Telegram.com: College Town
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette’s College Town takes a look at the 2013 Summer Innovation Program here.
NPR: Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal – AUDIO
MassDiGI’s Tim Loew comments on Zynga and the resiliency of the game industry.
An indie’s crowdsourcing survival guide – 5/31/13
An indie’s crowdsourcing survival guide
Blog by Ryan Casey, High Class Kitsch
Kickstarter is a very odd beast. There are projects hitting all levels of complexity and from just about any kind of people you can imagine. You could see a one man team looking to get a pet project funded for just $500. Then again, you can see Zach Braff asking for $2,000,000 for a new movie. However, no matter the size of the project or who is running it, one thing remains the same: You must find people and convince them that your project is awesome enough to give money to.
I am one of four members of a brand new indie studio, High Class Kitsch. Toward the beginning of April this year, we decided that we should run a Kickstarter campaign to help us release our game, Pandora: Purge of Pride. Nothing too odd about the story so far, right? Well, there are a couple things you should know about High Class Kitsch. When I say we are a brand new studio, I mean it. We originally formed as a student team to work on our senior project at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. That project is what would become Pandora: Purge of Pride, our debut title. This lack of direct, tangible evidence of previously published titles or big-name companies that we had worked for was going to make running our Kickstarter tough.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
However, we went for it. We set a goal of $5000, and I we buckled down for a busy month. I am happy to report that our Kickstarter ended today, and we exceeded our goal, reaching $6101. We are by no means rich off this, but we met each and every one of our goals. Now that we are at the end of our Kickstarter experience, I have some insight for anyone who is planning to fund their game, especially if you are super new like we are.
1. Know what you are selling
This may seem obvious. You may think, “But Ryan, I’m selling my Minecraft meets Octodad indie mega-hit!” First off, that would be an awesome game. However, that’s not all you are selling. You need to determine what makes your game absolutely incredible/irresistible in the first place. What’s your hook? Why should anyone care about your game? Figure that out before anything else. With Pandora, that was largely our art style. People responded well to the hand-painted look, and they found the Victorian setting unique. Thus, we showed off the art as much as possible.
There’s still more that you are selling though. As much as you need to sell your game, you need to sell yourself. What’s your team’s identity? What makes you interesting? Are you wacky and absurd? Are you a group of “mad scientists”? Where did you come from, and what’s your story? We at High Class Kitsch have a story, and we try to make it something unique. First, we came from being a student team and are now working at what we love full-time. That’s an innately interesting story. It’s also immediately apparent that we are friends and that we work well together, bouncing ideas and jokes off each other at a rapid-fire pace. Further, we make games that are enjoyable by the larger audience of players (eschewing the “bro gamer” or the “hardcore”), and we like to turn gaming tropes on their head a little bit. Finally, we let our sense of humor show in our team name (High Class Kitsch, taking a stab at the idea of games being essentially product-art, or “kitsch”) and in our mascot, Kitschy Kitty. Once you have the identity for your team and your game figured out, you can move on to actually working on your Kickstarter campaign.
2. Form relationships with other teams on Kickstarter at the same time as you
Working with people proved invaluable while we ran our campaign. Indies love helping out other indies and seeing them succeed. In that spirit, I reached out to a handful of indie teams looking to fund their games at the same time we were.
In some cases, I had met the designer before. I had met Mo, the man behind A.N.N.E., at MIGS last November when both of our games were in extremely early stages of development. When I saw he had a Kickstarter going as we did, I sent him a message and asked if he would be interested in cross-promoting. He was, and we ended up referring each of our projects’ backers to the other project. I can’t speak for Mo, but I found this hugely helpful. We got a solid bump in backers and a whole bunch of gamers who may not have heard of us before got to thanks to Mo.
In the end we cross-promoted with four indie games (A.N.N.E., Boon Hill, Magnetic by Nature, and Dog Sled Saga) and a local musician (Danielle Staples). This sort of promotion is great because both parties benefit, but it also helps in the long run by setting up cooperative relationships between your team and other teams around the world.
3. Keep your backers informed and involved
This point is another one that may seem obvious, but you have to consider how you will inform your backers before, during, and after the campaign. Before you even start, you need to make a good project video. Kickstarter drives this into your head as you are making your project, but, seriously, do it. It’s a great chance to showcase your game and your team’s identity.
Posting regular updates helps a lot too. These will allow your backers to know what your team is up to, what’s coming in the future, and give them an opportunity to post comments. Those comments are great. Pay attention to them and respond in a friendly, informative manner. This will help keep your backers feeling connected to your project.
4. Use social media
Social media and keeping your backers involved go hand in hand. You probably already have a fair amount of friends, family, and followers on various networks, and you can use them as a springboard. However, do not depend on them. Expand. One particularly useful idea for us was to have a Reddit AMA. Yes, Reddit can have some trolls, but that’s fine. For every troll you get, you get 3 good questions and potential backers. Use this to your advantage. If I learned anything about people during this Kickstarter, it’s that people are much more willing to support you if you actually talk to them openly and honestly.
5. Use the actual media (a.k.a. Interviews rock!)
I am referring to a couple things when I say the “actual media”. Basically it’s anything where someone else is writing or talking about you, be it in the newspaper, online, in a blog, podcasts, or on the radio. Over the course of our Kickstarter we had a solid amount of interviews with various outlets. These ranged from being the first guests at The d-Pad radio show on UNRegular Radio (our episode isn’t up yet) to a very nice piece on our studio from nJoystic. We had a couple bloggers give us a shout out, and we even had the Worcester Telegram & Gazette cover us (twice!). Do not skip over any opportunity to talk about your game. People want to hear interesting stories, and you can provide them with plenty. Game development is crazy, and is very interesting, especially to outlets that are not directly concerned with games.
That said, this will not just happen for you. Reach out to journalists and bloggers. Arrange deals with Let’s Players or streamers to demonstrate your game. Take the initiative. Not everyone will respond or be able to cover your game. However, some people will be able to and will be more than happy to. The only way to make sure no one covers your game is to not talk to anyone.
Any time you get to talk about your game is another place that will send their readers/viewers/listeners to your Kickstarter.6. Get your game into the hands of gamers
Gamers love playing games. Gaming is probably their primary hobby. They are excited for something new, and you have that new thing. Go to absolutely every single event that you can demo your game in-person. Nothing is too small or too big.
We were at PAX East this year. Pandora was one of four games being shown at WPI’s booth. That booth was behind the immense Capcom and Double Fine booths, and right next to the very popular Divekick booth. We used this as an opportunity to bring in as many gamers to play the demo we had. While they were playing we would talk to them, get feedback, and generally have a pleasant conversation. There is nothing better for your game than a bunch of gamers playing your game, enjoying it, and then talking about it with other people. I have had people telling me that they were happy to see us on Kickstarter based purely on the demo they played at PAX.
Oh, and remember: anyone can be a gamer. One of our biggest fans at PAX was a woman who hadn’t played games “in ages”, in her own words. However, when she sat down to try out Pandora, she loved it. She said it was the first game she really loved since the classic adventure games of the early 90’s. Another huge fan that we gained at PAX was a kid around 9 or 10. He loved exploring the mansion and hearing Pandora’s narration while his dad helped him with the trickier puzzles. These gamers will be more than happy to back you on Kickstarter as well.
7. Care about what your Kickstarter page looks like
Back to the actual Kickstarter page. Your Kickstarter needs to look good. This is especially true for games. Taking the time to address small details, such as making your own section headers rather than simply using bold text, will show potential backers that you care. An eye for detail on your Kickstarter page will convince them that you had the same eye for detail while designing your game.
This carries through to your backer video as well. This is one point where we were criticized. Our video didn’t look polished, and that’s largely because it wasn’t. It was a bunch of footage caught on shaky-cam and compiled. My recommendation: find someone who actually knows how to shoot and edit video, and get them to help with your backer video. They will do a much better job that you will.
8. Set reasonable goals, but add some crazy ones too
Ah, here comes the ever-thrilling topic of money. How do you determine what your goal should be? How do you set backer rewards? What actually works?
You need to form a budget. There is absolutely zero way around this. Crack open Excel and start documenting every single expense that you need to cover with your Kickstarter. What software and licenses do you need? What legal fees do you need to pay? Don’t forget any hardware you might need as well.
Then, look at how much you should have for yourself, if you plan to cover any development-time costs with your Kickstarter. A good formula is as follows:
Cost = (Amount of money you need to live on/month) * (months to develop game) * (# of people)
We were lucky in that regard, in that we got to do a lot of our development while still students at WPI, and that counted for school credit. If you are developing games full time, however, this will likely be your greatest cost.
Then you have to create rewards and budget for them. As a general rule of thumb, you should spend 15-20% of a given reward level on the reward you are giving to the backer. This ensures that you are making money, but the backer is getting a good value reward. Another fun fact to consider: the most common level backers will go with on Kickstarter is $25. However, you can bump up that average (as we did, to ~$35) by offering some creative rewards for higher backer levels. These rewards should include something that actually involves the backer in the game somehow. Maybe they get to be an exclusive beta tester. Maybe you include them in-game somehow (we offered portraits of them to be included in Pandora’s mansion). This is where you can get really creative, so have fun! Which leads me to my final point…
9. GET PUMPED!
Get really pumped! And stay pumped! The best way to get people excited about your game, your Kickstarter, and just about anything that you do is to show that excitement yourself. Think about this: you are making a video game that other people can play. It will be distributed via a massive network of computers, and funded by a worldwide audience of awesome people. Even a generation ago, this would have been essentially impossible. You are doing something awesome, so you should definitely show your genuine enthusiasm in everything that goes into your Kickstarter. It may seem cheesy, but it helps. People get excited when they can tell someone is doing something they love.
Setting up and running a Kickstarter is not easy. Not at all. It is worth it though. Hopefully this helps some of you out there who are going to fund your projects on Kickstarter in the future!
P.S. Kicktraq is a super useful resource for you once your Kickstarter has started. Check them out.
Ed. Note – High Class Kitsch is currently working out of MassDiGI’s summer accelerator space at Becker College. This post originally appeared on their website.
MassDiGI: SIP ’13 Kicks Off
Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray helped to officially kick off the second annual MassDiGI Summer Innovation Program with students pursuing careers in digital and video game development, and recognized the role this dynamic young organization is playing in bringing new jobs and energy to the state’s technology community.
“I am proud to have partnered with President Johnson [chair of the MassDiGI Advisory Board] and the Becker College community to advance opportunities for students pursuing careers in the state’s growing digital and video game industry,” said Lt. Gov. Murray. “Video games are a growing industry, and MassDiGI is dedicated to helping students improve their talent and help Massachusetts stay competitive in the increasingly global marketplace of the 21st Century.”
Please click to read the stories from the Worcester Business Journal, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, NECN (video) and Worcester Magazine. To view more pictures from the event, click here.
Lt. Gov. Tim Murray & Becker College President Robert Johnson kick off SIP ’13.
2013 SIP Launch Event with Lieut. Gov. Tim Murray: May 29, 2013 – Worcester, MA
Please join MassDiGI, Becker College and Lieut. Gov. Tim Murray for a special 2013 Summer Innovation Program (SIP) launch event.
Location: Becker College, Weller Academic Center, Lecture Hall 210, 61 Sever St., Worcester, MA 01609
Lieut. Gov. Murray to join MassDiGI at Becker College to officially kick off the second annual MassDiGI Summer Innovation Program with students pursuing careers in digital and video game development.
9:30 a.m. Dr. Robert Johnson, President, Becker College and Chair, MassDiGI Advisory Board to offer welcoming remarks
9:35 a.m. Lieut. Gov. Murray to offer remarks
9:45 a.m. Lieut. Gov. Murray and all attendees to meet/greet students in the program, discuss projects, opportunities and entrepreneurship
Refreshments to be served.
Click here to RSVP.
Summer in the city (#gamedev style) – 5/8/13
Summer in the city (#gamedev style)
Blog by Tim Loew, Executive Director, MassDiGI
It is that time of year again! MassDiGI’s 2013 Summer Innovation Program (SIP) is just around the corner. Beginning on May 21st, 22 students representing 10 colleges and universities – Northeastern, Berklee, UMass Lowell, WPI, Becker, Hampshire, RISD, Champlain, RPI and Union – will join us in the game lab on Becker’s campus in Worcester for what is the most immersive (and fun) game development internship program in the region.
This year, for the 22 positions, we received 84 eligible applications from students, both undergraduate and graduate, representing 24 colleges and universities. That’s an increase of 29 applications over last year. Needless to say, this is a very competitive program and selecting participants from such a high-achieving, talented applicant pool was a challenge.
The 7 women and 15 men taking part in SIP can expect, to paraphrase one of last year’s participants, “one of the best, if not the best, learning experiences you’ll have.” With support from veteran game industry staff, mentors, entrepreneurs and advisors, the students will be working on 4 great team projects. The projects are: Wobbles (winner of the best entertainment game – student category at this year’s Game Challenge), a collaborative project with NeuroScouting, a collaborative project with the Indie Game Collective and a collaborative project with Zeebi Lab (runner-up for the Overdriver.com best online game (serious) at this year’s Game Challenge). We think this mixture of projects will be really exciting for all the student artists, programmers, designers and producers.
In addition to these great projects, students, who receive a stipend as well as free residence hall housing courtesy of Becker, will have the opportunity to visit area game development studios, attend game industry meet-ups and events.
From time to time during the course of the summer, SIP teams will be blogging about their projects, business models, technology challenges, design choices, art styles, team dynamics, mentor sessions etc. so keep an eye out for some cool posts. And like last year, we’ll be holding an Open House in early August where teams will demo their work. Follow us on Twitter @MassDiGI or like us at FB/massdigi for updates all summer long!
5/18/13 – Update – A student from UMass Lowell received great news and will not be in SIP this summer. Therefore, in the program at this time there will be 21 students representing 9 colleges and universities.
Game Portfolio Review/Mock Interview Round-up: April 19, 2013 – Worcester, MA
Students, particularly juniors and seniors, are welcome to join for a day of portfolio review and mock interviews with game industry professionals. This event is co-sponsored by Interactive Selection, Becker College Career Services, Becker College Student IGDA Chapter and MassDiGI.
Game designers and game artists from various MA-based game studios will review portfolios, provide advice and conduct mock interviews with students.
Review team includes game pros with current and prior game credits at Turbine, EA, Sony Online, Proletariat, Disruptor Beam, Fire Hose Games, Dejobaan Games, Zynga Boston, Stomp Games, Giant Spacekat, Hitpoint Studios and Creat Studios.
For reviews, please bring your game design or game art portfolio on a laptop or memory key. For interviews, please bring two printed copies of your resume.
Reviews and interviews are 15-20 minutes each, and are scheduled on a first-come, first-serve basis. You are welcome to sign up for multiple reviews and interviews with our team of game pros!
For more info, contact Jonathan Munoz, Becker College IGDA Chapter coordinator at jonathanmunoz213(at)live.com.
April 19, 2013, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Becker College, 80 William St., Worcester, MA
Free and open to the community. To RSVP and for more details, please click here.
Some of the game pros who will be on hand include:
John Anderson, Game Animator
John a graduate of The New England Institute of Art with a B.S. in Media Arts and Animation. He currently works for VisibleBody in Newton, MA, creating assets and animation for interactive iPad apps using the Unity game engine. He also worked for ForgeFX creating character and environment assets for an unreleased UAV Drone Simulator. Released credits include the Visible Body Atlas, Visible Body Muscular and the soon to be released Visible Body Anatomy and Physiology apps.
Fiona Cherbak, Game Staffing
Fiona is a games industry staffing professional, and has provided recruiting services for leading clients such as Activision, Disney, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, NCsoft, and Sony. Fiona is currently Director of U.S. Operations for Interactive Selection, a global games recruitment firm with nearly 200 clients in over 20 countries. She was previously Senior Staffing Specialist for Irrational Games and Senior Talent Acquisition Manger for Tencent Boston.
Maria Enderton, Game Programmer
Maria is the Lead Programmer and Technical Artist at Giant Spacekat Productions, an indie studio producing their first title, Revolution 60, using Unreal Engine for iOS. Their demo debuted at PAX East. She has a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Macalester College and Certificate in 3D Animation from Boston University CDIA.
Jeremy Ellis, Game Designer
Starting in 2001, Jeremy’s game design career has taken him to Sony Online Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Tencent Boston. He has shipped 7 titles including The Sims 3 and several Everquest incarnations. He is currently pursuing an independent project in the board game space.
Jenna Hoffstein, Game Designer
Jenna is a local game designer who, after a number of years in the industry, has recently founded her own one-woman studio called Monster & Glitch. Jenna focuses on developing games that are beautiful, meaningful, and full of personality. Her recent design credits include The Golden Arrow (Monster & Glitch), and Robot Rising (Stomp Games/Tencent). Her early game career experience was as an art assistant for Turbine.
Scott Hyman, Game Artist
Scott holds nearly two decades of video game industry experience, most recently overseeing development for Creat Studios and MocoSpace. He created and animated characters and environments for Pandemic Studios, DreamWorks Interactive, Activision and more, developing games for high-profile properties such as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Sesame Street and Pitfall. He was previously a Project Coordinator at EA Mobile/JAMDAT and a Producer at Vivendi.
Ichiro Lambe, Game Designer
Ichiro is Founder and President of Dejobaan Games, an independent Boston-area game development studio. He’s worked in the industry since 1993, co-founding Worlds Apart Productions (later Sony Online Entertainment Denver) in 1995 and Dejobaan Games in 1999.
David LoVecchio, Game Animator
David has been working as an animator in the game industry since 2006. He currently works as a Senior Animator at Fire Hose Games in Cambridge, MA. Titles he has worked on are: Empire Earth III (Mad Doc Software), Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 (Rockstar-New England), Project Copernicus (38 Studios), and most recently Go Home Dinosaurs! (Fire Hose Games).
Jeremy Miller, Game Artist
Jeremy is Character Artist and graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design who’s published titles include Robot Rising, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and Dark Age of Camelot: Darkness Rising. His professional experience includes MMO, ARPG, and RTS game development, working with both original and Licensed IP for EA Mythic and Timegate Studios.
Jonathon Myers, Game Designer
Jonathon is a freelance narrative designer and writer. His recent work includes Game of Thrones Ascent by Disruptor Beam, Jack Lumber by Owlchemy Labs, and Indiana Jones Adventure World by Zynga Boston. He’s currently working on the interactive radio drama Codename: Cygnus for release on iOS.
Morgan Ogburn, Game Artist/Art Director
Morgan has games and film experience as Art Director, Lead Artist, Senior Artist and Concept Artist, working on game titles such as Resident Evil 5 (cinematics), TRON: Legacy and a $10 mm FPS project for UTV Ignition. He has worked with Hitpoint Studios, Creat Studios, Activision, Warthog Studios and Origin Systems (EA). Morgan has also contributed art direction, illustration, graphic design, web design, digital matte painting and storyboarding for comics and book publishing, film and television.
Seth Sivak, Game Designer/Programmer
Seth started in the industry as an Engineer and has been a Product Manager, Lead Designer and Executive Producer. He has worked at a start-up called Conduit Labs, Zynga Boston, Disney and is currently the CEO of a new studio called Proletariat Inc.
Briannu Wu, Game Designer/Programmer
Brianna Wu is head of development for Giant Spacekat, an independent development team specializing in cinematic experiences using Unreal. She specializes in cinematic scripting, level design and asset creation. She likes dance music, running and racing motorcycles.
“So, you want to work in the game industry?” by Fiona Cherbak, Interactive Selection – Franklin M. Loew Lecture Series at Becker College: April 10, 2013 – Worcester, MA
So, you want to work in the game industry?
April 10, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Becker College, Weller Academic Center, Lecture Hall, 61 SeverStreet, Worcester, MA
Fiona Cherbak is a staffing professional who develops strategies and recruiting campaigns for a wide range of game companies. She has provided services for Activision, Disney, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, NCsoft, Sony, THQ, and more. She’s been a regular speaker at GDC’s Game Career Seminar series, and an advisory board member and speaker at SXSW Screenburn/SXSW Interactive. She is co-producer of the Boston Festival of Indie Games and has supported IndieCade and Fantastic Arcade. A former chairperson for IGDA Women in Games SIG, and a founding member of Women in Games International, she is currently director of U.S. operations for Interactive Selection, a global games recruitment firm with nearly 200 clients in more than 20 countries. She was previously senior staffing specialist for Irrational Games and senior talent acquisition manager for Tencent Boston.
Free and open to the community. Seating is limited. RSVP to lectures(at)becker.edu.
PAX East Press: MassDiGI in the News
PAX East 2013 may be over but you can still read/watch all about through the selected links below – all of which feature comments from MassDiGI.
NECN Morning Show (VIDEO)
WBZ/CBS Radio (AUDIO)
NECN: CEO Corner – VIDEO
NECN’s Peter Howe talks games and entrepreneurship with 2013 MassDiGI Game Challenge winners Erik Asmussen of 82 Apps, maker of PWN, Zoe Quinn of Depression Quest and Tim Loew of MassDiGI. Watch the three video segments below or click here.
