Harris admits that marketing was a more difficult task than he'd anticipated. "One thing I had to learn was decent PR and publicity. When you work for some big-name company, journalists get on planes and get brought to your desk to see cool stuff. That doesn't happen anymore."
"Getting the world to notice is possibly even harder than making the game in the first place," agrees Peeler.
Tipping suggests that habits formed in the mainstream business can work against the indie developer. "We made a lot of design mistakes because we'd been developing console-centric titles for so long. Starscape didn't even have mouse support for the menus when we first released it." He adds, "Things we thought would be invaluable turned out to be useless. Mr. Robot and Starscape got incredible reviews in magazines, but even the smallest website review has a much bigger impact than a magazine."
Facing Reality
Digital distribution has lowered the barrier to entry for game sales to the point where anybody with a website can self-publish their work. This might prevent the big companies from locking up distribution channels, but it hasn't stopped them from dominating the field through other means. Schatz explains, "We've seen pretty clearly in both the casual game market and digital distribution on consoles that the publishing/distribution racket wasn't going to let us get away with that. The future does not look as bright for developers as it did three years ago, and the blame lies squarely with Big Fish, Microsoft and other major digital distributors. These giants have found ways to corral the audience, squeeze developers and rip off our most creative pioneers."
Steve Taylor's company, Wahoo Studios, alternates between contracting for publishers and producing self-published titles through their indie label, NinjaBee. He notes that working through online distribution portals is not much different from working with traditional publishers. "Portals and other distributions services impose their own rules and limitations. Supposedly indie-friendly distribution options like Steam and Instant Action still have subjective gatekeepers."
He maintains that the stark reality of remaining solvent often overshadows the dream of creative freedom. "If you want your game to make money, you have to consider what will sell, and this means adapting your pure creative vision to match the real world. Besides, do you really have the resources to achieve your ultimate creative vision? "
These fledgling entrepreneurs have also discovered their rebel status doesn't make them immune to piracy. With most indies struggling to make ends meet, they feel its impact directly in their own wallets. "Since we are a small developer that has a hard time getting attention, you would think we would have very little piracy," says Peeler. "Unfortunately, that's not the case at all. It's depressing how many sites are pirating Depths of Peril."
