No Compromises

by Shaun Hughes

“Work your way through the indiepocalypse and be a cockroach.”

When I asked famed independent developer, Edmund McMillen, what advice he would give to budding game development enthusiasts, that was his response. Whilst apocalyptic thoughts and cockroach-like tendencies aren’t that far removed from the world in general at present, it doesn’t paint the greatest of pictures for those looking to break into the video game sphere. And it is here that we start.

Over the course of the last six months, I have spoken with a variety of highly talented indie developers to explore the trials and tribulations of independent game development. Discussing everything from the motivators, the challenges, the common misconceptions, and all that the future may hold, I sought to shine a spotlight on the realities that these developers face to provide us with the experiences that many of us hold so dear.

Featured within are words from Edmund McMillen (of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac fame), Naphtali Faulkner (Umurangi Generation), Paul Helman (Horace), Stephen Brown (the Rush Rally series), Andy and Amy Madin (Nippon Marathon), and Mat Dickie (Wrestling Empire).

Before delving into the nitty gritty, it is important to establish the motivators behind game development. After all, limited time, resources, and money is a lot to have to work with and understanding what gets these developers fired up every morning provides some much-needed context. For starters, Faulkner aims to “advance games as a medium beyond their toy roots.” Umurangi Generation certainly does just that, providing socio-political context to a photography game through incredibly inventive ways. The creative mind behind Wrestling Empire feels the same way too, with Dickie stating that his motivation “has always been to create what wouldn’t otherwise exist.” He continued by saying he feels it is a “sound business strategy, because if I feel something is neglected then you can bet plenty of others feel the same way. Indies don't have the luxury of treading water, so we constantly have to hustle for attention or to prove that we belong.”

McMillen declared, “I don’t actually think you need a lot of people to make a good game” — something which is very clear when you consider the work of Helman and his release of Horace. Built from the ground up by Paul over several years, his motivators are both wholesome and relatable, “It's just really nice to look at the game and to see my fingerprints all over everything from design to art to music and story.” Similarly, Brown’s goal is to see his DNA in all that he does. “I decided to write ALL the tech from the ground up and learn every aspect and discipline of a game's life cycle.” The Rush Rally series is testament to Brown’s talents, providing meticulously crafted car handling with 60 frames per second visuals and fully optimised controls.

“There’s nobody to dilute my vision.”

Between the age-old adages of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ and ‘two heads are better than one’, it is hard to know where the balance between working alone and working as part of a big team really lies. For these developers, there is a shared belief that the benefits of solo and small team development far outweigh the pitfalls of working for a massive corporate company. For Helman, the real draw is the instant feedback: “you can get something working and in a decent state and into the game straight away. There's no big chain of other people that assets have to go through first!” When development is in full flow, it is easy to see how beneficial it can be to keep momentum high. Dickie’s statement that “anything I think of is in the game within minutes — with no compromises,” shares a similar sentiment.

Brown perfectly summarised the thoughts of both Helman and Dickie when he said that “you get to make and create what you want.” It also shares feelings with Faulkner who identified that “if you are not attached to a publisher or shareholder group you are not bound to their visions or profit incentives.” The creative freedom to “make things which challenge, experiment, and foster games as a medium” seems a strong focus for all concerned, with Dickie pleased that “there’s nobody to dilute my vision.” For McMillen, it really is as simple as that: “It lets my voice be as loud as possible and I feel like I get to stay as true to my creative vision as I can.”

The creative minds behind the weird, wacky, and wonderful Nippon Marathon, Amy and Andy Madin, had a lot to say about the impact that indie development has on time. They suitably summed it up by saying you get to choose “your own hours, where you work, and how often.” Whilst, for many, this may seem a positive, it comes with several caveats that emphasise the seriousness of the challenges associated with indie development. Dickie said, “I'd feel guilty about taking a break if somebody else had to stop earning alongside me, but I'm able to work as much or as little as my lifestyle dictates.” In a similar vein, McMillen shared “the guilt of knowing that I couldn’t take a big risk with a bold design that I knew had a 50:50 shot of failure — I couldn’t gamble on somebody else’s welfare.” For all the positive motivators, there’s a darker side where the real motivator is to be afforded the chance to only fail on their own, without impacting negatively on others.

“I can’t go that fucking balls to the wall and make something that totally insane unless that person is also fine financially.”

Be it Helman’s worry over “having to secure funding and the stress that it brings'' or Faulkner’s concerns with “workers going on strikes or calls to unionise”, there is much to be said for the way that money hinders the creative process.  These practical issues can be very damaging to the development and subsequent sale of a video game, as can the problems relating to the supposed creative freedom, or lack thereof. During the development of Super Meat Boy, Edmund admitted, “I did play it as safe as I possibly could without completely compromising my integrity.” Acknowledging that, whilst you may be able to dictate every aspect of a game’s design and development, you are ultimately held to account by those who buy your game and make it a commercial success, meaning that it isn’t as simple as creating whatever comes to mind.

“Making games is literally the least important thing I'll do today.”

There are many jobs out there considered a vocation. These are the jobs that, for those who don’t do them, are seen to be ones you should give your life to. Indie development seemingly falls into that category for several reasons. The first: ‘we love video games, so you should love making them.’ The second is due to the fact many believe indie development is a choice, and therefore developers know what they are getting themselves into. The final, and my favourite, ‘if you don’t like it, don’t do it.’

The crux of this feature is centred around the importance of indie development within the gaming sphere, and what developers must contend with, internally and externally, when creating these works of art. For the avoidance of doubt, here are a few statements that poignantly capture the toll that development can have:

“The projects that I’m working on, I work as much as I possibly can on, and they haunt me through the day. It becomes a detriment to everything around you.” (Edmund McMillen)

“Horace was my life for approximately 10 years so half the time it didn't really feel like 'work', just something that I stressed and obsessed over for 15+ hours per day!” (Paul Helman)

When considering the concept of ‘working to live’ rather than ‘living to work’, it is evident that it is incredibly difficult to achieve. Helman said as much when he declared that “there were plenty of weeks I would be working until 5am or 6am.” This was mainly because: “I tend to get obsessed with getting things [to be] what I consider 'just right' so I often rework things over and over.” Helman is not alone in this, and, whilst Edmund says that he “doesn’t know of anyone who had any sort of success that didn’t involve suffering and self-sacrifice.” There are many stories where the level of suffering goes far beyond what many would expect.  

For Brown, he feels that “the problem with modern games is that they are never finished.” To combat this, he always makes sure “that the game is left in a playable and releasable state at any time.” As an old-school developer with a wealth of experience, this seems to have been something he has developed over time. The same can be said for Dickie, who stated that “making games is literally the least important thing I'll do today. But fortunately, I have enough cachet in this trade that I actually know how to ‘work smart’ as much as I work hard.”

Even when games are nearing completion, there are many, many obstacles to overcome. In the case of Nippon Marathon, the Madin’s had a lot to contend with. “We tried to get them [the publishers] to delay our release date but they said no — we really want to get them [the game] out on this date.” This caused considerable strain, as “it added more hassle than anyone needed because it became really difficult to get through the QA process. The game wasn’t ready. If they could have given us a bit of extra time, we could have tidied it up and had a less painful time going through QA.” This provides a painful insight into post-production, and perhaps explains why there are more and more games that release with patches required.

“I never had any press except bad press.”

Faulkner believes the “main concept which game developers should prioritise is finding the time to constantly advertise their game.” All too often we see games that fly under the radar or miss the landing, more so through a lack of marketing than anything else. McMillen explained it best when he shared that “to find success these days, you either have to have built a fanbase — a group of people who respect and know your level of skill and are looking for your next project, or you need to have a game that is just batshit crazy and super fucking fun and does something super new. Even if you have those things, it’s not a complete guarantee that you’ll have success.”

That success can take a very long time to come by too. Dickie explained to me that he had “never had any press except bad press.” Fortunately, once his social media accounts surpassed 100k subscribers, “a kind of meritocracy took over where enjoyment of the games was the only thing that decided how far they could go.” It still isn’t enough, with him finishing by stating that “while I can make a good living from that level of support, it's still frustrating when mainstream success eludes me.”

Alongside marketing, Brown states that storefront visibility is essential: “some stores are far better than others and are a pleasure to work with. If you have no visibility, it is near impossible to sell anything. Visibility on the shop is 99% of the problem.” The Madin’s reinforced this, believing that “if you don’t get on it [the front page] on the first day, during launch time, then your chances of being a bit of a sleeper hit is quite rare.”

In the case of Wrestling Empire, Dickie felt he “was a little naive about that [storefront visibility] and didn't properly understand the algorithm until it was too late. If I had waited until my Steam release had more wish lists, it would have qualified as a ‘popular new release’ and would have enjoyed extended visibility on the storefront.” As a result, “the little guy is left lamenting that they got 99 things right but 1 thing wrong.” He also continued by saying that “the larger brands are now openly bribing influencers into playing ball with them — and them alone. It's something I've been observing closely in the wrestling genre, where we've seen a disproportionate amount of support for inferior games — and the demise of anyone who doesn't toe the line.” It’s abundantly clear that the challenges for independent development of video games run so much deeper than creating the game.

“Finally indie games are being recognised as proper games…”

As part of our discussions, we spent time dissecting how indie development has changed over the years. One of the biggest changes that Helman has felt is that “a decade or more ago, independent development was often something people would do in their 'spare time'; these days it's definitely seen more as a legitimate method of game development.” One of the contributors to this shift is that “there are far more places to secure funding which allows developers to actually concentrate on their games full time.” For Dickie, he explained how when he first started, “it was inconceivable that somebody could make a wrestling game on their own” and that “a lot of major studios have struggled to squeeze their vision onto low-end hardware, whereas indies have put the focus back on gameplay and concepts that can be trusted to work.” This feeling is shared by Faulkner, who states that “there is not much difference between Indie and AAA games in terms of gameplay nowadays, where they mainly differ is in the treatment of workers and the levels of polish.”

One of the more pressing matters as we look to the future is Game Pass. For the Madin’s, they believe that it’s the “biggest thing to come along and change the way things are going.” Among their concerns is the lack of transparency about “what developers are getting paid.” They have some experience of this as “Nippon Marathon was on PS Plus in Japan [for] one month and we hardly got anything for it.” This has been a question mark for a while now, and our initial discussions identified that the people set to benefit the most from services like Game Pass are the players, especially as “they [Microsoft] are asking you to value your game before it’s even out.” It’s bigger than that though, as “it might even impact development in terms of what you create because you wouldn’t want to create something that’s already well-served on Game Pass. Do you target games you’d expect to be on Game Pass? Do you develop a game with the aim to get it on Game Pass?” Suddenly, the landscape of game development, indie or AAA, starts to look a lot more muddied.

When asked his views on indie development over the years, McMillen said, “I’m an outcast in this group of outcasts and I kind of always was. I’m maybe just not the person to ask when it comes to this stuff.” He concluded by declaring “I’m just here to make some art and then die.”

“…as an indie developer, being able to grab someone’s attention within the first 5 minutes is absolutely completely and utterly necessary.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Sometimes. In the case of the developers I spoke with, when asked if they would do anything differently if they had the chance to do it all over again, there were many common themes explored. Most spoke about always looking forward, with Faulkner saying that “you take the ideas and discoveries that worked best in your last game and carry them on to the next.” McMillen felt so too, “I learned a great deal from every bad situation that I put myself in.” For Dickie, he found that believing “people would like the games more if they knew who made them” was wishful thinking, as he “didn't stop to think that they might like the games LESS if they DIDN'T like who made them, so it's essential to separate the art from the artist.”

What stood out most, however, was the shared view that being independent is worth it. Brown is most pleased that “you get to fully understand the machines you are coding for, and thus you can get the best out of them. I think the fact [that] Rush Rally 3 and Rush Rally Origins both run at 120fps shows that writing the tech myself was a good choice, as not many people can hit those frame rates.” Whilst Amy and Andy Madin continue to be positive about being independent developers, there’s a particular moment that they wish they could have known about beforehand: “Being aware that having a sub publisher in Asia would have such a big effect on the revenue because PQube weren’t able to, at the time, distribute by themselves in Asia so they subcontracted to Arc System Works.” As a result, “it means that where our game is most popular, we get the least revenue share from that.”

Once again, we are left with money prohibiting the success of both current and future projects. Helman gave a stark summation when he advised that “if you're looking to get rich, indie development is probably not the road for you!” Amy and Andy Madin also felt that this was a common misconception of indie development, declaring that “all people on the internet think that when something gets sold, the person who made it instantly has money in their bank account.” They educated me on the way in which video game sales work, declaring that it can be “anywhere from between 3 and 6 months until you actually see the revenue” of a game sale. I cannot imagine many people willing to work for a salary they won’t receive for six months…

“As an artist, don’t ever let money get involved in the creative process, because you are discarding the truth in your work and you’re going to make compromises.”

The discussions I had with some of the latest and greatest indie developers around made me incredibly excited for the future of video game development, but it also made me acutely aware of what it is taking out of people to achieve it. I know I speak on behalf of every video game player out there when I thank them for all they do. Without independent video games, our lives would not be the same.