Jay Barnson Interview
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In your blog you have often stated that making your own game is not just about being creative: that you also have to learn to market your own games, and so forth. What kind of things did you learn or pick up as you built Rampant Games from the ground up?
I had to learn or re-learn everything from the ground up. I've written entire articles about this. I was totally clueless. Now I'm only mostly clueless. About the only thing I did know how to do was write game software, and see that through to the end of the project. I actually believed that this was at least 90% of what had to be done. Nowadays, I know better, and I mock my less experienced self. Fortunately, we're separated by time, so my younger self doesn't deck me for mocking him.
So what did I need to learn?
Starting from the basics of running a business - how does one form a company? What kind of company structures are there, and what do they cost? What are the fees / taxes / requirements in my city and state? How do I report it on my income taxes? What are the legal dangers a company can run into? How do I set up sales via the website? How do I even create a website that doesn't suck? What's a reasonable monthly cost for a server?
How do you manage a team? What do you do when there are problems, especially when you aren't paying your crew more than the price of pizza? How do you find an appropriate artist, and how much will they cost? How do you find "off-the-shelf" content that works for your game? Will the licenses for all your code and data libraries work together?
Who is your audience? What kind of video card are they using? How do you promote your game? Is advertising on site X worth it? How much should you charge for your game? How do you write a press release? How much gameplay should your demo offer?
These and a zillion other questions become apparent once you start trying to do this as a real business. And for every question you answer, you also discover two more questions.
