I, as many other developers, was shocked when I read that Reflexive dropped game prices below $10 (most for $9.99, but some for as low as $6.99). I was shocked not because of the price, but because you don’t need to join any discount program like you do have at BFG or PlayFirst. Price war… but is it really?
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Loading ...One of the best incentives for players/customers to visit your website is releasing new games. Games take time to develop, especially if you try to develop games on your own (my advice: don’t do that). If you want to increase your chances of releasing games quickly and with better quality you need someone to work with you on your game. It can be a friend, an employee… or freelancer.
It seems that finding good freelancers is as hard as finding good employees (not to mention friends). Indie Gamer Forums had a nice thread about working with freelancers and we could hear opinions from both sides. There are two posts that are worth repeating.
Alex Weldon created a wish list for both developers and freelancers.
As a developer, if I was to hire an artist, I would expect the artist to:
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I don’t know about you but I always had troubles positioning my games within existing casual game categories. For example, I didn’t know whether I want to put Runes of Avalon into match-3 games or brain-teaser games. I believe it was the same with a lot of other games like Virtual Villagers, Build-a-Lot or Westward.
Good news is that despite all the whining about clones new genres are evolving. If you develop strategy games then you don’t need to worry that your game will compete in the same category with Diner Dash. At least at Big Fish Games, there is a category strategy games.
A bit off topic: have you noticed that despite real estate markets going down real estate games hold strong?
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I haven’t post an article in my blog for 55 days. No, it’s not because I lost my passion or that I didn’t know what to write about. It’s because I wanted to try if you can survive in the on-line world going off-line.
I went off-line on September 1st. The first days have been quite hard. I had to finish couple of on-line tasks but without access to Internet it was very difficult. I could check email via dial-up and GMail but answering emails was very time consuming due to low Internet connection speed.
After few days it was clear that without faster Internet connection I will waste time and money. You have to answer support emails and maintain regular business communication. I decided to get ADSL 256kbps, but instead of unlimited access with flat fee I signed up for per hour charge.
Now it’s clear to me that you can survive, but you have to forget about on-line tools. Forget about GMail, about reading forums, doing a lot of guerrilla marketing. It’ll be easier for you if you focus just on game development. Going off-line will increase your productivity a lot (that’s why I tried to go off-line).
I will not be on-line until mid December… at least until that day I won’t have unlimited Internet access. Hopefully my sales will not dry more that they already did.
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