Ten Commandments of Indie Game Developers
Okay, so maybe they are more like guidelines - or even wishes - rather than commandments. But they seem to work.

#1 - Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Big-Budget Game
Know what you are capable of. If you don't know what your limitations are, start small so you can find out. Two guys in their basement with a $1000 budget are NOT going to re-create the latest Halo or Final Fantasy game ("only better") inside of a decade. Indie games on a tight budget need to be scoped appropriately. A game doesn't need to be huge to be fun and successful.

#2 - Thou Shalt Complete Thy Game
That goes double for me. Too many indie games are never completed, especially first projects. Like a vast, vast majority. Usually because the developers are new and failed to obey commandment 1.

#3 - Thou Shalt Network With Thy Fellow Indies
The indie community is full of people who've been down the same road you are going. They are full of advice, ideas, and can cue you in on new opportunities that are opening up. And they may provide you with useful constructive criticism about your game, website, and whatever else. They can help you, and you can help them.

#4 - Thou Shalt Not Worship Publishers
Don't put your fate in the hands of a publisher. I'm not saying it's never a good idea, only that once you do that, you are no longer an indie.

#5 - Thou Shalt Not Clone
Come on, it's one thing to be inspired by a game and create one derived from those ideas. Everybody does that. But can't you innovate a LITTLE bit, combine a few ideas, instead of just doing a wholesale copy-and-reskin of a popular game? Sheesh.

#6 - Thou Shalt Not Bear Thyself as a Big Business
Look, you aren't EA. You shouldn't pretend to be EA. If you are the only person at your company, don't title yourself as the "CEO." Your strength is being small and personal. Don't play to your weakness instead.

#7 - Honor Thy Customer
Business is about relationships. Maintain a good one with the people who keep you in business. You have no idea what kind of crappy job they had to sacrifice an hour or so of their life to in order to buy your game. Respect that!

#8 - Thou Shalt Honor and Value Thy Intellectual Property
Publishers know the power of I.P. rights. Developers are typically not in a position to truly exploit those rights, so they tend to undervalue it. Publishers have been taking gleeful advantage of this for years. I'm not saying they shouldn't be for sale. But you should understand the value of your IP rights in the long term, and price them accordingly.

Forget about pie-in-the-sky things like movie or novelization rights. Even without getting into things like sequels. We can talk expansions. We can talk about ports to different systems, expansions, foreign distribution deals, etc. There are TONS of potential opportunities out there when you own you own IP. Think of it this way: Owning the IP rights means you own the right to let other people make you money.

#9 - Thou Shalt Be Wary In Thy Dealings
Always, always check up on the reputation of whomever you are signing a business deal with. The world is unfortunately filled with less reputably companies that will quite literally take the money and run. A lot of indies have been burned by this - and they are happy to talk about it. That is one more reason why networking is so important.

#10 - Thou Shalt Not Slack In Thy Keeping Of Backups
Another one that goes double for me. Just think about it - if your hard drive on your development box were to suddenly die a grinding, screeching, irrevocable death with no possible data recovery right this instant as you are reading this, just how screwed would you be?

Your answer should always be, "Not very."

Labels: Indie Evangelism

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