Successful officeless game studio tells its secrets

[CaptainJester]

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/features/virtualOffice/

[ewjordan]

Interesting stuff.  Took a look at their homepage (http://www.boomzap.com/), looks like they're putting out some pretty polished games for a virtual studio.  Couldn't play the demos on my Mac (Windows only), so can't comment on anything but the videos.

I wonder how it's working business-wise.  Without a real hit or a steady stream of commissioned projects, it's pretty hard to run a profitable indie studio based purely on direct sales, but once you remove a lot of the real world presence costs, it probably becomes quite a bit easier.

Would be an interesting approach for a more ambitious and cohesive project - I've always thought the "mini-games within a macro-game" genre was particularly well suited to geographically diverse development, since tasks are very easy to split up (a few people on each game).

[princec]

Very interesting article. Puppygames has been a virtual studio since its inception, although we've only been part-time for most of it, and of course, we've not been even remotely successful - these guys say they've been profitable and stable since 2005! Which is odd, looking at their rather small portfolio of run-of-the-mill casual fare. Maybe casual games really are where all the money is, which is a sad day for core gamers

Cas

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[TimB]

Very interesting article. Puppygames has been a virtual studio since its inception, although we've only been part-time for most of it, and of course, we've not been even remotely successful - these guys say they've been profitable and stable since 2005! Which is odd, looking at their rather small portfolio of run-of-the-mill casual fare. Maybe casual games really are where all the money is, which is a sad day for core gamers

Cas

The casual gaming market is huge...considerably larger than the subscription MMO market, although I don't have the figures handy for how it compares to the rest of gaming as a whole.

[princec]

Some interesting casual gaming figures here. That's just one of the big companies in the space.

Cas

[ewjordan]

Maybe casual games really are where all the money is, which is a sad day for core gamers

What surprises me is that people are paying outright to purchase these types of casual games when the internet is awash in free Flash games that hit just about every casual genre.  I can understand it with studios like Popcap, who deliver higher quality casual stuff than most, but I'm kind of amazed that some places appear to be successfully (as measured by volume, if not profit) selling games that might as well be done in Flash...

[Eli Delventhal]

I'm sure that in the fledgling mobile market you could make a successful virtual studio. You just need one programmer and one artist who can work well together, anywhere in the globe.