I have to say i was tempted to write something about high horses and lonely pedestals - but harsh and uncomfortable as your words may be - i think you are right. There may be exceptions to a few of your points at a time, but 9/10 of them will have to apply. 1 in 7.500.000.000 is Notch - you aren't Notch, i ain't Notch. If i thought i was the lucky one, i might as well play the lottery. Gonna get back to coding now.

Accurate. But where's the next update to YOUR project...?

Interesting read, though I feel compelled to react to a few items:

• First and foremost, YOU have to be capable of building the game entirely by yourself.
  • I think that's only partially true, for self-starters. In the event of being able to throw 'some money' at the problem though, I think it is possible for someone with limited skills to lead a project to completion through hiring freelancers or team extensions, even on indie budgets, and without having to resort to the power of USD on other currencies.
• You absolutely positively MUST have a business plan.
  • While I agree with the business plan, I cannot back the length. A lot of the best business decisions come from reacting or anticipating change, and the business plan is a comfortable fallback than can work against it. You should have the big picture, the product and see value where you're headed, but in the words of Elon Musk, great businesses are built on great products first and foremost.
• Please, please, please, for the sake of god, have everything meticulously planned out before you begin!
  • Once again here, I can only imagine this being written by someone whose previous work did not specifically involve the same type of organization as video game development. For anyone who comes from a background similar to mine (having produced video games, some of which AAA) I'd advocate the complete opposite: don't dwell in the details, as a manager, your value already comes from being able to address that. Focus on the big picture, not which tradeshow you'll attend, but when it might get relevant. Awareness is a much better problem solver than planning, though both obviously trump over reactivity.
• When it comes to processes, a tried and true process is the “scientific method”.
  • There's an extent to which experience or 'instinct' might strictly become superior to the scientific method and it happens on split-second decisions. Over the course of a project, the sub-conscious identification of patterns and best case decisions will not be 100% accurate (but the scientific method also leads to errors when certain piece of data were omitted or simply not humanly possibly to acquire) but they'll be much faster. I'm not advocating management on a global scale not built on rigorous principles, but rather a fair tradeoff between taking advantage of your experience in the field vs taking 'the time'. Obviously, for someone new to the scene, that is largely unapplicable, though you'll find that a lot of successful startups' origins are less than noble in rigor.
• You need money. 
  • I partially agree, though there are now new tier publishers who need to make a name for themselves. You'll still need a lot of money to get the game anywhere near a territory they might want to look at it, but as the 'smaller guy', they'll also be prone to taking more risks either because they genuinely want to, or because they seek their own break. This gives you more opportunities than, say, 5 years ago, but very few will get that call, so it shouldn't be your plan, just a nice touch to bring your MVP further along.
• You HAVE to believe in your experience and abilities. 
  • This one I agree fully with. Just needed to put it out there, it's probably the single most valuable item in the entire post. Having unshakable confidence balanced with humility is an art that is innate to no one. I repeat, absolutely NO ONE is born with the natural born talent for doing both. A lot of people have bloated heads, and a lot of people are too humble. Being the perfect mix of both is something that takes forever to learn, and something you can't possibly master perfectly ever. What counts is that you keep trying to reach this state as much as possible and keep it in check (too many business owners 'forget' this balance and go one way or the other and never look back post startup phase).
• To get an idea on what it takes to make your favorite game, open it up. Then go view the credits screen. Look at all the roles. Count the number of people involved. Then, assume everyone makes $60k a year and it took three years of full time work to produce the game (four if you want to factor out crunch time). This is the amount of time, talent, effort and money required to build your favorite game. Is your scrappy rag tag indie team going to repeat this but do a better job? No. Your scope is too large.
  • I agree with the premise: the scope is always too big. However, I feel the example is lackluster. I've built myself a quite successful business by questioning the current 'Game Credits' standards. I've effectively delivered projects that the industry would've scoped over 1M on less than 50k budgets. The industry is plagued with problems (Logan's Run HR for starters!) that led to their unproductive over-specialization, and the very reason indies get so successful is that there's a lot of value in a holistic vision which AAA development studios are unable to capitalize on. It is frustrating to put together a 100 people team, try to keep the ship afloat and all channels open when Edmund McMillen REPEATEDLY strikes home with his games on a 2 people team. True, some people's ideas sound AAA, but not all of them NEED to be. If you focus the art of MVP, you can distill your unique experience and built something compelling and original but less than 10% of the effort the AAA world feels is mandatory to achieve and may even outsell them if you're particularly good at it and paved your way to success. A lot of people assume that because the scope is too big, the concept is, but that's generally the other way around: you've grafted too much crap to your core idea and should stick with the part that keeps you awake at night and reconsider what supports it instead of fitting a genre. In the 80s/early 90s, genres played much less of a role, and great games got made (arguably, much less forgettable ones too!). There's a reason why we're in an age of sequels and reboots: the current industry isn't fostering a climate that leads to new great IPs, but many indies do, so I feel I need to speak up regarding scope as that's one critical misunderstood step amongst new indies.
• Nobody knows what they’re talking about.
  • I partially agree in that I don't believe in 'experts' particularly from a marketing standpoint (marketing is always about having that idea no one saw coming, and quite literally, that can come from anyone, at any given time, and is less likely to happen if someone sticks to SEO standard practices, adverts, etc, I mean, just look at that dig a hole campaign: pure genius!). That being said, as far as production goes, there are best practices that make sense, and having someone senior on the team who is aware of the limitations of what they know can make a huge different. Steve Jobs' Next wasn't a pure success on its own, but it was positioned at a level of quality where it was eventually feasibly for Apple to acquire that tech, so striking twice isn't a pure streak of luck. Some people see patterns, not in the sense that there's a guide to making a product, but there are 'pillars' of what should matter, what one should care about, and some people, few people (and fewer openly willing to sell their craft) are actually genuinely interested in helping other projects succeed, and have the ability to 'know what they're talking about'. 
• Be prepared to work a lot.
  • That's the 'all in approach' and it is not the one I would recommend. Downscale your work and get a part-time job. Get contracts if you can, split your time between what you're risking (YOUR game) and what you need to get by (work). Don't stick to a day job, you'll be already tired by the time you get started on your own stuff at the end of the way, and you will get burned by lack of sleep, etc. I know, I've been there myself (even after the 5-1-1, guess what that last 1 was for to begin with, and while we're at it, what was the first 1 for again? That's right, more work).

So I can see that as a collection of lessons you're learned in your situation. Most of them are applicable to all, but some of them stem from a very personal situation. It is valuable input, but I think presenting all of it as fact is a bit misleading given not everyone floats the same boat as you did before getting started. You had some very strong suits (your background in dev) and some weaknesses (a bit more of an introvert if I'm not mistaken?) and they show through this.

Still, very valuable input nonetheless, and a good reminder of the highs and lows.

Given this, has your game failed? And what metric would you use to describe failure?

Everything being relative, it would help to have a bit more context into what led to such a 'stop sign' type of post (while others prefer to profess unlimited motivational posts which will quite unnecessarily lead to a bunch of entrepreneurs making bad decisions while pursuing 'dreams').

Hope you're well despite the fall!

Basically, think from the client's perspective and how to make money, rather than your own perspective or exploring ideas. I only get so far with this line of thinking before I run out of ideas though. Basically it's all bunk though and you're not going to make money either way.

Would have loved to just see a copy and paste of the text here to make the interaction / quoting here in the comments easier :), but this last bullet of yours is very relevant and why GameDev.net exists:

Quote

• Share your knowledge with others. When everyone shares, everyone wins. A rising tide lifts all ships. You are currently benefiting from my knowledge — add to it and spread it around.

We created GameDev.net for this exact purpose, and I can't stress its importance enough - the developers in the GameDev.net community have been strongest as developers when they have been willing to take the time to share their knowledge and experiences, whether in the form of forum replies, blogs, articles, or even news relevant to other developers.

8 hours ago, Orymus3 said:

Given this, has your game failed? And what metric would you use to describe failure?

Everything being relative, it would help to have a bit more context into what led to such a 'stop sign' type of post (while others prefer to profess unlimited motivational posts which will quite unnecessarily lead to a bunch of entrepreneurs making bad decisions while pursuing 'dreams').

Hope you're well despite the fall!

This post has a lot of context behind it. I've watched a lot of indie projects.
There's the internet based indie projects, with remote teams and young ambitious people, of which, almost all of them fail. This is the main target demographic for my article, which was triggered by someone yesterday pulling me into his discord channel in an attempt to recruit me into the project. The intended game was going to be some variation of Black and White 2, built by a team of five people. They had a ton of red flags which needed to be corrected, so I went into detail. It wasn't the first time I've told people that their team and project has some major problems, and I started to feel that I was repeating the same things over and over again, so it would be worthwhile to compile a list of do's and don'ts so that I could just link people to it.

What have I seen?
Waaaaay back in the day, I joined an internet team, lead by some guy in Colorado -- called "runic games" or something. I was 17, their only programmer, who barely grasped C++ at the time. We were going to make a game about "vampyres". A few artists made concept art, lots of ideas were created, and then people started ghosting the project. It failed.
Then, I tried many times to start my own games (very young and dumb) by myself and I kept on failing. Mostly because I was lazy, untalented, and burned myself out.
I started to watch other variations of the first experience play out over and over again, many from small teams on gamedev.net; I decided I would not touch these types of teams with a ten foot pole because they all failed.
I persisted with software development in general. I started getting a bit of professional experience and I had to deliver completed projects for people. There was no half-assing allowed, either do it or go home in shame. This is where I started figuring out the software development life cycle and getting good at the process.
More recently, after starting my own indie studio, I've been keeping in touch with fellow indies and watching other start ups in my space. A lot of tragic stories. There was one indie team of five young men in my former building who all worked in the same workspace and actually shipped an HTML5 MMORPG. It works. It was an incredible accomplishment. They deployed their game online. They had an in-app purchase business model. However, they failed to attract any customers. They spent well over $200k and borrowed from friends and family. The lead programmer literally died towards the end of production. Why did they fail? Marketing, sales, and low testing and engagement with customers. The game they made was an MVP, but it just wasn't good enough to attract and retain players.
Then there's this local guy who made this dumb game about a monkey. He also shipped, which is rare. But, his game is utter shit and the reviews reflect it. His problem? He couldn't accept constructive criticism and wasn't interested in critical feedback or improvement, so the result was garbage. His standards for quality are abysmal. Polish? What's that? He keeps on trying to make various games, but they are all equally bad and uninspired. He's doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes.
Then there are the other start ups which seemingly do everything right, get funded by VC's, make a product, and discover that either they are too early to market, or that there is no market for their product, so they go out of business. This... is something that could have been figured out in planning instead of post production.
These kinds of business problems aren't just unique to game developers, it's a problem common across all sectors of business. I've seen 90% of inventors inventing a product, only to find that they made something which nobody wants or needs. They may even spend tens of thousands in marketing and advertising, but that doesn't change the core fact that their invention is useless. Whoops! These inventors are facing the exact same problems that indie game devs face.
You can even go to various fairs and look at the booths people have and see their products. Who is successful? Who has customers? Why are they doing well? Who is failing? Why are they failing? Is it the booth agent or the product? The lessons are universally applicable, because ultimately everything is either a product or service.
Then there are also the local indies here in seattle who I think are doing everything absolutely right and they will succeed. They won't get wildly rich, but they will succeed.
There is a million reasons why some people will succeed and fail, but I think random luck is the least influential variable in all of it.

Will my game succeed or fail? I don't know, the verdict is still out. The two biggest challenges for me right now is marketing and building more content. I've made some big mistakes along the way (only revealed by hindsight), but also made some pretty good decisions as well. There are still more decisions to make, some may be mistakes, but as long as I am proactively looking for risks and trying to preemptively mitigate disaster, I can't screw up too bad, right? The lack of this process in most indie projects is what causes them to fail predictably...and its preventable.

You need some dynamite methods to start making money on games. This shovelware will not do... you need a bulldozer. Start by... making something that is not a game. That makes people 200% more likely to buy it.

Perhaps this would help broaden peoples' mind a bit?

On 19.9.2017 at 9:07 PM, Dwarf King said:

Perhaps this would help broaden peoples' mind a bit?

Wow, thanks for this video! I though I was crazy working on a point & click adventure game for 8 years - but eleven?!  This is incredible.