Comments on: Here’s One Reason Why People Won’t Buy Indie Games (Part 1)

By: Oliver

Oliver — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:59:35 +0000

@Bayger: I’d say that guy is more successful than people who don’t do marketing at all until their game is “done”.

a. He can get early feedback and get improve his game in the right areas
and b. He can build momentum that he can leverage when the game is “done”.

Especially the momentum part is important. My point is, if you want to make a business out of this, you shouldn’t be afraid to produce “failures” and be embarrassed about a shitty product. Even if the game sucks and nobody wants it because it’s unplayable.. he still learned a great deal from it. :)

By: Juuso

Juuso — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:19:48 +0000

I’ll make another blog post about this.

By: Bayger

Bayger — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:51:21 +0000

I know one person who does a lot of marketing and is developing a game that is unplayable. :P This is the opposite situation. But yes, without marketing you sell [almost] nothing.

By: Jake Birkett

Jake Birkett — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:58:06 +0000

Yeah you need to add finish the game to the end of the list.

The other night I did a talk for Game Design students at the Vancouver Film School and I showed a slide that said “A good game will sell itself” and asked them who believed that, and some people put their hands up. Then I told them it was bullshit and inserted the word “NOT” into the sentence :-) Either learn marketing yourself, or hire someone to do it, or use a publisher, or sell via a portal. Marketing needs to be a big part of the financial and time budget of a game if it is to succeed.

By: Krystian Majewski

Krystian Majewski — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:29:57 +0000

There is nothing wrong with this plan. Game Development is just fracking difficult as it is. So most Indie Game developers will never actually get a product out. They fail trying to manage all the 7000+ other things required to get at least one game out. What do you suggest? Doing Marketing is not really effective if you haven’t got a product.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:23:53 +0000

No problemo. Spotted that in indiegamer

By: Ryan Fox

Ryan Fox — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:18:24 +0000

Actually, I hadn’t seen that. Thanks for the link!

By: Juuso

Juuso — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:56:31 +0000

@Steven: yep yep.. @Ryan: There's my correct answer (you've seen this btw? :)) @Jim :)

By: Jim Perry

Jim Perry — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:53:06 +0000

“What’s wrong with this plan?”

Umm, scope creep?!? :D

By: Ryan Fox

Ryan Fox — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:51:24 +0000

The problem is that they’re not targeting Linux! :P