Tom Francis is the founder and head of the British studio Suspicious Developments, which created the games Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. In his blog, he gave some basic advice to indie teams.
Tactical Breach Wizards
Before getting to the advice, Francis noted that his studio's debut game — Gunpoint — sold well largely due to luck. It was released in 2013 when the market was not yet overloaded with indie games, but they were already starting to generate decent revenue for their creators. Nonetheless, Suspicious Developments later repeated its success. All its subsequent projects managed to more than double their expenses, providing the team with the means to continue existing.
"So I’m not the right person to ask about startup funding. But we weren’t that rare in our first success, and we are increasingly rare in our still-being-here, still-making-stuff, still-independent. So I can at least advise on how to make what you have go as far as possible," wrote Francis.
Below are the tips themselves.
1. Stay as small a team as possible
Active hiring rarely contributes to the success of indie studios, according to Francis. Expanding the staff significantly increases the financial burden, and the development speed doesn't always increase as a result.
"Success is making more money than you spent. Doubling your team size doubles the amount of money you need to make. But as the numbers go up, vanishingly fewer games make that much money. So it’s not just half the chance of success, it might be a tenth," explained Francis.
2. Work on games for which a prototype can be quickly made
According to Francis, prototyping is an important stage in game development and should not be delayed. It allows you to understand whether an idea is viable and abandon it if necessary. If an idea can't be implemented as a prototype, Francis notes, it may not be suitable for an indie game.
3. Be sure to test
Francis himself calls testing a "magic bullet." He is convinced that after creating a full-fledged prototype, you can start showing it to other people: initially, at least to friends. As soon as the studio has something that truly resembles a game, large-scale testing among gamers can begin. The more testers, the better. The developer emphasizes that if you can't get at least 100 people interested at this stage, it says a lot about the project.
4. Be flexible with the game's price and don't be afraid to undervalue
As Francis explains, Suspicious Developments determines the price by simply polling gamers. Whichever option gets the most votes, the studio sets that price. According to the developer, this method has never failed his team.
Moreover, Francis admits that he doesn't see the point in setting a high price just because game development took a lot of time and effort from the studio.
"The audience is effectively infinite, and pricing is elastic within reasonable bounds. So if players say your game’s worth $20 and you charge $10, you’ll sell about twice as many copies and make half as much per copy – same revenue. If you charge $30, you’ll sell fewer copies at more money per copy, but it might hurt your review percentage and the enthusiasm of your word of mouth. If you charge $40 that’ll happen for sure, and you might also be outside those ‘reasonable bounds’, where nothing is guaranteed," concluded Francis.
