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Six Tips to Help You Be a Successful Indie Game Developer

June 26, 2017 — by Industry Contributions

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By Matt Garrett, Writer for LaptopNinja

The indie video gaming market is booming today, but although times have never been better for indie developers, it can still be tough for new indie developers to get things off the ground. If you are an aspiring indie developer and you need just a little help getting that first game released, keep reading. Below you will find five tips to help you become the next successful indie game developer.

DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsIndustryOnline

Simon Mack: The Advantages of Developing for Mobile

May 5, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

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Simon Mack, CTO of NaturalMotion

Simon Mack, CTO of NaturalMotion, knew at an early age that he wanted a career in software development but, although he grew up playing games, he never considered the possibility of working in the games industry. While he was studying at his university, a friend introduced him to a company called MathEngine and the physics simulation middleware they were making. He says, “I was blown away—this was unlike anything I had seen before and more advanced than I had thought possible. I got an internship there and was hooked.”

Inspired by Technology

During Mack’s work on physics engines, he met Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion, and was inspired by the breakthrough technology his team was creating. He has now worked for the company for almost 11 years.

Today, NaturalMotion focuses on advancing its middleware technology with state-of-the-art character animation that scales across consoles and PC, as well as for their own mobile games. They also focus on growing and sustaining their mobile games such as Clumsy Ninja and their CSR franchise, while developing new breakthrough mobile games in new content categories. Emphasizing product value and customer experience is what allows NaturalMotion to build experiences thought to be impossible on mobile. And, they are always interested in hiring the best people to help take the company to the next level.

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NaturalMotion is growing and sustaining their mobile games such as Clumsy Ninja and their CSR franchise.

No two days at NaturalMotion are the same; Mack claims it’s hard to imagine a “normal” day. Because they use agile, collaborative processes across all projects, usually they begin the day with scrums with various teams. The rest of the day includes such things as product reviews, tech planning, and helping teams resolve technical issues efficiently. Mack especially enjoys the sprint reviews where he sees the progress on each project. He points out, “With so many teams working across technology and games sections, there’s always something we’re working on together to raise the bar for incredible consumer experiences.”

When not hard at work, Mack does manage to fit in a bit of mobile gaming. These days, Mack’s mobile gaming includes Threes! and Boom Beach. He also admits to playing a lot of Zynga’s recent launch, Farmville 2 Country Escape; he enjoys the game’s visually rich design and depth of gameplay.

Succeeding on Your Own Merits

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In the games industry, Mack finds “a fantastic blend of genuinely cutting edge technology and artistic creativity, something that is found in very few places.”

In the games industry, Mack finds “a fantastic blend of genuinely cutting edge technology and artistic creativity, something that is found in very few places.” He enjoys the constant change and the inspiring talent the industry attracts, as well as the fact that it generally allows people to succeed on their own merits.

Mack has had considerable involvement with recruiting talent and offers this advice to people starting out in the games industry: “Build a portfolio that showcases your art or what kind of code you can write. I always enjoy interviews where the candidate shows off a personal project.”

Great Growth and Consumer Experience Opportunities

During the time Mack has been in the games industry, he has seen amazing technical progress in the console space as well as a change in the scale of games, development teams and budget growth. The results have been richer visuals and deeper AAA games with great content, causing a great deal of consolidation in the industry.

And, he notes that the past few years have seen amazing growth in mobile gaming. “Mobile games have enabled smaller teams to create high quality games more quickly, revitalizing the industry with massive opportunities for growth,” Mack says. “Millions of people who have never played traditional video games now play social games on mobile devices every day. Casual consumers benefit from far greater accessibility, social experiences, and lower costs, whilst hardcore consumers have better console-quality experiences than ever before and an increasing number of category options on mobile.”

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“Mobile games have enabled smaller teams to create high quality games more quickly, revitalizing the industry with massive opportunities for growth.”

But Mack sees possible mis-steps made by developers new to the industry, including determining the right level of innovation in technology. Some resist using middleware, preferring to develop their own solutions. So, as they re-invent the wheel, they have less efficient development time and miss the opportunity to use best-in-class technology.

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Simon Mack will be talking about Clumsy Ninja and the character animation system used to create their game during Casual Connect Asia 2014.

He also sees the opposite scenario: it is becoming more common for development teams to pick an off-the-shelf engine solution and simply add content. He believes this lack of technical innovation can lead to games that lack the ‘wow’ factor they need to stand out. At NaturalMotion, they emphasize constant innovation in technology while remaining as efficient as possible by using best practices and reusing existing systems when it makes sense.

Mack is excited to see how mobile technology will evolve over the next few years. He says, “We’re nearing the possibility of real console-quality on mobile devices, and it will be interesting to see how that is best leveraged in making games that appeal to both the mainstream market and the more hardcore player.”

Simon Mack will be talking about Clumsy Ninja and the character animation system used to create their game during Casual Connect Asia 2014. Find out more about his session here.

 

Europe 2014Video Coverage

Nick Berry: Growth Hacking | Casual Connect Video

March 3, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“If you are not doing A/B testing, go directly to jail! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200,” Nick Berry told his audience at Casual Connect Europe.

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Nick Berry is a Data Scientist at Facebook. He describes Facebook as the company that defines the concept of “big data.” He spends much of his time “boiling the digital ocean of data looking for statistical significances, trends and patterns.” Being asked to give a TED talk in 2013 is an experience he considers one of the highlights of his career.

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Nick Berry at TED in 2013

Keeping It Fun

Nick Berry, Data Scientist, Facebook
Nick Berry, Data Scientist, Facebook

Berry ends up spending a lot of his time in front of a PC, and the people he gets to interact with at conferences are what he enjoys most about being involved with the game industry. With a young family, although his free time is very limited, he still manages some time for game play. His laptop is always available whether he is at work, at home, or on a plane, so this is his most used gaming device. His next most used device is his iPad, followed by his (Android) phone. He doesn’t have much time for playing console games so he doesn’t own either a PS4 or an Xbox One yet, but his children use an Xbox 360 at home

Being Visible

The problem of visibility is the greatest challenge in the game industry today, according to Berry. Because there are so many products in the app stores and online, it is becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive to acquire customers. “Having a great game is just the starting point,” he says. “You need to have a great game, and make people aware of it!”

Creating awareness and marketing your product efficiently is going to make the difference between success and failure, according to Berry. The art and science of cultivating users quickly, on a small budget, is given the title “Growth Hacking”. This was the topic of Berry’s Casual Connect presentation this year.

Berry says, “Facebook is also pilot launching a publishing platform to help developers get over this distribution ‘energy barrier’. You deliver great games; we deliver qualified users in great quantities, and we can proportionally share the revenue and benefits.”

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Tech Gets Better and Better

Tablets and smartphones are getting more and more powerful, according to Berry. He notes that new mobile devices already have more power than the previous generation of consoles. At the pace that new models are coming on the market, they may soon overtake consoles even in the core gaming genre.

He doesn’t expect to see another new generation of dedicated consoles on the market within the next five-ten years, possibly not ever. However, he maintains that PC gaming market is not dead or even dying; as long as there are computers on desks, people will want to play games on them.

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Social connectivity will be baked into all games.

Berry also believes there will be increasing use of cross-compilers, allowing games to be simultaneously developed and released on multiple platforms. And, of course, social connectivity will be baked into all games. He emphasizes, “There is no such thing as a disconnected device these days. All devices can be connected to the internet, and all successful games will leverage this.”

Keeping Up

Berry is also an active blogger, and you can read his regular posts about gaming, data science, privacy, and general geekery here: http://www.datagenetics.com/blog.html

Europe 2014Video Coverage

Dmitri Williams: We’re Here to Help Everyone | Casual Connect Video

February 24, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

“Your big spenders are not necessarily the same thing as big influencers,” Dmitri Williams told his audience at Casual Connect Europe. “The baseline value we’re finding in gaming is that social value accounts for about 25 percent of activity, as in sessions and in dollars/euros spent.”

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Dmitri Williams
Dmitri Williams, CEO and Product Owner, Ninja Metrics

Dmitri Williams is CEO and Product Owner of Ninja Metrics, an analytics company he co-founded. As a former professor specializing in video games, he was in an excellent position to succeed with this new company, since he had already developed an understanding of player psychology, data, and the economics of the games industry. Williams asserts that the proudest moment of his career by far was getting this startup company funded, especially since it followed nine months of rejection!

Ninja Metrics differs from most analytics companies because its Katana Social Analytics Engine is able to measure the value of social contributions in games and apps, as well as provide developers with detailed projections for outcomes. It also offers tools to measure how effectively features facilitate engagement and social interaction.

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The Katana Analytics Engine, an ultra-scalable, cloud computing-based social analytics platform behind some the biggest games on the market.

Both Work and Play

Williams tells us he enjoys being around games, game makers, and players. And, as far as working in the industry goes, he feels, “If you enjoy what you are doing, it’s not work at all.”

When Williams is not “working”, he is playing video games, as well as reading, exercising, and watching the occasional TV show. For his gaming, he has always preferred to use PC, and these days, he can generally be found playing League of Legends, claiming, “The game play never gets old, and the variety is nearly infinite.”

He owns neither Xbox One nor PS4 because he finds the lack of backward compatibility annoying. Besides, although there have been some good launch titles, there has been nothing he felt was worth standing in line for several hours to buy. He says, “Not when I have a stack of still-to-plays gems like The Last of Us waiting for me.”

More Quality and Garbage

The Social Value through Katana
The Social Value through the Katana Social Analytics Engine

Williams feels the greatest challenge in the games industry is coming from the explosion of games and apps exerting downward pressure on AAA titles, a situation he finds painful to watch. However, this means there is more quality, as well as more garbage, available today. The situation is very similar to what occurred with TV, so, assuming it will follow a similar pattern, it will emerge into “a golden age of content,” he believes.

Although this challenge can be difficult for many in the games industry, for Ninja Metrics, it is actually an opportunity. As Williams points out, “There are so many developers out there, and we’re here to help everyone – whether that is a single developer working alone in a dorm or a massive company.”

Europe 2014Video Coverage

Braden Moulton: Innovation is Instrumental | Casual Connect Video

February 21, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

The next big trend coming to the games industry will be widespread cross-platform gaming experiences, according to Braden Moulton. Although everyone is talking about this, currently there are very few examples of it in the market. 5th Planet Games is incorporating cross-platform gaming into the present and future plans for their games. They recently released a cross-platform mobile version of Legacy of a Thousand Suns, and the reception from existing and new players has been overwhelmingly positive.

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Braden Moulton
Braden Moulton, President and COO, 5th Planet Games

Braden Moulton, President and COO of 5th Planet Games, sees a wide variety of challenges facing the games industry. As both a game creator and consumer, Moulton believes the most glaring of these is innovation. At 5th Planet Games, they work to meet this challenge by rapidly prototyping multiple games. They have a company full of gamers who then scrutinize and improve on the prototypes; everyone in the company plays a part in innovation.

Skills to Succeed

Moulton manages the wide variety of dynamic elements that make up the day-to-day business of 5th Planet Games. His previous experience is in consulting, tech, and project management—all skills he finds advantageous to succeed. He also finds the ability to control chaos absolutely essential. Fortunately, parenthood has helped with this specialized skill!

He feels that the most fun in the games industry comes from working with people who share the same experiences, passion, and creativity. “I can’t wait to get to work each day!” Moulton said. His greatest satisfaction comes from the overall success of 5th Planet Games because it is the sum of everyone’s efforts. “Playing an instrumental part in that is very special,” he said.

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A cross-platform mobile version of Legacy of a Thousand Suns is now available, and has received a positive reception

Time Away From Work

In Moulton’s free time, he is an avid online and board gamer. He grew up with PC and still prefers it. He claims the best RPGs and MMOs are found there and says he is currently losing frequently on Magic Online. He owns an Xbox One, but tells us he hasn’t played more than a couple of hours on it, insisting that both Xbox One and PS4 severely need must-have games such as Halo or Destiny.

When he is not gaming, he spends as much time as possible with his family and coaches youth sports. He also admitted, “I invest way too much of myself into the NFL season.”

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