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How to Make and Self-Publish a Game in 12 Months
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- Published on Jan 3, 2017 veröffentlicht
- This GDC 2015 talk goes over the path SomaSim's Matthew Viglione took when he decided to make and self-publish his own game in the span of a year.
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Amazing talk, learned a ton, will be rewatching it again when we are closer to our first release to remind myself about some of the topics. Thanks!
Game Soup what game are you guys launching?
Oh hey - it's the dudes
Game Soup hey, it's game soup!
I think the #1 justification you can give for a differential pricing between PC and Mobile is the relative size of the install bases. Steam reportedly has 95 million MAU, while there are reportedly 728 million iphones in use today and 2.5 billion android phones. Yes, the game might cost 1/10 the price, but the size of the potential audience is much larger.
Really wish he mentioned the total unit sales of 1849, not seeing actual data on a multi year long venture (savings into game development) is rather important. The biggest hint we got with regards to this is when he said, "if we didn't have the extra sales from Android or iOS then we wouldn't have continued to make indy games" or some shit along those lines.
Data like that is objectively important for people who see their selves in a relatively similar frame of reference (just graduated with Marketing degree). Some of the smaller marketing tid bits (ie: just talk to everyone approach) is something I figured and was assured by, but mentioning the fruits of said investment is relatively important. The strongest knowledge learned here not found in other GDC talks is with regards to the pros/cons of game expo's, which I hadn't thought of before.
Regardless, the content that we got was a worthwhile read. Thanks
If your wondering they made about $60,000 each plus a bit extra for the company.
+doctormellow Yeah sounds about right for a $15 dollar game like this. Speaking that that's technically over the course of two years and they released this talk in 2015, yeah mobile definitely saved them.
I appreciated this talk, very concrete and actionable advice. Thank you.
numgun Going through all the GDC talks too? I'm having a great time with these
just stumbled across this GDC channel...loving it. another great video.
That composer should not have been doing some shameless self promoting. The guys is like "if you have any questions about my game you can ask them and ill try my best to answer them" and shes like" so im a composer and if any of you want some music for your game ill be staying in this room" you can also see how the whole crowd looks back at her like wtf are you doing XD
These conferences exist for marketing and professional networking, so you have to expect people to slip their pitch into conversations, but yes sometimes they can be pretty cringe and enter "what if everyone did that?" territory. A more tactful approach would be like, "I'm so-and-so, aiming to be a freelance composer for games. Thank you for the informative talk. I was curious, [substantive question here]?"
@MC There are thousands of brilliant composers out there willing to do work on games, many times for free and yeah most people who aren't already in the industry and can't refer to previous work struggle to get a foot in the door. I know quite a few who dream of doing sound design and composing for a quality game, most of them end up as music teachers or doing some menial job.
Work definitely doesn't just come to us even if we can produce pieces of the same quality or better than a lot that pop up in the game industry.
That said it felt embarrasing to hear someone shamelessly plug themselves like that, personally I'd rather just stick to making music for my buddy's projects that never get completed rather than being that needy. But then again, I am still working my day job and that lady may well be doing what she likes professionally at this point, who knows.
@DustyLynx Any chance you will come back and reflect some more upon your comment :)?
@MC If you're really lucky, life is going to throw your words back at you one day. And if you're even luckier, that will be a growth moment for you.
@DustyLynx No to harsh. She would have work if she was good at her job. She's not, and she shouldn't be abusing the platform for a shameless plug. It's just embarrassing.
Very solid talk covering a lot of interesting topics. Nice one :D
Terrific talk, a lot to learn as an indie.
Amazing talk! very informative. Thank you very much! :)
I'm gonna go buy his game just to pay him for this great talk - plus it looks fun.
Very nice talk, here is the video layout..
=======================
02:08 Talk outline
02:24 Section One - Preparation
04:47 Butchery features
07:00 Section two: Self-Marketing
07:40 Building community
09:43 Press outreach + PR
14:43 Section three: Self-Publishing
18:15 The revenue summary
20:45 The tale of the tail
25:30 Q&A
=======================================================
We are yolostudiogame - an indie game studio with two members.
We are seriously learning about the game industry.
So we tweet a GDC video summary every Tuesday.
Happy making game, everyone!
What a journey you have to take to become a game dev. Great talk
About to release a VR game and this has some stuff i didnt know that i wish i did when i released my last mobile game. Cheers for this gdc
Great talk! Thank you, puts a lot of things in prospective
Wow, the end was priceless! I just found out you guys developed Project Highrise, one of the most played games on my steam account! Cheers! :D
Nice Video, I realized at the end of your presentation I met you at Pax West 2016 and played project Highrise. Bought the game after and loved it. It was a little odd to do a simulation game demo at pax, but loved the idea of scheduling a time to play that you did.
Great talk! Did watch it twice - once before and again after starting to work on a serious project - and I earned valuable things twice :)
It's amazing to me how when you pick some video about game development off your Clip-Share suggestions, and the developer says "hey this is the game we made," it is somehow REALLY REALLY EXCITING to realise you have totally bought and played that game.
It doesn't really matter if you liked it (according to Steam, I played it for 51 minutes, which suggests I was not THAT big a fan). Or even if you remember it; I mean come on, I buy upwards of a hundred games a year, I can't remember all of them. What matters is that you are in some way CONNECTED to this person on the stage, so their entire talk is in turn connected to you and becomes more relevant for no rational reason at all.
Kind of the way I immediately like this developer more because he's Italian. Does that really matter? No. But my dad's Italian, so "I'm like your dad" matters for some reason.
I'm a game music composer, but I intend to learn more about the "game world" in general. Keep it up, everyone!
Amazingly helpful talk. Love this!!
We love tycoon games and simulations in Germany and the market is big compared to other countries in Europe. So an early localization is always a good idea. imho
Trust me the meme is real we know
Yeah you can outsource translations to fans too, Matt Roszak does that and gets like 10 translations for free on his games (just gives them a free copy)
Years later, this is an inspiration. Thanks a lot for this!
Good content. Thanks for sharing. Germans love simulation games, as far as I can tell - this type of game has quite a history in our country. So you did really well with your decision targeting german players with i18n.
There was just one problem with 1849. It was way too simplified, to the point where I bought the game, loaded it up, played 1.8 hours of freeplay, saw everything the game had to show me, then refunded it because I couldn't see any replay value in it.
The first rule of making a game is that a half-decent player shouldn't be able to blaze through it within the refund period.
Or atleast have an amazing time doing it.
Good point, thx.
It may have taken him 12 months to develop, but what he doesn't tell you is that he spent like 4 years saving to start. So, it's more like how to do it in 5+ years. Unless you're blessed enough to have a large amount of cash already.
you could also do it as a part time job work on it for 2 years instead of 1, and that way you don't need to save up for 4 years (maybe just 1 as a safety check) but I don't really know how efficent or tiring that is.
Well, he kinda did say that.
Almost 4 years later and I'm still working on my game, but it is a 100% solo endeavor. Thought about hiring an artist due to the amount of animations but I'm in no rush and I do enjoy it. Good talk but most of this has been covered in other talks I've watched.
@LtVax27 personally I have no idea who are those 8 people. I wish you luck and durability to survive everything, that 2020 has already brought to us)
@Queen Elizabeth Thought you were a fake EA channel then I saw the 8 subs and realized it's real. Was doing alright until the world went sideways.
So? Where are you after 2-3 years? Any success?
What kind of artists? I actually would love to help out with environment/character/prop concept designs if you’re still looking for people. Lol
Anything to show me so far? We are doing a similar thing, and I know some good ways to get sustainable artists for your work ;)
I'm a one man "team", I have experience with various programming language and art. I might get someone to make music for me and get some voice actors to voice the game or at least the cutscenes. I can only work on my game in my free time. I'm planning this game and forming it since 2011-2012 and I refuse to give on my idea! So far I only have plans, didn't start to work on it in the past 8 years but I definitely want to make it.
Good luck bro!
Totally superb video ! Amazingly brilliant info's .. Thanks :)
Great point about not going to investors if you can help it. It's likely you'll build the game they want - it's investment not cookie cutter clones we're looking for on our own Project Ardent.
Very informative. Thank you!
As someone who is developing a game totally unfunded, this is helpful, thanks!
I'm convinced keeping the actual game secret until it's really ready to show is the best way to go about it, so I'm sadly stuck working with no one to talk to, or about my game with. @_@ I thinks channel may be one of my new best friends!
I wish it was simple for me. I had to become a care giver I stopped making music and didn't even get to start the basic. Anyone I know wouldn't do this so 😔
Not until the end... Project Highrise that I was playing!? Wow! To me, those are really great (and seem the sales are good too). Congratulations!
Simple question, I know nobody wants to share. Was it worth it? Should you have kept your day job and work part-time? Did your profit exceed your old job salary?
Lots of great small points, but holy crap does their studio have great leadership. People who actually want to plan, are creative in using social media and smaller avenues, and who have connections.
Awesome Seminar, a lot of great info ......Thanks
Concise and informative ;)!
Thanks for putting this up. Learned a lot. Hope I can project it to my own process.
for total beginners this really helpful insight
I dont usually rate videos, but this one was fantastic.
I seem to keep looping back around and end up watching this talk about every 6 months. Which I'm okay with, good talk.
I was laughing most of the time. Dont get why the audience was so solemn.
Awesome, we will share it on our social media if you won't mind!
When I was developing I used SWAG and didn't even know it. When my boss asked how long something would take, I made a guess, doubled it and that's what I told my boss. I was right most of the time... No idea why that worked...
That's what I always said about mobile games - no reason to port them, because price never equals efforts.
Really helpful talk.
What are some ways to get featured on mobile? Besides the good quality of the game, is it just luck? Can developers do anything to get one's game featured on appstore?
you say getting that extra 40% market exposure on mobile is the difference between making a second game and not, but isn't there a significant cost to porting games including not just code but assets too? I assume then the margin is there but...
how to get divorce in 12 months and marry
your computer
Bahahaha!!!
@AleK No such thing. 😂
lol at the composer rudely plugging herself during your conference!!! :( What a world. It's all about having a good developing crew already in place. I haven't played 1849 yet because I'm working hard to produce my own game, but I'm sure my path will not be the same. You did give out some very helpful advice and thanks for that.
His sip of water is the stock gulp sound from every game you can drink in.
@Giraffe FlavoredCondoms thanks!
23:15 for the curious (assuming you meant this one on this 2 year old comment lol)
GDC audiences are one of the toughest crowds I’ve ever seen
Wow. Those guys are the Project highrise guys?? That's cool. Had no idea they made it.
Thank you, this was really good
"Are you ready for Lodes of Fun??" [sips water]
I laughed
Sparky0350 that happens to me alpt
"bad" puns are always the best
Haha, I read this comment the same time Matthew said it. It was creepy for a moment.
huhuhuh. loads. man loads.
at 25:03 is when I 100% knew to trust these guys cause I already had project highrise and I love it!
Suddenly he has a team with his story? How long is it going to take me to make an indi game???
I've never heard anyone explain Reddit better in my life.
Post about your game on one subreddit, get tons of likes and interest and people complimenting your game... Post about your game on another subreddit and get people telling you to screw off and advertise elsewhere.
What amazes me is when indie game subreddits ban people from advertising their game... like if any place should understand the struggle indie developers face in getting their game out there, it should be indie game subreddits.
16 minutes in.. great talk so far
You could add games they are talking about, their studios too, into description.
He is honest, helping others. But the world is not good as the end time is already here.
The response from the Reddit mod was immature and stupid, but it's not surprising as most forum mods act like they are some kind of gatekeeper. I guess living in a basement kind of make some people vindictive and they need a way to lash out. I'm almost certain people would choose cancer than be friends with forum mods.
majority of reddit mods are 15
You dont know exactly what he posted. Most of the time, reddit will remove self-promotion
Self-promotion is often not going to be welcome on reddit, because they get spammed by people hyping their new game/app/whatever all day, every day.
For all we know he was posting on a subreddit that was still under construction.
"We knew how to use Flash with our eyes closed, blindfolded, in the dark"
Triple redundancy eye closing.
Using a USB steering wheel. Isn't even connected. His brother was doing the coding.
@Daniel Schroedinger
α Don't you overthink?
β More things should be deleted
@UltiMaxKom
I Was it a joke? I don't think so.
II The comment by zissler, that I was referring to doesn't show up for me anymore. Was it deleted?
@Daniel Schroedinger
1. It's just a joke, no need to be so aggro about it.
2. I prefer number dot over letter bracket listing, or just none.
@zissler
a) No need to be so aggro about it
b) He wanted to emphasise that they knew flash very well and did so by claiming they could operate it under adverse conditions. Giving multiple examples for the same condition does not aid his point. Could have instead said something like: "eyes closed, one handed and drunk."
thanks man. great talk
To add here. 5:27 if you are solo developer. Stop building your own game engine. It will take more time than what your savings can afford to till.
@MXSKED ACE Not everyone can do everything. Few can. Whether you want to make and bake your own cake or buy pre-made cake. Nothing stupid about either way. But when you make your own cake you learn a skill. Few people value skills.
24:43 Yeah guys, make a french version of your games. Why ? I'm a Canadian developer, we have a couple government help to push game development here and so far it works. Montreal is one of the places where big games are made. But canada also speaks french, meaning a lot of those government help come at the condition of a french translation. That' all cool for french Canadians, but it also means French from France are used to have their game translated in french, so they play games in french. Not having a french translation can mean the french wont by your game at all.
Think of it like buying a game not in english, you probably wont buy it.
FTL needs to be on the Switch!!!
Of course this game sells in Germany, 1849 looks really similar to Anno 1404, which is a popular game made there.
How to make and publish a game in a year: have connections and pay people to do the legal shit
I like these post-mortems. Thank you.
People in germany love these type of simulations, look at settlers and anno
Project Highrise is mad addicting though. Sim Tower for the new generation.
I have 5 dollars and can type "hello world" to command prompt. How long will it take me to make a game?
@Remi George I feel you. Am at 8 month and 700 hours for my bordgame and will need around 2000 more before even thinking to plan a kickstarter campaign 😅 to be honest, If gamedesign isnt fun to the developer I wouldnt recommend to do it - at least no boardgame. It most likely wont pay off If youre in for the coin
@GreedAndSelfishness how did your game dev journey develop after this comment?
One day, take it or leave it
you've already made one bucko
let say 2 weeks. We just did it. We went for Unity because they have tons of tutorials and materials (and they were the first result in google). We say let see if they are here for a reason, 2 weeks later we published our first game on their website. It's a derivative game from their tutorial but it's made by us, we decided the levels, the enemies, the game mechanics, we introduced the records so you can put your name on a public board (not yet visible though but will come in a couple of days). We play it and change it when we find it frustrating and we are learning tons and tons of new things. It's amazing the amount of free assets you have in their store. Really, you can have it in 2 weeks.
Any idea how old Matthew Viglione is? I'm guessing mid to late 30's but could be wrong? Just trying to find out as I'm a developer myself and wanting to do something very similar.
i love this guy.
God bless. The technical part of programming is so taxing
Just sayin if your community allows it, opt for gifs instead of screenshots. People like moving images.
Congratulations on your successful #1!
looking back it made me feel hopeful, but my game tanked. :(
Tough crowd, he was a pretty good and funny talker... ;P
GDC public is usually like that, I'm binging thia channel and there are a lot of funny moments where the audience does nothing. The videos ar pure gold tought
Seriously the gdc talks are so great and the crowds are sooooo dry
@airpoint Not everyone is a fantastic public speaker, but you don't have to be one to be able to have an interesting talk. This guy is doing that thing many people want to achieve. He is there talking about his experience. Was he the most amazing public speaker ever? No. Was it a talk worth hearing? Hell yes.
Check out some other talks, obvious jokes tend to not get a laugh. These recordings are obviously edited to focus on the talk, not the crowd.
No microphone for the crowd ...unfortunately
Is the miner rotoscoped from that guy in princess mononoke or are they only vaguely similar?
What game engine did he say they built the game in?
Just in flash, I think he said, because they all knew it so well, even if Unity was kicking off proper around that time.
MrSensitiveNipples gave yu Thumbs up 4 the fantastic nickname
I know it'd be a lot closer to 20 than 15 but not making the game cost 18.49$ seems like wasted potential to me.
excellent video.
But wasn't Fallout Shelter on Mobile first than PC?
Yeah, but it was a 'Hey, you like the Fallout series?' Here's a mobile game for an on the go fix. It initially wasn't as good as it is now. The wasteland quests are the best addition, IMO at least. Since it wasn't that great in the beginning, why would someone waste time playing it in PC or console when that meant not playing Fallout 4 (New Vegas for me)? Once it got good, it only made to offer it on Windows as an App. You have to keep in mind now Touch Screen laptops and desktop monitors are common and it is much easier to port from Mobile to PC because you don't have to take away features, so why not port when you can and have another revenue stream.
Interesting video :)
I would like a Steam key :)
Can't believe there's a game that features my hometown of Placerville. Purchased.
The SWAG bit reminds me of game dev tycoon.
1849, i got the game, i loved the old type of games like this but 1849 is not coming even close to it.
Personality rn I have no reason to make it monitized the only way I'm going to price it is if it blows up of it does blow up I will charge 5.99 for dlc with a extra 40 missions my goal is to start making it soon maybe this year or next year but it's pretty ambitious for a first game
Your 12 months is my eternity
"Mobile pricing sucks nuts" lol so true, people spend so much on the phones/tablets but too cheap to pay for a quality game.
@Mircea Dogaru too bad all that stuff fucking sucks
That's why ads, ad rewards and micro-transactions are the way to go for mobile :)
Funny, I'm selling my game for $10 on mobile and it sells really well :0
Ah, you're that /pol/ incel type of game dev. Nice tweets about women and immigrants. Btw, was the "This just proves women dont have the nerves to be a ceo :)" a "coming out" tweet? Were you announcing that you are trans?
What game?
Why not just leave mobile gamers in the dark and force them to buy it on PC?
I couldn't imagine a simulation building game being very good on a phone. Or any game for that matter.
Look at all the experts in the comments. Where are your successfully released games?
2015, when you could dump games on Greenlight.
Indie Game Stand is gone, kaput, finito! Does anyone know if there are any good alternatives to Indie Game Stand for beta/greenlight distribution?
@15:25 Is there anyone here that can e-mail this part to Microsoft?!?! They need to hear this so badly....
Do us all a favor and don't self publish your shitty games to steam. I'm tired of the garbage developers thinking they're the next minecraft. If I had a dollar for every game i see with purchased assets from the unity store, gamemaker or rpg maker...
I fookin' love Tigsource!
The 1849 game isn't compatible with Android 8.0 for some reason.