How we made a videogame

How we made a
videogame
Peter and Robert Curry
Dinosaur Polo Club
Robert
(with the beard)
Peter
(forgot to cut hair for
several months in a row)
Why we’re up here talking
•
For just over two years we’ve been turning our game jam entry
Mind the Gap in to a commercial game.
•
Mini Metro is now on Steam Early Access for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Releasing very soon, then working on mobile version.
•
80k units sold so far through Steam, Humble Store, and direct
sales.
What we’ll blather on about
•
Our backgrounds.
•
The path that we've taken to turn a three-day
prototype into an independently-developed
commercially-successful videogame.
•
Not a recipe for success!
Dinosaur Polo Club
prehistory (part one)
•
Graduated with Computer
Science degrees from Vic in
2001, 2003.
•
Worked at Sidhe Interactive
(now PikPok) from 2001, 2002.
•
Both worked as programmers
on a number of games: Rugby
League, Gripshift, Melbourne
Cup Challenge.
•
Worked on hobby projects in
our spare time.
Dinosaur Polo Club
prehistory (part two)
•
Left Sidhe in August 2006 with another colleague to found
Wandering Monster Studios.
•
Attempted to build Space: 1969, a persistent online, non-combat,
space strategy / economic / builder game.
•
A thousand times too much for us!
•
Failed to accept our constraints (team size, experience, skillset).
•
Sprawling, unfocussed design.
•
Intent on developing what we knew (AAA, MMO, EVE Online).
Dinosaur Polo Club
prehistory (part three)
•
WMS disintegrated halfway through
2008.
•
Only considered getting back in to
game development late 2012.
Accepting limitations
•
Started to recognise and plan within our
constraints.
•
No time. Robert working at SilverStripe, Peter a fulltime parent.
•
No art talent.
•
Decided to prototype ideas in Unity. Established
engine, cross-platform support is unparalleled, web
player is very well suited for game jams.
Mind the Gap
•
Built Mind the Gap for Ludum
Dare 26 (April 2013).
•
Had already brainstormed the
idea of an interactive subway
map, which suited LD26’s
theme of minimalism perfectly.
•
#1 in innovation, #7 overall out
of just over 700 entries.
•
Decided to develop it further
and release on iPad by end of
2013. Hah!
Open alpha
•
Chose to emulate the development
style of Papers, Please! Regular,
fully-playable alpha builds online.
Be open about development, listen
to feedback.
•
First Mini Metro alpha was
released in September 2013.
•
Started devlog on TIGSource, getting roughly ~5 hits / day at
dinopoloclub.com/minimetro.
•
Good feedback!
•
Missed our deadline (end of 2013), but nearly feature-complete.
Steam Greenlight
•
Put Mini Metro on Steam Greenlight in March 2014.
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Necessary process for unpublished devs to list
games on Steam. Popular vote, top 50 - 75 games
every fortnight are greenlit.
•
Competing with roughly 2000 games for votes.
Things got a little crazy …
•
Front-page article on The Verge. Huffington Post,
Wired, Kotaku, Gizmodo, etc., followed.
•
Hits went to ~50k / day.
•
Shot to #2 on Greenlight. Greenlit in three weeks.
•
Instead of continuing application for game
development job at Magic Leap, Peter started fulltime on Mini Metro. Ton of feedback to read!
•
Brought on Jamie Churchman as graphic designer,
Disasterpeace as audio engineer.
•
Aiming for mid-2014 release. Hah!
Open development
•
No immediate Steam presence. Continued open
development through our website, releasing new builds
every 1 - 2 weeks.
•
Couldn’t settle on an upgrade design we liked the feel
of. Tried a lot of different options.
•
Fell victim to grognard capture. Had to dial back
complexity and refocus on minimalism.
•
Felt like painting a picture with people watching each
brushstroke.
Pre-orders
•
Spurred on by Jamie’s graphical overhaul, we
subconsciously decided to develop Mini Metro in to
more of a “real” game—not simply a prototype
stretched into a Steam release.
•
Mid-2014 release was looking unlikely. Peter was
working full-time, still not earning.
•
Decided to start pre-orders in April for $3.99
through Humble Widget. 20% discount on the
intended retail price of $4.99.
Pre-order revenue
•
Humble Widget nets the developer a little less than 90% of gross
revenue. 5% to Humble, ~5% to credit card processor (PayPal or
Amazon).
•
Self-hosted. No other visibility, so you need to drive the traffic.
•
~3400 pre-orders over four months. NZD16k drawings + expenses.
$1,200.00
$900.00
$600.00
$300.00
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Steam Early Access
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Launched on Steam and Humble Store as an Early Access
title on the 11th of August 2014.
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New website, final gameplay iteration, Paris, and Jamie’s
entire graphical redesign were held back for the EA launch
to give the first commercial release more impact.
•
Upon recommendation, price was set at $6.99 with the
intention to increase to $8.99 or $9.99 upon release.
•
Primarily a financial decision as pre-orders were drying up.
Not sure we’d do this again—big risk that Early Access
sales won't fund development.
Sales (part one)
$14,000.00
$10,500.00
$7,000.00
$3,500.00
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For the first two calendar months after release, Mini
Metro grossed ~USD175k. $137k from Steam
(78%), $22k from Humble Store, $16k from direct
sales.
Sales (part two)
$14,000.00
Nerd³
2.1m followers
471k views
$10,500.00
$7,000.00
Sips
1.8m followers
199k views
Northernlion
539k followers
71k views
$3,500.00
quill18
253k followers
41k views
•
To date the Early Access release has grossed just over
USD500k. Steam accounts for 86%.
•
Spikes are good. Long tails are better! Mini Metro is still
averaging USD770 (gross) a day on Steam.
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Sales (part three)
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Unless you’re Mojang or Blizzard, your game must
be on Steam.
•
Steam’s discoverability is second-to-none. Humble
Store sales disappear when you’re off the front page.
•
YouTubers and streamers drive sales, not press.
•
Digital distribution (and Steam in particular) have
enabled a very long tail for indie games. But you
need to work for it!
IndieCade
2014
GDC & PAX East
2015
Shows worth it?
•
Expensive, especially flying from New Zealand.
•
Audience reach tiny and unfocussed compared to
YouTubers and streamers.
BUT
•
Great way to meet developers and others in the
videogame community.
•
Chance for mass user testing.
•
Fun! Charge a holiday to the business.
•
Slipped past another couple of release dates …
•
Audio design has taken on a life of its own.
•
Working on the last features for the release now.
Release next month?
•
Accessibility. Theme is accessible, game
mechanics not necessarily so.
•
Retention. Deliberately chose to concentrate on the
core mechanic and not artificially extend play, but
ignored players who prefer goals.
Post desktop release
•
Mobile is top priority once Mini Metro is out. Could
be huge, but new to us and easy to screw up.
•
More cities as DLC? Sandbox mode? Map and
scenario editor? Multiplayer? Console release?
•
How long do we want to keep working on Mini
Metro? We have other ideas we’d like to explore,
but hard to pass up the opportunity for a long-lived,
stable income.
Why has Mini Metro
made it this far?
•
Every game today has to compete for mindshare with
thousands of other games.
•
Your game doesn’t need to be instantly accessible, but
it needs to instantly convince that it’s worthy of a
player’s time.
•
Easiest route is to be like an existing game! “If you like
X, you’ll love my game, Y”.
•
Hardest route is to be like an existing game! “Why play
Y? It’s just like X”.
Our theory
•
Mini Metro is accessible
through real-world
association with subway
maps. Transit is a huge
part of many, many
peoples’ lives.
•
We don’t need to appeal to players through
comparison to existing genres, so Mini Metro can
afford to be relatively unique.
•
Look for inspiration outside of videogames!
Also …
Make an engaging experience!
Questions?
Robert
@shiprib
[email protected]
Peter
@peterc_nz
[email protected]