What Indie Game Publishers Really Think: 15 Years of Industry Insights from Finji's Rebekah Saltsman

I think we can get started. So, this talk is called Inside Indie Publishing, and I'm going to give you a little bit of context first on who I am, and I've been talking at you for a while, so apologies. My name is Becca Saltzman. Um, technically Rebecca Saltzman. Um, and if you know me on the internet, it's Beex. Hi. Um, I'm the CEO and co-founder of Fini, which is a small independent publisher. And kind of most importantly, and a lot of you may not know this, we are a developer. We were a developer first. We've been making games for a really long time and I'm not going to tell you how long that is because it's going to make me feel really old and you feel really young. Um, so if somebody wants to come up to me or Adam who is in this room right now and be like, I played Cannibal when I was seven, by all means, we're here for it. But it does make us feel ancient. Um, if you ever need to get a hold of me, finy.co is our website. Also, that's my email address. And I'm all over the internet. I my DMs are open. That's cool. Um it takes me a while to get to them. Okay. Um what do I

do at Fini though? So CEO and co-founder can mean a lot of things. People are like, "Oh, you're seuite." It's like, "Yeah, whatever." I'm a small independent studio. I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. So I do marketing, strategy, uh the direction for that. Um and I have been the main point of contact for all high-profile events, shows, business development, etc. for a very long time. Um, so that's why I'm kind of up here talking about inside indie publishing. I am a developer and a publisher. This is stuff I've done for like 15 plus years. So I'm going to talk about three things today. Uh, kind of to lay out the landscape for what is going on with indie publishers now and what is going on with larger platforms. Specifically, uh, what do indie publishers think about? And if there's any any indie publishers here in the room, you can be like, "Nah, Becca, that's not quite right." But it's cool. We can talk afterwards. Uh this is what in general we have a tendency to like sit down and when we're talking to each other, this is what we're thinking about all the time. This is what I think about all the time.

Also, I'm going to talk a little bit about what do the big platforms they work with think about. And when I'm talking about big platforms, this is like places where we sell our games. So these are our consoles. Um we have like sort of our first tier, second tier, third tier platforms. Um it used to be like first tier is the consoles and maybe Steam and second tier is like, you know, maybe some of the smaller storefronts. I'm like the top tier because of money is probably Fortnite and Roblox, but I'm basing this based on like Cash Flow, but the places you sell stuff, those are our platforms. And then what does this mean for people who make games? So, we're going to talk through that. So basically, if you have a good idea of how these ecosystems work together, you will hopefully um fill in some of the missing info um that you need to also exist in inside these ecosystems because you can't really exist in the industry without understanding how they work. Um while representing your own game or your own team, um I wasn't told these things. Um,

this is the just the collection of sorry, garbage that I've had to learn over the last 15 years is sort this stuff out while watching the industry, reading about things, talking about things, and meeting with people and representing my own library of games, both my own and other people's. Um, and I should probably give a little bit of context. um games that I have represented or made some of my library. We have Night in the Woods, Tunic. I was a teenage exoc colonist. Both of the Wilmont's games. That's Warehouse and Wilmont Works It Out. My husband made Cannibal. Um we also made Overland. We were an Apple Arcade launch title. I've got 868 Back coming out, which is Michael Bro's new title. I've got Usual June My Own Game in development. All of these are across iOS and mobile. They are they've been launches on new platforms. I have nextg old gen consoles that maybe you played when you were five. I' we've done a lot of stuff. So that is where I'm coming from with this

information. So what is an indie publisher? And I'm come on, we all know what this is, right? Um but stick with me. Definitions are important if we're going to talk about some of the boundaries and goals of this talk. So, one, they are not wholly owned by a store or a platform. Um, which seems kind of obvious, but definition definitions matter. They mostly work with small teams and they work in all genres of games. They usually have budgets of 2 million or less. Hold up. I know there are exceptions. There's always exceptions, but just like stick with me here. We have to build some boundaries. They uh have much smaller marketing budgets compared to AAA publishers. And just real quick, AAA, everyone knows what this is, right? Okay, good. Uh if I do come up with if I say a term and you're like, I don't understand, I forget to define it. If you just wave at

me a little, I'll probably see it and stop and define it. Um, indie publishers can also be a developer too. Like Finy, US, 11bit, Team 17, Kit Fox. However, this is pretty rare. Um, it's usually not a developer and we've got Devolver, Annaperna, Fellow Traveler, Hooded Horse, Astra, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. Um, so we do a lot of stuff. Some are developers, some are not. Some are coming from their own independent publishing. Some are just publishers. And I'm I hate that word just because publishing is huge and hard. So indie publishers think about selling small games. And I don't mean small like 90minute games. I mean teams made by like games made by smaller teams. Games made with smaller budgets. And if we're talking about North American budgets right now, that could be millions of dollars. but smaller than AAA budgets,

smaller than double A budgets. So if you are making a small game, it seems likely that they are thinking about how to sell a game like yours. So if you are making a small game, do you want to make a small game? Do you want to publish small games? If yes, let's talk about what indie publishers are constantly thinking about. This next slide is going to be very funny and very long. And I mentioned earlier, I do hate making slideshows. So sometimes my slides will have a lot of information, but I will walk through it slowly. So what are some things an indie publisher is thinking about? One, portfolio fit and annexation. And that sounds crazy. Don't worry, I'm going to talk about that. So portfolio fit is how new games sit alongside other titles that the publisher has released across genre, gameplay, and audience. Annexation is our it's kind of the term we use internally for our goals or like the

goals a studio might have for audience reach and relevancy during either short short-term or long-term timelines. So what are you trying to get? What other audiences are you trying to bring in? What other genres are you trying to make connections to? I talk in ven diagrams all the time. So if I got tunic over here and 868 back over here, what's my ven diagram of those two games? And I've got it. It's in my head right now. But that's an annexation into a new audience. And that's why it fits. That's why we're so excited about sort of working with these titles. There's also this thing that we joke about often sarcastically internally as external opportunities, which is a very polite way of uh talking about business development partnerships that want to come in and just like abscond with your development schedule. Like why aren't you in this show next? And you're like, I didn't wasn't going to make a trailer until next year. external opportunity. So you have to sort of manage whether um you want to do this big marketing push

but earlier maybe than you wanted to. So it's our term for business development partnerships with platforms and storefronts which bring value to those platforms and storefronts. These generally align with partner goals and always adhere to partner schedules not your own um ever. They never ever ever will align with your own internal schedules. So it's that thing that indie publishers I think about all the time because they know about these opportunities uh measuring stuff is metrics numbers etc. And if you're an indie developer you're like no and I agree with that. Uh but data is actually really important especially for publishers who are sort of that's what they have access to. They can sort of see what's happening with the numbers the storefronts through advertising and everything else. um they need to gather these metrics, these numbers in order to both do normal business and to make sure a game is launching with as little risk as possible. These numbers also matter for pre and post-launch support opportunities and continue development.

This is the reason why they're like, "Well, how many wish lists do you have on Steam if you already announced the game?" Because they need to know that. They're going to use that number and they're going to plug it into a lot of other like they're going to compare it to past games. They have a lot of data that you don't have access to, but they're looking not just at that number, but at numbers across the whole industry for your for your genre and type of game. Um, and comparing it to their past work. They also are facilit or they're thinking about facilitating development funds and budgets. Um, this part stinks, but a publisher is doing the math all the time. Um, I I always feel bad when I'm talking to Adam because in my head I'm just running numbers all day long. How long is our budget going? How much is this going to cost? What's our porting fee on this? What's the how do I do how do I Well, how much is that? Are can we make it? Can we make it to launch? It's because the numbers we're always doing the math constantly. Any delay, everything is doing the math. And that is the same thing when you're when they are uh

looking at a development budget or talking to you about your timeline. They're doing the math. And this is not simply 70% of 1999 or is $13.99. If we sell 1,4950 units of the game, we will pay back the $2 million development budget. Like games don't sell everything at full price. Um development budgets need to align with available development funds um in the industry. And as you know right now, that's very bad. This is very bad in the industry right now. Um, and a publisher is often not the only partner providing money to the team to get the game done. And I'll just one second on that. Um, this is often a very big project and requires internal support for milestone management, mentorship, etc. So, the math is big. It is what money can I get from a platform? What money can I get from investors? What money am I using from past games? How much am I giving you in development funds? Can I actually derisk this entirely with a deal from a platform?

Like there's a lot of math going on here in addition to can we get it done before we run out of cash because indie publishers also kind of want your game to exist in the marketplace. They're fans of indie games. If they weren't, they wouldn't do this job. It's too damn hard. Okay, next. They're thinking about calendars and schedules. Indie projects rarely rarely ever ship on time. And what does that even mean? Like most of us made up the damn date in the first place. And if you're like, "Uhuh, no, you did. I've been around way too long. I do it." I'm like, "Yeah, sure. That sounds reasonable. I'll have money then. Still likely." Like, we all start there and then we continue to get better at getting our day as we closer and closer to launch. But there's a reason why you're like, "Wow, the indie project took seven years." Like, you know, they said two. We knew that wasn't true. Like most of us just we have massive blind spots to what the actual work would would entail. our teams are too small and publishers know this and spend a lot of time managing calendar

expectations with their teams. This is not a mystery to them. We know um I know as a developer uh development expectations taking advantage of industry timelines and schedules like they need to do this because they have to find the best launch spot for the game that is constantly changing. Um it is also never a good time to launch like we ask that questions what's a great time to launch wrong. No. what is the least bad time to launch? Um, and honestly, it's also always great to launch when it's a right launch for your game. And that sounds weird, but like there's really good slots all over the calendar, depending on what genre you're in or where you're launching at. So, like a publisher is always thinking about like where can that game, this game that I love very much, slot in to an everchanging environment and calendar in the industry. They're also managing team communication and trust management which is really hard. Uh specifically it's good

communication and trust between the team. Publishers have an incentive to insist in the management of this team communication to foster not only team trust but trust between the publisher and the team and they spend a lot of time working on this. Can you imagine why? What happens when three people hate each other and are no longer working on a game anymore and maybe you signed a deal with I don't know uh let's pick a platform Sony and there's money on the line the the incentive for the publisher is like we put our reputation on the line for you guys or like you have a game pass deal and you have to ship that on game pass. It's in it is in the best interest of the publisher and your team to have somebody there as a mediator to be managing how you all are doing healthy. Are you working reasonable hours? Are you burning out? There's a reason they're asking these questions. It's because they one have a financial and business incentive, but also a lot of times they just kind of care. Like they're not trying to get up in your business, but they do just care about you as people.

Also, launch management and related onboarding. Uh this is ports and localization. Publishers often know the most about launching a game, especially if a development team has never been through the process. They know the storefront dashboards, specifications, and restrictions on art and store text. They know the localization needs for store pages and game scripts, as well as porting and QA and certification timelines for both PC launches and console launches. That this is just kind of the space that they exist in a lot. So, the idea of training and shephering a team through this is just wheelhouse work for them. They think about it a lot. What do you need to know to do this work the best? Because it's really hard work. Also, I'm just gonna say that a lot. This is all really hard work. Why do we do this? Why do we make games? Why do we work in games? It's so hard because we have to be here to make these things exist. The other thing, marketing, sometimes PR PR and rarely community management. And if there's any publishers in here like, "No, no, no. I totally do community management." Awesome. Thank you. We do,

too. But community management is really hard and it is often viewed as outside of marketing. And I will die on the hill that that's not true, but that's a completely different talk. Um, publishers are developing though marketing strategies and campaigns across the parts of the industry that are accessible to them, which might include advertising, demo events, trailer events, conventions, influencer campaigns, and marketing campaigns. Um, it's a lot a lot. They will often be working on PR, which is called is public relations. So that's um how you get your press releases or pitching articles to newspapers, magazines, online sites, etc. It's not just reviews. So, anyone who says, "Oh, PR, I got you reviews." That's not what PR is, and I used to be a PR like person before in a former life, and PR is press. It's press rel. It's public relations. It's a big thing. Um, so game PR is kind of a weird just kind of a weird in general. Um, but PR is a different branch of marketing. Um, it's media relations, press coverage,

interviews, pitch stories. Um, and this goes on before a game launches and long after a game launches. There's a very big process. Um, some publishers assist in managing your community. This is rare. Usually direct community management is left to the team to manage before and post launch. Um, and that is a whole job. Um, and if you plan on running a community, um, I recommend that you do the work right because the internet is hot garbage and you don't want that in your space. It does not represent your brand well or your game. Um, let's see. Next up, we got post-launch promotion and distribution deals. Uh, this is another thing that they're thinking about. Publishers spend a lot of time matching business development deals with what is available in the industry. And I love that I wrote that. What is available in the industry? Sometimes it's endless. Oh, I love 2018. If we could just go back to 2018. Uh, sometimes it is really, really bad, which is now. Um there are often times big swaps of things that are available

and they change constantly depending on what initiative those platforms um roll out and publishers are constantly looking for those and being primed to put whatever games that they have on their slate into those slots as quickly and strategically as possible. Um, it's half of what I do at GDC is find out what in the hell they're doing next, just so I know how to represent my games properly over the next year to two years. Very rarely are they very short-lived. They usually go on for a while. And they're also looking at prestige and brand building and track record. Publishers have a focus on brand building activities across the whole portfolio, not just your game, um, and studio, which might include building prestige or proven track record where they exist in the industry. The um publisher I always like to call out for this is Deolver. They're really effing good at this and they've been doing it for a long time. And like what a great example of a publisher who's looking for the type of games that do well. They are

building off of previous audiences and they are continuing to funnel these players to these games. They know exactly what their players want. Developers just exceptional at um building this brand and prestige. um so impressed with them and have been for years. Um and then finally, I've got possible future licensing opportunities. Um these are often called trans media opportunities. That might be a new word for you. Um but this is merchandising and non-industry partnerships. Um a publisher is always looking for ways to match their games with additional industries to promote and extend the longevity of its game and its sales. So sometimes this last one is like I'm doing a Netflix show on blah blah blah blah or I'm doing a comic book thing or even recently um we were super excited and privileged to work with uh with Tunic. Uh they did a a live um concert in London. It was really cool like in Katagan Hall they just did the tunic music. Um those are the sort of external opportunities that are branching out

into other industries where the IP can be represented in an interesting and cool way. So these are some of the things indie publishers think about and as an independent developer what are we two of those three of those you're like what and the rest of you what the hell is the rest of the stuff but that's what they're doing and this is as a as a representing your game you kind of need to know this and understand why they're asking the questions that they ask. So now what are big platforms thinking about total sales and users? It's very simple. Total sales and users. So if you're making a small game, it seems likely that they probably have a need to have a game like yours. And I'm going explain why. Platforms are hardware companies. And I'm talking about like your consoles. They're hardware companies. They also make games but they are selling hardware. Some of these platforms are responsible

uh they're responsible for 80% of all the PC sales globally. Indie games are very very small pieces of massive ecosystems. So you're like wow I'm like awesome like oh and PlayStation tiny. We are tiny tiny drops in a massive ecosystem but that doesn't mean we're not important. So, back to total sales and users. Stores get 30% of everything. Um, remember that most of the revenue and most of the users are not coming from indie content. So, let's focus on the stuff they do that is related to indie content. But keep in mind that their main incentive is total sales and users. So, just keep all of this in mind. Total sales and users. They are hardware companies. Big platforms still need small games. one portfolio depth and breadth. Between these massive games, how are they selling hardware? What else do they have between God of War and Call of Duty? They're huge projects. They take years to make. What are they putting on the platform instead?

They have to have small games. They need to be able to sell services. Um, that might be a new term for you, but if you're like, I want an Xbox Game Pass deal or I want a PlayStation Plus deal. This is the service part of the company. And I I was like, why do they call it that? But subscriptions, what are people playing between the big launches? If they're not buying premium games, they're part of the subscription service. So, platforms offer a niche or bridge content. That's what this is. Um, they need reliable new content. Um, this is sort of where all of this is falling in. They also need a affordable exclusives. And unfortunately, we're in like the real low version of this right now. And when hardware comes out, we often end up in the real high like lots of deals available for this. Um, this is platform locked content that will like we'll exchange uh exclusivity for five, six, seven, eight figures depending on how fancy you are. Um, and yeah, I know there's exceptions to this number. I know. I know somebody's getting like 27

million. It's not us in this room. I mean, maybe if it is, high five me afterwards. Um, but it's not normal people like us, not me. I was not coming anywhere close to that number. But affordable exclusives. Um, I always refer to us as like the cheap dates um for the exclusives. And sorry, that's where my brain goes. Uh, also, um, hardware sales that are bolstered by large libraries. Indie games far outnumber AAA titles and we just always will. Um, and I have to say this, platform staff love indie content. Like when you go and talk to your third party representatives, they are so excited about it. And I'm not on AAA titles right now in any way. I'm talking about indie stuff. Like, we have the opportunity and the flexibility to be inventive, to be agile. Like, we're kind of cool. We win a lot of awards. We make weird stuff. Um, and we're also cheap

comparatively. Um, thirdparty platforms, the reps, they want cool games that they love on their platform. Third party reps are fans of our work. Um, and I have gotten that directly from them. They play all of our stuff. They love our our games. They also play the AAA stuff, but they are just fans. That's why they represent us. So, what does this mean for indie publishers? It means that we don't have identical goals or needs. I'm not selling hardware. I'm like I have very little in common with these platforms and I have to focus on that. So if I'm going to talk to them, I need to frame everything that I'm talking about so it helps fill their needs. Does that make sense? So it doesn't matter that like it's the dream man. I'm an indie. I'm just making my art. Yes, that's important to me. This is like our life's work. but also that's not going to get me a deal with a big platform. They care, but they don't care

that much. Am I selling hardware? Am I filling a need that they have? And am I focusing my work on those needs? Because now now we have a business development partnership. So that's what indie publishers are doing when they go and talk to it. They are representing you, but they're representing you as a product, a number, as a known quantity, as something that's going to ship and it's going to solve a problem, which is like a really cool way to frame that rather than like feeling all kind of icky about it. But they're solving a problem for that platform. So, what are we doing? We are looking for matches between small teams and big stores because all the platforms have different needs and problems and it's our job to sort out what those needs and problems are which is difficult because they're never going to tell you straight. So we're like looking around. We're reading reviews of other stuff. We're like seeing where the the audience is sort of moving into our sort of weird cool games that could fill that need on that platform. We're also

looking for overlap on timing and content against the backdrop of events, hardware cycles, new store initiatives, new diversity initiatives, genre expectations. Where can we fit in? Where can we solve that problem for them? We're also leaning on numbers and track records to build confidence in in a riskadverse industry. It's really hard as a new indie dev to go in and be like, "Yeah, no, totally. I can ship." You probably can. They don't believe you though because you haven't done it yet. and shipping is hard. The indie publisher is saying they are going to ship and I'm staking my reputation on it. I know I can get them to ship. But the indie publisher is also looking at you and being like, can you ship? Prove that. You have to prove it. Be clear with your pitch documents that you can ship. And no matter that every indie game is cheap, um, when compar compared to the industry at large, everything is viewed as a huge risk by partners, man. When somebody's like $150,000,

I'm like, that's a drop in the bucket to like their annual budgets, but like I get it. It's a risk. They might have to someday explain why they lost $150,000. And like I don't want to be on that side of a spreadsheet having to say that. Why did I lose money? Like you have to understand like they don't want that risk. That risk could lose them a job. So can you ship? Can you make like they they want those spreadsheets to not be equal. They want them to go up. They want a profit. They want a like revenue that ensures that they have a job to to go back to because they're not indies like we are. Like they work for big companies. Um and this is just what we're doing. This is how we're representing people. how we're talking to our our platforms. So, what are indie publishers looking for? And this is like we're all looking for different stuff, but this is like what I've like pulled down. Indie publishers are looking for cool games

and teams that they like. That's a hell of a scientific metric. But I'm not kidding. They are looking for a game that they just want to work on. and the team's cool and is going to be like drama and arguing and they just are good communicators because wow that's gonna be fun because they're fans of your work. So you want to make them when you're pitching to them when they're like trying you you make them a fan and that's awesome. They're also looking for teams and studios that have uh workable schedules and budgets. So like you know don't fly by the seat of your pants on all your documentation. Be realistic. put in buffers because that is derisking you to them. Don't put a VO budget in if you don't know how to do VO, for example. It's really expensive. They're also um looking for the game that will make sense to their current audience or their next audience. A thing that we are always looking for is who is our next audience. I know I got the Night in the Woods audience. I got the

kids. And I don't mean like kids. I mean like the Night in the Woods kids. They're like grown-ups, too. But like I know that they are going to love all my games that I put out like Night in the Woods and I can easily talk to them. I have the language to talk to them. I know who they are. They're in my space. They have been for years. I've met them in person. I've hugged them. Like I know that audience. Do I know the 868 back audience as well? Aside from the fact half of you are sitting in this room as designers and developers, I don't know them that well on the internet though. Like who's that 868 back non-developer that's sitting out there? But that's my next audience. I need to learn who they are. That is what we're doing. We're trying to figure out who's our next audience. And finally, like the game also needs to fit like with the bigger platform's plan that you as a developer know nothing about because we're not allowed to tell you. It's confidential because it's business development. But like we're trying to be like, I know what this platform is doing and does your title

fit into it and can I get that slot? because one, I want your game to exist. Two, for me personally, I want you to make another game. And three, it's only going to benefit our library and bring more prestige to our brand and our publishing. I like, thanks, Becca. This is all great, but I just want to make a game. I want to get this game done and launch, and this is so much information. And what should publishing seeking teams be doing? So, one, you need to be ready to talk about your schedule in a confident and meaningful way. You're probably sitting here going like,"Well, how do I learn how to do that?" There are so many resources. So many resources for you to sort this out. There are old GDC talks. There are people here. There's like put together a spreadsheet and be like, "Is this insane?" Gut check it. Do math on how much money you think you could make off of selling your like there's put it together. If it's like I'm quitting my job tomorrow and you're going to give me $7 million and it's going to be awesome.

That's not realistic. So, put together a schedule and talk about it in a confident and meaningful way. Answer questions before people ask them. Your schedule may inadvertently open you up to new funds because you don't know everything that's going on confidentially in the industry. So, when you talk about it, they may they may actually be digging like, "Oh man, this will fit here. This would be really cool. We should continue this conversation later." You just don't know that. So, just be ready to answer questions and be ready to say like, "I'm not really sure, but I can follow up with that." Um, this is actually it's really hard because you're also like, "I'm not I'm not confident. I've never done it before." It's okay though because we have So, the questions we're asking is to like clarify. You're going to be fine. Next thing, be ready to talk about your budget. Also, this is hard. you haven't done it before, find a mentor. And also, math. I'm probably the only person in

the room who's like, "Man, I hate math." If you're a programmer, you're probably like, "Why?" Math is not that hard. I promise. Budget math is really not that hard. It's really Excel does it for you. Uh, you can figure out the percentages. You can pull up many, many resources that say how many copies you're not going to sell at full price. You can find like depreciation curves. You can find all of this this information online. You can just run this in Excel documents and then you can get a mentor and be like, "This isn't crazy, right? These numbers make sense." Your budget's going to tell your possible partners if you know what games cost to make. They're not looking to see if your budget's accurate and you need that. They're seeing that you know how to make one and that you've been thoughtful about it. Tell a story about your game funding that makes sense and have somebody check it. Like, I do this all the time. Does this make sense, Becca? I'm doing it in GDC pitch in a few minutes. Somebody's going to be up there. It's like, it's going to cost this much. My one question is be like, red flags. There's red flags on this

budget. You want to find somebody who can point out your red flags. You need to be ready to talk about what is special about your game to strangers. That sounds easy, but I promise it's not because you got blinders on. As a developer, you are super interested in the hard problems that you're solving, and you are not always super queued in to what a player will think is interesting. And that sounds weird, but I I live and work with developers and designers all the time. The thing that is most interesting about the game is not what you think it is. It is what the person sitting out there is going to experience when they play it. What is sticky? You got to know your elevator pitch is different from understanding your audience. Uh what awesome things about your game fill unmet needs for your audience. We ask this question all the time. What does that future player, what are they going what are they looking for when they play our game? That is part of telling a

future publisher or anyone what your game is. It's not, you know, the coolest thing that you did last week. It's the funnest design problem that you got to solve. That is a design story for later and probably GDC. But it is not for your players. You got to talk about them clearly like you would to your audience. Your pitch meetings, those are those are that is your future audience. That's your first future audience. You need to be ready to talk about your game's real size and scope. You're not making a AAA first-person shooter in an open world with art that looks like it could come out of an your favorite animation. You're not just you're not making it. Be ready to talk about what is actually true about your game. You need to know the boundaries for your development team. And just because something is trending or hot right now does not mean it should be part of your game. Whatever is trending

and hot right now is gone in six months. I like everyone remembers 2020. Pretty shitty year. And Animal Crossing came out and oh man did that feel good in March and April of 2020. And you want to know how many people were starting games and doing R&D in 2020. They're just like, "You want to know what I want to make? Just want to fish all day long. I'm gonna fish. That's the game I'm going to make." When are you going to get it done, though? Who's done with fishing in 2026? Don't make Vampire Survivors when Vampire Survivors is trending. What is the unmet need of that player in three years? That's a hard question. And you're going to continue to adapt and moderate and change that as you go. But that's what you're looking for. You're not fast follow three years from now. for that player who is so entranced by Bellatro. What

are they going to play next? It's not Batro though. What need do they have? So repeat after me. Just because it exists does not mean that it is required feature in your game to ship. Don't do it. You don't have to do it. You're an indie team. Make your game, not the game that everyone else is making. So, what should publishing seeking teams be doing? You guys ready? You're already doing part of it right now. Be ready to keep up with the industry's inside baseball. Learn the language. Watch past talks. Make sure that when you are sitting in there, and I am notoriously bad at this, and I feel awful about it every time, but I go into a pitch meeting and somebody says some effing acronym. I'm like, I don't know what that is, you And they're like, "What do you mean you don't know what an MMF or RPG whatever?" Like, "No, explain. I don't know what it is." I should though, if it has anything

to do with the game that I'm pitching, I should actually know that. I'm just really resistant to acronyms. But this is sort of stuff that you just need to know. What are they going to come up with? And but I have a caveat. If somebody throws down a bunch of names of games that you don't know, you can be like, "I'm not familiar with that, but I am familiar with name a comparable. I am familiar with something I do know and I need to say this as someone and I'm going to out myself right now. I am not a gamer. I don't play a lot of games. I can tell you everything about Secret of Maana though start to finish. I've played more of that game than a lot. I however do not play a lot of games. So when I go into these meetings I have to go in confident that somebody's not going to throw down a bunch of obscure names of things. There was I don't even know what it's called. It was named yesterday. It sold like a million copies in two weeks last year. And I was like, I don't know what that is. And the person I was like, are you serious? I was like, indie game sold 2 million copies in a month. I have no I've never even heard of it. I was busy. I was really busy last summer. I

didn't play it. That's okay. So, if you are also that person, have applicable things to steer the conversation where you need it to go. You don't need to be an expert or an encyclopedia encyclopedia about every game ever made. So that's my only caveat with learn language. Um especially for someone like me, that's a way to gate keep me out of the industry. So I'll I'll die on that hill as well. Uh know know the games, know the things that matter for you and the the mission that you have. Um you got to know what people are talking about and if you don't ask questions, take notes. You're not you don't look crazy typing some stuff out. uh you can trust and validate the things that you did not understand so they can match your expectations and you can get mentorship for this. You can ask people these questions. People like it's so confidential in the industry. Nobody ever you have the ability to have trusted mentors. Find them.

This one's funny because if you want a publisher, you're like, why should I have to make my own Steam page? No, you have to know how to do this. Who knows the most about your game? It's not the publisher. You guys, you need to understand everything about your game because if you're going to validate the things your publisher is doing, you have to have an understanding of how it all works. And if you are not going to be working with a publisher, guess what you have to do? You have to make your own Steam page. You have to know what metadata is. You have to know how localization on it works. Like all of this is basic skills for making games and launching games. So, even if you have a traditional indie publisher, it is likely you have to do this anyways. Who did NextFest like a couple of weeks ago? A lot of us, right? Did you have a publisher doing NextFest? Okay, we had one. Did anyone else have a publisher doing NextFest? Okay. [laughter] If you didn't, you made your own page and then you had to make the demo page. You had to sort out how those things are linked together and you had to like

submit your build. Like, you had to do all of that work anyways. that is how you launch games. That's how you self-publish. Um, and also like you just know your game best and you're going to need to be involved in the basic game presentation decisions. Generally, don't throw anyone under the bus for this, but like this is the kind of relationship you need to push for with your publisher. This is a relationship we expect with our developers is you will be an active participant in talking to us about direction, vetting things to make sure we're not way off base. We do it the work, but we get your feedback. If you don't have that kind of relationship with your publisher, I would push on it to talk about legibility and clarity and how to represent your game in screenshots because they often may not understand game legibility. They know game marketing and the combination of you. You are a ven diagram and where you come to in the middle is going to be a better asset for your Steam page because you understand what the players response to that screenshot is and not that it's it's pretty, it's bright. like you

really do need to work together on that because I know when I look at something I'm not always looking at it for game design and mechanics and communicating the fun. I'm looking at that's rad looking. So having having that partnership with the person who actually made it and understands it, that's awesome. So I'm just going to run through these real quick and then we're going to be very very close to because I'm on slide 22 of 24. very very close to questions. So one, be ready to talk about your schedule in a confident and meaningful way. Correct? Yep, you can do that. Get mentorship if you are way out in the weeds. I had a conversation with a friend last night who was like, I need you to talk to this person because they're kind of young and they mumble a lot. So, can you just like run through like their pitch materials and like get them confident about talking? Practice. If you're sort of like uh I was gonna out myself. I'm very shy. I'm like a very

quiet person kind of when I'm at home except when I'm in groups of people. And the fact that I'm up here speaking to you would never have happened 25 years ago. You have to practice to do stuff like this. When you're in a pitch meeting, you have to practice. It's going to feel terrible, especially if you're a more insulated person or shy person. Just you can do it. I promise this is a thing that you can do. You need to be ready to talk about your budget. It's okay. Money's not taboo. Not in meetings like this or with platforms. You need to be ready to talk about what is special about your game to strangers. You need to practice this. And then you need to ask strangers to explain that your game back to you. You need to always be constantly looking about h or looking at how to communicate what's fun and interesting about your game and not what you just know. You need to practice all of this stuff early and often. You need to be ready to talk about your game's real size or scope.

You need to be ready to keep up with the industry's inside baseball. You need to learn the language. And you need to be ready to make your own Steam page, HIO page, Epic page, understand what the content pipeline is for Sony, etc., etc., etc. You need to be able to engage with this process. This is what I had to learn to publish my own games. Coming from a person who didn't play games, I just had to figure this stuff out and I had to continue to figure this stuff out. It's the same information and skills for publishing other teams games. This is what I do every day. I do this for usual June and I do this for Tunic. It's the same process. I just happen to be a publisher for one and the developer for the other. It is just indie publishing. It's how we started doing it in the first place. So, I have time for questions maybe. Yes, I do. I have six minutes. [applause]

Okay. I am allowed to stay just a few extra minutes, I think, but they're going to tell me no. I don't know. Um, please speak in the microphone clearly.
Okay, we'll start here.
I had a question. So, if you are a team of like one or two and let's say that you feel like your team isn't complete, maybe you need more like art assistance or sound design or something like that, is that something that you normally have to solve before talking to an indie publisher or is that something the publisher can help with as well?
That's an excellent question. So, I've seen it go both ways. So, if you were coming up and talking to me and you're like, I need a new I need an artist, I need sound, I need whatever, we have actually helped those developers fill those needs um and hire those people. Well, we've even like helped do interviews because they don't feel confident. Like imagine you're an artist and you have to hire a programmer,
right?
And you're sitting here like, I don't know how to hire a programmer. I don't even know how to vet what they're doing. So, a lot of publishers do have experience with this. I need to throw a caveat there. I am a developer. So, if

I'm like, I need to hire a programmer. I got loads of people that I can talk to to assist and like figure out the needs of that project. That is definitely a conversation you would need to have. if the publisher cannot help, like it's not a it's not a like, oh, absolutely not. We won't publish your publish your game. It's more like is there like is there are there resources that they could offer you to help with it or do you have access of people in your own community to help you fill that? Um, but the the budget for it is just part of the deal, right?
If that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. Thank you.
Yeah. Let's pop over here.
Hi, Rebecca. Um, I'm Connor. I'm also based in Michigan, which is really cool. you guys are like a huge inspiration to me. Um, so my question was I'm interested in either starting up a development studio or a publishing studio and I'm kind of like this talk kind of lean me into publishing but like how does that get started? Do you need like a massive war chest of money to give to people like like what is the process on even cuz like I don't have a ton of money, right?

Yeah. Uh, okay. So there's probably like a bunch of ways into this, but the like if you don't have cash and you don't know how if you don't have connections, you don't have cash and connections, how can you publish? So we didn't start out publishing. I started out as an independent developer and I spent five years building connections while representing games like our own games. So like we made stuff first. I came to GDC. I met people and like when we sort of stepped so quietly and slowly into publishing, it really was like iOS publishing and it was like, "Oh, they live in Canada. We publish on iOS anyways." Yeah, no, fine. You can put it up on our storefront. That was the extent of our early publishing. Um, when I moved into console, that was actually pretty terrifying. Um, because I knew the people, but I didn't know the language. Um, I didn't understand exclusivity deals. Like, that was all stuff I had to learn on the fly. And quite quickly um like Night in the Woods

had like an offer before we were even a publisher. Um and then we came in because of the offer that they had from Sony. So like my foray into it was like the games that we were taking were already self-funded, but they didn't have a business development or marketing arm to manage that relationship. And a lot of indie publishers, that's kind of where it is. Like these are self-funded games often. and what they're doing like they sort of just like shove the business development and marketing and ops and QA and localization kind of on the side of the studio and we're like we're kind of the rest of your game
to get it out. That's I we do not so the word co-development we don't co-develop a game like I don't work on anyone's projects except our own but we internally think of ourselves as co-development because we're like here here's three QA staff here's a marketing lead here's your community manager here's your business development person here's your design mentor here's your and like kind of stuff ourselves on the side of the studio as like we're just accessible to you but there's a little

bit of more of like a hierarchy for a lot of publishers Do you need a war chest? Yes, if you're going to be doing funding, especially in a situation where like there's no money in the industry. Um, but if you need to search for money, you need to have those contacts. So, it's kind of like chicken and egg situation.
So, you'd recommend like starting as a developer, building connections, money, and then into that.
I would make stuff. I would work on other teams. uh get a job at a publisher
like as a account rep or like there's so many cool positions or even at some place like Pop Agenda is not hiring but like there's a bunch of organizations that it's sort of like this extra consulting team that sits next to a team but they're not officially publishing. there's a bunch um in the industry um or individuals who are representing multiple teams as business development um like as a consultant because you can bring on a lot of projects and now you're representing multiple teams but as an individual. So there's there's really a lot of ways into eventually I

want to be a publisher or eventually I want to be a studio head at a development studio. There's lots of ways to step into it.
Cool. I'll I could talk to you all day about that. So, I'll let someone else talk.
I'll pop over here.
Hi. Excuse me for reading off my phone. No, you did.
Um, you talked about mentorship a lot in this presentation. Could you provide some pointers on things to look for that qualify someone as a good mentor for the indie publishing process? And then, yes.
Moreover, how close does that person have to be to doing what you're doing to be an effective mentor?
Uh, the number one thing, and a lot of us will say this a lot, especially with mentorship, is you don't want a mentor who's like, "Well, I would do this." Like, that's not mentor. That's just like somebody with advice. What you want is a mentor who asks you questions. This is a person who they don't go into it thinking that whatever they feel or think is the right answer is the only answer. This is a person who's really trying to figure out what your needs are and then is there to help you soundboard and feel your way through the options

out in front of you. Um, and that can feel kind of weird, but like that's the only kind of mentor I can even tolerate. And that's the kind of the only kind of mentor I want to be is somebody lays out the thing in front of them. And then now we can pick it apart. Now we can ask questions. Now we can feel like what's your actual comfort level in this. Um, it's the same thing like in design mentorship because I've witnessed that. I'm not a design mentor by any stretch of the imagination, but I've witnessed a lot of really effective design mentorship conversations where a a solo developer or a developer on a small team is like, I have all these things out in front of me. And a designer can come in and be like, I got to do that one. That one's the coolest. But that's not actually effective design mentorship. That's just somebody coming in and implanting them into a project rather than going in and perfect. Uh, one of the conversations that Adam used to ask when we were um sort of helping Andrew along the way with tunic is this question is what is the most tuniky way to do this? Because there's like there's a billion answers and ways through all of this um all these decisions, but what

is the correct way for this thing? Not what do we think is coolest, what is the most tuniki way. So that's what we look for in any kind of mentorship. The second part of that question was
how close do they have to be to doing what you're doing in order to be an effective mentor?
Not at all.
Lovely.
They need to have they just need to understand the language and the like they they just they need to be a smart enough about the industry to ask good questions and you need to be able to trust that they are not like it's just not a like a power imbalanced relationship in some way like they don't have to be a publisher. They don't they can just be an indie who's like launched something before and have also talked to lots of people and are thoughtful.
Thank you so much.
Of course.
Yeah. Uh at what point is it too late for a developer to to pursue publication?
Kind of depends on the type of publisher and what their relationship is. With

somebody like me, it's always too late. We actually like to be on a project pretty early, but usually because we pick up projects who are interested in design mentorship like because we want to work together for a long time and just sort of be alongside but partly because they need that they they're making a game that maybe is more experimental but really commercial or they just they just need Adam's brain like they need to do design mentorship once a week for five years or something like um or like they are looking for mentorship in parts the game that are difficult like it's a you know keyboard mouse game and they have no idea how to do keyboard controls but they really want to launch on console that takes really a lot of design work or they have no concept of how to do business like so we're usually on pretty early with projects some publishers will bring them on like oh you want to launch in four months cool you're not launching on console though but we'll get you out on PC so it just kind of depends um How

high volume or low volume are they? Good rule of thumb though, you better give them minimum 12 months. Their calendar is full. Um, every once in a while there are open spots, but don't count on it.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Yeah, of course.
I kind of have almost a reverse question where I guess I've already put a game out on Steam. You know, it's coming soon. It has a demo and then sometimes publishers have been kind of like emailing about it. And I was wondering if there's any situation where you would ever recommend self-publishing as in like trying to do this work yourself.
I encourage it all the time. The work that you have to do to work with a publisher is the exact same work that you have to do to self-publish. And like that's what I do. I self-publish.
Um I am a publisher who self-publishes. Uh I think it's really valuable to self-publish. If you are capable of the work, if it fills the needs that you are looking for, like that is great and awesome and you are joining a long line of very cool indies who are self-publishing every day.

It is good work to do.
But it's it is all exactly the same skills that a publisher is doing. You have to you learn bisdev, get a mentor, like know how to talk to people, have somebody validate your store text, get some marketing chops, like and that's just to represent your own game,
but and it is possible. Um, it's totally possible.
Thank you.
Yeah, of course.
Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for the awesome talk. Um, speaking of like Tunic, uh, Tunic has both received like publishing as well as um, like alternative funding through like Indie Fund. What's like the like a publishers's like perspective in terms of when someone goes and they have something like outer sloth or like indie fund or something like that
and then like coming to you is that like kind of like a trust thing and stuff.
Excellent question. It honestly kind of depends on the publisher. So there's no one answer for that. It is just it's part of the package. So as you're pitching you're like I've got outer sloth money. Any publisher knows what that contract looks like.

Um like I know what it is. Um, I don't know how much money it is, but I know what the terms are or what the broad terms are. Um, it is not always a deal breakaker. Sometimes there's like some like more like uh higher predatory funding that you can have at it. And that to a publisher it's not oh no it's oh we have to sell more copies before we make money because as a publisher we have to adhere to we either have to buy out that there's some publishers that will buy out your loan at whatever the rate is or they have to um that's just your top tier repayment and that means that the publisher will not make any money until that top tier repayment is done. So there's a lot of like pathways through that. So the important thing is just like I got this money. A publisher will be like I know what that looks like and this is not a risky business development relationship for us and we should continue but is one of the safer in the industry. They're cool. We love we love that team.
All righty. Awesome. Thank you.
Yeah. Of course.

Hi. Um this could be a very big question so please give me the you know TLDDR version. That's too long to read by the way. Um I my question is about publisher influence on project management and vision. So you know when like scope uh and priorities change mid development um how do devs navigate that with their publisher? I'm not talking about like big changes obviously you sign a contract beforehand but like you know kind of like ship of thesis like we want this to be this way uh you know we change our mind on this little bit um and eventually you know it's like because publishers want to have their you know published games represented a certain way and developers want their vision represented a certain way. Okay. So, how does that work out?
Uh, there's two versions of this. There's like the crappy version which is really acrimonious and like we don't like I'm not going to go there. So, I'm going to only talk about the good version of this which can often avoid the second part of it getting toxic. Um, a lot of times like and it's really weird to bump into this. I've bumped into it even at Fini. I'm just like they're like, "Yeah, but you're the publisher." And I was like, "Yeah, what?" I am a mentor. I am a person who

is excited about your project and wants it to succeed. If you hide something or you don't communicate well about it, I can't be a partner. I am now external to that problem or the thing that you're trying to change. I can't be supportive. I can't be on board with it. So, the cool the fastest thing or the best thing to do if you have a really good and like you want to have a trusting relationship with your publisher is you approach them with an agenda that breaks down like, "Hey, so we were doing blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. this is what we believe we need to do. Here's like if it's development like like you just you run through the problem and then this is the solution that we have as a team. Do you do you see any problems with our solution? Is there anything that you could add to this that would make this go back? Like you have open dialogue with the that's your business partner. Like they're the ones also representing the game. So, if you are not clear or truthful about changes in schedule,

changes in scope, maybe there's a feature that they've been like working on in marketing that you've just ripped out of the game entirely, they are now working on a different project than you. And they're not going to be like, "No, but we have to." Because if you have a good relationship with the project, if they love this game, they just want the best version of this game to exist. And like there is a lot of trust with designers right up until it's like, "Yeah, but this game came out with this feature. We need to add it right now." Then you sort of get like, "Yeah, but do you really?" Because a publisher is like, "I don't think you actually need that, though." So, they're also sort of looking out for feature creep and things like that to try to keep things in scope and on schedule. But, we do have different priorities. We want things to ship on schedule at the budget that we have. We don't want developers to get into a quagmire of going way way too far beyond that. Um, because that's dangerous for them and it's dangerous for us. And if you have a a platform deal, it's dangerous for the platform as well. Thank you.
Yeah, of course.
Hi, thank you for your talk. Um, if we

are trying to develop a game or a project that is trying to fulfill a niche or cover a theme that is not covered very well, do you try to focus on looking for a publisher that is more um used to building in that genre or releasing that genre? Or do you want publishers that are better at releasing niches into spaces that have not been very well explored?
Honestly, I'd do both. I'm not one to throw all my eggs in one basket. I would be talking to all of those publishers to find out who was most excited about representing the game. I would want the biggest, happiest, like most vocal person in my corner, whether it's a publisher or a platform or a development team or like I want whoever is most excited because that's going to be the best partner long term and they're going to do a better job finding that audience for me.
Okay, thank you very much.
Yeah, of course.
Hello, my name is Ryan. My codev and I put out a game on Steam in February and I have a qu two questions. Um question number one, is it viable and meaningful

and possible to go to a publisher even after you put put out your game? And two, you have your pitch deck, you have your team, you have your Steam page and your vertical slice. Is there anything else you need or should think about before you go to a publisher, even if you don't already have a successful game? Okay. So, one, it it depends on the publisher. So, there are publishers who either a take on games long term and will manage it post launch. There's also publishers that'll take it on like this is would be great on console and they will do console representation and porting for you. So, just because you put your game out on Steam doesn't mean that you don't have a pathway forward, especially getting into other um platforms, marketplaces, etc., etc. Second question, is that all you need? No. things that you should have for pitches and there's a lot of materials on like past GDC other talks and stuff but you should you have your um vertical slice you got your pitch deck got your budget

how much other stuff do you have as much as possible honestly like just have it available maybe you have like temporary store text you have um a sample Steam page that you did a mockup of like there's a lot of things that can go into your pitch deck team breakdown of who these are because you're trying to prove that you can ship Also, this is my last question. I'm going to be heading out in the hallway, so follow me if you have more questions. You want to prove that you can ship, so you put as much information there as possible. So,
thank you so much.
Thanks, everybody. I'm gonna be heading right out here. [applause]