Indie challenges

News & General Discussion
1

Hi all,

Ok, so this is a loaded question, and has been (at least partially) studied in a variety of settings, but I’m genuinely interested in the Unity Community’s insights here, so here goes:

What is the biggest challenge (or challenges) facing indie developers?

Couple of caveats:

  1. in the name of sanity, let’s shoot for a top 3 (as the endless list goes through my head :slight_smile: )
  2. try and be specific, if possible (lack of money is a given, but what specifically is lacking)
  3. barriers to parts or all of game development are not the only challenges, but often good ones (getting noticed or reviewed springs to mind)

So, why am I asking?

Well, first off, just for pure group therapy. I can’t be alone in some of these problems… can I? :wink:

Second, I think I’ve got a line of sight on what some of the major problems are, and some ideas on how to fix them, but as with everything, without some focus on real needs, it’s impossible to do something that can actually help. I’m a big believer in Lean Startup :smile:

Finally, or rather as an extension of my second reasoning, I have, over the years, through my “regular” career and moonlighting as a indie dev, accumulated a host of contacts in a number of industries that always seem like if I can find a good way to “connect the dots” would be awesome for not just me, but other indies. Again, I need a clearer picture of what problems to address (first :slight_smile: ) to know how to sow them together.

Now, to kick things off, here’s my top 3 (after I list, reorder, list again, you know the craziness that goes on… :smile: ) :

  1. No good way to get a game noticed. Yes, some can self-publish and get swept up in the media, social networking, et al and soar, while others can leverage a publisher. But what about the rest of us?

  2. Money. Yup, this one has got to be a common one. From buying tools, stock images, to hiring people with skills you don’t have, to marketing (lets not forget trying to eat :slight_smile: ). Soup to nuts… Yes, publisher funding is possible (but not as much any more), crowd funding, etc… But i find this one particularly hard. I don’t have the time to do a proper job of crowd funding, and I’m not working on any titles I think would capture the world’s imagination (like an RPG, Adventure or RTS), and frankly I’d need some funding to get one of my game designs in either of those genres to a crowd funding state (I don’t have 20+ yrs of game industry fame to help me launch from day 0 … of course I don’t have their spending habits either :smile: )

I placed money second, simply because one needs to lead to the other in my mind. If I had money, I’d advertise, which gets sales, and more money (or so the story goes). Being indie, in my mind, is about needing to get #1 first to solve #2.

and 3) business collaboration. From like minded indies to associated businesses. Other than general discussion forums :shock:, where do we go? There isn’t a local gaming cluster where I am now, and while the IGDA is very helpful. How does one connect with other indies to kick around business ideas?

That’s my big 3. Anyone else have some pain to share?

2

For me I have to say my Top Challenge is having the Money to Hire Artists to Create the Art Assets I require to Create the Kind of Game I really want. So putting money aside, really my primary issue is Art Assets especially since I focus on Full 3D Action based Games, 2D Games are not my thing.

I’m sure i’m not alone with this problem, and I think it is one of the many reasons Unity Asset Store is Thriving because everyone needs assets, and not everyone is an Artist. Most of us are Developers, or Designers I think, so the Unity Asset Store is such an important part of Unity because it gives us an opportunity to at-least create Prototypes of our Game using Ready made Assets…

BUT then you just might get stuck at the Prototype stage lol, unless you have funding for Art to go further, or if you Decide to Team Up with an Artist for your Game. Teaming Up with an Artist is not a bad idea, but sometimes we want to work alone on our Dream Game, which is very Possible with Unity, but easy to hit a dead end with it comes to Art.

3

Why are you capitalizing random words

4

  1. Competition and market saturation - by this I mainly mean the way that, compared to the past, games are becoming more and more sophisticated, bigger teams behind them, high quality artwork, lots of content, makes it seem very very daunting for a lone indie to do anything remotely able to compete. Also competitiveness can put a really annoying damper on creativity by trying to go up against what other people are doing, rather than doing your own thing.

  2. Time - part time/occasional time makes it really hard to keep momentum going and to keep the faith/stay focussed.

  3. Difficulty - boring programs that have to be written, bugs to be fixed, technical stuff that has to be planned out and thought through, lower-level stuff I guess in general. Unity calls it the pain that they’ve tried to remove. But there’s still a lot of pain to remove.

5

He’s typing on a device with an autocorrect feature and it’s changing his words into capitalised starts.

On topic: For me my biggest issue is time, I’m not going to say it’s the only issue I’ll ever face or have faced - but with enough time to dedicate to it, most issues can be resolved I think.

6
  1. Get funding.
  2. Get attention.

If you get non of these you will likely fail.

7

Three not so obvious but very important people related challenges that indies face:

Talent
Momentum
Commitment

8

I’m somewhat relieved I’m not the only person with this issue.

9
  1. Dealing with FREE (ie fans love my free products and rarely purchase anyway)
  2. Discoverability (especially when switching platforms - 500 downloads/day on iOS vs 5 on Android)

Gigi

10

Regarding lack of time, I’ve had to learn to be extra gentle on myself regarding having not got xyz done yet, it’s really easy to hit yourself over the head with frustrations from apparent lack of or slow progress.

11

How about lack of energy and time?

I have a day job as programmer and sometimes I’m really tired to make significant progress on my game projects. It’s hard to work in your free time.

12

+1

13

Awesome replies folks!

Money and time are, in my experience, like 2 sides of a balancing act. If you have more of one, you get more of the other. however, quite often it’s money that buys time. I think one of the hardest parts of indie development is the time in lieu of money problem. Especially when you’re also balancing a day job, family, etc…

Then creeps in the “game dev fatigue”. Hell even if you can stay focused to get it up and working, the effort to polish and play test can be worse than making it work in the first place! I haven’t made a game yet, where by the end of play testing I (at best) can’t remember what was fun about this thing… or (at worst) think … d*mn why did I write this!!!

Only to get all that done, and realize that the business/marketing end of the game is going to take more effort than the game!!

sigh Indie life: or lack there of :smile:

14

Heh, you sound like the perfect developer buddy - I have the money and technical skills - but as Kondor mentions, being a software developer (actually architect lately) with family makes for lack of consistent time. I’ve actually started to consider farming out programming/dev work and that makes me really sad because it’s one of my key skills.

So basically for me, it’s choose: or Time. I'm going with atm due to family considerations and low risk tolerance, now if only I had a partner with Time but lack of $ and some common interest in game types … bam!

15

As others have said: Time and Fatigue. Mostly applies to part-timers. Having a day job as a programmer makes Jack not want to do so at home -.-

Another that applies to part-timers/folks with some form of ADD: The “Shiny” effect…
It goes hand-in-hand with fatigue. You’ll start working on one project, get the fun stuff out of the way…and suddenly get sick of it due to all “the pain” and boilerplate. So what happens next? New idea! And then your old project is now collecting virtual dust…

Although, the shiny effect can be somewhat offset by itself. If you can get into some of “the pain” and boilerplate, then you can archive what you’ve completed in those areas somewhere (a DLL, or just some loose class files). After an indeterminate amount of time, you should wind up with most of the not-shinies done and thus have less not-shiny and more shiny to do.

Example Case:
Voxel-based rogue-like -
Shiny:

  • Greedy Meshing algorithm and mesh conversion tool
  • Dungeon generation algorithm
    Not-Shiny:
  • Inventory System
  • GUI

But, I have an basic inventory system that will work from a previous, and admittedly incomplete, project. Thus I can force myself to work on the one remaining Not-Shiny. Also, I’m gonna go re-watch Firefly now >.>

16

@XGundam05 - GUI used to be awful! I almost died on my first game trying to code a GUI that didn’t use Unity’s built-in system on iOS. NGUI is my friend (and comes with an Inventory System example :slight_smile: ). Of all my asset store purchases, that one treats me like a warm blanket :smile:

Happily I’m getting to the point where 2 things are happening,

  1. I’ve got a maturing code repository that I can reuse to get past many of the “non-shiny” parts
  2. Age is eroding my “shiny thing” requirements :slight_smile: (sadly this is counter balanced by my wife, who’s honey-do list which is starting to be visible from space, and 3 kids who seem to need to get involved in every possible activity in a 50 mile range)

Ahh, Firefly. Awesome… if only I had time left to watch tv :frowning: or sleep for that matter :roll_eyes:

Cheers,

Galen

17

Wow, good thread - it’s like you say, it can’t just be me right :slight_smile: ?

Ya I feel your pain, i’m bad for the ‘shiny’ effect too - a lot of the fun is the challenge/learning aspect for me, once that’s done its like ‘meh’ … and you lose interest and move on.

Thankfully Nightfall has proven quite different for me, there it’s more of a ‘need’ to get it done that drives me … which is nice for such a large project. I’ve actually started trying to solve the whole shiny syndrome with using some asset store kits, the hope being that launches me past that pieces and lets me dive further into actual gameplay. To that end I’m working on a small learning game and getting the kids involved, that sure helps motivate as well … so far its come pretty far, general gameplay seems about right just putting AI into place and pulling it together. Feels like if you can just finish one, beginning to end, theres some kind of revelation at the end lol.

18
  1. Decent-quality art/model assets. (Things like 3d characters with good performance and good animations)

And…I guess that’s pretty much the biggest thing lol. I need at least average quality characters, buildings, trees, walls, etc… Not to put the Unity asset store down (and I’ve found good use for it at times), but i’d say a majority of the 3d character assets on the asset store are below average (just in my opinion here). Then I go to turbosquid, and most of the models are not animated (or their terrible for performance).

So, finding/making/obtaining good-quality 3d art/models is my biggest challenge. I think it’s because I’m personally more of a programmer. I wish I was skilled at 3d modeling but I’m just not.

19
  1. Visual Art Assets - Artists are expensive, and my efforts are all grassroots - for reference, I’ve spent the most on my current project, a grand total of $35 for the blocks composing the levels, and the trees.

To get a game noticed, it has to look ‘good’ by enough other people’s definition to gain that initial attraction. Even if you have the best publicity around, an ugly game will hurt your overall reputation more than help you.

No one cares about my engineering (I’m a programmer by profession, and this is probably by-and-far my best-written game yet), and music is hit-or-miss depending on personal tastes (and, you have to hear the sounds of the game to determine whether or not you can appreciate them.) Those screenshots that prove you have created something are the first, and only impression short of a demo that the gaming press and your customers have to work with.

Mitigation: I am attempting to mitigate this challenge by falling back to art styles I am more familiar with, specifically pixel art. I find I work more quickly and efficiently in pixels than with models and bones, and can achieve a good style that other people praise.

  1. Money. You have to make money to spend money, but when much of your income goes to living - especially for a grassroots indie dev like myself - it’s hard to hire professionals proficient in other disciplines, or throw money at advertising your product. This may come off to some as an excuse, but for me it’s a real challenge; simply paying bills consumes a full third of my monthly income. About another third goes to day-to-day expenses, and the final third lands straight in the bank for when that “Oh Crap” moment comes a-calling.

My games are funded straight out of the “Oh Crap” fund. Needless to say, I spend with an extremely jaundiced eye.

Mitigation: There is no mitigation except for budgeting, paying close attention to Asset Store reviews, and doing everything I can to make this game ‘pay for itself.’ As a general guideline at the phase I’m at, I say that my current project will pay for itself when it earns back three times what I put into it ($35 so far) - which means I need to make $135 USD from it! I’d better get crackin’.

  1. Time. Again - this comes from my perspective as a grassroots developer, but time isn’t something about which I can just say, “Oh, if I had more of it it would be wonderful!” The truth is not intuitive: my time has to be balanced between work, life, and game development exactly the right way for all three to benefit.

Having more time to balance would be nice, but it would mean less Money from my day job…

Mitigation: The experiment I’m running in this project, where I devote roughly one hour of dev time a day, has mostly worked out well, even though I blew my initial deadline on my current project. This is highly variable, though, and may or may not work for everyone. Even then when I’m done with this game, I plan to take a month break just to give me and the game time to breathe.

20

I’m going to go against the grain of the thread and say there’s no real challenges for me. I’m not trying to change the world or make lots of money (my real world business does that), I’m just having fun.