How to sell coffee ... and design a successful indie game

By Chris Plante on Mar 09, 2013 03.09.13

Hidetaka Suehiro — aka Swery, the director of cult hit Deadly Premonition — took the stage at today's BitSummit conference in Kyoto to advise Japanese independent developers on how to create successful games. It's like opening a coffee shop, Swery said, pointing to a PowerPoint projected at the rear of the stage. His advice was divided into four parts. 1) Selecting the beans According to Swery, many Japanese indie developers tend to stick to the same types of games they made at traditional studios. He thinks this decision is counterintuitive, pitting the lone developer against full-size teams operating fueled by larger budgets. "You're independent now," said Swery. "Be more creative." He pointed to Unfinished Swan, Journey and Sword & Sworcery as examples of Western indie games...