作者：Thomas Steinke

我是Xbox畅销独立游戏《CastleMiner Z》开发者DigitalDNA Games的所有人。在本篇文章中我将为那些想要与我一样当一名全职独立游戏开发者的人提供一些建议。

人们也许不知道我是一名职业游戏开发者。对于真正成功的独立游戏开发者而言这似乎是一种反复出现的趋势。大多数人会认为，因为你已经知道如何去创造游戏了。这的确是一大优势，但仍有许多拥有非常简单的技术的独立游戏获得了巨大的成功。当然不需要一位职业AAA级游戏开发者去创造下一款《愤怒的小鸟》。这并不是关于学习游戏巨头公司才拥有的不同技术，特别在已经出现了各种优秀中间件的今天。尽管如此，职业开发者们仍有许多简单的理念能够带给你帮助，而我将在本文中进行简单总结。

castlez.jpg(from indiegames.com)

很久以前，有个人在与我谈论过一个即将完成的项目时说道：“如果这是一款你并不会去玩的游戏，你便有可能不会去创造它。”这让作为一名职业开发者的我感到非常惊讶；我经常认为我并不是在为自己创造游戏。我之所以会对此感兴趣是因为这是“专业”与业余之间的差别。

就像职业音乐家或舞者也是如此。你可能会听说过，一位音乐家先演奏了一首摇滚乐，并在一个小时候又演奏了国乐。这便是“职业”艺术家所需要具备的基本元素。当你必须通过搞艺术而谋生，特别是当你非常有才能时，你需要学会如何灵活应变；这便是“职业”与业余之间的最大不同。如果你想要成为一名职业的独立开发者，你便需要学着像职业者那样思考。

残酷的现实

基于情感将自己与工作区分开来。因为你被设定为职业者，所以你必须想尽办法获得成功。这是我们必须掌握的最重要的教训—-不只是在游戏开发中，在一般业务中也非常重要。作为一名专业人员和业务拥有者，你的主要目标便是获得经济上的成功。这么做并不是为了让自己开心，让自己变得有名，让别人写文章去夸奖自己，获得奖励或者支持一个平台或理念。而现在，如果这些目标能够支持你的主要目标的话，你也可以去实现它们。

你将意识到这么做将推动着你做出非常实际且冷静的决策（游戏邦注：关于你所致力的项目以及如何分配时间与金钱）。

在继续向前走之前，你必须搞清楚作为一名职业者并不是为了自己。游戏开发是一种非常棒的艺术，而有些人到此只为成为一名艺术家。这是可被理解的。早在五年前这里还不存在多少机遇。我能够理解人们想要低调地成为游戏开发者的想法，就像许多超级英雄也具有隐藏身份。如果你不巧是这种人的话，你会发现我所提出的建议有点烦人。但是如果你的计划是辞去全职工作而将独立游戏开发作为职业的话，我的建议便会对你很有帮助。

我之所以会提及这一点是因为，对于那些对游戏产业充满浪漫幻想的人来说，现实真的很残酷。也许这是你多年以来一直坚持着的想法，并且是你真正想要实践的事。但却不一定是适合你的。就像我想创造巨大的游戏库，但这却是不现实的想法。而职业者们之所以能够理解这一点便是因为他们需要经常面对游戏开发的现实。这便引出了我的下一个观点。

现实地面对你所能做的事

作为一名职业开发者，我所拥有的最大优势便是能够精确地安排项目的时间和预算。当我接过某一项目时，我总是能够明确自己将遭遇哪些问题，以及需要花费多少成本才能解决它们。也许你缺少足够的经验，但是如果你不会大手大脚地花钱的话便能够有效缓解这一问题。

尽管作为一名职业开发者，但是当你着眼于我们的XBLIG目录时便会发现我们的第一款游戏非常简单，而这完全是有意的。我所创造的第一款游戏是《Avatar Paintball》，即带有Xbox Avatars的第一人称射击游戏。但是在此之前我已经创造了5款小游戏。每一款游戏不只能够构建我们的引擎，同时还能为我们带来开发盈利，并让我们吸取更多开发经验。而当《Avatar Paintball》诞生时，我们之前所做出的这些努力便都得到了回报。因此创造一款这种低难度游戏的风险也就大大减少了。这一理念一直根植于我们的血液中，并且会一直影响着我们未来的创作。如果我们决定执行一个昂贵的功能，那么我们未来的2至3款游戏便会利用这一技术。

关键就在于，如果你拥有计划的话，你便有理由从简单的做起。这比付出了大量的心血但却遭遇失败好太多。同时，发行更多作品能够帮助你更好地了解平台与市场。你会发现自己致力于一些与最初了解的完全不同的内容。

利用别人的创造

在2000年代早期以前，致力于游戏产业中仍是一件非常有趣的事。我们一直在构想各种新的渲染技术，思考如何解决物理问题和冲突等。但是在2000年早期，所有的这些问题都得到了解决。即解决这些问题已经不存在任何价值了。也许你对物理模拟的运行非常感兴趣，但是你必须先决定是否使用物理引擎或者是否以制作游戏而谋生。那时候出现了各种中间件，如果它们能够帮助你解决问题的话，那就尽管使用吧，不要浪费时间去重新创造。如此也引出了我们的下一个话题。

对时间负责

从小业务起步的人往往不会考虑到这一点。如果你决定辞去全职工作的话，你便需要确保这一选择是有价值的。这对于那些一心想创造某些内容，或对创造某部分内容充满激情的人来说却是个大问题。我经常看到有些人花数个月或者数年的时间去胡乱修改自己项目的某些部分，有时候甚至从未专注于任何项目，而任由机遇在眼前流逝。以下是帮助他们避开这些问题的建议：

为自己的时间买单。明确在一天的工作时间中每个小时该做些什么，并在执行项目时牢记着这些规划。当你的项目上市时，你必须清楚自己需要赚更多的钱去弥补时间。你的时间是非常有价值的，你总是能够快速意识到自己没钱去创造任何想创造的内容。能够知道这点是好事。通过这种经验你将知道如何去获利。

选择合适的项目

了解你所面对的市场以及用户。再次记得你并不是为了自己而创造游戏。你是为了用户而创造游戏。把握当前市场中的趋势。哪些游戏取得成功而哪些又遭遇了失败？快速地做出符合当前趋势的决定，这便是你作为独立开发者的优势。

要知道这都是关于投资回报率。对于你所投入的每一分钱（游戏邦注：包括你所拥有的时间），你都要期待能够赚回本并加上其它回报。在风险投资家的世界中，投资者在每一个小型业务中所要求的投资回报率通常都是1：10。对于独立游戏公司来说这种期待是现实的，并且这也是我在DigitalDNA Games中所使用的经验法则。

你将意识到，这一法则将能推动你做出一些艰难的决定，如发展方向以及投资目标等。让我们以电影产业为例。人们总是会纳闷为什么自己要一直创造那些俗气的喜剧电影。它们从未出现在夏季热门影片的列表中。而原因就在于，创造这些电影的成本很低，并能够带来可观的投资回报率。花费1美元而赚得10美元总是比花费100美元但却只赚的11美元来得可取吧。比起AAA级游戏，独立游戏的利润往往较高。但是当你开始规划更大的数字时，这便会成为问题所在，而当意识到问题的出现时你将更担心哪块领域才更值得自己去投入。

做出现实的期望

pro(from mcfunkypants)

这是这一过程的另一大的重要部分，也是之前要点的必然结果。人们总是不能理解这一点，并因此而做出一些糟糕的决定。如果你计划创造一款游戏，但却发现已经出现了其它10款类似的游戏取得了惨淡的销售，你便会幻想自己的游戏将取得一鸣惊人的成绩。另一方面，人们总是会因为一些成功的故事而分心，并忽视失败的结果。就像去年《愤怒的小鸟》赚得了1.27亿美元的收益，你便会想如果自己创造一款类似的游戏也许也能够取得同样好的成绩。可以说这种逻辑非常危险。也许这能够帮助你挑选一些合适的项目，但是经验和研究才能帮助你取得长期的好结果。举个例子来说吧，我告诉人们自己可以只看游戏包装便能判断这款游戏是否能够取得成功，并且能够立刻知晓它能赚取多少利益。这是因为我们的畅销游戏成功率便是最有效的判断系统。

你需要明智且保守地选择创造对象，目标平台，如此你才能够顺利地积攒自己的第一次经验。

谨慎地选择合作伙伴

找到能够与你分享激情的伙伴不仅能够分担你的工作量，同时也能够带给你神奇般的力量。也就是说，一个好的合作伙伴是推动着你走向成功的重要元素；而糟糕的合作伙伴则会给你拖后腿。当你决定与别人一起共事时，你必须确保自己做出这个决定是基于合理的原因。对于这一点我真的很幸运，因为我已经在游戏产业中打拼了很多年，所以认识了产业中许多非常优秀的人，并且我也正与这些人一起工作。

不要气馁

失败只是游戏开发中的一部分，你必须学会应对失败，并且诚实地面对自己，如此你才能从错误中吸取教训并纠正问题。如果你在尝试某些事物时遭遇了失败，并需要承担别人从未遇到过的昂贵代价，你也需要认识到这种代价的价值性；并将其当成自己的优势加以利用。而如果你决定放弃的话便是在浪费时间和金钱。我经常在说到“帝国反击战”时提及这一点。即如果你最终能够赢得战争的话，那之前的撤退和重组都属于正确的决定。

（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）

How to Make it as a Professional Indie Game Developer

by Thomas Steinke

My name is Thomas Steinke, if you are not aware of me; I am the owner of DigitalDNA games, arguably the most successful Xbox Indie Developer, and the creator of the all time best selling Xbox Indie Game CastleMiner Z. In this article I wanted to spend some time and give advice to people that have aspirations of being full time Indie game developers like me.

What some people might not be aware of is that I am an ex-pro game developer. Of the really successful Indie game developers this seems to be a reoccurring trend. Most people would say it’s because you already KNOW how to make games. Yes, that is definitely an advantage, but there are a lot of indie games with very simple technology that have been very successful. It definitely doesn’t take a pro triple-A game developer to make the next Angry Birds. It isn’t about learning some alien technology that only the high priests of gaming have; especially now a days with all the great middleware out there. However, there are some really simple ideas that the pros have been exposed too which may help you a lot and that are pretty easy to summarize in an article.

A long time ago, someone approached me speaking about an upcoming project. They made a comment like “since this is a game you probably wouldn’t play, you probably would not be able to make it..”.  I was surprised as a pro developer as I was; I was often in positions where I was making games that were not for me. It was interesting to me because it drove to the point what it means to be “professional” versus a hobbyist.

If you think about professional musicians or dancers they do this all the time. You may have heard stories about studio musicians who play back up on a rock album then an hour later play back up on a country album. This is the essence of what being a “pro” artist is all about. When you have to make a living by doing your art, especially if you are very talented, you learn to be flexible; it is main difference of being a “pro” from someone that is playing with their hobby. So if you want to be pro-Indie you have to start thinking like a pro, this brings us to our first item.

Be relentlessly practical

Separate yourself from your work emotionally. Since you are set on being pro, you need to be successful despite yourself. This is by far the most important lesson to learn, not only in game development, but business in general. Your primary directive as a professional and a business owner needs to be being financially successful. Not making yourself happy, feeling good about yourself, becoming popular, getting people to write articles about you, winning awards, pushing an agenda or supporting a platform or idea. Now you CAN do any or all of these things if they still support your primary directive.

You realize right away that this will force you to make very practical and level headed decisions about what projects you work on and how you spend your time/money.

Let’s stop here for a second. Before you go any farther, you may have decided that being a pro is not for you. That is totally okay. Game development is a beautiful art, and some people just want to be artists. It is very noble and respectable. There are a lot of opportunities out there that didn’t exist even five years ago. I could totally understand just wanting to be a game developer by moonlight, like some sort of superhero with a hidden identity. If you are that person I applaud you and you may find some of my advice objectionable. However if your plan is to quit you day job and make Indie games your profession, my advice may be more relevant to you.

The reason I mention this is that this level of practicality is painful and difficult for some people that have romantic ideas about what the game industry is like. Maybe there is this really cool idea you have had for years, and that is what you really WANT to make. However it may not be the right thing for you to work on, or at least to start on. I can tell you there is this huge back log of games I would LOVE to make, but it just isn’t practical. Pros “get” this because pros are constantly exposed to this idea of being practical about developing games. This leads very well to my next point.

Be realistic about what you can do

As a pro, one of the greatest advantages I have is that I can VERY accurately cost projects in both time and money. When I take on a project, I usually know exactly what problems I will encounter and how much it will cost to solve them. You may not have the experience to do this but you can mitigate this by not biting off more than you can chew.

Even as a pro developer, if you look at our XBLIG catalog you can see that our first games were very simple, this was completely intentional. The first game that I intended to make was Avatar Paintball, the first FPS with Xbox Avatars. However, I made about five small games previous to that. Each game was meant not only to build out part of our engine, but to monetize the development and learning that needed to happen. This made it so that when Avatar Paintball actually came out, the huge amount of work building the engine was already paid for. Therefore the risk of making such a complex game was greatly reduced. This idea has been rooted in our DNA (no pun intended), and has continued. If we decide to implement an expensive feature we usually already have 2-3 future games planed that will take advantage of the tech.

The point is, it is okay to start small if you have a plan. It is far better than doing a ton of work and simply failing. Also releasing lots of things will teach you things about the platform and the marketplace. You may find yourself working on something completely different than you first intended based on what you learn.

However there is another way to mitigate this which leads to the next point.

Leverage other people’s work

It was very interesting to work in the game industry until about the early 2000’s. We were figuring out new rendering technology, how to solve physics, collision etc. At some point in early 2000 or so these all sort of became solved problems. There really isn’t any value in solving them again (back to point one). You might be really interested in how physics simulations work, but you need to decide if you want to play with a physics engine or make games for a living. There is tons of middleware out there, if it solves a problem for you, use it, instead of wasting your time reinventing the wheel. This is a great lead-in to our next topic.

Account for your time

People starting small businesses often don’t account for this. If you are going to leave your day job you need to make it worth your while. This is often a much greater problem for people that are passionate about making things or worse yet, passionate about making one part of something. Often I will see someone tinker with some part of their project for months or years, sometimes without even a project to focus on, while opportunity after opportunity passes them by. Here is a suggestion to avoid this:

Bill yourself for your time. Figure out what you make per hour at your day job, and keep that in mind when you make your projects. When your project hits the market, realize you will need to make enough money to make up for that. Your time is valuable and what you will realize very quickly is that you may not be able to afford to make some of the things you want. This is a GOOD thing. What you are learning by this experience is how to be profitable. This brings me to my next point.

Pick the right projects.

Be conscious of the marketplace you are competing in and the customers there. Remember you are not making games for yourself. You are making games for your customers. Look at the trends. What is succeeding and failing?  Be quick and agile about your decisions to capitalize on current trends; this is your advantage as an Indie.

Realize it is all about return on investment. For every dollar you put out there (including your own time) you should expect to get that dollar back plus some return. In the venture capitalist world, investors typically want to see a 10 to 1 return on investment for an investment in a small business. This is not an unrealistic expectation for an Indie game company and actually is the rule of thumb I use for DigitalDNA Games.

What you will realize is, this will force you to make some really hard decisions about what you work on and where you spend your time. Take the movie industry for example. People often wonder why they keep making those cheesy comedy movies. They never come close to out grossing the big summer blockbuster. The reason is, they are cheap to make and have a predictable and excellent return on investment. Spending $1 to make $10 is usually far better than spending $100 to make $11. The margins for indie games are huge even compared to triple-A games. This starts to be problematic when you scale this to very large numbers, but when this becomes your problem you will be more worried about what island you are going to buy for your secret lair.

Be realistic about your expectations

This is another important part of this process which is a corollary to the previous point. People don’t often have a grip on this and it leads to poor decision making. If you plan to make a game but you see that ten other similar games have had dismal sales, it may be a stretch to think yours it going to be a blockbuster hit. On the flip side, people tend to get distracted by success stories and ignore the similar failures. The Angry Birds empire made something like $127m last year, so if I make a game like that I should expect the same right? This sort of logic is dangerous. There is probably some magic in picking the right project but experience and research will make you better and better with this over time. For example, I tell people that at this point with XBLIG, I can look at a box cover and not only tell you if the game will be successful or not, but instantly know almost exactly how much money it will make. This is the reason that our success rate for bestselling titles is the best on the system.

Again making smart and conservative choices about what you make, wherever it may be, will let you build this experience up without going broke first.

Be VERY selective about who you work with.

Finding someone that shares your passion can not only help share the workload, but can augment you and create a magical energy. With that said, a good partner can make you a stellar success; a bad partner will undoubtedly sink you. If and when you decide to work with someone, make sure you are making the decision for the right reasons. I am lucky in the sense that working in the game industry for so many years has let me come in contact with the absolute best people in the industry which I have the fortune now of working with. I will only work with the absolute best people now, and I am extremely selective.

Don’t get discouraged

Failure is part of the game, you have to learn not only to deal with it, but to be 100% honest with yourself so you can learn from your mistakes and become better at what you are doing. If you try something and fail you have paid for an expensive lesson that someone else doesn’t have, it just makes you that much more valuable; use it to your advantage. It is only a waste if you decide to give up. I often refer to these moments as “Empire Strikes Back” moments. There is nothing wrong with retreating and regrouping if you ultimately win the war.(source:gamasutra)