Hereâs what Iâve come to learn, and only very recently after a huge volume of struggle and failure. This turned out a little lengthy, bear with meâŚ
Like so many, my idea of being indie always entailed a kind of independent passion. The stereotype of the bedroom programmer, the loner, man vs machine, a rebellion against society, a rebellion against the norm, a rebellion against business and money and commercial interests. It was this ideal of going solo, doing everything myself, pursuing only what I felt passionate about or interested in, being kind of the âheroâ in the center of all this brave effort, orchestrating everything myself and doing all the work and imagining myself as the savior of all those poor game players who were suffering from bad games.
Like so many I rejected the idea of thinking about money or business or âtrying to make moneyâ (because those are NOT indie - remember, indie means independent which is really an egocentric standpoint, which makes us AGAINST success or being like the crowd in any way, which includes not having anything to do with evil money)⌠while at the same time having this hipocritical longing for some kind of success. Itâs almost as if I believed I would just happen to be super successful without having even given attention to âhowâ, and that this would reflect upon myself as some kind of superhero with false humility. I did not want to create anything like any of the mainstream games. I even had an active despising of and avoidance of all such games, seeing them as inferior and so on.
Did I ever come up with any kind of miraculous passive heroic success? No. Total absolute heart-wrenching failure every time, tears included. It was all an ego bullshit lie. How could I expect to see any kind of success without actually acting in a manner that would confidently bring that success? Just playing around with ideas and things that seem cool and so indie did absolutely nothing but make me fail. And yet I did not want to do that evil thing - compete - with all the empty lifeless copycat games that were so easy to judge. But it isnât so much that I had to focus on competing, but simply on making a really good game, with realistic goals and reasons for its design that takes other people into account. The indie heroic drive is self-centered and narcissistic and ineffective.
For me, that entire approach to development pretty much died a miserable death just recently. And with it, I kind of broke down over the total frustration and failure of the âdead dreamâ of breaking away from the rat-race and being âfull time indieâ. Particularly in light of this stupid âindiepocalypseâ idea which really just means that the indie attitude is being proven not to work, and it should die. But this also made me take a good hard look at my options and what Iâd really been doing.
This is maybe a generalization and there are obvious exceptions, but the fact is, in this world, you need money to survive. Youâre going to more or less be dead without it. Trying to be the indie hero without considering that is suicide. Expecting that people are going to just accidentally, passive love your creations is indirect and egocentric self-sabotage.
If you really do genuinely want your game to do well in this world, you pretty much are going to have to adopt an attitude of really getting smart and treating it as a business. This doesnât have to mean you are sacrificing all artistic integrity or foregoing natural passions. It simply means that youâre stepping outside of the hero shoes and youâre starting to work ON the business instead of IN the business. Youâre getting a detached viewpoint which lets you make smart decisions for the good of the project, including setting and achieving goals, managing time, knowing your audience, placing limits on wayward dreaming, keeping things on track etc, having a goal and purpose thatâs actually REALISTIC and not fairytale. That way you actually might accomplish something and actually might make some good sound decisions based on having an actual audience. Otherwise youâre not only a bedroom programmer but youâre also doing it with the lights out, and nobody can see in the dark.
Iâve found it simply does not work to have ANY intention of success without getting serious about being a proper business and making business-type decisions about your game. You have to view your game as a product and you have to snap out of the fantasy bullshit of being just a hobbyist. If you want to do games purely for enjoyment and not to make money, then at least admit to yourself that this is what you are doing and stop trying to just hope that maybe youâre going to get some success somehow. You wonât. You will fail. And you will be frustrated and you will give up hope. I did. I had to give up all hope of this indie attitude ever working for me. It is broken.
If you want your games to go far and if youâre in any way unclear about whether this is a hobby (which means it has no realistic goals that you can expect to meet), then youâre just kidding yourself. The only way your games are going to be successful is if you have the right kind of attitude and viewpoint, which is what we call âbusinessâ, like it or not. If your little operation does not look like a proper business, then youâre still a hobbyist and you will fail. If being a hobbyist is all you want, thatâs great.
Maybe youâll accidentally get some success. But I think this has led to this fiction that you can still be just a hobbyist and indie and not think about genuine success at all, and yet still be successful⌠and because this does not work, it leads to this pervasive idea that âbeing successful as an indie is just luckâ. Itâs not luck. Itâs only a little bit luck. Success is INTENTIONAL. That means you are confident that you know what you are doing and that it will work. Itâs not a shot in the dark or some kind of lottery. If youâre treating it properly with the respect and organization that it needs for success, then it has a far better chance of success than for that to be just an afterthought.
The indie ideal can be this fantasy idea of magical developers who are just so cool and who are worshipped, with great games just oozing out of them in their sleep with no effort, but unless you are some kind of genius (which you probably think you are) that just isnât going to happen. You have to make it happen. And that means getting serious about what youâre doing and acting mature about it, which is what it means to run a business. And yes that does also mean you have your eye on actually, realistically making money, having done your research and knowing who youâre doing it for and why. I think the indie fantasy mindset is really an impediment to ACTUALLY being successful in so many ways. Maybe you can retain some sense of independence and flying the flag and all this ego bullshit, but it does not work.
Once you give up that fight and get real then now youâre really on to something and can make strides forward with clarity, confidence, intention, being realistic and stepping back with an objective viewpoint to manage your project, rather than just being that star performer hero person in the middle of the trenches trying to fight their way out. You have to become able to look at it from the outside in, from a bigger perspective, which largely means coming out of the bedroom and into the light.
Either operate as a proper business or drop the idea of ever seeing success entirely.
Slowly dwindling. I did meet an asset store producer who is doing it âfull timeâ, but pointed out that they couldnât do it while living in a city.
⌠We can talk about all this until the sun expands, doesnât help you get anything out the door.