Hey folks,
I know it’s been awhile. I hope this site doesn’t become redundant with our new developer blog on Unknown Worlds but it just may. Maybe I’ll make this more of a personal site instead of game development?
I’ve been hard at work trying to get wider distribution for Zen of Sudoku and that’s starting to pay off. It’s currently only for sale through http://www.zenofsudoku.com and VALVe’s Steam. It’s going to be launched through MSN/Oberon in two weeks, and then on Shockwave.com two weeks after that. It also looks like it’s going to land in retail in Best Buy, Target, Walmart USA and more. It also looks like it might launch on this interesting new streaming service that would put it in hotel rooms throughout Hong Kong and Japan – which sounds like a perfect market to me. I still have no idea how it’s going to sell on these wider venues though and am a little nervous about it. The conversion rate has been a stunning 10% for the past 6 months through my site, but I know it is likely to go down as the distribution increases.
I’m also working on my first talk at the GDC this year. It’s been a source of a lot of excitement and anxiety for me, but I’m hoping that if prepare and rehearse enough it will go well. I’ve found an AMAZING book on public speaking that I would highly recommend to anyone. I’ve read other books and this one really takes the cake. I’d love to talk about it more in another update some time. It’s called Be Heard Now and you can read the first chapter for free online.
The talk is called “Your own game studio in 6 months – Bootstrapping Core through Casual”. It all sounds good in theory but…since you have to apply for you talk about 8 months before you ACTUALLY talk, I didn’t realize that the title is a bit inflated. Perhaps 12 months is more like it? I also don’t know just how much casual is going to pay, since it’s taking forever to actually get the sales data and paychecks. My goal is to provide lots of great info regardless of my own sales data and let the attendees decide what’s right for them.
So I’ll make sure to put the slides up here when they’re ready for those of you that can’t make it and still want to start your own company. I also updated my resume finally if you feel like stealing the template. 🙂
Charlie Cleveland 