Ask HN: I spent personal money on game dev. How to turn stalled project around?

3 points by pixelbyindex 31 days ago | 9 comments

Over the last year I spent a sizable sum on a personal multiplayer game project. I designed the idea until it was ready, contracted an offshore dev team, spent several months iterating on the production and then had the unfortunate luck to have the contracting company go out of business while the project was still in a pre alpha stage.

How should I rethink my problem space and move forward in this situation? Game dev is different from some trades in the sense that investment is heavily front loaded, which makes it difficult to start bringing in revenue while you’re still building out the MVP.

I firmly believe in the project itself, it already shows promise. The game is an online battle game, and what I currently have is a (rough) playable demo with placeholder art.

Professionally, I’m a dev, so I could keep building it myself, although it involves much more than just software hours. There is a huge amount of work that includes 2D/3D art, sound, music, networking, UI, onboarding, testing, etc. Without time constraints I would love to work on all of it, but I am trying to remain realistic.

For a production grade MVP I would still need: - production grade graphics and sound - that final 20% polish that it takes to make a game - more budget for the above

Thinking a bit brings me to these options: - finish the game myself (a few years?) - reduce the scope down into something else altogether? - open-source the concept

Is there a way I can break this into smaller problems that will allow some form of revenue to come in and reignite the project? Has anyone been through a similar experience that could offer some wisdom?

thiago_fm 30 days ago |

You could scope it down to a demo. Share with people and see the results

If good, continue with it, if bad, give up.

Demos are so good for that purpose, if you show the game loop and it sucks, you'll need plenty of work to change this situation around (if even), so try it.

brudgers 31 days ago |

How should I rethink my problem space

Games are fun problems, not optimization problems.

Also, sunk costs are sunk costs. And often the value from spending money is what you learn, not more money.

I could keep building it myself, although it involves much more than just software hours. There is a huge amount of work that includes 2D/3D art, sound, music, networking, UI, onboarding, testing, etc.

There's a reason triple-A games cost billions. When scope exceeds budget, reducing scope is often better. You can build a bicycle much more readily than you can build an airplane.

pixelbyindex 30 days ago | |

figuring out the bicycle version of a fully featured online multiplayer battle game is the reason I am seeking advice on HN :)

I had not thought about the learning cost of the experience. I have been trying to avoid the sunken cost mindset and looking to wise up before the next round of decisions

brudgers 30 days ago | | |

If you start off constructing a bicycle out of bricks, no future design decisions will make it a viable bicycle.

That’s sunk cost.

Under-capitalization is a business architecture akin to a brick bicycle, airplane, etc.

ipaddr 31 days ago |

If all you need is professional graphics hire someone or generate graphics to finish. Use AI to finish or do it yourself. Open source when you have more.

fsuts 30 days ago |

In finance there is the concept of ‘sunk cost’ and not letting it factor into future decisions.

You have spent money and have got so far, now you need to forget the money spent and ask yourself if today you still see this project as viable based on projected future costs and your use of time needed.

Forget money spent already, and detach emotionally, make a decision as of today.

NishanStepak 31 days ago |

This sounds like you could look into kickstarting so you can get the money to develop it. You kind of already know what stages and milestones you would need to go through to build the project. It would be a matter of breaking it down into stages and prizes.

pixelbyindex 30 days ago | |

this is one path I have thought about. I do have enough learnings now that I could put together the milestones.

In some sense the challenge here is the production value required on kickstarter these days. Building a community, a sense of trust so that backers will have a feeling of confidence, and making sure the milestones hit on schedule.

The rough demo I have now is not enough. I will keep the kickstarter card in my hand for now