The Matthew Islands wrote:Gragh, I've gotten to like the beginning of the 8th generation of consoles with the games Wii U. I am in the first office with 3 employees (2 plus me) and I can't get above 7 million in cash. I kind of float between 5 million and 7 million. I have had some hit games, but most of them are just good. Like 6/7 out of 10.
So frustrating.
I think I may have moved into the office from the garage too quickly.
I do have over 100k fans though. And my small booths at the G3 convention now gets about 300,000 people.
Basic tips:
-Don't leave the garage until you have 3-5M. In the garage you get scripted hits every 3-5 years, and you lose that the second you leave the garage.
-The game says that you can self publish medium games at 100K fans. That's wrong. 80k is when you start to break even, and by 90k you lose money by going through a publisher.
-Don't hire a second staff member (i.e. after the first one you hire) until you have at LEAST 20M and have stable profits. I'd say it'd be best to wait until you have 30M and hire someone really good.
-Reviews do not sell games. Hype sells games. Invest in marketing early and often. The amount of hype you can have before sales drop off is really quite high (I believe it's 200 for a 7/8 game, 300 for a 8/9 game, and infinite for a 10/11 game), but NOT having hype will make your game sell like shit.
-Recognize that you are fighting against yourself. There are criteria that makes a "good game", but it is far more important to make a better game than your last one as opposed to a good game that's the same quality.
-Once you can pull a profit (ANY kind of profit) through self publishing (again, usually about 80k fans), NEVER go through a publisher again. It increases sales numbers but you lose about 70% of the income.
-DO NOT FORGET TO TRAIN YOURSELF AND YOUR STAFF. I cannot stress this enough. Having a well trained staff is the difference between a 2/10 game and a 8/10 game. Specialize your staff members (I usually have it so the bottom row of staff is tech and the top row is design), and get into a habit of training every staff member at least once between games. Not only will this increase your games' ratings and sales, but it also ensures that you aren't gimped when you get to the final office (if you're in the final office without at least one person with 700 Design and one person with 700 Tech, you're screwed).
Finally:
-If you're still in the first office by the time the 8th gen consoles come out, you're doing something very very very wrong.
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