6 Mistakes I Made When I Started Making Games

[Music] hello there my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called once upon a coma I'm working on that right now I also made a game called pinstripe that's on console and steam and blah blah blah I make indie games I've made it a living for about three years now I've been making indie games for 10 years there's so many things that I did in the beginning of the indie game development thing the indie game part of my career that I wish I had known so many huge mistakes so here are top six mistakes that I made as an indie game developer are you ready I hope you ready I'm ready so the first thing is one I never researched a thing I never like did planing or researching our concept thing I just jumped right into making games part of the reason why I did this was because I think I was just afraid I didn't have time to research I always felt anxious and I always felt a sense of urgency and I know how this feels like a lot of you are students or working full time jobs and you feel like you've only got like two hours in the day to actually work on your game believe it or not I think you should spend more time researching and learning and planning and concept uh this will pay off in the long run I promise you building a scalable game with proper documentation really good code it's way more important than getting things done because if you're like if you're building the Titanic and it's got holes in it it's gonna sink on launch so you want to make sure that you're being consistent and really planning properly in researching spend some time on the unity documentation pages and on their tutorial pages or if you're using unreal on their tutorial pages spend time watching videos watch my videos there's also some great youtubers out there who cover indie game topics as well all right the second mistake I made when I started making indie games as I purchased tools way too early and I think this was part of a part of the reason was because I wanted to feel like I was being a professional so I was really young and kind of naive so I would just go and buy tools just because I wanted to feel like I was I don't know making the right steps in the direction of being an indie game developer or something I don't really know exactly what I was thinking but have you ever felt like you you're not doing what everyone else is doing like you don't have a really cool studio or you're not dressing the way that other indie game developers are dressing or acting the way they're acting and using the right software or the software that they're using this is this is just not something you need to be thinking about just think about making your game being creative staying disciplined I think the most valuable thing you can do is just be disciplined so when I first started making pinstripe this was almost five or six years ago I was really really disciplined but I was also very insecure and so one of the first things I did is I felt like it was important for me to own unity Pro and at the time you had to spend $3,000 to get unity Pro so I spent $3,000 on unity Pro and then waited five years before I actually utilized the license and by the time the five years was up it wasn't even valid anymore because unity had changed their subscription model so there's a lot of free options out there for you to start making games you don't have to spend $3,000 to start making games you could download free trials and they're everywhere from Adobe all the way to unity if you're working in your bedroom that's okay or your dorm or if you're me I was working in the library of Clemson University all by myself I wasn't partying with my friends or hanging out with friends I was just working in the basement of the library on my my laptop so anyone can make indie games you don't have to buy certain things to do it eventually you will need to buy stuff but when you're starting making games all right a third mistake that I made was I overvalued indie game competitions look I get it like IGF and IndieCade and III and GDC and PACs are really cool and to be able to get into those competitions as cool and it's a little bit valuable and you meet people and you can get the little award laurels on your game that's really really fun and and I've been part of that and I've done that and I'm gonna continue to do that but don't let it freak you out don't let it make you insecure about your game a lot of times I've heard this from several judges who have worked at IG FN a decade a lot of times there's not it's not an agenda but it's there's there's a lot of different factors that go into your game getting into a competition so just because it didn't get into a competition doesn't mean that your game isn't good or that it's not going to be successful I can't tell you how many rejection letters I got from IGF and how often times it would tear me down emotionally so much so that I wanted to quit making the game I think it's way more important for you especially in your first game to just finish it rather than worry about what these judges are saying I have learned to to not trust any authority figure in any part of my life I'm always skeptical about advice and about critique you always want to make sure that you're you're not letting any insecurities that you have about your game validate any critique that you're receiving try and receive critique whether that's in the form of what your friends are saying about your game or whether it's a rejection letter from a studio or indie game competition always make sure you're taking that critique as objectively as you can you don't want to quit making your game finish your game that's the most important thing all right the fourth mistake I made was I had a lust for money I would lust after money and this is sounds kind of extreme but I don't actually know if it's that extreme to say it like that because in hindsight looking back I was such a worrywart I cared so much about security and financial stability and money can't tell you how many times I ran the numbers right this is before Pinstripe launched I would write out exactly who was gonna play the game on YouTube and how many plays or how many views that would have and if there was a three percent conversion rate how many sales would that translate to and I'd have spreadsheets and projections and blah blah blah dude good luck projecting anything with your first indie game okay just here's a good projection for you plan on making no money and I know that sounds extreme and I hate to burst your bubble but if you want to make indie games you really have to do it because you love it your first game is likely not to make a lot of money that's okay that's the way it goes for most indie game developers just enjoy making games to the best of your ability I think a good way to sort of get rid of this risk of making no money is to pursue publishers and that is my fifth mistake that I made is I didn't pursue financial support especially early on when I started making games I spent three you know I spent four years working on pinstripe without any financial support from anybody and you know this is tough because I had to work a full time job I was married I had just gotten married out of college and I had a full-time job and so I had to find two hours somewhere in the day every day to be able to continue working on pinstripe and this is really really tough mainly because first like our first point you don't really want to spend time planning and researching and concept and doing business admin things because you just want to get the damn thing done and this will really hurt its production so you need to find financial support publishers are you know they're kind of unnecessary I wouldn't say evil but you know what I'm saying they they give you money they provide you funding and they're able to take that risk that financial risk that maybe you're not able to do they'll also help you with marketing which is great now if you're working on your second or your third or your fourth project I highly recommend not working with a publisher if you don't have to there's really no reason to do it if you know how to market a game and you have the money to make a game and work on it full-time but publishers are a great alternative when you don't have funding another thing you can do about funding is Kickstarter so I have a video that I made about Kickstarter you can take a look at the link in the description about how to actually make a quality Kickstarter campaign don't be afraid of Kickstarter I always thought that if I fail on Kickstarter is gonna be public and everyone's gonna laugh at me it is public it stays up but it's not a huge deal I think most of the internet and hopefully your family and friends will understand if you failed dude it's better to fail at a pursuing a dream than and then to not fail at all and that is absolutely true because failure always leads to success so so just pursue financial support wherever you can especially for your first game because again you want to have that full time the ability to work full time on your game so the sixth and final mistake that I made when I was working on when I first started making any games was I didn't build an audience oops sorry I didn't build an audience and I worked five years on Pinstripe and I didn't spend any of that time focusing on hey maybe I could build my audience so that when I actually launched Pinstripe on Steam or console this army of followers that I have will help make it have a big splash so a really cool thing that you can do is every day when you're working on your game spend about 10 to 15 minutes providing some sort of update on your project an animated gif or an image or something a screen shot and use a tool called HootSuite and I think you have to pay a subscription for you a yearly subscription fee but it's not a terrible price especially for the value that you get basically HootSuite allows you to post on all social media platforms at once do this every day with a link to your game on the steam page like a preview link so that people can wishlist your game ask people to follow you ask for retweets you know don't be afraid to ask for retweets just be careful how often you do this but always have a call to action every single day for your project and build up your audience so my goal is to have twenty thousand wish lists for once upon a coma on launch day ten thousand Twitter followers ten thousand Instagram followers twenty five thousand subscriptions on YouTube just don't undervalue the importance of building an audience and a following that will follow you from project to project to project a lot of us think that we need to invest a ton of marketing money into launching our games and that is good to do is invest some form of a marketing budget but I think the most valuable thing you can do is have a built-in audience ready to support you when you launch your game all right guys I actually have two more mistakes that I want to share with you but in order to take a look at those mistakes you've got to pay me your money head on over to patreon subscribe it's just like ten dollars a month and you can hear all of my videos in the full length videos every video I do has some extra tips at the end of the video so head on over to patreon it's super important to me and supports me and my family so thank you so much guys hit the subscribe hit the subscribe button hit the like button if you have any questions or comments feel free to write below in the comment section I'll be happy to answer them thanks guys bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 162,211

Keywords: game development mistakes, making games, indie game development tips, game developer tips, game development, indie game developer tips, unity, indies, switch, starting games, start making games

Id: bcKwJ7xUaxQ

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018