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When investing the usual advice seems to be to do just as you said, "spreading the risk around". So, it makes sense in the business of video games to do the same. Another few things to add is that if you can make a simple demo you can probably make a bigger version, have a demo most people can play and might find a better platform for your next project.
One last thing: It would be interesting to see if the results of the Push Button Engine could be used in other flash projects like Metaplace, a flash based virtual world program/project. I'm wondering because of another blog post I read that talked about Metaplace. http://learninggames.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/u...
My take on his circumstance is that he spent too much time and money on the project, the game is too expensive, and the game is puzzle game (with little wiggle room for other categories) which means that he's competing in the most high competition space on the App Store. He should have developed this game in a single month and tested the waters at $0.99. More than likely he would not have found success though due to the steep odds associated with a match-3 puzzler (whether it contains micro innovations or not, it looks like a straight up match-3). This sort of game is what you should use as a first project just to get your feet wet. Owen went head first into the deep end.
As a side note, I definitely feel for him though. As such I talked to Arnold Kim at TouchArcade and he's thinking of giving the lite version some coverage.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90154...
Indie Startup Lesson #2: Don't spend too much money
I've screwed up number one. I would have probably screwed up number two if I had any to do it with.
I think lots of aspiring game developers get these wrong. Perhaps it's because we're generally pretty terrific at what we do (usually: programming) and we think "hey the business stuff can't be all that hard".
It looks like Owen is in the process of learning these lessons now. Hopefully he's still got enough "juice" left in him to keep rolling afterwards.
(I think I have Lessons 1 and 2 hacked. I'm still working on "the business stuff" - check out my website.)
@ Jeff: While I think this blog entry is a neat way of plugging your engine - as you say - I think that chances are a cross-platform approach would not have saved Owen.
I myself wonder if, given the choice between having another basket in the form of "another platform" and another basket as "another game" ideally in "another genre", which has the best risk/cost/reward ratio. Without the benefit of a fancy engine (like, say, yours), I'd be inclined to put my eggs in the different-game basket.
Cheers,
- Andrew Russell
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/...
where 2$ is probably 19.99$ which is the "i dont have anything to lose by buying this game
One thing I want to hear more about is the business plan for these broad games. If you start with a free flash game will Mochi Ads ( $0.35 CPM) be your only form of revenue initially? How long do you think people should spend developing that freebie. What numbers justify a heavy client and how much should that cost. Do you recommend creating the iPhone client and free client simultaneously and does the strategy revolve around a light client on the PC and iPhone for example or would the iPhone be considered a heavy client?
Obviously, people can do whatever they want. I want to know your take on the situation personally though. If you had a $500 - $1,000 game budget (assume you already have the tools) how would you execute a PBE project? How could you make that back in the first day or first week?
If you have followed my advice of finding like minded people to team up with you to make games, then you don't really have a budget. You have a programmer and an artist that are both part of a team. If you need to make a living, you should have some form of steady income "day job" that will pay the bills while trying to build up your multiple streams of game income.
I certainly don't have exact answers to any of these questions. My advice all comes down to my ways of combating falling prices and rising competition. It is very difficult to put actual numbers to these types of ideas. I do think that a budget of $500-1,000 is way too low. I can't imagine making something good enough for people to pay for with that kind of a budget.
I would always release the free version first and try to find an audience, the figure out how to convert a small part of that audience to paying for something. In our case, we will have a free version and a for pay High Definition version (as well as some other bells and whistles, but you will have to wait to see all of it). The free versions are your marketing.