Nurturing a video game project is like learning your first handstand, especially if you’re an independent developer with very little game industry experience. It can be disheartening when first starting out and observing that your heroes, such as Tim Schaffer, Hideo Kojima , Gabe Newell are not only walking on their hands, but are juggling with their toes. Have heart! These monolithic video game figures started where you are right now! Through patience, consistency, and grit, you too can learn the four ways of balancing fear and fun when tackling your first video game launch!
Face Your Fear
Let’s not beat around the bush; being upside down on your hands is terrifying. Falling? You probably will. Face-planting? You probably will. But handstand practice and video game project management give rise to the superpower called ‘adaptability’! As one would first start climb backwards up a wall to get their bearings while being inverted, a good Indie game development pitch should work through a pre-production plan (a finished story, a multi-year work cycle projection, a multi-year budget for the team’s needs, communication plans for investors, and reward schedules) before asking for crowdfunding dollars. Remember, if you were investing in yourself, what would you want to see?
Be Brutally Honest With Your Skills and Planning
Just as one would need to plan a training regimen before attempting handstands, independent game developers should investigate their venues before actual game creation. Do you have a solid budget? Does your dev team have a solid, completed storyboard to springboard from? Are you sure you have enough runway and time before launch? Does the entire team have a living, breathing GDD (Game Design Document) that has gone through multiple iterations so you can track tech changes? Can your team make a low-cost tech demo with blocked out events? If the answer is ‘No’ to any of the previous questions, it’s the equivalent of attempting gymnastics without doing 10 solid pushups. If you fail to do the necessary prep work your game will sadly fail, followed by your team throwing in the towel. It’s always good to work small, be prepared, and nurture small victories to get big gains.
The Little Things Matter Most
Any circus, or gymnastics, teacher will tell you that a good handstand doesn’t always start with a super strong core, or mega-shoulders, it’s in the tiny muscles in your wrists. Isn’t it amazing how something so small can hold something as large as the human body?
Let’s talk about the tiniest but most important aspect of your game: is it fun?
If you stripped your game down to just primary shapes with no UI or sound, would you actually play it yourself? Despite what Marketing may say, a good game sells itself through word of mouth. Don’t believe me? Ask the creator of Minecraft.
Get Away From the Wall
Just as one would rise up and stand on their hands without resting their heels on the wall, so should a solid Indie Game Development Team evangelize that crowdfunding should be a springboard, not a crutch. When a team constantly relies on crowd funding (Kickstarter), Monthly Crowd Funding (Patreon) or Early Access (Steam), it dulls the bleeding edge of a long-term business plan by creating a negative perception amongst their target audience who may think they are not good at managing their finances. Game companies who have years under their belt know that survival isn’t just about making fun, it’s about having self-sustaining revenue to make more fun.
After CD Projekt RED first created The Witcher, they not only expanded the franchise with future entries, but also created an additional revenue stream by launching GOG, a competitor to the popular Steam digital distribution platform. This is despite their financial difficulties during the economic down turn of 2009-2010. Other smaller companies like Wadjet Eye Games didn’t use crowdfunding; they grew organically, used open sourced technologies and just good games to grow.
Are you a new indie dev ready to take on the world one game at a time? The video game industry, large and small, is a tough market with high amounts of competition, so what do you think you can do to improve your chances in making a successful game?
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I’m not above asking for tips!
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