This is why I do it.
It's so easy to get negative in this business. As an indie, it's very hard to get ahead. There are a zillion things I could be doing with my 'spare' time that would be worth a lot more in terms of financial gain (working minimum wage at a fast-food place comes to mind). I have a lot of friends who are still in the AAA, big budget games industry - and when I talk to them about my indie development efforts, it sometimes feels like I've been resigned to the island of misfit toys.

We work our butts off for almost zero attention. We don't have the budgets to make our games half as cool as we'd like. We have to deal with all the regular frustrations of game development, PLUS the frustrations of every other hat we wear, from marketing to customer support to systems administrator to manager to web designer to business guy and back to developer again.

So tonight I get an email from a customer (YAY! One can never have enough of those!) who has a question. Being an indie, I don't have a staff of people to answer those questions for me - it's all me. So I answer. I offer to help further if he needs it. This guy responds back with a thank you, and tells me that he thinks my game rocks.

Maybe he was just being nice because I had been helpful to him. He shelled out his hard-earned bucks to buy my game, though, so I certainly hope he was sincere. Either way, it made my day. I'm not sure which I felt better about - being able to help him out, or receiving the praise for my game. Either way, it reminded me why I do this.

I've had games that have received awards and glowing reviews. I've had games sell over a million copies (if only I was directly in on the royalty stream of those!). But there's nothing so awesome as meeting a stranger who tells you simply that they loved your game.

I love being a game developer.

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:02 PM (Permalink)