OT: Indie games

Will · #1 May 28th, 2006, 10:01 PM

Why there are no indie video games. Saw this article on a rather familiar topic at Shrapnel, thought it might be interesting for everyone. It also makes me wonder what the development and marketing costs for some of Shrapnel's games are like. I would guess it is nowhere near the $8 million that the article talks about for mainstream titles, especially since I remember an announcement a few years back that SE:IV had reached $1 million in sales and was Shrapnel's biggest success as far as sales/revenue.

I think we can all attest that the article title is a bit misleading. It's not that there are no indie video games, it is just hard to hear about them. Advertising ain't cheap. A lot of independant developers have been going under, but there have also been several that are rising up with new games and ideas.

Anyway... thoughts?

narf poit chez BOOM · #2 May 29th, 2006, 04:40 AM

...Maybe advertising for a single game is too expensive, but here's one for the shrapnel staff: Why not advertise shrapnel as a whole?

AngleWyrm · #3 October 24th, 2006, 06:59 AM

Something from the 'Ever heard of those guys?' dept.

Monte Cristo Multimedia developed a SimCity type game, City Life which is actually better than Sim City. There's 30-minute playable demo. It's being published by the same guys who published DarkStar One, that FreeSpace/Freelancer-type game.

Suicide Junkie · #4 October 24th, 2006, 06:49 PM

Maybe it is gamespot's fault...
But I see lots of pretty pictures, and zero interface or gameplay.

Not very encouraging screenshots.

Tim Brooks · #5 October 25th, 2006, 06:37 AM

Quote:

...here's one for the shrapnel staff: Why not advertise shrapnel as a whole?

Hi Guys.

Interesting article, and actually I read this a while back. It is hard being an independent publisher, when all the mainstream forms of advertising are geared towards major release titles. When running a banner ad on Gamespot cost $8,000 and a full page ad in the major computer games magazines is now over $20,000 it makes it impossible for niche games to be advertised in this way.

We have chosen the path less traveled for the most part. Let's face it, our demos are on all the major sites, as well as press releases, and reviews on most plus reviews in the magazines. So spending that kind of money to reach a small portion of these sites and mags audience (the niche strategy and wargaming fans) is just not worth it. We have run the numbers, and we have very good numbers, and each additional sale would come out to cost over $150.00. That is for each sale of products that are in the $40 - $50 dollar range.

We spend a good portion of our income on advertising each month, but we choose to do it in a way that brings new folks to Shrapnel Games. For instance, we run ads in History mags for our wargame titles, and we have similar types of advertising for our strategy titles. It is cost effective and lets those that haven't heard of Shrapnel know who we are. So far, it has worked quite well for us.

That is why you almost never see our ads. You visit the places where we feel we already have a presence. Yeah, it would be nice to do some advertising on these sites, but it just doesn't make sense.