10 Steps To Making a Successful Game
Summary
TLDRThis video outlines 10 steps to indie game success based on Vlad Marquis' book 'Game Dev.' It covers mindset, pre-production research, keeping expenses low, development basics, iterative design, not rushing releases, understanding business and law, marketing, and post-launch strategies. The story of Marquis' journey from Belarus to a successful game developer underscores the importance of action and responsibility.
Takeaways
- 🚀 The importance of mindset and taking action is emphasized, likening each action to a free lottery ticket that increases chances of success.
- 🔍 Pre-production involves extensive research on trends, competitors, and successful game strategies to set realistic expectations for your project.
- 💰 It's almost inevitable to spend some money on game development; the key is to keep expenses as low as possible to increase profitability.
- 🛠 Don't rush to quit your job; maintaining employment during the initial release phase can mitigate financial risks.
- 🎮 Familiarize yourself with game design basics and focus on one core mechanic to create a game that is easy to learn but difficult to master.
- 🔄 Use iterative design by prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining to improve the game continuously.
- 🕒 Patience is crucial in game development; don't rush the release and ensure the final product is polished and complete.
- 📚 As a game developer, you're also a business person, so understanding business and legal aspects is essential for success.
- 📢 Marketing and PR are vital; building a community on social media and providing value through entertainment or information is key to gaining followers.
- 📈 Learn to pitch your game effectively to publishers and the press with a concise and captivating description.
- 🌐 Consider both self-publishing and working with publishers, weighing the benefits and services each offers for your specific needs.
Q & A
What is the book 'Game Dev' by Vlad Marquis about?
-The book 'Game Dev' by Vlad Marquis is about the author's journey from a challenging personal background to creating a successful indie game called 'Dark'. It also provides steps and insights on how to make a first indie game successful.
What is the importance of mindset in game development according to the book?
-The book emphasizes the importance of mindset in game development by highlighting the idea that every action taken is like a free lottery ticket, increasing the chances of success. It encourages taking responsibility and not blaming circumstances.
Why is pre-production a crucial step in game development?
-Pre-production is crucial because it involves researching current trends, competitors, and understanding what works for other games and companies. This research helps in planning the scope, marketability, and core elements of your game, saving time and resources later on.
What advice does the book give regarding spending money on game development?
-The book advises to keep expenses as low as possible, as it's easier than raising money and makes it easier to achieve profitability. It also suggests considering various funding options like Patreon, grants, personal loans, crowdfunding, publishers, and investors.
Why is it recommended not to quit your job immediately when starting game development?
-It's recommended not to quit your job immediately because it's wise to have a stable income while you're in the early stages of game development. The book suggests keeping your job until the game is released and has proven to be profitable.
What is the iterative design process in game development?
-The iterative design process involves creating a quick prototype, testing it, analyzing its effectiveness, refining it, and repeating this cycle. It's a continuous loop of improvement based on feedback and testing.
Why is it important not to rush the release of a game?
-It's important not to rush the release because the final 10% of development can significantly impact the game's quality and success. Taking the time to polish and ensure everything works well can make the difference between a successful game and a failed one.
What role does a game developer play in the business aspect of game creation?
-A game developer also acts as a business person, needing to understand business and law basics. This includes registering a company, possibly getting a lawyer for legal agreements, and setting up contracts to prevent disputes.
How important is marketing and PR in the success of an indie game?
-Marketing and PR are crucial for an indie game's success. Building a community, especially on social media, providing value through entertainment or information, and creating compelling marketing materials are all essential for attracting and maintaining an audience.
What are some strategies for maintaining and increasing sales after a game's launch?
-Strategies include offering gradual discounts, updating the game, creating DLC, staying active on social media, entering competitions, giving away prizes, considering porting to other platforms, and possibly selling merchandise or creating bundles.
What should a game developer consider when planning their next game after launch?
-A game developer should consider leveraging the resources and audience they've built, using existing scripts or player bases, and building momentum to go faster with each new project without starting from scratch every time.
Outlines
🚀 Overcoming Adversity to Achieve Indie Game Success
The introduction tells the story of Vlad Marquis, the creator of the indie game 'Dark', who overcame significant personal and financial challenges to succeed in the gaming industry. Despite being born in poverty in Belarus, dealing with his parents' high-profile divorce, and suffering from severe stuttering, Vlad pursued a career in music in the United States, earning a full scholarship at Juilliard. Eventually, he shifted his focus to game development, leading to the creation of his first successful indie game within just three and a half years. His journey highlights the importance of mindset and taking proactive action in life, emphasizing that anyone can achieve their goals regardless of their circumstances. The paragraph concludes by encouraging aspiring game developers to research current trends, competitors, and budgets during the pre-production phase to set realistic expectations and plan effectively for their own projects.
💡 Effective Game Development and Marketing Strategies
The second paragraph discusses key strategies for game development and marketing. It highlights the importance of keeping expenses low to increase profitability and advises against quitting a job prematurely. The author suggests exploring funding options like Patreon, grants, crowdfunding, and publishers, but cautions to carefully evaluate publishing deals. Development should be enjoyable and focused on one core mechanic to ensure the game is easy to learn and difficult to master. Iterative design, involving prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining, is recommended. The paragraph emphasizes the need for business and legal knowledge, including setting up contracts and understanding marketing and PR. Building a community on social media by providing value is crucial, as is creating high-quality marketing materials like trailers. Effective pitching to publishers and the press is essential. Distribution, especially on PC, is relatively straightforward, but partnering with a publisher can offer additional services. However, self-publishing allows for more creative and business control. Finally, the paragraph advises against rushing the release and stresses the importance of preparing for launch with a strategic plan to maximize visibility and sales.
🗓️ Strategic Planning and Post-Launch Activities
This paragraph focuses on the steps needed for a successful game launch and post-launch activities. It emphasizes the importance of setting up a store page early to accumulate wishlists, especially on platforms like Steam, and advises against announcing a release date until the game is fully finished. The timing of the release should avoid major events like E3 or Steam sales. Prior preparation for launch day is crucial, including having marketing materials, social media posts, newsletters, and a detailed plan ready. Reaching out to the press about three weeks before launch and requesting an embargo can help maximize launch day traffic. Post-launch, developers should focus on addressing bugs, celebrating achievements, and remaining active in the community. Strategies for maintaining momentum include gradually increasing discounts, updating the game, releasing DLC, engaging on social media, and exploring opportunities like competitions, giveaways, and ports to other platforms. Developers should leverage existing resources for future projects and aim to build momentum creatively and commercially.
🧦 Engaging the Community with Humor and Incentives
The final paragraph takes a more lighthearted approach, discussing a 'sock reveal' promised by the content creator upon reaching a certain number of wishlists on Steam. This humorous incentive highlights the importance of engaging with the community and creating fun interactions to boost wishlist numbers. The paragraph concludes with the content creator teasing a 'garbage reveal' for a future wishlist milestone, emphasizing playful engagement with fans and encouraging more wishlists to reach the next goal.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Indie Game
💡Mindset
💡Pre-production
💡Scope
💡Iterative Design
💡Marketing
💡Prototyping
💡Business and Law
💡Community Building
💡Pitch
💡Post-Launch
Highlights
Importance of mindset and taking action in game development.
Vlad Marquis' background and motivation for creating the indie game 'Dark'.
The necessity of pre-production research for understanding market trends and competition.
Minimizing expenses to increase profitability in game development.
Advice on not rushing to quit a job during the early stages of game development.
Iterative design process in game development involving prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining.
The significance of not rushing the game release to ensure polish and quality.
Understanding business and legal aspects as a game developer.
Importance of building a community and marketing for a successful indie game.
Creating effective marketing materials like trailers and screenshots for game promotion.
Pitching a game effectively to publishers and the press.
Considerations for self-publishing versus working with a publisher.
Preparing for a game launch, including setting up a store page and managing release dates.
Strategies for post-launch activities to maintain momentum and sales.
Learning from the first game development experience to inform future projects.
The role of 'Game Dev' by Vlad Marquis as a valuable resource for beginners in game development.
Humorous sock reveal as a promise to the audience for reaching 10,000 Steam wish lists.
Transcripts
here are 10 steps to making your first
indie game successful based on this book
game dev by vlad marquis the creator of
the indie game dark if you're currently
working on your first game or if you
think about making one
keep watching because it's book summary
time
imagine being born in belarus surrounded
by poverty
being able to escape to poland without
knowing the language your parents end up
having a horrible divorce that makes
headlines in the local newspapers and
because of that you develop some severe
stuttering you are completely bankrupt
you can't put any food on the table you
have no heating in winter
because that is exactly the situation
ludd found himself in i think i've been
making games in easy mode all this time
holy hell that's
insane he decided he wanted to become a
music composer who went to the united
states
and managed to get a full scholarship at
the juilliard school which seems to be
one of the most prestigious
music schools in new york basically
there he started his career as a
musician and then eventually decided he
wanted to get into game dev without
knowing anything about game development
just three and a half years later he
released his first
successful indie game dark
[Music]
that story really shows the importance
of mindset
the most important thing about mindset
is taking action like every action you
take works like a free lottery ticket
the more lottery tickets you have the
bigger your chances of winning you need
to take responsibility of your life you
need to stop the excuses
don't blame your circumstances if blood
managed to do it so can you once you're
ready to start making games the first
step
is pre-production that is the point
where you put in a lot of
effort to research what are current
trends what are your competitors doing
look up some other games
some other companies like what works for
them how many people worked on each game
what was the budget for their games that
should give you a rough idea for what to
expect for your own projects there are
so many things to think about like the
scope of your game the marketability the
hook
is the something people will want to
share what is the core emotion of your
game how long do you want to be the
genre what are your personal strengths
in other words think and do your
research before you get started it will
save you a lot of time later on
unfortunately it's almost impossible to
make a game without spending any sort of
money you'll almost definitely have to
spend at
least a little bit of money the best
thing you can do is to keep your
expenses as low as possible because that
is easier than raising money and also it
will make it easier to
make a profitable game because the less
money you spend the
less money you need to make in order to
be profitable don't rush to quit your
job don't take that risk it makes sense
to keep your job at the release for a
while okay and then there are a couple
of
other ways you can try to get some money
for your game for example patreon you
can try to get a grant or personal loans
crowdfunding publishers investors just
be a little bit careful when signing
with a publisher because not all of them
have your best interest in mind so make
sure you're getting a good deal before
you move ahead with that if you're
wondering how to get a publisher in the
first place i can only recommend this
gdc talk i'll put a link in the
description
development this is the core part of
course all of the information and
all of the tools you need to make games
nowadays are freely available online all
you gotta do is put in the work but also
you need to make sure the process stays
enjoyable for you because let's face it
it's not enjoyable you're gonna quit
very soon get familiar with some game
design basics like focus on one core
game mechanic don't spread your focus
too much on too many different things
try to make a game that is easy to learn
and difficult to master
game design is a very wide and complex
topic i recommend you educate yourself
one channel where you can do that is
channel of mark brown has some excellent
videos i have a couple of videos on that
as well the way you should make and
design a game is using
iterative design that means you try
something out you make a quick prototype
of something then you see how it works
right you test it you analyze it and
then you refine it and you
repeat that process over and over again
should also let other people test the
game of course so prototyping testing
analyzing refining
repeat don't rush the release when your
game is like 90
done you really want to take your time
to put in those
last ten percent which can take a long
time but it's absolutely worth it you
want to make sure everything
works and make sure everything feels
nice and is polished
like those last ten percent can be the
difference between a success and a
failure so don't rush the release
business
as a game developer you're also a
business person now
if you want it or not you have to get
familiar with business and law at the
very least a little bit sooner or later
you probably want to register company
for your game and it just makes sense to
get a lawyer at some point as well for
the end user license agreement for the
privacy policy or the non-disclosure
agreements in case you want to hire any
freelancers you can get some help for
setting up the work for hire contracts
et cetera et cetera when it's about
money
arguments can easily arise stop those
arguments from happening
early on by setting the work
relationship into stone with a contract
when working together i remember being
pretty scared of all of that stuff but
then when when i finally got into it it
was actually not that difficult so just
do it once again it's all about taking
action nowadays unfortunately
making a good game is not enough as well
you also need to worry about
marketing and pr you need to build a
community the best place to do that
nowadays is on social media of course
and if you want to build a following on
social media you need to provide value
in the form of entertainment or in the
form of information just
promoting your own stuff and expecting
it to work
not a good plan at the very least for
building an audience you have to set up
some
really good marketing materials
screenshots gifs text
and of course most importantly a good
trailer good video footage of your game
check out the
video on how to make a good game trailer
by mark brown absolute must-watch for
every game developer and of course
making good marketing material is a lot
easier if you have a good looking game
having good marketing material is of
course essential for
selling your game and another one of the
really important things you need to do
is you need to learn how to pitch your
game to publishers to the press
nice two-sentence pitch about your game
it needs to really
catch and hook people if somebody asks
you what kind of game are you making
gotta have a really good answer already
basically williamson is a fast paced
platformer
about snail
distribution nowadays is likely
extremely easy especially on pc a little
harder on consoles but pc and mobile
pretty straightforward it can still make
sense to get a publisher because they
can provide a lot of services all
publishers provide different kinds of
services they can provide feedback
funding
quality assurance which basically
professional testing they can send your
game to conventions and awards you can
use their existing customer base they
can handle distribution and reporting to
other platforms they can help you with
localization
and community management it can still
make sense to just self-publish your
game though because that will allow you
to develop your own skills build your
own audience you'll have more control
both creatively as well as over your
business
and of course it's also a little bit
less back and forth which can also speed
up the development process a little bit
so basically you'll just have to decide
yourself which route you want to go both
is very valid prepare for
launch you don't want to be unprepared
for launch the most important thing is
that you set up your store page early so
you can start collecting a lot of wish
lists especially on steam be careful
about announcing a release date if this
is the first time you make a game right
make sure it's 100
finished before you do that all to be
smart in big brain
about when you want your release date to
be don't release during e3
or during a steam sale if possible no no
no and then just create everything
you'll need for launch beforehand
because launching a game is very
stressful you want to have everything
you need
ready when it's time to launch the game
reach out to press about three weeks
before you launch your game also give
them an embargo date which is basically
just you
asking them the friendly way to please
not publish their reviews before your
game's out and that way you'll get
more traffic on launch day if your game
managed to build a lot of momentum it
makes sense to get help for launch a
couple of people that just look through
the comments make sure game is working
fine for everybody because you'll be
very busy on launch day
most likely for launch you want to have
a step-by-step
plan ready of all of the things you want
to do on launch day
all of the social media posts best
prepare them beforehand the steam
announcement you want to have the
newsletter ready you want to send out to
your email list in case you have an
email list if you want to do a live
stream so just having a nice to-do list
i feel like for launch day it makes a
lot of sense wanna look out for bugs of
course make sure all of those stupid
packs are fixed but also breathe
celebrate you've done it congratulations
whatever happens
happens if the game doesn't sell as well
as you expected that's just the way it
is actually nowadays can still
happen quite frequently that sales
numbers still go up after launch while
usual usually a sales number looks
nowadays it happens more and more often
that
the sales really spike a few days after
your launch day because word of mouth is
a really strong factor nowadays what's
next because there's still a lot you can
do
after launch for example you can
gradually increase discounts
pretty much all games do this they start
out with small discounts like 10
15 20 and gradually work their way up
try to keep your game relevant by
updating it by
making some dlc perhaps even stay active
on social media
enter competitions do some giveaways
maybe even host your own little contest
think about parting your game to other
platforms maybe think about selling some
merch or doing some bundles and by doing
all of that by staying active you can
definitely make sure
the sales numbers don't drop off too
quickly be smart about the next game you
wanna make
make sure you leverage the resources
you've built for example by making a
game that allows you to use the same
scripts that you've already written or
by using the same player base you
already have creatively speaking you can
do whatever you want but in the best
case scenario of course you want to
build up some momentum
go faster and faster and you don't want
to start completely from scratch every
single time i really feel like this is
the best game development book for
beginners i've ever read link is in the
description go check it out it is a
piece of art
i'm not sponsored i really just like the
book
[Music]
i kind of knew you'd mess that up right
before the end
[Music]
stop we need to do something really
quick because in the last video i forgot
something very important
sock reveal in case you don't know what
zog reveals i basically
promised you that when we reached 10 000
wish lists on steam
i would do a sock reveal i didn't do a
sock reveal because i thought
you probably don't want to see sock
reveal apparently you do want to see
sock reveals or
here we go so this is my sock draw
yeah there are not a lot of socks in
there main reason for that is because
i don't really put my clothes into the
shelf anymore and for lazy to do that
um i think it has some holes
so here we go here's another sock i
don't have one hole yeah
already
if you wish to produce nail whoa that
sock as well no
it cannot be no
oh yeah this one has a massive hole okay
listen to me
at twenty thousand wishlists we will do
garbage reveal i will show you my
garbage bin
we just gotta reach 10k more wishlists
the wishlist now
we'll get there very quickly glossberry
what do you think about people who
haven't
wishlisted will you snail yet
i wouldn't go that far
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