The history of our game startup or "What to do???"
Hello. In this article I will share with you our experience of creating a startup gradelines 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) that brings some income, which allowed me not to think where to get money for food plus remained. And I decided that we needed to do something while you can.
Was taken by the scruff of my friend (Dartius) (also programmer-universal) and it was decided to begin.
Just at that moment, I had seen a video with CREE / Flashgame and realized that the market of social networks is the chance. It was decided to do something social.
My friend already tried to do something together (and even made, but the project did not go) and understood the main thing — to work at home almost impossible. Especially given that the friend, unlike me, had most of the work. Force yourself to do something at home after work with TV and other benefits is sometimes difficult.
It was decided to rent a small office and work there in the evenings.
The office has been very successful in the same business centre where my friend worked on the main job — was a small and relatively cheap office (now prices have risen, but then over 23 square we paid nearly 16 000$). Poravnava prices and conditions, it was decided to withdraw this office.
So, the room cleared, bought a couple of cheap tables and chairs — gone!
(Photo taken later, on the floor don't look — we have a few months of no cleaning)
The second question — what to do? A little bit after studying the market of social networks, his eyes caught on the then popular MyBrute — "Panda vs Elk", I mean zero fighting game.
To draw since none of us know how, it was decided to hire the services of a freelancer.
The idea of zero-fighting, it was decided to zamiksovat with the character Creator a La Spore.
The postmortemom this project, I already wrote on Habre earlier (see the article on "Micronu").
Technical details:
the
Primary traffic Vkontakte was bought from spammers. In "My World" and "Classmates" we came without advertising (on this case had to register the IP).
Result and conclusions:
the
As a result, the project was svalilsya. Played not a lot of people, they pay even less... At the height of fame, we were making 15 thousand a month... And this pic was blown away.
As a result, the project was sold (for a very small amount, comparable to several months of income) and we started thinking.
So what have we decided?
First- we decided not to reinvent the wheel, but to do something that certainly should work.
Secondly, we realized that the freelance artist — it is inconvenient. The right person in the team. And preferably free (to share). :)
The result — after 2 unsuccessful attempts, the artist was found (though not free — but on a hybrid model — partly to share, partly on a small s/n to have something to eat).
About "what to do" — at that time (autumn 2010) at our social. networks started to gain momentum Sitebuilder. And there was almost nothing that would meet our quality criteria. And at the conferences said "if you want to survive — make a farm/sitibilder".
And soon after the market we decided to clone the most popular sitibilder Facebook — CityVille.
By may we had the demo that we went to at GDC 2011.
There we were interested in a pair of the biggest social publishers promised to make us millionaires and other mountains of gold.
Returning back to Peter, we were at the wave! That's it now finish it, finished — and earn millions!
For debugging, debug, voice acting, driving content (quests, houses, etc.) took all summer. By the autumn we completed the game more or less a finished product and it was decided that we are ready for beta launch.
For a long time trying to find a free name for the game (Sitebuilder for this year has already bred a lot). Stopped at the "New city".
the Launch took place! We were excited and had high hopes! (the link to the game Vkontakte)
On the occasion of the launch of the game, we officially launched the balloons in the sky and made a small party in our close circle...
However, even then a Wake-up call was started, complete apathy publisher to us. Talking about gold mountains was no longer going. Anyway — any was not. In 4 cases of 5 our requests in Skype ingalirovnie. And if not ignored, then sometimes caused bursts of incomprehensible swearing and other words from the category ("do you idiots ask such a question?!").
The feeling that everything depended on the mood of the person on the other end of Skype at any given second.
I note again that the publisher is one of the largest in sosale. And as a publisher he promised to help us not only with traffic, but in General — to suggest how better to monetize, how to tweak the balance etc. But in the real world — we put. Turned "you have 100 thousand traffic and do with it what you want". Why nick didn't get paid and played — no one told us (and promised to share the experience).
Perhaps the attentive reader already the tone is guessed that the project did not take off.
We still don't know why the attitude towards us from the publisher has turned 180 degrees. Perhaps closer to launch we were just tired and they got carried away with something new... May have decided that you no longer want sitibilder...
Conclusions No. 2 (pros/cons of our project):
the
But in General the game looked very viable.
But no. The publisher even went to ignore. And that's all. (Thank God that there are no contracts to sign, we had no time and no rights conveyed... but managed to create one still and one wanted the publisher).
To abandon the project is not wanted. It's no joke! More than a year of work, a lot of wasted effort, lots of money (office + artist).
It was decided to move two ways:
1. To rewrite the graph. engine to speed up all this business (in the process we were so excited that he wrote a fundamentally unique to the flash thing — see below).
2. Trying to find a publisher who will take us by the hand and help, if any investor (as another artist and game designer we could use).
But this was solved after the New Year, and now (a few months) — we decided to quickly riveted a project for iOS. Just to get out, and for us (as it turned out — to no avail) looking for an investor.
About our mobile game I wrote. We decided to try, that is capable of flash for mobile (Air). Anyway — to test the App Store.
Result:
the
In early 2012 we started to dig the engine. Just then began to emerge Flash Player 11. We decided that developing a new engine, you need (optional) to use the new features.
The result — was written the engine supports dynamic lights, Shader and normal maps for lighting. The demonstration can be seen here (the buildings are light given their geometry):
Plus particle effects: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTRoAjGF7Y
About how it's done — you can write a separate article.
I even made a report about our innovation engine at the local St. Petersburg iproconference "OGIC":
But no profit it brought. Useful contacts wouldn't start.
Nothing!
No publisher was interested in our project (we have bypassed, probably, all).
With investors so... First was a friend who promised to find us the money. In fact — a friend was a complete phony.
Then started to look for themselves. Talking... and I have made some business plans... But every time nothing came up...
Yes, it is understandable to have such a project in our reality earned money — there need very a sound approach.
Also tried to find the options to "go under the wing" to another Studio (while remaining separate Studio), but I also did not grow together...
Had plans portanut this case on the mobile platform. For this we have mastered Unity and even partially ported engine.
But again- igrodelcheskoy office, which wanted to help us with game design, Finance and publishing — on reflection, decided that this is not a risk...
What to do? Unclear.
Now we have an idea for a game for mobile platforms. Think month to write the alpha version and go with her publishers...
I do not know. Hard. Enthusiasm is almost gone.
So what was created during this time?
Created, in my opinion, is a great team.
The artist was wonderful.
Programmers — above all praise :) New technologies and languages click as nuts. I decided to write a server in Java knowing nothing about the — no question, 2 weeks later had a finished prototype. Decided to go into the wilds of the optimization of flash and hybrid si and Flash figured out Alchemy. How to use 3D chips of the new flash? OK, figured out 3D, shaders, normals and other trichording. Need mobile phones? No question, the took unity and a week later repeated our graphics engine on the iPad. A week — wrote the shaders for dynamic lighting Unity (but spat at them, realizing that iPad is not drawn).
I read a couple thick books on game design. Although, of course, ideally we would have separate game designers need to have.
Spent an unreal amount of money (in total) and effort. Written a bunch of code narobotok, libraries... Mastered plenty of technologies — from realtime server on Java to 3D and mobile platforms. Drawn a bunch of art.
Got involved in a bunch of bureaucracy — created IP, LLC, an Apple Developer Account...
Honestly? Have no idea what will happen next. Incomes are falling. To pay for the office and the artist is getting harder...
Is a team of really good professionals earn their food?.. The question is still open...
But we don't give up! :)
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru
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) that brings some income, which allowed me not to think where to get money for food plus remained. And I decided that we needed to do something while you can.
Was taken by the scruff of my friend (Dartius) (also programmer-universal) and it was decided to begin.
Just at that moment, I had seen a video with CREE / Flashgame and realized that the market of social networks is the chance. It was decided to do something social.
Preparation.
My friend already tried to do something together (and even made, but the project did not go) and understood the main thing — to work at home almost impossible. Especially given that the friend, unlike me, had most of the work. Force yourself to do something at home after work with TV and other benefits is sometimes difficult.
It was decided to rent a small office and work there in the evenings.
The office has been very successful in the same business centre where my friend worked on the main job — was a small and relatively cheap office (now prices have risen, but then over 23 square we paid nearly 16 000$). Poravnava prices and conditions, it was decided to withdraw this office.
So, the room cleared, bought a couple of cheap tables and chairs — gone!
(Photo taken later, on the floor don't look — we have a few months of no cleaning)
The second question — what to do? A little bit after studying the market of social networks, his eyes caught on the then popular MyBrute — "Panda vs Elk", I mean zero fighting game.
To draw since none of us know how, it was decided to hire the services of a freelancer.
The idea of zero-fighting, it was decided to zamiksovat with the character Creator a La Spore.
The postmortemom this project, I already wrote on Habre earlier (see the article on "Micronu").
Technical details:
the
-
the
- the Client is written in Flash the
- Server with PHP + MySQL the
- design Time — about half a year
Primary traffic Vkontakte was bought from spammers. In "My World" and "Classmates" we came without advertising (on this case had to register the IP).
Result and conclusions:
the
-
the
- was written a good character editor, with which we wrestled for God knows how long. the
- a freelance Artist-rendered, like, all right... But being collected — the game still looked not so. Here you can specify the first fail — because the characters were created by users, the majority of game content (i.e. opponents) was custom. And as a consequence was a huge number of disgusting creatures that frightened people. the
- Fail No. 2 — the animation. It turned out that to animate a fight between completely custom creatures (with any number of limbs, etc.) is a complex thing. And it came out very poorly. the
- Fail # 3 — game design. The calculation of the battle we wrote more on a whim, instead of having to sit down, erase all that was and write in the new one. the
- and indeed — the game is very strange and unique.
As a result, the project was svalilsya. Played not a lot of people, they pay even less... At the height of fame, we were making 15 thousand a month... And this pic was blown away.
As a result, the project was sold (for a very small amount, comparable to several months of income) and we started thinking.
Now we just do it right!
So what have we decided?
First- we decided not to reinvent the wheel, but to do something that certainly should work.
Secondly, we realized that the freelance artist — it is inconvenient. The right person in the team. And preferably free (to share). :)
The result — after 2 unsuccessful attempts, the artist was found (though not free — but on a hybrid model — partly to share, partly on a small s/n to have something to eat).
About "what to do" — at that time (autumn 2010) at our social. networks started to gain momentum Sitebuilder. And there was almost nothing that would meet our quality criteria. And at the conferences said "if you want to survive — make a farm/sitibilder".
And soon after the market we decided to clone the most popular sitibilder Facebook — CityVille.
By may we had the demo that we went to at GDC 2011.
There we were interested in a pair of the biggest social publishers promised to make us millionaires and other mountains of gold.
Returning back to Peter, we were at the wave! That's it now finish it, finished — and earn millions!
For debugging, debug, voice acting, driving content (quests, houses, etc.) took all summer. By the autumn we completed the game more or less a finished product and it was decided that we are ready for beta launch.
For a long time trying to find a free name for the game (Sitebuilder for this year has already bred a lot). Stopped at the "New city".
Launch! (Try #2)
the Launch took place! We were excited and had high hopes! (the link to the game Vkontakte)On the occasion of the launch of the game, we officially launched the balloons in the sky and made a small party in our close circle...
However, even then a Wake-up call was started, complete apathy publisher to us. Talking about gold mountains was no longer going. Anyway — any was not. In 4 cases of 5 our requests in Skype ingalirovnie. And if not ignored, then sometimes caused bursts of incomprehensible swearing and other words from the category ("do you idiots ask such a question?!").
The feeling that everything depended on the mood of the person on the other end of Skype at any given second.
I note again that the publisher is one of the largest in sosale. And as a publisher he promised to help us not only with traffic, but in General — to suggest how better to monetize, how to tweak the balance etc. But in the real world — we put. Turned "you have 100 thousand traffic and do with it what you want". Why nick didn't get paid and played — no one told us (and promised to share the experience).
Perhaps the attentive reader already the tone is guessed that the project did not take off.
We still don't know why the attitude towards us from the publisher has turned 180 degrees. Perhaps closer to launch we were just tired and they got carried away with something new... May have decided that you no longer want sitibilder...
Conclusions No. 2 (pros/cons of our project):
the
- [-] Count. the engine required a processing — in the big cities the download speed, and generally work left much to be desired. the
- [-] We are unable to understand why the project at the start was a small ARPU. There is simply not enough experience in marketing and monetization of social networks. the
- [-] In the first version of the game was not so much content.
[+] I think the artist gave an excellent art. The whole picture looks very colorful and lively.
[+] We wrote a great, technologically advanced server (in Java). With the ability to scale out (with all the cross-server interactions, etc.)
[+] We used heaps of technology. For example, Alchemy — for a quick search of the way. And shaders in pixelbender is — for stringing colored textures on men (as in this method). the
But in General the game looked very viable.
But no. The publisher even went to ignore. And that's all. (Thank God that there are no contracts to sign, we had no time and no rights conveyed... but managed to create one still and one wanted the publisher).
Well the cat! Well, even a modicum!
To abandon the project is not wanted. It's no joke! More than a year of work, a lot of wasted effort, lots of money (office + artist).
It was decided to move two ways:
1. To rewrite the graph. engine to speed up all this business (in the process we were so excited that he wrote a fundamentally unique to the flash thing — see below).
2. Trying to find a publisher who will take us by the hand and help, if any investor (as another artist and game designer we could use).
But this was solved after the New Year, and now (a few months) — we decided to quickly riveted a project for iOS. Just to get out, and for us (as it turned out — to no avail) looking for an investor.
Flash on iOS => Jungle Rush
About our mobile game I wrote. We decided to try, that is capable of flash for mobile (Air). Anyway — to test the App Store.
Result:
the
- Flash sometimes not pleased with the performance (and as it turned out — crash on some old devices, probably due to memory)
the Game is made for a month and a half the
Sales didn't go. In total, earned less than $100.
New Year!
In early 2012 we started to dig the engine. Just then began to emerge Flash Player 11. We decided that developing a new engine, you need (optional) to use the new features.
The result — was written the engine supports dynamic lights, Shader and normal maps for lighting. The demonstration can be seen here (the buildings are light given their geometry):
Plus particle effects: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsTRoAjGF7Y
About how it's done — you can write a separate article.
I even made a report about our innovation engine at the local St. Petersburg iproconference "OGIC":
But no profit it brought. Useful contacts wouldn't start.
what?
Nothing!
No publisher was interested in our project (we have bypassed, probably, all).
With investors so... First was a friend who promised to find us the money. In fact — a friend was a complete phony.
Then started to look for themselves. Talking... and I have made some business plans... But every time nothing came up...
Yes, it is understandable to have such a project in our reality earned money — there need very a sound approach.
Also tried to find the options to "go under the wing" to another Studio (while remaining separate Studio), but I also did not grow together...
What next?
Had plans portanut this case on the mobile platform. For this we have mastered Unity and even partially ported engine.
But again- igrodelcheskoy office, which wanted to help us with game design, Finance and publishing — on reflection, decided that this is not a risk...
What to do? Unclear.
Now we have an idea for a game for mobile platforms. Think month to write the alpha version and go with her publishers...
I do not know. Hard. Enthusiasm is almost gone.
Summary.
So what was created during this time?
Created, in my opinion, is a great team.
The artist was wonderful.
Programmers — above all praise :) New technologies and languages click as nuts. I decided to write a server in Java knowing nothing about the — no question, 2 weeks later had a finished prototype. Decided to go into the wilds of the optimization of flash and hybrid si and Flash figured out Alchemy. How to use 3D chips of the new flash? OK, figured out 3D, shaders, normals and other trichording. Need mobile phones? No question, the took unity and a week later repeated our graphics engine on the iPad. A week — wrote the shaders for dynamic lighting Unity (but spat at them, realizing that iPad is not drawn).
I read a couple thick books on game design. Although, of course, ideally we would have separate game designers need to have.
Spent an unreal amount of money (in total) and effort. Written a bunch of code narobotok, libraries... Mastered plenty of technologies — from realtime server on Java to 3D and mobile platforms. Drawn a bunch of art.
Got involved in a bunch of bureaucracy — created IP, LLC, an Apple Developer Account...
Honestly? Have no idea what will happen next. Incomes are falling. To pay for the office and the artist is getting harder...
Is a team of really good professionals earn their food?.. The question is still open...
But we don't give up! :)
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