Five Foundational Steps To Surviving As A Game Developer
by Jeff Tunnell · 02/07/2006 (11:19 am) · 24 comments
A couple of articles ago I promised that I would not blow smoke or make this blog into a preachy, self help type of publication. That said, this particular article just has to get a little preachy to work. MBG blog is about getting into and surviving the business of making games, but in order to get to the juicy stuff, I need to discuss foundational issues that every person needs to think about. These issues apply to any type of business, but especially for creative, hits driven businesses like making music, movies, or games.
Even though many of you will think these issues are obvious and don't need to even be discussed, I have to answer these same questions every day, in many different ways, and I'm tired of it. If I write them down, I can just point to this article over and over, and it will save me a bunch of time in the rest of my life. So, here you go, the Foundational Five, or FF for short.
1. Right Size Your Life. Ugh, the most preachy of the FF, but it has to be stated. Entire books are written about this (if you want a good one, start with Your Money Or Your Life), movements have been created, and thousands of web sites are dedicated to this subject. The bottom line is that you cannot live downtown San Francisco, drive a Porsche, have three kids, eat out every night, have Starbucks two times per day, charge up the credit cards, and live the way most of society tells you to. If you want this stuff, start coding in Java and go to work for IBM. But if you want to enjoy your work, feel creative every day, and make games for a living, you will have to pay a price.
I used to drive a BMW M3, but now I have a $2,500, 1996 Geo Metro with 116,000 miles. I love it. I get 40 miles to the gallon, insurance is next to nothing, tires are the cheapest available, people make faces at me when they zoom by, but I can park it anywhere I want, and in fact I do, about two inches from the driver's door of the big, huge SUV that just made the face at me:) Mark Frohnmayer, my partner at GarageGames gave up his car and rides a bicycle to work.
By far, the best Indie Game Developer "right sizing" story comes from Josh Ritter, the awesome programmer/owner of Prairie Games, who picked up his entire life and moved to North Dakota to save money. It worked though. He was able to stretch his savings long enough to reach the holy grail of many indie developers and create his own MMORPG, Minions of Mirth. MoM was officially launched a couple of months ago, and I think we will all be reading Josh's success story next year.
2. Don't Quit Your Day Job. Now that you have your burn at a manageable rate, you need to make sure there is money coming in the door. Your day job can be your standard 40 hour per week plus benefits job, but that will leave you very little time for making your game. Many developers take a stepped approach, and have a consulting business on the side.
While it is beyond the scope of this blog to help you with this side of your life, there are many, many options for creative, talented, technical people. Here are two. In another life, I own Cottage Grove Yamaha, which I call my real life business. At that business, we use computers, but only as a necessity, not for fun. CGY is about 30 miles from GarageGames, so I can't call on GG people to help with my IT problems. In real life, computers suck, and need a lot of care. Sounds like an opportunity to me. The CGY website sucks. In real life businesses need somebody to help them bring up their sites, maintain them, and make them better. Yet more opportunity.
Getting too preachy again, but I just want to make sure that you are thinking this through before jumping off the cliff. It will take a long time to get your income streams flowing. Just make sure you can last as long as possible to allow it to happen.
3. Find a team of like minded individuals. I don't like working alone. It is too lonely. I'm not as creative as when there are people to bounce ideas off of. I eat too much. I procrastinate. We started GarageGames without an office and worked that way for the first year and a half, so I have a good idea of how web based teams can work. This step is more about having a team than all working in one spot though. The team is the important thing.
I am constantly approached by programmers that say they can't find artists, and vice versa. Designers and producers say they can't find teams, yet I know there are many teams out there that need management, marketing, sales, and PR help. Future MBG articles will cover tips on how to find the right team.
I have always had partners. At Dynamix, I had Damon Slye and Kevin Ryan (see a little history of Dynamix here). Now, at GarageGames, myself, Mark Frohnmayer, Rick Overman, and Tim Gift have all been mutually pushing the rock up the hill for the past six years. The great thing about having partners is that there is never a time when the entire team is down in the dumps at the same time. In addition, the kind of ideas that turn me on take way more than one person to execute, so having a team is essential.
4. Innovate, but not too much. Finally, we get the stuff you are probably here for, and I'm going to pretty much short change you! Many, many of the future articles of MBG will focus on this step, so I don't want to just cover this and have it be the last MBG post. The short version of this step is that I used to preach that the world did not need another match three bubble popper, Mahjong game, or card game, but all of those game types have continued to sell in the Casual game space, and are even beginning to be considered genres.
If you really are a game maker, you should have literally hundreds of ideas. Some will be innovative, some won't, but there should always have some hook that makes a gamer want to play your game over the thousands that are on the market. What is that hook?
5. Create a portfolio of products. Any financial planner will tell you to create multiple streams of income. This industry is no different. Unless you are really lucky, one game will not bring you enough revenue to live. However, in a world with unlimited shelf space and a nearly unlimited customer base, your game can sell for a long time. Think about it, the number of shipped games compared to the potential number of players always rounds to zero. In effect, your game never ships! Marble Blast sells as many units today as it did the second month it shipped (we actually had a ship-in spike in sales), and that is without an update in a couple of years.
You need to keep 'em coming. Every game brings you more opportunity, your company brand grows, your niche audience grows. Then, suddenly, you are making enough money that you are doing this full time. It IS your day job, and nobody can take it away from you. You own your IP, you own your code, you have a tight connection with your audience, and you can't wait to go to work every single day. In fact, there is no such thing as a "day off" because this is what you do. It is you. And it feels good.
Sorry, way too preachy, but I couldn't help myself:)
-Jeff Tunnell, Game Maker ...makeitbigingames
Even though many of you will think these issues are obvious and don't need to even be discussed, I have to answer these same questions every day, in many different ways, and I'm tired of it. If I write them down, I can just point to this article over and over, and it will save me a bunch of time in the rest of my life. So, here you go, the Foundational Five, or FF for short.
1. Right Size Your Life. Ugh, the most preachy of the FF, but it has to be stated. Entire books are written about this (if you want a good one, start with Your Money Or Your Life), movements have been created, and thousands of web sites are dedicated to this subject. The bottom line is that you cannot live downtown San Francisco, drive a Porsche, have three kids, eat out every night, have Starbucks two times per day, charge up the credit cards, and live the way most of society tells you to. If you want this stuff, start coding in Java and go to work for IBM. But if you want to enjoy your work, feel creative every day, and make games for a living, you will have to pay a price.
I used to drive a BMW M3, but now I have a $2,500, 1996 Geo Metro with 116,000 miles. I love it. I get 40 miles to the gallon, insurance is next to nothing, tires are the cheapest available, people make faces at me when they zoom by, but I can park it anywhere I want, and in fact I do, about two inches from the driver's door of the big, huge SUV that just made the face at me:) Mark Frohnmayer, my partner at GarageGames gave up his car and rides a bicycle to work. By far, the best Indie Game Developer "right sizing" story comes from Josh Ritter, the awesome programmer/owner of Prairie Games, who picked up his entire life and moved to North Dakota to save money. It worked though. He was able to stretch his savings long enough to reach the holy grail of many indie developers and create his own MMORPG, Minions of Mirth. MoM was officially launched a couple of months ago, and I think we will all be reading Josh's success story next year.
2. Don't Quit Your Day Job. Now that you have your burn at a manageable rate, you need to make sure there is money coming in the door. Your day job can be your standard 40 hour per week plus benefits job, but that will leave you very little time for making your game. Many developers take a stepped approach, and have a consulting business on the side.
While it is beyond the scope of this blog to help you with this side of your life, there are many, many options for creative, talented, technical people. Here are two. In another life, I own Cottage Grove Yamaha, which I call my real life business. At that business, we use computers, but only as a necessity, not for fun. CGY is about 30 miles from GarageGames, so I can't call on GG people to help with my IT problems. In real life, computers suck, and need a lot of care. Sounds like an opportunity to me. The CGY website sucks. In real life businesses need somebody to help them bring up their sites, maintain them, and make them better. Yet more opportunity.Getting too preachy again, but I just want to make sure that you are thinking this through before jumping off the cliff. It will take a long time to get your income streams flowing. Just make sure you can last as long as possible to allow it to happen.
3. Find a team of like minded individuals. I don't like working alone. It is too lonely. I'm not as creative as when there are people to bounce ideas off of. I eat too much. I procrastinate. We started GarageGames without an office and worked that way for the first year and a half, so I have a good idea of how web based teams can work. This step is more about having a team than all working in one spot though. The team is the important thing.
I am constantly approached by programmers that say they can't find artists, and vice versa. Designers and producers say they can't find teams, yet I know there are many teams out there that need management, marketing, sales, and PR help. Future MBG articles will cover tips on how to find the right team.
I have always had partners. At Dynamix, I had Damon Slye and Kevin Ryan (see a little history of Dynamix here). Now, at GarageGames, myself, Mark Frohnmayer, Rick Overman, and Tim Gift have all been mutually pushing the rock up the hill for the past six years. The great thing about having partners is that there is never a time when the entire team is down in the dumps at the same time. In addition, the kind of ideas that turn me on take way more than one person to execute, so having a team is essential.
4. Innovate, but not too much. Finally, we get the stuff you are probably here for, and I'm going to pretty much short change you! Many, many of the future articles of MBG will focus on this step, so I don't want to just cover this and have it be the last MBG post. The short version of this step is that I used to preach that the world did not need another match three bubble popper, Mahjong game, or card game, but all of those game types have continued to sell in the Casual game space, and are even beginning to be considered genres.
If you really are a game maker, you should have literally hundreds of ideas. Some will be innovative, some won't, but there should always have some hook that makes a gamer want to play your game over the thousands that are on the market. What is that hook?
5. Create a portfolio of products. Any financial planner will tell you to create multiple streams of income. This industry is no different. Unless you are really lucky, one game will not bring you enough revenue to live. However, in a world with unlimited shelf space and a nearly unlimited customer base, your game can sell for a long time. Think about it, the number of shipped games compared to the potential number of players always rounds to zero. In effect, your game never ships! Marble Blast sells as many units today as it did the second month it shipped (we actually had a ship-in spike in sales), and that is without an update in a couple of years.
You need to keep 'em coming. Every game brings you more opportunity, your company brand grows, your niche audience grows. Then, suddenly, you are making enough money that you are doing this full time. It IS your day job, and nobody can take it away from you. You own your IP, you own your code, you have a tight connection with your audience, and you can't wait to go to work every single day. In fact, there is no such thing as a "day off" because this is what you do. It is you. And it feels good.
Sorry, way too preachy, but I couldn't help myself:)
-Jeff Tunnell, Game Maker ...makeitbigingames
About the author
#2
And a big "Amen" to it all.
02/07/2006 (11:34 am)
Hahhaa.. nice to see you get to the stage where you couldnt help yourself there Jeff :)And a big "Amen" to it all.
#3
02/07/2006 (11:34 am)
thanks Jeff, you rock!! =-) Well spoken.
#4
02/07/2006 (11:43 am)
Great stuff!
#5
02/07/2006 (11:43 am)
Great article! I wish I had read something like this 14 months ago -- especially on item #2. Thank you for posting this.
#6
Seriously though, yeah that was a good post. Their all very true but I especially like rule #5. It leaves room for hope. It's like being a boxer with eight arms. One of those punches have got to land. And even if most of them hit but are baby jabs, they obviously will take their toll on the opponent quicker and better than just one or two. As long as the games are quality, a plan like that has got to allow you freedom (doing what you love for a living) doesn't it?
EDIT: What is that blue sticker on the hood of your green Geo Metro Jeff? I'm just picking on you about your ride man but I am curious as to what it says.
02/07/2006 (12:03 pm)
Damn you wern't lying about the Metro...and I think it's green...Jeff...what a cruel twist of fate.Seriously though, yeah that was a good post. Their all very true but I especially like rule #5. It leaves room for hope. It's like being a boxer with eight arms. One of those punches have got to land. And even if most of them hit but are baby jabs, they obviously will take their toll on the opponent quicker and better than just one or two. As long as the games are quality, a plan like that has got to allow you freedom (doing what you love for a living) doesn't it?
EDIT: What is that blue sticker on the hood of your green Geo Metro Jeff? I'm just picking on you about your ride man but I am curious as to what it says.
#7
I have the immense opportunity of living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where subventions for start-ups abound. Ironically, I was the first to be accepted in my area for video-game development; Others have tried, but had the proverbial 'hey I will make Doom 4 on no budget in about 3 months' mentality, and were consistently refused.
By working really hard on my business plan for more than a year, I finally came up with a winning scenario that, in theory, could be profitable within a year...Profitable does not mean millions of dollars...it means making enough money to pay the rent, bills and buy indie games :).
This particular subvention grants me a bit more than minimum wage for a whole year, all I have to do in exchange is to make this company work!!! I have received coaching from businessmen from the area, plus, it doesn't make me a government employee, so I can still use the indie license, and I have had free marketing, business, legal and accounting courses.
Doesn't mean my company will be uber-succesful, but having the opportunity to focus 100% on it makes a world of difference. There are many possibilities out there, you just have to believe in yourself.
For those of you wondering, my company will start operating on february 15th 2006.
Simon Love
Broken Toy software
02/07/2006 (12:24 pm)
Not posting this to brag, but hopefully to help people think about other ways of doing the start-up dance.I have the immense opportunity of living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where subventions for start-ups abound. Ironically, I was the first to be accepted in my area for video-game development; Others have tried, but had the proverbial 'hey I will make Doom 4 on no budget in about 3 months' mentality, and were consistently refused.
By working really hard on my business plan for more than a year, I finally came up with a winning scenario that, in theory, could be profitable within a year...Profitable does not mean millions of dollars...it means making enough money to pay the rent, bills and buy indie games :).
This particular subvention grants me a bit more than minimum wage for a whole year, all I have to do in exchange is to make this company work!!! I have received coaching from businessmen from the area, plus, it doesn't make me a government employee, so I can still use the indie license, and I have had free marketing, business, legal and accounting courses.
Doesn't mean my company will be uber-succesful, but having the opportunity to focus 100% on it makes a world of difference. There are many possibilities out there, you just have to believe in yourself.
For those of you wondering, my company will start operating on february 15th 2006.
Simon Love
Broken Toy software
#8
02/07/2006 (1:15 pm)
Really good read. Reminds me that I need to stop eating out so much actually. 
#9
02/07/2006 (1:37 pm)
Thank you and well said! Very helpful post, as usual.
#10
02/07/2006 (2:02 pm)
I agree with Tim, time to actually execute on that plan to bring in brown-paper-bag lunches! 
#11
02/07/2006 (2:05 pm)
I drive a 1996 ford aspire. It is the most girly car you can drive but it's very cheap to maintain and if i'm going to make a large purchase I would rather have it be in a new PC than a gas guzzling heap that I wouldn't get the same enjoyment from.
#12
very good read.
-Vin
02/07/2006 (2:28 pm)
Definatly helpful! Made me think of all the things I do/buy that I don't really need and how that sum of money could be used for more productive stuff ( its actually makes me feel bad/ashamed once I started thinking numbers and saw how much I could save )very good read.
-Vin
#13
02/07/2006 (2:54 pm)
I second the recommendation for Your Money or Your Life. After reading that book, I finally got my act together and after about 3 years, paid off all of my debt (truck, student loans, credit cards). It's the main reason I can actually consider going indie full-time. 
#15
02/07/2006 (4:51 pm)
Great stuff Jeff. I look forward to the next installment.
#17
02/07/2006 (7:05 pm)
As the GG Evangelist, I don't see anything wrong with a bit of soapboxing. This advice definately stands the test of time - I still get people approaching me about a simuliar presentation Jeff made at GDC '03 - "In Don't Quit Your Job Fair: Can you really make money as an indie." Most usually comment that they wish they'd have taken Jeff's advice to heart and not had to learn some of these same lessons the hard way. I'm sure Jeff will talk more about this in future Blogs, but #5 really is easy to agree with and hard to execute on - even here at GG. Getting games into a scope that will let you produce multiple games before you run out of resources (life is short) really requires scaling projects way back to what can actually get done by a team (see #4). 
#18
I think the great thing about this post is that it applies to everything, not just indie game developers. I personally think one of the most important lines of the whole post is...
... because doing what you think is "expected" of you whilst still trying to do "other" things is a bloody hard habit to break.
I worked extremely hard in my fulltime job but since I began T2D, I realised that I just couldn't do it at full-tilt and do T2D. My job was making me very unhappy because it wasn't creative enough whereas T2D was. Since then, I have changed what I do at work, what I do privately and how I look at the future of where I want "to be". Work is a necessary evil, to pay the bills, that's all I see it as.
I currently have no debts, just a mortgage to pay and I've got a wife that believes in our new vision of what our family should be doing.
Now, my future is my wife and daughter and a thoroughly enjoyable hobby of working on T2D. Gone are the ideas of total luxury and in are the ideas of swapping between spending quality time with my wife/daughter and being creative with T2D and working with my extended family/friends, GG and the community.
I know this sounds sad (and probably slightly corny) in comparison to what I could be doing in the big "world" but it's more than enough for me and is completely satisfying as a life.
Different people take different things to "open their eyes". I guess a good but truthful pun would be that the light at the end of the tunnel for me was Jeff Tunnell. :)
Bring on the blogs Jeff and thanks again.
- Melv.
02/08/2006 (1:07 am)
Along the lines that Simon posted...I think the great thing about this post is that it applies to everything, not just indie game developers. I personally think one of the most important lines of the whole post is...
Quote:and live the way most of society tells you to
... because doing what you think is "expected" of you whilst still trying to do "other" things is a bloody hard habit to break.
I worked extremely hard in my fulltime job but since I began T2D, I realised that I just couldn't do it at full-tilt and do T2D. My job was making me very unhappy because it wasn't creative enough whereas T2D was. Since then, I have changed what I do at work, what I do privately and how I look at the future of where I want "to be". Work is a necessary evil, to pay the bills, that's all I see it as.
I currently have no debts, just a mortgage to pay and I've got a wife that believes in our new vision of what our family should be doing.
Now, my future is my wife and daughter and a thoroughly enjoyable hobby of working on T2D. Gone are the ideas of total luxury and in are the ideas of swapping between spending quality time with my wife/daughter and being creative with T2D and working with my extended family/friends, GG and the community.
I know this sounds sad (and probably slightly corny) in comparison to what I could be doing in the big "world" but it's more than enough for me and is completely satisfying as a life.
Different people take different things to "open their eyes". I guess a good but truthful pun would be that the light at the end of the tunnel for me was Jeff Tunnell. :)
Bring on the blogs Jeff and thanks again.
- Melv.
#20
02/08/2006 (6:18 am)
Thanks for the pointers. I have also always been a big Yamaha fan, I had a 1978 250 enduro (which I crashed) when I was about 17. And uh a little blue generator which powered a couple of big Padre Island spring break parties in back in 80's. Also like there jet ski's but can't afford one and can't go fast on one either cause of the bad back. 
Associate David Wyand
Gnometech Inc.