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独立游戏开发者创业需知的5个要点

发布时间:2013-09-12 16:19:34 Tags:,,,,,

作者:Elaine Heney

每天都不乏应用开发者从一文不名到一夜暴富的新闻,但现实情况却截然不同。认定你可以辞职,并将精力大量投入首款游戏,就能够赚得可观收益,这真是一种危险的想法。

我天生就有创业基因,我认为开启自己的公司一定要有种强悍的动力。这种动力就是我天性中的一部分。我认为多数企业家也和我一样有这种激情。我在过去也曾为其他公司打工,但直到经营自己的游戏公司开始才有这种欢快和兴奋。

但我发现许多人创立新游戏公司时,总会遇到资金问题。为你自己制作应用,跟在游戏工作室的团队中创造应用是两码事。在大型工作室上班是种美妙的经历,你可以从中学到许多知识,并真正投入工作。如果你是程序员,你就专心编程,如果是UI设计师,就只管设计UI。每个人都分得清自己的工作职责,大家通常都能够很好地各司其职。从大型公司辞职并开创自己的游戏公司,就好比是移民到一个自己并不熟悉的国家。

i'm indie(from makegames.tumblr)

i’m indie(from makegames.tumblr)

1.商业成功vs.激情

创立一家应用公司很困难。为了成立公司,你不得再过于关注自己的喜好,而要更重视那些能够令你盈利的方面。激情是你因为热爱而会投入时间的东西。你决定要创造什么东西时,就彻底投入其中,创造和分析每一个细节,直到它趋于完美为止。你花5小时设计一个完美的按钮,对你来说这个过程重于最终结果。你沉浸其中而浑然不觉。激情很棒,但它并非创那创建一家可靠公司的首要推动因素。

2.“金钱至上”

一家公司只有具有盈利能力才能正常运营。这一切都跟钱有关。这真是一个残酷的现实。所以不要将荣耀、获奖和好友羡慕的眼光当成追求目标了。当你成立公司时,你的目标就是走上赚钱的正轨。这一点就要关注“发布”这个字眼。你向商店发布的每一款游戏都是你的一个赚钱机会。创造一款游戏并不会让你赚到任何钱,只有发布和发行才有可能。

你并不需要大笔资金来创立游戏公司,否则就说明你需要精打细算,想想如何更有效地节省开支。一个主要方法就是使用现成的代码,这比制作代码更快更节省成本。大小规模的工作室都在采用这种方法——不只是独立工作室如此。如果有现成资源可用,还有什么必要编写新程序呢?你可以花50至上千美元来购买代码,之后再调整这些代码令其符合你的项目需求。

忘记你的自尊吧。你的好友并不能准确预测你的游戏能否赚钱。在展示你的游戏样本时,不要相信人们的反应,因为99%的人会说它很棒。他们想在精神上支持你。另外,让他们亲口对你说出这款游戏非常糟糕,也着实是一件尴尬之事。所要以警惕那些虚假的赞美,最好是向一名会计展示你的游戏,当他问你这游戏能赚多少钱时,你就会回归现实了。

在盈利方面,我认为用户才是你游戏的最佳收益来源。证明你的公司运营可靠的一个绝佳方法是找到愿意购买和使用你产品的用户。风投并不能证明你运营的是一个可靠的公司,并且我认为接受风投资金也并非稳妥的做法。

3.教育

许多人辞去了大型游戏工作室的职务来创造自己的游戏。如果你执行妥当,就会发现给自己打工更有收获。但在此之前你得正视并解决自己面临的新挑战以便获得成功。你不再制是为大品牌制作游戏,没有人知道你是谁,没人知道你正在开发一款游戏。你不能依靠“开发游戏并等待用户自行来访”这种放任策略,你得先进行市场调查。选择的主题是否正确可能会影响到你的游戏销量。所以不要创造你喜欢的游戏,而是创造能够热销的游戏。

你团队中的关键人物就是你自己。你无法获得专门的盈利、游戏设计和分析能力的帮忙,所以若要发行一款游戏,你得学会50多项新技能。你得成为一名UI专家,美术总监、QA主管、市场营销能力、工程主管、数据分析顾问、盈利专家以及其他一系列能力。这会产生两个问题。要获得成功你得认识到自己必须拥有这些新领域的经验。你通过发布一系列小游戏而积攒经验,并在不损失太多钱的情况下在工作中学习知识。其次,你不能在短时间内用一两个人的小团队发布一款大型游戏。大型游戏工作室拥有大量人手,所以他们能够制作大型游戏。独立应用开发者和发行商需要专注于自己能够在2周或最长3个月时间内创造和发布的内容。这种周期下制作出来的一般是小游戏。你是在发布游戏而非创造游戏时获得收益。

你需要制作一系列应用,不能孤注一掷地将所有时间和精力押在同一款游戏上。因为这是一个高风险的策略。

4.你得雇佣一名美术人员

游戏画面很重要。要让你的游戏看起来很棒。开打任何应用商店,看看那些在排行榜前列的游戏,你会看到其中99%的游戏画面看起来都很赞。如果你准备成立一家应用开发公司,而你又不是图像设计师,我强烈建议你重视游戏图像质量,因为这可能影响到游戏下载量。这里的好消息在于,出色的图像并不需要昂贵的成本。在oDesk等外包网站上有许多美术人员愿意以每小时8至15美元的价格为你效劳。人们总会通过封面来判断一本书的好坏,如果你的应用/游戏看起来很赞,大空也许就会想它很可能出自高级游戏工作室之手,也就更有可能下载。我们通常会因为视觉效果而判断东西的好坏。

5.时间、专注和精力

你的时间很宝贵,要善于利用其他游戏或应用开发公司免费(或低成本)提供的软件/代码。如果你想在自己的游戏中植入某个功能,最好先花30分钟上谷歌搜索一下,看看有没有现成的资源可用。如果你想交叉推广自己的游戏,不妨使用Charboost.com的免费解决方案。想植入多人模式?那就上Nextpeer.com看一下。想跨平台发布游戏?那就使用Unity 3D或cocos2d-x。不要浪费数月时间重新创造游戏引擎,并且这种做法也不会让你盈利。

成功之人总是精明而努力行事。不要迷信运气因素,人人都需要养家糊口,这意味着他们没有多少时间。但要将此视为机遇而非短板。时间有限?那就花30分钟搜索一下可以让你更快发布游戏的有用工具、人员和软件。资金有限?那就通过游戏博客学习如何自主设计、制作、营销和发行应用。我本身并没有技术背景,因为我一开始就没什么钱,只能自学xCode的基础知识,这样才得以在不雇佣程序员的情况下发布应用。

我现在已经不只是在赚钱了,我在生财。我所做的并非投机取巧之事,我只是保持自己的低成本运营,制作小游戏,持续发布游戏,并从工作中尽快积累经验。现在我可以制作更大型的游戏,并仍然能够盈利。我喜欢自己所做的事情,也很有幸能够为其他想创业之人提供帮助。(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

Five lessons for a successful indie games business

By Elaine Heney

Creative commons image by Tristan Martin

This is a guest post from Elaine Heney of Chocolate Lab Apps.

The news is of full of stories of app millionaires who went from zero to hero overnight. But the real truth is something quite different. Believing that you can quit your job, invest heavily in your first game and expect to make serious money is dangerous.

Being an entrepreneur is part of my DNA. I empathise completely with the unrelenting drive needed to start your own business. This drive is a part of who I am.  And I think most entrepreneurs share this passion with me. I have worked for other companies in the past, but I never felt that euphoria and exhilaration until I was running my own successful games business.

However I have seen a lot of people struggle with financial issues when starting new games companies. Making apps for yourselfis a completely different beast to being part of a team in a well-established games studio. Working in a large studio is a fantastic experience. You get to learn a lot and really focus on your job. If you are a programmer, you program. If you are a UI designer, you design the UI. Everyone knows what their job is and usually everyone does it really well. Quitting your job in an established company to start your own games business is like emigrating to China – foreign, unfamiliar and very different to what you were used to.

1: Business success vs. passion

Starting an app business is tough. To build a business, you have to focus less on what you love and more on choosing to do what will make you money. A passion is something you spend time on because you love it. You decide what to create, and then you get completely involved, building and analysing every detail until it’s as close to perfect as it gets. You spend five hours designing the perfect button. The journey becomes more important to you than the end result. You get sucked in and you don’t realise it. Passion is great but it doesn’t work as a primary driver to build a sustainable business.

2: Abba were right — it’s about the “money money money”

A business only works if it’s profitable. It really is all about the money. That’s the harsh reality. Forgot the glory, the awards ceremonies and being the envy of your friends. When you begin your target is to get on the right path to earn money. This means one word: SHIP. Every game you ship to the store is another opportunity for you to earn money. Building a game will not earn you any money. Shipping and publishing a game will.

Spend very little. You do not need a lot of money to start a games business. Instead you need to figure out how to do things cost effectively. A major way to do this is by buying existing code. This is both faster and a lot less expensive than making code. Studios of all sizes are doing this – it’s not just an indie thing. Why program something new when it exists already? You can buy code from $50 up to thousands of dollars, the choice is yours. Then you can adapt this code to fit your exact requirements.

Forget about your ego. Your friends cannot accurately predict if your game will make money. When demoing your games, don’t believe what people tell you. If you show someone your game, 99% will say it’s great. They want to support you. Plus it’s awkward to tell someone their game looks terrible when they are standing in front of you.  Fake praise is dangerous to your business. The best idea is to show your game to an accountant. He’ll ask you how much you’re earning.

In terms of earning money, I truly believe the best people to get money from are your customers. A great way to prove you have a viable business is to have people who want to pay and use your products. VC funding does not prove you have a viable business and I’ve seen it become like a cancer in businesses.

3: Education

Many people quit their jobs in large game studios to start making their own games. If you can make it worth there is nothing as rewarding as being your own boss. But there are new challenges you now have which you have to acknowledge and address to be successful. You are no longer working on games built around massive brands. No one knows who you are. No one knows you are making a game. You can’t depend on the ‘build it and they will come’ approach. Hoping for the best will not work (I tried!). What does work is market research. Choosing the right theme can make or break the sales of your game. Do not build what you love. You must build what will sell.

Your team consists of one main person – you. You do not have access to expert monetization, game design and analytics experts anymore.  So you have to learn how to do 50+ new jobs in order to publish 1 game. You have to become a UI expert, art director, QA lead, marketing expert, engineering lead, data analysis consultant, monetisation specialist and a LOT more besides. This leads to two issues. To be successful you have to recognise you need experience in these new roles. You get this experience by shipping a number of small games and learning on the job without losing too much money. Secondly, you can’t publish a big game in a short time frame with a team of one or two people. Big game studios can make big games because they have a lot of staff. Indie app developers and publishers need to focus on what they can create and ship, in a 2 week to 3 month period max.  These will be smaller games. You make money when you ship a game, not while you build it.

You need to focus on building a portfolio of apps. You do not want to risk all of your time and energy on just one game. That is a high risk strategy.

4: You need to hire an artist

It’s all about the visuals. Your game has to look good. Open any of the app stores. Look at the games that are doing well in all of the charts. What you will see in 99% of the apps is that they look AMAZING. If you are starting an app business and you are not a graphic designer, I would strongly argue that to massively improve your chances of getting downloads your app has to look INCREDIBLE. The good news is that incredible does not have to cost a ton of money. There are lots of artists on outsourcing sites like oDesk that will work for between $8 and $15 dollars an hour. People will judge a book by its cover. If you app / game looks incredible, people will assume that it was made by a really high class games studio. They are more likely to assume it’s great and download it too. We judge things visually.

5: Time, focus and hard work

Your time is precious. There are a TON of game and app companies out there that will let you use their software or code for very little – or for free. If you have an idea for a feature you would like to put in your game, spend 30 minutes googling it. Want to cross promo your name? Use Chartboost.com’s free solution. Want to use multiplayer? Check out Nextpeer.com. Want to publish your game cross platform? Use Unity 3D or cocos2d-x. Do not spend months of your time reinventing the wheel. Do not build a game engine.  Neither will earn you money.

Anyone who is successful has worked really smart, and really hard. There is no such thing as luck. Everyone has demons and doubts, bills to pay, and often a family or full-time job that means that their time is limited. Look on these as opportunities not as drawbacks. Have limited time? Spend 30 minutes right now googling how to find tools, people and software to help you publish faster. Have limited money? Learning from lots of great blogs like this one about how to design, make, market and publish apps by yourself. I had no technical background but because I had very little money at the start I taught myself how to do the basics in xCode so I could publish apps without paying a programmer.

Right now I don’t earn money any more, I make money. What I have done is not some crazy secret ‘voodoo’ stuff. I keep my costs low and I made small games to learn my trade. I kept shipping and I learned on the job as fast as I could. Now I can make bigger games and still make money. I love what I do, and I am lucky to be able to help others with their businesses as well.(source:gamesbrief


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