Learnings from Running an Indie Game Studio

I'm a co-founder and studio head of Outerloop Games doing both creative and biz for the last seven years. We're a fully remote team of 14 spread across the world. Here's a list of guidelines that work for us and might be useful for others that were lessons I've incorporated with our experience and guidance from others.

Luck plays a much bigger role in success than we'd like to admit

I think understanding that even if you model your studio based on other similar studios and games, that there's a whole lot of luck involved and right place / right time / right game that can't be repeated. What worked for them won't work for you for a lot of reasons because it's a different team, different processes, different choices. We make so many choices when making a game that's based on our own experiences and tendencies that it will turn out different.

Really understand what your super powers are and use those to your advantage

We're good at different things and of course work on the the things you're not good at or hire teammates that compliment or can fill those weaknesses. The things that you assume everyone knows how to do like proper budgeting, accurate timelines, course correcting early, shipping on time are not as common as you think. Or you have great art and animation, so show that off in your games, trailers, and pitches.

Genre expectations

Understand genre expectations from players and find ways to subvert them or communicate clearly of what to expect from your game. Set low expectations and deliver something much more. A Short Hike will forever be one of my favorite games because it set the expectations IN THE TITLE. It's going to be a short game, it's got a very novel mechanic, it looks great, it's priced accordingly, it's charming, and does it fucking deliver on the narrative setup at the end. Amazing. Your choice of character movement, camera, and visuals are conveying expectations to the player, choose wisely.

Running a business is different than making a game

Of course making games is our business but planning ahead, assuming worst case scenarios, being proactive about how to take care of the team, processes for when things go badly and when things go too well, etc. Don't wait to ship the current game without having some runway or plans for what's next for the team. If you aren't concerned with running a business or money isn't an issue and you're a solo dev, make whatever game that you find interesting and get it out there.

Your game, genre, positioning, and how it resonates is most of the work.

No amount of marketing is going to save a poorly positioned game. The game itself will do most of the heavy lifting. Sometimes that's pre-release hype cause it's a great high concept that resonates with people. Sometimes it's post-release hype, hey this game is actually really great but no one knew about it till they played it and word of mouth is spreading. If you can do both, that's probably a successful title. Marketing is important and you can test out ideas with trailers, showcases, demos, etc. Marketing is also picking the right game to make, the right name, the right amount of genre comfort, the right amount of surprises.

Give yourself the most amount of chances to increase your luck at success

It takes years for a team to really work well together. Take smaller bets when you're starting off, learn from those and take chances and improve on the next game. Your first game doesn't have to be the dream game. Making a game is hard, building a team that works well together is hard, running a business is hard. Try not to do all of it at once. Scope smaller and then really make it even smaller.

Your team is your most valuable asset

I firmly believe in keeping a team happy and together over multiple games will be successful in the long run. You're able to make decisions faster, you're able to prototype and iterate faster, and you're able to ship faster because you're not having to decide the right direction or action because you've been through enough similar experiences on past games the answers are much easier to get to.

Don't use outliers as a business model

Yes you too can make Hades, Balatro, or Vampire Survivors with lots of random luck or time.