Introduction: Indie Strategies

Some will tell you that 2018 will be the ‘year of growing up’ for indies.

Not in a condescending way, incidentally. Rather that the acceptance that indie development isn’t exclusively polarised into the ‘work-for-hire’ or ‘oh, it’s art, darling’ camps brings with it a realisation that this is a ‘proper job’. And therefore how you strategise around it and plan your approach makes a critical difference.

That’s the foundation on which Indie Strategies track at PGC San Francisco has been built. Once again under the inimitable guidance of Unity evangelist Oscar Clark, we’ll be looking at:

• Concept development – working an idea through to successful realisation, prototyping approaches
• Executive production – market feasibility, tech feasibility, resource planning, future outlook
• Game development – how different teams’ philosophies impact the process
• Company culture – building a culture around studio identity, brand building
• Investment strategy – are the current financing models working?
• Moving on – how to get past that first success/failure, thinking ‘beyond the moment’

We could bullet point all day, but it essentially boils down to knowing the right thing to make, having the right team to make it, understanding how to deliver it and planning accordingly throughout the process.