Indie Beginning
Who Am I
My name is Marc Uberstein, what do I want to do? I want to make games for a living.
I am an indie developer who started Guinea Pixel a few months ago. My dream is to create games, make enough money and going solo. Just imagine… it would be the best feeling in the world waking up every morning knowing that you have finally achieved a childhood dream, getting dressed and walking into your own funky and exciting office full of talented people. Have you ever watched “Jobs” the movie, you know that scene when he walks into his office building and everybody is clapping their hands, that is what I am craving! 🙂 A feel of ultimate achievement, success and accomplishment.
Obviously everybody starts at the beginning, having great ideas, thinking of making millions with 1 “great” idea… but in reality that seldom happens.
My First Experience
So after working 6 months after hours straight, learning how Unity3D works, destroying a relationship, spending all my extra extra money on assets, eating junk food, barely sleeping – I finally managed to launch my first game, Bullet Time Bob.
After the “BIG” launch of my new game I expected the world to throw their cash and I will be successful. What a big surprise I had… I had a little under a 100 downloads. I had to spend cash on random marketing schemes, adding my game to random “no so popular” sites..coz it’s cheap…but nothing actually worked. I realized I had no marketing plan, no community, I had no “house” where people could check out progress, nothing nothing nothing.
So what do I do? Where do I go from here?
I started chatting to existing game creators, which steps they took, how they launch a game with the correct marketing steps, how unique visuals can make or break a game, how a unique game-play mechanic is executed etc.
A quick overview of steps I took in the right direction
- Revamped my website for potential players/users to easily access my games.
- Start posting Concepts and Games In Progress content – not only on my site, but on all major social networks e.g. Facebook and Twitter
- Joined a community, Make Games SA, where other experienced developers can comment, give suggestions and improve my game concepts.
- Go to actual meetings – introduce yourself, talk about your games, show your games, take criticism and use it to your advantage.
- Use the right tools e.g. if you want a proper design, get a designer to do it (if you can’t design), same for Audio and Development. (In my case I am a developer so getting a designer and DJ really works magic)
- Keep your “followers” interested by keeping them updated – don’t be scared of posting, ask questions, the more users communicate the better.
- Newsletter – build a client base, if you do the above correctly this will happen automatically – once you launch a game let your users know.
- Always put in the extra mile – never settle for second best, if you want to create your super idea, don’t do it half way and publish it anyway…that will never work.
After 1 and a half months of following some sort of structure, my first game reached almost 10,000 downloads 🙂 .. I’m not saying Bullet Time Bob is the best game in the world, but it’s an amazing feeling to know that almost 10,000 people clicked download and played my game across the world.
Hope this will help someone out there in the big world of the interwebs and gave you a little more insight on how I started and all the complications and positives involved.
