- “Don’t make big games if you are just starting out”
- “Don’t confuse the players with several games, all in one”
- “Don’t make a game with eight types of currencies/resources”
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The past two years have been a battle in the games industry, with what has sometimes felt like a never-ending cycle of layoffs and other industry challenges, such as the rising cost of game development and tough competition.
However, the industry has always presented its challenges, and many have continued to achieve great success.
In this article, Bigfoot Gaming’s co-founder and CEO Joao Batista shares how he has survived a decade in the industry. He touches on mistakes made and how to learn from them, as well as offering advice to help you weather the storm.
Making games is very hard, and making money with games is even harder.
Competition is fierce, and the number of games released per day keeps getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming, but I think there’s room for everyone.
After surviving 10 years as a Latin American games studio, I think we learned some valuable lessons that hopefully others might find useful.
Baby steps and how to avoid electric storms (and chainsaws)
When we just started out at Bigfoot Gaming, the Flappy Bird mania was everywhere, and freelance sites were full of people posting jobs to create clones of it.
Back then, we didn’t have a clue about how to make games, and nobody knew who we were, so we couldn’t find any clients. We had to get very creative. Of course, we weren’t super excited about cloning another game, but a man has to eat!
An image speaks a thousand words, and a game speaks a quadrillion books
We went from zero clients to more than we could manage in a single day!
Literally nobody wanted to hire us. We had zero experience and no portfolio. So what did we do? We made a Flappy Bird in four hours, uploaded it to a server, and sent the link to everyone who was looking for the game.
We went from zero clients to more than we could manage in a single day!
Underpromise, overdeliver
This is our mantra until this day. We weren’t sure about our capabilities back then, so we promised less than we knew we could do in twice the time we thought it would take.
We ended up completing the projects earlier than promised and clients were crazy happy with the results and how fast we were.
You need to hear no
We didn’t know how much to charge, so we came up with a simple system: Charge twice as much to the next client until we hear the first no.
When you are just starting out, don’t look for money; look for creative solutions.
No joke, it took us about four iterations until we heard it for the first time. Don’t be afraid to test the waters; worst-case scenario, you will get a no, and you will know your limits.
When you are just starting out, don’t look for money; look for creative solutions. Trust yourself and think about how to solve problems.
Fall in love with failing
As the years go by, you will make mistakes, tonnes of them. The key is to learn from them and try to never repeat them again. Let me share some stories on how we failed and what we learnt along the way.
Clash of Zombie Crush
We made a Clash of Clans meets Plants vs. Zombies meets Candy Crush with async multiplayer called Pet Pirates for the second game.
Of course, it failed. It was a huge game – that we actually did in three months, but that’s another story.
Don’t make big games if you are just starting out.
Besides the huge efforts needed to create such a game, confusing players with three games in one was clearly not the way to go.
Lessons learnt:
1. Don’t make big games if you are just starting out.
2. Don’t confuse the players with several games, all in one.
3. Don’t make a game with eight types of currencies / resources.
How we took advantage of this:
1. We got featured in Google Play LATAM, so it was a big win for us, but it never did a single penny.
2. We used it in our portfolio to land our first big gig with Kongregate.
3. We were able to learn how to do async multiplayer, leaderboards, leagues, match-3; everything in three months!
Slaughter your darlings like there’s no tomorrow
Sunk cost fallacy is no joke and getting your hopes up for a project is not unusual when making games.
We worked on a project for years, re-made it and tried again, and since we were working with a publisher, we pretty much could go on almost as long as we wanted to. Great, right?! No.
It’s better to kill a project too soon, than to drag a project that won’t work for too long.
We were struggling with too many projects, people leaving the company, then having a hard time hiring replacements, and now, looking back, the right thing to do was to cancel the project and focus on something else.
My humble advice with this, would be to set very very strict deadlines for yourself, and unless you are very close to hitting them, kill it.
It’s better to kill a project too soon than to drag a project that won’t work for too long.
Industry rollercoaster
As you gain more experience and start growing, you will soon realise that market shifts can impact your business, and you need to make your way around them.
The world is a very complex place, and you are not immune to the big waves of giant market swings. Don’t get discouraged. You will experience very difficult times, and sadly, you will have to make very difficult decisions.
Being part of the industry means that sometimes things are out of your hands, but helping people out as much as you can is the most important part.
Very recently, we had to let go of part of our beloved team. We tried our best not to do it, and they all reacted very positively because we were honest and sympathetic. We tried to help them with the transition, and hopefully, our paths will cross again once the sky is clear again.
Being part of the industry means that sometimes things are out of your hands, but helping people out as much as you can is the most important part. After all, we all love games and are all trying our best. People deserve to be treated with respect and love.
The long game
It took us 10 years to make our first successful game.
Don’t get frustrated. Making good games takes a lot of time. We did some amazing work for other companies but couldn’t quite figure out how to do the same with ours.
I see a lot of developers complaining that they spent six months making a game and couldn’t sell enough to make another one. Well, try 10 years of making games and failing.
That’s how much time it took us, and even then, we think we’re scratching the surface of what we’re capable of.
Be patient. It takes a lot of time and effort.
Teamwork makes the dream work
This is 100% true. Focus on building teams willing to endure the pain of failure, who learn and improve every game until someday the results come.
It is better to have one amazing team making three games than having three regular teams making nine games.
It is better to have one amazing team making three games than having three regular teams making nine games. An amazing team will work faster and better and will have higher chances of success.
Survival of the fittest
Finally, I think there’s more than one way to survive, and after all, as the world changes, we need to adapt. What used to work yesterday might not work today. Be comfortable changing your mind, making mistakes and learning. You will find a way.
At first, we needed to do whatever it took to survive doing work-for-hire. Then, we tried to make our own games, failed a lot, and learned some more until we got our first success.
As always, we focused our efforts on people. The market changes, but teams that never give up, adapt, and evolve make the best games!
Edited by Paige Cook
