The idea of setting your own pace and being in charge of your own schedule might sound pretty good. And in many ways, it is. If you’re running your own game project, you get to choose what the priorities are, when you get up and when you go to bed, how many hours per day you should spend working on various tasks – etc.

However, by deciding to go down this path your responsibilities begin to increase exponentially. If you were working for a large company with several layers of managers, the managers would be the one keeping track of where the project is supposed to be. You’d only have to worry about your block of work; the rest of the project would be taken care of.

When you’re running your own project though, its success or failure is ultimately resting entirely on your shoulders. So it’s not as if you’re “more free” in the sense that you can just take whole days off to be lazy – in fact, your workload is going to be much larger…

Read On

In my case, I find it hard to not work. If I get blocked from working for too long, I go a little bit crazy. On the other hand, thinking about the sheer amount of responsibility and effort that will be required to finish the game I’m working on is also enough to drive one a little bit mad!

Having an innate desire to work is usually a good thing, but it can also backfire in undesirable ways. It often leads me to stay up as late as humanly possible, for example. While this can sometimes be a good thing, allowing me to continue working on something really cool until it’s done, it can also result in a very odd, sleep-deprived mental state.

Being overtired is similar to being a bit drunk. To be honest, it’s actually pretty fun. Sometimes I do my best work while in this batty frame of mind. But a few things are required to make it work properly.

When overtired, I usually can’t remember anything that happened longer than 30 seconds ago, so I have to keep a notebook around to keep track of what I’ve been doing. (and what I should be doing) I also find it’s important to keep a bottle of water handy, as well as a pair of headphones with really epic music blaring. It also helps me to be hungry while working, for some reason. (?)

What about you? How do you manage managing yourself? Or if you work for a company, how do you find your managers? Do they annoy the crap out of you, or do you appreciate that they keep you on track?

Previously…

One of the unfortunate side-effects of running your own little game development team is that you have to pay everyone. Not that that in-and-of itself is a big deal, but there is a lot of paperwork and procedure that goes along with it.

In our case, we have a bit more of a headache because we’re using “government funding”.

What Funding?
The fund in question is called MIDMF… the “Manitoba Interactive Digital Media Fund”. It has three sections: prototyping, development and marketing. We’ve been in the prototype stage.

Read On!

How Does it Work?
It’s a “matching funds” program – that means that the government matches what your company invests in the game. So if you’re planning on investing $10k in a prototype, the government would give you $10k.

What Does it Take to Apply?
Quite a large pile of paper work… our final application ended up being about 70 pages.

How do you Pay it Back?
You only have to pay it back if the game you’re working on gets released. If the game is released and makes money, you pay back the amount (say $10k) over a period of time via a percentage cut, to be negotiated between you and the government.

What are the Qualifications?
Half or more of your “key” staff must be residents of Manitoba.

What are the Limits?
I believe the limit for the government’s portion was $20k for prototyping, $50k for development. (not sure about “marketing”)

That’s not a TON of Money in Game Development Terms…?
The old overall budget figure I’ve heard for an XBLA game was about $250k, a far cry from MIDMF’s ~$75k. However, for smaller, indie teams, the government’s matching funds proved to be quite helpful.

Sounds Pretty Decent! Where Do I Sign Up?
Unfortunately you can’t, because it has been canceled.

Aww…
Yeah, it kinda sucks. Manitoba still has a tax credit. (I’ve heard there are some potential issues with it, but I don’t know the details)

It felt like our province was a little bit ahead of some of the others with MIDMF, now it feels like we’re taking a huge step backwards.

But: we have a lot of good people working to improve the industry here, so I’m hoping that in the future we’ll see the creation of a new fund that goes even further in supporting the local game development scene.

That’s all the business I’ve got for you today. Thinking of dollar signs and numbers makes my brain hurt.

Previously…

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to go to the Manitoba legislative building to talk about new media government funding with other companies and the Minister of Technology. (and science and energy and mines) While the video blog is kinda goofy, the actual meeting was upbeat and sincere. The idea is to make it easier for new media companies to get off the ground in Winnipeg, and it seems like there are some folks in government who want to make this happen.

Unfortunately, governments contain a lot of slow-moving bureaucracy that is hard to control. Right now there are a fair number of stumbling blocks in the fund application process. We managed to help identify these issues and it seems like they will be fixed.

The meeting ended with all the involved parties feeling pretty hopeful about the future. All in all, it was a pretty fun and exciting morning.

My name is Christopher Lobay and I have never made a video game before. Does this matter? Hopefully not. Why? Well, I’ve loved games as long as I’ve been conscious, and I’ve spent most of my relatively short life being a creative workaholic and making *other* things, like “a successful design firm”:http://ambientempire.com and over a dozen films.

In my spare time I ride my fixed-gear bicycle, listen to many genres of music, read books, and chase after a particularly lovely young woman. In all seriousness, I’m really just so lucky to be included in an amazing project with such wonderfully talented people.

I wanted to talk briefly about part of what I do here at Infinite Ammo: marketing. More specifically: marketing your independent games.

Regardless of the various niche opinions on the matter, in general marketing “hype” is a good thing. Simply, it gets more people playing your game. Moreso, if you’re selling your game, it makes you money, and making money lets you make more more games. And, if you’re releasing your game as freeware, it gets you noticed, and getting noticed for a job well done is really nice. In the end, everyone loves to see people buying and playing independent games, and that’s exactly what marketing helps you achieve.