How to Make an Ambitious Indie Project Happen?

What the talk is about

Igor Tymoshenko and Oleksandr Sienin of Starni Games use five years of their studio's financial history to show how to plan indie projects. Key points: the plan should cover at least three years, and the financial plan must rest on a technical one, such as several games of one genre on a shared engine and toolset. Their first game went into early access over budget and sold poorly, yet it left a codebase, pipelines and assets that let later games in the series ship faster and closer to budget. The speakers advise setting in advance the thresholds at which to cut staff or close the company, not letting development run past two years, having a technical director from the start, opening a Steam page early, and using demos, festivals and discounts. Useful for indie teams and studio founders.