Game Industry articles and info
Franto
Member Posts: 779
I use to read a lot of articles on the game industry back in 2000, when I was a kid, I was even accidentally getting a game development magazine for free when I signed up to something meant for game companies, lol. 
Anyway, after reading this article, I feel that Gamesalad is a pretty good piece of software for the incredible things it does.
At a some point, this guy went through programming hades for 11 months just to publish to multiple platforms. It really puts things into perspective. The company budget was $200,000, to create an app that only made $7,000. Then again, this was the early era of mobile gaming, so it was uncharted territory of course, well, either way, its a really insightful read. Many lessons to be learned as well, kind of tragic the way it ends with his earlier games.
Have any articles that might bring new insight into game development?
Comments
This is the reality. 200,000 $ for one game is just crazy. If I spend more than 20$ There is little hope to break even. ...........
Totally agree on no brand loyalty now. I'm the 45 year old guy in the Atari T shirt. That's loyalty.
Have fun making games. Keep costs low low low.
Thanks for posting.
I still don't understand how someone can spend a few hundred thousand and not keep a close track on any financial information/situation. Thats just asking to fail...
a few hundred thousand is really not that much on any professional level
@Franto interesting read as is this one
http://www.lostgarden.com/2015/04/minimum-sustainable-success.html
I didn't say it wasn't. I said not keeping track on the financial situation is asking to fail.
Brilliant article no artist will sit through and read.
So many great quotes. "House always wins". That would be apple.
A lot of smart creative people are terrible accountants.
Artists are dreamers that marry dentists.
lol, i spent $300 on 1 of my games 4 years back that made $20,000 with a 3 man spit. i don't see spending $200,000 on 1 app. you can make profit in this market!there is plenty to go around.
hah, I spent $150 on 1 of my games 2 years back that made $40,000 with a 2 man spit. Beat that!
Gamesutra is a site I've been visiting for the past 15-16 years, some years I'll visit it daily, and others, at least once a year to check up on the game industry, time really flies by. Last time I checked was 2008/2009, then when I checked again in 2013, which was around the time I registered on the forums later in the year, the industry landscape had changed quite drastically.
@MarcmySalad Thanks for sharing that article, I like the different groups of sustainability like contracting, working at night, or supportive family to explain the different types of indie developers.
@gattoman True, it was a different time I guess, before frameworks like Gamesalad existed, thus, a development thing made everything almost from scratch {I'm not sure how easy Marmalade makes things, which was mentioned in the article.} Something to note is that the author eventually did find a similar program, Unity, and noted that buying something from the asset store for $100 saved the equivalent of $20,000 of in-house development. Since he has perspective on that, I wonder if programs like Unity and Gamesalad reduce development costs tremendously/exponentially. I'm really appreciative of the fact that these programs exist and will not take them for granted, knowing that making it from scratch can cost a fortune!
@Riveraonline and @MarcMySalad {again} Nice! Totally beats anything I read on indie gaming blogs that talk about their profits.