Fully depends on the team and the game. :P

Indeed, because we all know using a text editor with colors and highlighting and compiling and other things requires a beefy computer... (By the way my $500 computer meets all those requirements)

Course it depends on if you're using a pre-built environment like Unity I suppose... then you might need 3D...

Question.. If you're an indie studio I have to ask: WHY ARE YOU MAKING A 3D GAME!!??

3D has it's own set of problems while making something primarily 2D would be considerably easier... The only 3D games I'd consider for an indie studio is something smaller and simpler, like Paper Sorcerer (no monsters or collision detection beyond walls), Popup-Dungeon (tile dungeon crawling, technically 2D), maybe topdown like Ring Runner which uses 3D rendering (technically 2D)...

No most likely 2D would be a better choice. Like Dust-AET, Super meat boy, gateways, triple town, unholy heights, Shuggy, Escape Goat 1/2... etc.

And would it meet these criteria if 5 users used in concurrently as you suggest? By the way, could you tell me how you would make a cheap small thin client system, software-wise? Why are you creating a company instead of working from home?

Why are you going into game development instead of something less risky?

It's always possible to ask these questions, but assume that people are going to make the game they want to make.

The article tells people who want to create an indie game company the kind of costs they are likely to face, and a lot of developers aren't aware of these. Sure you can cut costs, gut your game, do lots of things to save money, but if the end result is not a game you wanted to make, and the road there is filled with IT nightmares because you set up a complex system to save a few hundred bucks, then you took a wrong turn along the way.

I have to say I think that's a little over exaggerated too. The author of the article has come from a huge game developer, it seems to me that he's started his new company and aimed to be Activision straight away. No new start up buys all their equipment brand new unless they have more money then sense (that goes for any industry, not just games).

And I have no idea what monthly wages are like in the USA but here £3k a month is colossal. If I was ever making that from my business I would be over the moon, never mind if I was making that from day 1.

I'd love to dust off my programming and modelling skills at some point and make and release a game, but if I did it would be mostly my own work, done in my spare time for as little cost as possible.

It's clear from things like this, and all the Kickstarter failures, that aspiring game developers don't have much financial sense...

There's <span class="bold">PXE</span>, that's when the system boots up the network card pings the network, downloads the minimum OS and then everything else is done via networking. As for how to share one computer among them all, I was thinking VirtualBox with virtual connections; Although XWindows and remote logins will do the job too depending on what you're doing. Worse case if you HAD to use windows, you could connect through a session and have separate VM's each locked to a specific core giving them full access to 1 CPU (2-4Ghz should be fine for XP)

Now if it would work? If they are ALL trying to render really heavy stuff at the same time, probably not... But more than likely one will be doing Art, one writing scripts and programming, one will do 3D Art, one can do audio, and certain tasks can set for lower priority. I don't see why it wouldn't work...

Seriously, you aren't trying to make a next-gen console game. I've been happy with ASCII games, and ADOM is one such game which of course is getting an extra graphical layer added on top of it while the game itself is mostly untouched. That doesn't require 8gigs of ram or a huge 3D video card.

One system can be incorporated to do multiple things. Some of the best games usually do one thing and they do it well. You can have side things that aren't as large or complex; or make it more based on scripting which then you can have the largest amount of open programming while limiting it at the same time (Ruby for example).

If you take the complexity of a game to match another, let's say you do Mario brothers (1, 2 or 3), the largest interface was exploring and platforming... There were variants of levels with forced scrolling, and there were some side puzzle games, but what it did well was side scrolling.

Raptor? Side scrolling and graphics. Some collision detection, same with Tyrian.

Escape goat was puzzles.

Defender's quest? Minor scripting and story.

Dust? Platforming mixed with fighting. Story was okay, music was good...

Super meat boy - Platforming.


In the end for your first game(s) when you're getting started, you should be making something that's considerably smaller and simpler than trying to be a AAA company. Make a FF game, but it would be limited to the abilities of what worked on the SNES...

For a larger company that's working on a much larger game, something akin to Morrowind or something might need all the computers at the level specified, but not an indie studio which has 1-6 people under it.

Exactly what I thought.
I'm working at a small workshop for musical instruments and there'd never been enough money to buy the best equipment brand new for something for which there is so few demand and which does cost a lot on material and rent alone. The author doesn't have much financial sense and would fail on an epic scale in other businesses.
Seeing the kickstarter goals I always wonder what they are doing with all this money. Either a lot for themselves or throwing it out of the window.

Buying used mid class stuff is absolutely normal and reasonable for startups and you can not allow yourself more pay than what is absolutely neccessary for your rent and food, mostly you have to live extremely humble because you are making debts in the beginning anyway. I don't know a person from a small company that earns more than 600€ per month but this guy seems to have very high standards or is just working at a big company and doesn't know jack about real startups.

Ehhm... the employees don't receive those full 3k, not even before taxes. But even that would be a small salary here. You could make more in a fish factory. I see absolutely nothing in the article to suggest that these guys have been spending too much money. I just see a bunch of GOG posters with zero experience in the industry and unreasonable expectations as to the cost of developing games, with a few reasonable suggestions hidden amongst it all.

The suggestion that 3D games by new studios should not exist ever is ridiculous.

Like I said, I have no idea what salaries in the USA are like, but thats roughly £22k a year. That's probably pretty poor for a game designer or programmer, but not for anyone starting there own business.

The point of my post was that we have no experience in the industry, and therefore we don't expect ridiculously out of proportion wages, the best computers and software, and to attend massive industry events in our first few years of business.

I'm saying that coming from a huge developer (or having industry experience) is actually detrimental to starting your own business, and this article clearly shows that. I'm sure most of us have watched Indie Game The Movie, those guys built hugely successful games without any of the stuff listed in this article.

I do agree about the 3D games thing though, they are not that much more difficult than 2D. I would aim for a 3D game, not because I have any problem with 2D, but because my modelling skills are better than my 2D art skills.

Using the no 3D for your first game rule Crytek shouldn't have started out with FarCry, Croteam shouldn't have started out with Serious Sam, Interceptor shouldn't have started out with Rise of The Triad 2013(Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded that they worked on before that but put on hold), Flying Wild Hog shouldn't have started out with Hard Reset, Valve shouldn't have started out with Half-Life, CD Projekt shouldn't have started out with The Witcher, Double Fine shouldn't have started out with Psychonauts, etc

They didn't. They started out with a Sensible Soccer clone on the Amiga known as Football Glory, which was 2D. They went on to do some simple 3D shooter which I think was called Embryo (haven't played it in at least a decade, so...)

Also, just because many of these studios started out with 3D games, doesn't mean that their individual devs/designers always did 3D games. We have no idea what the teams at Crytek, FLH, Interceptor, Valve or CD Projekt were doing.

We do know, however, what Tim Schäfer was doing before he started Double Fine.

Not that I necessarily agree that a dev absolutely has to start with a 2D project, but you should get your facts straight first, and it's fairly logical that a developer would start with a more simplistic project, which is likely to be 2D, before moving on to bigger things. Those proof-of-concept projects might not have seen the light of day, but it doesn't stop them from existing.

So what if I got one example a bit wrong. There are countless others I didn't include. My point is that requiring start ups to stay away from 3D is stupid and not at all a valid criticism of the budget provided in the article the OP linked to. Suggesting that studios use Windows XP, basically the most unsecure OS on the planet, is also moronic. Suggesting the use of terminals is also rather unproductive, using such an obscure technology is just not any kind of useful, constructive or valid suggestion for indie game development at all. Especially when tied in to the 2D and Windows XP suggestions.

Buying used hardware? That is a useful suggestion. Using freeware and FLOSS? That is a (potentially) useful suggestion but already implemented by this particular indie studio. Making sure that you have competent business management people? That too is a good idea. Have people with knowledge and experience in budgeting and project management and that sort of thing. Running a Kickstarter? Make sure you consider the Kickstarter & Amazon fees, eventual taxes, overhead in running the Kickstarter campaign, costs associated with rewards and that sort of thing when you set your fundraising goal.

There are lots of valid suggestions that can me made and some have been made in this thread. But stuff like ignorance of the costs associated with hiring people OTHER than what they themselves get paid is not gonna help any of these startups.

There is nothing inherently wasteful about going to various conferences. It it a way for you to get the word out about your game to gamers and in particular press. If the press doesn't know that your game exists it is going to be very hard to get any sales. It also enables you to do networking which can potentially lead to stuff like quality hires, getting contracts from publishers and the like. For example you could run into a person from GOG at a conference eventually leading to your game being sold here. You might meet someone at a company that translates games into other language enabling you to reach a broader market.

Basically it comes down to the fact that you gotta spend money to make money.

"Also, just because many of these studios started out with 3D games, doesn't mean that their individual devs/designers always did 3D games. We have no idea what the teams at Crytek, FLH, Interceptor, Valve or CD Projekt were doing. "

The guy suggesting starting with 2D didn't make any such exception for people with prior experience in the industry before going the startup route or anything like that. He just said that you shouldn't start out with 3D as a sort of blanket rule. I take it you agree with me that it is not a good suggestion or idea. It would be very bad if established studios had no competition in 3D space.

If you've ever used XWindows (and all linux GUI's do), then you are silently using a terminal or remote access through a server already (it's just on the local machine). This isn't nearly as obscure as you try to make it. Plus history shows us it was easier and cheaper to make a mainframe and give terminals to groups and share time rather than doing individual systems. That may have reversed due to the cheapness of the hardware.

Are you a person who has his computer using 100% of his cpu 100% of the time making a shared system useless? Even if you are, putting low priority on background jobs will fix most bulky and slow jobs so they don't interfere.

Actually this guy did start out using his own space and using previously owned hardware. I think he was working out what everything would have cost if he had purchased everything fresh for his new company, plus the salaries he couldn't and didn't pay at all, at first. I thought the license costs looked a bit low, based on what work-ups we've done here, unless you do go with free & mostly free engines, renderers etc

Gonna gloss over the most of the money parts and pick up where he discusses Opportunity Cost and the rest.

Yeah. Pretty much what is described, though this has nothing to do with creating your own indie game(s) and / or company and everything to do with going out on your own in general. You're making this leap from a "guaranteed" paycheck on a regular schedule to "Hmm, I wonder when this venture will start to see ANY income, let alone profit?" Meanwhile, you're burning through the savings you've built-up prior to making the leap. I've had periods, long-after my biz was fully established, when I was wondering when money was going to come in and sometimes there isn't much you can do about it. Just comes with highs and lows. For a game creation project, it has to be a lot tougher with regards to the long time period between starting the project and seeing that first bit of income.

Social cost is real, too. I think I've had one actual vacation since I went independent 8 years ago. While it's possible to shut off the phone and not check email for a week, it is definitely not feasible. Give the customer a reason to go somewhere else (including a well-deserved vacation) and you take the risk that the provider they found is now their primary source. I know someone out there is reading this and thinking, "Well screw those guys - I didn't want them as a customer anyway if they can't understand that I need a vacation." Yeah, easy to say until you start to miss that income. From the customer's perspective, they needed something from you and you couldn't provide it. Someone else could. Simple as that.

So it adds on to the stress a bit, which goes to a comment elsewhere in the piece where he mentions that you have to put on that positive face at all times even when things are going to complete crap. It's tough, and I've had to remind myself that the person I'm speaking with is someone who will, through our business dealings, make it at least a little bit better by making a purchase, providing some info, or giving me a lead for another customer. Putting on that positive face has actually become easier over time, but my biz is also different than indie game creation and some of the stressors are different.


Back to costs... I know, I said I wasn't going to dwell on those.

The insurance he mentioned sounds more like business coverages, like liability (liability for developing a video game? Oh, yes - I can go into that a little bit if anyone cares), and renter's insurance to cover the equipment.

As to equipment costs, I can see those being fairly normal. Sure, they could save a bit by getting used equipment and office furniture, etc. For the most part those are one-time expenses - you don't replace desks every year unless you throw some really wild Christmas parties. The big savings comes in reducing your periodic expenses like those bank fees (I'd be curious to know what's going on there), biz liability insurance, utilities, and that sort of thing.

And yes, in this digital age you need to spend a little bit on paper business cards. You can futz around for 30-60 seconds exchanging that info with the prospect on your phones, where your contact looks exactly like every other contact - meanwhile derailing the conversation you were engaged in - or you can spend 2 seconds handing the prospective customer a colorful card that stands out from the crowd and keeps the conversation moving. This is NOT wasted money.



Good luck to him, and anyone else who puts up their own shingle to start a business. It's stressful, nerve-wracking, ulcer-inducing, and sleep-killing. And it's liberating. Not easy, but if you can make it work then the rewards can be worth it.