Hi all,

We have just published an editorial titled 'Release Day Nerves', which
talks about the stresses of releasing a game onto the market. If you
could post a link on your site that would be very much appreciated.

*Link:*
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/09/30/release-day-nerves/1


*Quote:
*/If you only got sales reports once a week, you could forget about them
for six days and just code, but like all indie devs, the first thing I
check in the morning is the sales emails, and it's the last thing I
check at night too. My mood, and how disposed I am to spending money has
become directly hard-wired into the sales emails. I'm pretty sure I
could chart endorphin levels alongside sales and see a scary correlation
over time. If I meet a mate for lunch and order steak, he knows sales
are good. A baguette though is a bad sign.

If you think I'm over-dramatizing it, think of it like this. Imagine you
haven't been paid a penny by your employer for the last year. You have
been living off your savings. On Wednesday, he will put your entire
salary on a random stock on the stock market. You will start getting
paid dividends from that day onwards. Will he pick the next Google? Or
the next Lehman Brothers?

If you actually have a physical job like I used to, the earnings fear
isn't so bad. A boat that's been nailed together is a boat that's been
nailed together. It might sell for a lot, or it might sell for a bit
less. A game that isn't fun though isn't just slightly less valuable
than a fun one, it's worth nothing. Zero. Some games really do sell
fifty times or a hundred times better than others with the same budget.
It's pretty much all fixed costs, and the amount recouped could go from
zero to a billion dollars./
*

*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley
www.bit-tech.net