DIY - How to start an Indie Operation

What the talk is about

Robert Bäckström explains how to start and grow an indie studio, using Fatshark, which he helped found, as the case study. In the early years the studio lived on work-for-hire, while its own MMO idea failed because the scope was too big and the teams on client work and on the own IP were disconnected. Real success came when the team spotted an opportunity: it inherited assets from a collapsed partner and quickly built a Wild West multiplayer game. Mistakes followed: hopping between genres, constant reorganizations, and self-publishing without a proper go-to-market plan. Later the studio found its strength in co-op games and kept a simple scope modeled on a proven game. His advice: value the team over the idea, never forget marketing, give people autonomy, split time roughly 50/50 between client work and own projects, and keep several prototypes. Useful for founders of indie studios.