In this monthly series we invite brilliant people from the game industry to curate their top 5 videos from the GDC YouTube archive.
For October, we bring you top picks from (former Gamasutrian) Mike Rose, founder of No More Robots, the independent publisher behind games including Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw, and the upcoming Yes, Your Grace.
Rose is also a past GDC speaker himself, delivering talks on indie marketing and selling games on Steam.
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2014 vs. 2018: The Shape of Financial Success Before and After the Indiepocalypse – Jason Rohrer
I’ve been following Jason Rohrer’s work for yeeears now (especially when I was still writing for Gama!). When someone has launched as many games as Jason has, over such a long period of time, you know they must have some pretty dang good insights into how video games sell. With all the “Indiepocalypse” talk that has been going around over the last few years, this is an interesting dive into how Jason sees the indie game crash through his own eyes and experiences.
Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage – Bennett Foddy, Zach Gage
I’ve had this chat with many of the developers I’ve worked with, and it usually ends with “well, why wouldn’t you put your name on it?” I think many of the biggest names in indie development are as well known as they are in part for slapping their name either on their game, or in the name of their studio — I nearly did it myself with No More Robots (I was going to call it Rosecore Publishing, would you believe), but chickened out at the last minute (definitely for the better!).
Into the Breach Design Postmortem – Matthew Davis
I don’t watch as many design postmortems as I probably should, but Into the Breach was one I was very interested in. Subset Games has a knack for creating tight strategy games that always give you the feeling that you’re both one step away from winning and losing, all at the same time. Hearing how they balanced the wonderful Into the Breach is a treat.
Game Discoverability Day: NOTICE ME: The Grind Behind the $272K Funding Success of Boyfriend Dungeon – Victoria Tran
I haven’t personally ran a Kickstarter campaign yet, but if the day should arise, I’ll definitely be taking everything that Victoria Tran has to say onboard. Crowdfunding is such a tricky prospect, and it’s so easy to mess it up. So I would strongly advise that anyone planning to do so should put this talk in their mouth and chew it into teeny, tiny pieces.
How to Write Games for the Internet Without Embarrassing Yourself – Leighton Gray
Writing for video games sounds like it should be pretty dang easy, but let me tell you from experience — it doesn’t matter how good you are at writing in general, you’re probably going to be hot garbage at writing dialogue for a video game. Hearing advice and background from Leighton Gray, someone who is definitely not garbage and did the writing on the glorious Dream Daddy, is something you’ll want to do if you’re aiming to get into this line of work.
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