Six Figure Game Idea Workshop - Day #2

How we doing? You guys ready for day two? Well, that's four. Day two of the six figure game idea workshop. I'm really, really excited because number one, hey, we're going to talk about how that idea that maybe you created yesterday. We talked all about creating great ideas yesterday. Taking that idea and that demo of that idea, we're going to take that and talk about how you sell it. How do you sell that to a publisher? How do you sell that to a platform? How do you, you know, do a Kickstarter campaign or my ultimate favorite these days, just because, you know, I don't know if I'm going to work with a publisher in the future. Um, sometimes you have to and sometimes it's a good idea, but my favorite is wish lists. We'll talk all about that. And then after that, we're going to do a big fun Q&A. We're going to do a Steam page audit. So, get your Steam pages ready or

if you have a pitch deck or you have game ideas. Um, we will we will be auditing those. So, I'm really really excited about that, guys. So, come in. Come in. Come in. Let me get set up here. Everybody should be here. How many of you got an email today? Um, want to make sure everybody's getting my emails about if you signed up for the workshop. Come on in. All right, we're good here. We're good here. We're good here. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I'm going to start the slideshow here. Hey, I told you I was going to say this. Look guys, yesterday we had um yesterday and today is a a big workshop sale for my massive program, Full-Time GameDev. uh several people enrolled which is awesome. It means the world to me because obviously it does support the channel and it supports the podcast but

it does also support um their future um which is awesome. You know their their um students of the program and the program teaches well how to turn a game into a full-time gig. Right. So, welcome Jess, Leah Lei, H, Gabriel B, Zack M, and JP Sherry and Jojo D. Means the world to me. And by the way, guys, there's a link below before we begin the workshop here. There's a link below on enrolling in full-time gamedev. There's 15 seats left to get this massive 40% discount. Um, and look, if you don't believe me and you think it's a silly, silly little idea or a silly program, Andre went full-time, Chris went full-time, Bart went full-time, Everflux went full-time, Felipe went full-time, Sultar, Antonio, and this is Chris again here. Lots of people went full-time, which is just so freaking cool. So, it's 40% off. You also get my 2D and 3D art programs

completely free. You got a day left, right? And then after that, closed up. The deal's gone. Um, okay. And I'll give you a shout out at the end of this stream if you do enroll during the stream. So, I'll give you a shout out. But anyway, enough shilling your course, Thomas. Geez, shut up. All right, let's take a look at this wonderful, beautiful slideshow here and get going. All right, day two of the workshop dedicated to crafting profitable game ideas. That's the goal for today. Um, let's go ahead and talk really quickly about crowdfunding. Um, crowdfunding is a great way to secure. It's not always the most money, okay? Um, and admittedly, crowdfunding is not as huge as it was, you know, three, four years ago, but it's still there. Look, the days of getting, I don't know, $200,000 for a crowdfunding campaign, they're not really here, okay? But you can still raise money and you

can still raise enough to get you full-time. Okay. Um so I've done two crowdfunding campaigns. One for Once Upon a Com um for Pinstripe. So that's what you do. You take your demo and you take your trailer and you pitch it on crowdfunding. Okay. So you could use Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Backer Kit. Um, here's kind of a reasonable estimate. I think this is what everybody wants to know. It's like, Thomas, if I have a good game idea, and hopefully after yesterday, you do have a good game idea. Um, let me pull the chat up actually over here. I want to make sure I see you guys. Can you give me a sec here? Hopefully, you have a good game idea. And if you do have a good game idea, um, there's sort of a a lower tier. As I pull up the chat here, I'll explain. There's sort of a lower tier of the amount of funding you can get and then there's kind of a higher tier of funding. And this is just basically sort of my I don't know gut feeling of doing

it multiple times and also just sort of watching Kickstarter in the last couple years. This is just my gut feeling on the amount of money you can make on Kickstarter. And we'll talk about Kickstarter and like the risks involved. Um let's see here. Let me pull up the chat. There it is. Okay, now I can see you guys. I felt super lonely there for a second. Um, here we go. All right. Yeah. So, you're probably wondering like, why should I do a Kickstarter campaign? Well, imagine if you took a demo and you made $25,000 to $200,000. Okay? It's not that crazy to do. It takes hard work. And we'll talk about what what work is involved. Like I said, the days of a $200,000 campaign for indie titles. I think th I think those are over. Um, the favorite games on Kickstarter

are like familyfriendly games kind of or just like not shooters, not super violent horror games. Despite the fact that I would love that, um, they they kind of favor friendlier games. Um, so just keep that in mind, especially with Kickstarter. Um, so let's think about this. How do we do this? How do we crowdfund? Well, you might want to go full-time. And so, you're thinking, "Okay, I got a demo. I'm ready to go full-time. I want to get enough money uh to work on my project full-time." Well, it's probably going to take you in order to do a good campaign, it's going to take you around 60 to 90 days to plan and prepare. So, two to three months of just planning and preparing, right? So, you got your demo. You don't just launch

a Kickstarter campaign the next week. What you do is you plan this thing, right? You plan it out. And the way you plan it is you obviously make a great video. You make a great trailer for your game and then you talk about it in front of a camera. You tell your story right on this video and you can look at Never Song's campaign and also Pinstripe's campaign. We'll look at those in just a second here. And you prepare that page in private. Once you've prepared the page and prepared the video, um, and then you start to put together an email list. An email list is the lynchpin of every great digital marketing um, campaign. Whether it's seeking funding, whether it's reaching out to the press, whether it's selling your game. But Thomas, that's wish lists. No, wish lists are email lists. So,

everything comes down to email lists. So, when it comes to a Kickstarter campaign, guys, I did this when I didn't have a following. I know what a lot of you are thinking. You're thinking, "Well, Thomas, he uh he's got a YouTube channel, so all of this is uh BS." And it's like, "No, I did this before." In fact, I think, yeah, Neverong and Pinstripe, which both raised um $100,000 each basically. never song which is called once upon a coma at the time we changed the name was just a little bit less I didn't have a following then maybe I was starting to but it was tiny and what I did what I did was I created a list of press people that were interested in these kind of games well Thomas where do I find their email you you can find it just Google it usually on Twitter what's where's Is everybody going to blue sky? Um, it's usually

there. It's on their personal websites. It's on IGN's website, blah blah blah blah blah. The press is not as relevant as they used to be, thank God. But you could still get streamers to play your demos. You can reach out to them. You don't have to reach out to big ones. You can reach out to mid-tier ones. So, what you do is you reach out to all these people. I would I would make it a goal of a hundred YouTubers, a hundred members of the press, and a hundred, wait for it, friends and family. Make that a goal, 100 YouTubers or streamers, 100 members of the press, and then 100 family members. Make it a goal. You're probably not going to hit it, but make it a goal. Andrew's Edge says, "Does Kickstarter sort of have its own algorithm? If so, how much money do you have to send it for your own people before it?" It's

kind of an algorithm. I would just say it's it's more like a human a couple people in an office in New York City. I think they're in New York. And they just pick and choose. If if something's doing well, they throw it on the front page. And the front page will bring in 70% of your revenue. But you gota you gotta kickstart it, no pun intended, with this. So you're sitting here thinking, okay, Thomas has a goal of me for me to reach out to 300 people who can promote this thing. Do I do it before I launch? Do I do it after I launch? Like when do I take advantage of this email list? And the answer is day one. Right on day one, everyone knows what they need to do. So, how do you do that? Well, it depends on the list. Streamers, you need to reach out to them two weeks prior and say, "Hey, I got a

demo and I want you to play it. And by the way, you can post the video on this date." Let's say it's June 1st. You're launching your Kickstarter campaign. And it would mean the world to me if you posted you pasted the Kickstarter link in the description and let your audience know blah blah blah. So now you've just sent a hundred emails to 100 different streamers, mid-tier, low tier, high tier, and they all know that they can post the demo and the playthrough of the demo on their channels June 1st. How many will do it? Maybe three. maybe three. That's amazing because that is what you need. And we'll talk about why that's what you need. Number two, 100 members of the press, blogs, articles, or or magazines like I don't

know, Time magazine, which weirdly enough, Time I say Time magazine because that it seems like an outlier, but I did it, you know. Um, Washington Post. I've done that one. Um, Kotaku, Polygon, PC Gamer, Games Radar, just reach out. You're probably thinking, well, there's not a hundred of them, Thomas, that that matter, right? There probably are. And it you can actually bring it down to like 33 by reaching out to three different email addresses of the same magazine. So it's like games ra info at gamesraar and then a freelance writer for games radar and then use their submission field on their website. So you go bang bang bang hit them three times. Same thing as YouTubers and streamers. You let them know. Some of you are probably thinking this sounds crazy. This is how it's done. This is what PR agencies do. Okay? But I'm just

asking you to do it yourself. Put on your big boy pants. do it yourself. I did it. I did it twice. And it worked. Now, here's the thing. What are family and friends for? There's two things they're going to do for you. They're going to retweet, repost. Your grandma's going to post it on Facebook. I'm so so proud of Dane Weber. It's so exciting what Dne Weber is doing with his career. He's making a little video game. I'm going to support him on Kickstarter and give him a whopping $5, right? That's what that's what you're trying to do. I think the main goal with family and friends is to get them to to give you money in that first like hour.

So get your phone out and text everybody you know day one in that first hour because if you can get like five grand raised in the first hour from family and friends, the algorithm will see it or the Kickstarter, whoever whoever's in charge of getting it on the front page will see it. Again, if you don't trust me, I've done this twice, so I know how this works. I just don't know who's behind it all. Actually, I do. I mean, they have a team of people. I've talked to them. I just don't know if there's an algorithmic component, but I know there is a a curation team for sure. Okay. Um, so all three of those. Now, you you might be thinking, well, those family and family and friends are going to be really confused. They're going to be like, why did I just get a text message asking for money? There's nothing more gross than doing

that. So, I forgot to mention this a month before the campaign. 5K from family and friends is not insane. How many of you have a rich uncle or some aunt who'd be willing to drop two $2,000 to help you out or $500? And I don't have many of those at all, but I can think of maybe like one or two people. For example, I was friends with a really rich CEO and I think he dropped $1,000 immediately. There's the It's just a few people who go bang because look, here's why. I know what I know, Morgan. You're probably thinking that sounds crazy. It's not. The reason why is what I was just saying, which is what you do is for 30 days prior to the campaign, you send out the preview link of the campaign and you tell your friends and family and you say, "Guys, this is scary for me. I need your advice. What do you think about

this preview campaign?" And they look at a preview link and they say, "Wow, I'm really proud of you. Like this, you're really going all out and you you made this demo. Wow." and you say, "Yeah, and what do you think?" And they and they give you their advice and you say, "Thank you so much, Aunt Susie. I'm going to implement these changes." They don't care about your project. They care about you. Right. Automotive says, "I don't think you live in the real world if you think you can get 5K from family." Uh, yes you can. Yes, you can because what you do and guys, this isn't like I what is it uh one of one of Alex Hermosy's books. I think it's called uh $100 million leads. He talks about how effective it is to grind with your list on your phone and to just grind with that list of people. Guys, I have done this. Now, I don't know if it was five grand, but it was

more than two from friends and family. They show up, guys. They want to help you. They want to help you. You can say it's not going to work all you want, but I'm just telling you what's worked twice for me. You guys keep thinking of family. It's friends and family. Friends and family. Okay, it's possible. Okay, you warm up that list for 30 days and then boom, when you launch the campaign within the first hour, they'll show up. [Laughter] Seprotype says, "I mean, if you had 5,000 family, guys, I don't think you understand that they all it takes is a couple people who really want to see you succeed to get to that number." Like if I open up the Kickstarter campaigns for both of my games, it was close friends, successful, close friends, several of them, who did a

$1,000 um Kickstarter backing because they want to see you succeed. Does that make sense? Dane Weber says, "You can. It's not actually that hard. Maybe mentally hard, but getting money is not that difficult. It just takes effort." Look, it when it's your first campaign and you're going all out and people want to see you succeed, in a way, you're kind of they live vicariously through you and they'll support you. They'll show up and they'll they'll drop some big bucks. Now, if you do this all the time and it's like every campaign you do, you're asking for money from your pastor, it's like, well, no, don't do that. Um, but if it's the first thing you first campaign you've ever done, your the people in your community, if you have a hundred friends and family members that you can reach out to, they'll show up. Okay, so Andrew Edge says, imagine that

your core family will be willing to give you $20 to $100. Let's say 50 times five is $250. And like 20 of your friends for an average of 50, that's 1,250 bucks. That's right. You know, and and that's exactly what I'm saying. So, you have you have friends that show up that love you and care about you and they show up, but then you have those those few family members or friends or mentors who are business owners and they got money and they show up and they support. Now, why why do we why do we even care about this? We care about it not because we need, okay, five grand is enough. It's like, no, what you want to do is you want to kickstart that k that algorithm or let the the curation team at Kickstarter know that this project just made a lot of money really fast, right? So, that's why we're trying to get an initial impulse when you do your crowdfunding.

So, this is just a recap of of what you wanted the 60-day launch plan to be. Okay, guys. This this mentality, seriously, this mentality of saying, "Well, no, that can't be done. No, that can't be done. You're crazy. That's silly." That's why campaigns don't work because people do not believe that the laying the groundwork in the first 60 days is worth it. and you have somebody who's done it twice telling you exactly how he did it. Okay? So, have some have some courage and lay that back lay those those um um stepping stones as you lead up to the launch of some of a crowdfunding campaign. I think you'll be surprised that people show up. Okay, there you go. All right, let's talk about publishers

and platforms, guys. Similarly to Kickstarter, I have to admit it's publishers got spooked in 2024. They're there. They exist and you can get funding. Totally fine. You can get funding, but publishers are more timid this this year than they were last year. And that's because a lot of um funding was pulled from various uh publishers and studios. So, we saw a lot of funding collapsing last year, but there's still indie publishers. They're still interested in getting indie games. It might be a little bit competitive and they might be paying less. Okay. Padlock says, "I didn't listen to Thomas and I released with 600 wish lists instead of waiting until I had 10 to 20,000." Um, let's see here. All right, let's see

here. Yeah, I totally agree, Delbone. Delbone says, "I have um I have to build myself up mentally having people back me. It's too much pressure. I need to focus on the game, not where to get the money." It's funny, once you get the money, you can focus on the game. So, you know, that's that's what this whole this this whole workshop is about. It's about figuring out a way to turn an idea into a paycheck, right? And welcome to Look, guys, welcome to Creative Projects. Um, you can either you can go get a loan, you can get debt, you can do it on the side, right? Um or or you could find funding and you could learn how to do it, right? So, there's a lot of different ways to do it, but finding funding is how I've always done it. Okay? Publishers, you can get somewhere

around $50,000 to $2 million. I've had friends who did $50,000 deals and that same friend, I'm not joking, that same friend two years later did a $2 million deal. Now, you get this money before launch, but you spend the money on production. Okay? You spend the money on production, and that's your salary, and that's other people's salaries as well. Oh, but Thomas, 50% or 40% of the revenue is going to go to a publisher. I don't want to do that. Well, number one, is the game going to get done without a publisher or funding? Maybe not. uh is the game going to be 50 times 50% better meaning the revenue is going to be 50% more with a publisher hopefully if you have a good publisher. So you kind of have to weigh, okay, is it worth giving up a royalty share in order to make this game complete in order to polish this game and make it better? Right now you might be thinking, "Well,

Thomas, what kind of deal would you want?" I'd actually want lower deals lately because I can get a higher royalty share and more control over the project. These scare me. $2 million. Those scare me, okay? Because it's like, man, how much control is this publisher going to have over this project? So, how do we do this? How do we get a publisher involved? Um, I'll show you here. Let's take a look. So, this is actually what I use to get publishers involved. I'm going to show it to you directly. So, this is Twisted Tower. Okay. And if I were to want to seek more funding for Twisted Tower, this is what I would use. Okay. Um, let's see here. The more emails the better. Well, not necessarily. You know,

this is from Andrew Edge. He says, "I guess the more emails the better." Not necessarily. Uh, quality leads over quantity every day. If you can get quality and quantity, you win. Uh, how do you figure out if you're getting a raw deal from a publisher? It's not a contract that will save you. Who knows? This is so important, guys. And I've learned this the hard way. I promise I've learn I promise you. I promise I've learned this the hard way. Is a good contract the way to go? Sure. Like, yeah, you want to have a good contract, but what's better than a good contract? The reputation of the publisher with developers. Write that

down. The reputation of a publisher with its developers will inform you everything you need to know. A contract can say all sorts of things in it. But when a publisher is funded by some massive Russian or Chinese company, who cares what the contract says? I don't think that will stop them from screwing you over. So, a good publisher and and a solid reputation with developers is how you go about it. The way you do this is you reach out to their developers and you say, "Hey, I'm I'm negotiating with uh Raw Fury." And by the way, I haven't even talked to Raw Fury. Um I've reached out to them before, but I've never I've never talked to him before. And you say, "Hey, developers of this game, what's

Ralph Fury like? What's the relationship like?" It's best to reach out to the ones who have re worked with them in the past because they're not going to be like, "Oh, I'm currently in a relationship with this person. I'm not going to smear them right now." Okay? When somebody is in bed with somebody else, they're not going to be honest about that relationship. Does that make sense? But yeah, if I was to seek out more money for, let's say, Twisted Tower, I would just send them this. Pretty straightforward. So, what do we got here? We've got a slick trailer, right? Really slick trailer. I just spit and this is on the Steam page as well. There's a press kit. Okay, this is more for the the press. So, actually do not worry about that. You don't need a press kit. Um, play the demo on Steam. big old fat button for the demo if that's if it's

not in the Steam and maybe a zip file or something. A summary of the plot, screenshots, and credibility. Some kind of credibility here, right? Some kind of credibility here. Okay. So, for me, it's like, hey, featured by Time magazine or Kotaku or worked with Apple Arcade. Oh, I've got two games I've released. Oh, Thomas has a lot of subscribers. How cool, right? Now, and this isn't private. No, yours yours should be. This is this is actually for the press. Um, but I could use this exact page to pitch to to publishers um and say, "Hey, I need some some funding." So, that's it. This is what's called a squeeze page or a brochure page. Um, it's just a a quick page that just showcases the greatest stuff about your game. And guys, notice how the idea that we created

yesterday or any idea that you created yesterday, you're going to want that to be hyperfocused on this page. What I mean is all elements of the Trinity Hook are right there. Okay? In my case, the story the story hook is here. Oh, it's a it's a Disney World but like violent. There's blood in a castle. The art hook is here. Oh, it has that Willy Wonka vibe. Oh, and the mechanical hook is there. Ah, I see. You have wacky weapons like this wacky Looney Tunes hammer. Oh, it's like a shooter with these with a shotgun and these creepy mascots. So, Oh, but it kind of looks like Bioshock. It has that Bioshock look. So, all of those different hooks are present immediately in your pitch. Does that make sense? What could you use for credibility if it's your first or second game? I will show you. Do you guys want to

see? Sorry, my nose itches today. That's a really good question, Kyle. Seriously, let's take a look. What did I do? Well, this was my first Kickstarter campaign. And by the way, guys, a Kickstarter campaign is not really that different than a pitch deck. It's not really that different than a Steam page. It's a trailer, but you talk about the trailer, right? Um, but a lot of devs are even doing that on their on their Steam pages now. Like Jonas Tyroller for Thronefall, he talks about the game in his Steam trailer. So look, a Kickstarter campaign is not that different than a Steam page or a pitch deck. Okay? Steam page gets you wish lists. Pitch deck gets you publishers. Kickstarter campaign gets you backers. Okay? It's all sort of the same thing. And it's the well, it's kind of the net to catch the fish. Fish being funding, right? Or wish

lists or whatever. Okay. So, what did I do to establish credibility? Guys, a lot of you are probably wondering, "Well, I don't have any credibility." Create it. Go get it. Submit your game to fun festivals. Submit it to YouTubers and have them play the game privately and ask their opinion. Submit it to blogs. I did all of this. See, this is what's frustrating. This this actually frustrates me a lot is I'll have people say on Twitter or like comments or something is like Thomas talks about doing a Kickstarter campaign but he had followers or Thomas has followers. It's it's not it's not the same for him. And I'm like what what do you think I how did I do this then when I had no following? This was back in uh 2016 when I when I was a little chump. Let's see here. Hi Kickstarter. My name

is Thomas Brush and I've been working on a game called Pinstripe for almost four years. Pinstripe is a beautiful 2D. I was a marketing uh shill even then. Um the way I did this guys is I went and sought it out. Okay. Credibility was sought out. Does that make sense? I went out to blog. I went to Indie Gabe. I literally went to their um website, found their their editor and emailed them and said, "What do you think about this?" I submitted it to festivals. Game Grumps. I got lucky with this one. Okay. I got lucky with this one. I'll admit had a friend who who worked for them. What other credibility did I do? I used my disadvantages as advantages. Right? Look at this. Working alone. That's an a

disadvantage. I used it as an advantage. I said I was scared. Right? disadvantage being used as an advantage. Now, I did have this documentary come out from Unity, but I still didn't have a following. Um, this was really cool. Now, actually, I think this may have happened after the campaign, but it was like a mini documentary and I thought it was going to blow up and it didn't. [Music] Um, Tom Fulp, you're like, "Whoa, Thomas, you got the Newground CEO to do a quote. You you you must have used your audience for that or you used your influence for that." It's like, "No, I reached out to Tom Full privately while I was working my desk job and I said, "Hey, bro, I need advice." And he he

called me on the phone and I I had nobody. I I I had no following. Okay. So, I like that this campaign is up and still here even with the broken gifts because it just shows I don't know fake it till you make it. Show show how confident you are in the project and create credibility. Manifest it from nowhere. and people show up. I honestly think this campaign even now would do as well even with Kickstarter not as relevant as it was. Look, I created I I manifested credibility out of nowhere. I said Tom Phulps I I said to Tom Phulp, "Hey, can you mentor me?"

"Yes, I'll give you a couple phone calls." Boom. on my advisory board. Steve Brush, my brother, hey, bro, you're a software engineer. Can you advise me? Yeah. Boom. Advisory board. Friend of mine who's an illustrator. Hey, can you advise me? Boom. Advisory board. Friend who worked at Game Grubs. Oh, hey, can you be on the advisory board? Sure, bro. Boom. Advisory board. You're creating credibility. And you can do this with anything. You can do it. You can do it with a pitch deck. You're just trying to show people that they can trust you. Okay? And you you can all you got to do is pull like that this it's a very uh what's the word? It's a very rigid mindset to think all I have are friends and family. It's like that that's a lot. Like if you can use those people to your advantage and put them in an advisory

board and make it look pretty, suddenly you've just created credibility. Oftentimes you just have to show the world that you care. That's that's what oftentimes a lot of this even is. Nobody knows who this is. Nobody knows who these people are. But what they see is they see, "Wow, Thomas put a lot of thought into this." Does that make sense? Wow, Thomas put a lot of thought into this. Oh, he has a budget. Wow. Oh my goodness. He's really really thought about this. Am I faking it? No, I have thought about it. Have you I mean, what about you guys? When you're pitching to a publisher, have you thought a lot about your game? Yeah. So, prove it. Put a lot of thought into it. Establish credibility and confidently project what the game is and you'll be surprised when people show up to support you. Is it easy? No. Is it

hard? Yes. Is it possible? Yes. All right, moving on. Okay, I'm just spitballing here, but whether it's publishers or maybe working with platforms like Xbox or PlayStation, and by the way, these deals with with deals with publishers and platforms have become less frequent and they've also become uh less profitable and profit's not the right word. Uh less plentiful in in the amount of money they offer. Okay, just being real with you. Um, 2024 was tight, but like I said, there's still, it still exists. There's still money out there. And according to um, Edmond McMillan in a podcast I did with him, there's plenty of money. There's plenty of money. You just have to have a good idea. It's just not like

2024 where publishers were being stupid and and money was just pouring out of their nose. Okay. Um, when you launched the campaign for Pinstripe, how far along the project were you? This is from Brent who I told people I was 70% done because that's what I thought. And then once you actually go full-time and start working on it, you realize you're not. I think in reality I was 30% done. Right. All right. So, small indie titles. Um, let's see here. Give me a sec here. Yep. I Okay, sorry. I was thinking what was the slide. Uh, your title's projected income is going to kind of define how much funding you get. All right. The publisher is really going to determine, they're going to see your project and they're going to know

immediately, okay, this is going to be a million dollar game or this will be this game will make 500k or this game will make 100K. that's how much funding they're going to want to do for your project. That I mean that's the way a publisher should think. They should be like, "Okay, we at least want to get our money back, right? They're thinking about ROI." So with small indie titles, you're looking at a $50,000 to $250,000 investment and the publisher is going to hope to get that money back. Again, that's why I said your titles projected income defines how much funding you're going to get. So small new publishers with like a budding portfolio, they're going to have a ton of flops and they're going to hope that you're their winner. So oftentimes they just like fund 10 games and then they hope one of them is a million dollar game. So they're doing these small tiny little investments. So like 50,000 is really tiny. Medium indie titles 250 to 400,000. This is with like more stable publishers and platforms. Uh let's just talk about publishers. platforms are kind of irrelevant right

now. Like Game Pass deals kind of suck anyway. More stable publishers with fairly decent portfolios. Um, so this the I would call these medium indie titles. I would think some of these might include like maybe I don't know. I'm not going to say any of them actually because I I don't know anymore. I yeah, tiny build would probably be in the medium and the large. The large would be devolvers. Um definitely the devolvers, maybe even the Raw Furies. Um large indie titles, $400,000 to $3 million of investment. They're going to have a big say in what the project looks like and how it's how it's created. Um yeah. Okay. I even now 10 years later, I kind of gravitate towards this. It's like, oo,

what a cozy relationship. $50,000 to $250,000. The publisher kind of keeps their distance. Um, that sounds great, you know. All right, Thomas, can you determine Can you help me determine how Can you talk about how you determine the scope of the game? Sure. Um, that's a it's so hard because if you haven't released a game, you don't really know what how much money you're capable of making. So, going into these conversations with publishers is really odd. Okay? And the reason it's odd is because you're going in thinking how much you need. They're going into the conversation thinking about how much they want to make. So, you say, "I want $100,000." Because in your head, I'm like, you're thinking, "I need a year and a half of salary." In their head, they're thinking, "Is this game going to make

$100,000 minimum?" Some publishers want to 10x it. And if they can't 10x it, they're done. Other publishers are wanting to 2x it, 3x it, not exit, 3x. They want to make three times their money. Okay? So, for all of you, most of you probably listening, you're probably you're probably going into the conversation thinking, um, I know how much I need and I think that's okay. And the publisher, they're going to come in, they're going to lowball you. They're going to say, "Max we can do, bro, is 100K." When in reality, they could probably do two or 300K. And so you you're sitting there going, "I need I bar I need this much to survive full-time." And they're coming in and saying, "We can barely do that." What I would do if I was I would if I were you is flex a little bit like or

give yourself a little bit of margin and say, "You know what? I'm going to ask for 50k more than than I need because they're going to come down a little bit." And then also, you're probably going to need more. It's like notorious with publishers that indies ask for more money during production because they always always go over budget, right? Thomas, have you ever failed a publisher? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've definitely let publishers down. Um with obvious obviously with resolution in in mind, you want to resolve and figure out, okay, how did I like how did this how did I let you down? Um I've had milestones failed before. Um, I've had pub I've also had other publishers for some reason just disappear. My one of my first publishers, they just stopped communicating with me. Um, I wouldn't say that was a failure on my part, but it made me feel like I've let them down. But in terms of like great relationships, every relationship I have now except for my first publisher, Armor

Games, Serenity Forge, 3D Realms, all relationships are good right now. Um, and and all of them are still we're still partners, still working together. Um, but failure is involved for sure. 3D Printer Academy says, "I think it's time to launch Thomas Brush Publishing." Yeah, I'm I'm thinking about it. Um, when you get a publisher to back you, does the funds they give you get taxed? Of course. Are you kidding me? You're always taxed. Always. You're not a church. Yeah, you're gonna get taxed big time. Uh, you know, this is why you definitely don't want a publisher to give you 400k immediately because the government's going to tax you at 30%. 30 to 40%. You're not going to spend all that money as a business expense. How could you? I mean, if you got $400,000, you can't just spend it in 12 months, right? Please do. Please do so

that you don't get taxed on it. Um guys, your just because your your income is producing a game doesn't mean your income doesn't get taxed. So, the only thing that's not going to get taxed is any money you spend outside of your own your own salary, that will not get taxed. So, if you pay a contractor or you buy assets or buy music or whatever, that won't get taxed because that's a business expense. Does that make sense? But your salary, it will be taxed. You were hoping it was on the back end. Well, what on on the revenue? Taxes. I'm not an accountant, but taxes are simple. If you made some money and it's in your in your bank account, by the end of the year, it will be taxed. Period. Unless it's on the sale of your home two years after you've owned it.

I believe that's what the number is. Okay. Uh publishing platforms. Uh we already talked about that. Let's let's move on to wishlisting. Okay. Wishlisting is the third way to make six figures with an idea, aka a really good demo. Okay. And you're probably thinking, what wish lists? In my mind, wish lists are like stocks and they're like they're like cryptocurrency. Okay, that that's how I see wish lists. And I think some people would say that's a terrible way of thinking. If you have money in the bank and you have savings, suddenly stocks become really exciting. Suddenly cryptocurrency becomes really exciting exciting. Suddenly buying dirt gets really exciting. Suddenly getting email

addresses gets really exciting. Suddenly wish lists get really really exciting. That's because what is the word? It starts with an L. Cash is liquid. So when you need it, when you really need it, cash is exciting. When you don't need cash and you have savings and you have recurring income, all that stuff, suddenly wish lists are way better than cash. Why? Because wish lists are essentially an email list that convert at five to 20%. So I the way my brain works, good rule of thumb is my wish list will convert at 10%. And those are so essentially 10% of my wish lists are cash. That's the way I see it. Does that make sense? Wish lists have no price. So stocks are a weird metaphor to go. What?

Yes, they do. Wish lists. Look, if I have 100, let's say I have 100,000 wish lists and it converts at 10%. 10 10,000 wish lists at the price of my game is what that list is worth. Does that make sense? I understand why you would be confused, but let's let's run the numbers, okay,,000 wish lists, okay? Times times 10% is 10,000. Now, I assume a 10% conversion rate because I believe that I can convert my list, my own list. I know my I know my the way my conversions work. I know that I can convert it at 10%. It might be 5% for you. It might be 20% for you. Okay. So, I'm going to go with a 10. I know my

game will launch. Oh, probably a a 20% discount. 10% discount. So, like 17 bucks, 18 bucks. Let's just go with a 17. All right. So, basically when I when I look at a wish list, I go a 100,000 wish list is 170K. Bing, bang, boom. Now, obviously, you want to do times 7. So, it's 119. The reason you do 7 is because Steam takes 30%. So, that wish list is worth that list of 100,000 is worth 119,000 bucks. Which, by the way, in digital marketing, they say an email address is worth a dollar a month. Um, that's if you have a membership program or some kind of subscription service or you're constantly selling products. With this, it looks like it's around, in my case, a 100,000 wish lists is worth about a$1.19 per wish list. Does that make sense? How do you

get a 100,000 wish lists? Well, that's that's the question, right? But I'm trying to I'm trying to convince you guys that wish lists are worth it and they're valuable. Are they as valuable as they were last year or two years ago or three years ago? Well, no, because demand is higher. You know, there's way more games. Does that make sense? Francisco's right. Yeah, newsletters make around that a dollar per email address. Um, yeah, Padlock, does that make more sense, guys? Is my math wrong here? I don't think it is. Um, so does if you can get a 10% conversion rate and you actually have a decent game. That's why demos are so valuable because demos you won't get wish list from a demo if your demo sucks. Generally is like a general rule. So if you have a decent demo, you get wish lists and they convert.

Wait, what is this? Oh, Lya, you're 100% correct. I'm just sort of doing the baseline here. Loya is saying that actually you'll get more because the algorithm will push you more. And that's 100% correct. I'm just talking about the baseline. James says, "Maybe when we release our games, income tax will be less or gone." all together. Uh Dominique says, "Wait, there's people reacting to emails. If it's not possible, client or somebody I know it gets deleted." Well, that's why it's 10%. The majority of your emails get lost or nobody reacts to them. That's why we're we're doing a 10% conversion

rate, right? And also, they're going to get notified on Steam and stuff. Kyle says, "That conversion is pretty accurate in my experience. I released one game on Steam, got about 300 wish lists, and made about that much in sales." Yeah, but here's here's what's funny is a lot of you are probably thinking, "Didn't they say wish lists reduced in their conversion rate?" uh because that's like the news of the last couple years is wish lists don't convert as well. Um they used to say it was a 20% conversion rate which I don't think I ever bought that. Um so I feel like 10% is is fairly conservative. Um that is if people really do like your game, you know. Uh Padlock Tech says, "Yeah, I had 600 wish list and sold about 60 copies." That's right. What if the publishers It doesn't matter. H I'm sorry. Let me try again. That was rude of me. Hassan says, "What if the publisher company country has taxes and my country doesn't have taxes?

Will I get you don't have taxes?" That's awesome. Yeah. No. If I don't know exactly how that's going to work, but no, the publisher is not going to get taxed on the money they gave you. Not at all. Um, mine is 100% conversion rate. That's awesome. Before having the demo, what do we need to prepare? A demo. Um, stop. Sorry, I'm getting like my There we go. With about 1500 wish lists, I think my early conversion was like 2%. Well, what game was that for Ander's Edge? I don't know if that's true. I don't I don't Ander's Edge, I don't think it's about

like the more wish lists you get. I think it's if you know you have a quality title that people enjoy, you will get a 10%. You will you will I I'll just speak for me. I will get a 10% conversion rate. So, um, but if your game is is not quality and it doesn't meet the expectations of the audience and it starts getting downloaded and gets mixed reviews, then no, you're not going to get 10% because people are going to see the page and they're going to go, "Wait, this game doesn't look like it's doing well." Yeah. What was Air Obscur's reviews, Andrew's Edge? you know, so if you if you have, let's say, mixed or mostly positive, that's a huge red flag for people. And so they're not going to convert. You know, that's why reviews are really important. So that's why I keep saying if it's a quality game, you'll get a 10% conversion rate. Um, does that make sense? Uh, James Henderson asks, "Thomas, are

there publishers that take a small cut after a certain number has been fulfilled?" Well, a publisher, the typical deal is a publisher is going to take 80 to 100% of your revenue until their initial investment is recouped. After the recoupment is done, then you do a 3060, I'm sorry, a 3070, 6040. It's always going to be in your favor until you're at 50/50. So, some deals are 50/50. Um, so again, to fully clarify that, publishers typically do an 8020 to 100%. They take all of that money fully until the the initial recoupment. So, let's say $100,000 is recouped or that was the advance. They're going to recoup $100,000 and then do the split. Are you getting screwed there? Not really, because they just spent a ton of money. So, they kind of want to get that

money back. You got the money and then they get the money. Does that make sense? You got $100,000 early. They got $100,000 later. They took on the risk, so they want their money back, right? And then we'll do a split. Does that make sense? All right. It's risky for them. It truly is. Okay. Arab obscura was three not recommended, five recommended. So yeah, you were at mixed or it might Yeah. No, no, you're at mostly negative. So that's why the conversion rate wasn't there. Um, okay. Anyway, uh, let's keep going here. How do you get wish lists? This is all my experience, guys. Okay, so I'm

just going off my experience. The most wish lists I've ever had. And so I'm not like I'm not like David Why just crushing it. Okay, so that you might think, well, this is one on one side, you might think, wow, I don't want to listen to this guy. On another side of things, you might think, "Oh, this guy's like kind of normal." So, these are normal expectations. Uh, I launched Pinstripe at 8,000 wish lists, I believe, and that game made over $300,000 on Steam. Gross. Um, I launched Never Song with I believe 20,000 wish lists and that actually performed worse than Pinstripe. You may be wondering what where did you get your Neverong money from? Neverong did really, really well on mobile. Um, and that was with Apple Arcade subscription service. Um, and then Twisted Tower is nearing 100,000.

The reason I never say the specific number is I don't really know what my publisher can say. Um, but we're nearing 100,000. It's more than 80. It's less than 100. And how so the so you're probably the the quite the reason I say that is I can give you my ways and what I found most effective in getting wish lists. Social media posts are not the best. Um, they're fine. So, I give it a D. It's better than nothing. And it also helps stimulate the algorithm, which is always a good thing. You might have a Gangbusters viral post. I've had a few of those, but you know, for the most part, it's not the best. Uh, Reddit, I say a C because, well, you're probably just going to get banned for even trying, right? Um, devlogs C++ you might get maybe 10,000 total.

Mid-r mid-range YouTubers B minus. Next fest demo B. Mega YouTubers A+. That's right, Mike Jimmy. So far in about a month while posting online and Reddit, I got 50 wish lists from social media. Hey, it's better than nothing, right? Mike Jimmy continues, "In nine days with YouTubers and streamers, it's gone to about 700." Exactly. Aka, post a demo with NextFest. You'll get like 5,000 wish lists. I got like 50,000, but that's it's hard to say why that happened. Um, I think I was able to push on my YouTube channel, but I also emailed a ton of YouTubers. So, it's like the mega YouTubers were responsible for the NextFest demo doing well. So, sometimes you combine these things. So, you multiply a mid-range YouTuber um and that mid-range YouTuber promotes

a social media post. I don't know. Then suddenly you you get a C. No, then suddenly you bring the B up to an A. Uh I'm trying to do the do weird math here, but I hope you get what I'm saying. You can combine things. You can use a mega YouTuber with a demo, right? Um, so yeah, launch expectations, um, you can make like$10,000 to a million dollars from a small first or second title like Pinstripe. Um, it'll be like a hour through three hours. And that's a simple sort of retro 3D game or 2D story game. Um, an example would be like a 2D platformer with small scope or a puzzle game. Um, something like that. 10,000. That's Isn't that funny? He's like, "Is this slide even helpful?" 10,000 to a million. What? Um, bigger indie titles can do a million to10 million. Um, sometimes these are three to eight

hour polished like story games like Firewatch. Other times they're what I think they're called 10,000 hour games. That's sort of the generic term, which is like games where you could just play them over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. um hyper unique, eye-catching 2D games that spent a million dollars in in their in their budget or $2 million in their budget. These actually do exist, by the way. Um I can't name what they are because I was told that the funding for these games was over a million dollars. I just can't say what it was. All right, guys. Before we move into the Q&A, Thomas is going to shill his course. Full-time gamedev use code workshop. If you want to learn everything I've in learned in the last decade of making games full-time, check out fulltime gamedev below. It's 40% off just for today's workshop. So, you guys got a day left. It says 20 seats available. That's not true. It's actually 15 seats left. I should have changed that. 15 seats left. You've got

one day left. You're going to get my 2D and 3D art pro uh courses completely free. In all seriousness, it it does mean a lot that you guys let me do these ad reads. Um, it supports the studio, especially now towards the tail end of Twisted Towers development where extra funding is always very helpful. Um, so yeah, uh, feel free to join. By the way, if you're a student, let me know in the chat what you think about the program. Uh, you're going to learn everything I've learned in the last decade, right? So, when it comes to funding, taking the demo that we've talked about, taking a game idea and converting it to to money like we've talked about, this course is going to show you how to do it. It's a great course. And the cool thing is, guys, you're going to be with 4,500 other students. There's a private Discord server. Um, you can use it whenever you want. It's a great resource to have. Um, it just shows you everything I've learned. Um, and you also obviously learn how to make a game, Unity or GDAU or Unreal. Whichever engine you want to learn, you're going to learn it 2D or 3D. Uh, you might be wondering, does it even work? Right? A lot of people have

said that like so Thomas sells this course, but does anyone actually go full-time? Yes, I do. Granted, it's hard. Uh it's it's it's a it's not like college. So, that's that's the thing is it's not like you're gonna everyone's going to go full-time. It's tough. It's tough to do, but it's happened with all these students. I've got I think I have like six or seven reviews on the front page of the website of people went full-time. Andre went full-time. Um, Thomas Po Thomas' course was the turning point. Um, now we're about to launch our own published game this year with a collector's physical edition. That's really, really cool. Uh, published by Gnome School Games. Chris Stair went full-time, got published. Bart Mamer went full-time, made over $100,000 on his first game with the help of the course. Everflux went full-time, got funded on Kickstarter, um, with the help of the course. So yeah, I don't know how much they got funded on Kickstarter for actually, so

you might want to cross check that. Um, but they got funded, so that's cool. All right. And bonus for people who are in the workshop only, you're going to get a full free a free full mastermind meeting with just me. So, however many people enroll, let's say it's 15 or 20, they're going to show up. You're going to get a free intimate group call with me on Discord. and we'll go through your ideas and and you'll get my full attention, which will be a lot of fun. I look forward to meeting you. So, yeah, use code workshop uh 30-day get money back guarantee, no questions asked. If you didn't work for you, you get your money back. So, there's no risk for you. All right, the Q&A has begun. I love the Q&A. So, questions and also let's do an audit as well. If you got guys have Steam pages or ideas um and you want to, you know, talk about those, I'm happy to jump in those. I'm going to use all the guys.

I'm not perfect. I'm really not perfect. Um, you know, I'm not like this viral indie game developer, but I've been published three times. I've had multiple kick Kickstarter campaigns that have been successful. So, I like to think I really do believe it. I know when an idea can be sold and so let's talk about it. Right, Thomas? Do you think Steam's 30% is worth it versus Epics's 12%. Well, it's an odd odd question, James, because it's like just do both. I mean, it's it's hard to give up your revenue to Steam. I get it. But why why do you have to pick one over the other? Just do both. Mr. Chubby, email thomas fulltimeamedev.com and we'll get you sorted with that question because we Yes, we do. Um, Twisted Tower looks AAA. I think that's a problem, Ben. I'm

hoping that people don't think it's supposed to be because it's not. Um, yeah. All right, Anders Edge. And dude, I am not ignoring you on Discord. I promise. I I I'm just bottlenecked, dude. I've been so bottlenecked and I know I know I've probably told you that. Okay, Ander's Edge idea. Let me let me By the way, let's let's go ahead and go this way here so you guys can see the chat. There we go. Ander's edge. His question is um let's see here. Submitting an idea for roasting. I thought about my survival horror game. Something like Manor Lords but survival horror. I haven't played Manor Lords.

That's tough, dude. Banner Lords is a big game. Maybe building is similar to Islanders. Simplistic. Goody, goody, goody. That's a great idea. Yay. Thank you for simplifying. You know, guys, I I was talking to Jonas Tyroller uh I think it was three days ago and I pitched him one of my game ideas. And I do this a lot. I'll reach out to people like David Whey, I'm going to talk to him today just to I I'm I definitely am privileged because I get to just talk to these these folks and get their counsel. But Jonas Ty Tyroller, he has this unique ability to take a big idea that I have and he's like just make it this tiny thing. So let's look at manorlords and and what did you say? You said manorlords but horror. All right, let's go, guys. And don't just rely on me. Ander's Edge, guys.

Let's Let's give Andrew's Edge some consultation here. Manor Lord's butt horror. Oh, but it's already been done before. Who cares? Remember what I said like yesterday? Be the best. And I The reason I said is because I'm like, they've probably already done it. So, Manlords is a medieval street. I I haven't played it seriously. So, I I it's I I need to figure out what it is. Manlords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord. The seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall. Yes, I see it. I see it. Ander's edge, of all the ideas you shared with me, I think this works. But here's I and I I know you pretty well. And so you said you said I'm submitting an idea for

roasting. Your inclination and please don't make a video about this. Wink wink wink. I I because I just want to give you advice right now, but you don't don't make a video out of this. Please. And that's if I was to give you an emoji on Discord, it would be like this face. I'm being nice. Please don't. But what I would say is I know you and I know that you're going to want to get too creative with this and then you'll your scope will spill over. Don't get too creative, man. Just do super super freaking simple art. of let's say it would be zombies and you could call it zombie lords and it's the apocalypse and your job is to defend against zombies. My pencil keeps breaking. It helps me to write this stuff. Stop breaking. It helps me to

write this stuff out. If it was zombie lords or vampire lords or uh demon lords and it's like demonic entities coming out of the ground, lean heavy into that theme. don't go. Oh, I'm gonna like I'm gonna introduce like um uh aliens or I'm going to introduce like this cool like system where the cosmos can come through and it interacts with the vampire. No, just go hardcore classic Dracula vampires, castles, tombstones, and then I'll bring in wolves. No, no. Super simple, clean graphics, isometric, the the the barebones complexity of Manorlords with a theme and you win. What do you think? Does that make sense? Ander's Edge, is that the hook? Okay, so Ander's

Edge says that the hook is that you can walk. That's fine. If that's the hook, do what the hook is. That's totally fine. But the graphics don't have to be great. They should be pretty, but they don't have to be great. What about that deer? See, that's exactly what I was thinking. The deer monster completely. That's That's what I'm saying when it's like that's too creative. That's that that actually brings brings away from the hook. A deer monster is not vampires. It's not zombies. It's not with something like Manorlords. What is Manorlords? Manor Lords is medieval strategy game. It's medieval. Medieval. Medieval. And they lean into medieval. If you're going to do this, I would just say just go hardcore into a single horror element like zombie apocalypse. Um, or you could do like an atomic radiation apocalypse like

Chernobyl and and all of the Russian peasants are like rebelling. Something super thematic. This the theme. Dude, what I want you to try and do is is take your themes and tighten them up and lock yourself in to that tight theme. You do not need to loosen it up. If you're David Lynch, go for it. If you're Toby Fox, go for it. But I'm not and you're not. So, tighten up that theme. Lock in the theme, that biome, that flavor, and stick with it. If you made a beautiful isometric top-down um horror game, like a zombie game, but it had Manor Lord's themes. I'm sorry. Mandalord's mechanics. I think it would

work. Was it Chernobyl in Russia at the time, though? I'm gonna I'm gonna argue with you, Tuck. Was Ukraine or Was Chernobyl in Russia at the time? What? Okay, never mind. Thomas loses. Okay. Do we agree with do we agree with uh Thomas about not Ukraine here but about um that that idea? Okay. Any any let's let's move forward with more questions guys. Okay. Mike Jimmy says you'll take a full and brutally honest Steam page audit. Okay. What's your game called, Mike? Castle Crashers, but family oriented

plus educational with turnbased. Uhoh. Too much. Too much. Just say it out loud and you'll know that it's too much. That's from Mr. Chubby Cheeks. This is my super chat yesterday. Castle Crashers, but family oriented, but educational and turnbased. You can put that in there. I guess the turnbased stuff, it's fine. That's not your hook and that's not your log line or your tagline. Um, family or Castle Crashers is kind of family friendly though, kind of. I mean, a little bit. Do Castle Crashers, but with math. Boom. We're simplifying things. Why do we simplify things? because people number one we're indies so we have very limited budget and number two it helps people understand what your

game is and they're willing to People don't buy things they don't understand. So Castle Crashers but with math boom Castle Crashers but with history. But Thomas, I want to do science too. No, stop it. Pick one. Uh what was your it was who who said uh Anderson says says thanks Thomas but I'll try not to make a video about it. Um Mike Jimmy cat named Mojave. Got it. All right let's go. We you asked for a brutally honest uh Steam page audit. I always like to start with the description because it gives me an idea of what the log line or the tagline or the USP

is. The hook. Stranded in a desert. This is so funny. I hope this game is funny because it looks funny. Stranded in the desert. Your only hope of escaping rests in a strange catman. Yes. Yes, this is great. The hook is there and it makes no sense. His one request, hunt down surreal creatures, skin them, and chop them up so he can keep them as trophies. In this uncanny I I actually I actually think you need to do get rid of this. um in this uncanny place. It's obvious right here. This is just my opinion. I would ask some of your friends, but I feel like this actually takes me away from it. Let me let me show you what I mean. Um there is a game that takes itself

really seriously and it is called Give me a sec. I should know it off the top of my head. I'm sorry if I don't. Um, it is called. This is going to help you a lot. Get to work. Obviously, I'm so sorry, guys. I haven't played Get to Work, but it's called Get to Work. Let's look at Get to Work really quick because this has a similar vibe. Get to Work takes itself seriously and it makes it funnier. You are poor and bald. Get to work. It doesn't say it's a silly game where you're poor and bald. It's like, no, you're poor and bald. Get to work. It's Oh, it's so straightfaced.

So, I would say that uh in your game here, I would go harder with the seriousness. I wouldn't say it's uncanny. It's like, no, it's not uncanny. It's serious. You're stranded in a desert and your only hope is escaping rest with a strange catman. Hunt down surreal creatures, skin them, and chop them up so he can keep them as trophies. Boom. Done. There it is. That's all you need. It's like what? What's the problem? So, I would say just make sure you take yourself seriously with all of this because that'll make it even funnier. Um, kind of like clickolding as well. Clickolding takes it itself very seriously. Uh, I would say clickolding is different because it it's not funny. It the ser the the taking it as a normal thing is what makes it scary. The man in

the corner of your hotel room wants you to click something. He wants you to watch it. Click it. Watch you click it. It's like, what? Do it. What's the big deal? Come on. What's your problem? What? Why is this surreal to you? This isn't surreal. Does that make sense, Mike Jimmy? So, with your game, I would go hardcore into the seriousness of it. Just be like, "What? There's a catman. What's the problem? Of course. Of course. Of course he wants you to chop up bodies. Duh. All right, let's watch the This is hilarious to me. So, really great work here. Honestly, it looks that I want a poster of this above my bed on the ceiling. Um, let's see if we can watch the trailer here. Hello

I'm gonna have to Google it because it's not working. I disagree. I disagree. No. No. Every Don't listen to the Don't listen to the Stop. Do not listen to the comments. So, I think one of you said it needs to be about a serial killer, and another one of you said that the thumbnail doesn't work. It does. It does. It does. It works. Okay, I'm pulling this up on uh Yeah, somebody said it doesn't comp convey PSX. It I I think it does. It just looks like from something from the 90s. Um maybe add Okay, here I go. Uh, let me open up Photoshop and maybe we can talk about this.

Um, there's potential here to make the that I do agree that there's actually potential to make the thumbnail look a little bit better. Um, but let's let's let's watch the trailer really quick. Okay, so the first two seconds of a trailer are really important. Um, you really, really want to do something with motion to make sure people are like, "Okay, I'm not watching a slideshow." Um, so I would make the the like wind blowing or something or particles or make the sky moving here. Um, and this like maybe the car is rumbling and it stops cut to black with a horror sound. So imagine this. It starts the car stops and it goes cuts to

black. That's way better than than this, which looks like a slideshow. That that push in right there. It's clear you did it that in the editor. Move the camera in the actual game. Give me some parallaxing, some depth. Okay, use more sound there. Shuts down the fan clicking. Okay, let's watch this again. Give me a sec here. That's great. This is

great. That's great. I love that. really good. I love it. I think it's awesome. I don't I really actually I don't have any real feedback. I think it's great. I think that trailer felt a little soggy. Okay. So, what I mean by that is it might be a little too abstract. So, you might want to ground us in something like a mission or a goal. Um, but overall I think you've got something really cool here. Honestly, I think you've got a hook and I think it works. Um, yeah, especially if it's streamable. If it's streamable and has jump scares and it's really weird and strange and makes the streamer get out of their seat, I think it's great. All right. Um, what else we got

here? Yeah. Cool, man. Cool, man. All right, guys. Um, let's see here. What do we got here? Uh, I wanted to say a huge huge thank you to Sean Miller and Jesse Hag. I believe that's how you say it. Um, and Hong Ku Hi Lee. Um, thank you for joining full-time gamedev. I think Sean, you you you enrolled during today's master class. that means the world to me. Thank you so much and I hope that the course helps you a lot. Uh guys,

that's all I've got time for today. Uh you got one day left. There are, I believe, 14 seats left now and these will probably sell out throughout the day. Um join Fulltime Gamedev 40% off and uh yeah, check it out below. You'll learn everything I've learned in the last decade of making indie games, including how to get published, how to get uh a Kickstarter campaign funded, how to hit the Steam front page, how to get wish lists, all that cool stuff, how to make a game in GDAU, Unreal, Unity, and you'll get my 2D and 3D art programs completely free. On top of all of that, because you joined this in the joined me in the la the workshop today, you're also going to get a uh private uh master class or mastermind meeting on Discord with me and the 15 to 20 other students who have enrolled during the workshop and we'll get to hang out, have a good time only for this sale event. I love you guys. Thanks for hanging out. This was a lot of fun. You guys rock. Um, I

hope that was helpful.