Surviving the Indie bootstrap path
summary
Five years of full-time indie development builds Warriors: Rise to Glory with a turn‑based gladiator single‑player and later six‑player multiplayer, launched on Steam but fell short of expectations after long delays. Team grew to seven, burned savings, then raised $210k investment and joined an LA accelerator. Engine is Unity. A Bilibili influencer drove 7,000 China-driven sales but exposed lack of localization and a 20% refund rate. Multiplayer added heavy technical debt and stretched timelines; Steam front‑page placement gave a short sales boost.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:22Indie path adventures
- 7:14Time and resource planning
- 9:42Building game reputation
- 11:53Investment and company formation
- 14:20Investment agreements and legalities
- 16:06Game scope and battles
- 19:15Marketing and localization
- 21:46Pitching investors
- 23:32Publishers vs investors
- 25:58Team expansion and expectations
- 28:06Technical debt and multiplayer
- 30:11Beyond money in development
- 32:59Teamwork and mental health
- 34:42Steam and community
- 36:05Passion versus profit
- 40:25Q&A
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