How He Went Viral After Bombing On Steam (Bryan Blackford) — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 031

look I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about views I like views I want this podcast to get a ton of views but the truth is is that if I only ever get famous viral game developers on this podcast well you're going to think that that's the way to go full-time and the truth is that's not the only way to go full-time Indie in fact for me I didn't have a ton of followers when I released pinstripe or Never song and neither did Brian Blackford Brian and I talk about his game drafty car and drafty car was built for a very specific target market the racing community in fact the racing Community embraced it so well that Dale Earnhart Jr who by the way if you don't know is the world's most famous NASCAR driver with 2.5 million followers he shouted out not only drafty car but he shouted out the developer Brian so the thing that's neat about drafty car is the developer is a single gentleman that's aw it's a one guy you can

actually make a full-time salary from your indie game if you target a specific Market you don't have to have this viral success in 2025 to make a full-time income for Brian he made frankly a ton of money in just two months because he targeted a specific Market there's a ton to learn in this podcast stick around it's going to help you on your journey in 2025 you're a full-time game developer now and your story is so strange to me I I had trouble wrapping my head around what happened because you're you're not you didn't make a game well you didn't make your money from Steam right no uh you didn't it you didn't make your money from previous games um your current game is called drafty car and we'll talk all about drafty car you found this strange bubble this little niche and it it blew up it really did and it it's a mobile game but was it was

that Dale nhart Jr was was talking about it on his podcast yeah and you know for those who might not uh know you know what Nascar is or um have much familiarity uh Dillard Jr is like the most popular driver in the last uh probably 50 years of sport I'd say uh he's one most popular driver like 20 times for for him to uh you know talk about it on his podcast uh was really uh quite crazy me being a f to do it no no it was just uh completely because he loved the game um and that just makes it like a million times sweeter yeah yeah well it's probably weird there's probably like 1% of our audience right now listening who grew up in that world maybe I'm wrong I don't know I just when I think about Gamers and game developers I'm like they probably don't they probably didn't grow up watching NASCAR but for me me I grew up for I was forced

to watch Nascar every Sunday uh cuz we live in the south right and that's what you do um did you have to grow up watching nasar yeah I I grew up um on my dad's lap on our back porch uh watching watching racing I the first race I remember watching was um I think it was like the 93 Talladega race uh and you know just my favorite driver just ended up flipping and you know so like yeah I I did grow up just you know just loving the sport some people love it some people don't I mean it's it's not for everybody but yeah it's it's uh it's definitely you know something I'm passionate about for sure well I mean the reason I bring this up the the fact that it's so Niche is that there is something to glean from your story and we'll talk about your story and how you basically You released crappy games and and you didn't always just make money off of mobile games it was it's been a a

rough ride from what I've read about your story but the reason the reason why I bring up this Niche why it's so what am I trying to say the reason why I am interested in the niche NASCAR this tiny NASCAR game is that it's not tiny to a to this group of people and these are like like NASCAR drivers like some of the most popular NASCAR drivers I saw on Instagram are posting about this game like they're obsessed with it yes and but everyone else everyone else people listening right now including me had no idea that this game existed yeah but for you it's brought in I know you don't want to mention the numbers but it's it's brought in a full-time salary for you correct absolutely yeah yeah in like a month in a couple months yeah so um yeah it's it's been an incredible ride I mean uh probably the the second biggest thing other than dhart Jr kind of

not endorsing it but just you know mentioning it um The New York Times wrote about it uh in their athletic division so um Jeff Gluck is uh you know he covers NASCAR and I could just kind of sense that the these folks um were starving for you know something to do like on their airplanes on the way of the track or um you know when they're sitting in their motor homes at a racetrack um there's like I I I am friends with a few drivers and they tell me it's the just really boring most of the time before they you know are able to hit the track and they hit the track for maybe 30 minutes and qualify race and that's it yep yep there's something about um going to Niche so like there's there's tons of game developers listening right now who have thought okay I need to Niche down and I need to choose a a very a very precise genre and target market for my game to make money

but they've also heard that you can go too Niche that you can you can you can go way too granular and so my question to you is you've got a mobile game that's for the NASCAR audience is that too Niche so I I look at the numbers you know NASCAR average viewership um the Daytona 500 receives 5 million views every year that's not a small number um and they average throughout 36 weeks they average 2 million to 3 million viewers for every single cup race and then there's support series that average a million viewers per race and that's those are not all the same two million people I think every single week but um yeah that's those are definitely not numbers that you just kind of blow off uh you know obviously the the popularity has fluctuated over time but uh there's a there's you know back in the day I think uh it was like 10 million 10 million people tun tuning in NASCAR every single

weekend well these uh these viewers aren't hanging out on Steam are they no no no steam is not the racing genre uh hangout Club room and that's that's what I want to get into here which is your let's let's let's jump into your story about how you figured out how to you what you did is you found your audience um and it it was a it it's a very interesting story and I want to hear all about it most people listening right now they don't know how to find Their audience and that is it's a marketing discussion it's a a genre discussion it's a platform discussion I don't touch mobile actually I'm lying I've touched it a lot but I refuse to touch it anymore but maybe I'll change my mind after this conversation maybe maybe I yeah

cuz it just seems like such a I don't know what the word is aess pool exactly I mean I have the same feelings so how how did this happen man let's let's hear your story how did you start making games and and what was what was it like getting to this point so um I'm in my mid-30s um and uh you know so it it's been a long journey I started playing racing games in 1993 it's the first recollection I have of you know playing a video game is a racing game I think I played Wave Race for the Nintendo 64 and that was like my very first video game ever uh dude we had this we had the same child were you were you in North Carolina sorry to interrupt you were you in North Carolina I grew up in Florida so um oh right in the Tampa Bay area so um but uh I've always just had a an affinity for the Carolinas I I came up here as a kid uh I just love the area it's beautiful um and you'd think like oh Florida you know you're by the Beach but um I I just

think North Carolina's better um but yeah so it's funny because you and I were probably in the Carol playing wave R race at the same age at the same time cuz I'm I'm almost 35 right um and so we were probably both playing Wave Race yeah yeah in the '90s late '90s you I mean it's just such a buttery awesome smooth experience like Wave Race if somebody can just recreate Wave Race I think we'd both just be happy I I would memorize Drake Lake there's a level called Drake Lake and I I would memorize the exact turns at the exact time and I can hear the soundtrack right now in my head for that like it's right there playing on repeat in my head that game is the only racing game that I like um I I've never been into racing games at all so I'm I'm interested to hear how that sort of propelled you into into nasar game um obviously I was playing NASCAR games and you know uh many other types of racing games but I

mean I love Zelda you know other uh genres but um I just gravitated towards racing games and so much so I actually became an iRacing World Championship driver in 2010 like the inaugural iRacing world championship series um I was able to qualify for that because I was so addicted to racing games and uh put put so much time and effort into that so I did that for uh seven years so 2010 to 2017 and I've always wanted to make uh uh video games my whole life uh I just the next best thing was kind of I guess just you know participating in the genre of racing games so well you can I interrupt you really quick because I think you might be glossing over something because you're humble um I don't think people understand how big a deal it is that you were an iar like you were that successful um weren't you racing against d Jr yeah so um actually

going back to like 2005 or 2006 I was invited actually to dard Jr's private league in a in a game called NASCAR racing 2003 season so that game was incredibly successful it sold um well over a million copies I I don't know exactly but um just a hugely popular game it's still played to this day there's still modders out there that you know are just recreating cont content and um yeah it's just an incredible game and yeah Ray stenard Jr in that inaugural Series in in 2010 um in the iRacing World Championship that was like a that you had to qualify it was like a 10mon process to qualify for that Series so yeah it's a it was no joke back at back in the day there's thousands of people you know trying to make the series every year and now like the champion makes like a 100 Grand uh so it's just pretty nich but did you make that uh so I I the best I did was

fourth one year so I made a couple thousand bucks but it was yeah I I pour way too much time yeah yeah well side note here and then we can continue with your story I I played drafty car today I didn't know what I was doing so like there maybe it's because I'm just dumb but like I feel like there's something about drafty car that's very very intricate and Technical that your world understands is that true I I agree 110% um and it really uh you know it's a huge limiting factor um but if you give it enough time uh like my niece um and and my son they can kind of figure it out after maybe an hour or so um yeah and they're really young that is a long time for that's a long time for a mobile app to figure something out the reason bring that up dude is because your

experience of of being an iar racer is probably why this game is so successful because you understand that world like racing isn't just going fast racing is a is a very technical sport um NASCAR is a very technical Sport and you had to understand that to bring that into this game correct correct yeah it's it's it's a passion project for sure yeah yeah so this past you had is very integral to how you got where you are is point there abely yeah I would so I would toil away in the iRacing garage where you know you're doing little clicks here and there and it's like the kind of like a really terrible UI but you're you're just like there's so many decimals and numbers and and like you're you're you're putting rubbers and in Springs you're all this technical stuff that nobody ever cares about that was me like basically just for you know a good portion of my life you know over 10 years just trying to find like that last little bit that I

needed to to be successful sure well okay so you you were an iar racer uh you raced Dale Earnhardt Jr how did you get into okay well I'm going to start making making games yeah um so in 20 2017 I was able to land a job where um I actually you know I was really doing a lot of the things I was good at like video production video editing um I I do like a lot of graphic design type stuff uh I did a lot of email marketing in general I'm a marketer so um yeah through through and through I'm a um kind of in the marketing genre but I graduated from college you know with something completely different environmental sustainability so like just completely different I I realized like it's going to be tough to to get a job so I was like uh let me um let me me like just

build some skills in in marketing um and at that point you know I was able to secure a pretty good job and so it was actually like a security company where um they secure like phones on pedestals so uh we would offer the pedestal and the engineers that I worked with they uh had these 3D models laying around and they were like uh I started playing with blender and that's like my first uh foray into um you know actually doing anything 3D and that was in 2017 uh so I just learned some basic skills like I learned how to put the PES on desk uh I learned how to you know just do some basic movements and blunder and I was like this is so fun I I can't get enough of this I love and I loved like modeling like little simple things here and there and I thought I was the coolest kid uh wasn't that when blender wasn't that when blender kind of sucked oh yeah it was right before so like right before everything got great that's that's when I to get into it and learn

so uh that takes skill man you got to memorize all these I mean it's no surprise to me that someone who understands the intricacies of NASCAR understood the the pre what was it I don't know the version of of blender that was uh yeah I'm trying to access yeah but to be able to it maybe it's 4.0 let's just say it's 4.0 to be able to understand blender prior to 4.0 yeah yeah oh my go it requires a lot of technical skill and memorizing hotkeys and stuff so yeah congratulations I think uh man blender did such a bad job with their marketing I think the the upgraded version was like 2.78 that was like oh was it oh my gosh blender it looks like a modern program I think you're right let's let's look this up here blender 2.78 I think so I don't know I know it wasn't a whole number I was like what's why is it not like just use blender three you know like I know such a huge upgrade okay so you were you you were a marketer at your core this is so

interesting by the way you're you're you're technically excelling in the in the NASCAR world even though it's you know iar racing but still and then you're also excelling in marketing and it sounds like those two are going to have a baby um yeah so let's hear it how did this all pan out so um in in uh 2020 I I got a job offer uh for the crva the Charlotte Regional visitors Authority and I still work for them um and they own and operate the Nascar Hall of Fame um oh my gosh the hall has so many cool things coming um but uh yeah the the hall was it was near and dear to my heart obviously um you know being a huge fan of the sport and U was able to you know do some cool stuff for them but um Co happened like two months after I started working for the hall so thankfully we had a a fund balance and

we I was able to keep my job um but our all of our venues shut down for Co so um it was tough we were like well what do we do now uh so there was a lot of downtime but um you know we we stayed busy with like making videos for our Hall of Fame education program and stuff um but uh yeah at that point uh I was like in in it was September 8th 2021 I was like you know what I'm gonna I I I should have started sooner but it took me that long to finally say I'm going to do this and I posted on social media so all my social media was like my accountability buddy I only have like 2,000 followers but you know they they keep track of what I got going on I guess sure sure so you got them to basically keep you accountable to stick with wanting to make games yeah yeah I said like day one of Infinity of being a game

and I posted a silly video of me like using Unreal engines like default like car going around a track I'm model in like five minutes or something okay so okay there's we've got it so Unreal Engine your so your world is starting to be a lot different than mine now because I'm looking at it you learned okay by the way I I I Googled it blender 2.8 was a big big release right um so you were you were right and so you understood the the version before for that right and then you also understood you started learning unreal which in my opinion is a much more complicated engine right than Unity but I guess it depends on what your framework is um it really does yeah I want to get that because it's just a totally it's a totally different Paradigm I saw your uh I saw your blueprints for drafty car and it's so funny because when when you play drafty car it's so simple it is but then you peel back the layers and you look at the blue prints behind it it's like it's

like the Bible just like just tons of blueprints like pages of this stuff yes if I if I put it on it's a complicated way of making games I think but yeah you know I could make wallpaper out of that code like it's crazy I know but it's totally different because like when I open up the code for my games it it's um it it might seem complicated to you I don't know absolutely so um yeah that's I mean I wanted to talk about this at some point but um my huge barrier to entry into game development was programming um I kind of feel like I have some form of Dyslexia um so like I I can read uh really proficiently uh if I take my time but um it's it's incredibly hard for me to look at lines of code and see what I'm looking at because I kind of like to try to see the whole picture of what's going on when I look at something on my screen

um so I tried for a while to to learn like C++ and C C and I I'm so incredibly impressed by people who can learn traditional coding but that man that was just not for me uh like I I still have these dreams of going and going back and trying to learn some form of traditional codes so I feel like a real game developer and I don't have impostor syndrome you know I want to be Chris Sawyer but I I it's just I don't think it's going to happen this lifetime well it it should it doesn't need to because I mean I I always recommend people learn to code but it really doesn't need to happen anymore um because I think Unity even Unity as a visual scripting I don't know if it's any good but uh you unreal if you can make a if you can make a game like this that makes you a full-time salary and you don't know code MH who cares you know it's the era of making games wrong

and I'm all about it you know um and I'm not saying blueprints is wrong it's just it's not traditional you know it's just not the traditional way of making games it's a frh you know you have G you have Gavin on often and you know he's he's same boat and like I'm just like so inspired by him he's like I think he said like I've never run into anything that I can't do in Blueprint you know um so yeah Gavin's like awesome I I really look up up to him and um yeah just in general I I I I can't believe that I kind of you know like when I open my project I'm like this is making money like yeah I know the feeling dude it's like uh it's almost like um okay so let's think here my game pinstripe has been on the steam store for eight years maybe I think and I was just thinking about it last night

and I kind of broke out in a cold sweat I was thinking how is this game still functioning properly 7 years later cuz that thing is like it's like spaghetti noodles taped together it's like a structure of it's like a house made out of spaghetti noodles yeah uh and it's still it's still being purchased and people are still playing it and it's still works M and there's something strange about that which is it's like it's like um is your here's a good here's a good way to think about it is like is your view of your game um the correct one which is you see behind the scenes and you see all of it being you you think it's a mess right but isn't I isn't it true that every game is probably that way like every great game would be perceived as a Mess by it creat to know I'd love to look at some different projects and kind of have

a a stronger opinion on that of that but you know I've looked at documentaries like um you know uh naughty dog and like their development of The Last of Us and like how does that like actually come together how do people work together I'm just so intrigued and interested um I've never obviously worked in a a traditional game Studio I just I don't know like um to me um everything's organized enough like I my folder structure everything is organized like I cannot like when I see people screen sharing on unreal engines Discord and like they have things all over the place I I it gives me anxiety and I'm like you're never going to be able to release a game like that you'll never so like I don't know it's just to me like I think just being obsessive about like organization uh uh was important but at the same time my blueprints are just crazy like I I show it to um my buddy whim he he operates a a YouTube channel called K dot um so he's like a master if

you ever want to learn unreal and gym blueprints like and especially like multi multiplayer um he's your guy uh just incredible like he was like this actually works on Bones so that is yeah man that's just that is so it's a totally different Paradigm than what I'm used to and they you know mobile games have a much shorter shelf life you know like there's there's versions coming like and I'm just like I hope it doesn't break you know I don't I know right it's that well let's get into let's get into your first couple games that did you release a couple games before drafty car yes okay did those do well so um let's see here in let's see April 2023 I released um so I Cas I got it back up uh I uh made the Monumental mistake of working on my dream game first which I was a listener

of your channel I heard you say it don't worry you know everybody says it it's literally a meme and I was like I'm going to do it anyway and I honestly you know I look back and I'm like you know what maybe it was a good thing like I because I was able to work on something I was able to learn while having a good time um and you know that if I was working on a something I wasn't inter Ed in um that whole time I maybe I wouldn't have stuck with it so I mean I failed and the game never launched it was I I uh I still have uh plans to go back and maybe make it but um I I originally came up with the idea of Northern Speedway so NASCAR style racing in snow like that the whole Hook was like you know just like totally crazy and I mean maybe it you know I I wanted it to be so different that everybody was like what is going on here um that's a really good

idea dude like that's I actually think that that could sell really well um that's a strong strong hook that have you heard me talk about the big butt principle yes yes all the time yeah that's that's that's a big butt principle right there Nas I just wrote it down NASCAR but with snow I think that's brilliant creating that kind of contrast because it creates this curiosity it's like what what what would that look like you know yeah they've actually uh done it in real life a little bit here lately everybody was like Brian they copied you I know oh man dude I had the craziest game idea uh two two weeks ago I had the best game idea and I was like I'm gonna make this game in 2025 and I was like nobody's done this I was so excited I even talked about it like on one of my videos I was like I have this idea it's going to be amazing and then my friend just texted me yesterday he was like they already made you game and it's like the game that I wanted to make is on Steam and it's successful I'm like there's nothing new and at this point you just go maybe I just start copying

games at this point because there's really it's really hard to come up with something new you know I mean if people want to copy drafty car I I'm I'm a huge proponent of just people making more racing games so you know well they probably will they probably will man like and that's and let's talk let's talk about well I want to talk about the shelf life of mobile but let's talk about your steam launches Qui so steam um you know I I actually uh abandoned my dream game I got married um we had a kid um how old were you so I was like uh 32 33 uh I'm 35 now um so this has been a crazy ramp on ramp sure sure so um I basically was like okay I'm going to duplicate my dream game project and I'm just going to scrap like 90% of it and I'm just going to release something because I just need to get I need to release something I I'm going to go

through this thing where I don't you know actually release anything like 99% of developers uh so I actually created a multiplayer racing game uh that you you know is free on Steam it's called Speedway ringer um the net code is like terrible you uh basically just uh I turned off collisions so like but basically you can race around oval tracks with cars you know just like multiplayer it actually Works somehow uh and I I don't know you know like I would spend hours and hours and hours just like how okay like how do I get like when the when the leader crosses the line on the last lap how do I finish the race like so yeah yeah so that was my my first actual release what's it called again Speedway ringer Speedway ringer yeah okay did this did this game make you Millions uh yeah so I I it was free to play so I I think last I checked it actually has

like 30,000 um activations but I don't think I think like the download number is just like way smaller than that anyway it's like a it's a it's not a good game it doesn't you know there's no reason to come back to it after maybe like so did it so I asked you I said did it make you millions and you said yeah oh no no sorry did I say yeah no you yeah but I didn't know I didn't know if you meant no not at all it was it was it was uh it was depressing I was like man this is tough like I you know I've had a lot of adversity in life and um you know the I was kind of like man I'm I'm burning years here and like this is this is getting tough like I I need to I need to actually focus on what's going to make us money um as a family uh yeah well were you working at were you working at time yeah I'm working full-time um you know at the hall at this point so uh you know it's it's not like you know incredibly rough or anything but like you know my my wife

has student loans still um you know I have I have a lot of credit card debt I actually am a a burn Survivor um so like I I did have like some medical debt I got that paid off thankfully but um wait what happened what happened so yeah this is another long story but I like long stories let's hear it in 2014 um August I uh was in a go-kart race uh a rental go-kart race and I was leading the race and my cart just randomly exploded caught on fire um so I try to stop as quickly as I can I look behind me and like just it's like a ball of flames behind me um and you know just I I had third degree burns on they said like 30% of my body which is all on my back basically it's like your entire back is like 30% of your skin um so that uh that was an incredible uh

setback back then um and then uh yeah just what what made it what made it a setback I know I know it's an obvious question but I like to try and dig in and figure out exactly why it was a setback was it because you were in the hospital for a while and I was actually so I was in the hospital for three days and I am the most stubborn person in the world when it comes to medical stuff like I you know like you know this is getting off track but like in general like I I know that it's a for-profit industry my wife my uh sister works for a a hospital and she's like it's for-profit industry get out of there you know if you can if you can't get out of there and I refused pain meds I was like I because if you're on pain meds they won't let you leave you have to you have to get off pain meds you have to um you know show some level of comp competency to get out of there um they said you'll

be back you know you're going to have skin graphs you know this is like this is something you can't have skin gra like you can't refuse skin grass for this yeah so um I never went back and my I used some really like if any I can go in your comments and like if anybody has a severe burn or anything like I can go into detail but uh yeah just a incredible recovery and I had some uh functional medicine doctors that I saw that were just so so um amazing I'm all about it dude I was just talking about that with my wife and this is a side tangent for sure but um and I'll I'll I'll find a way to bring it back to the conversation but um we were just talking about this yesterday how it's like the moment me and my wife started to like do more like obnoxiously uh what's the word obnoxiously pretentious crunchy Health stuff once we start doing that our life got so much better oh yeah and it's like

oh so all the people I used to make fun of are like on to something and so we we cuz like my wife she has she has a one of these chronic um autoimmune diseases and I won't get into it but one of these chronic autoimmune diseases we have the same life dude I'm telling you yep and she was on pain meds blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and I would just pray pray pray pray pray please Lord can you just like fix this and what fixed it was exercise Diet Water protein MH prayer living our life outside of the doctor's office just avoiding the doctor's office and it all went away uh which is just so freaking um it's annoying to hear it's what's frustrating it's probably frustrating for some people to hear CU it's like there are there are reasons to to go to

the doctor but there was one for my wife like everyone we we always agreed for like I think it was like eight years it's like screw the people who tell us not to go that are telling us to go see some Wellness weirdo right yeah and we we'd make fun of that and then we finally were at yeah we were finally at our wits end and we were like we got to figure something out here MH and so we finally we finally like okay well let's try and be weird for a little bit and it worked oh my God I maybe I need to talk to you after cuz uh yeah we could we could benefit from some functional medicine doctors for sure area let's yeah well let's definitely talk after this because um our life is totally different now yeah it was it was hard yeah um yeah so okay I mean that that all ties back into game development like if you're not healthy like I was I was actually overweight like really really severely overweight like um you know in my early 20s and I was just eating really terrible food uh didn't feel well

um and you know I I I really think that's a strong part of game development is just being healthy and and staying active I I have two dogs they get me out of the house like it's it's really important it really is and I uh I it's so funny like it this seems like a tangent in this conversation people are listening like okay let's talk about game def but I've talked I don't know if you listened to the episode with Julian ball um he's the creator of lens Island uh I I watch all of them so I but they all run together he had a heart attack cuz uh just cuz he just wasn't taking care of himself and he was just obsessed with making his game uh I've been in situations where um my body is having like a physical reaction to the work that I'm doing yeah so like if I'm if I'm too obsessed with the game

or try to make money or whatever uh my body just hurts like my my whole GI is just a wreck yes um you can feel it in your gut you can feel there's something about looking at a project and so when I open up unity and I I I see the mess of this project cuz like I I'm I'm probably not as good as you are but like CU like our project is it can look messy sometimes and I think about how much money and time I've put into this thing there's this crazy weight of like you're on thin ice dude yes every time you open the project file like the icon on your desktop like anxiety like okay you're just like okay it's loading and then like you get in the groove and it's like okay well all right but like it it it takes a lot to like actually

open the project it does it really really does just getting it open and um just powering through the feeling of of a feeling like like you you're not cut out for this because every every game developer is is every game is some kind of House of Cards MH you know it's it's never going to be perfect and it's never it's never going to be organized perfectly um it's not a natural thing like we're sitting in front of a screen for hours on it like it's just not natural like we should be out you know digging up dirt and planting stuff but we're just like no let me do this crazy thing with these buttons in the screen and wiggle a little plastic thing know isn't it so funny though because it's like um it's totally unnatural but it's also incredibly natural to to build and break and want to want to to play God and create this world yes um and also you know uh providing

for your family blah blah blah blah blah making money so there's it's incredibly natural and it's incredibly unnatural and that's what makes it into this incredibly disorienting career MH and it's not like it's not like it's um it's not like game development is like every other career it's really not because there's just so many freaking skill sets you have to learn it's unbelievable it's like building a house I mean you've talked about that a lot it's like uh and honestly like a lot of people just say pick an engine and I kind of like don't just pick an engine like you can be more strategic um you know you like for me I um traditional code is hard for me so like the the biggest thing was uh having a visual scripting language like and that is going to be like in my opinion one of the biggest barriers to entry for game development is actually where the rubber meets the road where you actually program the stuff so like you need to real like okay if you have no experience

programming or very limited you need to focus on what you're good at focus on an engine that has C if you're good at c um and I was thinking about this like Thomas you um you're in unity I was like man Thomas is in the wrong engine like he needs to get over to Unreal look at look at Lumen like you're you were posting about maybe some issues with lighting um and I'm like oh you know Thomas like I know you think like unreal you can you can spot an unreal game from a mile away but uh I know if Thomas brush got an unreal like you just be like this incredible thing but then I was like C I mean like that's the foundation that's where the rubber meets the road yep yep it's uh it's also just something like a framework so like I've been I've been making games since I was 16 or 17 I'm 34 so half of my life I've been living in a certain kind of framework and in

fact I would say half of my life is with my eyes closed sleeping uh maybe not half not anymore now that I have three kids um but the other essentially the other 30% of my life is staring at a framework like unity and um FL I used to use flash and flash and unity have a something like a kinship they're very similar it's it's just a way of making games that's familiar to me right uh it's kind of like driving stick it's like you just once you figure it out you don't really remember what you're even doing yeah it's all you're in the Flow State you're in the Flow State and so that flow State started for me in my like teenage years when your brain is like firing in all cylinders and sparking and smoking I know well you're never going to get him back we will never get especially if you you

have one kid right uh no I I'm going to have three in De yeah you're screwed it's over dude yeah I got my first girl coming in December I'm super awesome man congrats yeah so anyway I my my framework is is Unity what I don't know what that's called I don't know what that framework is called something like objectoriented program I don't know the right words but right unreal is totally different it is opened up unre dude and I was like I can't handle this my I don't understand this at all yes and when so like you pick an engine right and then you're you know okay in the case where you know you just pick an engine and start okay install five engines and like you're G to spend x amount of time in each one of them and like because once you pick one you're going to be like oh you know kind of like this that the other thing it's like moving into a house you know like oh well you know I

it's it gets really hard to move out of a house after like a couple years it does so oh yeah that's a good metaphor yeah so it's I I'm kind of on the in the boat where you know you really just got to do your research do like look at people developing in a in a in an engine um for a period of time and then can you see yourself doing that for hours and hours and days and months and years sure um it because it gets way it it gets way too hard like I'll never switch from unreal I I can't see it happening and that's why the the when the unity debacle happened um when Unity tried to be money grubby oh that was that must have been terrifying it was terrifying and I'll tell you why um I run multiple businesses okay I run a a game studio and then I also have an educational platform where I teach about making

games and they both they both bring in really good money for me and my family and both of those companies that I run they hinge on Unity like the whole thing is the foundation is Unity yes and so when that fell apart for and when it seemed like Unity was just going to explode I was like what am I going to do and so I downloaded unreal and then I downloaded gdau and I was like oh no I hate both of these I like un it's not that Unity is better I just I like Unity you know I moved in that's a great way to put it um so it was uh it was hard it was really hard to see Unity almost implode um yeah and I'm glad I'm glad that they seem like they're on a totally different trajectory now right sounds like they are uh recognizing The Heirs of their ways yes yes well tell me about these um these games

that you released how did it feel when you're you you so this is two games so far that you've released and have you made a single penny from these games no no um so yeah I was I it was getting to the point where you know my wife uh she's able to you know sit on the couch and watch Netflix after work and you know but like I'm over here toiling away and you know it's like uh are we gonna actually like make a dime you know after like you know a few years of doing this and I was like this is honestly like I I'm going to try to make this work um it was tough it was there was some difficult conversations and like do I do I really keep investing this amount of time because I could you know I could get some you know side jobs to try to pay off our credit card bills and you know whatnot but uh yeah it's just daycare is oh my gosh it's so expensive

man so like it's uh you know it was tough but I finally I was like okay let me boil this idea down even further um so I used to play a game called Nasty car back in the day um it was just almost exactly like drafty car but just lacking like a million things so nasty car is like a flash game uh that I think it was in the the late 2000s it got released and all of our friends like we would just play this game like it silly Flash game like top down cars moving through draft uh you know just draft is basically like wind resistance that your car is experiencing so um that's the whole mechanic of drafty car and nasty car is drafting um so yeah I played that and I was like let me one of my friends Brandon he was like dude if you could recreate this I would absolutely play

this I would I would play this all day like if if you could get it on your phone like I'd play it all day I was like well I don't know anything about mobile development like I you know let me just try to make it on desktop and uh so I did um and I made it in like three months I was like I'm not investing a lot of time in anything like yeah I I got to have some proof of concept here so uh yeah so drafty car for PC as basic and kind of terrible as it was released and I made like $2,000 um so I was like well that's not nothing um it's not you know it's not what I had you know hoped for I hoped it C like caught on a little bit more in the NASCAR industry but um everybody who played it was like man if you could like add crashes that was the big thing crashes like got have it so got to have that got to have like you know maybe like a little simple career mode um that

would be cool but you know I I was like man that's so hard I don't I don't know if I could pull that off and uh people were like I'd love this on my phone like if I could just get this on my phone i' play it all day but um so I took that $2,000 and then I bought a Mac Studio it was like the biggest one of the biggest gambl I guess uh in recent years that I've taken uh that's a lot of money uh to to invest in into a machine so I I I bought a Mac Studio um because I I knew that you know apple and iOS was going to have to just carry the load here um so I spent an entire year after drafty car for PC was launched on drafty car for IOS and Android um so I had to get you know set up with those you know uh like play console the uh Apple developer program at it's like a 100 bucks a year for Apple developer program it's 25 onetime

fee $25 onetime fee for um play Studio or play play console so um yeah just a little bit of upfront cost I actually started my LLC so I I like kind of dug in I was like you know I'm going to try to make this work so like whenever you form your LLC it's like you know it's a lot of money to you know just kind of put into something without any money coming in so that really kind of like sparked my my passion to to get going again and um yeah eventually in August of this year I launched drafty car for for IOS and Android how did you okay you're a marketing guy I'm a marketing guy um probably to my detriment I I think about marketing all the time and I probably need to give more head space for for the creative side of games but how did you how did

you know or did you know that there was a market in the mobile space for this I knew there was but my my biggest fear at night was is anybody ever going to find this because I know I know that's what I'm wondering that's what mobile games historically they they die before they even anything ever happens like they you just throw it up there nobody ever finds it it's just like the only way to find it is to pay for a ton of ads get a ton of uh installs and hope that some of them bite and do some inapp purchases or whatever um so I honestly feel like did almost everything wrong in the whole process like I relied like on um earned media organic organic traction and honestly like that's just so risky but I knew that it was fun like I played this game

so I I would take the light rail to work every day I'd have 26 minutes there 26 minutes back to play test this thing every single day so I knew it was fun I just worried so much about actually people discovering it what did you did you do any gimmicks to try and get earned Media or did you just hope that I edited like a funny little video that had some funny commentary uh on on Twitter when I when I launched the game I I had like 2 200 followers on Twitter at the time and I so I'm friends with um Landon Castle Parker cerman um a couple of NASCAR drivers and uh they um they were like dude this is so fun like they they they installed the beta version they were like oh my gosh this is so fun dude like I can't wait for you to actually launch this like and um you know J Dale dhart Jr remembers me from back in the day but not not super well

so like I wasn't I I did not think like Junior would ever get a hold of this game and and mention it all this podcast or anything I I I had no way of contacting Dale to even like have contact with Parker I looked up Parker here he's got 90 96,000 followers on Twitter correct or an X um okay so what we've got here is we've got a little bit of a interesting um framework for people listening I I I got to speak with Chris akowski last week and he's a indie game marketer yes I watched that whole thing he he's great incredible and he was like look you could you could post to Twitter all day long but the way to get people to play your game is to have yeah I remember him saying have have giant friends you know and my question for you is is if you had not had these friends and if you had not known Dale Earnhart Jr what would happen to this game if I

had zero like zero um yeah I I think that there's a small chance that somebody would play it that um so Bubba Wallace he's has the most followers of any NASCAR driver uh on the circuit right now um and he ended up posting about it on a social media so like if I turn my social media off I had nothing um I still have so I have a buddy that works for 2311 racing that's Michael Jordan and Denny hamin's team in NASCAR I have I have a buddy that works there I would just probably say hey Eric can you can you just have Bubba play this and see if he thinks it's cool yeah that would be my strategy it's such an it's so weird because in my head I'm like NASCAR drivers aren't going to play games m but I'm watching I I was before this call I was looking at all these NASCAR

drivers who are it it dude I'm telling you it felt like it was paid like the like I think I saw Bubba post about it right on Instagram and I was like it's because the way I'm seeing it is I I was like is drafty car one of those one of those apps from like those those random I don't know if they're Asian or something but like those apps that are just fraud and they're paying BBA Wallace a million do to go wow this is so cool yes yeah that's what it looks like kind of if you have looks like that um so yeah I I have not spent $1 on marketing um and the response has just been like dude this is just so fun because it's such a narrow band of people that would be interested in something like this but those people also like Bubba has Bubba Wallace has I don't

know how many followers on Instagram but the post had had 10,000 likes on it and everybody's asking what game is this what game is this like um so I I actually talked to my friend Eric and he's like dude these guys uh actually just like the game like they they like playing it they they think it's hilarious that they can go into debt and you know try to pay off their loans and crash car your wife came up with that didn't she I'm sorry did your wife come up with that uh so my wife is a mechanical engineer she came up with the monetary system for the games like she had a whole spreadsheet like all right so if they finish like 20th every week this is what happens yeah they pretty much can go forward but it's not great but um so like I had a whole spreadsheet I change one button and like I could see like their projected earnings for like the year of uh racing in career mode so um yeah she she was a a big part of that and uh yeah mechan mechanical engineer

she knows like Excel she can do some crazy stuff it's really cool so uh yeah that was that was cool wow okay there I'm trying to figure out is this is the big question Brian I used to I don't know why I always say I haven't made a mo I don't make mobile games I've I've released on mobile three times actually let me let me think about this I made a game called crunch them numbers and it it was a puzzle game and I released it got buried uh I I released pinstripe my game pinstripe on mobile got buried Never song didn't get buried because Apple arcade bought it and licensed it um so we we made a yeah I would say a lot of money we made a lot of money from Apple arcade yeah a lot of money what what year was that that was TW that was when they had money coming

out of their nose um for every everyone in the industry preco it was like it was like a year or two before covid everyone was fighting to get the subscription model like be the winner of the subscription model like apple arcade and epic epic and um steam steam was just sitting on the sidelines they didn't care but all these all these platforms were trying to to be the best like gaming subscription mod model and so Apple was paying absurd numbers and so anyway they gave us all this coverage for Never song um and they licensed it but my whole point in bringing all this up is to say mobile games are notorious for getting buried MH do you advise people listening right now to pursue a mobile game launch yeah I I I'd recommend people do their research you know just like you you need to have an audience like you know you I don't know if you can just

come up with a basic mobile game and and it's like going to pay off for you um right away um like you know it is a tremendous success story but um yeah it's it's tough to give that recommendation because I don't I don't know what you're working on um but really like you know I I think the risk was a little less risky just because of the fact that I knew uh people with you know I knew my buddy Parker and Landon Castle uh I knew that they love the game they have 90,000 followers um I I knew all my friends on Discord we you know stay stay up at night and I'd show them like the progress and they're like dude this is cool like you know so I'm getting feedback but they're friends so like you're just kind of like you know they're friends they're just saying that because they like me but um yeah I I just got a lot of positive feedback the development process and the cool thing is like you don't have to go that far

down the rabbit hole to determine I think if a game has the bite if it has the bite you know your friend your when you send it to your friends like I can see how many times that they've played it like I don't tell them that but like I you know on the on the uh on the beta yeah on the beta platform I I can tell how many times you open this thing man that's hilarious dude yeah so you know I like it wasn't just like oh you know I I think it's cool but no they were playing it on a free time yeah yeah the bite what is that it's uh it's it's just when you bite down it's juicy and it just like splatters all over the place like it's just uh yeah when you open up that app you can see it on their face that they got a juicy experience and like be having a a background in video production I just saw I saw over the years how quickly people would turn off my videos like they'd be like oh this is

cool and then they just start talking while the video is playing I'm like I spent like 20 hours on this video and you're just you know you're not even finishing it like you see the YouTube like numbers like oh yeah people are interested no they're not yeah so like you you just see like how short people give anything that you create like it's so hard to create something put it into the world and for anybody to care like it's so freaking hard that's like um so yeah just just knowing um that you know you've got something that's uh a little bit more than just like oh I'll play this for five seconds and okay never mind well to sort of wrap this up here man there's there's a I've written down some notes here to I like to try and create some kind of framework for people and that they that they can apply to their lives and their career you

number one you had a a passion and that was racing like an insane level of passion so much you burned your back off for it right M uh that passion then created connections right and so you had connections in an industry and a passion in an industry you then turned that into money by creating a product about those two things or creating a product about that passion um so there's something there there's something there to say that no matter like a lot of people listening right now they're probably like maybe some people do have connections and they have connections in the film industry or they have connections in the uh twitch space uh like streamers on Twitch or uh the book World maybe maybe they have

authors that they're friends with and what you've done is you've you've gone you've gone okay I've got these connections here I've got this passion here what if I built a product and then utilized these two assets and created a product yeah and it's just like magic or it's not magic it's like clockwork it's like Bang there you go I would say s the product passion is like maybe 70% of it maybe 80 honestly like I If you look at my project you'll be like what does rear drag mean like what what are these things like it's all it's all it's like I've kind of like Built My Own engine almost like we talk about this a lot is just like once you get so in the weeds like with your project you're just your engine is like you know it's just something unique to you you've created like that's your game um so yeah just that passion and um you know the the

connections are really you know important but like really like those connections I'd say the the biggest benefit was actually being able to talk to you know Landon Castle be like what you know what do you think about this like oh well the you know Top Line needs to move a little further you know it needs to you be a little more chaotic maybe you know throwing a crash here and there um yeah so like all that little feedback is those that's what I use my connections for I didn't tell anybody to hey post about this hey you know I I need your support here you know I I need to make money on this game I didn't tell anybody to to to post about it I didn't tell um any of my friends to post about it honestly like I just I was just like please let this thing like organically take off and um was able to do that for sure it's it's or it's definitely organic but I don't know if it's that simple um it's um no it's not it's not it's not

totally organic no it's not totally organic it's but it is organic in the sense that it's not paid media but it's it's doing it is serving the same what you did is the same as paid media in the sense that you got a big you got a couple big time Big Timers to post about it and then boom you know and that's that's what these that's what these uh PR agencies and Publishers are doing is their they're like well let's go let's go pay PewDiePie to to or whoever Jack Septic Guy or Markiplier to play this game so the only difference is you got it you got it for free and here I'm going to write this down I'm writing down two words for the audience listening right now uh and the two words are I love I love these podcasts because I just learned so much and it it it turns into a nice little framework advice is better than um advice is greater than a

request so um what I mean by that is I'll give this to the show this to the audience this stupid little notepad that says advice is greater than request and what I mean by that is getting people to just play your game even if like these big- time people like they're friends of yours just saying hey can I get your advice about this game what do you think that is going to be so much more valuable and it might be manipulative I'm not saying you're manipulative I'm saying people could could turn this into a manipulation tactic you when you ask for advice it's so much better than saying hey can you post about my game yes you know what I mean because you've you've suddenly put them into an authoritative position when you ask for their advice you're like hey you I look up to you in a weird way you're kind of like a big brother or like a father figure to me what do you think about this game and they go oh well that's that kind of number one that means a lot to me that you would ask my opinion I'll play it and then they play it and then they are invested and they

feel like they're part of the production of the game yes yeah and so of course they're going to Tweet about it yeah you know yeah and like if if somebody plays your game and you get like uh I can link below in your comments like where Bubba plays the game and he he that's actually footage of him winning for the first time in drafty car and the look on his face to elicit that kind of response from somebody like you know you've got something you know you know you you've you've at least got something for a narrow band of people yep and that's clearly that's enough now to wrap this up one final question for you is this game GNA just dry up on the vine really quick uh it has a little bit yeah yeah um so um I mean to go into a little bit of the numbers um so drafty car um is free to download so we rely on ad Revenue we relied on ad Revenue actually

up until um early October we launched an adree version for $10 so an incredible you that's that's like a lot of money for a mobile game to turn off turn off ads um but and like people are like this dude thinks he's like King of the earth like he's releasing it for $10 like I can buy stard Val for less than that um so that's uh but I'm again it's it's like hiring a a chef to make a a personalized meal for you a gluten-free dairy free you know just like organic like just so not saying that my game so I wrote down $10 cheap pizza from your uh your conversation with Mark Brown apparently that's what my game is I I I realize now how insulting that was but I wasn't trying to be ins but it's perfect

it's the perfect analogy for you know games that just are a little bit smaller in scale you know just you it's it's time like it we we don't spend as much time on $10 pizzas yeah um it's not yeah and there's only so much you can fit into you know five minutes you're making a $10 pizza sure um so I don't know how much how long it takes to make a pizza but um so yeah I just that that's what mine is but it is it's it's kind of like a pizza with like all these crazy toppings that nobody would ever you know think to put on and there and like this small fraction of the universe just was like I'm addicted to this yes well I went to uh I went to Slovakia twice on like a mission trip kind of thing and the the culture in Slovakia is very um the the students that I got to hang out with they're very and this is about what you're saying they are very into

very specific kinds of games they are very he and complicated and granular and Technical uh chess um they they love chess they love and I don't know if this is true of entire country of Slovakia but these slovaks were into chess and Rubik's cubes and mhm the video games they played were incredibly technical they also love corn on their Pizza it that's what you do you eat corn on pizza oh my go okay and if there's any slow Vox listening right now please confirm that I'm telling the truth the reason I bring this up is that there's a there's a nice little comparison there which is they they have a very precise kind of game that they want to play and they have a very precise kind of pizza that they want to eat and you would think that no one would ever eat pizza like that but know actually they love it point being there is money to be made in the corn Pizza

world and if you grew up in that culture or you know that culture you know that there's money there to be made and the same is true for you and for anybody listening if you're in a niche targeted world that's like we we are all about bull riding and I grew up riding bulls don't just shrug that off it it comes back a bookend for weed we grew up in theth and so many people that I grew up with man they were like I got to get out of here they hated it they I got to get out of here so they moved to this I don't know Vancouver or California and and they're paying $3,000 to $5,000 in rent or a mortgage every month then they all start coming back yep it's so so I I listened to your podcast um I forget who it was with you you said there's a cultural Zeitgeist for like Americana and like an acreage

so my wife and I we're moving um it's so this is pure chaos behind me uh I know it looks it it's empty we're moving it doesn't look chaotic at all uh yeah so it's it's chaos we're we're in the process of moving we got two acres out in Stanley uh North Carolina so like we we're uh definitely like on the same train of thought like I just get away from people and that's kind of what drafty car is you know you're kind of like in this you know kind of midsize like shop but like really it's kind of just like you're you're focused on your own thing there's no people in the game like hardly at all uh the only people is the only person is like when you're in a Victory Lane like celebrating so uh yeah it's just like I I actually think like um there is like a hearkening for that for sure to like people are just like man these cities are not what they are made out I agree man I agree and and you know my my big point there is

that I I I have ranted on live streams about people trying to or game developers trying to fit in and to make games that are that that are just like every other game and they just want to feel like they fit in and they want to make a game that everybody else is playing yeah and it comes back to my point of wanting to throw away your hometown and to shed your history or shed your past and just get away from it yeah my theory is that is what you were given that was that was your childhood that was your teenage years that was your formative years that's where your heart beats even if it was a bad childhood even if you had a bad childhood and you hate your hometown and you hate the things that your hometown stood for or you know the the things that your family did even if you hate all that and it's

something you want to get rid of and throw away people need to remember that that's what makes you special and I know this sounds cheesy but it's what makes you special it what it's what it's the spice of your life and the spice of who you are how you grew up where you live what your parents were like um the religion you were part of the church you went to the weird bull riding festival that you would go to or whatever or the NASCAR races or the football games don't just or the or the or the the corn on your pizza that my theory is is like take that and use it to make a great project yes don't try and don't shed stuff and then just be somebody else you need to lean into who you are like you leaned into your Forte but you also like and that was marketing um you you leaned away from your weaknesses which is you you're bad coder so you you you figured okay I need

to use unreal and then you said okay but what do I know well I know NASCAR mhm I know I know racing that's what I know Y and so you just leaned into that and it turned into it turned into a full-time paycheck which is incredible yeah and I feel like uh so I mean you know part of the game like you get notes from your dad you know like every like if you if you crash your car and you know he has to fix it like he says all right you know like the car that you named is fixed don't do that again you know like and it just says Dad at the bottom like it you know like and you get this to to start career mode you like it actually takes over the screen it's like a full screen note from your dad like saying Hey kid like I got this thing ready to go like you know it'll pass Tech inspection um but yeah like that was like I feel like that's missing from games is like you know just in general like I I just I love my dad um he's he's

uh done a lot of great things for me so like I just put that in the game like I I wanted other even if you don't have a dad like I you know just somebody you know is alongside you in this journey I thought that was cool like I mean exactly what you said you know you just can't you don't want to shed you know just the the personality that like and it doesn't all have to be positive experiences obviously you put in those hardships like the the most intriguing part of NASCAR is if you lose focus for a split second you crash into a wall at 190 mes an hour and you're sweating and you're just like spinning through the infield you've got grass flying up in the air and like coming into the window of the car and you get dirty and you're just like and then your your car's on fire and you're just like I got to get out of this thing like it's just like you're just fighting for your life and the ambulance comes up they're like you

okay man I just hit a wall at 190 M hour but yeah I guess I'm all right I just or I just you caught on fire on a go-kart and Y you're just like you know just that that adversity is so raw like um like Motorsports is like so raw like I I've been watching Senna on Netflix it's just incredible like I highly recommend watching that that's a Formula One driver that that that passed away in a in a trash a crash uh tragically in '94 but I just love all Motorsports man and like I I'm not going to do anything other than racing games I just don't see it happening um it's it's a narrow band of focus and I know it's crazy I know like you like one of the number one things is like okay for your first game just rule out racing games like just don't do them and and that was hard to hear but um I think that there's there's definitely ways you can put your passion into any kind of genre and it can work

out sure you know that is that is a really good note to end on dude like I I I think about what's coming up for the game industry um it's a bunch of asset flip games I've talked about this but it's a bunch of asset flip games and it's a bunch of AI games like Elon Musk is he's so excited you know and I don't mind Elon Musk like a lot of people hate his guts I I really don't mind him but like what I do mind is I do mind this AI game Studio he's creating I'm like crap this be just going to be a real Studio oh man maybe maybe I don't know I don't know what that means what what is an yeah I think you might be on yeah I I maybe not I have no idea I have no idea but my point is is I just want I just want game developers listening right now to to say okay look if there's going to be a bunch of AI games and there's going to be a bunch of asset flip games the

smartest thing to do is to bring everything that I have inside of me all of my personality all of my passion all of my history and put it into a p a more personal project because those are going to be few and far between and thus more valuable yes you know and um that's exactly what I wrote down I was like if I can get what's inside of me out of me I will I will make enough money to feed our family like I'll be fine I just have to get it out I love that dude all right we Brian we've got um Brian Mr Brian Blackford we've got a link in the description for you for drafty car anything else you want to leave the audience with as we wrap up here uh it just feels weird to be like you you've had like five Legends in a row and then you've got me who's just so I just want people to know like don't give up like it can work it took me a long time but I'm I'm finally to

the point where I've had a small amount of success and even the smallest amount of success is tastes so good and you it'll it'll Propel you to keep keep going um and that success it might not even be money it might just be somebody loving to play your game um so don't give up that's what I tell people is like never give up