Over Cloud9

Over Cloud9, Kolkata

Started in late 2009, Over Cloud9 rapidly established itself as a successful hub of RPG games from India. A foray by two sisters, Moumita and Priyanka from Kolkata, Over Cloud9 is a very good example of how an indie studio can build itself a niche of loyal gamers in a brief amount of time. We talk to Moumita on her journey so far.

How do you define yourselves as an indie developer?

I break rules! Being an indie gives me enough freedom to fearlessly explore uncharted waters of gaming and experiment with new stuff because I don't have big money to lose. That way, we indies breath life of innovation, creativity and freshness into new games instead of churning out generic titles.

How did you start?

From the scratch ;) I used to be an RPG lover and started by writing free walkthroughs for them. Then I thought of reselling those same games on my own website with the walkthroughs so that people can get both from the same place. Then was born the idea of creating my own games. And that is how time flew by and here I am now, heading my own business with some decent monthly sustainance from it enough to cover my own costs and help create more games ;).

How fun is being an indie developer?

I work hard and play harder :D The fun part is the freedom of your decisions and learning things through experimentation.

What is a usual day for you?

I wake up at 11 am, check my mails and start working as per my plans. I usually have work scheduled in order of importance and take them one at the time and finish them off. I focus more on keeping track of the current industry trends, working on learning and practising more marketing techniques, creating and fine-tuning the design concepts of my future games, allocating asset creations to various artists or websites, etc. The day ends at 12-1 pm.

How do you make games?

By using game engines LOL. The artwork and music is usually outsourced, the game design, production and marketing is handled by me.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where you come from and where do you want to go? Why Indie?

When I did my engineering in IT, little did I dream that I would take up gaming as my career. I come from a humble bengali family in Kolkata and currently I'm in Bangalore owing to the needs of my business. I'm more skillfull in game marketing and distribution, however I'm looking forward to playing the role of game producer and help other indies in game production.

What has been the driving force for Over Cloud9?

Dreams, blatant day dreams! Games allow my imaginations to run wild and do something out of the blue. They are my best possible manifestations of creativity and innovation.Gaming is an unusual and unexpected career for me, it just 'happened' to me. I usually plan my career and other stuff, but this was just a development of my love of games into a reality.

What are the challenges and advantages of your specific medium?

You won't like me start my rantings now ;) The challenges are many, yet there are many advantages also if one can grasp it. I have discussed it elaborately in my recent blog post citing my own experiences, pitfalls and learnings - Life of an Indie (Part 1)

How critical is DRM? Is it in your plans?

I have never used DRM in any of my games and neither do I plan to. The reason - I searched for cracks/hacks of each DRM I know and I found all of them are available in pirated websites. If they can't protect their own software using their own DRM from pirates, how can they protect my software? Pirates will always find a way to pirate a game if it is popular enough. So why punish the innocent customers with complications or keys and registration processes, when they are willing to buy my game? I don't want to waste my money and time on it. Honest customers, who really liked your game will always pay you, the non paying ones will never pay even if you design the world's impossible-to-crack DRM. I trust my customers and they trust me. Piracy alone cannot kill my business. If my games are good enough, they will always generate revenue for me.

Tell us a bit about the games you have developed? How have they performed in the Industry?

So far I have developed only one game for the PC platform, which is a 2D RPG. I don't want to mass produce games for sustainance, which is why I have other games on my website for that purpose. I want to create good commercial games (no oxymorons intended), so I'd rather create a budget, plan my schedules and spend time in developing a good game that would give me back the time and money I invested in it and earn me the supreme satisfaction of entertaining my customers with something fresh, creative and engaging.

What are the various aspects of game development? Which is your strongest one?

I'm sure developers don't just want to develop good games, they want to earn money too. So they have to plan their project even before thinking of a game. The game development is not limited to simply game production, the pre-production and post-production processes are very, very important. The success of the entire game depends on the pre-production, when one decides what demography he wants to target, what platforms, genre and configurations. That is because the graphical enhancements, the game style and the content heavily depends on that.

The entire production will now realize this plan. When the game is halfway complete, one should start creating a buzz about it and it's expected release date. Marketing is involved in every phase of the entire development cycle. Once the game is completed, then starts the post production work, which mainly includes a thorough testing on various configurations, bug fixing, release and promotions, getting reviews, submissions to portals,etc.

My strongest is pre-production and marketing.

How has been the experience so far? Some lessons learned?

The experience has been a mixed bag so far. I learnt from my mistakes, but feel that I'm on the right track and with hard work and dedication, I can achieve what I dream of.

Tell us about your business model and how things fit in?

That's a trade secret ;) I keep trying new stuff, so it is a flexible one with the basic structure of production and commerce woven in.

How has social media helped you?

Social media has helped me receive potential audiences and to keep my recurring players and customers up to date about what is going on. It is easy to inform all my members about any update, game releases, etc just by one single message instead of sending a time-consuming newsletter which some might consider intrusive. There are many other developers who have earned viral popularity and huge success using the social media, though I think I haven't exploited social media much yet.

What are the highs and lows of being an Indie Developer?

This is a long long answer which I have ranted and cheered about in my blog. In short, quoting an anonymous author- an entrepreneur is a person who works for 16 hours a day to avoid working for 8 hours for his employer. Being a indie gives a lot of freedom of expression in terms of never-before game ideas and general way of life and business.

Also since an indie doesn't have very advanced system or technology to work with, his games usually require moderate system specifications which means he has a larger market capturing potential than AAA titles who make high end games playable only in high end systems.  But during the starting phase, the amount of hardwork and research that needs to be done to kick off to success can be very challenging and demotivating.

Unless you know your market and the marketing tactics, no matter how good your game is, you are doomed. However, once you know what you want, plan well and learn to use the media properly, success will kiss your feet. Keeping an indie business running is more difficult than starting it.

Do you think the Indie Game Scene feels something like the Renaissance?

No. There may be huge changes in the gaming scene in general with huge advancement in technology, artwork, music, marketing channels, etc, still the way an indie conducts his business in terms of delivering game remains the same. The audience awareness has increased, but it doesn't helps much if the indie games do not keep up to the quality standard like it's bigger competitors.

What would you suggest as the model for indie development? How to survive in the industry?

It is difficult to discuss business strategies within such constraints. There are many successful models which developers have discovered. The most notable ones are as follows:

1. Make a free game and put it up in your own website. Spread the word about the game and once popularity picks up, you already have a ready market to launch a commercial game. Your existing players will know the type and style of game you make from your free game. They happily buy it as soon as it releases, so there is no wait period after releasing your next game which can be commercial. Examples of developers who have followed this model and become successful are- Amanda Fitch (amaranthia.com), Damien Aldorlea (aldorlea.org).
2. Start selling other developer's games on your site and release indigenous products which has to do something with those games (reviews, game hints, walkthroughs, cheats, etc). Like for me, I had started writing walkthroughs for RPG games I played. At that time, very few people used to sell or do walkthroughs for indie games like those. Because my walkthroughs were free to use, players used to come to my site to read it and saw similar games hosted. Gradually they started buying my products and other games hosted as they already had trusted and tested my products. That is how my business started and has come a long way ever since.
3. Build a gaming community where players can discuss, play or submit their games or other games they like, reviews, trailers, news, previews, videos, mods, etc . That way, in short time a lot of interested players will start referring more players and like-minded friends they know to the site. Then you can create and start selling your own games in such communities or sell other developer's products whose games are featured or discussed in that forum, or games which are similar to those. There are many other ways you can earn from such communities apart from selling any gaming product like renting advertising space, etc. Examples of such communities are plenty like ModDB, etc.
4. If you are a programmer, create your own game engine in your spare time (may be during weekends or free time after work) and make a "freemium" business model to sell it, or you can go the usual licensing way. That will encourage people to buy your engine, make games with it, sell it and you can earn revenue from licensing it. Also you can create your own games with it. Examples of indie developer are few, but nevertheless worth mentioning- Game maker,Indie Game Engine, NeoAxis engine, etc.
5. If you know sufficient advertisers who are interested to sponsor or put ads in your game, then you can give away your game for free and earn from the ad revenue. This is the most popular adver-gaming business model which has been employed by many many bigger companies also these days. The only problem at the beginning is to get advertisers interested in putting money in your game and tracking the impressions/clicks rates. Examples: games like Oblivion, Angry Birds, etc have in-game advertising.

Survival in the industry: There is a very simple answer for that- Marketing, marketing and marketing! Also know your competition and know your market. These three are the only ways to SURVIVE in the scene.

What should we expect from Over Cloud9 in the days to come?

More games. And with some more successful titles we will be venturing into different platforms, new gameplay ideas, etc.

Self publishing, Digital distribution, no more middle men? Any word of advice to up and coming Indies who have dreams of selling their games and getting rich (only to keep themselves in computers, Internet and pizza of course)

Initially, getting your game more exposure and popularity is quite important than merely selling. Middle men like game portals serve a good platform for that purpose. Their revenue distribution to developers are really low, but the return are high even with low percentages of profits earned. Middle men can't really be obliterated, especially indies, because they do not have enough funds to do immense marketing all over the world.

Digital distribution is the best way for quick selling than retail marketing when it comes to games as delivery is simple and easy for softwares. However, no marketing channels should be ignored if you want to be popular. Because it is popularity that makes a game sell more than it's quality (yes a sad truth). I have seen loads of crap getting sold at exorbitant prices just because they were published by huge companies. So, you need to grab any source of marketing you can lay your hands upon if you are thinking of long term presence in the industry.