The answer: it’s complicated, but… $3?

This guest post is by systemchalk, data analyst extraordinaire and guest blogger here. He is happiest when wrestling with numbers. He writes here, streams here, and tweets here. We’ve edited his wording a bit, but his analysis is presented here with his approval.

Imagine a game (released or upcoming) and guess how much an individual wishlist for that game is worth. This question is surprisingly difficult to answer. There is considerable discussion about wishlists as an indicator for future sales and ways of getting more of them, but there has been less attention paid to the people who have wishlisted and when they buy the game and at what price (with notable exceptions coming from Jake Birkett and Simon Carless). …

This is part of a series on indie studio management, written by the Captain of Kitfox Games, Tanya X. Short. Follow the Kitfox Medium publication to read all the entries so far.

Indie studio heads are expected to know about many different fields, even though it’s nearly impossible for them to have that knowledge before they begin. And if you’re in the midst of negotiating a deal, it’s usually undesirable to interrupt negotiations in order to ask for clarification of terms that the other party seems to assume you know… further, chances are

This glossary errs on the side of being too basic, to help as many people as possible who might be coming from outside our usual industries, and to help de-mystify terms that might be hard to Google. …

This is part of a series on indie studio management, written by the Captain of Kitfox Games, Tanya X. Short. Follow the Kitfox Medium publication to read all the entries so far. See the first one here.

For the purposes of this article, whether you’re a traditional for-profit corporation, a non-profit, a partnership, or a worker’s co-op, I’m going to assume that the primary goal of your studio is to survive to make the next game, and hopefully the game after that.

If that’s the case, these questions will help protect your bottom line — the money you need to keep paying salaries. …

By Victoria Tran, Communications Director at Kitfox Games, an indie studio in Montreal. Currently working on Boyfriend Dungeon, Lucifer Within Us and publishing Mondo Museum and Dwarf Fortress.

Ah, the ever evolving landscape of social media.

A few months ago, Tanya (Kitfox’s captain) and I decided to open a TikTok account for the studio. There are several reasons we decided to, the main 3 for me being:

1. I’ve wanted to make more video content for Kitfox, but Youtube videos were too much of a time investment, especially considering my workload.
2. Twitter, while a great platform for reaching gamers and game developers, is a very specific bubble of users. I wanted to see if I could extend our reach, especially when it came to more “visual” platforms (i.e. we’re not on Youtube, Instagram, or Imgur much) and a newer audience. …

This is part of a series on indie studio management, written by the Captain of Kitfox Games, Tanya X. Short. This is the first of the series. Follow the Kitfox Medium publication to see them all when they come.

Most indie studios don’t survive to ship a second game. And contrary to popular belief, it’s not because their first game doesn’t sell well — plenty of surviving studios had disappointing sales for their first game. Kitfox is one. Studios close because they didn’t adequately plan for disappointment and strategise around how to survive it.

So, what’s your next game going to be, after you finish this one? …

By Victoria Tran, Commnications Director at Kitfox Games, an indie studio in Montreal. Currently working on Boyfriend Dungeon, Lucifer Within Us and publishing Mondo Museum and Dwarf Fortress.

Sometimes, your community grows to a size where you can no longer reasonably keep track of it by yourself — you need to sleep, go to conventions, do other work, etc. At this point, you’ll probably need a mod or two.

And honestly?

A community is only as good as their mods.

So let’s talk about how I found Kitfox’s mods on Discord, what qualities I generally look for, and management techniques!

When Do I Need a Moderator?

You don’t ALWAYS need a moderator — for instance, if your community is quite small, relatively calm, and you have enough bandwidth, you may get away with not having a moderator for awhile. …

By Victoria Tran, Communications Director at Kitfox Games, an indie studio in Montreal. Currently working on Boyfriend Dungeon, Lucifer Within Us and publishing Six Ages, Mondo Museum and Dwarf Fortress.

Getting hard stats from streams has always been a bit messy — sure, your game is likely getting visibility, but is that doing anything? Are there sales? How many people check out the page? And even then… what if the game has already been out for awhile?

By Victoria Tran, Commnications Director at Kitfox Games, an indie studio in Montreal. Currently working on Boyfriend Dungeon, Lucifer Within Us and publishing Mondo Museum and Dwarf Fortress.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, TikTok, whatever.

We’ve all heard we should be on social media because it’s good for ~game marketing~ but… Do you actually know why? What are you looking for? Are we suffering on these hellsites with no purpose? Is life meaningless? WHY DO — okay sorry.

We’re going to talk a little about basic metrics you should look out for on social media. But! Don’t get caught up in JUST measuring metrics all the time. They’ll detract from your work if you become engulfed in them and/or give you a lot of anxiety if you just focus on numbers. …