sort of like Mark on your calendar or like mark on a bank account okay this is it this is how much money I've got this is when it needs to get done um and it's like a make believe point in time and then you have to actually then make a game and somehow get to that point yeah and um and that's the difficult part because like if obviously becomes easier the smaller scope you have um or the more like predictable your game is but like just games as a genre as an art form um they're so technical they're so fluid it

is just so unbelievably difficult to get that formula right so the difference being it's just like the Delta the difference of like what your projection was and like the reality um there's only one way to make that up like if it's either like you quit and and it failed or like you have to make that up yourself like if you're just an indie by yourself that's you if it's a team it's the team it's like guess what like we just have to work more and harder um until we get to that point and there's just like there's just no other option so like it really is just like all or nothing because if you don't make that point um for some people like there might be padding built in um but even then like if it's padding you still had a projection and you still didn't make that projection and you still EA up your padding like if you eat up your padding that might cause other outcomes maybe you eat up all your padding and you it's still not made so I think our games just are inherently difficult to just um to guess how long they're going to make um and sort of how difficult they are to

create um it's just sort of like part of the Beast it's also why I think Early Access and sort of making like public development videos stuff like that things um that give you money throughout the process are the most beneficial things to game development I think like people that make games publicly people like um yourself like and and also like new sort of streamers as well like think about like pirate software and stuff like that oh yeah that is like the creme Del Creme of running a game Studio as far as like okay so wait a minute they're getting paid to make the game they haven't made the game yet they don't really even have the product but just just the act of making the game they're getting paid sometimes they're getting paid more than what the game's even going to sell um and it's just like that's the formula that can that can help counter that that sort of that risk profile that's just like baked into games yep man I I totally agree and and for me I I understand your the stressful part of it

um ever since I started making games I've had high blood pressure um and so I take blood pressure meds now because I don't know it's like so just all day when I'm working my left leg is just bouncing and I'm just like tense uh and I think it's something like it's like trying to build a house while it collapses like that's that's the best way I can describe game Dev um because all like you said all of your Notions of what will make the game good are falling apart before your eyes it's like Oh I thought that would be fun it's not fun I thought that would look cool it doesn't look cool I thought this would work within the context of this story element it doesn't and so you're building stuff spending money on it and then it breaks and so you lost the money essentially and then you have to rebuild it again and sort of spin the chamber and think man you know I I hope that like somehow you have to trust yourself even though a lot of your decisions did

not pan out during development and so there's insecurity there's fear there's anxiety uh there's money being lost and um it's like a really really high form of gambling yeah I get it yeah it is I think I think like the formula there is is less about countering like the innate aspects of games and more about countering the innate aspects of like you as a person cuz like a lot of indie game deps that are successful that you may interview that we may know about in here talk about they're very very similar people like they have similar character traits and it's like okay a lot of them might be very creative and like entrepreneurial they might be like uh a lot of them are probably very adverse to risk and they like to plan a lot and they're very an like sort of anxious people but then they have some sort of confidence or risk-taking ability which allows them to and like go forward like they have some sort of like big motivation um that allows them to

actually like act on that plan I think it's more about like understanding the kind of person you are and um and being able to work with that rather than try to like like no matter what like making games will be stressful like it's just yeah like like sitting down every day and working on something and you don't quite know when it's going to get done and you don't quite know how long the thing is you're doing is going to take you don't quite know about the the unforeseen um sort of like problems and stuff going to happen it's just like yeah like it it just is sort of stressful and it and it if if you're the kind of person where that doesn't sit well like that doesn't sit well for me like I I want to be in control I like to plan ahead I like to be in control of my future and my my present so it just by definition doesn't really sit well with me so therefore I have to like I have to make it sit well and that's like that's like a me problem I have to sort of work on myself as a problem as as a person to be able to make games and be happy about it yeah uh i' I've definitely learned that this year man like um I've learned that

my circumstances don't have to determine how my brain feels you know just because just because um just because the world around you is collapsing and near me it is um we just got hit with a hurricane really bad and yeah I was just uh I was an hour away from where I live now I was just doing this cool little um like a search and rescue type thing it was really fun uh we went with like 10 people up to North Carolina to just help and see if people needed help and needed water and and you just look at the devastation around you like dude I was in this mountain town and like they lost everything like the roads are completely collapsed uh the the the their homes are you know falling off of cliffs like literally uh or like hanging over the edge of cliffs over a river and I talk to these people and I'm like so like how are you I'm I'm talking to

the residents I'm like how are you going to how are you going to you know get your money back from your house is insurance going to pay for it and they're like no insurance doesn't cover it yeah and I'm like is the government going to pay and they're like no and I'm like well then how are you doing and they're like we're just lucky to be alive and they they've restructured their their brain to like to adapt to the circumstances around them yeah and the same is true with Game Dev from what I'm hearing you say it's like you don't care what Game Dev throws at you or what what you know what problems come with your game during development you still have to power through and it's up to you to figure out how to do it and to be in a good mental state and a healthy mental state regardless of the situation right yeah yeah and it's possible most people just they go well I was born this way so I'm going to be miserable and it's like no you can change your brain you can make it work you know yeah yeah I think

people just remember the game they're making is the outcome of the game designing machine that they are and the better that machine the better the game oh I love that yeah that was a good quote to end on dude that was good all right cool man well we we're over an hour here that was awesome guys those of you listening please please pleas please check out lens Island below wish list it or purchase it right you can go ahead and purchase it um did you want to leave us with anything about lens Island uh um yeah I it's like yeah we're we're launching into 1.0 multiplayer hopefully this December fingers crossed we don't have any of our own unforeseen circumstances um but yeah everything's going really well I'm very very excited it's been many years about 7even years development about four years of me sort of been Underground sort of powering through getting ready for the 1.0 so for me it's like it's the it's the big break it's the yeah the

sort of the spearhead of my entire life is sort of heading towards this release at the moment and um it'll be very interesting to see how it goes awesome awesome cool well thank you so much Julian that was really really fun um and I'm glad you're well and healthy it was really good talking to you bud thank you likewise anytime cheers by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time Indie and thanks for watching