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Game design and game development rush

Previously, I talked about my first takeaway from ludum dare. This time, I would love to explain a bit more how the game development experience happened.

The first step was to discuss what to do. At first, it was not all that clear what we wanted to do. The only thing we knew was that, Michael - my Ludum Dare partner in crime, was doing the programming leg of work, and I would take care of the artwork. Luckily, Michael is an experienced game designer and he had a better picture of how to put things together.

Defining the idea of the game was easy at first. Michael runs Silverware Games, and one of his upcoming games is called Matchy Star. This is a game we both have been working on this year, and we really like it! I asked if we could use that IP for the LDJAM, and he was ok with the idea. When thinking of business development, whenever you work up a pipeline to expand intellectual property, there is something known as brand extension. This is building upon what you already have to make that brand world grow; as a result, you create more from the same idea. The goal is to generate more data on top of the content you already have, meaning you widen your opportunities – either grow your network, or grow your sales. So I figured, this can only benefit the studio in the long run. It is meant to be a free game after all.  

We defined a concept that would suit the theme, which this time around was “The more you have, the worst it gets”. I made a comment about how cute it would be to see Matchy Star interacting with the little stars he picks up in the game, worked it all from there. Matchy’s Kooky Cookies resulted in this crazy cute clicker game, you must help Matchy protect his stash of cookies from the cookie banditos. In theory, something short, fun and cute.

Personally, I love the work Jim did on Matchy Star, so I decided to reuse some of the original assets of the game – the characters only. While Michael challenge was to build up a clicker on the idea, my challenge was to build up around a game that we wanted to reference with new take on it somehow. I thought it would be simple, but it sort of became a tad more complicated than I had expected.

I get started on defining perspective and colors. One thing I wanted from the get-go was to make Matchy’s Kooky Cookies a complementary experience. I love Matchy Star, so I did not want to redo the most important assets, and I did not want this game to compete with the original vibrant look of the original game. Getting a cute mute like palette was not easy, I can do the job of a technical artist, but colors are always a challenge for me.

Once finished, the kitchen felt empty. That’s why I decided to include details from the Silverware Games world: a mug with ‘Composition J’ art, a cereal box inspired in ‘Don’t Shoot Yourself’ called Shootios, and ‘Matchy Star’ fridge magnets. I figured not many would get the references, but I still wanted to include them. Also, last but not least, the new company logo as cabinet lettering! Because apparently that’s a kitchen decoration thing - the more you know. 

Afterwards, designing the transitions screens was easier. Already had a palette in place, and we had no time, it resulted in minimal effort as default. I ended up including few: tutorial, rounds, score and credits. Tutorial was a challenge, what seemed simple for us did not for others, and we were so very lucky to receive as much feedback on the process to make it better understood.

Once everything was assembled, we experienced people experiencing problems here and there, we tweaked until build felt much more enjoyable. We also took in a lot of great ideas for future builds, including future games. Game jams provide experiential learning that, unlike any textbook, this is something you would rarely ever forget. You learn from what you do, and what you get to see others do, a fantastic experience I recommend anyone that works in the game industry to do.

Personal note here, thanks to Michael for having infinite patience to my relentless and sometimes irrational perfectionism. Game development is not about making things perfect, but making things work as you want them to, and you build up on that one fix at a time. It is good enough not when there is more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away – rude awakening to take from game development. I need to become more comfortable with troubleshooting design dilemmas, understanding simplicity and focus in design.

I was not expecting to end this blog with a life lesson, but there you go. Matchy’s Kooky Cookies is free to play, so you can go ahead and check it out right here. Comments and votes are welcome!

Exploring game development from a business perspective

Working in the gaming industry you get to explore many different events, from conventions to awards, but the most fun are game jams. A game jam is an event in which people participate to make video games in a limited amount of time, usually a weekend, ideally with a theme at hand.

Every organizer has different ways to put these jams together, just as everyone has a different way to select themes; whether it might be chosen by those who organize it, or voted on by participants. Some even have competitive elements in which people vote.

Such is the case of Ludum Dare. I had heard about them for a very long time, but never had the chance to participate in any – luckily, this recently changed.

Back in 2015 I got to participate in my first game jam, thus Twatter was born. The goal was to do a game from scratch with people who had never done anything game development related. I had worked on four flash games in early 2000, so I decided to invite one of my best friends to join, Gonçalo Gonçalves; he learned Construct, I learned Inkscape. My PC fried, his internet died, but we made it!

I had a lot of fun with TeamUp  Jam, and that’s why I decided to talk the forever grumps Michael Silverman into doing Ludum Dare together. We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but we had so much fun surviving it. You can check out our entry here, Matchy’s Kooky Cookies!

Ludum Dare, the world's largest and longest running game jam event, has thousands of participants with all sorts of talents and experiences. While there are many limitations in terms of how you utilize assets, along with the time, you also set yourself up to be ranked in: graphics, sound, fun, innovation, theme, humor, mood, and overall score.

There are so many takeaways I got from this experience, from the standpoint of what a derivative work is, and understanding reusable assets. As a business mind, I know how to navigate through legal technicalities, but the nuisances of the actual technical artwork in practice, that was somewhat new. Including the fact that something can be fun, yet not have any humorous elements – and vice versa. Overall, it made me aware of plenty little details that, when it comes to marketing and publishing work, are somewhat invisible, yet highly valuable to consider.

In terms of the design leg of work, it’s a far greater appreciation of the anxiety of game development. In publishing, this is not something you get to experience. We get handed over the final build, you don’t get much of a say in development, but after everything is already done – rarely ever, any insight gets considered over budget reasons. It must take an important change for it to go back into development, because it takes on more money for development.  

Having an actual say in these circumstances can help improve graphic choices, thus adding to the whole gaming experience. However, having limited time makes you experience the excruciating stress game developers go through when trying to wrap up a build – a thousand things you would want to do, yet you have to choose prioritize what you can do instead. Experiencing categories to vote on, also brings a new perspective on elements that you don’t normally think of while trying to put together a build in such sort time. Last but not least, including the endless talent of some that do more and better than you, includes a humbling learning curve that motivates you to explore furthermore.

Keeping perspective of what you want, while trying to meet up to what you should do, is not quite the straight forward task. Being able to step out of my comfort zone of business development, and put myself into the stress of game development, sure brings a new found respect for developers. I had no idea how hard doing tutorials were, or the mad rush you get from someone finishing your game, it sure brings perspective. It’s a learning experience that forces me to improve my communication competence, and therefore, make publishing more fruitful.

Bootstrap as a metaphor, meaning to better oneself by one's own unaided efforts.

Money continues to be a point of discussion for a lot of game developers in the industry. It can be daunting at times, but that stress never goes away.

Most developers assume that crowdfunding is the only way to go, when in fact, it is one of the many options for funding. Most requirements demand undivided commitment to organizational skills, deadline compromises, and financial responsibility. Crowdfunding is not exempt of all of the things just listed, it only seems to make crowdfunding the most attractive based on the lack of legal consequences. However, regardless of how this might be misconstrued by developers, options do exist for every industry out there. Hopefully, presenting healthier business options will provide for better choices regarding money.

Recently, I ran into an article about business bootstrapping. As a concept, this is what defines entrepreneurs starting out a business with next to no money. Exchanging the word ‘entrepreneur’ with ‘developer’, and it is pretty much an everyday process in the gaming industry.

In order to showcase how it works in practice, these are few of the many companies that started out self-funded, and eventually grew without external financial support. Tech companies that have thrived from keeping their goals in check, and most importantly, keeping their finances in order:

Go-Pro

Nick Woodman got started with a $35,000 loan in 2002, originally named Woodman’s Lab. Woodman kept full responsibility of his finances until 2012, when then he opened up the company to a $200 million investment from Foxconn. Eventually, the company finally goes public in 2014 with a value of $2.96 billion.

GitHub

Originally started in 2008 by Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and PJ Hyett. It only took a few thousand dollars from their own savings to get things going, which provided enough revenue for all of them at the time. There wasn’t even an office then, they would meet up at coffee places to work a few times a week. It wasn’t until 2012, that they started to take on employees into the company. Years later, GitHub found $100 million investment through venture capital, and achieved $250 million in a second round of venture capital back in 2015. Nowadays, the company makes about $140 million annual revenue. GitHub value is about $2 billion.

Craigslist

It all started in 1995 as some sort of casual newsletter among friends to showcase events around San Francisco. Obviously, the service became a wide spread phenomenon online reaching a million page views per month by 1997, great milestone at the time. Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, was financially independent until 2004 when eBay paid $32 million for a piece of the company, which did not end up well because years later, a lawsuit happened and Newmark bought back the shares. Craigslist, with over 20 billion page views per month, is present in over 70 countries nowadays – tops with $690 million (revenue by 2016), and is roughly appraised in $5 billion these days.

Bootstrapping requires understanding of the financial risk that, as a developer and entrepreneur, they accept. Unlike venture capital, there is a form of total control on every decision as well as full ownership of failure. Personal finance might not be initially enough to provide success at a reasonable rate, but it educates on responsibility by becoming accountable on every financial choice made. Unlike many other ways of funding, mostly when money is third party sourced.

Startups cultivate growth from reinvesting their own profit as it comes, ideally when costs are low and return on investment is high. This financing approach allows developers to maintain control of their business and forces them to spend with discipline. Money can always become a problem when there is absence or abundance of it: if there is too much, it all gets spent now instead of saving to reinvest later; just as there is not enough, it ‘justifies’ lack of quality.

This idea isn’t limiting to startups only, it's a valid way for business owners to treat valuable resources at any stage of their business' growth. Considered one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to ensure a business' positive cash flow. Also, allows businesses to focus on customers rather than investors, increasing the chances of creating a self-sustaining business.

The dysfunctional thinking between what developers have and what they think they want

Valve announced that Steam Greenlight was no more, and then Steam Direct became news everywhere. Not much has been said yet, other than Steam Direct will be about as much as Steam Greenlight was – and this has sparked debate among indie developers. Some show support with the initiative, whereas others are disappointed in the low fee and the consequences they assume from it.

Thinking less competition will provide for better opportunities for sales is absurd. You can try standing on a street downtown selling candy by yourself, but the fact that you would be the only kid diung anything doesn’t mean that anyone would buy from you. Ideally, having a market involves the concept of multiple variables efficiently coexisting, without it the concept of a market doesn’t exist. Without company diversity operating in the same supply and demand, indie developers would be nothing but quirky kids doing creative things that belong nowhere in the economic spectrum. Having a healthy market indicates more to work with, there are more games but also gamers too; having more people to perceive as potential users is a positive thing.

Without the data a market provides, companies like Steam would not exist. There would not be enough of a user base to build up a distribution platform that would operate as an important hub in the industry – you would be stuck working on your own Wordpress website, with your GoDaddy / Shopify store.  I sure remember those days, way before even social media existed. To assume a company should do less to serve third-party expectations is flawed, a company works for itself, even if it is a hub that provides a service to many other smaller companies and indie studios.

 The thing indie developers understand as a problem is the denial to accept the bar gets raised every single time there is a surplus of content. More games dictate gamers will have choices, providing new bars for what is value and price, including options for costs and quality. When more is asked of you, you shouldn’t complain about giving less – learn more instead; there is so much to work with, having fewer people playing games won’t dictate your success, but having more venues to reach out to more.

There is not much to discuss on Steam Direct so far, we need information on how content will be curated now, and what this new platform will offer for indie development. For now, all we can do is revise the concepts of cost and price, and quality and value – all sound similar, yet they are not. Not long ago, I wrote about the difference of cost and price, this time I want to introduce quality and contrast it with the concept of value, all relevant to the future of your games.

Value is something that becomes defined by the user, if it is something that serves a purpose for any specific use, or that it becomes something that resonates in sentiment. Quality relies entirely on the company, and sometimes it might even set the bar for cost and performance. Also, while important, users might buy not because it has quality but they will not buy it in the absence of quality, reason why quality and value need of each other.

Maybe your game presents the most refreshing imaginative creation yet on its genre, but if the game crashes on start, it matters very little how meaningful it is if it’s unplayable. Maybe your game runs perfect, but it is yet again another pointless shooter clone without even a story to it – development should not impair marketing, just as marketing can’t exist without development. Yet, it is often known that developers can market a game for five years and more, or simply just launch without marketing at all – neither scenario is healthy without understanding how variables like quality and value will set the bar for cost and ultimately, price.

Steam is one of many distribution options for digital content, and it is one of the fundamental ones. It widens your options as a publishing platform, but it doesn’t provide success by default. Everything you combine with the concept of cost, quality, value and price will.

Game development production is fundamental: the time you take working on something, the time it takes to promote said something, the money you inject into it. There are so many variables that need time and money, and if you do not have the money then it should take ten times the work and attention. But thinking because you can’t afford it, that it might not be needed, is what makes indie developers fight to be in a new releases listing rather than organize a genuine marketing plan instead. Invest your efforts wisely, don’t be afraid of competition – grow with it.

Challenge ideas. Respect people. Celebrate individuality. 

Negotiation is a business method in which people settle a matter of mutual concern in order to resolve conflict. It is a process involving compromise and agreement in the pursue of finding a common ground.

It could be easily defined in three parts, first presenting the problem: my side and your side, exploring the two ends of the situation: what each side wants, and bargaining with a positive closure: making decisions and agreeing upon it. It seems fairly simple, yet, a lost art in everyday situations.

Disagreements are part of human discourse, not just business. Everyone experiences life differently, and as a result, we all convey different thoughts on everything. While celebrating diversity is important, every human joint effort requires understanding for development. Unfortunately, chances are different trades and skills will not always agree intuitively, for example: programmers would consider the code to be the soul of the project, whereas artists might think they are the identity to what everything needs to come together; everyone thinks they know the value of what they do, but not everyone will understand value the same way. Sometimes being caught up in what you do, doesn’t provide sufficient perspective to grasp what you are doing it for - that’s how disagreements are born.

In order to practice negotiation, important variables like listening and respect need to exist. You have to listen, because you are being presented to on a point of view you do not have, and chances are you do not understand. Instead of waiting for your turn to talk, just actively pay attention; and respect, because you may not be able to digest it at first, but you can recognize ideas different to yours exist, and explore them without accepting them as your own.

Negotiation is only one of many steps in how to settle business disagreements. If there is no coherent way to adhere to a conclusion via legal structure or upfront planning, then there are other ways to find resolution. Acquiring a third party to guide and provide guidance on the conflict, via mediation; or by management agreements, commonly known as bylaws – specific contractual guidelines presenting previously agreed scenarios, and options to avoid possible conflict. If all goes wrong, then there is court action, seeking the help of the ultimate arbiter of a business dispute, a judge.

Ideally, you would want to avoid wasting any time or money. In business, a petty disagreement can make or break teams, including disrupting financial planning. In your personal life, any informal debate can lead to fracturing friendships, or even getting yourself fired – depending how emotionally invested said disagreement can be, even a civil lawsuit. No matter how frustrating it might be, it’s important to keep your emotions in check.

Job negotiations, for example, they can become somewhat difficult at times; yet, being polite and concise might get you considered for another offer, in contrast to being disrespectful, that will only get you automatically discarded. As a society, disagreements are far more common nowadays than any form of kindness, insulting won’t vindicate your perspective, but weaken it. When you disagree, you don’t need to convince those who already agree with you, but bring to your corner those who do not – otherwise, there is very little agreement to be had. Negotiation is a great tool, practice it as needed.

Creating value is the defining essence of your business  

Most people understand Marketing as a conduit to generate sales, whereas it should be understood as a communication platform. Marketing needs to be practiced as a means to engage and understand those who make your company, who support your game - and most important of all, to inherently create value in these conversations and interactions.

While sales might be a result to healthy business practices, it should never be something that would hinder you from growth. It is important to withstand costs, and generate revenue, but it is far more important to ground yourself and create opportunities instead. Not every chance of exposure will automatically result in a sale, but you can gain supporters that might become sale leads in the future. Brand awareness cultivates ideas that will not only assist with profitability, but enables network growths that will passively work over time.

The key is to understand who you are, and try to convey value before sales. A solid business plan, or at least a clear guideline, needs to define everything: from how much you can spend, and what you should spend it on; to your strengths and weakness as a team, highlight what defines you as a brand. Either casual gaming or perhaps cultivating an MMO-like experience, whichever it is, value comes from developer’s efforts, and it should understand what the gamers want. Communication is necessary when it comes to establishing expectations, just as much as you expect any marketing strategy to generate results.

Value can be understood in multiple ways, the one thing to keep present is that there is no way to explore consumer behavior without a direct reference to personal values. Value is that one determining factor that will influence purchase choices, it can provoke or ruin its chances entirely. The way to identify and measure this is by opening up to consumer perception theory, learning about gamers self- perception and market price perception. How both concepts come together as something that is meant to provide quality to their lives.

Companies don’t define what value means, it is their audience who does. Every consumer is ultimately drawn to efforts that address their needs and wants; there is no direct understanding of costs in the gaming industry, but what expectations they build upon what they want from what they eventually get. It is important to highlight that, while there is value in the actual gaming experience, this conversation is aimed at optimizing business efforts. This isn’t about how to improve game development, but how to create value through business development.

Value can be broken down in two larger realms, one being the utilitarian value, which comes from solving a problem via product or service; or hedonic value, the instant gratification that is provoked by experiences. One is entirely practical, whereas the other one is emotional in nature. Being influenced by both internal and external variables, they go along with understanding they satisfy a particular need which is defined by the demographics present in your audience.

Gaming represents a vast industry that can produce incredible stories, educational tools, casual distraction, and plenty of experiences in the realm of entertainment. Ideally, you want marketing to stay consistent to the essence of the project – if the game is a casual and short experience, do not present it as an epic Final Fantasy inspired homage. Captivating advertisement will never make up for disappointing experiences, creating false windows of expectation can only reflect buyer’s remorse, resulting in losing credibility from people who already trusted enough to invest in you.

In order to be able to create perceived value is to listen to those who listen to you. Find out who they are, what they do, translate this information in action, then try to produce content that will represent who you are, and at the same time, provide content that will be perceived as valuable. Think of it like having a best friend, there are things you have in common, and with time, you develop your own world of jokes, activities, interests and experiences. It never happens overnight, it sure takes time, patience, and being present for your community. Creating these environments is fundamental to growing a network, understanding these dynamics is what will create chances of building trust. Nowadays, being seen or heard of is not enough, most people tend to gravitate towards things they already know; meaning, building trust is no longer a branding attribute, but an actual variable that makes the difference between a sale or not. If you have yet to cultivate trust, you should invest in finding ways to give value to the people that matter.

Everything starts with a question. Collecting information to create or further prove knowledge, that is the sole purpose of what research is all about. Exploring investigation or experimentation through discovering of facts, whether they may be revised laws or interpretation of history, these convey understanding that is indispensable for any choice we make.

Research is the first step in every business process, and most likely in every mundane situation of your life. Choosing where to eat, where to travel, even when picking up a new show on Netflix – the first step is always finding ways to gather information to make sure whatever we do next is what we should do. Usually, we make our way through by asking referrals on it, or simply venturing on our own to see what we find.

As a field, research can be scientific, social, technological, economic and of course for business, marketing and pretty much everything in between. Surprisingly, this isn’t as much of a natural choice when it comes to game development; it is almost like it becomes a blur and a hassle nobody considers relevant to go for, when it should be the first thing they do before anything else.

Business research provides insight on financial data, gamers feedback, product information, and most important of all, market analysis. Most developers don’t seem fond of the conversation about money, but it is imperative to take time to research cost in software, licensing, pre-built assets, and talent wages – anything that requires an expense. Yet, it is much better to expand that research into development instead, and explore new ideas in hopes that it would resolve process and expenses as well; meaning, you could be looking up for Art / Design software like Manga Studio, Photoshop, not knowing that there may be other options like SAI, or even GIMP that might be resourceful enough for what you need.  Not saying you shouldn’t buy the entire Adobe package if you want, but starting out, that is a cost you probably need to go without. Research is not always about finding the cheapest choice, but finding what is best for you given your current situation.

When it comes to user interaction, it is important to listen to what gamers have to say from an experiential point of view. For example: adventure games are all about point and click puzzles, and while some type of puzzles are iconic to genre, most gamers grow rather annoyed at some specific ones like sliding puzzles completing images. According to what kind of experience you want to accomplish, these bits of information are important – if you want to either challenge gamers, or annoy the player at some specific moments of the gameplay. It can help you in ways you probably didn’t even know. This is a valuable asset to practice consistently; from mechanic ideas you might want to implement in your game, to business solutions that might optimize your sales over time. Do take time to look things up, do ask people in your field and outside of it for advice - internet is an important and resourceful platform for this.

Business planning and financial responsibility are the right way to get anything started.

One of the benefits of business planning is that it gives perspective of the landscape of your project. From short term goals to long term goals, it provides direction to optimize your business performance. Clarity and focus of operations leads to better decision making and the ability to tackle and anticipate problems.

First, draft your business plan.  The business plan should present the basics of the company and detail of the tasks and how these activities are supposed to happen. Once these ideas are lined up, it becomes much easier to assign costs to every step - introducing the concept of budgeting to your business. Few game developers understand these practices. Financial responsibility can make or break a project.

It is easy to get distracted with every day work, which is why business plans are the blueprint to not just making one game, but becoming a development studio that can become a real business. Budgeting is the integral  part of the process that will manage all monetary resources such as costs, profit, including details such as cash flow, expenditures, and more. It is fundamental to outline the process in order to be able to grasp full control of the current commitments and future responsibilities.

Creating a budget shouldn’t be complicated.  It should reflect resources and timing, including the costs and expenses that come along. When you get started, you don’t have sales or income to consider; however, costs are a permanent variable throughout every necessary budgeting process.

One of the most common ways to understand costs are: direct, which are exactly what it takes to produce the specific good or service; and indirect, the expenses that come along while providing said product or service. Going further into these concepts only leads to accounting specifics, not particularly required for you to draft estimates in order to keep track of funds.

Direct costs can be defined as labour (people), raw materials, and software licenses. Indirect costs would be directly related to office space (rent), internet, and office equipment; you would assess as needed. Either way, costs need to be included in the planning proposals.

Once you have listed all cost, you can move on grounding a budget approach. There are different ways to get started: either find out specifically how much money is required per costs, or simply use a ballpark figure and work from there.  Unfortunately, money isn’t infinite, so chances are you will need to work on detailing costs rather than having a bunch of money and trying to make sense out of it.  Eventually, you will need to monitor your data and make sure things go as planned - evaluate and control your expenses to keep from going over budget.

Research should be the first step for you to get started on your budget responsibilities. Your business plan needs to define what your goals are – and as you revise this information, strategy ideas will come along through research. It’s important to expand on the information you already have to identify what opportunities are best for you. Then, define all costs. It doesn’t matter if you eventually need to re-define estimates. As long as you have a core idea of what is necessary, you can eventually scale up or down as needed. If you are budgeting for an ongoing business, then by all means include average income along with your personnel and operating expenses.

Last but not least, monitor resources. As your plan is drafted up, the idea is to keep up with it and evaluate it periodically. Time is on your side as long as you include it in the strategy.  Organization is one of the most important tools you can have when it comes to business discipline – budget away!

Mental toughness is usually defined as the capacity to focus to get things done, regardless of any adversity that could impair your abilities. Whereas, emotional resilience, is that flexibility that allows you to adjust to new circumstances. These are not something you are either born with or without, just like patience, you learn how to cultivate them with time.

Back when I was working my way through business school, this was such an abstract concept to me. It was challenging to work and study at the same time, I needed one to afford the other, and some days I felt like I could do neither. I had to get by with very little personal time and money, but whenever family or health problems would come through – I still had to make things work. Sick, tired and with no motivation at times, I had to make everything count; otherwise. I would have lost all the hard work so far. While I’m incredibly thankful to have been able to graduate with great grades, or graduate at all to be honest, I don’t really miss that headache. It wasn’t easy, or fun. At first I would cry myself stupid with stress, then run late into work appointments with a very red nose, I would be so tired some days I had to put multiple alarms to remind me of all the things I had to do – including mundane things like: drink coffee, take headache pills, remember to do laundry. I had to keep up so many agendas, my phone just wasn’t enough. Things gone done, though.

At the time, I just had to make things work. I remember one of my business tutors would say to me: talent means nothing, resilience means everything; this was his way to cheer me up. When you don’t have choices, you make whatever you have work for you, and having even having mixed feelings about it is a luxury you can’t afford to cloud your judgement. Emotional resilience will allow you to adapt, while mental toughness allows you to move on. This is exactly why drafting business plans is so incredibly important, because there will be times when life will just happen, and you need to remind yourself what the purpose of doing the damn thing was all along. It helps you keep perspective.

These aren’t just a business oriented concept, in fact, they are known to be relevant in a variety of industries like sports, even the military. Perseverance and passion to commit to discipline, is what makes the difference, talent is overrated. In every area of your life, keep in mind that you don’t have to be the best to achieve goals, all you need is to give yourself time and grit to endure. 

Everyone can develop mental toughness and emotional resilience, nobody can teach it to you or do it for you – you need to want to do it. Very much like discipline,  this is something that requires your conscious intention to want to get things done above all. Quite valuable set of assets to cultivate for an industry like game development. 

The world of cost, price, and sales in video games.

Cost and price are two different ways to approach the understanding of value, which is fundamental for every product or service. Cost is the monetary expense that a business goes through to make what they offer, whereas price is the amount the customer pays for it; the difference here being price needs to go over what has been spent in order to provide room for revenue. For example: if it takes you $5 to produce something, price should be around $8 or higher in order for you to become financially resourceful, your price should be above that to foresee profit – continuously finding ways to grow that income over time.

Game developers must factor costs when setting up price, even though if the gamer is the one that ultimately chooses  pay for it or not. Choice determined by the customer’s perceived value, which means it makes sense to them as long as they think it’s worth it, and unlike businesses – cost is invisible for them, they measure things up accordingly to their own cost of living.  

Sadly, most gamers don’t have experiential knowledge once it comes to game development costs, if anything, they might be more familiar with retail costs instead: rent, utilities, distribution. Translating these to a digital purchase, very few would have some hands on experience on the costs of licensing, software, equipment among many other monetary nuisances. Unfortunately, this decreases the organic potential to understand value as its stands for indie game development, making indies become more immersed in trying to match up gamers cost of living than salvaging their own fixed costs, eventually forcing them to a painful sudden bankruptcy when costs not being covered then become debt.

Then you run into articles like PC Gamer’s - How much should games cost?, fair effort pooling together data to pose a question, but incredibly misguided in switching interchangeable the word cost with price. The entire article is based on price analysis without interjecting any cost variable or purchase value, presenting price only as a purchase trend. This perpetuates the notion that it doesn’t matter what you spend doing something, you need to tune in to the plethora of price range otherwise you won’t get anywhere. Thinking like this is what creates unrealistic and unhealthy practices for indie developers to measure up, not to mention to survive as a small business.

We often find pieces like this all over, with too much info and very little knowledge perpetuating misguided perceptions that are already affecting the gaming industry. From post-mortems that read as Skype chats to journalists hoarding data on subjects they have no expertise, these ideas become published and uninformed developers see their fears validated, continuing on foul business choices. It is vital to learn basics of economics such as production, inflation, market growth; just as it is paramount to know what cost, capital, revenue and all those pesky words mean before you decide to dissect them.

If we are to define how much games should cost, then we would be talking about proposing business models that would incentive and assist cut costs to developers. Unfortunately, while the perceived value in price would determine if someone would buy it or not, it does very little for how much it takes to make video game development happen.

Truth is, there has been barely an increase in the selling price to the public, yet next to no significant variation when it comes to actual industry salary (in case you didn’t know, well now you do); however, costs of licenses, software, technology, and all around development budget needs, continues to increase accordingly to life costs - economic values factor in, and of course, set up the bar. As I mentioned previously, if the way you understand your price does not subside your cost, then you run into debt while you need to provide revenue instead.

People complain about games being overpriced, incomplete, and whatever else - yet, this industry continues on with old fashioned models for production, a below average means of funding, and incoherent business practices which obviously results in: no developer understanding compromise or responsibility on delivery - it will be done whenever it will, five year development on one year budgets, abandoned projects, illogical overtime work hours - working 3 days for maybe 1/3 of that in payment, under paid skills - even PR in gaming is paid much less than in any other industry I know of, and overflow of unhappy players. Among many other things that I’m sure I forget to include.

There are a plethora of things to point out when it comes to cost and content woes in the industry that people don’t seem to want to talk about, at all. It’s just better to apologize irresponsible publishing deadlines, blame gamers when they grow upset at studios doing shady DLC to justify costs undercuts, and apparently debate whether price is right or not – regardless of finding meaning to what value should be. It is important to educate developers in business practices so it scales down to gamers, the better tools we provide to developers, the better gaming experiences there will be. Most developers do not know how to understand their own value, let alone their costs – so it is paramount to open conversations that promote a need for learning, rather than divide and perpetuate detrimental ideas that destroys indie studios.

Another key point from PC Gamer’s - How much should games cost?: “Big price cuts during sales don’t devalue games” when price cuts off into your cost, it doesn’t matter if you manage to sell twice as much as you did with the original price, you are still getting less than what you need. Reason why most developers feel nothing but disappointment in thinking all they have to do is just mass promote through bundles to get by - you are still barely covering what you have already spent, let alone any future money for any new game.

So thinking getting picked up for sales is a saving grace, if your price was set up to $5, but you do every single seasonal promotion  - virtually speaking, your game spends more time being $2 than $5, you already undercut your cost whether you admit it to yourself or not - mistake most indie developers make in their first year of publishing. Do not undervalue your own game sooner than it has to; meaning, sales should not be your one and only sales strategy.

To put it bluntly - If you spent 150k in crowdfunding / development, it actually means your sales plan need to cover about 150k before any penny is actually considered revenue; all of this considering this is done in similar time frames - 150k in a year, is not the same as 150k in 5 years, it actually means less over time. Then people wonder why studios go out of business, or why others do crazy things like selling games for $60 yet having a shell of an experience with excess of DLC links to access content. Everyone gets blinded with numbers, yet nobody seems to care about time, most funding would withstand time through barely a year because inflation happens, other economic factors will increase costs for everything - even your rent.

Sales are fantastic, but not for the reasons developers seem to think they are. Organically, most studios do publishing platforms: they cover up PC and Mac, and eventually move to console, or the other way around; the idea is to continue to expand market, having already invested in development and publishing, at this point these options can translate to growth to earn more data that can potentially results into sales. Games drop in price over time because value becomes perceived different according to economic values; depending on time and demand, it can be just few months to maybe a year – reason why discounts are not to be taken as the canon advertisement or marketing tool. Discounts are excellent to introduce new content, retain existing customers; but still a short term strategy to drive traffic, monetize inventory – not to put a band aid on costs that have not been met via regular marketing.

All needs to go at the same pace, you can’t fall behind production costs, you can’t expect to keep a status quo in price yet lie to people to cover up your overblown costs. Desperation is hard to sell, and while gamers expect more for less - money won’t make a difference to that, discipline and accountability for business choices will.

Everyone becomes fascinated with the belief of “find your passion” and “follow your dreams”, romanticizing the idea that motivation somehow will drive you there. Then reality sets in, and you find out motivation comes and goes every other day, making every effort become ambiguous at best.

Ideally, your passion and your job should not be all that different from each other, but truth is, life can be unfair and chances are that is not the case. As we grow older, we realize the things we are good at are not exactly the same as the things we wish we could do, and this happens because we overestimate the capacity of motivation. It doesn’t mean we can’t learn new things and become proficient at new things, the only reason we are ever good at something is because we repeatedly do it, improving as we go along – which means, given enough exposure and practice, we can materialize expertise.

Motivation works on the assumption that a particular emotion or mental state is needed to complete a task, whereas discipline functions outside any circumstances relying on responsibility instead. If you wait until you feel like doing anything, chances are you will not dedicate the time it needs to get it done – sadly, everything requires a trial and error phase which demands patience, and needs time to build up into anything which requires consistency. Motivation works entirely disproportionate to negative experiences, the worst it gets, the less willing we want to go into it; reason why discipline helps you stay focused getting you through time to get things done, it doesn’t matter how you feel, you just need to comply with a schedule.

Anything you let your feelings determine, it might lead into procrastination, which Is a very well-known downside of game development, sometimes even freelancing. Motivation requires a lot of attention, it has a short life and needs constant positive reassuring. By contrast, discipline is something that doesn’t require anything but action, it leads to productivity and it is consistently more reliable in the long run, even if it doesn’t feel as fantastic at the time.

Stop trying to convince yourself into doing stuff, instead organize your goals into tasks, pace yourself and give it the time it needs.

The fine line of what you think you are doing, and what you should be doing.

Branding is one of the tenets of business that many small companies seem to struggle with, most assume since they can’t afford it they shouldn’t have it, and that pretty much anything will do.  Unfortunately, not understanding who you are as a product or service, will lead for you to dilute your essence and lose purpose - your identity should be the heart of every business choice you make.

From the specific characteristics in visuals, to the communication value of your message, these attributes should shape up your brand. While it may seem simple, trying to put into words ideas that come from an abstract place, is not always as easy as it should be. Imagine thinking: you want to create a happy burger, then you would have to factor in color psychology, descriptive features of your product, along with the service that accompanies said product – draft up the idea, then present it. Once you have put all thoughts into action, then evaluate, measure up to market and competition, then re-evaluate and start all over again until you find yourself.

Your audience will grow over time, your marketing strategies will vary accordingly as needed, your staff might turnaround, technology will advance, but the one thing that needs to consistently adapt through time is your brand.

Social media has become a necessity rather than a choice, every single business nowadays must have their own online presence - even if it is to build credibility. Don’t you ever feel strange when you look up something online, and nothing comes up? It make you question if it exists at all. You need to be present online, and you need to do things right - that is why it is relevant to understand the social media fundamentals:

Know your audience: Right after you define your branding expectations, you need to pay attention how people experience it, and most important of all – whom it resonates with.

Insights on high traffic and type of content people react to, will help you improve how you communicate with your audience. There is no magic solution for this, even distinct projects from the same company might attract different audiences, the only way to find out is to explore and pay attention to what drives action.

Platform choice: this is key in optimizing your social media plan, not every option is the right one for you.

Not all brands are present in all networks. Social media takes time, content development, and energy you may not want to waste away. The standard choices between Facebook and Twitter, are usually the way to go for most businesses - whichever you choose, just do it right.

Find your voice: this is paramount when it comes to your brand essence, the language you use must reflect who you are.

You define what your visuals are, just the same when it comes to what message you want to communicate. The idea is that these two concepts go along with the personality of the brand, it will bring the right people to you, just as much as it will help you build a relationship with your audience. The minute it goes out of tune, the moment your engagement drops.

Track and measure data: I previously talked about building up a results oriented experience when it comes to business, and is true for everything in business – you can’t improve what you can’t measure.

The first goal is to know what you are doing is having an impact, you need to know what your data is. From there, putting all these numbers together so you can measure them up against each other, will provide a clear landscape of what you are doing right and when you should do it. This will provide audience growth, the push for better content, gathering a community, along with a higher click per purchase turnout which means better sales results.

Define goals: even when you do everything right, you still need to do more and better.

Having short term goals, along with long term goals, are important once it comes to growing a business. You don’t want to work hard only to just throw it all away eventually; every single time you stop, you will have to pick it all up as if it were brand new all over again. Discipline comes first, and then comes compromise in results. When everything is lined up and working as scheduled, yet engagement drops, then this is a clear sign that you need to re-evaluate your plan.  

One last thing - If this chart doesn’t represent how you feel while using social media, then you should not be the person doing social media for your business.

Whether it would be just to engage with people or to push sales, these ideas are important to exercise at all times. It is also critical to understand that having a plan (marketing scheduling), optimizing content to digital publishing (digital graphic design), and proper engagement (public relations knowledge) are crucial for valuable social media development too.

One of the fundamental processes through building up anything is research. You compile information that would help shape up ideas, organize projects, make things happen.  Once everything is up and running, the idea is not to stop research but instead, work on feedback; now it’s not exactly about what to do, but how you’re doing it.  

Every single time I decide to draft up a blog, I normally line up ideas as I would explain it to someone else – which has been part of what I do while consulting, I don’t just propose an idea but explain why it would be important to consider that idea. Regardless of whichever way developers may want to go, at least they know why they decide the way they do. That is why I normally bring up analogies into the mix, it is a lot easier for people to associate everyday activities to theories in order to become at east with new abstract concepts.

That is why, every single time I publish anything, on top of sharing it on social media for everyone to see, I also share it individually with people whose opinions I respect greatly. Even though things may make sense to me, ideally, I would want them to be easy to read and understood – it’s been really great overall, seems like people enjoy the content even if they are not entirely fond of business. However, one comment that keeps coming back after every post is about the silly doodles! People always point out the signature at the end, and close friends have even mentioned how they would like me to include more of it into the actual content rather than just a footnote.

I am very thankful how receptive people have been on the content so far, so I decided to work on a podcast and on more resources to complement the conversation I already presented. On top of including business resources,  I will make a conscious effort to include more of my derpy doodles to go along with the blogs.

Exploring Super Blue Boy Planet Free to Play adventures

Recently, I got to enjoy a short fun game called Super Blue Boy Planet. To my surprise, not many have heard of it, so I decided to talk about it so more people get to discover this charming title.

Super Blue Boy Planet is a platforming adventure, with quirky pixel graphics and enjoyable music. Developed by Mich Nannings, now available free to download on Steam.

It's an easy and short experience throughout 21 levels, you get to rescue Blue's girlfriend who has been kidnapped by aliens - not much else to the story. Gameplay is straight forward as you can jump and glide through, and just like good old retro games, you jump on enemies to get them out of your way and die if you get hit even once.

Some levels seem a bit unfair, but overall this is a fun experience that I would recommend downloading. Achievements are granted on advancement, so chances are if you get to finish the game, which I'm sure you will, you will get yourself a perfect game score.

From a business perspective, aesthetics are rather pleasant - the combination of hues in a palette of blues and purples, with highlights of green go along visually. Design wise, it presents itself quite simple in its pixel and style - although branding seems inconsistent at times with logo changes.

The most ignored feature while publishing is the copy, copywritting is a powerful variable for advertisement and marketing - it provides brand awareness that gives the user power to act up on a call to action or not. For Super Blue Boy Planet, the copywrite is clean and descriptive, which provides a clear expectation to gamers what to look for the game once you download it.

Through a quick search online for the game, the discoverability seems up to par with the project model - the only presence seems modest, it showcases along the developers personal portfolio; it is free to play on steam, but also found on NewGrounds, GameJolt, Itch.io and other HTML5 game sites. Considering it's a free to play game, there is no information on licensing or sales, but taking into reference SteamSpy data, there are over 100k downloads of the game including a healthy 90% userscore.

All of this without any visible press release or press support, including no press kit available either. It is all community support based on organic and public engagement from the developer - he seems present in pretty platform, becoming open to feedback, along with appreciation to people playing his game.

There is only Super Blue Boy Planet on Steam, but Mich Nannings has plenty more over on his itch.io account. While you go ahead and get Super Blue Boy Planet downloading, I'll go check out Swordvania - his latest metroidvania like platformer game.

To know what to do is just as important as to know how to do it - planning and analysis is fundamental in every business venture

In Business it is not always about what you know, but how you convey what you know. Becoming a source of knowledge without understanding how to execute things in practice, is known to be one of the biggest and most frustrating downfall for business owners. My very first management job was around ten years ago, I had three jobs at the time, and it came out of the least expected one. I had a five year business degree on me, I had just graduated, and I was completely drunk off of business. I thought I knew but reality proved me wrong, and learning on the go as I had to build a career was somewhat intense. You know you have to make things happen, but how you make them happen is something that never translates as it should from words to action. To approach things as work scheduling, communicating with employees, let alone make choices on how invest money that is not yours – is kind of a blur as you are doing it, especially if you have never done it before. Then, I learned that thinking you are doing things, is never the same as actually getting them done.

One of my business professors always used to bring some perspective into things, explaining how knowledge doesn’t mean wisdom. It doesn’t matter how much you think you know about baking a cake, chances are, yours will not be as delicious (or as in demand) as a pastry chef’s work. Experience matters, and it doesn’t always come from inside a book.

For game developers, it seems to be much more of difficult learning curve to conquer. Most creative personas struggle keeping themselves confined to deadlines, strict budget restrictions, along with the responsibility that brings involving anyone else outside themselves. It is never easy, even for logistics minded personalities, and that is exactly why learning is perhaps the very first step in a long process of time, heartache and patience, for you to eventually gain some experiential hindsight: from efficient management, to operational activities, and even financial wisdom. That seems to be a consistent problem with most indie developers these days, they think they know Marketing, but then again, don’t know the first thing about Social Media Marketing; which results in poorly mimicking bad practices. 

I thrive to try to open up conversation about these topics with indie developers, I don’t want to just vomit things like “How To Win At Life” and “10 Things To Do To Success” because those rarely ever help. It is important to become conscious of the need to learn, then to find means to discover new disciplines, and eventually to be honest with your own project and evaluate what you really need, then to make it part of it. Every project is different, every business venture has a different climate –and that is why it is so important for indies learn more about their own business than about business itself, all these are tools for you to shape up the opportunities you need with the right people you should. Cookie cutter solutions are not the answer, in any industry.

Just like no mobile game is monetized the same as a console game, or understanding food packaging costs are not the same as food service costs – all these differences matter. It is important to learn, but more so to learn in practice, to explore what to do with what you know in ways you can monitor and keep track of results to know what works for you. Even if you hire someone else to do things for you, you need to know what it should be done for you. One of the biggest lessons yet to learn, for any creative type out there is practicing a results-oriented culture.

I have worked throughout industries, in different multi-national companies, and none of them operate the same. There are common values, yes; but understanding your own data matters more than thinking patterns are going to optimize that into sales – what optimizes your results is people;  your people. This is why it’s imperative to hold close a form to measure any exercise you do, whether it would be managing your own money, time, sales and even marketing numbers.

Keeping on sight simple data measured along with time is important, let’s say you have no means to pay for advertisement, then social media is a healthy option. Creating a schedule of updates, along with keeping track of what updates drive more people to it, and what times work best; this information is never going to be in a book, or a website, no matter how much they want you to buy that idea. There are demographic values, industry determiners, content platforms, and all sort of variables that come into play – it is something everyone needs to learn about their own business as they go, most experience it via trial and error. Get numbers to explain user behaviour, and also give yourself the time to evaluate what to do with that.

Your audience is a living organism that you are carefully bringing together, they are new and yours and for that you need to listen to them first, and foremost. These numbers are going to help you understand your community better: when they are around, what they like, what they want to see from you, including picking up suggestions here and there. Kind of like baking a cake, my first one was something that came out of an Aliens movie, and should have never been brought to life. After a few years baking, I think they are food poison free, and they no longer wink back at me.

Learning what to do is just as important as knowing how to do it, and nobody can teach you how you should run your own business but the people that you actually open your business for, your community. It might not make much sense at first, but the only way to get there is by doing it.

Understanding financial management in game development. Transform return into profit, not just to cover costs - budget away.

Corporate Management is always exhilarating. Throughout the years I had the opportunity to open new branches nationwide and create new jobs, just as I had the heartbreak to shut some down and dismiss talent I did not want to let go. Choices like that never come easy, responsibility gives you this bittersweet taste of freedom and misery when it comes to owning up to business decisions. Rather often, these decisions are tailored by the extent of the money supporting them; you can grow as return becomes profit, and you have to cut off as funds become debt. Money usually becomes an invisible compass that will guide through the future in every company, every project.

Finance is an important foundation for every business venture, yet it becomes a much more detested conversational topic than business itself. I lose track of all the crowdfunding updates, game developer journals, or even tweets and posts I read from developers in which they openly discuss money as some sort of unpleasant experience. Every single time you put yourself out there offering either a product or a service for exchange of money, which becomes a business transaction – if you think so ill of this give/take experience, then why on earth would you do something that goes against yourself? Do your game for free and skip the whole business part. Just give. But of course, developers want to be able to make a living of the very one thing they love; even though rent, food and other means don’t come for free either. Then it is time to stop thinking game development as a hobby, and make the conscious effort to understand business ventures require discipline, responsibility and yes, money.  

Most of my content up to this point are conversational blogs in which the goal is to create consciousness of important topics to consider when putting yourself out there. Every single business results comes from a choice, I just hope eventually help indies believe in themselves as much as they believe in the worlds and experiences they create – because there’s so much wonderful talent out there, it’s a shame not everything gets to be experienced as it should be. That’s why I open up to analogies to make even convoluted disciplines feel more familiar, and perhaps less rejected.  Not everyone enjoys business, but everyone has got to eat – every single day.

People love pizza, and making pizza is one of those incredibly fun experiences while cooking. I remember when I got started on it I kept thinking – but how am I ever going to make this? It always seemed like such a far-fetched idea. But with time, I realized it’s perhaps one of the easiest, yet most resourceful options to do for the weekend at home. First comes the dough, and then the sauce, then the ingredients – it’s really that simple, the assembly is almost as straightforward as making each part of the process. With business venture, you have three big realms to cover as well: funding, budgeting and revenue.

Once you know how to mix the dough, then it comes the kneading, the proving, the shaping – it takes time, even arm strength in some cases; which is pretty much the same principle of funding capital for a business. You require some accounting of all needs to validate the value of the resources/services to be acquired, mix it together and then put a number out there that will cover every necessity.  Moving on, then there’s the sauce which is my favorite part, this is what makes or breaks the pizza experience: it doesn’t matter if the dough is on point, and it’s got the best salami and pepperoni on top of it – if the sauce tastes like expired ketchup vomit, chances are you won’t really be able to enjoy that. The same principle goes with budgeting, it doesn’t really matter if you are over your number in funding – if you don’t know what the hell to do with that money, chances are your project will become expired ketchup vomit too.

Finally, once these are set in then you just go crazy including whatever your pizza loving heart desires: ham, mozzarella, salami, olives, veggies – whatever to make it just right. The fun part in managing money is when you spend it, then see it come back; return should amount to cover up funds, and grow a percentage above this to foresee earnings. And this is the part where it gets tricky, because most game developers see return as profit without understanding this incoming money should, ideally go above the amount of money you spent in production – otherwise, without there is no financial growth, no rentability; you find yourself covering costs rather than investing.

Sadly, this is that one financial woe most game developers succumb to – not understanding you need above funding costs to strive financially and foresee their creative input as a business. I keep seeing crowdfunding budgeting plans that don’t even include Marketing, or simply people that take up their lifetime savings and spend five years through development (without a single source of income), then complain to the world how comes it didn’t sell well with shiny articles / postmortems like “Indie Apocalypse” or “Steam sucks” making one last desperate attempt for sales. Truth is you could thrive with small budgets, and even if your games won’t sell 500k copies you can still profit from 100k copies – only if understand the time value of money. This is now when we cook the pizza, depending on all the hundreds of things you’ve got on it, and the capacity of your oven, you should eye at first how it grows and cooks closely. The money you’ve got today is worth more than the money you might have tomorrow; there’s inflation, risk, compound interests, there are so many variables that come into place when pooling money over time, which is why the ability to put that together matters just as much as the time you keep it dormant - because it loses value over time. Reason why crowdfunding projects run out of funds over time, even if they are over funded, costs go up each year; so it is virtually less money over time; also why taking lifetime savings and over extending development times makes the return curve so unforgivable to open up to any profit. And this is without taking in consideration any political or economic legal technicality that might come along per countries through the years, too. Unfair as it is, even currency devaluation will make your money worth much less overnight.

Pizzas are fun to make, they are fantastic from the standpoint that you can make whatever you want with it. From a heart attack on dough, or veggie delight - it is up to you. Finances are the compass of business, you grow as your capital grows, you can spend as much as liquidity allows, you can diversify as return allows it, and you have to cut back as much as debt creeps in. The moment you stop identifying money as a problem, and realize it’s a responsibility to follow through, is the day we will see more longevity in talent. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either.

How we convey information is important. Act like a Rockstar, or be one - there's a difference and it matters.

Cupcakes are fantastic. In fact, most of everyone is fond of pastries and sweets. It doesn’t matter how much you love them, though, chances are you would prefer to have them done for you rather than make them yourself; maybe because of time or money, instant gratification is our biggest commodity these days. We spend hours trying to make something as similar as the idea we were sold into; sadly, one of the most fascinating disappointments while learning how to bake, is that things will always looks better in a photo perfect setting rather than on your messy table.

All these things have a direct impact on the experience how you enjoy food. From smells, to visuals, these things come together as part of the satisfaction of good food. Perhaps, reason why restaurants understand their location and physical assets as parts of the benefits offered, including service.

This bleeds into every other human experience we have, especially business. Most of the time we concentrate in what we do, just not how we do it - and that might be the culprit of why things rarely ever work out the way they should.

Taking a close look into how indie developers look at promotion, there are many that describe their own public interaction as “marketing spam”. Taking in consideration developers need gamers in order to build a business, if you think what you’re doing is generic and without value – how else do you think anyone else would get to see it too? If it means nothing to you, it will mean nothing to everyone else. Social Media is a wonderful tool for indie game developers, it provides access to networks of thousands of people out there, without having the convoluted (and sometimes expensive) woes of PR. It gives you no buffer between your idea and someone who can actually buy onto that idea – just because of what window of opportunity you just created.   

That sounds lovely on text, yet so much gets lost in practice. When I recommend developers to promote their content, all they do is tweet sales links; when I recommend them to not become a link feed and try engaging, then they approach their audience as employed fans requesting things as if they were paid lemmings. Still better than not posting anything, but not exactly what it should be. Thinking you are meant to be given attention to, without understanding you need to earn it first, is what I call the Rockstar Malady.

Let’s think of this scenario: you randomly run into a new artist song and you enjoy it, but that’s about it. That’s as much as you know of that one particular artist, not only they are new, but that you have no idea of their entire work. Do you immediately call yourself a fan? Now, if you’ve followed an artist for almost a decade, they’ve got more than one hit song, then you are most likely one of many fans. This is the exact same mental fog many indies go through, not everyone who follows is fan, but friends and kind strangers that want nothing but support you at first – especially when your game is not even out yet. Even if you have up to two, or three games out, you’re still working through earning trust, don’t assume you are already loved. Which is why the cupcake analogy comes into place: people love cupcakes, yes, but I doubt anyone would love them thrown and smeared on their face. How you build your community will be deeply connected in how you talk to them, and understanding how much they actually mean to you.

When building a community it is important to keep present the concept of friendship, an interpersonal bond which clearly sets up for a long term experience. You may not be able to interact with everyone one on one, but you can create your own way and pace to communicate – the important is that you do. If you do it right, years after these lovely people become family. Without them, you have no business at all.