Write a brief overview of the process Matthew took?
To begin Matthew quit his job then took out his savings and then got a second mortgage to help fund his first indie game 1849 which as a city builder and simulation type game. April 2013 he and his colleagues quit there jobs after years of planning, after they then though about how much money they have and how long they can last before having to go and get new jobs. They also thought about how to make their first game be their last. They looked at their ideas and realised they wouldn't be able to make the game that they want in a year so they re-evaluated that idea to fit within their given time frame. Using a method called Swag scheduling which stands for "Stupid Wild Ass Guesses" in which you break tasks down to a week or larger and go with gut feelings, annotate with costs and benefits also multiply by relative risks where you build time into your schedule so if you don't know what to do or how to do it you can have some time to learn. Swag scheduling involves a process called butchery where they had to remove elements of the game as they would take to much time which they did not have. After the butchery process was risk management which was staying with the technology which they knew and not risking learning unity to develop this project under a 12 month time crunch. Contract work was the next step in his process and he made sure to hire carefully and he understood that using contract workers is very different to dealing with co workers as if they mess around its your time and money being wasted. After 9 months of work they begun self promoting and trying to build a community and starting a dev blog. They started doing press outreach and PR to using the elevator pitch that they were working on to help sell people on the game. Using indiegamestand to host the games early access and green light. Then was a multi-platform launch to reach people and 20% of their profits were from steam and they got featured on the apple store. Post release usings ads were key, listening to fan like introducing trading cards for steam and they personalised the game for Germany and France. Now they are working on a second game with a 2 time frame.
What was his biggest challenge?
Time management- Having to do everything from making the game to publishing it and everything in between
Money-Making sure that the money they had saved would be enough to last them development and publishing
Cross platform pricing- This was difficult as having to value their game on PC and on Mobile as they are two very different platforms where selling a game for £14.99 on PC is fine but it doesn't work on a mobile market.
losing the buzz after the first week
What was the key to his success?
Risk management- Sticking to what they knew and not using new untested tools in development.
Contract work- He knew the difference between co workers and contract workers and if contractors waste time they waste money
Building a community- Using social media to generate engagement
Email list- Using a mailing list to notify people who signed up so they can keep updated.
Screen shot saturday- This helped create engagement and actually showed off the game to people.
Not including other games in pitch- As this draws focus to other things/games and draws it away from your product.
Understand who controls your genre- Meeting with and promoting with people who are well know people in your genre.
Using real media- Like radio places and news papers in local areas where the game is set so local people gain interest.
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