Hi, my name is Kevin Giguère and I am the founder and sole member of Dragon Slumber, a video game development company. 2019 was my third year as a full time, professional independent game developer, making this the third blog post chronicling my experiences. If you haven't read Year 1 or Year 2, I highly recommend you checking them out and getting some context about my life leading up to this point.
It was also my biggest and busiest year thus far, headlined by the release of the much anticipated Tech Support: Error Unknown, my moving to a different city, attending numerous conventions and pushing to become more present in the local game development scene. I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of new developers, some of which have thanked me for writing these posts. I'm hoping this post will be just as insightful on the reality of independent game development as my previous ones have been.
I know that many readers will be very interested in the numbers and I don't intend to bury the lead, and a special thanks goes to my Iceberg Interactive for allowing me to reveal sales numbers. Following its release on February 27th 2019 up to December 31st, Tech Support has seen 13,700 units sold, bringing in 94k USD in revenue. Of course that's before Steam's and my publisher's cuts of the profit, so I made substantially less.
You can't post an article about sales without a Steam graph
During Dragon Slumber's 2019 fiscal year ending in November, it has made about 31.6k USD in revenue. I have paid myself around 18.8k USD in salary for the year. I won't deny that it's significantly less than expected considering the amount of hours worked (averaging 10-12 per day, 7 days a week) and the release of the oft discussed and anticipated Tech Support. This also ignores all of the company expenses and taxes, including on my salary, and with the natural decline of sales, it'll be impossible to only rely on sales from it in 2020.
I ended last year's post with an important statement: accept your failures, learn from them and build upon them. I stand by that statement, but 2019 really seemed to pit itself directly against me in many ways out of my control. Still, I believe its important to analyze those failures and hopefully still learn lessons we can use moving forward.
You're right Martha, shit does happen. (Tech Support: Error Unknown)
Hit the ground running
The year started strong, with multiple ongoing opportunities bleeding over from the previous year. Tech Support was on its way to being released in late February and was building a lot of momentum from big preview websites like Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer. The wishlist numbers were healthy and growing, and were promising very decent sales on launch.
While finalizing the game for launch, I was already planning for Dragon Slumber's next step. I had already met a third party looking to finance the development of new games for their platform, so a partner and I had started work on a game proposal to send them. Should it be approved, this would be a safe bet, since it would come with advances during development, providing short term income while still having the potential to pay out dividends for years following its launch.
I also had three additional projects in the works, on which I had different roles. First was Digital Rogue, my third person acrobatic action game, which I had set aside but was still moving forward from the artistic side. I had moved the programming aspect far enough that I wouldn't be needed until multiple visual elements were locked.
Second was a CIA management game, which I was making in partnership with a programmer friend. This one was meant to emulate Tech Support in terms of visual simplicity and focus on the management and storytelling aspects, along with providing an open ended experience for further replayability. I was mostly doing game design on this project, and planned to do some visual and UI design once the prototype had moved ahead sufficiently.
Finally was a business management game focused on product management and providing deep customization options for players. I also acted as game and visual designer on this title, along with taking on project management tasks.
I always intended to have as many revenue streams and opportunities as I could, figuring that if one didn't pay out as expected, my revenue could still balance out across the other sources. I didn't expect all of my ventures to pay off, and instead figured that once Tech Support was released and most of the anticipated most launch content was out, I could decide where my time would be best spent.
Moving to the big city
I was also in the process of moving from Quebec to Montreal, about 2.5 hours away. This decision was taken fairly abruptly in November 2018 to follow yet another opportunity with the promise of a decent payout. The moving date was originally set for late January, which would have left a month before the launch of Tech Support. However, reasons out of my control pushed it back a month to February 28th, one day after the launch.
Releasing a game a day before moving is never encouraged, especially when you're the only developer of the game. However, the move was made further taxing because as I soon learned, the opportunity I was pursuing fizzled out, making my actions meaningless. I had already signed which is very hard to get out of in Quebec. So in short, I was moving away from family and friends for the first time in 36 years, to live in a city where my rent and expenses would go up by about 50%, for nothing. Thankfully, my move was still getting subsidized, limiting some of my short term expenses, but it was still a hefty blow to endure.
My new city
Nothing is ever certain until a contract is properly signed and money transferred, a lesson I should have heeded before throwing myself into this process. I was pursuing this with another partner who took the opportunity for granted, and ended up taking a hit as well. We were both naive and it was a big, costly mistake.
The only silver lining was that Montreal is the Canadian hub for video game development, and so I endeavored to make the most of my presence by networking with other developers and try to build something out of this.
Supporting Tech Support's tech
In late February came the big launch and moving week. Amidst boxes of my stuff filling up my apartment, I had finalized Tech Support for the launch. Beyond last minute debugging, the last few weeks were dedicated to adding the new German and Chinese localizations of the game, made possible thanks to my publisher Iceberg Interactive's involvement.
I knew that the first few weeks following the launch would be hectic. We had spent a considerable amount of time testing the game, with one player logging over 150 hours prior to launch. Still, I had no illusions that the deluge of new players would trigger new bugs and other issues.
As I streamed myself playing and promoting the game, Tech Support was finally released on February 27th around 11am. For the first few hours, everything seemed to go exactly as planned. Sales were in line with expectations, and although a few messages were popping up on the Steam forums, it was nothing too severe.
One issue we had not encountered was specific to the Unity version I was using, which made it fail running on one or two specific versions of Mac OS, along with a conflict with some specific remote desktop software. Overall however, everything seemed to be indicating towards a successful launch.
And then they started to hit, a wave of negative comments which quickly lowered the rating of the game. From our early very positive rating, we quickly sank to mostly positive, on the edge of mixed. It all stemmed from the localizations of the game. As I discovered, although the English version worked great, the German and Chinese versions had a myriad of problems, from display issues to terrible translation.
I was devastated, especially considering the amount of testing and debugging which had gone into the game before it launched. But we had taken the localization quality for granted and since the procedural dialogues were such an integral part of the experience, we were left with few options as the reviews kept pouring in, sinking our ranking. My heart fell as the game fell under 70% positive reviews into “mixed” territory, the touch of death which abruptly tanked sales of a otherwise positively reviewed game
I dealt with the situation as I could, responding to the steam reviews and comments diligently and solving early bugs as quickly as possible. Between bouts of packing boxes, traveling and later in the hotel room, I continued to respond to the forums and engaging with the community. The game launched on Wednesday, I left on Thursday, we unloaded on Friday and I was back to work on Saturday, the moment my desk and computer were back up.
I worked tirelessly for the following weeks, releasing patches regularly and showing active support for the community. Tech Support saw two patch releases in March which addressed several issues raised by players and mitigated some of the localization issues which plagued the game. I also started working on several additional modes to complement the main story. These included leaderboards for players to compete as the top tech support specialists and a zen mode which focused on completing tickets without story or the fear of failure.
These new features would ship in May, following a bevy of additional gameplay patches and bug fixes. By that time, the rating had managed to climb back into the Mostly Positive range, which did in fact directly affect sales. With the game being as stable as it would ever be, I moved on from the main development for Tech Support, but promotional support would continue for a few extra months.
Becoming a con man
PAX East fun with Iceberg Interactive
Going back to March, I was invited by my publisher to attend PAX East in order to showcase Tech Support as part of their booth. I always enjoy traveling and attending conventions and was more than happy to do so. This was also the first time I would meet the people I've been working with for several months in person.
PAX would be my favorite convention I would attend that year, in no small part because for once, I wasn't the only one taking care of my booth. That meant that I could roam around a little, take some proper time to eat and just generally be less stressed out.
Which isn't to say that I remained idle in any capacity, I did my best to help the booth out not only for Tech Support, but for the other games we were showcasing as well. I met with a few influencers and media people, answering questions and giving interviews. I also managed to get PAX streamer wgrates to showcase the game during the convention, one of many opportunities which would arise from my presence during a convention.
A week after PAX, I found myself thrust into Geek-It, a local convention which gracefully provided me with a booth. The attendance was much lower, which made it a welcome rest despite attending the booth on my own. It even gave me a bit of time to walk around and say Hi to the local devs, some of which I had already met at MIGS the year prior.
A month later, I was a part of the Caravan 2019, a weekend event which brought several Quebec developers together to share ideas, have a good time, party and showcase their games to various students. It was an opportunity I had been pitched by organizers from Quebec City, but thankfully they managed to “save my place” for the Montreal devs.
The Caravan especially fit into my networking objectives for the year and I met people from various government and organizations which can help with financing, though most were set up for people who start off with more resources than I currently have. Still, it was a great time and I would meet the people there repeatedly during the year, through dev events, local lunch and learns as well as different conventions in Montreal. I even got a hoodie with “Dragon Slumber” on the sleeve.
Announcing the MEGA MIGS 2019 during the caravan
Two weeks after the Caravan, I was flying to Atlanta Georgia for Momocon, an anime centric convention with a section catering to gaming. Tech Support was a finalist for an award so we felt it was a nice opportunity to pursue. The trip was fun, it's always exciting to visit new places and the event went without a hitch as well. Unfortunately, Tech Support didn't win an award, but I managed to have a nice one on one with Rami Ismael out of it. Since the competition was being judged by industry veterans and reviewers, I'm hoping the nomination will lead to new opportunities down the road for my upcoming titles.
Not quite the same as a convention, but throughout the summer I attended several lunch and learns hosted by the Gameplay Space, a dedicated co-working space for indie developers in Montreal. They regularly invited different industry professionals to provide insight for developers and help network. This could range from Unreal talking about financing opportunities, to new publishers seeking projects, to accountants talking about tax credits. These events would also help further networking opportunities.
July brought Comicon Montreal, where I had been invited by people from Loto-Quebec, the gambling commission in my province which also reinvests its earnings into various projects, including independant developers. Tech Support was amongst about 15 other projects set in a large open area, and got featured on the Loto-Quebec twitch page while they interviewed me.
I then did about the same in September for Dreamhack Montreal, where I was again invited by Loto-Quebec and again showcased Tech Support, which I knew would be the last time in a convention setting. The game had made its way and we had supported it appropriately, but it was now time to fully move on to my newest project.
Setting the sides aside
As I was gallivanting across North America showcasing my game, my other projects were moving along as well, though not always in the proper direction. From my hotel room during PAX East, I had to kill a game proposal pitch I was making with a collaborator. Creating the pitch document had taken an inordinate amount of time, and though it was accepted for the first phase of the approval process, I became concerned that my partner and I wouldn't be able to deliver on our promises, even if we won the bid.
I therefore got in touch with my contact and explained the situation. He was very understanding and encouraged me to apply again on my own. A few weeks later, I was sending a new pitch, which quickly crossed the first phase of approval as well, but was unfortunately quickly rebuked at the second phase and thus never yielded any results.
The CIA management game had also died out as my partner for that project decided to move to other prospects. Since it was set up as a side project, I opted not to pursue further development on my own at that time, though I still may sometime in the future.
Later in the year, the business management game would also be put on a hiatus and remains as such at this time. I still believe in the project and a lot of design work and visual research has already been made, but slow progression made the project untenable at this time.
