Business and Beta Testing

So for the past while I've been very focused on trying to get this game done, and done decently. But I've neglected business. Last couple days I've been trying to do a bit more of both.

There's some very common factors of running a business that are very commonly ignored. Most people know you need to sell something and deduct your expenses and there's your profit.

To actually get things working though it's a bit more complicated, but not overly so. For games especially you have to worry about cash flow. Cash flow is basically when you can expect your money to come in and out. And when doing software especially it's really important. So you can have a business thats crazy profitable, but they go out of business because between paying an expense and waiting for the next influx of money they run out of money.

And when you devote 6 months to making a game, you have to ensure the amount you get at the end is worth the amount of time you've spent. I can't say so far that it is for me. So I have to make some changes.

When you are starting up, you can either borrow a whole heap of money (I'm not a big fan of that route), or ensure that for quick intervals you have a profit coming in.

To do that, you need to make something fast. Like in a month or less fast.
As you are starting with limited resources, that means you'll either pick a really easy type of game to make, or a very small game. Or likely both.
This also means that quality can fall.

But this is quickly what the math is teaching me. You have to make a bunch of small (probably crappy) yet profitable things to build a base and expand from there.

So even though it's not close to what I'd consider ready, I'll be cleaning up the current game and releasing it shortly. It's honestly a very hard decision, but I think it will be the smartest business decision I've made so far.