10 Rules for Making a Living as a Small F2P Studio

Beamable’s CEO Jon Radoff gave a lightning talk sponsored by the Boston Indies & Women in Games Boston where he presented the rules for making a living as a small game studio. Check out the replay on Twitch!

Here are the rules:

1. Shift your mindset from making a game to providing an entertainment service — Think about how you will ship new content every day. Every week.
2. Break some rules — The games that stand out aren’t simply clones. Try merging genres!
3. Establish scarcity in your economy — It needs to take a long time and/or lots of money to acquire the best game items.
4. Don’t cap the size of your economy — The biggest design mistake is running out of things to buy or acquire.
5. Implement effective merchandising — Constantly experiment with price points, bundles, new content to buy.
6. Run events! Lots of events! — Tie your events to limited-time merchandising that aligns with the event.
7. Give players compelling and meaningful social interactions — They will talk about your game for decades.
8. Engage with your players — Become known for great community and customer support.
9. Focus your time and effort on making the stuff that stands out — Use platforms like Beamable.com to give you the business foundation for social, events and merchandising.
10. Go for it! — If you want to make a game then make a game! Give it everything you have. You can win because most people in this business aren’t going to put in the effort.

Watch the whole replay for the details!