mid_gen's Launch a Game Studio Thread

mid_gen said:
Well, pleasantly surprised how that first video did, given the slapdash thumbnail and production. Views are good for a new channel and particularly engagement, 15 likes from 85 views is really good and the number of comments.

Was hoping to get some stuff done today but I’m currently at the vets and have been up all night looking after our sick house rabbit. Fun and games. Going to be good for nowt but sleep later.
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I'm sorry to hear about your rabbit.

Out of interest, and without wishing to derail the thread too much, I'm seriously considering getting a pet and in the past I have thought about a house-rabbit.
What concerns me, though, is the possibility of it chomping through cables. :D Got any quick tips to bear in mind when looking after one (or two of them... I assume they're social creatures).

I last had rabbits about 40 years ago, but those were kept outside.
 
arc@css said:
I'm sorry to hear about your rabbit.

Out of interest, and without wishing to derail the thread too much, I'm seriously considering getting a pet and in the past I have thought about a house-rabbit.
What concerns me, though, is the possibility of it chomping through cables. :D Got any quick tips to bear in mind when looking after one (or two of them... I assume they're social creatures).

I last had rabbits about 40 years ago, but those were kept outside.
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Haha, no worries, love talking about the bunnies. We have two of them, definitely better having them in pairs they are much happier and it’s very cute the way they bond so closely. Always had dogs and cats as a kid but don’t think we’d have anything but rabbits now, they are such characters.

No denying you have to accept things will get chomped, up to you to make sure anything chompable is sealed off so they can’t get to it, although you may be lucky, they are quite individual, one of ours eats everything, skirting boards, walls, furniture….the other is super chilled and never eats anything.

They’re super cool pets but do take a bit of practice, worth asking stuff on r/rabbits on Reddit.

Anyway, back to the games! Looks like YouTube has figured out my audience, 20 subs, 120 odd views, really good like and engagement rates. I just went back and compared the first video I uploaded on my climbing channel years back, and this has done more numbers already in a day and half. Very encouraging!

Now I just need to sleep.
 
Another night getting up every few hours to feed the rabbit :( Seems to be pulling through now though.

Question for people, what channels do you use for your games industry news and content?

Personally, OCUK is probably the main one. ArsTechnica for general tech. Gamesindustry.biz for industry news. Reddit i am slowly losing faith in but there’s still a lot of good stuff amid the AI slop.

Discord I have started using a bit more, have a few servers with other indie devs. I have a Moth Empire server but not posting on it yet, once I start working on a prototype I’ll probably host a closed testers channel on there and stream some actual development work.

Patreon? Considering it, can’t hurt to set it up. Might set up a paid membership for entry to the closed testing group but give OCUk members access for free.

Waffling, I am so short on sleep! I gotta just sit on the sofa all day and observe the rabbit and make sure he’s eating so will be spending a good chunk of time on the design docs for Subliminal.
 
Scotty123 said:
As someone in the games industry I just casually read what ever pops up on the UK games industry slack.
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Not actually on there, mainly as Slack is painful to use with multiple servers and I prefer to keep it closed when I'm not working for my fintech client that uses it!

Scribbled down some notes last night for the next vlog, will be recording it this lunchtime if the weather holds.
 
mid_gen said:
Question for people, what channels do you use for your games industry news and content?
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I follow a couple of solo devs/small indies on TikTok, YouTube & Reddit. If they have a Discord, I may also join that if they're doing a game/tool I'm really excited for.
Other bits and pieces of news or updates I tend to pick up from The Indie Informer, Kotaku, Polygon, GamesIndustry.biz, and on the extremely rare occasion, through the Google news feed on my phone.
 
mid_gen said:
So, people reading my posts on here for a while might have seen I'd been considering this for a while, waffle incoming :

I've been a professional game developer at AAA studio the past 12 years or so, with another 10 years software engineering and business analysis experience prior to that. I have been Lead AI Programmer for most of that time in games, and started on the Settlers franchise at Blue Byte. Fun fact, of the 5 game projects I have worked on....one was an already live service game, one launched (Avatar : Frontiers Of Pandora), one was cancelled recently (RIP Everwild), one is very likely going to be cancelled imminently (Unannounced), and another is shelved indefinitely. One launch credit in 12 years, FML.

Anyway, people probably know the game jobs market is a bit of a disaster at the moment. There are jobs out there (particularly in AI), but I own a house and my partner likes her job, so I'm very reluctant to relocate in this environment where any game studio could go bust at short notice as investors are pulling investment left right and center.

So, I've had this idea in mind that I'd like to start my own studio some day, god knows I've learnt enough about how not to run game projects, right? For the last 9 months or so I've been working full time for a fintech startup run by a former boss of mine from my days working in investment banking. I'm building agentic AI systems which is pretty interesting and I'm sure I could find work doing that, but I sank a *lot* of time and effort in switching careers to games, and as much as AAA dev has been pretty demoralising at times, I still love making games and want to do it in future.

So, I've decided to take the plunge and get my own studio started. I registered my limited company and got that set up. From the beginning of 2026 I'll continue providing services for this startup, but on a contract basis, with the money mostly staying in the business to build myself a runway for the studio.

I've built a good network over the years and have formed a kinda cooperative group with some other ex-AAA developers, the core members being me (programmer) plus an animator and an environment artist. We've all got our own game ideas, so the idea is to collaborate, and do bits of work for each other's studios, rather than try to pool together as one, which I think is a pretty sound model.

Ultimately, I want to go full time making my own titles, but with this fintech contract work paying reasonably well, I think I need to make hay while the sun shines and build up as big a runway as I can. I'll have to be pragmatic about things as I can't really afford to blow through all my savings when retirement is looming ever closer in the distance. I've had quite a few approaches already for games industry contract work, so may end up doing bits of work for other developers here and there to keep the coffers filled.

I have done some work at one of the main games degree courses earlier in the year, so I've toyed with the idea of trying to get a title launched while I'm still full time on other stuff, doing the programming in my spare time, and hiring some of the talented graduates to do the art side of things.

Why the thread? Well a big part of launching a successful game is building an audience....I want to try being quite open about the process, I already run a hobby Youtube channel that's pretty popular, and I'd plan to do the same with the studio, but also involve the OcUK community in the development efforts for feedback and bouncing ideas off. I'm a bit away from finalising what game I want to start making just yet...but there's plenty to get on with.

Already Done :
I've got my company set up, and business bank account

In Progress:

I'm in the process of building my tech pipelines. This is a pretty big chunk of work that I need to get sorted and critical to get right....particularly if I want to get investment in future. I need to make sure I've not only got a solid efficient pipeline for myself, but one that will also scale up as and when I bring other people onto the project. Some things I'm already settled on :

I'm going to self-host rather than start incurring monthly cloud costs. I do have a lot of exposure to AWS infrastructure in my current job so I'm confident in migrating workloads up to cloud infrastructure if I need to.

Engine - Unreal, I know it well, lots of artists and other devs out there will be familiar. (don't worry I know how to address the hitching ;))

Source Control - I'm evaluating a few options at the moment.
  • Perforce is industry standard, but it gets pretty expensive as you scale. It is a requirement for some Epic tools like UGS/Horde. Free up to 5 users then $35/user/month after
  • I'm currently evaluating Ark VCS which is a new system being developed. Very attractive licensing terms, but early days.
  • Subversion is actually a pretty solid solution for games, good value licensing options. Also evaluating at the moment.
  • Git just isn't viable for game development
I'm leaning towards Ark as the developer is really active and engaged and I'd rather support another small dev than funnel money to a big corp.

CI - I'm using TeamCity. I have a good working setup at the moment....happy with this, free for the scale I will need it for. Used for automated builds and testing.

Documentation - WikiJS. I'm running this in a docker container on my home server at the moment. Can easily be punted up to Amazon ECS if I need to in future.

Secure Remote Access - The ability to give external developers controlled access to parts of my self-host infrastructure....I'm using Tailscale for this....what an absolutely bloody brilliant bit of software. Love it.

So, whichever decision I go with for source control, I'm still going to be operating at £0/month up to 5 users. If I go with Ark then I'm still paying nothing for source control up to $500k revenue. Main cost will be Tailscale at $6 a month per user as I scale.

That's the core of the pipeline for now. I will need to look into Xbox/Playstation devkits and the like in future, but that's a future me problem.

I have a windows server running this infrastructure right now.

Up Next :
  • Create a reliable backup routine to ensure all my home server data is backed up to my NAS and I have a disaster recovery process that works.
  • Then create a nightly off-site backup, probably Backblaze, from my initial research.
  • Setup my accounting software and make sure I'm all ready to start invoicing in January
  • The big one......what do I call my studio? I've been batting around ideas for weeks and haven't really settled on anything yet. The limited company is named, but that was never going to be the game studio trading name. Ideas?
  • Over the Christmas break start documenting all the prototype ideas I've had floating around and putting some thought into what I want to start with
I really need to get the studio name sorted so I can buy the domain and pick up the social channels etc. I do want to do a socials-first documentary type coverage as I build the studio to help grow the audience, will probably stream once I start development on the title.
Reading your post felt like looking into a future version of my own journey—I’ve been in tech long enough to know how brutal the industry swings can be, and dreaming up your own studio takes real guts. Along the way, I found resources like soft2bet.co in the middle of exploring gamification trends, which helped me see how layered and diverse our field really is, and that understanding different platforms and engagement models can only strengthen your studio’s prospects. Balancing contract work with passion projects is tough, but building infrastructure, documenting ideas, and slowly shaping an audience while keeping an eye on sustainability sounds wise; studios that last think long game, not just launch game.
Told you it was a lot of waffle :P Subscribe for updates! Studio name ideas welcome. Pitch me your game ideas too, why not :cool:
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wow! whatever name you pick, lean into what genuinely excites you and keep sharing the messy, thrilling process
 
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timmy7tf said:
wow! whatever name you pick, lean into what genuinely excites you and keep sharing the messy, thrilling process
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Thanks ChatGPT!
Demon said:
Great thread, best of luck, sounds like you have your head screwed on the right way!
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Thanks human :)

What's that babe? New Moth Empire Vlog dropped?


A little more editing on this one. Enjoying the process....have to be strict and not spend too much time on it, but a quick chop up to remove the occasional pause and sniff and re-order bits where I've repeated, but only taking about an hour to edit, which I can live with.

Currently sat in Arc Spaces coworking space in Notts....really nice vibe. Will talk about it more in next week's vlog.

 
suenstar said:
I follow a couple of solo devs/small indies on TikTok, YouTube & Reddit. If they have a Discord, I may also join that if they're doing a game/tool I'm really excited for.
Other bits and pieces of news or updates I tend to pick up from The Indie Informer, Kotaku, Polygon, GamesIndustry.biz, and on the extremely rare occasion, through the Google news feed on my phone.
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On the TikTok side, do you consume much long form content? I always got the impression it was for snappy short clips. I guess I can just try uploading a vertical crop of my vlog and see how it does....
 
Probably not that helpful, but just in case:

For small team remote collab, I've got 8 devs contributing on services like WikiJS, build servers etc piggy backed on a free Oracle Cloud VM (4 x ARM64 cores / 24GB RAM / 120GB HDD) running Docker..

Access is done using Cloudflare Zero Trust , so I have a cloudflare tunnel container running, and all devs are allowed access via various auth mechanisms all dealt with by the Zero Trust platform. Access to home (remote agents) uses a tailscale container of course, and is quite locked down to only expose one specific server.

I've been running it since Imgur was blocked and I've been moving most services over to it, I had a power outage over Christmas for an afternoon and had 4 devs unable to access stuff for 6 hours, which prompted me to move the remaining stuff to the cloud.. I have remote agents for the build server running both in the cloud and on my home server, so if that goes down, it can build in the cloud, it's just a bit slow..
 
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Demon said:
Probably not that helpful, but just in case:

For small team remote collab, I've got 8 devs contributing on services like WikiJS, build servers etc piggy backed on a free Oracle Cloud VM (4 x ARM64 cores / 24GB RAM / 120GB HDD) running Docker..

Access is done using Cloudflare Zero Trust , so I have a cloudflare tunnel container running, and all devs are allowed access via various auth mechanisms all dealt with by the Zero Trust platform. Access to home (remote agents) uses a tailscale container of course, and is quite locked down to only expose one specific server.

I've been running it since Imgur was blocked and I've been moving most services over to it, I had a power outage over Christmas for an afternoon and had 4 devs unable to access stuff for 6 hours, which prompted me to move the remaining stuff to the cloud.. I have remote agents for the build server running both in the cloud and on my home server, so if that goes down, it can build in the cloud, it's just a bit slow..
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Similar setup I guess.

I have my self host server at home (8c16t 32gb 2.5TB Chinese NUC thing). I use Tailscale on all my devices so I'm connected to the network wherever I am.

When I take on collaborators I'll just need to get them to install Tailscale and I'll give them access to the server, or even just specific services. I've got a 900/100 line at some so it'll be good enough for a few users.

It's possible I might move the Subversion server onto a linux cloud VM at some point (mainly because the linux server is free/free, whereas the Windows server has a nominal fee, although it's a one-off and pretty reasonable).

I'll need to retain the windows server for the build machines, getting linux servers to cross compile Unreal engine is a PITA. Also, I want to keep that self-hosted wherever possible as Unreal is pretty chunky and will use a lot of data, CPU and RAM. My little NUC is more than capable of handling it though.

Should probably look into one of the 'free' tier linux VMs for my subversion actually.....
 
I think oracle do a free arm Linux job, haven't dabbled myself but from talking to one of the guys in work it does the job for something small. Unsure about data egress charges though if you wanted to move it.
 
I really need to up my thumbnail game for the next one. I'm getting really good engagement once people actually click through and start watching.....but the CTR is way too low.

I could really do with having a better space to shoot in, but my study is a bit of a shoebox and crammed with climbing gear. Will have to try and find a way to get my mug in shot as apparently having a face is desirable :P
 
mid_gen said:
On the TikTok side, do you consume much long form content? I always got the impression it was for snappy short clips. I guess I can just try uploading a vertical crop of my vlog and see how it does....
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The stuff that I tend to watch is usually between one to three minutes (sometimes longer if the developer is explaining something big), mostly in the form of a tech demo with some commentary that shows off some of the stuff they're doing in the game engine or some part of their gameplay to get some feedback.

If you want some ideas for types of video content for TikTok, some of the more recent ones I've followed along their journey were Keepsake Games with Jump Space, Drummo with Protospace, and Greifenmaer with Veil of Ashes.
 
Looking around on the tube last night, I really need to get myself on the thumbnail. My CTR is still pants, but the engagement when people do start watching and see my beautiful face, they're hooked. My study is tiny, but I had a brainwave this morning and have been faffing around my with 360 camera and got some quite cool shots. New thumbnails incoming.
 
Yes this is better (I think!) thoughts? Guess I'll see how the CTR changes...


I've just chucked a tenner's worth of ad spend on it, help get those numbers up. Learned this from my other channel, just spending a few quid here and there can be a real boost....and it pays back easily once you get monetised....and since you don't get monetised until you hit 1000 subs, it's worth it get over the line so you start getting money back, instead of Google just taking it all.
 
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