作者：Jeff Vogel

自从1995年1月成立Spiderweb Software并发布首款游戏起，我成为了一名自豪的底层独立游戏开发者。现在，我对独立游戏开发者可以用来维持生计的神秘力量了如指掌：我们可以找到一个被大公司长期忽视的小领域，进驻其中并繁荣发展。

我编写的是低预算、硬核和回合制角色扮演游戏。这种游戏在上个世纪很流行，但是在本世纪却被很多公司所忽视，但是该类型游戏依然有着众多粉丝。我已经自行编写游戏长达16年，而且目前没有停下来的打算。

在之前的15年中，我的个人计划很简单。我每年编写1款游戏，使用上款游戏的代码和资产。然后将游戏以25美元的价格出售，同时靠出售游戏攻略和角色编辑器来换取些许额外的盈利。

我的目标是售出5000份游戏，在这个行业中，这个目标并不高。通常情况下，我会比预定目标多出数千份，这多亏了我花数年时间构建良好关系的小型忠诚用户群体。大致估算下你就知道，我能过上不错的生活。

当底层开发者的感觉很不错。我潜伏在自家的地下室里，看着游戏行业的巨头们在互相较劲。我不需要每周工作80个小时。我将游戏设计成可以分段编写代码，在真正完成游戏后才将它们发布。

我还会花大量时间解答年轻人和有志像我这样靠独立游戏维持生计的人的疑问。我告诉他们，需要找到大公司所忽视的合适领域。努力工作，而且要理解吸引人们花钱购买游戏是件很难的事情。我还告诉他们，要给自己准备一张靠背舒适的椅子。

我总结了一套原则。如果想要靠出售自己制作的小游戏维持生计，那么我想任何有抱负的游戏开发者都应当铭记这些原则。

Avadon:The Black Fortress(from geardiary.com)

要善于从旧题材中淘宝

我知道Atari 2600，而且以前还花大量时间玩过。你知道为什么我们会在其中投入如此多的时间呢？因为它很有趣。

而且，Atari 2600现在仍然很有趣。与以往相比，游戏设计的艺术已突飞猛进，但是你要知道，旧游戏都可以更新。这些旧游戏都有着大量拥趸，只是他们还未意识到自己是这些旧游戏粉丝而已。

双摇杆射击游戏、冒险游戏、2D平台游戏、子弹游戏、策略战争游戏、飞行模拟游戏以及解谜游戏，这些都是可供选择的题材。当然，还有回合制RPG。这些都是盛极一时的游戏题材，正是如此它们才有更新的价值。

现在，主流游戏行业喜欢开发带有RPG元素的第一人称射击游戏。所以，这些旧题材都是你成功的机会，有机会创造出属于自己的用户群体，他们有可能会把这些旧题材游戏当成新游戏看待。

之前有很长一段时间，没有人编写RPG游戏，只有我一个。我收到了许多赞美我发明角色扮演游戏的电子邮件。

人们喜欢独立游戏，这是事实。但是，我不认为原因是目前大家设想的那样。长期以来我一直觉得，独立开发者并没有比主流开发者更具创新性。我们身上真正令人惊叹的特点在于，我们保持游戏生态系统的繁荣和茂盛。我们维持了游戏行业的多样性，让旧想法依然能够存在于这个行业中。

所以，如果你想成为像我这样的底层开发者，就要回顾游戏行业历史，寻找那些你非常喜欢但现在已被人忽视的游戏，以此为基础来更新或编写新游戏。

要容忍盗版问题

从前，主要可以通过3种基本方式来赚钱：出售原材料（比如钢铁、木头和钨）；出售人工制造出的商品（比如电脑、椅子和短袜）；出售自己的时间为他人提供服务（比如为商家做宣传）。

在现代社会中，我们发明了一种赚钱的新方法：出售信息。比如，音乐、书籍和电脑游戏。所有这些新型的信息型赚钱方式都有个共同点：所有人随时都可以窃取你的内容，而且你对此无可奈何。

你想要盗版制作我的最新游戏《Avadon: The Black Fortress》的PC版本吗？在The Pirate Bay上搜索游戏，你可以很快地找到免费的版本。

这已经不是个秘密了。几乎所有人都知道如何免费获得想要的音乐、游戏、书籍和电影。要知道BitTorrent用户比例每年都在上升。这种情况的出现对行业毫无裨益。

大公司的决定是与盗版战斗，使用日益严厉的方式来惩罚盗版用户。这种做法看起来的确很有吸引力，行业大腕们能够挤出些许杂项成本来维护公司在整个行业中的声誉。

但是，这不是你应当采取的做法。暴雪可以承担起让用户在玩《暗黑破坏神3》时保持持续在线所带来的影响（这样做可能带来不必要的麻烦和用户的怨言）。但他们可是暴雪公司，他们的所有举措都会被用户认可和接受。但是，你的资源有限。除非你编写的是纯粹的在线游戏（游戏邦注：编写这种游戏对小团队来说成本高且较为困难），否者你将看到的情况是，你苦心经营的DRM毫无作用。

那么，首个步骤是接受盗版情况的出现。深呼吸，仰望天空而叹息。然后，将注意力放在那些付钱购买游戏的用户身上。我们的目标是，制作拥有最低限度的DRM，促使诚实的用户付费注册和购买，然后不再干涉他们的游戏体验。

这是因为，你需要记住，这是目前这个行业的现状，短时间内无法改变。

出售自我满足感而非游戏本身

我并非以维持生计为目的而出售游戏，我出售的是道德感。

行业现状并不足以让我通过出售游戏来维持生计，任何愿意付费购买游戏的人都可以在不花钱的前提下获得游戏。这不像购买椅子，如果你从商店中偷把椅子后逃跑，店员会捉住你。所有想获得游戏的人并非一定要向我往复费。坦诚地说，多数人确实不付钱。

那么，为何有些人会选择付钱呢？因为他们了解一个根本性的事实：如果希望有更多游戏面世，就必须有人为这个行为买单。如果所有人都选择免费获得游戏，我只能去另外找个工作，游戏供应就此停止。我不想卷入“软件盗版”这个乏味的争辩中。我只会专注于一个不容置疑的事实：我需要养家糊口。如果没有人愿意花钱买我的游戏，那么我就只能另谋出路。

那么，当这些人付费购买我的游戏时，他们得到了什么呢？他们得到了知识，他们属于解决方案的一部分，而不是问题的一部分。他们知道，在这种情况下，他们的做法是恰当的。这是付费用户应得的自我满足感，而且很珍贵。如果意识到自己在做的是正确的事情，有些人不介意支付20美元。这便是我为何能够坚持这么长时间的原因。

这意味着，我需要非常谨慎地维持良好的公众形象。我努力地向用户展现可爱和吸引人的一面，而不是极客的一面。在这方面，我并非总是获得成功，但是我确实很努力。独立开发者的目标是让人们喜欢上你。如果他们不想帮助你继续发展，就会将注意力转向其他人。

这也是为何在PC游戏中设置超严格DRM是错误决定的诸多原因之一。如果你能让人们喜欢你，他们就会付钱来支持你的事业。然而，如果你让人们讨厌你，那么他们会以盗版你的作品而自豪，即便他们之前并不想这么做。如果你只展现出自己消极的一面，那么比起付钱，用户从盗版中可以获得更大的满足感。这是个很糟糕的战略。

所以，要友好，提供体贴的个人支持。制作高质量产品，然后适当地维护。在出售游戏时，你必须找个合适的定价。

不可盲目走低价路线

如果你正在编写的是极为休闲的游戏，目前用户涉及较广，那么你就必须制定相对较低的价格，低到可能让你感到不适。最好的选择是1美元。或者你可以选择发布免费游戏，然后通过出售其他内容来赚钱。但这需要更大的胆量，我无法做到这一点。

但是，如果你正在编写的是针对特定群体的游戏，那么就不能只定价1美元。如果要将游戏定价为1美元，那么该游戏要有庞大的潜在用户基础。对于我的游戏来说，目标用户并没有如此庞大。通常情况下，适合游戏的目标用户越少，你的游戏定价就应当越高。例如，高度细节化的策略战争游戏会标出相当高的价格。

你的用户可能会向你建议应该以哪种价位出售游戏。不要让他们的说法左右自己的决定。记住，业余和职业开发者的关键区别在于，职业开发者知道如何为自己的作品定价。

其他人或许会告诉你，你应当降低产品的价格，因为这会让销量提升。这是事实。但是，销量的提升幅度可能无法弥补收入上的损失。你需要找到售价乘以销量所得结果的最高点。对深谙经济学的人来说，找到这个点很简单，但仍有许多人对此很陌生。

我将以自己的游戏为例来阐述。我有充足的数据来证明我所说的是正确的。

去年，我们发布了《Avadon: The Black Fortress HD》，这是我们的首款iPad游戏。该平台上几乎没有老式的西方回合制RPG游戏，所以我们推出的是未被挖掘的经典题材。但是，我们猜测，iPad平台上能够接受此类游戏的用户并不多。我们决定将游戏以9.99美元的价格出售。随后，我们赚到了对我们这个小公司算是很多的盈利。

在游戏发布数个月之后，其销量稳定在平均每天25份。这些是纯粹的长尾销售情况，来自于那些偶然在商店中发现游戏的用户。然后，我们开展了两周的半折销售活动。这获得了不错的PR和用户关注度，销售量在数天的时间里急速攀升。然后，迅速地趋于平缓稳定，每天约37份。以下是销售量图表的截屏：

sales trend(from gamasutra)

你可以看到，定价9.99美元时，游戏每天的平均盈利是250美元。定价4.99美元时，游戏每天的平均盈利是185美元。当初我准备发布游戏时，曾经考虑过将游戏压价到4.99美元，很庆幸当时并没有这么做。

应当记住的是，如果你发布的是针对特定用户的游戏，那些想要此类游戏的玩家很可能就会付费购买。同时，如果你出售的是不甚流行的题材（游戏邦注：比如老式回合制RPG），那么低价格并不能促使其他用户更愿意购买游戏，因为在同一个页面上还有很多更低价格的游戏。

总结

在过去数年时间里，独立游戏开发发生了重大变革。在威望、关注度和销售量方面，独立游戏所取得的成功远远超过了我16年前的梦想。世界各地技术娴熟的开发者都正在离开大公司，像我这样自行制作游戏，这着实令人惊叹。

我现在觉得能够在当代编写游戏是件很幸运的事。这是个令人振奋的时期。

尽管独立游戏开发者日益增多，该领域依然还存在容纳更多人加入的空间。游戏开发将是下个艺术形式，而我们仍处在起点。让那些大公司年复一年地制作相同题材的相同游戏。可选择的游戏类型还有很多，它们都等待着被挖掘、改善和再次投放到世界中。找到适合你自己的题材并努力工作。接受你无法改变的事实，发挥自己的长处，找到最合适的定价，成为自豪的独立开发者。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Principles of an Indie Game Bottom Feeder

Jeff Vogel

Ever since I founded Spiderweb Software and released my first game in January of 1995, I have been a proud indie game bottom feeder. I have fed and grown fat upon the scraps left behind by the mighty predators above. I have learned well the secret power that writers of indie games can use to actually make a living: We can find a small niche long-abandoned by the big companies, settle into it, and thrive.

I write low-budget, hardcore, turn-based role-playing games. The sort of game that was really big in the previous century, largely abandoned in this one, and that has still enough fans to enable me to buy a house. I’ve been writing my games for 16 years. I have no intention of stopping, and they’ll have to drag me out of indie gaming feet first.

For 15 years (before my games appeared on iTunes and Steam and my life completely changed), I had a simple plan. Every year, I wrote a game, extensively reusing the code and assets from the previous one. Then I put it on sale for $25, with hint books and character editors available alongside for a little extra revenue.

My goal was 5,000 sales. Five thousand! Imagine what a negligible amount that is in this industry. Usually, I sold a couple thousand more than that, thanks to the small, loyal audience I spent many years building. And, if you do the math, you will see that there’s a pretty decent living in there.

It’s great being a bottom feeder. I get to lurk in my basement and watch the titans of the game industry punch each other silly far above me. I don’t work 80 hour weeks. I design my games to be writable in the period of time allotted, and I release them when they are actually ready.

I also spend a lot of time answering questions from the young and ambitious about how to get to do what I do for a living. I tell them to find a niche that is underserved. To work hard and to remember how difficult it is to get someone to spend actual money on something. I also urge them to get a chair with decent back support.

And I push a certain set of principles until I’m blue in the face. They are the principles I feel any group of ambitious game developers should take to heart, if you want to make a living selling your little games.

If It Was Fun Once, It’s Fun Now

I’m old enough to remember the Atari 2600. Man, but we played that thing. Hours and hours and hours. You know why we did it? Because it was fun.

And the Atari 2600 is still fun. It’s just not fun enough. The art of game design has progressed far beyond it, and Pitfall doesn’t have what it takes to compete anymore. But you know something? All of those old games can be updated. All of those old genres have tons of fans out there. They just don’t know they’re fans yet.

Twin-stick shooters. Adventure games. 2D platformers. (2D platformers are like Viagra for indie game developers.) Bullet hell games. Tactical wargames of Aspergian complexity. Flight sims. Puzzle games of nearly infinite variety. Yes, turn-based RPGs. These were once hugely viable genres, and there’s a good reason for it. They were awesome.

But now the mainstream game industry mainly writes first-person shooters with RPG elements sticky-taped on. All of the old genres have been left to you, waiting to be recreated for a new audience that will be thrilled to discover them as if they were new.
There was a long period in there when nobody wrote RPGs. Just me. I got so many emails complimenting me for inventing the role-playing game. What do you say to that? “Thanks,” I guess.

People love indie games. They really do. But I don’t think it’s for the reason people say. I’ve long felt that indie developers aren’t that much more innovative than mainstream developers. What’s awesome about us is that we keep the gaming ecosystem vibrant and lush. We’re the ones who maintain variety and keep the old ideas alive.

So you want to be a bottom feeder like me? Think back to the sort of game you really loved once, the sort that nobody makes anymore. Then write one of those.

Piracy is a Thing – Give Up

Once upon a time, there were three basic ways to make money: Selling raw materials. (Steel. Wood. Tungsten. Bacon.) Selling crafted goods. (Computers. Chairs. Socks. Hi2u, China!) And selling your time providing services. (“Welcome to Walmart. Welcome to Walmart. Welcome to Walmart.”)

In our brilliant modern age, we have also invented a new way to making money: Selling information. Music. Books. Computer games. And all of these new, information-based ways of making money have one thing in common: Everyone can rip you off easily all the time, and you can’t do anything about it. Start hating it now. Punch a pillow. Get primal scream therapy. Be angry. Then get over it.

You want to pirate the PC version of my newest game, Avadon: The Black Fortress? Search for it on The Pirate Bay. You can get a free copy in less than the time it takes to read th… Oh, you got a serial number already? Told you so.

Do you think I’m dumb for revealing this secret? Well, it wasn’t a secret. Everybody who isn’t really old knows how to get all the free music, games, books, and movies they want. Every year, the percentage of consumers who know the arcane workings of BitTorrent increases. It’ll get worse before it gets better.

Oh. Wait. It won’t get better. Ever.

(Note that this is for PC and Mac games. Piracy is far less common on iOS and such, but you also need to charge far, far lower prices. It kind of balances out.)

Big companies are determined to go down fighting piracy, using increasingly draconic methods of customer punishment. It’s kind of fascinating to watch, seeing the titans of industry squeeze out a few more dollars with the minor incidental cost of pooping on the reputation of an entire industry.

But this can’t be your way. Blizzard can afford to require a constant online connection for single-player Diablo III, no matter how much of a gratuitous irritation that is. They’re Blizzard, and everything they make will do great. (Until it doesn’t.) Your resources, on the other hand, are limited. Unless you write a purely online game (a very costly and difficult proposition for a small team), you will have to face the fact that whatever DRM you scrape up will be blown away like tissue paper.

Then the first step is to accept that piracy happens. Take a long, deep breath. Cast your eyes to the heavens. Sigh. And then focus on the sliver of customers who will actually pay you for your work. The goal is to make a game with the bare minimum of DRM necessary to nudge honest people to register, and then, after they do, leave them alone.

This is because you need to bear in mind the business you are really in…

I Don’t Sell Games; I Sell Self-Satisfaction

I don’t really make a living selling games. I sell an ethical life.

How could I make a living selling games? Anyone who wants to pay me for my games doesn’t have to. It’s not like buying a chair, where they’ll chase you down and taser you if you grab it and run out of the store. Nobody who wants my game on Windows or Mac has to pay for it to get it. Frankly, most of them don’t.

So why do people pay for it? Because they understand a fundamental fact: For these games to exist, someone has to pay. If everyone just takes it, I’ll have to get a real job and the supply will shut off. I don’t want to get into one of the eternal tedious arguments about “software piracy”. I will instead focus on one single, incontrovertible fact: I have a family to feed. If nobody pays for my games, I can’t make them.

So what does someone get when they pay for my game? They get the knowledge that they are Part of the Solution and not Part of the Problem. They know that, in this case, they are one of the Good Guys. It is well-earned self-satisfaction, and it is valuable. To know they are doing the right thing, some people will happily pay 20 bucks. This is how I stay in business.

This means that I am very, very careful to maintain a good public image. I try very hard to be likable and engaging and generally not a jerk. I don’t always succeed, but I try. The goal for an indie developer is to get people to like you. If they don’t want to help you stay around, they will help someone else.

This is one reason, of many, why the move toward super-strict DRM in PC games is fundamentally wrong-headed. If you get people to like you, they will pay money to support you. If you get people to hate you, however, they will make it a point of pride to rip you off, even if they don’t want or have to. If you are a jerk, you will make it feel better to rip you off than to pay you. When The Pirate Bay exists, this is a very bad strategy.

So be nice. Be friendly. Offer attentive, individual support. Write quality products, and maintain them properly. There is only one way in which you can’t afford to be a nice, lovable guy. If you sell niche games, you have to charge an actual price.

You Can’t Always Charge a Dollar

If you are writing a very casual game aimed at a very wide audience, you will have to charge a low price — so low that it’ll probably make you uncomfortable. Like, a dollar, tops. (Or you can do what all the cool kids are doing and release your game for free and make money selling little add-ons. This involves far more courage than I possess.)

However, if you are writing for a niche, you can’t just charge a dollar. To make money selling games for a buck, you need a huge potential audience. For my games, a huge audience just doesn’t exist. In general, the smaller your niche, the more you need to charge. Highly detailed tactical wargames tend to have pretty high prices.

Your customers will browbeat you for daring to charge money for your work. Don’t let them get to you. Remember: The key difference between an amateur and a pro is that a pro knows how to price his or her work.

You will be told that you should lower your prices because it will increase sales. This is true. However, your sales might not increase enough to make up for the loss of income. You need to pick the point at which your price times your number of sales is at its highest. This tends to be covered in like the first eight seconds of any economics class, but it’s still news to a lot of people.

I’ll give you an example from my business. Pleasingly, I have actual figures to prove what I am saying is true.

Last year, we released Avadon: The Black Fortress HD, our first game for the iPad. Old school, Western-style turn-based RPGs are almost unknown on the platform, so we were serving a classic underserved niche. However, the audience for such games on the iPad was, we guessed, not huge. We decided to sell our game for the princely sum of $9.99. That’s a lot on the iPad. We then made what, for our tiny company, was a lot of money.

When the game had been out for a few months, it settled down to a very reliable average sale rate of 25 copies a day. These are pure Long Tail sales, from people just stumbling upon it in the store. Then we had a two-week half-off sale. This got a bunch of PR and attention, and sales shot up for a few days. Then they quickly settled back down to a constant rate: About 37 copies a day. Here is a screenshot of the sales chart:

So, at $9.99, Avadon HD was averaging about $250 in sales a day. At $4.99, Avadon HD averaged about $185 a day. When I was preparing the game for release, I strongly considered giving in to peer pressure and selling it at $4.99. I’m desperately glad I didn’t.

This is what is important to remember: If you are serving an underserved niche, the neglected gamers who want that sort of game will be thrilled to find you. They will be excited enough to pay a premium price. On the other hand, if you’re selling a game in a genre that isn’t hugely popular (like turn-based old school RPGs), a low price won’t tempt many customers into a purchase, not when there are a million games with a broader appeal for sale on the same page at a lower price.

We Are The Proud Bottom Feeders. Join Us!

There has been a revolution in indie game development in the last few years. In terms of prestige, attention, and, yes, sales, indie games are succeeding far beyond my wildest dreams of sixteen years ago. Skilled developers all over the place are leaving big companies to try their hand at doing what I do, and that is awesome.

I feel truly lucky to be writing games now. It’s an exciting time. Don’t take it for granted.

And yet, despite the explosion in the field, there is room for more. Game development is the next great art form, and we’re still on the ground floor. Let the big boys write the same games in the same handful of genres year after year. There are so many sorts of games out there, waiting to be picked up, dusted off, improved, and sent back out into the world. Find your niche and own it. Accept what you can’t change, be as awesome as you can, charge what you’re worth, and stand proud on the ocean floor. (Source: Gamasutra)