Creating the Game I: Skills Do Not Pay the Bills

Fundamental information belongs to introduction so: we create games with love and for money. We are without publisher so far so we do not have to work under time stress. However, the investor´s patience has its limits.

The Crucial Moments

Why did we enter such an uncertain business as game developing is? Well, first of all – gaming itself. We are all gamers with some “heart affairs” like Fallout series for Alex Kriz, Diablo and WarCraft for author of this text. Everyone from our 10 member team has its own.

Secondly, our experience is not based only on gaming. We have learnt very much from our gaming sites like Raketka.cz or HPD.cz. Thanks them we gained much experience in creating, administration and distribution of game content among players. Contact with players and communities on daily basis was pretty important as well. You wouldn´t believe where can innocent discussion under the girly game lead and how can it escalate.

And last but not least – investor. Everybody needs money. Not for development only but for paydays as well. Each of us has to pay bills and skills are not the right currency for landlords. Investor´s budget is very helpful but this well is not bottomless.

And honestly, releasing a successful title is dream of every developer. But this goal is very fussy and far away. You can´t reach this achievement if you focus only on money and monetization models.

Making Games Is Drudgery

But to be clear, working in game industry is job like others. You have to wake up and go to work, you think of current project every day at home, even on party with friends. And you cannot afford to be out. Self education and following trends in industry, activities of competitors – these are essentials for every professional.

But in our case it has one undisputable advantage – everyday gaming. Thanks this we tried Oculus Rift for instance. It was definitely fantastic experience despite fact that it is still development kit.

Anyway, colleagues are also part of your job. We have to deal with different age groups (the youngest one is 18, the oldest 28 years old), various hobbies, ways of living, their good parts but weaknesses as well. But every difference disappear when it come to games.

Also the choice of platforms for our games was pretty easy. We analyzed our abilities and skill, spent days by research and meet various people from industry. We do not want to create triple A titles neither flash games. Result: mobile devices. Android and iOS first but we decided to support Windows Phone players as well (World of Cheese is already available, Save the Snail is coming).

We realize that the market with mobile gaming is oversaturated. Earning 2.4 million $ like Supercell with Clash of Clans is only in some deep corners of dreams for now. We also do know story behind the Angry Birds. Rovio has to develop 51 games before the success came.

Despite This Here We Are

Alda Games was officialy founded in the June 2013. There was our first game in July on App Store and Google Play. No, it is impossible to develop game in one month. We worked on Save the Snail unofficially from April.

Snail and World of Cheese were just test. Test of our ability to develop game from the very first idea, concept to distribution at least to few thousands players. As you can see we have passed.

How? Answer will be available in another few articles.

So, stay tuned!

Martin Vonsak, 26.02.2014 | Brno, Czech Republic