2. Care and Feeding of your Independent Game Studio By Arthur K. Humphrey Founder, Lead Designer, Lead Engineer – Last Day of Work

3. Husband and Wife Team, + ~7 contractors (3 engineers, 3 artists, 1 QA, 1 support ) Virtual Office based out of San Francisco 100% self funded, 100% independent Own all IP Last Day of Work

4. Game Releases Little Pocket Pet (Palm OS – in 2004) Fish Tycoon Plant Tycoon Virtual Families Virtual Villagers Series (1,2,3,4,5)

5. Why am I speaking this year? Update our perspective of the space Monetization / Distribution of Indie Games

6. 1)Distribution in a Fragmented Market 2)Design as a Differentiating Factor 3)Bootstrapping and Maintaining Ownership What am I talking about?

7. 1) Distribution in a Fragmented Market

8.  Then (dev costs 25-75k ; rev share per unit ~6$; game released/week 3-5; game profitable ~20k units; smash hit =100k units)  Now (dev costs 100-400k; rev share per unit ~2/3$; game released/week >12; game profitable ~100k units; smash hit=500k units) Casual digital download no longer one stop solution.

9.  Continually expanding HAL.  Multiplatform frameworks are EZ!  New streamlined market places with very low barrier to entry (iTunes, Android Market, Mac App Store etc) Why diversification of distribution is necessary and never has been easier.

10.  In-house vs. 3 rd party. Unity, Torque, etc. Frameworks

11.  Our approach: IP/SKU’s  IP : PC/Mac  iOS (iPhone and/or iPad)  Android Fragmented Market

12. Fish Tycoon for Windows Mobile Fish Tycoon for Windows Fish Tycoon for Mac Fish Tycoon for Mobile Fish Tycoon for iOS Fish Tycoon for Android Fish Tycoon for Nintendo DS List of SKUS Plant Tycoon for Windows Mobile Plant Tycoon for Windows Plant Tycoon for Mac Plant Tycoon for iOS Virtual Villagers 1 for Windows Virtual Villagers 1 for Mac Virtual Villagers 1 for Mobile Virtual Villagers 1 for iOS Virtual Villagers 1 for Nintendo DS Virtual Villagers 1 in German Virtual Villagers 1 in French Virtual Villagers 1 in Spanish Fish Tycoon Plant Tycoon Virtual Villagers 1 Virtual Villagers 2 for Mac Virtual Villagers 2 for iOS Virtual Villagers 2 Virtual Families Virtual Families for Mac Virtual Families for iOS Virtual Families for Android Virtual Villagers 3 Virtual Villagers 3 for Mac Virtual Villagers 3 for iOS Virtual Villagers 3 in German Virtual Villagers 4 Virtual Villagers 4 for Mac Virtual Villagers 4 for iOS – coming soon Virtual Villagers 4 in German Virtual Villagers 4 in French Virtual Villagers 4 in Spanish Virtual Villagers 4 in Italian Virtual Villagers 3 in French Virtual Villagers 3 in Spanish Virtual Villagers 3 in Italian Virtual Villagers 3 in Portughese Virtual Villagers 3 in Dutch Virtual Villagers 3 in Swedish Virtual Villagers 5 Virtual Villagers 5 for Mac Virtual Villagers 5 for iOS – in queue

13.  Cracking top-10 lists on iOS and Android (buying rank, buying installs for your freemium game that will never pay 1 cent)  Arbitrage  Buying customers to climb lists (applies to freemium)  Price Compression vs. price compression resistance on iPad Visibility & Marketing

14.  Facebook has gotten very competitive with big $$  Buying users raises the bar financially to compete  “What went wrong” for LDW in ’10… What about Facebook and Social?

15.  Freemium backlash, and pre-packaged itemization for customers who hate freemium  Plant Tycoon Freemium on iOS. Initial results and feedback from customers. (specifics to be displayed)  “Coercive Conversion” Diversifying Business Models!

16. Coercive Conversion

17. Pros and Cons Selling beta versions Big Budget Games vs. Quick Little Games

18. 2) Design as a Differentiating Factor

19.  As a company we stand out based on our designs, not our polish. Not our business models.  Eg: Minecraft, LDW games, other games Design & Indie Spirit

20.  Innovation and the ‘long tail’  Protection from cloning  Under the hood, emergence and strong story  Media: reviews, accolades, controversy and recognition. Oh, and getting paid. (VF, VV5, other examples) Innovation

21. 3) Bootstrapping and Maintaining Ownership

22.  Scaling creativity is hard. Licensing is tricky.  What has worked for us, and what has not? How to grow without growing

23.  Keep it small, keep it all  Slow or ‘no’ growth business model/‘all-in, double-down’ model Risk Factor

24. Takeaways Changes in the market have reduced casual portals from a one-stop monetization solution, to simply a piece of the puzzle Consider your initial release platforms, try to get something on radar somewhere and then leverage that visibility. Diversification of your IP into multiple skus, and even multiple business models Keep your damn IP ffs.

25. Questions? Questions are free!! Yes free! As ask many as you wish. $0.99 per answer. Totally optional. Cash jar at front.

26. THANK YOU! Arthur’s contact info: arthur@ldw.com