I quit my job to go full time Indie


I posted this as an "Edit" in my other post but I guess I'll post here again:

Edit:  In my post, I didn't say that the Pandora is the only platform that devs will develop games for.  I said devs just need to keep the Pandora in mind in addition to their main platforms like iOS and Android as Pandora is just an extra source of income (at first anyway since you'd never know how big it's going to grow).  Like WizardStan said, porting to the Pandora should be an easy port.  Also if more good games are on the Pandora, more gamers/users will flock to it and you would have this snowball effect. 
 
KAMI RETRO, which was big succes on mobiles
Define "success".If success is about volume then Pandora (and GCW, and other indie consoles) will NEVER be "successful". This is purely about numbers, it has nothing to do with love or support, there just aren't that many of us and you will not get a huge number of sales.

If success is about percentage, however, let's take a look at some numbers: Kami Retro just hit 128 installs. Let's pretend only half of them are actual purchases, everyone downloaded it twice for some reason. 64 sales out of about 6000 Pandoras. Let's round that up to 6400 just to make the math easier. 64/6400 = 1% of the market. Kami Retro was purchased by 1% of all Pandora users (at least!). In third quarter 2013, 211 million Android phones and tablets were shipped. In a 3 month period, 211 MILLION Android devices were built, shipped, and sold. Assuming this is a trend, you would need to sell 2 million copies every 3 months in order to be as statistically "successful" as the Pandora. This is not the case, Kami Retro is currently showing 500'000-1'000'000 installs total since it was uploaded.

So from a statistics point of view, the Pandora is far more successful for indie devs than Android, far more users to a normalized install base purchased Kami Retro for 2GBP than there are for the free version on the Play Store.

So what exactly do you think is the problem? That only 1% of the install base purchased Kami Retro? Significantly less than 0.1% of the Android market downloaded it for free, why don't you complain to them about not supporting it?
 
I shall not port to OpenPandora or GCW-Zero at launch
That shouldn't be the take away. If you can get it running on Pandora and GCW by all means feel free to do so. We are (I am, at least) just concerned that you're going to put too much effort into the indie consoles and neglect the big ones where you'll actually make your money. We love indie games, I kickstartered your game twice and would probably buy it again for the Pandora, but I'm also realistic: even if there is a statistically larger percentage that'll buy it here than on Android we are still a tiny tiny market and you won't be able to eat on the pocket change you'd make here.
 
WizardStan So what exactly do you think is the problem? That only 1% of the install base purchased Kami Retro? Significantly less than 0.1% of the Android market downloaded it for free said:
Dont forget that android market is already just filled with milions of apps. Thats why ots only few percents of dl's of kami. Lets reduce it to 1000 apps for android market and (to compare to op repo) and then will be a little bit different. Of course you cant operate on numbers properly without adding the amount of apps already in the android market
 
my friend does these "act now, think/ask later" types of decisions then when he asks me for advice on what to do now, the elephant is already in the room and has sat down on the sofa.

I have another unemployed friend (not of his own choosing though) that was wanting to get into app development as his main source of income. He was selectively avoiding certain avenues of income because of a prejudice against them (no iOS or android) he only wanted to release on xbox live.

Forest before the trees my friend, take time and make a great app then release it on as many platforms as possible, go into it with the intention of being a multi-platform application. Don't target such a niche market just because it's where you wave your flag, nobody will look at you differently. Don't limit your potential income and getting your name out there.

The port would be worth the time spent on the pandora for money, I just don't feel if the original target is the pandora that it would be worth the money/time if you're going into it to support your lifestyle.
 
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In short:

no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs = no love from indie devs to OP/GCW
Erm... what? That is just pure nonsense. Seeing how some people here spent money on at least one of the monetarized indie games on the repo - even if they do not like or play them, see Trashy's post - shows that there clearly is love for indie development. When I read your comment i get the feeling that we maybe should first give away free money to every indie dev out there in order to see more software popping up? That is not the way things work.

In my opinion, there is a total of two, in numbers: 2, polished products on the repo for sale. I am interested in neither of those, which means I am not spending money on them. Others still did despite feeling the same.

Things I would spend money on are e.g. Jumanji, Frogatto, Forget Me Not, and most of the emluators.

Oh, Emulators you say? One of the main reasons the Pandora has been made for?

Yes, those are important. I am sure you have noticed that, too. Why else would you go to lengths and "advertise" DOSbox EX, of which you offer a donation-paid "premium" version, whenever you get a chance? You have noticed that most of the people who bought a Pandora did it with emulation in mind. Most of us wanted to replay stuff that has already been done. And that's where the money is for this particular target audience.

I'd still love to have a few certain indie titles on the Pandora. But it's either technically not feasible or the devs can't be arsed to do a port, 'cause we are just few.

Nathan: If I were you, I wouldn't have quit my regular job. I don't know what you were doing, maybe you could have gone for part-time though. But yeah, done's done and you should look forward from now on. So please, follow the advice given by the other members here and target a wider range of platforms.

BTW what about this space-bits-conquering-planets-against-AI-game one dev relentlessly demoed and promised coming for Pandora years ago? Oh, it never came, duh. Guess it's on iOS, right?
 
Okay, roger that.

I shall not port to OpenPandora or GCW-Zero at launch.
Who knows how to market things successfully these days?  There are just so many platforms... let's just take a few...

PC

Pros - very wide potential audience

Cons - so much content it's hard to stand out

Vita

Pros - rather small software collection so easy to stand out, sony appears to be actively gathering indie games, moderate install base

Cons - need to invest in a dev kit, good luck getting sony's attention

Ouya

Pros - smaller software collection so easy to stand out, through kickstarter might be able to get some funding

Cons - mandatory demos which most companies have stopped doing since it actually has been proven to reduce sales

Pandora

Pros - small and rather tight community, if you release something that everybody can play for free (donation upgrade or whatever) you'll definitely get noticed and get feedback

Cons - small community so limited monetization possible

If you decided to port and release (for free) on the pandora, I think you'd be able to get a lot of excellent feedback about your game, possibly generate some buzz, and since it's such a small community the barrier to entry is somewhat high so you're not leaving a lot of money on the table if you move on to other product releases.

I could go on... but as an exercise for somebody else :p

I guess for your first game you should consider are you looking to 'make money', 'establish a fan base' or 'get valuable feedback'.  You can probably hit one, possibly two of those per product, but you're probably not going to get all three.

Good luck!
 
In short:

no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs = no love from indie devs to OP/GCW
Erm... what? That is just pure nonsense. Seeing how some people here spent money on at least one of the monetarized indie games on the repo - even if they do not like or play them, see Trashy's post - shows that there clearly is love for indie development. When I read your comment i get the feeling that we maybe should first give away free money to every indie dev out there in order to see more software popping up? That is not the way things work.
Indie dev's go where money is. In OP/GCW theres no money [and even if there's a money , theres not enough money to sustain a indie dev "for sake of it", because end users care about the game itself , not dev who done it.]. And because the times for coders are harsh even here, its not good idea to invest a lot of time+cash in project for community in mind.  Period

Do i make myself clear?

@theweirdn8

IMO Its better for You to grab some kind of job as a freelancer. It will be better [cash side] for you than starting indie gaming company. You need to study the market and different areas to find the nice spot to focus on it.. gaming industry sucks big time now.
 
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For what it is worth, rewind to December 2010, I was a lead programmer, working in the technology team for a large AAA studio, pumping out console games that clogged up the top 40 charts, bringing in a decent salary, working with good people and generally feeling pretty good about how things were shaping up. A month later I was a director of a little start up, Paw Print Games... For me it wasn't an overnight thing, I had been part of a team that had put out a couple of titles onto iOS, the first 'KamiCrazy' and the second 'Soldier Ants'. KamiCrazy launched the first Christmas the App Store went live for iOS submissions and got to #2 in the free charts, the paid version never got any decent chart position. Overall it was a cool experience, and the game made around 6,000 GBP (split between three people, minus a publisher fee, so we made about 1,600 GBP each). The project took about 17 weeks (evenings and weekends) and was an eye opener for what can be done as a small team on the iOS App Store.

What KamiCrazy also showed me was that a single game that does 'okay' can easily make a small enough amount of money that going indie wouldn't be a sensible option. After that we pushed out Soldier Ants, a Worms style game, that did a bit better, around 15,000 - 20,000 GBP in total, although that was split in more ways, but showed a little more promise, although still not enough to be quitting our day jobs (or I should say, we were not brave enough to!).

Fast forward a bit further and we made a demo of KAMI RETRO, we posted a few videos, got interest from a couple of publishers, and ultimately secured a minimum guarantee that gave the studio six months to run (on lower, 'junior programmer' type salaries). This was the chance that we took and went full time as 'Paw Print Games', initially working out of a converted garage at the bottom of one of our gardens.

The first six months disappeared pretty quickly, polishing up KAMI RETRO for release, and then sorting out an Android port (part of our contract was for both platforms). This was before Unity and the like were available, so everything was coded up ourselves. As we approached the end of our six months we prototypes a few little ideas, and 'shopped' around to see if any publishers wanted to sign our next title, but we weren't so lucky. Looking back the game idea we were pitching wasn't very good, and I wouldn't have backed it, so it isn't surprising really! Luckily we got a break though, we designed a free to play game (Wacky Rapids) purely on paper, pitched that, got a couple of offers and took one which gave us money to keep running. It meant we could learn about free to play mechanics and add more technology to our engine.

Overtime we started pushing our older games onto more platforms, securing minimum guarantees were we could, being launch partners for new platforms, getting little bits of money here and there along the way. Wacky Rapids went out, and the knowledge we then had on the free to play space meant we were able to get a contract to make 'Swashbuckler' a 2D side scrolling platformer game for the Paul Frank fashion brand. It was a nice project as it meant working with an established IP, and we had full creative control over the project. We had wanted to make a platformer game for a while, so it was nice to be able to do it.

That takes us up to the start of this year, since then we have been working on a new IP, doing a few little contracts and are currently doing some paid R&D work utilising the Leap motion controller. We aren't millionaires (far from it), but we have banked money each year we have been running, we are hoping to secure a contract for the new IP we are developing to put us through next year, and give us time to keep moving forwards.

Would I say we have been successful? My answer would probably be 'successful enough'; we want to survive another day, month, year, we want to have time to develop bigger, better games, ultimately make the hit game that makes more money, break into the console space, etc. But our philosophy has always been to look carefully at the books, work out how much we need each month (and each year) concentrate on bringing that in. These days we have a nice office in Chester City Center (in the UK), have good people that work for us on each project. I know quite a lot of people who have 'gone indie' and ultimately had to fold, and in just about every case the reason they have folded is the pinned everything onto their first product being successful. Our experience from KamiCrazy and Soldier Ants warned us against doing this, instead we never rely on software sales to keep us going.

We are hardly the benchmark of how to run a games company, so take it all with a pinch of salt, I just thought sharing my experiences might be of the slightest interest! In terms of KAMI RETRO sales on the Pandora, the download figure is actually very close to the number of paying downloads we have had (e.g. not very many people downloading multiple times and paying once).

Above everything else, good luck! It is a brave move to make, hopefully it'll work out great, but at the very least it'll be a good learning experience (it has been for us so far anyway).
 
Indie dev's go where money is. In OP/GCW theres no money [and even if there's a money , theres not enough money to sustain a indie dev "for sake of it", because end users care about the game itself , not dev who done it.]. And because the times for coders are harsh even here, its not good idea to invest a lot of time+cash in project for community in mind.  Period

Do i make myself clear?
No, that isn't clear. Agreed, Indie dev's go where the money is, and there just isn't the money to be made from the GCW/OP/indie console scene. How does that prove your point that there's "no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs"?
 
Define "success".

If success is about volume then Pandora (and GCW, and other indie consoles) will NEVER be "successful". This is purely about numbers, it has nothing to do with love or support, there just aren't that many of us and you will not get a huge number of sales.

If success is about percentage, however, let's take a look at some numbers: Kami Retro just hit 128 installs. Let's pretend only half of them are actual purchases, everyone downloaded it twice for some reason. 64 sales out of about 6000 Pandoras. Let's round that up to 6400 just to make the math easier. 64/6400 = 1% of the market. Kami Retro was purchased by 1% of all Pandora users (at least!). In third quarter 2013, 211 million Android phones and tablets were shipped. In a 3 month period, 211 MILLION Android devices were built, shipped, and sold. Assuming this is a trend, you would need to sell 2 million copies every 3 months in order to be as statistically "successful" as the Pandora. This is not the case, Kami Retro is currently showing 500'000-1'000'000 installs total since it was uploaded.

So from a statistics point of view, the Pandora is far more successful for indie devs than Android, far more users to a normalized install base purchased Kami Retro for 2GBP than there are for the free version on the Play Store.

So what exactly do you think is the problem? That only 1% of the install base purchased Kami Retro? Significantly less than 0.1% of the Android market downloaded it for free, why don't you complain to them about not supporting it?
Okay, but who actually defines success of a project in terms percentage of device owners? Especially when the devices are so different. A huge number of people buy very cheap Android phones mainly just to use them as phones or maybe web browsers, with few or no apps installed. No one buys a Pandora and then only uses it with what comes installed on it.
 
Indie dev's go where money is. In OP/GCW theres no money [and even if there's a money , theres not enough money to sustain a indie dev "for sake of it", because end users care about the game itself , not dev who done it.]. And because the times for coders are harsh even here, its not good idea to invest a lot of time+cash in project for community in mind.  Period


Do i make myself clear?
No, that isn't clear. Agreed, Indie dev's go where the money is, and there just isn't the money to be made from the GCW/OP/indie console scene. How does that prove your point that there's "no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs"?

I just did the explanation in your quote
 
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I just did the explanation in your quote
Yes, and I said it wasn't clear what you mean. You said some words, it isn't obvious how those words are linked to what you said before.
Okay, but who actually defines success of a project in terms percentage of device owners?
That's why I asked for what commander-beef defines as "success". Is it pure numbers? Is it a variable percentage? How many people need to install something before it is deemed successful? Obviously more than the current 1-2% but how will we know how much if we can't nail down a figure?
 
I just did the explanation in your quote
Yes, and I said it wasn't clear what you mean. You said some words, it isn't obvious how those words are linked to what you said before.
Okay, but who actually defines success of a project in terms percentage of device owners?
That's why I asked for what commander-beef defines as "success". Is it pure numbers? Is it a variable percentage? How many people need to install something before it is deemed successful? Obviously more than the current 1-2% but how will we know how much if we can't nail down a figure?
By success for indie dev i mean that he doesnt need to live under the bridge, and he doesnt need to pray for food after release  of his product. Its clearly visible how it would end an indie dev when he decide to release stuff on GCW + OP only [check the download counter in repo for games like: Kami Retro / Arora Rift / Pollo Pollo / VVVVVV and any other commercial product ]. Steven shows that the money are not big on android market , but still he might live by the money he earns. In UK minimal wage should oscillating in 900-1000 pounds. Am i right with minimal wage in UK rght now? [im not sure]
 
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In short:

no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs = no love from indie devs to OP/GCW
Erm... what? That is just pure nonsense. Seeing how some people here spent money on at least one of the monetarized indie games on the repo - even if they do not like or play them, see Trashy's post - shows that there clearly is love for indie development. When I read your comment i get the feeling that we maybe should first give away free money to every indie dev out there in order to see more software popping up? That is not the way things work.
Indie dev's go where money is. In OP/GCW theres no money [and even if there's a money , theres not enough money to sustain a indie dev "for sake of it", because end users care about the game itself , not dev who done it.]. And because the times for coders are harsh even here, its not good idea to invest a lot of time+cash in project for community in mind.  Period

Do i make myself clear?
That is completely irrelevant to your statement from before - you said that there is no love from GCW or Pandora. Those devices are the perfect platforms for indie development - and you should know that. In your reply you merely stated the obvious fact that the communities of those devices are too small to be an incentive for a port. So, no, you do not make yourself clear. Please explain why GCW/Pandora show no love for indie developers! Or do you mean showing no love means having a small community? In that case you should revisit your choice of words...
 
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It's really easy to bring in next to nothing on Android + iOS too http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MartinNerurkar/20131203/206144/Hipster_Zombies__Data_Analysis.php I'd somewhat blame their financial model though..

Quitting your job to develop this stuff on your own without financially backing from someone else is very risky, there's a very real chance you'll bring in close to nothing. It's much smarter to keep your job and try to eke out some apps in your free time, even if this means you don't spend an awful lot of time outside of your job and your indie dev. Only after you have a proven audience should you really go after it for primary income source.
 
By success for indie dev i mean that he doesnt need to live under the bridge, and he doesnt need to pray for food after release  of his product
Ok, then by that definition even if 100% of all Pandora owners bought the games currently on the repo then it still wouldn't be a success; you're only looking at maybe $20'000 at most and assumes that sales are regular enough that the developer wouldn't need to worry. That might help you survive for a year (barely), but you'd need to sell something new every year and hope that it's good enough to get 100% of the population to back it.That still doesn't offer any explanation as to why you say there's "no love from OP / GCW to Indie devs" though. Why does there simply not being enough users equate to "no love"?
 
... Please explain why GCW/Pandora show no love for indie developers! Or do you mean showing no love means having a small community? In that case you should revisit your choice of words...
Few words "OP Community dont want to pay for software just for sake to keep alive indie dev". 

OP/GCW is a perfect handhaled for indie dev? sorry, but it is a bad joke.

Do i said something "OP Community has no love for perfect indie game?" , no i said "GCW/Pandora show no love for indie developers!". Not every indie game is a perfect playable game, but i suppose some of You dont see the difference.

Indie devs are not supported, from the start. "Show me something, show me something perfect and what i will like, and maybe if i like it i'll support it.. maybe" attitude is visible here. 
 
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"OP Community dont want to pay for software just for sake to keep alive indie dev"
The only way to show love is if the entire community throws money at every single indie dev that comes along?Ok, fine, if that's the definition you're working with then I will agree, there is no love from OP for indie devs.

I disagree with your definition, but if that's the one you want to use so be it.

What community does have love for indie devs then, might I ask? Does such a thing exist? Is it even possible for such a thing to exist? Does just no one anywhere love indie devs?
 
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