Making Money: The Future Proof Games Approach

Given to a local Charlotte Unity meetup group on 7/13/2015 (http://www.meetup.com/Charlotte-Game-Dev/events/222467356/). To get clickable links, download the talk as a PDF, or use the following:

* Daniel Cook's "Minimum Sustainable Success": http://fpgam.es/MinimumSustainability
* FPG website: http://futureproofgames.com
* FPG on Twitter: http://twitter.com/playfutureproof
* FPG on Facebook: http://fpgam.es/FPGFacebook
* FPG on G+: http://fpgam.es/FPGGooglePlus
* Ossuary: http://fpgam.es/Ossuary
* Exploit: Zero Day: https://exploitzeroday.com

Transcript

1. Making Money
   The Future Proof Games Approach
   Melissa Avery-Weir
   @PlayFutureProof
   

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2. Approach Overview
   • What’s the Goal?
   • Strategy #1: Diversify
   • Strategy #2: Increase Fan Base
   Caveat: We aren’t a profitable venture yet! This is just our approach.
   

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3. Goal: Minimum Sustainability
   • Daniel Cook’s “Minimum Sustainable Success”:
   http://fpgam.es/MinimumSustainability
   • If a game breaks even, where’s the money for the next game?
   • Some games will flop, some will be successes
   • Earnings from successful projects need to cover for the unsuccessful
   ones
   • Thus, success looks more like 5x break-even, or 10x.
   

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4. Goal: The Metrics
   • We keep a “Dev Costs” spreadsheet per project
   Dev Hours Hourly Rate Dev Expense
   2200 $45.00 $99,000
   Server Count Monthly Rate Server Expenses Thus Far
   4 $15 $1,000
   Complete Total Expenses 10x Return
   $100,000 $1,000,000
   

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5. Strategy #1: Diversify
   • One game: too high risk
   • If it’s a financial success, then your clock is ticking
   • If it’s not a financial success, then you’re digging deeper into “debt”
   • Two games: some cushion, but not much
   • What if both of them flopped?
   • If one was a success and the other wasn’t, that clock is still ticking…
   • A multitude of games: better!
   • A multitude of games and tools: best!
   • A multitude of revenue streams within a game: ethically complicated
   

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6. Strategy #2: Increase Fan Base
   • Build a brand: “This is a Future Proof game.”
   • Earn fans and followers
   • Players: good/interesting games
   • Other developers: games, tools, writings
   • Press: games, writings
   • How to do it?
   • Make games and tools
   • Dev blog: write about dev status & processes, game design, and how-tos
   • Social media: be on it, talk on it
   • Release games on multiple storefronts
   • Embrace small press (reach wide!)
   

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7. Summary
   • Define financial success as earning 5x-10x dev costs for a
   game
   • Diversify what we’re selling and where we’re selling it
   • Increase the number of folks who like something we make
   enough to follow our work
   

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8. Questions?
   • Minimum Sustainable Success: http://fpgam.es/MinimumSustainability
   • Future Proof Games:
   • @PlayFutureProof
   • http://fpgam.es/FPGFacebook
   • http://fpgam.es/FPGGooglePlus
   • http://futureproofgames.com
   • Our games:
   • Ossuary: dark underworld adventure where sins are your inventory items:
   http://fpgam.es/Ossuary
   • Exploit: Zero Day: browser-based cyberpunk hacking game:
   https://exploitzeroday.com
   

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