This is my annotated link list of everything that is helpful in answering the question: how to become an Indie Game Developer? It includes war stories, links to sites where you can upload games, e-business, legal, free assets, game development techniques, and more. I’m irregularly updating it whenever I learn something new as part of my “research project”. Will i ever go indie? Do i have what it takes? Can i make a living on creating indie computer games? Well, that’s what i’m trying to find out, too…

Please excuse the sloppy layout of this page. This is basically a reference for me, sort of an enhanced and shared bookmark list. I don’t put much effort in it right now other than adding more links. Once i’ve learned which resources are truely great and useful and when i have quite a bit of free time to waste i’ll eventually improve the layout and content of these pages, just like my Scrum pages over here.

But first off, here’s a great motivational video to get you started: “Seriously, stop watching f**king Lost!”

Last Update: April 16, 2009

• June 19th: added link to The Indie Developer’s Guide, Games Press and TIG Forums Press Release Distribution Service list
• April 16th: added: Stackoverflow “where to get free assets”, Chris Crawford’s 1982 Art of Computer Game Design book, Recommended tools for Game Designers
• April 4th: Flash Game License & Sponsorship links added
• April 3rd: added PushButton engine and Great Games Experiment community site, added Grunge Textures
• March 31st: added Sell More Games blog of Anawiki Games + XNA Community Games Sales Figures
• March 30th: added another 5-point market your indie game list from Wolfire Games, added Spell of Play because they have such an interesting philosophy
• March 29th: TIG added
• March 28th: added motivational video for the undecided
• March 27th: added game engines and server technology, and some user stories/advice

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Start here: The Indie Developer’s Guide

Success (or failure) Stories and opinion pieces (aka blog/forum posts):

• Spiderweb’s Jeff Vogel: here’s how many games I sell:
  • http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/03/so-heres-how-many-games-i-sell.html
  • http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-many-games-i-sell-part-two.html
  • He creates and sell old-school RPGs:
  • http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/
• Sales Statistics of some Indie Games
  • http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/
• How to make your mark on the videogame industry aka An insider’s look into indie game development
  • http://www.gamertell.com/gaming/comment/burning-ambition-intro-an-insiders-look-into-indie-game-development/
• Molly Rocket
  • https://mollyrocket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5470#5470
  • War story of an upcoming indie, but the forum especially contains loads of interesting stuff for indies and learning the tricks of the trade.
• The indie game developer’s start-up cost
  • http://gamesandmen.blogspot.com/2008/12/indie-game-developers-start-up-cost.html
• So you call yourself an Indie?
  • http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/10/22/so-you-call-yourself-indie/1
  • “Game developers should stay in their day job for the man, or be truly independent. This middle-path (selling to game portals) is just embarrassing to watch.”
  • Check out the other columns there, interesting stuff, like “release day nerves” here:
  • http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/09/30/release-day-nerves/1
• So you want to be an indie developer?
  • http://zoombapup.blogspot.com/2006/11/so-you-want-to-be-indie-developer.html
  • Concludes with: “So, fellow would-be indie, may I suggest humbly that if you are thinking of becoming an indie, forget the monetary aspect of it. It really is peripheral to the joy of creation.”
• How to start your own game studio
  • http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2008/04/09/how_to_start_your_own_games_studio_pt_1/1
• Should I Become An Indie Game Developer?
  • http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2007/01/should-i-become-indie-game-developer.html
  • Don’t forget to check out the links in his post as well as the related posts at the bottom. Let the Coyote speak to you!
• Sustaining Independence
  • http://www.gametunnel.com/sustaining-independence-article.php
  • “An independent developer that wishes to sustain their independence must pursue their own interests in game design and development and give them preeminence over their interests in business and profit.”
  • http://www.gametunnel.com/independent-takes-time-article.php
  • Independent Takes Time. How do you get started? Check out more of the developers blog on GameTunnel, interesting views and stories.
• Five foundational steps to surviving as a Game Developer
  • http://makeitbigingames.com/2006/02/five-foundational-steps-to-surviving-as-a-game-developer/
  • Right Size Your Life – Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Find a team of like minded individuals – Innovate, but not too much – Create a portfolio of products
  • … and then read this one, five realistic steps to starting a game development company:
  • http://makeitbigingames.com/2006/06/five-realistic-steps-to-starting-a-game-development-company/
• Startup Postmortem & advice for starters
  • http://greyaliengames.com/blog/solid-advice-for-startups-and-a-startup-post-mortem/
• How much does an average casual game make?
  • http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/71/how-much-does-an-average-casual-game-make/
  • Not much. And in a related article we learn how many sales does a shareware game get:
  • http://www.asharewarelife.com/2005/11/how_many_sales_.html
• 2D Boy/Polytron’s top 10 ways to market your indie game
  • http://www.offworld.com/2009/03/indie-games-summit-2d-boypolyt.html
  • … and in response to that Wolfire Games put up their own 5-point list of lessons learned:
  • http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/03/5-indie-pr-tips-from-wolfire/
• Sell More Games
  • http://anawiki.com/sellmoregames/
  • Cheesy name but actually lots of good information (postmortems, sales stats, and so on) on this blog of indie developer Anawiki Games.
• Gamasutra: XNA Community Games sales figures revealed
  • http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22970
  • XNA’s current outlook from a sales viewpoint: unimpressive. It’s advisable for XNA developers to not target the 360 exclusively.
• The Art of Computer Game Design – Chris Crawford, 1982. The classic on Game Design and still highly valuable to this date. Can be read online or as PDF version.

E-Commerce & Software Submission & Sponsorship, Marketing

• Comparisons:
  • http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/registrationservices.html
• http://www.shareit.de
• http://www.charge.com/
• http://www.bmtmicro.com/
• http://home.plimus.com/ecommerce/
• SSL: http://www.verisign.co.uk/ssl/index.html?sl=b15790145155028000
• http://www.trymedia.com/ (game specific)
• https://epay.propay.com/
• http://www.esellerate.net/ … eCommerce and strict but flexible Product Activation.
• http://www.flashgamelicense.com/ … Flash Game License, helps you sell your flash games.
• http://www.flashgamesponsorship.com/ … Flash Game Sponsorship gives you all the details about selling your flash game.
• Games Press – the Resource for Game Journalists
• TIG Forums – Press Release Distribution Services

Indie Game Development & where to meet Indie Game Developers

• http://forums.indiegamer.com (where indie developers meet, greet and affiliate)
  • Good list of potential peers:
  • http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=15129
• http://www.casualcharts.com/ (sales charts)
• http://vgsmart.com/ (video game marketing)
  • http://vgsmart.blogspot.com/
• GearHand’s link list of other developers etc
  • http://www.gearhand.com/links/
• The Chaos Engine – where professional game developers meet
  • http://www.thechaosengine.com/
• The Independent Gaming Source
  • http://www.tigsource.com/
• Great Games Experiment
  • http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/

Indie Game Tools

• Indie Game Tools – i think this deserves it’s own category. On this site you get a list of tools of any category often used by Indie Game Developers. More importantly you can vote for your favorite tools and see what others recommend. However i’d take the votes with a huge grain of salt as some tools may be overrated or underrated depending on their respective community or simply based on the fact that an engine is free compared to a commercial one like Unity but without considering that you may get the engine for free but no tools to work with while something like Unity is so much more than an engine. I would even say Unity is worth it’s money exactly because of it’s strong tools and asset pipeline.

Game Engines

• Suggested tools for Game Designers. Game Maker, Flash, Unity.
• Torque (seperate 2D and 3D engines as well as for consoles, including iPhone)
• Unity (3D focus but also 2D possible, can do iPhone)
• GameBryo (must request evaluation)
• Playground SDK (must create account)
• PushButton Engine (Flash Engine, Open Source, from the developers who birthed Torque & GarageGames)

Server Technology

• ElectroServer
• SmartFoxServer

Assets

• http://www.beatpick.com/ good to great music, quite expensive though
• http://blog.rakeingrass.com/ source code for indie games that are being sold, I’m sure there’s a lot of things you can learn from that
• http://www.mayang.com/textures/ free hi-res textures
• http://www.freesound.org free sound fx, varying quality
• http://www.tiledtextures.com/shoppe/ tiled textures, hi-res
• http://www.cubixstudio.com/ Artists for Hire and premade Art packages for low price
• http://www.grungetextures.com/ Grunge Textures, hi-res and free
• Discussion on stackoverflow.com: best place to look for (free) game audio, graphics, etc. Contains some great links.
• http://www.odesk.com/w/ Contractors for Hire, look here for Artists, Musicians, etc.

Existenzgründung

• http://checkliste.de/unternehmen/existenzgruendung/
• http://www.existenzgruender.de

Starting Point for Digital Distribution Research:

• Wikipedia on Digital Distribution    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_distribution
• List of sites which host shareware etc for download:
  • http://www.accusolve.biz/stsites.html

List of potential Digital Distributors:

• Spell of Play
  • http://www.spellofplay.com/about
  • Very interesting pay model and philosophy. They run their own digital download service hUb. The idea is that games published on hUb are sold for a low price initially, or free, and as the game develops and improves, the game’s price may go up over time. However, those players that support the game early on will always have access to upgrades for free. In effect enthusiastic gamers can drive the development of certain titles and as a benefit get the updates for free.
  • I haven’t tried it yet but i think their philosophy ROCKS! The only downside: from the website it’s not clear if you can submit your own games to them.
• GameTrove
  • http://www.gametrove.net/about.php
  • “Upload and make Money”
  • Ad-Driven site for developers, eg. developers sell their games on their own terms, GameTrove profits come from site ads instead!
• BigFish Games
  • http://www.bigfishgames.de/company/game-developer.html
  • Most compelling “show us your games” attitude so far.
  • Casual games, with web games going strong.
• Reflexive
  • https://cc.gamecentersolution.com/index.php?page=Help/Developers/DeveloperProgram
  • They say they are developer-friendly, they are the only ones with a developer FAQ.
  • 40% revenue share but requires proper tax form to avoid withholding taxes (probably goes for any transactions with a US company)
• Oberon Games
  • http://www.oberongames.com/publishing.asp
  • Offer publishing, marketing, etc.
  • Casual games only, main target audience is female and over 30.
• GamePro Labs (GamePro also publishes GameStar)
  • http://www.gamepro.com/labs
  • “Call for games” but limited to few titles a year. Explicit mention of indie developers.
  • “Contact Us”
• GreenHouse (Penny Arcade, HotHead Games)
  • http://www.playgreenhouse.com/about
  • Specifically targeting small and indie developers and offering support.
  • “Contact Us”
• InstantAction / GarageGames (Torque developer)
  • http://technology.instantaction.com/
  • “Contact Us” – for all options
• Direct2Drive
  • http://www.direct2drive.com/staticpage.aspx?topic=publisher_contact
  • “Contact Us”
• Impulse Reactor / StarDock
  • http://www.stardock.com/about/
  • “Partner With Us”, no further information for developers
  • Also offers applications and tools for download.
• Gamecock (acquired by South Peak Games in late 2008)
  • http://www.southpeakgames.eu/
  • Click “Contact” then choose “Developer Inquiries”.
  • No “Contact Us” for developers or anyone. Seems more like a traditional publisher.
• GamersGate / Paradox
  • http://www.gamersgate.com/?page=page&what=faq&faqcat=10
  • “Contact Us”
• WildTangent
  • http://about.wildtangent.com/contact/publishformcontact
  • “Contact Us”
  • Controversial client software (privacy issues, considered spyware by some)
• eBay
  • it may be worth a shot to try selling your own game via eBay
• PopCap
  • http://developer.popcap.com/forums/pop_index.php
  • They have a developer forum and programming framework free of use
  • However: they don’t accept 3^rd party game submissions anymore.
• Yahoo Games
  • http://games.yahoo.com/
  • No contact info for developers
• Steam / Steamworks
  • “[not] ready for Mods or games likely to have a very small install base or just starting out with growing their user base”: https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/mod_team
• XNA Community Games
  • No deployment and no payment for german Xbox Live users.
  • Maybe possible by using a “proxy developer”? (possibly illegal)
• Gametap
  • Not yet available outside US/Canada (Germany: coming soon)
  • No information/contact for developers
  • Controversial
• Games for Windows LIVE / Microsoft
  • No contact for developers
  • Must meet certain specifications: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173456.aspx
• GoodOldGames
  • http://www.gog.com/en/support/contact/business
  • “Contact Us”
  • Only for older, discontinued games
• iWin
  • http://www.iwin.com/
  • Casual games, no developer info
• JumboPlay
  • http://www.jumboplay.com/
  • Currently unavailable (maintenance)
  • Asian Market
• RealArcade
  • http://www.realarcade.com/
  • Server unavailable
  • Website currently only works with IE and Firefox
• Zylom
  • http://www.de.zylom.com/
  • European subsidiary of RealArcade
  • Casual webgames
• GameHouse
  • http://www.gamehouse.com/
  • Casual webgames, no developer contact
• Pogo
  • http://www.pogo.de
  • Casual games, no developer contact

Additional indie game dev links:

• Indie Games (IGF/IGS)    http://www.indiegames.com/
• Game Developer Magazine
  • industry reports worth $1,000 of statistics & data: http://www.gamedevresearch.com/
• Making Indie Games
  • http://makingindiegames.com/
  • Tutorials, Starter Kits, etc for Torque, XNA, C++ and more
• Rampant Games
  • http://www.rampantgames.com/
  • They carry some cool niche RPG games and have a great community, many are developers themselves:
  • http://www.rampantgames.com/community/
  • And of course the blog, especially “20 ways to make money making indie games”:
  • http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/06/20-ways-to-make-money-making-indie.html
• RPG DX – center of indie RPG development
  • http://rpgdx.net/
• Elder Game
  • http://www.eldergame.com
  • Generally great resource for game design and production
• DevBump
  • http://www.devbump.com/
  • Industry news: business, development, games
  • Seems to have a focus on the whole indie thing …
• Eludamos – Journal for Computer Game Culture
  • http://eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos
• Chronic Logic – makers of Bridge Builder
  • http://www.chroniclogic.com/
• They also take Indie game submissions although looking at the number of titles they only offer to host only very few 3rd party games.
• The Independent Gaming Source
  • http://www.tigsource.com/

Oh, you made it all the way down here? Ok then please leave me a comment. I’d appreciate a “well done” or “me was here” or another link i’ve been missing out on or any of your thoughts on indie game development in general or even something specific maybe?

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