WHO: Giuliano Cremaschi, Cute Attack Mobile Games' CEO and Creative Director (cuteattack.com) WHAT: Giuliano shares his experiences on setting up a non-funded mobile gaming startup with an international Team and a distributed way of working. WHERE: "Shared Gems 2012 -international Game Seminar", Metropolia, Helsinki (http://vyyhti.metropolia.fi/koulutukset/peliseminaari/)

1. Banzai!
The joy and folly of setting up
an indie games startup

2. Fact: You shout Banzai! before
charging into the enemy midst

3. The purpose of this presentation

4. Which means, in practice:
● To provide a useful package of basic
information - based on my limited personal
experience - about creating a super-low
starting budget indie games startup
● Also, to help you answer this question:
○ YES! This could be for me!
○ NO! Are you crazy?
○ MAYBE I could do this, but not now

5. First things first:
Who actually
are you, pal?

6. Quick Bio
● Giuliano Cremaschi
● Italian
● Born 1970
● Major in English Literature
● In Finland from 2003
● In gaming and online business from 2003,
previously in publishing and comic books
● In a relationship; has a two year old Finnish-
Italian child

7. My 9+ years in the gaming business
6 years - Habbo, From Site
Producer to Creative
Director
1.5 y - Eco-rangers,
Deceased MMOG startup,
Creative Director
1.5 y, Crytek, Creative
Director, Gaming social
network (Gface)

8. This is our startup

9. This is our game (Summer 2012)

10. So, what's an indie
games startup?

11. A small bunch of people making an
indie game...
+ =

12. ...in order to distribute it and sell it

13. An "indie" game is...
"...developed by individuals, small teams,
or small independent companies [...]
smaller than mainstream titles. Indie game
developers are not financially backed by
publishers and usually have little to no
budget available, thereby generally relying
on Internet digital distribution schemes"

14. Thank you, Einstein, we
can use Wikipedia, too.
Now, what is an indie
gaming startup?

15. A foolish thing with no chance of
success?

16. A potential goldmine?

17. A shot in the dark?

18. The key to your heart's desire?

19. All of the above

20. Let's suppose we're
really considering
doing this, then.
What do we do?

21. It's like a garage band

22. You need a few things
● A few people who really trust each other
● Balanced basic+ to average+ skill set
● One solid game idea
● Small enough scope
● The right platform (go mobile!)
● Focus on execution instead of life changing visions
● A decision making structure
● Simple project management
● Blog and social media marketing
● A proper and fair incorporation
● About 1.000 € for each Team member
● Self-sacrifice
● More, way more, self-sacrifice and lots of Banzai's!

23. People & Skills

24. Meet the Skeleton Crew*
● Game programmer
● Art person
● Game designer
● Business person
(One is also the CEO)
Nice to have:
● Sound person
● Another programmer (necessary with online)
● Another art person

25. The actual tasks you'll need to (learn
to) handle Level Design
Social Media
Game Design Sound Design
marketing
Game
Asset pipeline Programming
Customer
Service
Branding Tool
QA creation
Investor
Concept art
pitches
Copywriting Project
Blogging
Management
Style Guide User & Market
Video UI Design
Insight
editing

26. Personalities
● Any personality type can fit, as long as they can work
within a Team
● Egomaniacs are fine, as long as their ego is confined
within their specialized field
● People who are incapable to delegate and trust their
peers should forget about this (or do a one man startup)
● As leader/CEO, better a motivator prone to self sacrifice
than a paranoid genius

27. Keep working, keep studying
● Making a game can take a long time
● There is no certainty that you will sell
● Some Team member might chicken out or
simply have to leave the Team
Until your startup can make it financially,
keep working or studying

28. Learn to trust each other
I know it, deep in her
I know it, deep in heart, she thinks my
his heart he hates code sucks!
my levels!

29. Platform Choice
Why mobile
and tablet

30. Common platforms for indie games

31. Examples of low budget successful
indie games

32. Some super-low to low budget
successful mobile/tablet indies

33. Oops! I almost forgot this one

34. The Not So Angry Lone Bird

35. Why iOS and Android rock
● Huge and growing market
● Ready distribution channel with low barrier of
entry (submission process, in Apple's case)
● Focus on gameplay and inventiveness more
than sheer graphics
● Faster and cheaper to develop
● Lower risk factor

36. What sucks with iOS and Android
● Huge competition in the app stores (tens of
thousands of games)
● With Android: difficult to monetize, hacking
● With Apple: Apple is your Old Testament
type uncaring God, and you do its bidding

37. Offline/Online: Stay Rooted
● Mobile online games are more complex and
demanding than offline
● 3G penetration is not yet global
● Unless you have a two-man development
Team to start with (Client/Server), stay
rooted and forget online

38. And now, let's make
our first game!
Hey, I just had
a cool idea! What if...

39. STOP. RIGHT. THERE.
● Don't even think about it
● Your game idea is TOO BIG
● It surely is, it always is

40. First Rule of Sanity
Choose the game idea you
CAN actually create with the people
and skills you HAVE right NOW
●

41. Second Rule of Sanity
Keep the game scope in check,
do NOT let it bloat
●

42. Ok. Have fun with your first brainst...

43. ...WAIT! First, read this book

44. Two sanity tips for making games
(or anything)
● Kill your loved ones. A designer’s duty.
Try. Discard. Redo. Don’t fall in love with
what you do until you’re sure it works
● Stop at good enough. Games are
alive, ever changing, and imperfect.
Learn when to stop. Good enough
quality is good enough for most things,
except the truly core ones. It's the
overall product that must be solid and
surprising. Don’t burn out on non-vital
details

45. The Company
----
Roles and
Decision-Making

46. Use Management by Committee...
● Flat hierarchy
● Each person takes lead of her own field, and
of some related fields, until all fields are
covered
● Trust each other in your core fields
● If possible, discuss and agree on issues
together

47. ...and sometimes by Perkele
● If there is no agreement within the Team, the
CEO has to be the one making the final call
on general core issues (budget, branding,
PR, etc)
● Startup CEO = it's just another task

48. The Company
----
Project Management
& Tools

49. Keep it simple, up there in the Cloud
● Free: Gmail, Chat and Gtalk
● Free: Google Drive for asset and docs storage, etc
● Free: Google Docs for Game Design Documents,
knowledge center, etc
● Free: Google Calendar and a lot of free stuff by Google
● Free: Online Bug reporting tools
● Free: Google + Hangouts for Team calls if you're in
different cities or countries
● Simple online task management tool, for example
Pivotal Tracker (costs a bit); or find free ones
● Learn the very basics of Agile development

50. One of you has to wear this

51. The Company
----
The Marketing
Beast

52. All you need is...

53. And somebody who wears this
● This Mr./Ms. Somebody manages company and game
branding, tagline, tone of voice, marketing strategy,
copywriting
● Nobody knows nada about this? The appointed victim
should read, read, read, try out things, make mistakes
and learn: the tasks are limited but very important

54. The Company
----
Incorporation and
Ownership

55. Split the company equally
● The initial founders should all put in about
the same amount of work, and hence have
the same amount of company shares (if not,
it's ok to split unevenly, but it's not optimal)
● Split equally, trust each other, even when
you think you're more important than the
others
● You’re not Zuckerberg. You DO have more
than one friend. It’s not worth it.

56. Our first game
is on sale!
And now?

57. Money: Sales
● Your first game might sell a lot
● Or not. It's a competitive market, after all
● If it does sell something, though, you're on
the right track
● Keep updating it, and start the next one

58. Money: Investors
● Maybe you already have had an investment,
because your game looked so promising
● If not, unless you game sells like crazy, now
it's the right time to to start looking
● That's why you have a Business person,
remember?
● Also, grants are available in some cases
(Nordic Game Program, TEKES, etc)

59. Money: Crowdsourcing
● Ask people to help pay for your game!
● Kickstarter is the hottest thing in
crowdsourcing right now, but not the only
one
● It can get extreme: Double Fine Adventure
got 3.3 mil from 87.000 different investors!

60. And that's one way
to do it, folks.

61. Anybody who would
want to try?
Are you ready to Banzai?

62. Good luck!

63. Contact Info
Giuliano
Email: giuliano@cuteattack.com
Twitter: gcremaschi
Cute Attack
Blog: cuteattack.com
FB: facebook.com/cuteattackgames
Twitter: cuteattackgames
Like/Follow us, please. We could use the help
:)