The history of our gaming startup or "What to do ???"
Hello. In this article I will share with you our experience in creating an igrodlissheskogo startup in St. Petersburg.
So, it all started 2 years ago, in the spring of 2010.
One day I woke up and realized that I need to change something. I had a small business (website), bringing some income, which allowed me not to think about where to get money for food plus it remained. And I decided that something needs to be done while there is an opportunity.
')
My friend ( Dartius ) was taken by the scruff (also a universal programmer) and it was decided to start.
Just at that moment, I saw plenty of videos with GDC / Flashgamma and realized that the social market is a chance. It was decided to do something social.
My friend and I already tried to do something together (and even did, but the project did not go) and understood the main thing - it’s almost impossible to work at home. Especially considering that a friend, unlike me, - still had a major job. It is sometimes difficult to force yourself to do something at home after work, when there is a TV and other benefits nearby.
It was decided to rent a small office and work there in the evenings.
The office was found very good - in the same business center where my friend worked at the main job - there was a small and relatively cheap office (now the prices have risen, but then we paid about 16,000 r. For 23 squares). Having compared the prices and conditions, it was decided to rent this particular office.
So, the room was rented, a couple of the cheapest tables and chairs were bought - let's go!
(The photo was taken later; don’t look at the floor - we haven’t had cleaning for several months)
Question two - what to do? Having studied the social market a little, the eye caught on the then popular MyBrute - “Panda vs Elk”, I mean, a zero-fighting game.
Because draw none of us can, it was decided to hire the services of a freelancer.
The idea of ​​a zero-fighting game, it was decided to mix with the character editor a la Spore.
Postmortem of this project I already wrote on Habré earlier (see the article about " Mikroniyu ").
Technical details of the project:
Vkontakte primary traffic was purchased from spammers. We went to My World and Odnoklassniki without advertising (for this business I had to register an individual entrepreneur).
Result and conclusions:
As a result, the project has spilled. Not many people played, they paid even less ... At the height of fame, we earned 15 thousand rubles. per month ... And this peak was blown away.
As a result, the project was sold (for a very small amount, comparable to a few months profit) and we thought.
So what did we decide?
First of all, we decided not to reinvent the wheel anymore, but to do something that really should work.
Secondly, we realized that the freelance artist is an inconvenient affair. Need a man in the team. And preferably for free (in the share). :)
As a result - after 2 unsuccessful attempts - the artist was found (but not for free - but on the hybrid model - partly to a share, partly to a small s / n so that was what to eat).
About "what to do" - at that time (autumn 2010) in our soc. Networks began to gain momentum citybuilders. And there was practically nothing that would meet our quality criteria. Yes, and at the conferences they said "if you want to survive, make a farm / Citibilder".
After discussing and studying the market, we decided to incline the most popular facebook city builder - CityVille.
By May, we already had a demo, from which we went to the GDC-2011.
There, a couple of major social publishers became interested in us, promised to make us millionaires and other golden mountains.
Returning back to Peter, we were on the wave! We’ll finish it now, finish it and make millions!
All the summer was spent on debugging, debugging, voice acting, driving in content (quests, houses, etc.). By the fall - we completed the game to a more or less finished product, and it was decided that we were ready for a beta launch.
For a long time they tried to find a free name for the game (there were already a lot of city builders this year). We stopped at the "New City".
The launch took place! We were pleased and had high hopes! (link to the game vkontakte )
On the occasion of the launch of the game, we solemnly launched balloons into the sky and had a small party in our close circle ...
True, even then the alarming bell was the beginning full publisher's pofigism to us. Talk about the golden mountains no longer went. And in general - no it did not go. In 4 cases out of 5 our inquiries in skype were inoriated. And if they weren’t ignored, they sometimes caused bursts of incomprehensible swearing and other words from the category (“what are you, idiots to ask?”).
It feels like everything depended on the mood of a person at that end of Skype in each specific second.
I note once again that the publisher is one of the largest in the link. And as a publisher, he promised to help us not only with traffic, but also in general - to suggest how to monetize better, how to tighten the balance, etc. But in real life - they put it on us. It turned out "here you have 100 thousand traffic and do with it what you want." Why the users paid little and played - nobody told us (they promised to share the experience).
Probably, the attentive reader, by intonation, guessed that the project had not taken off.
We still do not know why the attitude to us from the side of the publisher turned 180 degrees. Perhaps, closer to the launch, we just got tired of them and they got carried away with something new ... Maybe they decided that they no longer want the city-builder ...
Conclusions # 2 (pros / cons of our project):
But in general - the game looked very viable.
But no. The publisher generally went to the blacklist. And that's all. (Thank God, we didn’t have time to sign any contracts and didn’t transfer any rights ... but we also managed to create an LLC for this business, which the publisher wanted).
Throw the project did not want to. No joke! More than a year of work, a lot of wasted effort, a lot of money (office + artist).
It was decided to move in two ways:
1. Rewrite the graph. the engine to speed up the whole thing (in the process we got so carried away that we wrote a thing that was fundamentally unique to flash - see below).
2. Trying to find either a publisher who will take us by the hand and help, or in general, an investor (since another artist and game designer would not hurt us).
But it was decided to do it after the New Year, and now (a couple of months remained) - we decided to quickly rivet the project under iOS. Just to unwind, and we (as it turned out - to no avail) were looking for an investor.
I already wrote about our mobile game. We decided to try what flash is capable of for mobile (Air). And indeed - to test the App Store.
Result:
In early 2012, we started picking the engine. Just then Flash Player 11 began to appear. We decided that when developing a new engine, it was necessary (optional) to create new features.
As a result - the engine was written with support for dynamic light, shaders and normal maps for lighting. The demonstration can be seen here (buildings are illuminated with light, taking into account their geometry):
Plus particle effects: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTRoAjGF7Y
How this is done - you can write a separate article.
I even made a report on our innovative engine at the local St. Petersburg gamble conference "OGIC":
But it did not bring any profit. Useful contacts did not start.
And nothing!
None of the publishers are not interested in our project (we went around, probably all).
With investors - in general ... At first there was an acquaintance who promised to find us money. In fact - an acquaintance turned out to be a complete yap.
Then they began to look for themselves. Negotiated ... made several business plans ... But every time they didn’t come to anything ...
Yes, it is understandable - in order for such a project to make money in our realities, we need a very competent approach.
We also tried to find options to “go under the wing” to some other studio (while remaining a separate studio), but so far nothing has grown together ...
There were plans to port this business to mobile platforms. For this, we mastered Unity and even partially ported the engine.
But then again - the igrodelchesky office, which wanted to help us with game design, finance and publishing - thought, decided that it was not for risks ...
What to do? Unclear.
Now we have an idea for a game for mobile platforms. We think in a month to write an alpha version and go with it for publishers ...
I do not know. Difficult. There is almost no enthusiasm left.
So what was created during this time?
Created, in my opinion, is a great team.
The artist is wonderful.
Programmers - above all praise :) We click new technologies and languages ​​like nuts. We decided to write a server on Java without knowing anything about it - no question, after 2 weeks there was already a ready prototype. We decided to go into the wilds of flash optimization and cross C and Flash - we figured out Alchemy. Zayuzat 3D chips new flash? Ok, we figured out the 3D, shaders, normals and other three-dimensional. Need mobile phones? No question - they took the units and a week later they repeated our graphics engine on the iPad. And a week later - they wrote the shaders of dynamic lighting for Unity (but spat on them, realizing that the iPad does not pull).
We read a couple of fat knih on game design. Although, of course, ideally, we would need a separate game designer.
Spent an unreal amount of money (total) and strength. The heap of code, narobotok, libraries is written ... The heap of technologies is mastered - from realtime server on Java to 3D and mobile platforms. Drawn a bunch of art.
We got involved in a bunch of bureaucracy - they created IP, LLC, Apple Developer Account ...
Fair? I have no idea what will happen next. Revenues are falling. Paying for an office and an artist is getting harder ...
Is it really impossible for a team of really good specialists to earn their own food? .. The question is still open ...
But we are not giving up yet! :)
So, it all started 2 years ago, in the spring of 2010.
One day I woke up and realized that I need to change something. I had a small business (website), bringing some income, which allowed me not to think about where to get money for food plus it remained. And I decided that something needs to be done while there is an opportunity.
')
My friend ( Dartius ) was taken by the scruff (also a universal programmer) and it was decided to start.
Just at that moment, I saw plenty of videos with GDC / Flashgamma and realized that the social market is a chance. It was decided to do something social.
Training.
My friend and I already tried to do something together (and even did, but the project did not go) and understood the main thing - it’s almost impossible to work at home. Especially considering that a friend, unlike me, - still had a major job. It is sometimes difficult to force yourself to do something at home after work, when there is a TV and other benefits nearby.
It was decided to rent a small office and work there in the evenings.
The office was found very good - in the same business center where my friend worked at the main job - there was a small and relatively cheap office (now the prices have risen, but then we paid about 16,000 r. For 23 squares). Having compared the prices and conditions, it was decided to rent this particular office.
So, the room was rented, a couple of the cheapest tables and chairs were bought - let's go!
(The photo was taken later; don’t look at the floor - we haven’t had cleaning for several months)
Question two - what to do? Having studied the social market a little, the eye caught on the then popular MyBrute - “Panda vs Elk”, I mean, a zero-fighting game.
Because draw none of us can, it was decided to hire the services of a freelancer.
The idea of ​​a zero-fighting game, it was decided to mix with the character editor a la Spore.
Postmortem of this project I already wrote on Habré earlier (see the article about " Mikroniyu ").
Technical details of the project:
- Client written in Flash
- Server - PHP + MySQL
- Development time - about half a year
Vkontakte primary traffic was purchased from spammers. We went to My World and Odnoklassniki without advertising (for this business I had to register an individual entrepreneur).
Result and conclusions:
- A good character editor was written, with which we fucking know how much.
- The freelance artist drew, it seems, everything is fine ... But being assembled, the game still didn’t look very good. And here you can specify the first file - because characters were created by users, then most of the game content (i.e. opponents) was custom. And as a result - there was a huge amount of simply disgusting creatures that frightened people.
- Fail number 2 - animation. It turned out that animating a battle between absolutely custom creatures (with any number of limbs, etc.) is not an easy thing. And it turned out we are very poor.
- Fail number 3 - game design. We wrote the calculation of the battle more on a whim, instead of sitting down, erasing everything that happened and writing in a new way.
- And indeed - the game turned out very strange and original.
As a result, the project has spilled. Not many people played, they paid even less ... At the height of fame, we earned 15 thousand rubles. per month ... And this peak was blown away.
As a result, the project was sold (for a very small amount, comparable to a few months profit) and we thought.
Now we’ll do it right!
So what did we decide?
First of all, we decided not to reinvent the wheel anymore, but to do something that really should work.
Secondly, we realized that the freelance artist is an inconvenient affair. Need a man in the team. And preferably for free (in the share). :)
As a result - after 2 unsuccessful attempts - the artist was found (but not for free - but on the hybrid model - partly to a share, partly to a small s / n so that was what to eat).
About "what to do" - at that time (autumn 2010) in our soc. Networks began to gain momentum citybuilders. And there was practically nothing that would meet our quality criteria. Yes, and at the conferences they said "if you want to survive, make a farm / Citibilder".
After discussing and studying the market, we decided to incline the most popular facebook city builder - CityVille.
By May, we already had a demo, from which we went to the GDC-2011.
There, a couple of major social publishers became interested in us, promised to make us millionaires and other golden mountains.
Returning back to Peter, we were on the wave! We’ll finish it now, finish it and make millions!
All the summer was spent on debugging, debugging, voice acting, driving in content (quests, houses, etc.). By the fall - we completed the game to a more or less finished product, and it was decided that we were ready for a beta launch.
For a long time they tried to find a free name for the game (there were already a lot of city builders this year). We stopped at the "New City".
Launch! (Try # 2)
The launch took place! We were pleased and had high hopes! (link to the game vkontakte )On the occasion of the launch of the game, we solemnly launched balloons into the sky and had a small party in our close circle ...
True, even then the alarming bell was the beginning full publisher's pofigism to us. Talk about the golden mountains no longer went. And in general - no it did not go. In 4 cases out of 5 our inquiries in skype were inoriated. And if they weren’t ignored, they sometimes caused bursts of incomprehensible swearing and other words from the category (“what are you, idiots to ask?”).
It feels like everything depended on the mood of a person at that end of Skype in each specific second.
I note once again that the publisher is one of the largest in the link. And as a publisher, he promised to help us not only with traffic, but also in general - to suggest how to monetize better, how to tighten the balance, etc. But in real life - they put it on us. It turned out "here you have 100 thousand traffic and do with it what you want." Why the users paid little and played - nobody told us (they promised to share the experience).
Probably, the attentive reader, by intonation, guessed that the project had not taken off.
We still do not know why the attitude to us from the side of the publisher turned 180 degrees. Perhaps, closer to the launch, we just got tired of them and they got carried away with something new ... Maybe they decided that they no longer want the city-builder ...
Conclusions # 2 (pros / cons of our project):
- [+] In my opinion, our artist gave a great art. The whole picture looks very colorful and lively.
- [+] We wrote a great, tech server (in Java). With the possibility of horizontal scaling (with all cross-server interactions, etc.)
- [+] We used technology heaps. For example, Alchemy - to quickly search for the path. And the shaders on PixelBender - for stretching colored textures to little people (as in this method ).
- [-] Count. the engine required processing - in large cities the download speed, and indeed the work - left much to be desired.
- [-] We could not understand why the project had a small ARPU at the start. There simply was not enough experience in marketing and monetization of social networks.
- [-] In the first version of the game there was not much content.
But in general - the game looked very viable.
But no. The publisher generally went to the blacklist. And that's all. (Thank God, we didn’t have time to sign any contracts and didn’t transfer any rights ... but we also managed to create an LLC for this business, which the publisher wanted).
Well kisonka! Well, a bit more!
Throw the project did not want to. No joke! More than a year of work, a lot of wasted effort, a lot of money (office + artist).
It was decided to move in two ways:
1. Rewrite the graph. the engine to speed up the whole thing (in the process we got so carried away that we wrote a thing that was fundamentally unique to flash - see below).
2. Trying to find either a publisher who will take us by the hand and help, or in general, an investor (since another artist and game designer would not hurt us).
But it was decided to do it after the New Year, and now (a couple of months remained) - we decided to quickly rivet the project under iOS. Just to unwind, and we (as it turned out - to no avail) were looking for an investor.
Flash on iOS => Jungle Rush
I already wrote about our mobile game. We decided to try what flash is capable of for mobile (Air). And indeed - to test the App Store.
Result:
- The game was made in six weeks
- Flash in places is not pleased with the speed (and as it turned out - crashes on some old devices, apparently, because of the memory)
- Sales did not go. In total, they earned less than $ 100.
New Year!
In early 2012, we started picking the engine. Just then Flash Player 11 began to appear. We decided that when developing a new engine, it was necessary (optional) to create new features.
As a result - the engine was written with support for dynamic light, shaders and normal maps for lighting. The demonstration can be seen here (buildings are illuminated with light, taking into account their geometry):
Plus particle effects: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTRoAjGF7Y
How this is done - you can write a separate article.
I even made a report on our innovative engine at the local St. Petersburg gamble conference "OGIC":
But it did not bring any profit. Useful contacts did not start.
And what about the investor?
And nothing!
None of the publishers are not interested in our project (we went around, probably all).
With investors - in general ... At first there was an acquaintance who promised to find us money. In fact - an acquaintance turned out to be a complete yap.
Then they began to look for themselves. Negotiated ... made several business plans ... But every time they didn’t come to anything ...
Yes, it is understandable - in order for such a project to make money in our realities, we need a very competent approach.
We also tried to find options to “go under the wing” to some other studio (while remaining a separate studio), but so far nothing has grown together ...
What's next?
There were plans to port this business to mobile platforms. For this, we mastered Unity and even partially ported the engine.
But then again - the igrodelchesky office, which wanted to help us with game design, finance and publishing - thought, decided that it was not for risks ...
What to do? Unclear.
Now we have an idea for a game for mobile platforms. We think in a month to write an alpha version and go with it for publishers ...
I do not know. Difficult. There is almost no enthusiasm left.
Summary.
So what was created during this time?
Created, in my opinion, is a great team.
The artist is wonderful.
Programmers - above all praise :) We click new technologies and languages ​​like nuts. We decided to write a server on Java without knowing anything about it - no question, after 2 weeks there was already a ready prototype. We decided to go into the wilds of flash optimization and cross C and Flash - we figured out Alchemy. Zayuzat 3D chips new flash? Ok, we figured out the 3D, shaders, normals and other three-dimensional. Need mobile phones? No question - they took the units and a week later they repeated our graphics engine on the iPad. And a week later - they wrote the shaders of dynamic lighting for Unity (but spat on them, realizing that the iPad does not pull).
We read a couple of fat knih on game design. Although, of course, ideally, we would need a separate game designer.
Spent an unreal amount of money (total) and strength. The heap of code, narobotok, libraries is written ... The heap of technologies is mastered - from realtime server on Java to 3D and mobile platforms. Drawn a bunch of art.
We got involved in a bunch of bureaucracy - they created IP, LLC, Apple Developer Account ...
Fair? I have no idea what will happen next. Revenues are falling. Paying for an office and an artist is getting harder ...
Is it really impossible for a team of really good specialists to earn their own food? .. The question is still open ...
But we are not giving up yet! :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/143724/
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