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获得一次成功后所带来的不可预期的焦虑

发布时间:2016-07-27 13:53:28 Tags:,,,

作者:Dave Toulouse

去年4月,我发行了自己的第一款游戏《生者行进》并取得了经济上的成功,而这也将进一步支持着我去进行全职独立开发。我的故事并不是那种一夜成名的故事,这是经历了9年时间以及14款游戏发行才获得的成功。而这或许是你不会在新闻报道中看到的故事,因为它缺少了某种戏剧元素,但这却会是能够引起其他独立游戏开发者共鸣的故事。

成功的许多面

获得成功的方式有许多。有些人只想要创造能让别人喜欢的游戏而不在乎游戏的收益。有些人希望发行能够继续支持自己之后游戏创造的大热门游戏,即让自己能够发行一些虽然赚不到很多钱但是能够让自己维持全职游戏工作便可。也有些人想要发行能够获得评论家认可的游戏。还有些人(就像我这样)希望发行一款或许不会掀起多大热潮但却能够赚到足够钱去维持自己做为开发者的工作与生活直至下一次的游戏发行。

所以我并不是一个贪婪的独立开发者,但我同时也不是一个富裕的开发者。我会一整天待在家里致力于游戏理念和原型,但却没有钱去资助自己可能想出的任何优秀的理念。

到这里为止你可能会认为我并未真正感激自己所获得的一切,即我并未对此感到满足。但事实却并非如此,我可是花了整整9年代额时间在等待这一天的到来,同时我也必须像其他独立开发者那样正常上班,而这一次的成功为我开启了通向全新世界的大门,这是我未曾预料到的。

Success(from gamasutra)

Success(from gamasutra)

要获得经济成功是困难重重的

当我着眼于我在《生者行进》中所投入的工作,创造它所需要的预算,它所创造的收益,以及如果我想要继续作为全职独立游戏开发者那么在发行下一款成功游戏之前我需要花费多少时间时,我的脑子开始快速旋转起来。

因为在9年多时间内我发行过许多并不成功的游戏,所以我非常清楚通过游戏去赚钱是一件非常困难的事,而当我看到自己的第一款成功游戏的收益时,我也不免对未来感到担忧。我该如何在短短几个月时间内创造出和我花了9年时间才创造出的同样成绩呢。当然了我也从中学到了一些有帮助的内容。

是的,我了解到要再获得我所获得的成功是非常困难的事。当我将《生者行进》的成果与其它游戏相比较时,我发现通过这款游戏去赚取一年的薪资是不大可能的事。虽然《生者行进》并不是一鸣惊人型游戏,但是它拥有合适的游戏理念并在适当的时间经由适当的发行商和合作者而出现在公众面前。所以它最终才能创造出让我感到满足的结果。而一想到自己只有去复制所有的这一切才能维持自己作为全职独立开发者的身份我便非常焦虑。

我担心下一次不再像这一次做得这么好

我发现再去获取我现在所拥有的成功是很困难的事,并且不管我多相信自己似乎再重复这次的成功都是不大可能的事。我需要在适当的时候想出一个合适的理念,并基于适当的方式去执行它,而这一切的前提是还未用光所有资金。我并不害怕破产,我害怕的只是需要再退回之前的过程中。

即使我的下一款游戏不能获得成功那也不会是世界末日,或许我可以再找到一个不错的全职工作,但是如果我拥有这样的想法我便会担心自己将失去尝试其它事的激情。

所以其实这种焦虑会激励着我去寻找合适的项目,但同时我也清楚自己没有足够的时间去判断项目到底合不合适。最理想的情况是我可以花费所需要的所有时间去探索理念,发行原型并在游戏能够吸引人们兴趣之前获得反馈,但事实是时间是非常有限的。这是我在过去3个月里一直在做的事,但是在这期间我也亲自否认了所有“优秀的”理念和原型并也从其他人或发行商那里获得了种种反馈。

有时候我会天真地认为只要获得了经济成功我便能够花几个月时间去发行1,2款不是很成功的游戏,并在找到真正合适的项目前继续以全职独立开发者的身份生存下去。但是现在我知道这是一个很难跨越的门槛。

也许这一选择并不适合我

我并不能假装自己不清楚大局。虽然成为全职独立游戏开发者带给了我许多乐趣,但是下一个项目的发展却也带给了我前所未有的压力。这种压力只有你亲身经历过才能感受得到。

为了推动自己前进我经常会去思考一开始的情况。去年,即在一家公司工作了15年后我收到了来自老板的裁员通知。过去我一直认为自己拥有一份非常稳定的工作,所以当时的我真的非常震惊且充满压力。而在寻找下一份工作前我先衡量了自己是否能够获得游戏项目投资,结果我真的找到了!所以最终我才能创造出《生者行进》并获得现在的成功。

这是关于失去一份全职工作帮助我去处理压力的故事。那时候的我其实根本未曾预料到自己会创造出《生者行进》,所以我便更新了简历并准备开始招新工作。我认为那时候的情境和现在很像。即我知道自己有6至7个月的时间去致力于一款新游戏并发行它,而只有幸运之神再次眷顾我我猜不用去寻找一份新工作。

但事实上要接受这样的情况比嘴上说的困难许多。有时候我会非常担心之后的结果,而有时候我也会非常乐观地面对自己所创造的游戏。而最糟糕的情况时,我竟然希望自己能够创造出更大的成功去承担之后可能出现的更多失败,如此我便可能失去自己在其中所感受到的真正乐趣。

所以我便会想到也许这一选择并不适合自己。也许我应该重新寻找一份全职工作,好好享受我所赚到的这笔钱并认真想想下一次要创造怎样的游戏。也许在几年内我会坦然面对这样的结果,或许我将不会再感受到这样的焦虑。虽然我想假装自己非常了解自己,但我也必须承认我在这个过程中认识到了全新的自己,并且我也不能给予自己所提出的问题准确的答案。

我并不会去向别人寻求问题的答案,因为这是我自己需要解决的问题,我需要搞清楚什么会让自己开心或不开心,我能够处理怎样的问题等等。不同人所给出的答案将会是不同的。我之所以写下这篇文章是希望那些处于相同情况的人能够从中获得帮助,或者至少他们能够了解到并不是只有自己身处这样的情境之下。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Unexpected anxiety following a moderate success

by Dave Toulouse

Last April, I released my first financially successful game allowing me to be a full-time indie dev, March of the Living (MotL). My story isn’t one of overnight success but one of 9 years and 14 released games in the making. It’s the kind of story you probably won’t read in the press because it’s lacking some dramatic element to it but it might be a story other indie devs might relate to.

The many shades of success

There are many ways to be successful. Some only want to make games appreciated by people and don’t care that much about money. Others might release a big hit allowing them to release a few games not making much money in the upcoming years and they still can afford to keep making games full-time anyway. Others might release a game acclaimed by the critic. Others like me release a game that doesn’t make much waves and make just enough money to last until their next release.

So I’m not a starving indie but I’m not exactly a rich one either. It’s true I’m sitting at home all day long working on concepts and prototypes but I also can’t fund alone that great idea I might have (or that “okay” idea I might need to work on before time runs out).

By now you might think that I’m not really appreciating what I have achieved, that maybe I’m not even happy about it. Don’t get me wrong, I waited for this day for 9 long years while having to also focus on a day job like many indie devs but this success I achieved opened my eyes to a whole new world I maybe wasn’t prepared for or even expecting.

The impossible odds of financial success

When I look at the work I’ve put in MotL, the budget required to produce it, the revenue it created and how long I have before needing to release another game at least as successful if I want to remain a full-time indie dev my head starts to spin a bit.

For having released quite a few unsuccessful games over 9 years I know very well how hard it is to make money with your games but when I see that my first successful game gives me until the start of 2017 to repeat this feat… It’s a bit scary. How can I achieve again the same feat that took me 9 years the first time in now only a few months. Surely I learned a thing or two that might help right?

Indeed, I learned how really difficult it is to achieve the kind of success I achieved as moderate as it might be. When I compare MotL results with other games I think are cool but did worse (thanks to SteamSpy that is generally not far from the truth for comparing my own results there) I realize how impossible the odds appear to be to make just one year worth of salary with a game. Even if MotL isn’t a blockbuster it had the right concept at the right time with the right publisher and the right collaborators. Because of this, it all fit together nicely and created the result I’m currently enjoying. The thought of having to reproduce all of this once again, otherwise my journey as a full-time indie dev will stop, can be a source of anxiety.

The anxiety of not doing as well the next time

I see how difficult it was to achieve the moderate success I had and at times it seems impossible to repeat this feat no matter how much I believe in me. I need the right idea at the right time, executed the right way and all of this before running out of funds in a future not so distant. I don’t fear to go bankrupt, I just fear of losing part of what I have achieved by having to go back a few (or many) steps.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world if my next game doesn’t meet success and I’d probably be able to get a nice day job again but if this is the attitude I adopt I fear I might just not feel like trying anymore. I might as well take the money I made, spend it on fancy stuff and travels, call it a day and then go job hunting right away.

So the anxiety is a source of motivation to find the right project but then I also know I don’t have that much time to figure it out. In a perfect world I’d spend as much time as needed to explore concepts, release prototypes and get feedback until one project springs some solid interest but time is limited. This is what I’ve been doing for the past 3 months and one by one I’ve seen all my “great” ideas and prototypes being rejected either by myself (sometimes you just realize an idea isn’t that great once you see it for yourself), feedback from others or publishers.

Maybe in some naive way I thought that the day I had financial success I’d be able to release one or two games that might not do well over a few months or maybe a year and still be able to remain a full-time indie dev until I’d find the “right” project to work on. I know now that the bar to achieve this is much higher than I ever thought it to be.

Maybe this is not a life for me after all

It wouldn’t be honest to pretend that I don’t question myself about the whole situation. Becoming a full-time indie dev surely got me a lot of joy but the lack of freedom for my next project to “fail” also brought a lot of stress I never experienced before. I thought I knew what it would be like but I guess that you never really know until you’re there.

To help to process this I often think about how it all started. Last year, after working for the same company for 15 years, I received a Skype call from my boss telling me they were letting five people go and that I was part of this group. I always thought I was “safe” at my day job (you never know but after 15 years you can’t help but to feel safe a bit I guess) so it was quite a shock and a big source of stress. It was the only employer I ever had so I was completely lost about what would happen next. Before looking for another job I checked if I could get a game project funded and it worked! This is what got me to MotL and the success I’m currently enjoying.

So this little story about this day job I lost helps me a bit to deal with all of this. Back then, I didn’t know what would happen when MotL would be released so I was already updating my resume, ready to go look for a job. I guess that the situation is similar right now. I know that I have 6-7 months to work on a game, release it and then after I look for a day job unless I’m “lucky” again.

It’s easier to say than to truly accept though. I have ups and downs, sometimes worrying about what will happen and sometimes being really optimistic about that new game I’m working on. The worst times are when I surprise myself hoping I would have had even more success to buy me some freedom to fail and then I hate myself for not being able to enjoy what is happening to me.

So yes, it crosses my mind that maybe this is not a life for me after all. Maybe I should indeed find myself a day job, enjoy the money I made and take the time I need to figure out what is the “right” game to work on next. Maybe I’ll get used to it and have a good laugh about it in a few years or maybe it’s the kind of anxiety I will never be able to deal with. I like to pretend that I know myself pretty well but I must admit that I’m exploring a new territory of my personality here and that I don’t have all the answers to the questions passing through my mind at the moment.

I’m not really looking for answers from others as it’s a process I need to figure out for myself based on my personality, what makes me happy/unhappy and what I can deal with. It’s different for each person so there’s no single truth here. All I know is that just writing about it helps to put things in perspective and who knows, maybe someone else in a similar situation might find something in this post that might be of some help, if only to know that they are not alone.(source:Gamasutra

 


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