If you’re reading this, you’re probably some level of indie game developer who’s feeling a bit daunted at everything you hear about Steam. Thousands of games per year. Players driven away by unprofessional pages. Expensive assets needed to make it good. Well, I’m Buddy, the Head of Publishing for Akupara Games, and I’ve spent a […]

Many indie developers understand how to make a great game, but far fewer grasp how the business behind that game actually works. That knowledge gap can make it difficult to evaluate publishing offers, estimate development costs, or understand why projects might struggle financially even when sales look strong. Having a basic understanding of how publishers […]

One thing you hear time and time again with developers is that they want their game in front of their oh so favorite creators, Markiplier, Northernlion, Pokimane, etc. The reality of it all though is that there’s about a 1 in quintillion chance that you’re actually going to reach out and receive any confirmation that […]

Introduction Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A good idea doesn’t always make for a good game.   The video game industry is built on wild ideas, but an idea alone doesn’t make a playable product. The biggest challenge indie developers face isn’t a lack of creativity; it’s the sheer complexity of the […]

Signing with a publisher can be a pivotal moment for a developer looking for external support and financing, and even the most experienced industry veterans don’t always know or recognize the telltale signs of a bad partnership. Publishing deals are often positioned as a necessary lifeline: funding, marketing support, platform access, and perceived legitimacy. But […]

Every game developer hopes they can release a game without a single bug found. Unfortunately, the reality is that every game will have bugs no matter how much time and how many resources are put into bug searching and fixing. Most publishers will have a dedicated QA team that takes pride in searching and finding […]

If you take a look at any mainstream AAA release, like the recently released Total War: Warhammer III, you’ll see dozens of videos from trailers to unit profiles to mechanics overviews. While indie games can’t replicate all of those videos without a AAA budget and staff, we can take the hint: videos can be more […]

If you take a look at any mainstream AAA release, like the recently released Total War: Warhammer III, you’ll see dozens of videos from trailers to unit profiles to mechanics overviews. While indie games can’t replicate all of those videos without a AAA budget and staff, we can take the hint: videos can be more […]

By Alyssa Kollgaard One of the things that indie developers tend to struggle with the most is how to market their games – especially if they don’t have a publisher, a marketing budget, or an expert on their team to lead the charge. Usually this work tends to fall to someone on the team who […]

If you take a look at any mainstream AAA release, like the recently released Total War: Warhammer III, you’ll see dozens of videos from trailers to unit profiles to mechanics overviews. While indie games can’t replicate all of those videos without a AAA budget and staff, we can take the hint: videos can be more […]