Becoming an independent computer game publisher is not a get rich quick business.
If you are serious about becoming an independent commercial computer game publisher, you should start out as a hobbyist and later transform your hobby into a for-profit enterprise. By doing it this way you will avoid the hardships, frustrations, and failure that many have suffered by starting out as a for-profit enterprise from the start.
Many who have started out as a for-profit enterprise from the start did so unaware and ill-prepared for the challenges that were ahead of them. Many of them failed within 24 months of their startups. They failed from combined factors. Those combined factors were “unreal expectations of financial performance, lack of knowledge of the many aspects of being a commercial enterprise, paranoia and being impatient.” Starting out as a hobbyist financial performance will not be an issue because you are not expecting to receive a large sack of money on a daily basis. As a hobbyist, lack of knowledge is not a problem but rather a challenge to be overcome. In other words, your hobby is the learning process for overcoming lack of knowledge in the many aspects of being a commercial game publisher. As a hobbyist, you have no competition to be fearful from. As a hobbyist the growth of your activity of your pursuits are not confined to self-imposed timetables that could cause you to quit in frustration.
The benefits of starting out as a hobbyist computer game publisher are many; however, there are some drawbacks. The main drawback is as a hobbyist computer game publisher is you will be unable to claim any tax deductions for being a computer game publisher. As a hobbyist computer game publisher, your expenses will be far less than that of someone who has a hobby of coin collecting, stamp collector, etc.
Other than the cost of a PC or laptop and Internet connection, your main expenses will be for a web hosting service and a file hosting service. A quality user-friendly web hosting service with no restrictions as to the number of HTML and graphic files and no bandwidth restrictions costs under $200 a year. A quality file hosting service that provides for direct link downloading with unlimited bandwidth as well as providing you with one to two terabytes of disk hosting will cost you under $100 a year. I almost forgot to mention that a quality web hosting service would do your yearly domain registration for you for a small fee. Smart advertising that will actually get results for you can cost you $100 to $1000 a year. As a hobbyist, you will still need to promote your computer game publishing website where you will be selling or giving away your games. Any other costs you may run into may involve purchasing inexpensive software that you may find to be useful. Some may think that the expenses I had just mentioned may be excessive, however, compared to the aforementioned other hobbies above and combined with what people spend on other recreational venues the expense of being a hobbyist computer game publisher is proverbially paid out of pocket change.
You are probably wondering when the best time it is to transform your hobby computer game publishing into a for-profit enterprise. It is my opinion the best time to make the transformation is when your hobby is consistently making the equivalent of 150% of your monthly income of your day job. However, I do not recommend you quit your day job at this time. Think of your for-profit game publishing enterprise as a backup in the unfortunate event that your day job is downsized or eliminated due to circumstances beyond your control. However, should you be one of the fortunate few where your for-profit game publishing enterprise is consistently making three times the income of your day job on a monthly basis you may consider making your for-profit game publishing enterprise your full-time vocation.
As I mentioned above you will have to be the distributor of the games you create to the intended end user. The reason for this is the large chain stores that sells PC computer games buys PC computer games from a very small number of wholesalers. Those wholesalers will not want to purchase your game unless you have already sold 1 million copies of your game you would like to sell to them. It is my opinion if you have sold 1 million copies of a game you created and sold each one for a mere $9.95 you would probably be now sitting on a sun kissed tropical beach with a chilled Mai Tai in your hand joyfully watching beachgoers frolicking in their skimpy swimwear rather than reading this post.
The first thing you are going to need is a game creation wizard application. I am going on the assumption you already have one or maybe more than one. It may be FPS Creator Classic or FPS Creator Reloaded or GameGuru or one of the many other legacy game creation wizard applications that were sold through The Game Creators. Should you have more than one game creation wizard it is my opinion that you should use the one you personally derive the most enjoyment from using.
Should your intent to become a for-profit game publisher I would recommend you acquire a second PC or laptop to be exclusively used for your game publishing. By this, I mean it should only be used for game creation and the creation of assets for the games you create and your financial record keeping files, managing your website, uploading files to your files-sharing host service and downloading digital products for your game creation from trusted websites. I strongly recommend that the aforementioned should be the only time the system should be connected to the web. This will discourage you from using the system for non-productive activities and cluttering the hard drive with non-applicable software. Be sure to routinely make backups of your hard drive. You can use either a cloud service or an external hard drive for your backups or both.
You may be wondering what would be the best operating system to be using for game creations. Any PC compatible operating system from XP through Windows 10, 32 bit or 64-bit. However, if you are going to be using GameGuru your operating system will have to be 64-bit regardless if it is XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10.
If it is your intentions to be a for-profit game publisher you should be aware that the end user license agreement for Windows 10 gives Microsoft permission to copy your files and redistribute them anywhere in the world without having to pay you any royalties. Should you have any doubts about this and you are using Windows 10 read your licensing agreement for Windows 10. Should this be a concern for you, you can always purchase a PC with an older operating system. Before anyone flames me about security risk of older operating systems keep in mind that over 95% of hacking attacks are accomplished through malicious e-mail attachments. As for Malware and computer viruses there are many safeguards against them such as Anti-Malware Bites, Comodo, McAfee and McAfee Site Guard, PC Madic, Zone Alarm as well as many others. Purchasing a system with an older operating system that is factory fresh is easily accomplished by going to your preferred search engine and type in the search field “buy refurbished Windows 7 computer”. If you prefer Windows 8 use Windows 8 instead of Windows 7. You can also use Windows XP or Windows Vista as well. Last month my neighbor purchased a refurbished desktop with the Windows 7 operating system from Walmart. He only paid $89 for it. He did it by purchasing it through their website and then picking it up a couple of days later from the store. He also added on a 2 TB external hard drive for additional disk space.
There is one other thing to consider if you should choose to purchase a new system using Windows 10 is to make sure you do not buy a new system with “Windows 10 S version.” FPS creator classic and GameGuru as well as cloud services such as Steam cannot be installed on Windows 10 S. This new version of Windows 10 restricts the user to only applications installed through the Microsoft Store and imposes other limitations like only being able to use EDGE as your default browser and you are forced to use BING as your search engine. At this time Windows 10 home edition, Windows 10 Pro edition and Windows 10 enterprise edition are not walled garden boxes like the Windows 10 S version. For more detailed information about “Windows 10 S version” I refer you to the YouTube video link below.
Everything you need to know about Windows 10 S edition
Video duration time 00:18:52
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlWwIBwExaI
As I stated earlier you will need a website. If you do not know how to create a webpage for your site, you will be pleasantly surprised that many of the quality web hosting services provide users a webpage creation utility. Many geeks refer to these webpage creation utilities as cookie-cutter website builders. The terminology they use is not derogatory. The cookie-cutter website builders do have their limitations, however, they are more than sufficient for your needs. To find a quality web hosting service go to your preferred search engine and type in the field “web hosting review”. Do not be surprised at the large number of results you will receive. You could also go to YouTube and watch video reviews about web hosting services and the website tool builders they provide.
Design your website to reflect the style of games that you will be making and keeping visitor navigation through the website user-friendly. I strongly recommend not placing any advertisements on your webpages other than the ones that promote the games you are selling or giving away or any services you may be providing. The reason for this is your website is to be promoting what you have to offer. To get a good insight on designing webpages there are many videos on YouTube on the subject. You will also see a number of videos available for viewing about e-commerce. The one thing that most of the videos miss about e-commerce is that it is basically mail order by electronic means.
As I mentioned earlier you will also need a quality file hosting service for direct download linking. This is where all your downloadable games will be kept. The reason for using a file hosting service is that nearly all web-hosting services have restrictions as to the size of individual files that are stored on their servers. The restricted file size for an individual file for many web-hosting services is between a half a megabyte to 5 megabytes, whereas a computer game can exceed several hundred megabytes. Be sure to place your game in a zip file before uploading it to the file hosting service. To find a quality file hosting service that will accommodate your needs you can use the same methods that were described on researching web-hosting services that were described above.
There are many services that are available as avenues for selling your games through your website. Some of the services are Amazon, ClickBank, eBay are just a few. From what I have seen over the years, ClickBank seems to be a prime intermediary for the sales and purchase of digital products. For the beginner it is my opinion that ClickBank would be an ideal intermediary for the sale of the games you publish. Just be sure to explore all your options before you decide on which intermediary you use. You can explore your options using the same methods as described in researching for a web hosting service as described earlier in this post.
During the period of being a hobbyist game publisher it would be a good idea to take a course in bookkeeping. This will be beneficial for you in keeping financial records when you transform your hobby into a commercial enterprise. You do not necessarily need to attend a brick-and-mortar university to learn bookkeeping. Your options can be to take online courses or a traditional snail mail, mail order course.
You’ll need to promote your website. I will first mention the free methods.
The first method for free online advertisement would be to use free classified advertising websites. The classified advertisements on those websites are very similar to classified advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Before you write your first classified ad you should learn how to write an effective advertisement. The best way to learn is to use your preferred search engine and type in the field “how to write an effective classified ad”. In the result pages you will find many useful articles on how to write effective classified advertisements. Once you have learned how to effectively write a classified advertisement you will need to locate websites that provide for placing free classified ads. To do this use your preferred search engine and type in the field “free classified ads”. The returned results will be in the thousands. Many of the websites that offer free classified ads have safeguards against submissions spiders so you will have to manually place your advertisement. With this in mind selectively choose which advertisement sites you intend on using wisely. If you’re wondering why many of the websites block submissions spiders it is because of abuses of multilevel marketing schemes of the past.
The second method for free online promotion of your computer game publishing site would be social networking. There is a Marriott of social networking sites. Facebook and MySpace are just two of many social networking sites. These social networking sites can be useful but to what degree is uncertain. At the time of this posting Facebook is reportedly the dominant social networking site. Should you be interested in using Facebook to promote your computer game publishing the link below is to a YouTube video that will provide you with more information. The duration of the video is 38 minutes and 18 seconds.
Facebook Marketing Made Easy for beginner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeMiLSZbMQ4
The third method is asking users of the games you have published to write reviews in their own words about them and post them online to review sites. This is also called the word-of-mouth method. The word-of-mouth method is one of the most effective methods for online and off-line promotion. It is my opinion that you shouldn’t use self proclaimed game critics to evaluate your published games. They have a lot in common with the professional critics of Hollywood movies in that many of them tend to be chronic complainers and malcontents. They can be detrimental to your enthusiasm for game publishing.
You could also make one or more games available for free and submit them to software index sites. You can find these websites by using your preferred search engine and type in the quarry field “Freeware” or “Free software.” You will find hundreds of freeware index software sites. Some of the sites you will be able to upload your game too. These sites use an installer to install the software on to the end-user’s system. Other index sites you may have to provide a direct download link. Many of the sites if not all of them will also have a link to your website. I recommend that you use the sites that also provide a link to your homepage. Before submitting your game to any of the sites be sure to read the terms of usage and all instructions.
One inexpensive off-line way of promoting your game publishing is to invest in professionally made business cards. I strongly recommend not using self-made business cards because in many instances they can appear amateurish. In my opinion, I recommend that you use raised letter text. This will give you an initial favorable first impression. I recommend that the name of your game publishing be prominently placed on the business card as well as a very brief description. Be sure to have the URL for your site on the business card. Should you choose to also offer a telephone number I strongly recommend that you use an inexpensive prepaid cell phone. Use the aforementioned cell phone exclusively for your game publishing.
Should you choose to use business cards be sure to always carry some with you. You can place some of them at establishments you patronize that you may have determined gamers patronize as well. These establishments can be convenient stores, fast food restaurants, Internet cafés and etc. Place a small number of business cards near the establishment’s cash register usually about 10 or 15 of them. Before placing your business cards be sure to ask the establishment for permission to do so. Should you encounter a gamer be sure to give him or her one of your business cards.
Another inexpensive off-line promotion for your game publishing is to use 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers. The 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers should be placed on public bulletin boards. The 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers can provide much more information about your game publishing then the business cards. It is my opinion the use of 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers in conjunction with business cards will enhance your promotional efforts. The 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers are most effective in urban and suburban areas on public bulletin boards. In rural areas the 8 ½ X 11 inch flyers will have limited results but they will still be effective.
Do not underestimate the effectiveness of using business cards and flyers. They may seem to be just local advertising, however, remember the Roman Empire began locally before it overshadowed the known world. The business cards and flyers have the ability to get others to get the word-of-mouth out about your game publishing.
After you have established yourself as a game publisher spend at least one to two hours a week learning something new in the field of game publishing. This could be anything from creating custom assets for your games, new strategies for game concepts, marketing your game publishing, etc.
My best regards to all.