Indie Post-Mortem Shows Developer Problems, Pitfalls

Thanks to Game Matters for its weblog post pointing to ex-id programmer Brian Hook's post-mortem on his indie developer, Pyrogon, discussing "a good time to sit back and reflect on what went right and what went wrong." With Pyrogon, particularly known for its Flash-based Web games like Candy Cruncher, "ceasing further development of new titles", some of the trials and tribulations of the independent developer are laid out, with headings including: "Publishers Never Say No, They Just Stop Answering E-Mails", "A Good Demo Is Not Enough -- It Must Be Jaw Dropping", and "Unless You Are Chocolate Covered God, Any Deals Offered Will Suck."

Candy Cruncher is not Flash-based

[Deraj DeZine]

particularly known for its Flash-based Web games like Candy Cruncher

I read an article by the guy that ported Candy Cruncher to Linux and he was using SDL. It is clearly NOT a flash-based web game. Just because it has cute, shiny graphics and it works on multiple platforms does not make it Flash-based or browser-based.

Re:What was the sociology and psychology?

[Deraj DeZine]

If you read more of the article, you'd see that he telecommuted most of the time anyway and his games that had been selling well were starting to lose out due to comptetition.

I don't think his move really changed what was going to happen to that company. They were simply riding a temporary indie/puzzle game boom and they didn't change their focus once the boom was over. I guess the fact that they were creatively drained probably affected things too (preventing them from switching genres easily).

Doomed

[Swanktastic]

A company without someone who is an expert in marketing and/or sales is doomed to failure. Every sentence in the article reinforces their chief problem-- they were focused only on product development. Good products make for easier sales, they rarely sell themselves.

The duo seemed to despise doing anything they didn't consider "real work." If that's the case, be a dev/artist for someone else! Don't start your own company and expect to be "doing the thing you love" 8 hours a day, five days a week." I've been an entrepreneur-- you spend 1/3 of your time working on what you want to do and 2/3 of the time working on the things you have to do to make payroll/rent/expenses.