So You Want To Be an Indie - How to Start an Indie Game Studio - Extra Credits

Over the past few years, we've done a series of so you want to be episodes talking about what it takes to fill the various roles in the game industry. But lately we've got more and more requests for suggestions on how to get into independent games development. And since it's something that James has worked with a number of people on, we figured, "Hey, why not?" Hopefully this helps some of you take the first steps toward getting more fantastic games out to the world. So, without further ado, lesson one. The first thing you have to know as an indie dev is that you are not going to be making a game with the scope of a God of War or Call of Duty. For your first project, think simple, think small. Whether you're self-financing for a few million dollars or you're living off of ramen, doesn't matter. You want to keep your first project achievable. Something you can get out to market and into the hands of real people. Your first time through this process will teach you a great deal, even if you're already a wizened veteran coming out of the AAA industry. It's a totally different experience working with a small team and actually getting to help call all the shots. And if you're not a

veteran, the amount you're going to learn from this is just staggering. I can guarantee you this, your second project will be so much better and go so much smoother than your first. And when it comes time to start your second project, think simple, think small again. James has an enormous amount of experience estimating project timelines, and to this day when he makes these estimates, he always just adds an extra 50% to the schedule and budget because these projects always end up with a thousand little pieces and complexities you can't possibly foresee before you've gotten started. Lesson two, being an indie dev involves a lot more than just building games. I have known plenty of teams that were great at building games, but whose studio died on the vine because they didn't know how to do marketing or PR or how to get the project distributed. There is a lot more to succeeding in this industry than just build it and they will come. This is where the fantasy of being an indie separates from the reality. You'd like to dream about working on games all day, but honestly, you're going to be wearing a lot of hats. And if this company is your baby, you're probably going to be spending almost as much time answering emails, taking meetings, worrying about taxes and money and so on as you are

actually developing your game. If you're working with more than one person, I would highly recommend getting a lawyer from the outset. You don't have to use them much until it comes time to deal heavily with contracts, but someone who can help you set up your company right can save you a lot of headaches in the long run. If you can spare the $500 to $1,000 to hire a lawyer when you start to get serious about launching a game, it'll be well worth it. Once you're all set up, the key as an indie, assuming you're not working with a lot of money, is how to get visibility. The best method is going to differ wildly for different games and different studios. So, here I would just recommend really studying how other games have done it. Whether it's building into the game things that people want to share, like in Minecraft, or using spaces like Kongregate the way Team Meat did, there are a thousand different methods to help your game stand out from the ever-growing crowd of indie titles out there. Just remember, going viral is something that you work for, and you have to stay on top of it. It's not just something that happens by itself, at least not 99.99% of the time. Beyond that, you'll need to figure out how you're going to get your project distributed. Getting on Steam doesn't just happen, and many of the much smaller digital distribution services aren't going to glean you more than a few dozen sales. So, really think about

and give yourself at least 6 months prior to launch to work on pursuing distribution. Lesson three is budget. This might seem simple as an indie studio. You just take the minimum amount you all need to live each month, multiply that by the number of months you expect the project to take, and voila, you got your budget. Wrong. No, because it turns out there are licenses you're going to have to buy, and legal fees you're going to have to pay, and then there's taxes, and of course somebody's car is going to break down at some point, and then one of the computers is going to burst into flame and you'll have to replace that, plus all the work that was on the hard drive that people forgot to back up, and all that's just the start of it. Often, you build your first game simply to get people to know who you are and to gather a small following of fans, to get people interested in you as a company and make your work stand out amongst all the less well-crafted indie games out there. Often, even if your first game wins some awards and gets some press, it's not going to sell phenomenally well. Honestly, just getting noticed is probably a more important goal for your first game than sales. But, that does mean that you're going to need to plan a way to survive long enough to release your second game. So, just keep that in mind. Also, another important thing to know, many game distributing companies

aren't going to pay you until 30 to 90 days after they start selling it. James has seen too many indie teams suffer because they ran out of cash while waiting for that first decent size check. Of course, it's not the end of the world if this happens. If your game is selling well enough, people will be willing to front you some money. But that money's going to be a lot more expensive than you'd ever want it to be. And then finally, lesson four, mechanics trump content. This advice is for your actual game design. As an indie, you can get away with a game that's short. Your game could be a 5-minute web game that touches us in some deeply emotional way, or even a gripping 8-hour adventure. What it absolutely must not be is 25 hours of uh uh it's all right. Polish and scale are the weapons of the AAA world. Indies can't really compete with that. So, unless you already have something spectacular or novel to offer, your focus shouldn't be about building more of it. Instead, concentrate your efforts on making that play really stand out. Too often, I see new indie companies cobble together some baseline functional mechanics, and then just start building levels and creating new content, cuz doing that feels like a game's getting

made. It feels like tangible progress. But that is the wrong way to go about things. If you don't make sure your mechanics are right first, you're just going to have to redo all of that level design when you polish those mechanics. Or worse, you'll be afraid to change your mechanics for the better because of all the level design you already did. And you'll be stuck shipping a mediocre game. And remember to test early. It may scare you. It may feel like your game isn't ready or that people won't understand it, but it's almost never too early to test. You can always get valuable feedback. It's often our own egos and our fear of being hurt, of having this thing we love misunderstood or rejected, that keeps us from showing it to others in an unbiased environment, an environment where it's okay for them to rip it to shreds right in front of us. But to succeed as an independent developer, that's just something you're going to have to step past. So, to review, lesson one, plan your game scope well. Lesson two, know what you're getting yourself into. Lesson three, keep your budget realistic with hopefully enough in the war chest to make another game if the first one doesn't sell. And lesson four, mechanics trump content. Good luck. We hope to be playing your game soon. See you next week.