You probably shouldn't think that you can get your indie game done in a year, release, and ramp up revenue so fast that you'll soon be self-sustaining. Sounds obvious, but most guys starting out actually believe that there's a chance of it playing out like this. Starry-eyed optimism is probably a precondition for going anywhere near this business in the first place, but it must be tempered and kept in check at all times.
If you are building a game of substance (rather than a simple puzzler/platformer mobile app - which is a lottery ticket more than a business model), the game will likely take way longer to develop. As it should. Good games take time. This means that you should either be very well-funded, or have extremely low costs of living, or be working on the side of another income (in which case it will take even longer). This is not the way to instant riches, but since when did that ever work? Double down, dig your heels in, this will take years. But the end result is an awesome game.
Further to the point, you should probably not think in terms of the release that ends the project and where all your efforts either pay off or fall flat. Instead, the game should be put in front of users continually, gathering feedback, going back to the lab to improve it and repeating the cycle until momentum starts to pick up. That's when you know that you are near the final shape of the game. Don't even think about talking to the press before this. Luckily, if there is one community that is ready to try new things at any and all times it is gamers, so you shouldn't have much trouble getting this feedback. (Conversely, if even the ravenous internet hordes are indifferent to your project, you might need to tweak the formula).
While a long and hard road, a game developed this way actually stands a chance of success in the market, unlike the 'overnight success' stories that play well in the press.
> you should probably not think in terms of the release that ends the project
Yes. I want to stress this some more. I know several people who are/were working on big ambitious projects in a kind of stealth mode, citing concerns that their idea will be stolen, or emphasizing that it isn't "ready yet". I suspect this is usually rationalizing a fear of criticism.
A single-person personal project shouldn't be worked on in isolation for more than a few months. You'll lose perspective. Feedback is extremely valuable. It'll help you grow your idea, and it'll help you abandon something that's not going anywhere. (The same probably goes for small teams.)
Reminds me of the story on how "Settlers of Catan" was created.
"Every once in a while, he would bring the new game upstairs to test it out on his family. They would play along, but Teuber could tell that the game wasn't working. Sometimes, in the middle of a match, he would notice his youngest son, Benny, reading a comic under the table. Other times his wife would suddenly remember a load of laundry that needed immediate attention. After each of these sessions, Teuber would haul the game back downstairs for further refinement. He repeated this process over the course of four years..."
That's the way to do it. Settlers of Cataan is a massively successful game, probably more than most videogames. Lots of lesson to take away from that article.
Do you have any advice on how to put it in front of users to get feedback? Friends are good for a while, but they're biased. Just go on IRC and ask a few folks?
Some friends host a games night, which I expect nets them a good number of testers.
You could also just go to a coffee shop. The pitch I'd try: "Hey, I'm making a game. If you try it for 5 minutes, I'll buy you another drink." If people keep playing beyond the minimum, you know you're getting somewhere.
Personally, I wouldn't use IRC much, because then I can't watch people in action. I don't make games, but I regularly watch people using software I've made. Their words may lie, but their expressions and actions usually tell the truth.
You might also have people try a few games, with only one of them being yours. People like to please, so you can just say, "Hey, I'm doing some market research on video games; would you try these?" If they don't know which one is yours, you may get much better answers.
Coffeeshop, Craigslist posting, take it to local game events (IGDA meetings/etc), contact local game schools and bring it there for testing (game schools are everywhere)...
The TIGSource forums (forums.tigsource.com) are a good place to get feedback online, and has sub forums dedicated to both playtesting and devlogs. Quite a few well known indie games (Minecraft, Fez, Cube World, Papers Please) first appeared on the TIGSource forums.
Depends entirely on the project, of course. But putting up demos, preferably as web pages, if that's not possible as a binary, tends to be a great way to show the world what you're doing. Open-source of course makes it easier (just throw it on github). Subreddits, irc, HN, and forums make great channels to get people to look at something. Another good approach, but that only works if you're near a big population center, is to find a relevant user group and do a talk there.
With some exceptions like Minecraft it seems that most games are basically developed in a vacuum with little user input (except maybe small groups under an NDA?).
I guess the reason is that gamers can be a fickle lot and there's a large risk that the game will be written off as crappy if you release a poor prototype.
This is probably more the case with games than other applications because the line between an unplayable game and a great game can be very slim indeed.
> I guess the reason is that gamers can be a fickle lot and there's a large risk that the game will be written off as crappy if you release a poor prototype.
You only need feedback from 15-20 people to get the gist of where you stand with the game. For that you don't need to release anything, just post a link on a forum and be sure to engage with the comments that follow.
You don't have to release it to the WORLD when you put it on a forum. For example, if it's web based, you can whitelist usernames/IPs. If it's a downloadable app, you can make it self destruct after a period of time or something so that people can't keep playing it.
If you've got slated at the beginning and it's had an impact on the web you could always change its name. Which is unlikely anyway as people just aren't going to care enough to do that.
Or start off with a codename if you've a name you're especially enamoured with and switch to the preferred name when you're starting to feel happy with it.
It's more because building a game of this kind is an intensely personal effort and developers have trouble seeing it as "ready" for others, plus, don't care about player feedback because it's not the players they're building for -- it's themselves.
I never worked on games and don't want to, but this question bugs me: what would it take to convince someone to invest in a gamedev effort? It just sounds like a very poor investment. If Alice and Bob are both willing to invest in their own pet projects, but not willing to invest in each other's, doesn't that mean one of them is provably irrational?
You probably shouldn't think that you can get your indie game done in a year, release, and ramp up revenue so fast that you'll soon be self-sustaining. Sounds obvious, but most guys starting out actually believe that there's a chance of it playing out like this. Starry-eyed optimism is probably a precondition for going anywhere near this business in the first place, but it must be tempered and kept in check at all times.
If you are building a game of substance (rather than a simple puzzler/platformer mobile app - which is a lottery ticket more than a business model), the game will likely take way longer to develop. As it should. Good games take time. This means that you should either be very well-funded, or have extremely low costs of living, or be working on the side of another income (in which case it will take even longer). This is not the way to instant riches, but since when did that ever work? Double down, dig your heels in, this will take years. But the end result is an awesome game.
Further to the point, you should probably not think in terms of the release that ends the project and where all your efforts either pay off or fall flat. Instead, the game should be put in front of users continually, gathering feedback, going back to the lab to improve it and repeating the cycle until momentum starts to pick up. That's when you know that you are near the final shape of the game. Don't even think about talking to the press before this. Luckily, if there is one community that is ready to try new things at any and all times it is gamers, so you shouldn't have much trouble getting this feedback. (Conversely, if even the ravenous internet hordes are indifferent to your project, you might need to tweak the formula).
While a long and hard road, a game developed this way actually stands a chance of success in the market, unlike the 'overnight success' stories that play well in the press.