The Path To Full Time Game Development Income | EP 007

you you mentioned like when we first got connected with with uh with Intel there was a lot of what's the word for this um they call it like poser syndrome or something the idea like I don't know if we can do that's the one imposter syndrome but poser works too I think I like that better I was like I don't know if we can do this is a huge freaking company and god forbid something should go wrong and they could just sue us into oblivion right not that I had any reason to be worried about that but I was terrified like you're signing this big contract like what am I getting myself into? Um, and I think at that time the reason that I went forward was probably less about courage and more about hunger. Like we needed the gig. All right, we're live. Okay, so hey guys, we've got uh Chris Skaggs with us. Chris is a full-time game developer. Um, and I know a lot of you want to learn how to become a full-time game developer. And the cool thing about Chris is he, in my opinion, he started doing this whole this whole full-time gamedev thing when it was really

starting to pop off. And I think that was 2009, right Chris? Yeah. 2009. Yeah. Cool. So, so really Chris's revenue streams of how he's making money, how his company is making money is frankly totally different than the way I make money and the way that I teach you guys how to make money. And I think the more ideas on how to make money, the better. So, I want Chris, I want to hear your story. So, let's go ahead and get started here. Wow. Tell us the story of how you got into this full-time gamedev status and how you are where you are today. It's uh sometimes when I get asked a question that I could start in so many different places. So, uh so let me kind of try to walk this backwards purely on the professional side. probably you'd say that the start of what we did was actually in 2000 when I was getting out of college and out of the Navy and uh and that's when the internet and HTML and basically the the web was still pretty raw and new. Um and uh a couple years before that when I when I went to

college I got a job at a plumbing wholesale company making websites and I won an award for like the best website in plumbing wholesale award award because I think it was like me and two other people. Okay. Um, but that started web and then we created a company that was just doing websites and uh, and that was at a time when web was everywhere and everyone wanted 15 websites. So, it was frankly easy money um, and it was good margin. What happened then for me later on is, you know, one thing leads to another. So, first you're making a website, now you're making a database, next thing it's e-commerce. And so, you just kind of move your way up the food chain. But in 2005 was according to kind of like my timeline is that's where and and I'll just go right into it like I'm a I'm a Christian and so for me this is a part of my story but right for lack of telling a three-hour story like in 2005 I felt like God told me to get involved in video games and I thought it was a stupid idea that was a horrible idea um but you know like notwithstanding all of the the push and the pull of there um that's where things

started but in 2005 video games was basically there's a very very tiny PC market and there was the console market and console was just too big a lift too much money too much barrier to entry. So I thought about this idea for a couple three years but by 2008 iPhone was big was getting big and all of a sudden you could now make a game on mobile for next to nothing, right? So like your total in was 10 grand and you could make a game um even if you just hired it out. So right at that point we start we we said like give it a shot. So, um, my web design company, um, I don't know if you remember this, if you ever been around, that was at a time where the economy had basically shot itself in the head again and so it was hard to sell a website, but yeah. Okay. So, it was hard to sell a website. We were bored. You know, tumble weeds in the shop kind of a thing. And so, like, we got nothing else to do. We'll make a video game. And uh, and you're like, you know, at the time you're like, how hard can it be? Well, obviously we totally underestimated it. Um, but then that led

to our first release in 2009. And uh and that's probably where the pivot where what you're asking is we made that game uh it was called G into the rain and it was a gravity puzzle. It was called G which is short for gravity. And uh and it was just a puzzle game, right? It was just a simple puzzle game but uh that got us hired to a bunch of other gigs. And so they're like, "Oh, I saw that game you made. Can you make one for me or can you make this app and blah blah blah?" And then and this is this is no longer so true on mobile but for many years there we had so many people who just wanted mobile apps most of the time games um that that it paid all our bills. So back in like 2000, web was like this. 2009 mobile was like this. And we we had clients from all over, right? So So it was MGM, it was MTV, it was Four Seasons. All these people wanted mobile something, right? Some app, some game, some something. And our best client wound up being Intel. It was

right over the hill um from us here in Hillsboro. And uh and so they became our best customer over many years. And they had mobile everything. And so what happened for us basically is that established a uh a work for hire business that was always high margin. Um you could really be in and out of a project pretty quickly. And for most of them you didn't even have to be that creative. Um how old were you at this time if you don't mind me asking? Yeah. What was that? I was probably 35ish. So uh yeah. So still pretty young. I mean that's I'm 32. Um, and so you all of a sudden you land this big client with like Intel, which to me is just crazy. Was that a big ego boost for you? Like did you think that you had finally made it? Um, yeah. Yes and no. So, let me here's a fun story is like uh right at that time they were trying to create their own app store. Um, and uh if anyone remembers it was called app up and they just wanted to compete in that same space but like app store for for Ultrabooks was that

was their thing. And so we were in a lot of cool situations to be like on stages and with the CEO. And so you'd be kind of held up as like this is one of our key developers. And so I'm I'm I'm on stage with like I think it was the CEO at the time, Renee, her last name. I I forget right now. And uh at the same time, what I know is that like five minutes ago like I'm trying to figure out how to put like all of my clothes together because we were really broke at that time. And so it was like I got holes in my draws. And so there was this weird kind of like like you know push me pull you thing going on. Um but yes, one thing did lead to another and you know and and I'm in Taipei and I'm in Las Vegas and it was actually really really fun. Yeah. The reason I asked that is because I know I know that a lot of the listeners right now are thinking, yeah, I'm not old enough or I'm not smart enough to land a client like Intel. And and in reality, I mean, if

you I mean, what does it take just I don't want to derail you, but like what does it take to get a to get a contract with Intel? Um are are you particularly smart? Um did you have a great team? Did you get lucky? I think the reason Yeah, for me there's a definitely a bit of luck. Um so I think that there is like and this is one of the things like you got to know sometimes it's just right place, right time. Yeah. But you might have said this. There's an old saying that says like luck is actually when opportunity and preparedness meet. And so like people who love to think, "Oh, you got this lucky break." You're like, "Yeah, but for the 10 years we were preparing for that lucky break." Yeah. I'm sure you power through that self-doubt and Yeah. and just say like the just the idea of like, "Yeah, sure. Let's take on a project with Intel." That in and of itself requires some serious balls. So you've got like you've got to be willing to put yourself out there. It doesn't matter how old you are and and frankly from what it sounds like, you just continually put yourself out there

throughout your career and finally got it to work, right? There's a there's a lot of that that's that that persistence idea, that willingness to say yes and kind of put yourself at risk. Like that's a huge piece of of just of just being able to to turn what may or may not be an opportunity into a success. You have to be able to say yes. Um and uh and so I would say in Intel's case particularly, yeah, right there he says like this mega mega company is like, "Hey, can you make apps for us?" And we're this little shop. You're like, "Um, sure." Um but next thing you know, like you've got the contracts and now you've got the contractors and now you're turning out I think we built 400 apps for them like over a couple years. It was just Yeah. Now that includes things like let's build Reversy and let's do it in Spanish and Russian like so that number's bigger than it looks but still. So, did you have a big team or were you just subcontracting it out to various developers across the world? A little bit of both because it was it was very spotty. So, you're like it's it's six apps this month, it's zero next month. So, there was very rump bumpy like that. Okay. But would it always

One quick question though. I I want to get some clarity here and then we continue. I I know I'm derailing this, but I'm so curious about the income stream here. Is is this a viable is this a viable income stream for listeners right now to to land these kind of contract deals and and make games for another company as opposed to making their own games for themselves. They just land an IP or they land a client and then make games that way. Is there significant income in that world? You said the profit margins were high. Yeah, we were probably making 70 80% margin. Whoa. Yeah. Okay. like can can you can you you could cut this if you want. Can you tell us the kind of money that these bigger projects are bringing in? Yeah, sure. So, we would do a small mobile app and uh and probably we would charge anywhere from 10 grand to 100 grand per app and if you're making 70% gross margin on that. It just depends on scope. Yeah, those those kind of margins are nuts. Like I was I think I was talking to a friend of mine who runs a

restaurant and I was like, "Yeah, my profit margins are like 90 90%." Because it's a digital product. Yeah. And very small salaries um for like a salary for me when I was doing it part like uh solo and he was like what like 90% because most of the time with especially with physical goods you're not going to get near that. You might you might only be 10 20%. Yeah margins you know. Yeah. Yeah. So Intel was great. Um but they weren't the only one. What which is nice is like once you kind of get what you'll find is especially with there's there's two kinds of clients. You have the ones who are gonna like just nitpick you for every little thing, right? So when when these people are really thin on their own budgets, they're trying to pinch you for budgets. But frankly, once once you get to a different kind of client, they're really into it for the quality. They're into it for the reliability, and they don't mind paying extra for it. So when you say pinching the budget, you mean they want the exact number. They don't want you to make much of a profit. Nope. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then and they will ping you on every detail. Like you said that this

would be whatever, right? So and they always want to move the scope and they want you to do it for free. So they're always doing that where clients like Intel if they say, "Hey, can you make it blue instead of green?" You're like, "Yeah, it's a change order." And they're like, "You bet." Right? So we'll just just add more to it. And they're happy to do it. Okay. The best thing is those guys then also tell their friends, right? So if if you can make someone at Intel happy, then they tell their friends at other companies. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we got Intel, you got this project with Intel. Let's let's keep going with your story. Yeah. So what what that always did is like those those work for higher contracts became kind of the the core of our revenue stream for for many many years and that always threw off enough extra extra money that you could then get into you could you could build your own games, right? So while we were making games for Intel, then we could also turn around and we could make Bokoy Boy, we could make Windup Robot, so we could make these games that are our own because there was margin to do it. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So one project funds another. Um Yes. And and I'll be honest, that that

model is what I've been doing lately because um for me it's like YouTube, online courses, and game sales. All of that combined that funnels into frankly a massive R&D project. That's what my dad calls it. Me and my dad were grabbing lunch the other week and he was like, "Your game Twisted Tower is basically a giant R&D project because we've never made a first-person shooter. We've never released a first-person shooter. We have no idea really. We we know now, but we didn't know what we were doing for two years. Um, so it was all just research and learning and we invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into this R&D project that we're hoping pays off, you know, and that, you know, the thing is like if you have if you have a revenue stream that can pay for that, that's good stuff, right? For one thing, it's a tax write off. Like, so that's how a lot of that stuff gets funded. Okay. And I think for you, Thomas, and this would be true for us, the trick about if you can do that, you keep all the IP, you keep all the equity, you keep all the ownership, and

so you're not beholden to someone else, say a publisher or a funer, who's then going to take a big chunk off the top and demand results. So, frankly, you can be more artistic. That's right. That's right. Cool. So, that's so that was that was one of our key revenue streams and it remains that. So, uh, the most recent project that we released was another work for hire that we did with the Wing Feather Saga. Um, and so, uh, if you don't know the the property, it's a series of books, kind of a kind of a light fantasy for for twins. Um, it probably came out, I don't know, 10 years ago, maybe been very successful. Then they recently ran a kick, not a Kickstarter, they were on a on a funding platform to do an animated version of the stories that that's been successful and season one of that has been released. But now they've asked us to do a game. And so we one thing we did is we're like we we gave them a nice big road map like here's what we could do from like day one to day seven if you did all eight seasons. And it goes from the baby step

is we started with Roblox as could you just get more kids to know your property and they're like let's give it a shot. But in this case Roblox was not set up as a monetized platform. It was set up as a marketing spend. Interesting. So so you're the comparison is like how do we compare user acquisition through Roblox to say YouTube or Facebook or whatever else they're doing for user acquisition. And it turns out to be actually really good. Um, you can have you can have a 100,000 players on Roblox actually pretty easily. Yeah. And when you start to advertise that over your cost, it becomes really cost effective. Wait, can you clarify what's going on here? So, you're you're making a Roblox game or you're using Roblox to drive traffic to the other game. Um, it's not a game, it's a TV show. We we made a Roblox world, a Roblox I think the world experience is what they call it. Okay. So, they they paid us to make a Roblox game. Game world experience. That's so cool. I didn't know you could do that. Oh, yeah. And then the whole point I was like because you I mean yeah you can you

spend Roblox and you can do that but the whole point is actually just to get them to watch the animated show and read the books. So it's just it's like it's marketing but we made a video game and they're paid to play basically. Yeah. It's fantastic dude. That's like probably so many like Gen Z or Zoomer's dreams to like get paid to play Roblox. I mean I haven't even played it. Um, I don't even know how to say it. Um, but I know my nieces and nephews love that game. Um, man, that's so cool. I didn't know that you could get a contract for that. Yeah. And frankly, so let's be care like because this is like one of the big secrets I hope all your viewers know. Like do not bill for your time. Do not sign hourly contracts. You bill for your experience, your expertise. Like it's not just that you can run the game engine. Is that you know how to run the game engine. And more importantly than that, you know how to make a good game. you know how to make a puzzle that works, that's fun. Like that does not if that's not part of what you're selling, then you're getting under you're getting dinged. Like you're if someone's just

like, "Yeah, but this takes three hours instead of six." Yeah. That's got nothing to do with it. If I know how to fix your problem in three minutes, you should pay me the full volume. So, how are you landing these clients? Like, and also two questions. How are you landing clients like this? You know, these big IPs. I I you also got Red Wall, which you know, me and my family read that when we were kids, which is just awesome that you have that IP or you have the the Yeah. Besides the license. Yep. So, my question is, you know, how are you landing these IPs? And also, another quick question, did you come up with the Roblox idea or was that their marketing team's idea and they just needed to hire someone to do it? Okay. Um, let me let me start with Roblox because it's a clean answer. Um, that was not their idea. It was ours. Wow. We we happen to know um kind of a friend of a friend thing. Uh one of the guys who Brock Starns is I can't remember his title but he's like the executive guy executive officer sort of at the at that project and we just happen to know him and we we on our own

dime we put together a proposal that says hey we think this would be really fun. So we pitched him to say like we'd love to build games for you for the next seven years and they'd go like step one step two step three. And so we just made this document big pitch deck and that kind of went up the food chain of like this is actually really really cool. And so that first step the guys at Angel Studios this was all new to them and none of them were gamers. They're like I don't know this feels risky but they were willing to give us a chance. And so for a pretty This is Angel Studios. Yeah. So the way that it's organized is Angel Studios was a fund funding platform sort of like a Kickstarter. Y um and so they were the they were the platform that Wink Feather used and so they wind up sort of like legally I think this is true Angel provides marketing for the property. So there's this three-way puzzle here. Okay. Is that Daryl Ives? Um do you know him? That is a name I don't know. Okay. Um so Angel Studios, did they do The Chosen? They did. Okay. And are they partnering with

Lionsgate now? I'm not sure. Um, I believe that Chosen is partnering with Lionsgate. To my to my knowledge, that's not So, at one point, okay, so you think about Kickstarter. Once you use Kickstarter to get your funding, you don't continue to use Kickstarter for for going forward. Like, they've served their purpose. And so, Chosen started with Angel got really successful in the truth of they like that's no longer what they need. So, the idea that that they're kind of going their separate ways is probably just to be expected. Yep. So, Angel just signed with Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company. I see. And so, you partnered with, and for those of you who don't know, The Chosen is like a super ridiculously successful TV show about Jesus. I I've watched it. It's pretty sweet. Like, it's a good show. And, you know, it's funny. We we talked about how earlier before we started this podcast, how we're both Christians, and you don't want to be a Christian game studio, but you want to make good, great, wholesome games, right? The Chosen is great because it really is

good. It's not like cringey or cheesy, right? It's like actually good because I think Christian media gets a really bad rap and frankly they kind of deserve it sometimes. Yeah. Because everything looks like basically it's like a just a cringy Christian t-shirt. Everything's got that vibe, right? And The Chosen doesn't. And that's why the Angel When you said you worked with Angel Studios, I was like, "Oh, like that's a legitimate like funding source. They make great content." So that's cool. And I don't know how many they've funded a bunch of stuff and so it's not like the chosen was I think their big breakout but they've done a bunch of stuff and they've been very I think successful and they've shephered some great projects through um cool. So yeah, long story short to kind of close that loop the idea like we proposed this idea to to Wing Feather and then by extension Angel they gave us a chance and sort of version one went out in March and uh and that was a hit. So, we we've been successful and I I expect I think I can probably announce this. Like, we literally just signed an extension to do more of it.

Man, that's so cool. So, how many are how many people on your team are doing this Roblox thing? Um, you know, that probably takes about two people and it's not like I guess full-time for a little bit, right? Because you build the stuff, you get it set up, but then you have to do more. And so, it kind of cycles back and forth over, but again, they're not being paid for their time, they're being paid for their expertise, their knowledge of how to do this, making great puzzles, right? I mean, you could have a you could have a a a developer getting paid a hundred grand a year, but only working two hours a week. I'm not saying they should do this, but working two hours a week because they're just so gifted, right? And they can make a really satisfying puzzle. Um, so can I ask you a question? Um, well, can we can we talk about Red Wall really quick? Sure. Um, so you also got the Red Wall IP. You don't own it. You have the license to make something for Red Wall, right? Correct. Do you guys Do you guys get revenue from the game sales or do you just get paid as a contractor? You take the money and you're good to go. In that case, it's it's a it's it's we

get paid from each game sale. So, like we're the publisher and and then we send a royalty back to Random House and the and the Red Wall Abbe Company. So, it's like a licensed IP. Did you buy it? We we did technically. Um, but it it's a kind of a funky story with this. Like we got looped into that uh to that IP through another party um who first hired us as a sub to just make something work for hire, but kind of one thing led to another and next thing you know we got a license and uh it it's actually that one's actually really really providential that that totally Well, I know that author is very picky. Um well and yeah, exactly. I mean he he kind of reminds me of um who's the Calvin and Hobbes author? I can't remember his name. Uh, but the the the creator of Calvin and Hobbs is super like rigid about what you do with that idea. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm like, that's cool you were able to pull that off. Um, so let me ask you a question because this is actually related to you landing these

deals. Um, so it's not necessarily a religious question because I know a lot of my audience members are not religious and that's that's that is fine that that they want to, you know, listen to this podcast. I want I want to make sure that we craft this conversation that we're about to have more around being yourself. Um, so like for me, I'm really open about like what I believe in. Like I put it all over my Twitter. First thing on my Twitter is my faith because that's really important to me. First, like in my bio, first thing on Instagram, in my bio is my faith. It's like it's the number one aspect of my life. After that, it's being a dad, having kids, and then making games. Right. Right. Right. So, my question to you is, why should somebody do kind of the the Chris Skags route? Why should they be open about their faith or what they believe or their mission? Right? Right? It doesn't it doesn't have to be your faith. It could just be what you believe who you are.

Why put yourself out there like that? Isn't that going to limit the amount of clients you're going to get? I know. So, here's what I would say like to cut to it. That is the voice of fear. The voice of fear is the same thing and whether it's about your religion, your faith, your sexuality, whatever it is. Yeah. It's the voice of fear that says, "What if they judge me? What if they don't accept me? What if they don't want me? What if I can't be myself? And that will and fear only begets fear. So, so the the thing is like we have we have too often bought the lie that my value is only based in what other people think of me. And and so this is this is not uniquely a Christian thought, but it's cooked into the Christian theology is that if you believe that you are in our language sacred, right? If your humanity, if your individual person is sacred, that it's valuable, not because

someone else says that that I like you or I accept you, you're just sort of intrinsically valuable, right? Then to live in that space is actually the only way that you ever get to live at all. Yeah. When we when we subjugate our own personal value and we start with our professional value like what if I can't get a job? What if I can't you know? So we start with our professional value but that becomes personal value that becomes relational value like it starts to spread out like a cancer. Yeah. If we let other people's opinion of us be the metric of us being ourselves then it invalidates our personhood and that's no way to live. Well, what if what if people want to live like what if they would rather have an invalidated personhood and sign a ton of million-dollar contracts, right? What if because you know there's there's actors, there's there's billionaires, there's famous people who purposefully snuff out who they are. Sure. For the purposes of getting as many It's kind of like doing a deal with the

devil. That's kind of the way I think about it. Yeah. Right. And what what I've found is that even from a strategic perspective, I'm curious. That's a great I love what you said. So that's the that's the spiritual or like emotional side of the answer which is you want to be yourself because it's just it's a good way to live. But there's also another side of the question which is it a good strategy is it a good business strategy okay for game developers to be super open about who they are because I've noticed that the clients you sign with are people that probably wouldn't have signed with you had you not been open. Right. Intel. Yeah. Four seasons. MGM. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So, it's it's easy to look at the chosen angel wing family. You're like, "Oh, those are faith friendly clients, but the overwhelming majority of our work is not faith friendly clients." Now, what I'll tell you, and this is like, let's just do the math. Let's pretend this isn't a spiritual question. The math says that there are more

Christians in the United States than any other demographic. And so just the numbers tells you that if they're just scattered evenly across the world, you're more likely to make friends based on faith than not. And so like let's forget if it's real. Let's forget if it means anything. That's just this that's just the demographics. So what you're saying is everybody listening to should convert to Christianity, put it in their bio, and they'll land more clients and they'll make more money. Yeah. But no, that's so that's so interesting. I, you know, I found I found that if you if you stand for something and and you're who you are and you're you're honest about who you are on social media, you it's just like a net positive like and you you're going to get people who don't like what you have to say, right? You're gonna it doesn't matter what it is. You could be whether where you are politically, it doesn't matter. But social media rewards honesty and transparency and courage.

And courage. That's right. It does. Now, it's also pretty scary because okay, well, then I'm not if I'm too if I'm too one way or too open about this one thing, then I won't land a deal or I won't get an article on Polygon or I won't land a deal with, I don't know, uh, let's say EA, right, or something like that or or a smaller publisher like Deolver. But what I found is there are those publishers who do align with you philosophically and you're going to get a much more a stronger quicker faster contract with those individuals because they they they may not even agree with you but they like your uh your willingness to be open and honest. They're attracted to it. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So you may have shut nine doors, but the one door you wanted open all along is the one that opens. Yeah. But I would say like but even what the way you just phrased that like what like the way that you uh the way that you concluded I agree

with but I also think that the premise is actually not true there's this notion that that you're going to shut nine doors but I will tell you in in a thousand clients and I don't think I'm even exaggerating in a thousand clients we've had over the years we've had literally one secular client kind of like I'm not going there right by secular you mean they don't they don't they're not religious or they don't they don't like that you have a They don't like the fact that I'm a Christian. So, one out of a thousand. But I would say if anything, I'm more likely to lose religious clients. So, like people who are religious who are like, "Oh, well, like whatever like like if you're if you're Christians either either you should have the Virgin Mary in there or you shouldn't have the Virgin Mary or like everyone has their like their hang-ups." And then there's the politics of everything and the cultural stuff. Yeah. It becomes those are the guys who give us grief. Yep. Yep. Dude, what's funny is like, well, you know, my approach to making games is probably a little bit different than yours. Like, your stuff is familyfriendly. Like, I'm working on like one of the most violent games I've ever worked on. It's super bloody and

gory. It's a It's a horror game. There's plenty of swearing, yet at the top of my bio, it's like, I love Jesus. It's like, what is this? Yeah. Yeah. And but the thing is, and I get comments on Twitter that are like, you call yourself a Christian, but you make this. Don't you know that that's satanic? And you know, it could be, it's debatable. But at the end of the day though, what's funny is I do get more push back from people who I align with philosophically um than other people. And yeah, you're you're right that the premise I think the premise but the premise is something that I think everybody fears. You know, they fear if I'm too much of me, it's going to cause all these people to freeze up and not want to talk to me. But the truth is is I think that's just like the spotlight effect of like you think that everybody cares what you have to say and you think you're going to get cancelled blah blah blah but in reality most people don't really care. They just want to play a great game you know. Yeah. Exactly. You know this actually goes back to

uh this actually goes back to the Garden of Eden. And when uh when Adam and Eve fall the first thing Adam says is he says I was afraid so I hid. And like if we understand that one phrase, we understand like 80% of human psychology. We are afraid of exposure. We're afraid of being known. It's it's the thing that we want the most, but it's the thing we're afraid of the most. And so we hide. And that's that's in every level. We hide from God. We hide from each other. We hide from ourselves and our wives and our kids. We hide because we're afraid. And uh is there any overcoming that one thing? Yeah. Have you ever had to overcome that? Like what did you used to live in a sort of state of fear when it came to your business? Oh, totally. Yeah. What were some things that really freaked you out? It doesn't have to be like I was scared to say I was a Christian, but it could be stuff like money or whatever, you know? Yeah. I I think probably you every time you have a you you mentioned like when we first got connected with with uh with Intel, there was a lot of what's the word for this? Um they call it like

poser syndrome or something. The idea like I don't know if we can do that's the one. imposter syndrome, but poser works, too. I think I like that better. I was like, I don't know if we can do this. This is a huge freaking company and god forbid something should go wrong and they could just sue us into oblivion, right? And not that I had any reason to be worried about that, but I was terrified. Like, you're signing this big contract like what am I getting myself into? Um, and I think at that time the reason that I went forward was probably less about courage and more about hunger. Like, we needed the gig. Um, makes you very courageous. It does, you know. Okay. So, you it was you were just afraid that you weren't going to be able to pull it off. And I think I think that that's I think that's what the majority of my listeners are probably afraid of. Um, now the thing is is like how how do you conquer that fear? Let's obviously one of the ways is just you have to do it. But a lot of my subscribers, they don't have to make the leap. They don't have to start a game

studio, right? So, they're always in this comfortable state of they work a desk job they hate, but at least they're comfortable, at least they're safe, right? How do you overcome the fear that you're going to fail publicly, that you're not going to be able to pull it off? How how do you is there a mental game? Is there a mental trick to figure out how to conquer your fear? Uh, mountain biking. Mountain biking or or ziplining or river rafting. So, I think that courage is actually a muscle. Um, and we have to give ourselves, we have to work through casual risks in order to be comfortable and build the muscle to get more critical risks. So, you build courage the way that you build a lot of things. Do something that is that makes your guts feel this is scary, but your mind knows is safe. I remember standing at the top of a of a what are they called? Challenge courses or rope courses. And you've got the big harness and everything like you're perfectly safe, right? There's a, you know, three 300lb men on a rope making sure that I'm

safe. But your knees don't believe you, right? Your knees are shaking. You're terrifying. And you have to step out on this wire. But it's those little casual adventures that actually train you to to have more like when the risk is real. So I would encourage anyone who's looking at that, it's like do things that just feel scary. Yeah. Learn to overcome your fear in the little things. And pretty soon when I can step out on that ropes course, pretty soon I know how to talk to a girl. Pretty soon when I know how to talk to a girl, I know how to take a risk with my business. Yeah. Um so I would really say practice. That's really good. It's so funny you bring that up because I was thinking yesterday about a really cool business model and it would be something called like courage coach. Um and they give you a list of like a hundred things and it's baby steps and like the final item is like your dream like I want to start my own game studio. at the top it's like um ask ask a random person at a coffee shop if you can use their phone and it's like you slowly have to go through each one and if you don't do it you owe the coach a thousand bucks so

and you like sign a contract a legally binding contract to do it I I want that for myself because there are certain things that I'm I'm scared of that I just I wish I wasn't and a lot of them are social stuff because I have a lot of like weird social anxiety I can talk to a camera but if this where in-person conversation, I'd be totally different. Um, but I have a lot of social anxiety and so I want to figure out how to break through that. And a lot of my subscribers, they want to figure out how do I how do I just make this game and release it. Like they can't click the release button on it.io, you know, if it's like a small game, they just cannot bring themselves to release a crappy game because they're they're scared. There's this weird thought process that they're gonna release it and it's gonna for some reason it's gonna get thousands of negative votes or down votes or comments. Yeah. When in reality most people probably won't even play it, which maybe that's part of the fear too, you know? I don't know. So, I think that's actually really and uh you know, especially when you're in a

creative thing. So, like making a game and this is probably true of making a song or a poem or anything else. The thing about creativity is you really are putting your soul into something and that makes it that makes it more risky, right? So, if I if I made a product for for someone else, the truth is my heart's not in it. I don't care. And uh and if it doesn't sell or succeed, it's their problem. But if it's mine, you know, if I put my my guts into it, man, to have that ignored, to have it judged is terrifying. So, I I totally get it. On the other hand, it it is it's just back to that same question of like courage is actually the root, I think, of all the other virtues. Um, and it's something we just don't talk about very much. Um, you know, but it's it's courage that allows us to be uh it allows us to take risks. It allows us to talk to people. It allows us to change the world. Um because but none of the other virtues work without courage. Yeah. Alternatively, another way of putting it is uh cowardice is perhaps the root of all evil. Right. Sure. Um it fear fear of of losing power,

losing control, losing your identity, your value, your purpose. And like what sucks is you can know that that is wrong to have those motivations. But like personally, I operate from those motivations the majority of the time. I was talking to my wife about it last night because I was like, I'm tired of being driven by like fear of not being respected. Like I really like respect. I want to be respected. And so a ton of my motivation is is doing everything I can to ensure that I lock in respect from everybody from my YouTube channel to my students to my friends to my family. I'm I'm going to lock it in. And uh the motivation is purely fear. fear of like being found out or being right being being discovered that I'm actually not respectable. And I she was like, "Yeah, but that's wrong." And I was like, "I know it's wrong, but I can't change my brain." Yeah. But I love what you like the

solution to these problems is just doing the things pract building the muscle to not think that way. You have to actually do things that are uncomfortable to change your brain. Right. Yeah. And let me ask you something because you've you've enjoyed some success. You've got some, you know, some people like what you do. Does it go away? Uh the fear the the fear of losing respect. Yeah. Doesn't that actually get worse? It gets way worse. And so it's it's not like if I just had a success, it goes away. It's not like Yeah. It gets way worse because the stakes are higher, right? It's like um well like for for example like I've secured a certain amount of income based on my digital products and that's games online school uh ad revenue blah blah blah I've locked in this certain amount of income. So there's the financial side which is gaining financial respect, right? Um gaining financial security, financial comfort, right? You get all these things. Well, now the fear is

multiplied. Not only do I just by default like I was born desiring respect. I think most guys are. They just want respect. I was born with that desire probably a little bit more so than most people. And this is just me in sort of confessing. Um, but like that that desire for respect is then the like a salt on a wound. It's sprinkled with the desire for comfort, financial security that I'm used to. So the baseline respect stays there and then on top of that is all the other stuff that I've learned to uh the Christian word is worship or idolize. Right. Right. Right. So, it's no it doesn't get easier. And so, I'm in a constant sort of mindset of prayer like I I don't want to be this way. Um I know it's it's not healthy. Please God, help me not to be this way. Right. Exactly. And I don't know what else to do about it. It's like, and that's the problem with with any kind of success. And and

for those of you who are listening who you're eventually going to release a game um and you're gonna find that success and and a lot of my friends um are successful game developers, you just be warned. You're going to become more obsessed. You're going to become you're going to identify with it more. And by identify I mean you become what you made. Um and that's not I mean have you ever struggled with that with your studio? Yeah, I you you as soon as you it's it's this interesting thing like your first worry is that no one will notice. The moment someone the moment someone notices you're like oh no they they noticed that but that's not the truest thing about me. So so I haven't actually solved the problem at all. Noticed what? Um I sort of like if my product, if my game, if my book, if my whatever it was, if they noticed that now I feel on the hook. One to like live up to whatever that means. Two do it again. That's the terrifying like could you ever do it again? Yeah. Yeah. Um and so so actually now if there used to be a question mark, will anybody

care? Now people care and that's worse. That's scarier if I invest my heart in that thing. If I invest my heart in my success, in my product, in my thing like and that's where for me the idea like I cannot find my value in those things. I have to fight it. I have to make sure that my value is in something that's bigger than me. And and for me that's God for me. the idea like I can't afford to have any thought in my head that he doesn't have about me and if he says he loves me that's what matters right so what do you think about when game developers call their game their baby I think it's totally natural and there's there's a there's a good thing to like you should you should care about you should love you should invest in it but it shouldn't be the thing where I have put so much of my life and story in it that that its life becomes my life um and so so I get the terminology, but you you probably heard this at other business things. Sometimes you got to kill the babies, right? To make a good product, to make a good game. Sometimes you just have to get rid of the thing. Like, you probably have you ever read

good to great? This idea that there's there's lots and lots of good things. Yeah. We were just talking about this on the podcast. There's lots of good things that aren't great things and can you sacrifice the good things? Like I'm making a okay living. Like this is okay. Like all the reasons we're like this is good enough. Can I sacrifice that for the sake of what's really eternal? Yeah, that's a big step. Yeah. Okay, man. That's that's really good advice. So, you know, I I really wanted to get your opinion really quick on your your revenue streams. So, sort of circle back to the the revenue side of things. Um to segue here, you know, we've got my my revenue model is selling copies of games. Even though I do part partner with publishers, I get a revenue cut. I get the I usually get the lion share of the revenue cut. Um I also make money selling like digital products like online courses or ad revenue. I've never done client work. And so from the

research I've done about you, you've got, you know, partnering with Intel, right? Just making a ton of apps for them. um red wall IP games basically um and then mobile gaming. Which one of those? And did I hit all the revenue streams for you guys? And then also self-published games. Yeah, kind of more recently. I don't know if this counts as revenue, but we actually started a nonprofit. So, I don't know if that's the same, but that does actually generate, you know, some some money and so that pays some bills, too. Okay. So, that's new though. That's something new. Okay. So, let me ask you this. Which one of those is is your is your favorite and brings in I guess which one brings in the most revenue because I want to sort of talk about that one. Yeah. So historically the work for hire is the most predictable and the biggest revenue source like that's the one but it's also has no future. So the the upside is good margin we can sell more properties. The downside is it never builds enterprise value. Okay. So, so for us, the balance that

we're trying to strike is the work for hire provides income, but it's the games that have long-term. So, that's the publishing, the sales, the IP. Those are things that have the long-term enterprise value, but it takes longer and it's more risky, right? So, you can make a great game that launches and doesn't ever sell. Um, and is it not that is it not as fun to do uh contract work? Not nearly as fun. most of the time. Um, I think that we found ourselves a sweet spot in that now most of our clients sort of value what we do for the sake of what we do as opposed to just like make this thing for me and we'll pay you. Now it's more like actually can you bring S's particular style and strengths and then really we get to do what we want to do and get paid for it. So that's kind of a cool thing. Okay. So that's another reason why you should be yourself and and that that your brand should be to have your brand to have a personality and a and a culture and to be honest because you can use long term the long-term strategy is that

you you you find clients that love that about you and then they trust you and they're not constantly nitpicking all the different things that they want for their game. They sort of just trust you because they like you, right? Yep. Yeah. Okay. So, how does my audience how does my audience land client deals? What are some some what's the path to getting client work as a game developer? Let's assume that the people listening who want to do that are decent game developers. They're pretty good. They know how to make a a decent game. Now, how do they get a client, right? How do they get that $100,000 deal at a 70% margin? Exactly. I think you have you pick something that you can be good at. Um, and especially if you can find something that is uh that's not oversaturated. So in our case like our particular like kind of first big step was at the time mobile in general was just not it was brand new and so there was way more work than there was work than there

was people to do it. So so in that market it's what they call kind of a kind of a red a blue ocean like there's just more work than people to do it and that's great. um if you can find a space like that. Um and so I would argue right now one of the one of the really underserved game genres is interactive fiction. And for most game developers, they're like, "Yeah, that's not really a game. I get it." On the other hand, um there's like a lot a lot of people who want that genre and it's cheap to make and you can be good at it. It's pretty easy to make quality good stuff for low cost. And if you can find a situation like that, then then really you start just hanging out your shingle like who who needs this product and especially if you can find a couple people. So Wing Feather was an example for us. We knew that what we had to offer matched their product, okay? You know, but to be clear, it probably took us a year to land that deal. It's not like we just made one phone call and we were in like it was building a relationship. It was getting to know them. Um, and so if you can find that, like what are you good at? often what

you're good at is what you're passionate about. Um, you know, where does your heart really sing? Because that's what brings that special sauce, right? Is when your when your joy and your in your your your deepest identity comes to bear, then that's that's where the real magic happens and life happens. So, if you can make any game that's quality, that represents sort of your skill set, you can probably then turn around and sell that to other people who want games. Gamification is a huge topic right now, right? Um the t the uh the co created a situation where basically every brand knows that online communities is where it's all happening. Y so there's a huge market. Um don't hang out in this regard. Don't hang with other game developers. Hang out with other brands, other companies. So you might go to broadcasting conferences. You might go to I don't know like restaurant conferences. Like figure a way. You think about like when uh Chipotle and KFC made little games, branded games to sell chicken, like someone made good money on that gig. Um

and and they were successful, right? And so if I can if I can do three months of work and get paid 100 grand for it, well then I've probably got a good six, nine months worth of runway to make whatever I want to make. That's so smart. I mean, I've been I've been teaching about this stuff. I mean, we're at least doing YouTube for six years, seven years, I think. And I've never once brought that up as a revenue model. Um, but it's but it's obvious to me now. It's like go go go land a big deal if you if you could find them. The question is um the question is how do you find them? Like how do you find these people? Trade shows. Trade shows is the easiest. Um and go to trade, like I said, go to trade shows that aren't games. Um because Oh, no. I see. I see. I'm going to their So, so take um take for example, there's there's conferences that are just restaurant tours who they're selling franchises, right? So, say so it's like whatever it is, KFC, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, there all these

places and they just have conferences and it might be in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, whatever. Go there with your game. And especially if you if you can just spend a little time extra and you're like, "This is the Chick-fil-A version of my little game." Find the Chick-fil-A people, man. It takes you like 10 minutes to make a branded version. And all you need is one person like, "That's brilliant." Like, I we we need something new. We're trying something new. But these people are not used to being cared for by game developers. Like, they don't know you. They don't know where to find you. So, go find them. Find the brand. That's so funny you say that because I used to be in marketing and our our clients were food service and I've been to these trade shows, these food show food service trade shows and I would watch my boss. He's a really good friend of mine now, a mentor. I learned so much from him. He would just go to each booth and become friends with every single person at that booth. The goal was to become their friend. That was it. And then he'd at the end give them a card and that was it, you know.

Um, and I I think that that's such a brilliant way to think about this is to consider the niche that you'd want to maybe be in and try it out. Go meet the people in that niche and see if they want to make games. I it would be I would be curious is there a resource available for people to look at wh what kind of client is interested in making games? Like is it is it mainly films? Because I know Apple's got the new VR headset and they're they're probably gonna be hiring people to create interactive worlds while the movie's playing so you can look around at uh each scene. That would be sweet. But that kind of stuff I'm like, okay, that's probably going to be some work. But should they are there certain like industries that they just shouldn't even that my audience shouldn't even touch? It's like no, you're not going to you're not going to tap into the vacuum market. You're just not. So the one of the customers that we had last year, I would have never expected this, but they were a cyber security company. And so they

make firewalls and and this is this weird thing where like they just want to try something different. So we made a video game for them that they play at their trade show booth at security conferences. And so it's this real simple little like like zap the bad guys kind of a thing. But for them, it was just this branded thing where where it ties into their product. It probably took us, you know, like like for us it was the kind of thing where I can do this with my eyes shot, right? Like the making the game was easy, but for them they have no access to game developers and then at their trade booths they're the only people there with that kind of interactivity. And so their booth becomes popular, they become popular, everybody's freaking happy. So what I would say is like in the there's that old saying like uh in the land of the blind, the oneeyed man is king. like this idea. Go places that are not used to gamers because then you're the only person there and they're starving for just some attention and you'll you're I think that's the most likely place and you can charge them because nobody

else is charging at all. Yeah. So you can just It's so funny you're bringing all this up, dude, because I'm getting like flashbacks. Um I I totally forgot about this. Uh I've made about five client games and this was while I was in marketing. So we were a B2B marketer. So business to business, we weren't we weren't serving like Nike. We were serving companies that nobody knows about, right? Soap companies, truck companies, tire companies. Yeah. And what we would do, you're so right about this. They would I was the web developer, but I they also knew I made games. So I would use Flash, which is like Unity's grandfather. Uh I would use Flash to create really silly. One time we made a game about soap and it was it was like bubbles and it was for a soap company and you had to like blow up the bubbles. So I made that I made a truck game where you drive as a truck and sort of which is hilarious that this truck company wanted me to make a game where you have to avoid

getting in a wreck but they wanted to they wanted to make it, you know. Um we made a bowling game as well and you know what it was for? It was never for consumers. It was for other clients. So I would make these games to make their brand look cool. So whether it was for trade shows on like an iPad or it was like a contest for an internal contest with you know thousands of employees. So we would make this game for like 10 grand. Um and I it would take me like two weeks to make it. But I'm thinking about like the profit margins for the company, you know, how much I was making and then how much they made off that game. Yes. Um it was a decent business model for them. And so Yeah, I I never thought and if that was 5 10 years ago, like that idea is is so much stronger now. So, one of the big things that came out of the co is everyone's like they're like, "Oh my gosh, everybody is online. Everybody is doing something. Everyone's looking for digital communities." And all of a sudden, games used to be kind of the redheaded stepchild in the room

of like, "Oh, that's just for kids." And I was like, "Games are everywhere, man." like the idea that that the ability to create online communities with any reason like that's big money. That's big money. Okay. So, to wrap up here, if you were knowing what you know now and you're one of my subscribers, what's sort of the the stepbystep process? If you were starting out right now, what would you do to land your first client? What's the first step, second step, third step, or fourth step? Hate to put you on the spot, but I am curious. It's it's actually something I think I have an answer to it because we we did this. Find a brand that you really care about. And this and the farther it is from gaming, the better. Um that you care about. And so that could be a shoe you like, a soda pop you like, whatever. It doesn't matter. But so find a brand that you care about and then make something simple that just features their brand, right? And so you mentioned like a bubble game, right? the idea like

you have bubble pop branded for Pepsi, whatever. Um, but do it really good and then think through what it is that Pepsi wants out of this. Like what would what would Pepsi want out of a thing? And part of it might just be we want it to be cool. We want it to bring people together. Like pick a thing. In other words, don't invest your heart and soul in this, but invest your talent and your skills in it. And then figure out how to get it not only to Pepsi, but to all of Pepsi's competitors. So even though it has Pepsi branding on it. Yeah. Because the idea like if coke sees it like hey how can like I had this happen with the people like why are you working with those guys we have twice as big a market audience like write me a check man and they did right so it's like they see this is like someone else is in this market and not me like competition is actually a really strong motivator so you go around that Pepsi trade show booth with all of Pepsi's competitors someone's going to buy your game okay so is it possible to can can you do like three maybe I know that that's asking a lot maybe of of some of my subscribers. But like you go, okay, I'm going to do a Pepsi one and

then I'm going to do a totally different market like a car and then I'm going to do another market and then just go f just so who do you send who do you send this email to? Right. And what do you send? Do you send the game? Do you send a video of the game? Do you send a pitch deck? Yeah. If you can if you can afford it, I would actually see go to the trade shows. Like face to face conversation is actually so much more powerful than a need because they need to trust because they need to see you, right? It's a trust question. It's not a product question. And so most sales people make like I should say good sales people know that it's always a trust question. It's never really a price question and it's never a product question. Those things have to be there but it's always trust. Okay. Okay. So that's going to get expensive. Like it'll be like 10 grand flying out to all these places, right? Yeah. You start small like what's local? Like what's near you? Um and so I don't know. I mean, maybe the, you know, Freight Liner truck conference is near you. Yeah. Well, where I'm at, I'm in the southeast in South Carolina. So, the

it's like BMW. We're we're near like BMW. So, it's like ton of like engineering, car stuff. I think Volvo is in Charleston. Um, so for me, it's like cars and engineering. And so, if it were me, I would just go, I'm going to go to all these trade shows um that are big industries in my state. I'm going to do a couple projects, gain a reputation, get get like 30 grand, and then I can use that money to fly out to places I really care about. Film industry is one I would want to participate in. Um, go so fly out to LA or something. Go to some some a AR augmented reality trade show or something like that, right? And see if I could fit in there. And I think that's a good way to kind of start a living. And pretty soon you've got contractors who are taking care of your trade games and pretty soon you've got some enough revenue to make the game that you always wanted to and you're that you're now you're getting paid to make what you love. Right. Right. And so my my approach is different than yours. So my approach is

do a a kick butt Kickstarter campaign or work with a publisher and get 60% of the revenue. Um but you've mentioned a third here and I think it's brilliant which is client work. Um, and it gives you experience, helps you become a better developer. And like, do you ever feel like at this point you're never really gonna have a financial emergency because you just know you've got a a sort of clients in the hopper and you're you're good to go. Yeah. I mean, like I'm old enough now, I've lived through a couple of those places where sometimes the world falls apart and it's got nothing to do with you, right? There's, you know, like Yeah. 2021. Uh, yeah. So, so like 2021 was only the most recent. You know, I've lived through two others. You're like, "Yeah, like sometimes you're just there's no such thing as safe." But, but yes, in general, I think you're right. You You certainly hed your bets and you get a lot safer. Cool. Well, Chris, man, this was fun. Like, it this definitely was a conversation I wanted to have because I

wanted to learn about the client world. Um, my so many of my subscribers, they're I mean I'm I am very laser focused on a few revenue streams, but I think a lot of my audience members all they think is I make money by selling a game. So, it's a game copy on Steam. That's how I'm going to make money. And what I want you guys to know, everyone listening, is that it is a there there are like hundreds of ways to make income. If you can make this is this is what I want to leave everyone with and maybe Chris tell me if you agree. If you can make a good game, all you got to do is figure out how to find the person with the money and satisfy them and you will become successful. Right. So, it's really a question of finding the work, not if you can do it. Right. Exactly. I think that's true. Okay, cool, man. Well, I will uh end this podcast, guys. Thanks for listening. Be sure to check out the link

below. Um, we're going to leave Chris's uh Chris want to leave your socials and your website below in the description. Is that good? Yeah, sure. That'd be awesome. All right. And anything else you wanted to leave the audience with? Um, with you, Thomas, I want to invite you like I'm going to I want to engage with you more on what you're doing. You're you're influential in this market and and I want to encourage you to like use it for good. I mean, you already are. I have an idea I want to throw past you, but not online. Okay. Well, after I hit the uh the stop button here, uh Chris is gonna try and manipulate me into doing something here. Um I'm just kidding. Um no, I'll see you on the other side, bud. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Cheers. Bye-bye. Hey guys, thanks for watching or listening. Be sure to leave a like, subscribe, and leave a review. That would mean the world to me. And hey, if you're on YouTube, click that video right there. You're going to love it. I'll see you later. Cheers.