I Quit My Job To Make Games ALONE — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 013

all right dude uh thanks for hanging out um I've been really looking forward to this conversation because well a little bit about yourself your name is Thomas Stewart I'll ask you all about your what you do but something that's really exciting for me is that I do know and I'm not propping up my course at all I swear to everyone listening I'm not but you are you are a student in my program right okay cool and I don't think I I didn't know that until um my friend Hector told me so all that said you're a student but you you've got a really kind of unorthodox way of becoming a full-time game developer so there's a huge story there about how you went full-time and and how you're making games from I assume you're making games from your office right there Yep this is it um that's your life man and so I I know that I want to hear all about your story and and the challenges and and what you love about it what you don't all the games you're working on so all that said who are you where are you yep and what are you known for what do you do

uh well my name is Thomas Stewart I'm known as the biggest most famous uh most awesome Thomas in the Game Dev sphere and I like that's right yeah I'm a full-time game developer and fledgling YouTuber I like to think of myself as like the ideal guinea pig for everyone who wants to quit their full-time job to make any games because I I used to work as a gameplay programmer at a studio based in LA and then I jump ship because I wanted to free up my schedule um because my daughter was being born right at that time and so um since I quit my my full-time job I've released two games on Steam I've ported games to Xbox PlayStation Atari and soon Nintendo switch um and I'm doing all that by myself and then along the way I like to make transparent videos about my experience about quitting my job to make these games so sweet dude okay so links are going to be in the description for anybody who wants to follow you Thomas has a really cool YouTube channel and I would say that yeah you've got a guinea pig Vibe meaning like you you just put out content that you basically say I

don't know exactly what I'm doing here but I'm going to tell you what I'm learning yeah and I think that's really really cool um and that's that's what I've been telling a lot of people who want to get into YouTube and and anyone listening who wants to get into social media which is just you don't have to be perfect yeah in fact it's better if you're not um so that you when you're transparent about what it's like to learn and what it's like to learn to make games people really gravitate towards that cuz most people including me and been doing this for a freaking decade you're still learning every freaking day how to make games you know yeah exactly and you can't be afraid to fail either and I feel like that immobilizes so many people because they think like if they dive into game development they have to you know do everything correct the first time and I feel like it's through the failures that you actually get better as you go but you just have to be able to mitigate the risk associated with that like not everybody should just go and quit their day job and see if they can make it making indie games because it's super super hard but yeah for sure so let's

talk about you know where you are right now and then we can sort of talk about the story behind that so you're you're you're making games full-time right now and you have a family you just mentioned you had a a baby girl um what how is that even possible most people think that's like a fairy tale like that's not possible yeah um to sit in your home office or your bedroom and just make games and let alone make your own games and let not someone else's games yeah exactly like like a studio so what are you doing right now are you full-time right now yeah I'm full-time right now um I'm making my own games and my strategy is to uh develop my own games and then Port them to as many platforms as I can so I've got like just sitting over here I've got like my Xbox devkit my PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 devkit my Nintendo switch my Atari VCS and I'm trying to distribute these games on to as many platforms as I can just that I get like a trickle of income I'm coming

in here and here and kind of build up my back catalog of games um so I'm doing that along with YouTube and um Twitter X trying to like the thing the thing is about what I'm doing is I feel I feel pretty confident about my technical skills because I had worked uh a number of years at a game Studio doing programming uh but the things that I'm trying to figure out are like the business the game design the art the marketing um so those are the things that I'm trying to wrap my my head around right now um yep yeah well you're doing a really good job um I'm I'm following your channel and I'm just seeing you grow so much so in terms of income you're you're trying to you're you're trying to build up a machine that will eventually bring in that income correct so you're not self- sustaining yourself right now is that true exactly yes yes so yeah so yeah and I I talk about this in some of my YouTube videos is I did a lot of preparation before jumping ship from my day job um I I basically spent probably a year um kind

of getting a real solid grasp of my family's finances like spreadsheets and spreadsheets you know here's all of our debt like student debt and like um like here's how much we're spending on groceries every month etc etc I I detailed everything um and then I figured out okay this is like what we would need to be uh to sustain ourselves and out of that you know pay down some debt uh put away some some um savings so that I have this financial Runway so that I can try and use that it's basically borrowed time in my eyes it's borrowed time so that I can really put in the full effort to um build up this machine that will bring in this passive income as I really skar exactly you know I by the way I did the same thing um my situation well I don't know if it's the same thing but my situation was I had built up some savings off of like I don't know what it was was it was like a publisher deal or

something where I had some savings and we were burning through that and my wife was working and she was paying she was paying like the regular bills and so all of that savings I wanted to keep there just in case there was an emergency or something Y and so my wife was there she was supporting us for about a year I think uh but now she's now she's stay-at home mom and I'm I'm doing all the supporting Y and things have really turned turned around for us because um not only am I able to support my family I'm able to hire out people and support other people's families not that I'm doing the work but be because of that machine that you mentioned because of that machine um I'm able to to to provide multiple salaries you know yeah that's awesome so a good a good question ask here and then I I want to get into how you did it and how you got to where you are now a good question is would you recommend people listening to do exactly what you're doing

which is go out on a limb and take a big old risk yep uh I would say absolutely not but with with with a caveat uh yeah so I would say what I'm doing like I said I feel like I'm a guinea pig I'm trying to build in public I'm trying to do what I'm doing as kind of an experiment because I haven't seen too many Indie devs take this path typically it's like the hobbyist dev that's you know working one or two hours a day on their game for years and then they have one game they try and make a big enough Splash on their launch to be able to quit their day job and that's that's kind of what I've seeing a lot across um the the game development sphere and YouTube and things um what I'm trying to do is a little different and it's not proven yet and and I think the biggest difference is I'm really trying to focus on finishing games I'm trying to focus on small scoped games I'm trying to limit the amount of time that I'm spending on one single project so that I have these multiple titles out so that

even if they're not bringing in you know hundreds of thousands of dollars I still have some income that's coming in every single day from all these different locations um so in in my head it makes sense um the jury still out to see if it's a viable career path so we'll see yeah well I mean the thing is is even if it's not a viable career path it's like you're going to learn so much dude yeah you know in this time you're going to learn so much there's multiple streams of income though um that if I were you and I I'll list them out here just so you're aware um I've got this one of these loud candles let me blow it out um my dog's barking sorry no worries um a couple viable income streams for you to consider um how many views are you getting on YouTube right now per video uh so I I average like one to 3,000 views per video probably um i'

I've had a couple um bigger ones that have crossed the 20,000 threshold and then I have one video that has done six like over 100,000 um so that's so have you taken any sponsorships uh I have done two sponsorships one is did they oh go ahead I was just going to say did they pay you a hundred bucks one of them what I don't know if I'm allowed to disclose it was it was less than a thousand um more than 100 and the other one was yeah it was great um and then the other one was a a product and that was product review yeah because I I actually reached out to them because it was actually really awesome um it's it's kind of one of the intangible benefits of having a YouTube channel is I work off of a laptop and one day my laptop screen crapped out on me uh but it would still work if I plugged into an external monitor so I reached out to this company who sells um portable external monitor is basically like the size of an iPad and I said hey

uh can I review this on my YouTube channel and you send me so so they sent me like $900 worth of gear and I felt like I robbed them and I just am giving them like a a 30 second plug in in my video so yeah yeah oh man okay so you know you could definitely uh definitely take you you should be able to land a sponsorship per video in my opinion yeah um um that's what I did for a while like I think I got like 500 bucks a pop so every video was like 500 bucks and that was like with like uh 5 to 10,000 views per video yeah so that's that's one stream of income which is with YouTube you know so if you really wanted to you could probably bring in two grand a month by just doing YouTube videos you probably could um then you could also use your YouTube channel to secure wish list for your game y you know so that's another way y um but are you are you

planning on doing small like mobile games no I I don't want to go into the mobile market because I from from what I've seen I mean I think Apple arcade is a bit different now uh but I I started my hobbyist Game Dev Journey making mobile games and realized that the market is super saturated and the monetization models are very different so I I really like the um the business model of selling premium games on PC and console okay so your your goal is to make small Steam games yep I console and console games yep mhm okay okay but I I also I'll say this I don't want to start small or I don't want to stay small I want to start small and then every new project that I take on I want it to be a little bit bigger um but I I just don't want to bite off more than I can chew I want to make sure that I keep finishing projects yeah I I totally agree and also it's it's it's um

it's kind of like releasing little tests into the market to see like does this kind of game work and am I good at this kind of a game yeah you know yeah exctly am I good at this kind of a genre exactly yeah okay because I I see a lot of people put all their eggs into one basket of a game and if it flops like man that's that's so rough yeah yeah that's what I do and it's it's not it's not fun yeah but but you know you can um I got lucky because when I started releasing games I immediately found my forte and like found what my games what made them shine yeah and so I didn't have to search and figure out what I'm good at um and release a bunch of games to figure out what I was good at I my first game I released was atmospheric it was Moody and it was a story game and that right there everyone that's what people loved and that's what I love and so it just automatically just worked out um and that's all I do now so like a decision I made when I was 18 to determined my entire portfolio style

basically you see directors get locked into a style right like uh like Tim Burton he can't get away from his style Y and I'm maybe he wants to but why would he you know yeah um and so for me I I think every game developer they need to figure out what their voice is and what their style is exactly and do you feel like you figured that out yet or is that part of this process no I don't think I figured it out and I think it makes sense because like for you you are a good artist and a good Storyteller and for me I you know my background is in programming so I feel like my my default mindset is more linear and um like you often talk about you know the Trinity hook of having like a a narrative hook and a mechanical hook and a visual hook and I I think things like a a visual hook and a narrative hook are very easy for you but for me I think it's easier to have um like a mechanical hook because I can go into the code and um

make fun gameplay but the problem with that is that uh I think with a mechanical hook it's harder to Market because usually you need to get handson to see like a mechanical hook a lot of the time some sometimes you get it when you see it but sometimes it's like you have to be playing it for the mechanical hook to make S right I agree I agree with especially with more like uh like dark souls for example it's like the hook is that it's brutal I think um it's just awful and horrible and it's the worst game ever and I'm being sarcastic but not really CU I I can't play those games I'm not very good at those games but um but that's the hook the hook is brutal so the question is how do you how do you communicate that yeah and um a lot of times it's done with the visual hook you know like Portal's visual Hook is the same as the mechanical hook yep um so so you're still trying to figure that out yeah I'm trying to figure it out I have like a very simple like stylized art style that I like to go for like I I think I'm trending towards like uh kind

of cozy gaming more casual cozy like you know light a candle get a cup of tea those kind of games um but I'm still trying to figure it out do you think that I just having this this conversation with my publisher it was such a good conversation um my publisher said that the most important aspect of a game is the fun factor and my question is do you agree with that wow that this is actually a super philosophical question because it's like I know I really want to hear what you have to say yeah because I I told him I said I don't know if I agree right and he said he was like at the end of the day the games that in terms of monetary gain the games that blow up y they're just fun it doesn't mean they're not beautiful it doesn't mean they're not cozy it doesn't mean that there's not a good story but above all they're fun right but even in that rationale did you catch that they said it's the fun games that blow up so

it's almost like it's almost like if you could find something else that would make a game blow up then would that be the most important thing that constitutes a game I don't and and what I think is I don't think there's anything I like I I agree with I I do agree with him after our conversation because it's like I focused on story I focused on mood and music for my previous games they made me money y i they I went full-time and and it's like close to a million dollars in gross revenue for these games or I think it's more than that and but that's not blowing up yeah that's good but that's not blowing up the games that blow up are the are sometimes they're stupid yeah you know sometimes it's like stupid ragd doll games um yeah exactly where the player has creativity and they have fun and so you're saying well I love these cozy games yeah well are they fun and should they be fun or should they just be cozy

what do you think like yeah I the hard thing about any medium especially games is a lot of it is built up on preference and I think that there is strategies for marketing that you can Implement that captures a larger audience right but I don't think that there's necessarily a right or wrong unless you're measuring it by like sales or dollars right but it but it is like an artistic medium like for instance um the game that I just launched Bridges and docks it's like a it's like a cozy Island Builder game and some of the feedback that I was getting on like my devlogs and uh things that I was putting out online is um like what's the point of this game you know like there there were no objectives um there was no gamification um you know it's like um it's in the same genre as um townscaper if you're familiar with that game you just you just place blocks you know you know you build these like beautiful environments and some people love that you know it's the same kind of people that love playing with Legos or like the creative mode in Minecraft um but some

people it just doesn't click for them they want an objective and they want to complete that objective you know and like have this sense of progression and I don't think that there's necessarily a wrong wrong answer for it it's just right sometimes it's a little more Niche and sometimes you capture a bigger demographic by the type of gameplay that you have did did Bridges and docs perform as you wanted it to um I actually yeah that's a good question so I have actually haven't made my devlog covering the launch of the game yet um it it made about uh $2,000 on launch week which was which was bigger than my last launch actually on Steam um so you're making progress yeah but but steam actually isn't what I would call my primary platform usually I launch it on Steam first because I don't expect it to bring in as much money as um as the console platforms that I'm porting it to and it's easier to patch and give

updates so I I almost treat it like a soft launch I I do all the marketing beats you know I reach out why do you why do you think that console is going to make you more money [Music] um experience I guess I I think I think that there I think in Steam there's uh more saturation and in consoles it's it's hard to get on consoles and a lot of people don't think it's worth your time unless you so you've you've done better on Console than steam in your experience which game which game did well or yeah so I only have one game uh that's on all consoles right now that was my first game and it's called tanks but no tanks and it's a a local multiplayer shoot them up game oh my goodness okay yeah um and so that did better than steam mhm uh according to Chris zakowski 20 to 30% I could be wrong here but it's some low number 20

to 30% of most games revenue is console the rest is steam yep so that's the typical the typical for people listening is steam is usually where you get your money I just had a phone call with my publisher and they said priority number one is steam above all it's like you know nose in your computer and focus only on Steam do not even look up for console is the attitude and so what you're saying is unorthodox yep and I'm not sure I understand it but if that's your experience I can't argue with it you know right yeah ex it's it's super I it is unorthodox because nobody is doing it this way because most people need to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per game right or Millions you know they they're trying to make a ton of money for each title that they launch I'm just trying to make AER income for one right so I don't I

don't need to take a huge chunk of the market and I think with Ste it's very competitive you know they have like 10 to 20 games launching every day or something like that and uh the market on Steam is saturated because the barrier of Entry is lower than on consoles and so when you when you put a game on consoles you the lower thrat like you can launch on Steam and get zero sales right mhm but I think that's harder to do on console I think there's a lower threshold for the amount of sales you get because you you get more organic exposure whereas with steam you kind of have to prove yourself that you're like a big game that people are interested in but and then once you get to that level you know you're going to make a lot more money but I think I think as a solo Indie developer I'm I'm just testing the waters to see if there are other ways to survive than just concentrating on Steam well well well so let's I'm looking at Bridges and docks here um I'm going to I would love to offer my

thoughts I didn't I roast your channel yeah yeah you I roasted your YouTube channel didn't I you you you didn't uh roast my channel but what happened was uh you tweeted out uh games that you wanted to play like demos that's right I played brid and docks and I said this has the most potential y i remember in that video I said it needs a loop yep did you add a loop I it's okay if you didn't I won't be mad I swear I know I I sort of added a loop it I I kind of met in the middle it's still a very sandboxy creative open-ended game um but what I did is I added objectives that you can complete and for the most part it's almost used as like a tutorial isation so now you just start with there's only one thing that you can do when you start the game there's only one thing that you can click on and it's add a basic block to the to the level and once you add some blocks then you can add a tree and then you unlock houses and then you can add a house you and then and then it's like okay you need to figure out how to

build a rope Bridge because there's like a special way to use the bridge tool um and there's like different uh the the main facet that I think is interesting about the game is the procedural generation system so once you unlock that tool I think it's awesome yeah it's super fun to play with but uh you there's some tweaks that you can make to those configurations that um make interesting Island layouts and so that's where the the objectives start to get a little more okay I have to think about this how would I generate an island that has like um a bunch of trees or like higher tiles in certain locations or yeah um so so I kind I kind of added a game Loop but it's still mostly an open sandbox creative game I got you I got you it's it's got the I would I would say that you have a strong strong sensibility for visuals actually you mentioned that you're a mechanical Hook

guy my what I love about this game is the the visuals it's so beautiful thank you the colors are great and the the way things look I mean it's got obviously it looks like Minecraft you know it's got a Minecraft five Minecraft is what You' call I think we would call it a Sandbox game right it's a Sandbox game yeah but even a Sandbox game hacks into the monkey brain which is and that's what I'm curious about does Bridges and docks hack into that deep Roo desire to build power and to grow it I would say that's what Minecraft does because of the loop Minecraft sorry to interrupt you but M what I wanted to say was Minecraft it's it's literally life right it's day day night cycle build up to survival and be creative while you do it yeah and become powerful and you basically just become the owner of this world yeah exactly with all of your crazy Contraptions and tools and stuff and buildings the question is does Bridges and docs have back into that that monkey brain where

you want to become powerful and and and defeat a a truly challenging objective y uh I would say no it doesn't and I and I yeah go ahead and I wonder sorry I interrupt you I wonder is that can you make a cozy game that also gives you that sense of power yes and that struggle yeah definitely I think of um oh man what's that what's that game uh it's the game where you where you it's a top down 2D game where you unlock blocks of islands um and you like chop down trees and stuff what is that ah doesn't matter but I I think that you can tap into that like I think there's very cozy like idle games I think Idol games tap into that because you like generate uh more like points as you go or money or whatever but this is very much from my experience people who play this game um enjoy it because they start um imprinting Their Own Story onto what

they're creating you know they're like oh so actually maybe I'll make this hill here and this is where like the rich people live and then this is like the little peasant Village down here and here's like a little fishing port area so it I think it it a lot of if you have a good imagination and you like um and you like to build worlds I think that it's appealing like I've heard a lot of people talk about how they use it for or they want to use it for um like Dungeons and Dragons like creating an environment and then taking a screenshot of it and using it for their campaigns like okay this is the environment we come upon you know where do you want to go that sort of stuff yeah um yeah yeah I look have you I'm sure you've seen Throne fall from Jonas Ty roller um he's got 13,000 reviews and here here goes Thomas talking about money and how important it is but that's a lot that's a lot of revenue for a for a $10 game yeah and and I think it's got the same visual style I think it's got a similar just a

s it's similar visual style and and feeling um but there's there's a a power Dynamic to it yep where you you build up your defenses and you slowly become basically the king of this world y you know and I think that there's just something innate there that that is so humid and I just think about it I go man how well would Bridges and docks have done or maybe Bridges and docks 2 or whatever Y how well would it have done if there was that power Dynamic which is build up your defenses you know but then again here I am turning it into some commercialized game that maybe that's not what you wanted and that's not what you intended you know well I'll so yeah I'll tell you what my intent was my intent was to make in a um military strategy tactics game where you move troops around islands and try and defeat enemies around different

Island environments that was my original game idea yeah and I'm still planning on making that game the problem was I felt like it was too out of scope for what I could accomplish in a handful of months so this so Bridges and docks is actually my halfway point to the game that I actually want to make basically okay yeah good that makes me excited because I look at bridg and do brid Bridges and docks and I say man this game can make a million bucks but it needs it needs that that that well NE let's talk about two things here we're going to turn this into a consultation call because I'm thinking about like you've got the system here you've got this beautiful I would actually use an isometric camera by the way I wouldn't use orthographic or I'm sorry um perspective uhhuh I would switch it to orthographic uhhuh um do you know what I mean by that yeah totally yep I there's something Charming about that where everything's 45 deges uhhuh and 90° but that's what I would do but no the first thing is is let's talk about fun Factor yep what could we do what

could you do I'm interjecting myself into your game and I shouldn't oh please do please do what would you what could you do Mr Thomas to make this the fun Factor go from cozy a nice little four and I'm it's not a fun game it's cozy yep well what could we do to keep it cozy but make it fun what what is that what is that player experience you know when the player laughs in a stream or when they shout or when they get mad how do you create those experiences right now it's I'm sipping my tea that's great but what can we do to sip the tea and then chuckle and spit the tea back into the cup what are those things that we can do for Bridges and docks or that next game and there's a lot of things that you could do um a lot of them could be I would I would think humor is the way to go here um everything is silly and funny funny and ridiculous but still beautiful

and still cozy have you thought of these things have you thought of enhancing that fun factor and creating those moments yeah I haven't thought about it as like a a zany or funny approach which I do really like but I have thought about how do I make a this game include combat and construction uh but still keep it with a cozy feel and I and like one of the things that popped out to me is like one of one of the primary ways I thought about it is like making all the characters animals I feel like that's like very common in like cozy games um you know like what if everybody was a turtle and you had like a warrior turtle with a spear you know and you had to like send him over here and he was fighting like other turtles or different kinds of animals you know I think that that would be um a really interesting way to go with it Turtle craft yeah let's see is Turtle craft exist I'm looking it up Turtle craft it does not exist I would grab that now before this video goes live I'm going to buy the domain yeah I love that idea Thomas that

that's exactly what I'm talking about yeah and the Turtles um you know let's think they they um they can turn into bombs and blow up you know and they have funny voices and they're for some reason they have British accents yeah you know there's just so much you can do to to enhance that fun factor and it doesn't have to be zany or stupid but it can be just something that makes people go like if you can get a player to their head you've won yeah that's all it takes and there's nothing worse you remember that uh there's a there's a Bible verse where Jesus says um you weren't you weren't warm you weren't hot and you weren't cold you were lukewarm so I spit you out of my mouth right he's he's comparing he's comparing people to water he's like I don't want you to be lukewarm and the same is true with a game there's nothing worse than a lukewarm title that's sitting on a f and it's just PL I would rather my game be that's

right I would rather it have bugs and it's wild and it's it's broken than being just run-of-the-mill yep and so there's this um there's something that happens to game developers where because they invested so much time in something they get scared of throwing in those crazy things and so two three weeks ago I said you know what the head shot in my game are officially going to explode confetti that's the rule yes and I just did it even though it's not grounded in reality I just did it and it's so fun anytime you get a head shot confetti blows out of the player's head and then I was like well let's make the blood green and blue and orange yeah and now it's just silly it's just silly and fun but the game is still serious and Moody but you're throwing in those fun Factor moments that separate the game out from other games totally and I I also feel like it it's compelling for your game especially because it's it's it's like um I think

it adds to that feeling of unsettling it's fun but it's also unsettling like what what are these things that I'm shooting that when they when their heads explode confetti comes out it's like this mix between like like children's fun but also like Gres and like turns your stomach you know it's contrast is what it is you know it's like uh the enemies laugh when you blow their head off it's like why are you laughing so but there's something really disturbing about that but the same is true with Bridges and docks or whatever you want to do next it's like you've got something that's grounded it's solid it's it's a great concept it's clean it's it's uh simple Y what can you do to throw in contrast there and create those twists and those Pops that make make players go make players again their head and go what was that oh that was weird oh that was crazy um there's just so many things you could do here um and so you want to do are you sure you want your your next project is going to

be a military version of bridges and dogs is that kind of what you're thinking I haven't started on it yet um I'm still working on porting Bridges and docks to consoles but it that's that's the plan forward tentatively I I'm very open to figure out I might spend a little more time prototyping um this is this next project is one that I plan to um put together a prototype and try pitching to Publishers um I've had a a couple of conversations ation with Publishers um already and I would like to find funding for this game but um we'll see how it goes but there there will be there will be more a period of prototyping and figuring out exactly what the identity of the next phase of this game is for sure I'm trying to see I'm sitting here I'm watching the trailer and I'm thinking I wonder if there's just one thing one thing that can make this game just like you cannot stop playing it MH and maybe it is that way I don't

know I I uh I'm thinking about console I'm thinking about your console launch I'm like if you could if you could in if you could put in some kind of loop that that is super rewarding the console launch would go Gang Busters MH but I don't know what that thing is I'm thinking about the an economy of some kind just like what a currency that you have to gather and farm and then when you get a lot of it you can do another thing is there a currency in the game there's no currency it's completely creative right now yep so everything's free yep I'm sure what would it be what would it feel like if it things cost things have you thought about that oh yeah like M to build a house you got to get five coins yep and so how do you get coins yep I don't know yeah definitely and I I think that that is actually a really good the hard thing is is like I'm trying to pick and choose my battles my time is so limited and I'm trying to bring projects that I Envision to the

finish line and really like I said Bridges and docks is kind of it's It's a glorified level editor for the game that I want to make next but I but I wanted to polish it get it out so that people can play with it because I know that there's a market for it that people would enjoy I don't think it's going to capture a large player base but um but it's just one one of those things that I'm trying to like bring in some recurring Revenue while I'm building this bigger game so yeah yeah sweet man well congrats on launching this it's so cool I love this game I I've always liked this game I remember the first time I saw it I was like it's so pretty so you did a did a really good job there so what was the what was it like going from you where did you work when you were working in you worked at a previous game Studio correct doing mobile games yeah um yeah we did a what's it like working for a studio like that I loved it man when I when I first started learning game development you know I was just like watching YouTube videos taking online courses and like um trying to

learn just the ins and outs of game development and then I got to the point where I had built up this portfolio of games that were very small kind of lame but it it demonstrated that I knew how to do the basics in unity and I was able to leverage that portfolio of small games to get a full-time job at a game Studio as a gameplay programmer and as soon as I started at that job it was exactly what I wanted I thought all I want to do is just be able to open up unity and sit in there for eight hours a day and just like learn you know and that's exactly what happened it felt like drinking through a fire hydrant like it was it was such a a time of rapid growth for myself and um I feel like my technical knowledge of the engine and gameplay in general just skyrocketed I feel like I can do so many things in unity now um and the camaraderie and learning from other people and something that's interesting about game development and working in games full-time is it's different than my other jobs typically programmers only work with other programmers and then

like business people but what I loved about working at a game studio is it was very cross-discipline you had programmers and artists and designers and business people and we were all like in the same meetings trying to like rally around this vision of a game and bring it to Market and I thought that that part was really rewarding sweet and so you decided to take the leap though away from something you loved yeah I what was that yeah I had a I had a a good income I enjoyed the work that I was doing I was working on a really cool title um it was you might actually know of it it's a it was Rift of the necro dancer yeah yeah that's awesome yeah so man it was it was like a a dream project to work on the team was great like um you know I was sitting in meetings with Ryan Clark who is like kind of like a a hero in the indie game World um yeah yeah but but yeah I had I had this rub uh there were

a few reasons why I wanted to jump ship one was um I didn't want to just be a programmer I wanted to get my hands dirty in the the Realms of design and art and business you know I had a little bit of that entrepreneurial spirit and I wanted to see if I could tackle all of these other domains that go into game development um and then the other really big one was time um I didn't want to be sitting in meetings all day I didn't want to be to my desk um I felt like I could dictate my workday better if I had full autonomy over it um and that's been one of the one of the greatest benefits since um doing this full-time is that you know I can trade a Tuesday for a Saturday or I can work half a day I can have a long lunch with a buddy and come back and then work until like 11:00 p.m. if I want to you know um it takes someone who's really responsible and driven to do that I think it really does yeah but I've been working remotely uh for like 5 years so I I was doing it way

before the pandemic sent everybody home so I already had kind of that foundation for how to be responsible and get my work done without anybody looking over my shoulder um and yeah when when I decided to leave my job uh my wife was I think four or five months pregnant at the time so I kind of had this fire lit under me that um you know baby's on the way uh one I need you know income to be able to provide for my growing family and two I thought you know I don't want I want to be able to be there for my daughter as she's growing up you know I don't want to have to be dictated by the hours that my my job is set for me um so it's been it's been really awesome to be able to spend time with my daughter um more time than I think most dads get which has been really cool man okay so are there any things that stress you out about being being a full-time game developer oh yeah what what what's the thing that keeps you

awake at night yeah I I will say when I uh when I was planning to leave my full-time job to make Indie Games full-time I was imagining this sense of Freedom like the wind blowing through my hair just kind of like breathe a sigh of relief you know like the world is my oyster and I found out that the day that I left my day job I was just like oh man I feel like I felt the weight of it because now it's like it's all on my shoulders and not in a bad way because you know there was a lot of stuff going on at the time but I was like yeah like this isn't this isn't Fun Time this is like let's go time you know yeah um so so that that has been a good sort of stress um that you know like trying to handle finances trying to make smart business decisions about what I spend my time on that's that's a really hard one for me because I'm doing develop and trying to grow YouTube chel

I'm a little over 7,000 right now and dud that's amazing by the way just to interrupt you I think your YouTube channel is going to be the most profitable thing you do oh you think so that yeah that's really nice thank you uh and I I I say this I say this um and I I have trouble saying this because people misinterpret it so I I'll say this my YouTube channel is my most profitable Venture now hang tight does that mean Thomas doesn't make full-time money and six figures and blah blah blah from all of his games yes I do that just shows you how much profit my YouTube channel brings if my YouTube channel brings in more profit than all of my games and that includes Investments that includes Publishers that includes big sale events hitting the steam front page uh steam daily deals Humble Bundle all that stuff that's over a million dollar revenue from my games gross revenue gross just so everybody knows gross

revenue that means that I didn't get all of it okay just so everyone's aware my YouTube channel outperformed that in two years of of it's hilarious people think that YouTube is all about ad Revenue it's not it's about being able to build a brand and have products for sale I mean the the top YouTubers in the world they they create great content but but on the back end they've got products being sold all day long and that's what I do everybody knows this you know you were one of my students you bought one of my courses right um it's very very profitable if you can have digital products available like uh courses resources coaching um assets software like like software as a service if you could create something like that there's so much revenue to be made on YouTube that is truly RP income like a truly it's it's passive like that

that's the power of YouTube so you've got 8,000 subscribers you're pulling 3,000 views per video I'll just say this this is a complete side note but for anyone who's listening who has 8,000 subscribers or whatever and you're getting 2,000 views 3,000 views dude I've got I got 370,000 subscribers and I'm only swinging 15,000 views a video so I don't think I can go I mean I can go higher I sometimes go higher than that but I don't try yeah and the reason why is because what I care about is building my business and my and and if I don't have to get 150,000 views per video to make money I'm not worried about it if I'm providing value to people with only 15,000 views that's fine by me as long as my YouTube channel remains profitable for me and my team I'm happy yeah and so I would highly suggest highly highly highly suggest looking into Building Products outside of games that you can sell on the side in an automated funnel system

with YouTube and I'm very upfront and open with this with all my subscribers um I don't just sell games that's a whole other Venture my YouTube channel is actually something completely different so there's a you talk about drip income and and the idea of passive income passive income is a wonderful idea the best way the best way to generate passive income is not necessarily through games it's through um other digital products that that are a little bit more expensive than $5 y um and that's generated through organic content like your YouTube videos y so I really look into that man like there's so much if you want to make some money and you want to help people yeah and teach because you have a really good personality and you're good at YouTube obviously I would really look into that as well yeah that's we can talk about it after this call if you want I would love because when I quit my job I actually had a three-fold plan I wanted to make games I wanted to build a YouTube channel and I wanted to create online courses um because I have such a deep

technical knowledge of game development and unity specifically that I thought I could definitely give value to people through online courses but that's what I was leading to before is one of the hardest things is figuring out how to spend my time because I wake up every morning nobody's telling me what to do I have to figure out is my time best spent programming today or is it writing a YouTube script or is it filming or editing or is it you know working on this other online course that I want to try and sell and so it's really hard to take all of that and figure out a schedule that makes sense you know um can I can I give you I had all these ideas going through my head about bridges and docks as we wrap up this call can I give you you didn't ask for this but can I give you two the things that I would do if I were you yeah please right now you you talk about console and you say console is going to be my top performer let's pretend it will be I don't know if that's true but let's

pretend it will be for Bridges and dogs MH instead of just hoping and and rushing this game out I would spend two weeks working 100 hours in those both weeks so I I would scram I would tell your wife and um your baby girl it's a daughter right yeah MH i' I'd say guys I'm going to see in two weeks okay I love you give me two weeks and I would add in the following to Bridges and docks okay okay because you're talking about console it's going to be really profitable thing well why not make bridges and docks a little just throw in that extra spice so what I would do okay what I would do is I would have Turtles are on the on I would do little tiny turtles they're just NPCs that hang out and bounce on the island while you're building and they're just cheering you on woo woo woo it's like a roller coaster tycoon right I don't know if you ever played that game but and then every week so every seven days seven days being like you have a day night cycle y or maybe just a clock

at the top there's a storm that comes in this is your Loop storm clouds come in and lightning strikes boom boom boom boom and it attacks your Island right and then Pig Pirates come in so you've got pigs and turtles and you've got a giant pig face on the the the the boat the boats that come in and they're shooting cannonballs boom boom boom so so it's really just it's it's like an island defense game yep so what's the goal get the biggest possible Island you can yep if you Incorporated a simple Loop like that super simple so that your Island suffers and then you can build it back yeah I just feel like there's something there's something maybe I'm completely wrong people in the comments can say what they think but you've got your your Sil you've got your fun factor which or your silly silly pigs and silly Turtles you've got you've got the Cozy Vibes it's still there right and you've got a loop that's

imagine this it's beautiful for seven days seven game days it's beautiful piano music's playing you're just placing your stuff and then you get a countdown and the the dark strings start playing and then Thunder starts striking and things start breaking it's all about preparing for that moment for when the storm comes yep I would I I just wanted to give you that and just say would you consider just scrambling to make that happen because I has anybody told you that they want more of a loop or is it just me tons of people have said that then give it to them you know like you've got something that's you say well I'll just do it for the next game and I'm saying well if console's your big like I wouldn't do it if my console launch was only 30% of my Revenue yeah but if it's 70% of your Revenue like you think it's going to be then why not go in there

with a loop mhm give them the loop yep and see how it goes you've got you made an entire game here with this whole system without a loop and I say that's like saying I'm going to build an entire house but there's no door yeah to get into the house you know um I I just feel like you've got to have some kind of loop here and and I would I would introduce the the the the Pirates and I love what you said about the turtles I would bring in the turtles and the Pirates the pig Pirates and it's pigs versus Turtles Y and just go hard with that humor yep and how what so you go okay well Thomas said pigs so I'll just do some some pig Pirates no do do do um a giant snout uh saale um make it so that they're launching pigs from cannons you know like there's all this stuff you can do with pigs and then there's all this stuff you can do with turtles it's funny you could do funny little voices and you just lean into that fun

Factor right when they explode that when they explode little bits of hot dog come out you know there's just so much you could do here to make it fun and I think if if you're if you're the software engineer you you've um been talking about you can do it in two weeks yeah that's that's the goal I would really lean into that man and just try it just try it because I look at this game and I see some I I'll be honest with you I see something something like a missed opportunity because the loop is a loop is is a loop is everything for a game yep I think yep now I'm not a cozy gamer so maybe I don't know yeah no I think that that's really good advice and I I'll have to I'll have to think through that but I I like the idea of spinning out a quick idea of a game loop with combat and

something that gives the player motivation to continue playing uh in in replacement of just their own inspiration of this you know fanciful Island they want to create I think that the game that you described sounds super fun I think so too and I think that you you'd have a currency of some kind um what's a currency that Turtles would use you know that's that I love thinking about themes like this cuz you can just throw in so many stupid puns like um little shells or something which is hilarious cuz it's like why would I use the corpse of a turtle for my currency but like you could you could come up with a currency and and then if if the player is at risk of losing all that they built they work hard to protect it yeah and it makes it valuable right scarcity creates value if you don't have scarcity in a game it's not valuable yeah it's it's pretty but it's not valuable yep and

there's it like even Beauty in real life like beauty is valuable in real life because why it's scarce MH like there's only a few really beautiful people in the world the rest of us are ugly so beauty is scarce and so scarcity in game design is so important even in a cozy game when there's scarcity it makes you D in that cozy environment to make something beautiful yeah and build something big and awesome and do better than than your previous version of yourself that's exciting totally so that's what I would do with Bridges and docks yeah and I wouldn't even go Bridges and docks pigs versus Pirates I wouldn't do that I would just say nope it's called Bridges and docks and I'm going to update the steam version when the console launches y I would just try it yeah dude what if you took I'm so excited here but it's okay if you don't do any of this what what if you took pigs or what if you took that visual of

the pigs launching themselves out of cannons at your Island and the piece is breaking what if you took a a video of that just that mechanic just do that one first post it on Twitter and say should I implement this into Bridges and docks yes or no what do you think they're going to say yeah 100% we'll see maybe they'll say no maybe they'll be that's stupid I like it cozy MH you know right I just maybe spend three hours doing that create some kind of quick prototype yeah can you can you do that can you can you launch a sphere and then when it hits a a block it disappears 100% yeah you've got an erase function right oh yeah mhm so what you've created is you've created this entire system yep for building and breaking Islands yet there's no there's no threatening thing that will do that for you it's you so why not Implement something outside of you the Creator yep so that evil force that comes in and actually adds a little bit of Destruction and see what happens yeah I

like that idea a lot so and you're talking about well okay how do I how do I get all my time or this is I only have so much time to do stuff y well if you've built an entire game an entire system shouldn't wouldn't it be smart to just wouldn't it be a very lowrisk thing to jump in there for two weeks and add this as opposed to start another game right totally I think that's wise I could be wrong maybe I don't understand your strategy as well as you do yep I'm I'm doing the same thing with my last game my last game was a a tanks party uh shoot them up game and I'm I'm making a spin-off with because I basically have like a a tank system that's built into it and so that's that's going to be super small I'm not I'm just spending some some I I call it fun fridays I spend Fridays working on that game so yeah well okay so are you thinking maybe you could create a game called Turtles and pigs and it's just a complete

separate one from this or yeah I'd have to man I'd have to really think about that because I like the idea a lot I I think I think you're very correct that it does need something extra to appeal to more people and make the game Loop really fun for people yeah it just depends on how what that looks like I really like the idea of having a wave system and you know dest of the think that's are yeah for sure and you don't have to do anything but I will just say this cozy cozy is Multiplied when there's a threat in my opinion okay so what's the coziest what which one's Cozier being under a Blake it watching a TV show on a warm summer night or is it Cozier when there's a thunderstorm rolling in mhm yeah you know that that maybe that's just me but or a candle a candle is there's a candle

behind you a candle is beautiful in a dim room not a bright sunny room yep and so I I look at games like Bridges and docks and I say what if what if every 20 minutes that storm rolls in and it pours rain yeah and it causes some kind of damage that you've got to protect yourself from yeah so that those next seven days are especially cozy right what if this was an oasis and the outside world is dangerous and it's trying to get to you I love it I love it yeah that's awesome so what your game I think what your game is missing is contrast it's and and that's that's contrast in in in in mechanics of like a threatening mechanic yeah and also in in every once in a while bringing in a dark mood so that's the first thing I want to say the second thing I want to say is really lean into your YouTube channel yeah um and consider and consider selling digital products um lot of people feel gross about selling their own like courses and stuff but it's like

I if I want to learn from somebody I want to learn from somebody I know and so I follow you on YouTube I would love to learn from you because I know you i' I've watched all your videos you know um so it's it's something that is definitely something you you could consider yeah you have done better than most game developers out there yeah right yep um you've done significantly better than most because you have follow through yeah you have a a style your games are solid MH um and your YouTube your YouTube channel is really growing and so that's a really good question isn't what should you focus on yeah that's where do you focus your time y mhm yeah what do you think you should focus on I it differs from day to day you know I was actually lamenting yesterday about I looked at my YouTube channel and it's been 45 days since I posted a video and that just I feel like I'm kind of letting that slip through the cracks right now and I I know that I there's

videos out there that I want to be making and I know that people want to engage with what I'm doing and stay up to date you know and even even if it's just like a normal Dev vog but I've also been doing a lot of fun things that I that I think I could um talk about in videos and stuff but um you know it's like it's hard because when I when I'm actively doing development you know I have a lot of stuff to talk about in my YouTube videos devlogs that fun features that I'm adding or whatever when I'm when I'm working like right now I'm working on porting this game to Xbox and one all of that is under NDA so I can't show anything and two most of it is very technical and not interesting anyway you know so it's like I I'm constantly pulled between this like YouTube which I consider my marketing effort and then like game development or programming which is necessary but not always interesting so yep that's the thing is is uh YouTube YouTube is is a it's a Time suck

yeah and everyone wants a lot of people want YouTubers to do it just because they love it yeah they don't want YouTubers to be um getting something in return mhm and if you were getting something in return if you were getting paid let's say five grand a month mhm to make three videos a month you would probably do it right totally so that's the thing is if you had an incentive to do it it doesn't it shouldn't devalue the quality of the videos yeah exactly and it shouldn't change the content but it just means that you're more consistent totally so can I ask you creating that in yeah go ahead I'm so you you've seen my YouTube channel and something that I found one of the takeaways that I found doing YouTube is like I used to do more project oriented videos like I made one

video where I recreated Super Mario Bros in unity and I did one video where um I made like a game Jam game where you're like this Little Acorn guy running around Treetops in 48 hours and I made another video where I 3D scanned my old truck and put it into Mario Kart so that I could drive around my own truck in Mario Kart you know and all of these videos got like 300 views you know and so then I realized once I started talking about like my own process and like how much money I'm making if I mention money anywhere then people will click on these videos and I'm trying to figure out like what is a good I like you you are much better at YouTube than I am so you looking at my channel how I don't know I feel like you're like you're one of dude I got 300 I got 380,000 subscribers and I'm only getting three times as many views as you which is you know it's like it sounds like a lot but it's not it's like your latest video got four 3.5 th000 views yeah my latest video got 15,000 so

it's like it's not that big of a difference relative to the size of the audience yeah you're doing great that's a fair point yeah I'm I'm just trying to figure out what a like what's my North Star that I should be aiming with with my YouTube content because it it used to be when I was doing it part-time I was just making project oriented videos and then I moved into more of like more behind the scenes like here I this guinea pig guy who quit his job let me give you a peek behind the curtain so that you have like a realistic view of what it what it's like behind the scenes and all the things that I'm all the struggles and obstacles that I'm encountering and all of that let me I could give you the answer I figured it out two weeks ago and it's going to potentially blow your mind but maybe not um Alex Heros is pretty popular I don't know if you follow him yeah I've seen him he changed his content style have you seen this mm-m he changed it to long

form content where he just talks into a microphone there's no crazy edits anymore there's no clickbait titles he the reason why is he doesn't care about views do you know what he cares about he cares about optins he cares about subscrib true subscribers not subscribers on YouTube he cares about subscribers to his fan base his private fan base so it could be a membership it could be an email list it could be wish lists I love email email addresses are the greatest thing ever because it that's a true audience like YouTube subscribers it's not that they have a problem it's that YouTube's algorithm doesn't even help like it doesn't really pitch your content to YouTube subscribers MH um it kind of does sometimes it depends on the channel but I found that I don't care about views as much and I don't care about subscribers on YouTube I care about the people I just don't care about the number yeah I I don't care about views or the number of subscribers what I care about is true fans yeah ones who have been who have opted into my email list or who have

wishlisted my game now why and I'm I'm speaking purely from a business perspective here okay so everybody who thinks this sounds really sleazy I'm just thinking purely about a business I got employees I got I got bills to pay what is the value of an email list or wish lists well the value is they convert into Revenue eventually a few the rest of them you just provide value but there are to them like tons of value right demo on Steam right um free content free newsletters blah blah blah y but a a a truly warm a truly warm fan on an email list or a wish list on Steam and by the way a wish list on Steam is like the same thing as an email list it's just Val ownes that you don't the True Value there is that these are people who will a few people a few people will eventually convert into a sale so you'll sell a game or you'll

sell a product or whatever okay so you're sitting here going what's my North Star well if you're if you're not married and you don't have kids and you don't have bills to pay then your North Star is just create great content and just be okay with that but in my opinion I think a lot of game developers foolishly seek clout for clout sake views for views sake um when in reality it's a lot easier to stay motivated it's a better long-term strategy to think like a business and to think well okay what's my Revenue model um how do we how do we continue to make four videos a month and that helps us pay our bills MH point is this it's a lot easier to be consistent on YouTube and to figure out what your content is when you know what generates Revenue this can be really really bad

though because it can cause your content to become stale and awful right so you have to be careful with this but some of the most consistent YouTubers out there are the ones who have a business behind the operation MH so I would you ask what's my what's my North Star I would say your North Star should be something like I need 10,000 wish lists mhm yeah because if I have 10,000 wish list I know I'll make $20,000 MH and that actually I think that number is correct Maybe I'm Wrong here um let's say you sell a $5 game 10,000 wish lists the $5 is tough because that's about half of the typical price of a game but if it's 10,000 you have 10,000 wish list at a at a 10% conversion rate we'd probably be 15% conversion so that's um 10,000 time 0.15 that's 1,00 sales mhm times $5 that's 7500 bucks okay mhm so

you're probably going to aim for more but point being though if your aim is wishlist then you know my aim is 10,000 wish lists yep that's 10 basically 10 grand on launch yep how many videos do I need to launch with a call to action to wish list to get that number well how would you know well you would say what is one video do well let's do a test video we'll do a test video if it gets 5,000 views how many wish lists do I get with a call to action at one minute so do you think see how everything's very systematic right it's very metrics driven yeah yeah and and a lot of people listening right now will go man Thomas is so sleazy where did he get all this this is what YouTubers do like YouTubers are posting content consistently over and over and over again because they they understand that number one they're providing value for Their audience they're building a great fan base they're building Community it's fun but there's also a consistent Revenue stream that is it's

basically the law of averages mhm you're just going to get that Revenue because it's just the way it is yeah so your North Star should be converting someone to a warm lead that's that's really and I'm going to run an ad at the end of this podcast take a look at my webinar blah blah blah every every every YouTuber does something like this okay some YouTubers what they do is they take a sponsorship from skillshare y okay well they aren't getting leads but who is skillshare right so YouTube or organic content in General on social media has always been um sort of the entry point for sales MH and so you can maybe you're getting a version of Thomas you don't like right now I don't know but [Laughter] which well yeah I'm trying to convert you into a sleazy businessman here but I think I think trying to survive out here

I know I mean everybody listening is and so some people will write negative comments like Thomas is is selling this and I hate that and I'm like this is why you guys are getting consistent content though yeah the reason I post consistently is because it provides income for my team yeah that's that's a it's not the only reason but it's a big reason yeah a big reason why YouTubers like some of our favorite YouTubers you're like why is it they post every day how are they so consistent how do they stay so motivated and their content is always so precise Revenue that's it and so if you can think what you said what's my North Star your North Star should be it this will make it easier for you especially as a father M and as a as a husband and as a businessman your Northstar should be I want to create content that captures the audience that will convert

to a sale now you may that sounds bad because it's like all you care about is making money it no I if I if I can create content that captures a specific audience that converts to sales that means that audience found value in what I'm doing yeah and so really it helps you create valuable content MH yeah I think it's interesting because I think what other people do that I find like the the thing that you might run into is if you are running after money you you might come off as disingenuous and not you in particular but I mean anybody who's like trying to sell anything right like like a car salesman you know like they're really nice to you but you but they're not actually nice they want you to buy from them and so I think like with YouTube right now I'm trying to build a channel built off of like

authenticity and because I think that people really like that you know and it's like people want to see what's actually genuine about the things that I'm working on and I think that yeah these values of authenticity and genuiness are super helpful and it builds trust you know and so I think that that that's kind of like the line that I'm trying to find where it's like yeah I need to pay my bills but I don't want to come off as a as a car salesman you know so I think that's kind of the rub well the rule is and this is something I've changed my entire approach to sales like when it comes to my channel and promoting my own products um I think it was last month we stopped doing it completely because we just felt I didn't feel I felt gross about it to be honest so then the question is like well how do you how do you then what do you do well the answer is you sell you sell privately to people who care yeah you don't you don't you don't up and just like imagine if you said hey I'm a game

developer I'm Thomas Stewart and I my game is my game is 50% off and you did a video about your game 50% off MH that's not going to work because only 1% of the people watching your video give a crap yeah the rest of them are like I'm clicking off you're wasting my time yep so the idea is is to to to find the people who really do want to buy your game MH how do you do that how do you find people who really do want to buy your game do you know well if it's on a medium like YouTube you have to have some sort of funnel for them to opt in to hear more about you yeah that's right so all you're doing all you do is you say I just launched five games and then in the first 30 seconds you say oh and by the way you can click below if you want to play the demo MH that's it and the way they play the demo is they either wish list it or they give you an email address that's it y now you don't just sell to them with an email address that's ridiculous you continue to give them valuable content and the rule is one out of every four emails you

can say hey by the way the game is for sale mhm So eventually you have to sell I mean it's like every game developer needs to realize this um every YouTuber needs to realize this you're not going to keep creating games and you're not going to keep creating content if you don't make money because you're eventually you're going to have to go get a job yep and you're not going to have the time to do it yep so you've got to sell you have to create calls to action you've just got to figure out a way to do it ethically honestly genuinely and generously generosity is the number one way to sell okay if I give some this is why demos are so valuable on Steam if you give out a super generous demo by generous I mean it's it's free obviously but it's 30 minutes long it's gorgeous highly polished and you give it out during steam nextfest what's going to happen you're going to get 100,000 wish lists and you're going to sell a ton of copies when it launches so that's the same

thing that Costco does they giving you just all it's like I just hate 10 samples at Costco yep I feel like I stole something from them y why well what happens well you end up buying what you got yeah you know and I feel like I got a such a good deal because I only paid $150 for lunch because I bought one of their hot dogs but then I walked away spending $300 on other groceries that's right yeah that's right yeah and so is that manipulative of Costco no because I feel like I benefited from it yeah yeah that's right so Commerce the the best form of Commerce is when both parties are feel like they got something yeah um and so you want to do the same with your your YouTube channel you want to give so much good good content away like this podcast for example I just I just G we just talked for an hour and 20 minutes and the people who are still listening right now got hour and 20 minutes of just great content M at the end of this podcast they're going to hear me say hey

if you want to check out my webinar below click below and I'm going to get an email address from like 0.1% of the people who listened those people genuinely want to learn from Thomas and so those people genuinely might want to trade value with me they might want to say hey you know what I do want to learn from Thomas's course but I'm not gonna pitch it now I wouldn't pitch my course now I used to do that that's horrible I'm not going to pitch now because people don't want to hear that right now but the people who who who communicated with me that hey I want to learn from you more I want to take it one step further those are the only people I worry about so when people think about steam wish lists they don't fully understand that it's all it is all it is is a sales funnel it's the same thing mhm it's an email list that that valve owns and then they they they send emails out saying when a game's on sale yep um so again back to your North North Star question what's the north star of my my

YouTube channel what do you have to offer at the end of the day what do you have to offer to sell um it's a dangerous question it is dangerous because you could create content that's stupid and szy just to make money MH so you've got to figure out the balance there but at the end of the day a YouTube channel is a business yep um it really is is and it's a wonderful business it's it's just the greatest thing ever because you can I could sit here and give an hour and 20 minutes of just great conversation with Thomas Thomas and Thomas and tons of value yeah as opposed to in the 90s it's like buy my hour hourong conversation with Thomas Stewart for just $20 and we'll ship you the DVD right it's like nowadays it's like no you just listen and then at the end if you want to learn more about Thomas and learn from Thomas you can take a look at his webinar and that's it that's how it works or if you want to if you want to wish list that person's game 1% of you

will do that mhm does that make sense 100% yeah do you have calls to action in your videos yeah I do I I try not to do too many because it's like I don't want to like usually I'll stick them at the end and I try and pick one because I don't want to be like oh buy my game also subscribe also follow me on or uh contribute to my patreon also join my Discord you know it's like I try and pick like one yeah patreon's interesting so I wouldn't never try and this is a new rule for me never try and make a dollar a single dollar from a YouTube video so when when people call out support us on patreon I don't know if I like that mhm I I I'm trying to make a rule for myself which is don't ever ask for money in a video try and give something away so it's like for example hey you can play My

Demo by by clicking the link below well when they click the link below it's you can play the demo for free or you can play an extended demo for $5 a month on patreon you know something like that where it's there's always stuff to give away there's there's there's you're being very very generous um and we we we have the flexibility to be generous in this era because organic content is so valuable yeah like if you can get look I'm looking at your videos right now 31,000 views on that video I quit my job mhm that's it that that's crazy to think in the 9s that you could do that or the early 2000s 30,000 people yeah learned about this random guy named Thomas Stewart yeah it's crazy so you we have the freedom now with Organic content to be extremely generous with what we give away mhm um very very generous with long video tons of value even free demos and free this and free that just give give give

give give because if .1 or 0.05 if if half a percentage of those people actually convert into a sale you're making some money and and at the end of the day that's how you stay afloat as a game developer yep and as a YouTuber yeah so definitely nice sorry if that was a little bit of a rant I I've been learning a lot in the last two months about what the what the North Star should be yeah um I love that it's tough yeah I and it's super applicable to me you know because I you know I saved up a financial Runway you know and I'm making some money which extends my financial Runway but I'm still not at a point where I'm like oh I get to do this full- time for the rest of my life I'm still trying to figure out you know how to be how to stay afloat so I this these sorts of conversations are super helpful for me if you make I'll I'll close with this if Bridges and docks can make you a a full-time salary for one year what you've just achieved is a

credibility marker you've officially achieved that then if you want to you can then coach and and teach half a percentage of your audience on YouTube and that will be additional income I point being I wouldn't try and sell a course or resources or anything like that yeah until you hit that Mark mhm that cuz that credibility marker of I made a full-time salary yeah from my games and I can teach you how to do it too yeah that's very valuable for your audience your audience will go man I want to learn from Thomas definitely um so it's just something to think about which is prioritize what I would do if I were you right now is I would prioritize your YouTube channel for wish lists and sponsorships MH see if you can get a uh almost full-time like $440,000 a year from sponsorships MH you might be able to pull that off yeah that'd be great and

also prioritize getting some wish lists and that's that's how I would build your business and this is a purely a business conversation what we're talking about right now this is not Community this is not adding value to your audience or or I'm sorry not adding value it's it's not about purely only just building a YouTube channel and and just loving it I'm talking about the business side um there's a whole other side the equation which is do what you love and enjoy it and and lean into your Forte and be creative and have fun definitely so yeah but I've been amazed how much uh I thought that I would have to have like what you what you said before about having that credibility of oh I made enough money to fund my studio for another year um before you know trying to teach other people about this stuff I feel more comfortable with the technical stuff I could probably teach you know how to make a game pretty easily but um but it's funny just having a YouTube channel um how many people reach out to me and send me messages and

they're like hey like I want advice about this or like how did you do this you know so like there are lots of people that are I I still think of myself as early on along the game development path but there's so many people that are just starting that they're they don't know what like the first step is you know and so oh yeah yeah there's a lot of people out there that want to be able to make games which is cool well I'm super happy for you Thomas I think I think you're you're doing incredible um you're pulling some good views and I think I think your YouTube channel is definitely something you should prioritize yeah um I'm interested to see if you had the time I'm interested to see um well you know you don't have to do anything I've mentioned but I am interested to see Bridges and docks on Console yeah um and see how that performs yeah definitely cool man well guys links in the description for Bridges and docks and also Thomas's Channel Thomas is there anything else you wanted to close with man man no I just really appreciate

it I love these conversations I love talking about game development you know all the technical stuff the marketing stuff the business stuff um I really appreciate it and um yeah thanks for having me on yeah dude take it easy cheers see you hey friend I want to see you succeed as a game developer I want to see you make a full-time salary as a game developer see the thing is most game developers don't know how to actually make money with their game and believe it or not you can actually make a full-time salary with just a demo I've done this three freaking times and I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that make a full-time salary with just a demo click the link below it's a webinar totally free no gimmicks here check it out watch the whole thing you're going to learn a ton and you're going to learn how to make six figures with just a demo cheers