Bootstrapping an MMO with its MVPs
Published in 2010, this chronicle by @Partyboat details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 13 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
I'm a bit confused by the tone of this article. It sounds like the writer doesn't really understand the gaming industry, indie games, or the flash gaming market.
plus sponsors are salivating with anticipation for his upcoming "games" which are actually nothing more than gameplay prototypes and/or funding infusions.
What? Steambirds isn't really a game? All its polish and carefully refined gameplay doesn't get it past prototype status? Even a seemingly simple game like that takes months to create for just one person. There is nothing about the game that feels unfinished. To me this sounds like if you told people you work as a senior programmer at a (funded) web startup and they ask "Oh, cool! So, what do you do for money?"
One of my favourite tidbits is that he did no direct sales -- he just uploaded to a game licensing site and gave them 10%.
This makes it pretty obvious he is ignorant of the flash market. This is par for the course in Flash games; you almost never see people do direct sales (Captain Forever being a notable exception) and 99% of the games you see are sold to sponsors and then put on the sponsor portals. I find it pretty weird that he thought it was some dangerous and ingenious business model that Andy thought of himself.
Sorry to have one of those "but someone is WRONG on the INTERNET" moments, but I would have liked the article if it just weren't so ignorant of what its writing about.
Very interesting stuff, specially for those of us building our dream mmos (http://developingthedream.blogspot.com/)
I wouldn't have gone the route he did though, I probably would have invested the original million dollars in something a bit safer than a software company that yields less profit.
After working on my game for a year now and don't ever see myself selling it if/when I release it. I'd much rather live off a little bit of money and make the game I want.