As one of the more prominent indie developers in Australia, Melbourne-based Brawsome probably get a whole lot of questions from graduates and start-up hopefuls thrown at them on how they went about figuring out all this indie development stuff.
Founder and chief Brawsome guy, Andrew Goulding, has seen fit to write a highly informative response to the latest enquiry on their business model, how they approached marketing, and their decisions and strategies with the hopes of sharing this valuable insight for others who are wondering the same thing. With two quality titles under their belt, Brawsome certainly have the experience and know-how behind them to offer some real solid advice, so listen up and take heed!
The harsh reality of being independent is that it ain't all fun and code, folks! You're going to taking care of all matters concerning marketing and support for your games, and it's going to take a huge chunk of your time. From the Brawsome blog...
(Andrew) You’ll find more and more that to get a game out to market successfully, you’ll be doing less and less game development. I used to say it was 50% development 50% everything else, but that number is skewing to maybe more like 20-30% game development, then everything else. Ultimately, it’s a business...
Each new game you release will need to be supported via bug fixes and responding to users, even doing interviews and providing press with keys. You’ve got to do this or your game will essentially die. So keep in mind you’ll be supporting the previous game as you’re developing the new one.
Choosing the type of game is also of incredible importance, and Andrew explains why they chose the particular themes and types of games they did. Differentiation is key, and a lot of extra thought and further research went into their target market to scope out how many copies they expected to sell and at what price...
(Andrew) I got in touch with a number of adventure enthusiast websites to ask them about traffic and numbers, and sales, but all this is usually difficult information to come by. This is so you don’t make a mistake of thinking there’s a market where there isn’t one, i.e. making an FPS for 80 year old women, or a dress up game for 12-18 year old boys, or even releasing a game in a highly saturated market, i.e. WW2 FPS, or 2D retro platformer.
Also explained is the preparation they had to take with Film Victoria for Jolly Rover where they had to produce a business and marketing plan, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, a budget with expense details, and an overall project plan, all of which helped with understanding how the game will work on the business side.
It's a highly insightful read, so do yourself a favour and check it out!!