Care and Feeding of your Independent Game Studio

By Arthur K. HumphreyFounder, Lead Designer, Lead Engineer – Last Day of Work

• Husband and Wife Team, + ~7 contractors (3 engineers, 3 artists, 1 QA, 1 support )

• Virtual Office based out of San Francisco• 100% self funded, 100% independent• Own all IP

Last Day of Work

Game Releases • Little Pocket Pet (Palm OS – in 2004)• Fish Tycoon• Plant Tycoon• Virtual Families• Virtual Villagers Series (1,2,3,4,5)

Why am I speaking this year?• Update our perspective of the space• Monetization / Distribution of Indie Games

1) Distribution in a Fragmented Market2) Design as a Differentiating Factor3) Bootstrapping and Maintaining Ownership

What am I talking about?

1) Distribution in a Fragmented Market

Then (dev costs 25-75k ; rev share per unit ~6$; game released/week 3-5; game profitable ~20k units; smash hit =100k units)

Now (dev costs 100-400k; rev share per unit ~2/3$; game released/week >12; game profitable ~100k units; smash hit=500k units)

Casual digital download no longer one stop solution.

Continually expanding HAL.Multiplatform frameworks are EZ!New streamlined market places with very low barrier

to entry (iTunes, Android Market, Mac App Store etc)

Why diversification of distribution is necessary and never has been easier.

In-house vs. 3rd party. Unity, Torque, etc.

Frameworks

Our approach: IP/SKU’s IP : PC/Mac iOS (iPhone and/or iPad) Android

Fragmented Market

Fish Tycoon for Windows MobileFish Tycoon for WindowsFish Tycoon for MacFish Tycoon for MobileFish Tycoon for iOSFish Tycoon for AndroidFish Tycoon for Nintendo DS

List of SKUS

Plant Tycoon for Windows MobilePlant Tycoon for WindowsPlant Tycoon for MacPlant Tycoon for iOS

Virtual Villagers 1 for WindowsVirtual Villagers 1 for MacVirtual Villagers 1 for MobileVirtual Villagers 1 for iOSVirtual Villagers 1 for Nintendo DSVirtual Villagers 1 in GermanVirtual Villagers 1 in FrenchVirtual Villagers 1 in Spanish

Fish Tycoon

Plant Tycoon

Virtual Villagers 1

Virtual Villagers 2 for MacVirtual Villagers 2 for iOS

Virtual Villagers 2

Virtual Families

Virtual Families for MacVirtual Families for iOSVirtual Families for Android

Virtual Villagers 3Virtual Villagers 3 for MacVirtual Villagers 3 for iOSVirtual Villagers 3 in German

Virtual Villagers 4Virtual Villagers 4 for MacVirtual Villagers 4 for iOS – coming soonVirtual Villagers 4 in GermanVirtual Villagers 4 in FrenchVirtual Villagers 4 in SpanishVirtual Villagers 4 in Italian

Virtual Villagers 3 in FrenchVirtual Villagers 3 in SpanishVirtual Villagers 3 in ItalianVirtual Villagers 3 in PortugheseVirtual Villagers 3 in DutchVirtual Villagers 3 in Swedish

Virtual Villagers 5Virtual Villagers 5 for MacVirtual Villagers 5 for iOS – in queue

Cracking top-10 lists on iOS and Android (buying rank, buying installs for your freemium game that will never pay 1 cent)

ArbitrageBuying customers to climb lists (applies to freemium)Price Compression vs. price compression resistance on

iPad

Visibility & Marketing

Facebook has gotten very competitive with big $$Buying users raises the bar financially to compete“What went wrong” for LDW in ’10…

What about Facebook and Social?

Freemium backlash, and pre-packaged itemization for customers who hate freemium

Plant Tycoon Freemium on iOS. Initial results and feedback from customers. (specifics to be displayed)

“Coercive Conversion”

Diversifying Business Models!

Coercive Conversion

• Pros and Cons• Selling beta versions

Big Budget Games vs. Quick Little Games

2) Design as a Differentiating Factor

As a company we stand out based on our designs, not our polish. Not our business models.

Eg: Minecraft, LDW games, other games

Design & Indie Spirit

Innovation and the ‘long tail’ Protection from cloning Under the hood, emergence and strong story Media: reviews, accolades, controversy and recognition.

Oh, and getting paid. (VF, VV5, other examples)

Innovation

3) Bootstrapping and Maintaining Ownership

Scaling creativity is hard. Licensing is tricky. What has worked for us, and what has not?

How to grow without growing

Keep it small, keep it all Slow or ‘no’ growth business model/‘all-in, double-down’

model

Risk Factor

Takeaways• Changes in the market have reduced casual portals from a

one-stop monetization solution, to simply a piece of the puzzle

• Consider your initial release platforms, try to get something on radar somewhere and then leverage that visibility.

• Diversification of your IP into multiple skus, and even multiple business models

• Keep your damn IP ffs.

Questions?• Questions are free!! Yes free! As ask many as

you wish.• $0.99 per answer. Totally optional. Cash jar at front.

THANK YOU!

Arthur’s contact info: arthur@ldw.com