This document provides a comprehensive guide for game developers, emphasizing the importance of focus on quality, reputation, and operational efficiency. Key recommendations include building games to be fun, maintaining a strong company culture, avoiding the creation of proprietary engines, and adequately preparing for production and marketing. The document also highlights best practices for working with clients and publishers, along with risk mitigation strategies in the business landscape.

2. Tips and Tricks for Game
Developers
A horrible title for a firehose of
information

3. Sean Kauppinen - CEO
– 20+ years experience in the
games industry
• Sony Online, Ubisoft, 3dfx, bleem!,
Frogster, PlayFast, others
• Advisor and Board Member
• Angel Investor
• 570+ titles
Obi-Wan Kenobi 

4. The Studio
Focus, Quality, Reputation

5. FOCUS

6. Focus
Pick a genre and be the best you can be at it.

7. Focus
Make one game at a time if you can, but no
more than your resources can handle.
It’s better to deliver quality on time than
multiple titles that don’t represent your best
work.

8. QUALITY

9. Quality
"If it isn't fun, get rid of it!" - Bruce Shelley

10. Quality
You are your own best critic.
If it doesn't look good to you, it probably won't
look good to your publisher or client.

11. Quality
Play your game and know how it compares to
the most popular games in the same genre
and platform in the marketplace.
Does it stack up and play better or equal to
competitors?

12. REPUTATION

13. Reputation
Try not to make enemies.
This industry is smaller than you think and
everyone talks. If you get a reputation for being
a jerk, nobody wants to deal with you, even if
you have great ideas.

14. Reputation
You are your brand and you need to represent it
how you want to be perceived.

15. Reputation
If you deliver quality games on time and on
budget, there is a lot of work available.

16. OPERATIONS

17. Operations and Company Culture
Hire the best department leads you can find and
ensure they are continually trained.

18. Operations and Company Culture
Strong, empowered middle management is a
cornerstone of a mature, well-run studio.

19. Operations and Company Culture
Take time each month (or each week) for the
team to talk about their successes and
challenges.

20. Operations and Company Culture
Companies where the management listens to
the staff and helps solve issues, while praising
great work, tends to have much, much lower
employee turnover.

21. DESIGN

22. Design
Be mindful of the scope of your game.

23. Design
Be mindful of the scope of your game.

24. Design
Every additional character, archetype, level,
world, weapon, spell, etc. adds additional
time and cost for playtesting, balancing and
QA.

25. Design
Build the game to the prototype and test the
fun. If it isn’t fun, adjust the depth of the
gameplay (deeper, lighter, harder, easier).

26. Design
If the game still isn’t fun, either kill it, or revisit
your design assumptions.

27. Design
The team should be playing the game constantly
to ensure it has the right feel. Remove any
superfluous crap and polish the features that
make it fun!

28. Design
My trick is playing every game in a genre and
taking screenshots of systems I like as well as
detailed notes on how things work. What
works well, what doesn’t, etc.

29. ART

30. Art
The internal Art Director is a key role. You want
someone with flexibility in their style, but a
strong sense of what players consider appealing.

31. Art
Find a great art outsourcing partner - if you can
use the resources of another studio, they aren't
on your payroll and this provides flexibility.

32. Art
A studio focused 100 percent on art is likely to
have more depth and art talent than your
studio.

33. Art
Sometimes art studios are willing to co-develop
games where they handle that entire aspect on
a revenue share, or manage by the lead
production studio.

34. TECHNOLOGY

35. Technology
Don't build your own engine, it's a waste of
time.

36. Technology
Have someone in charge of taking systems from
each game and modularize them so they can be
reused.

37. Technology
My Buy vs. Build Philosophy - the general rule is
if some technology is the core focus of another
company's business, they are probably going to
have something better than you can build, and
at a fraction of the cost.

38. Technology
The exception is in systems that charge per call,
or per action (i.e Analytics).
Use these as long as they make business sense,
but once you understand how they work and
what customization you need, build your own if
you have the resources!

39. PRODUCTION

40. Production
Estimating production tends to be done by the
most senior developer. Pad the time they think
a task takes by 50-60 percent in order to get a
real estimate for a less experienced
programmer.

41. Production
Track your team's hours and who builds what on
each project (Marco may be the fastest at
building achievements next time, because he
did it last time).

42. Production
Understand release dates and production
schedules are important to both your partners
and your audience.

43. Production
(Unless you are an indie with another source of
income) you don't have unlimited time to make
your game. You are not Blizzard!

44. Production
The market will always change from when you
start production to when you launch or ship.
Be prepared by building in an extra couple
weeks or months from the start to add features
that the market expects at launch.

45. Production
This could be the ability to capture video and
live stream from your game or app, or some
new mechanic that everyone is now in love
with.
Be prepared for 10-12 SDKs to drop out of the
sky into your lap!

46. Production
Understand that publishers and clients have
marketing and other activities they plan around
a launch.
These activities cost money and slipping can
cause a lot of problems.

47. Business

48. Business
Unless you are an indie with another source of
income, you should be asking: How are we
going to make money?

49. Business
Ask this question early and often.

50. Business
This applies to your games…and your business!

51. Business
If you don't know how to yet, learn to read a
P&L.

52. BUSINESS RISK

53. Mitigate Business Risk
If you are doing multiple titles, don't put all of
your eggs in one basket - publishers and
partners do go bankrupt too!

54. Mitigate Business Risk
Make sure you have an attorney look at your
contracts so you have important things
figured out in advance (like kill fees and
breach)
Go to Patrick Sweeney’s talk tomorrow @9AM!

55. A Successful Work for Hire (WFH)
Business

56. Working with Clients (WFH)
Since you likely aren’t sharing royalties and
won’t own the creative IP, you should be able
to make a margin of 20-30% minimum on your
projects.

57. Working with Clients (WFH)
Successful WFH studios focus on building strong
technology internally so they can build games
faster and more profitably.

58. Working with Clients (WFH)
Treat your client like they are your only client in
your communications.
Never say things like: “We can get to that
feature after we finish work for our other
client.”

59. Working with Clients (WFH)
Communicate often and send weekly or
monthly sprint plans so the partner can track
the status of production.

60. Working with Clients (WFH)
• Sometimes it’s ok to breakeven on a project
and not make profit, but only if you are:
– Getting key experience that improves the studio
– You are gaining knowledge from the partner that
is more valuable than the profit on the project
– Trying to smooth over a tough situation with an
unhappy client. (Move on after the project)

61. WFH ACCOUNTING

62. Working with Clients (WFH)
Know your costs before you quote any rate!

63. Working with Clients (WFH)
Make sure you are accounting for the office,
equipment, software licenses and
administrative staff in your calculation.

64. Working with Clients (WFH)
Present multiple options or solutions to a
problem, but support your recommendation
or decision with as many proof points as
possible.

65. Working with Clients (WFH)
Build in an extra 15-20 percent more time than
you believe you need in order to deliver on
time.
The market changes so quickly, we are always
aiming for the future, and last month at the
same time!

66. Working with Publishers and
Clients

67. Mind the Gap
Understand the time that it takes to sign a
publishing deal. It could take 4-8 months
depending on when you are looking to sign
something and when publishers are buying.

68. Mind the Gap
While you are working on your game, get ready
for the next one.
Build a prototype early and iterate on it in
parallel to your production.

69. Mind the Gap
Even indies can take a day on the weekend once
a month to progress a new idea. It will likely
help the creative flow with both game ideas.

70. PITCHING PUBLISHERS

71. Pitching to Publishers
You are likely going to need a vertical slice or a
strong prototype if you are new to the industry,
or haven't had much success yet.

72. Pitching to Publishers
This gets better. After about 3-4 games of
sufficient quality, you can likely move to a paper
pitch deck, unless the budget is over $500K USD

73. Pitching Costs to Partners
Don't pitch your hours or team in round
numbers

74. Pitching Costs to Partners
An estimate divisible by 8 means you didn't
really analyze the estimate and are giving days
instead of hours.

75. Pitching Costs to Partners
An estimate divisible by 40 means you are
estimating by the week. That can be taken as
a sign that your production process is broken
or you aren’t being honest.

76. The Game’s Done, Now What?

77. Launching Your Game
You need to plan your launch before the game is
finished (preferably at the beginning of
production. (I have a plan if you want it –
sean@ide-agency.com

78. Launching Your Game
Live streaming development actually gets
people engaged in the game.

79. Launching Your Game
Build a beta test group of fans and players that
give constructive feedback. (Steam, GooglePlay,
HockeyApp and TestFlight are excellent
platforms for this)

80. Launching Your Game
You can’t just stick it in the store and hope that
people are going to find your game.
You actually do need to have a little money to
do some kind of marketing, even if it’s for an
internal resource to help post in forums and on
social media.

81. If Indie - Build a Press Kit
• Use http://dopresskit.com/
• You need:
– Some screenshots that show the game in action
(preferably)
– 15 and 30 second trailers showing gameplay
– Logos for the game and your company
– A description and features list (if possible)