the INDIE GAME dream is a WASTE of your time

The question says, how do you overcome the irrational fear of wasting your time? Hey guys, how's it going? My name is Thomas Brush and I make indie games for a living. We're going to jump into my subreddit here and by the way, if you want to join the subreddit, click below and you can ask questions and maybe I'll answer them in a future video. This question is from The Real Jack Arthur and the question is, how do you overcome the irrational fear of wasting your time making a game no one might play? I actually responded via text to this almost immediately and I said, this is rational. What I mean is, the question says, how do you overcome the irrational fear of wasting your time? It's not irrational, it's very rational. That's like saying it's irrational to go to Las Vegas, you know, play the slot machines and you're afraid of wasting money. No, you're you're probably going to waste money, you're probably going to waste time. So, here's how I overcome the let's change this word, it's not irrational, it's rational. How do you overcome the rational fear of wasting your time making a game that no one might play? The way you do it is you

make a game that people want to play. First off, you guys got to acknowledge that you might be wasting your time on a crappy game. It might very well be a waste of time. So, your goal should be to make a great game that people want to play. You guys have probably learned this about me so far, I love honesty, I love criticism, I love growing and I love failure. A lot of people want to avoid all of that pain. They want to say, no, no, no, tell me my game is great. I'm making a great game and I'm not wasting my time. I know that that's so obvious and I know that that might sound like a really stupid answer. My approach is get everyone's opinions about your game often and do everything you possibly can to understand what you are making and if it's actually good. Guys, if you spend two months, three months on creating a game and you're like, this is going to be a six-hour game and it's going to be awesome and everyone's going to love it and I'm going to lock myself in my little cubicle or my office or my bedroom and I'm not going to ask anybody's opinion about this game and then I'm going to launch it and I hope that I'm not wasting my time and money. That's a

terrible way to make games. That's wishful thinking. So, I'm much more of a fan of being an entrepreneur. And being an entrepreneur means growing and learning and listening, taking online courses, taking classes, talking to people, and doing beta tests, doing alpha tests, figuring out if your game is good or not. So, here's my general rule of thumb here, and we're going to focus specifically on prototyping, okay? Prototyping is something I always sort of ignored. It was like some It was too fancy a business term for me when I was younger making indie games that I didn't want to deal with it. But, prototyping is how you avoid the rational fear of wasting your time. The thing you want to do is figure out if your game is a waste of time. That's the ultimate goal. And so, what you need to do is make a prototype, and what I would do Here's what I would recommend. Kill two birds with one stone. And that is get feedback on your game, specifically the prototype. And by prototype, I mean like a 15-to-20-minute demo. And it's super polished. You got to make this thing super polished. Get feedback on that, not only from your social media audience, aka send them a link, send

them a free Steam key, maybe do early access, something like that, but also send it out to a list of publishers, maybe 100-to-200 email addresses that you found online or maybe on Twitter of publishers' personal email addresses. Get their feedback as well. If generally the feedback is negative, well, here's what you've just learned. You were wasting your time. But, it was only 3 months of your time. Thank god you asked for advice, and you were willing to take criticism. Because now you can take that criticism weak it and then not waste time. So, the way you avoid rational fear of wasting your time is by consistently prototyping, testing. The best news here is not only did you get feedback from your social media following, but you also potentially got great feedback from publishers. Did every publisher you sent your demo to turn you down? Well, then maybe you're wasting your time. Maybe you need to change your approach. Publishers are a great litmus test as to whether your game is going to be profitable or not. Wasting time is a really relative term, but in my opinion, wasting time means you're not going to make money. That's

what I think wasting time is. Obviously, there's benefits, like failing is great if you learn from your mistakes and do it better next time. Like, I get that. But, generally, wasting your time is you didn't make money, right? A publisher, they can sniff out games that are going to make money. So, if no publisher responds, then maybe you need to change your approach. Take some of their feedback, take some feedback from your audience, change your prototype, do it again. Or, here's some good news, maybe a publisher reaches out and they say, "Hey, we played your demo. We actually think it's kind of great, but it's too short, so it's a no go for us." That's actually really good feedback. That means you're on the right track. Or, here's the best option, three publishers out of the 200 emails you sent actually want to buy your game. Okay? That means they think it's going to be profitable. Now, let's say they offer you, like, "We'll give you $50,000 for 30% of the revenue." What that means is they think that your game is going to at least make $50,000. That's what that means, because they're going to recoup that. They think that your game is going to bring in at least $50,000. Guys, this is how you know if you're wasting your time. Reach out to publishers, reach out to your social media, and give them a tiny

prototype, little prototype, but it needs to be a diamond. It's super polished, cuz this is ultimately what your game should look like when it's completed. So, that's how you overcome the irrational fear. Be proactive, be entrepreneurial, treat this like a business, okay? Cuz that's what we're running, guys. We're not running an artist studio in Italy. We're not just doing this for fun. I mean, maybe some of you are, but a lot of us want to run a business, so that's why it's so important to prototype. Prototype, send it out, get feedback. If they don't like it, change the prototype, do it again until you get a positive response. Once you get a positive response, you know you're on the right track. All right, guys, if you liked this video, please subscribe and leave a like. That would really mean a lot to me. And leave a comment if you're interested, and I'll try and answer as best as I can.