Flopping Successfully: Running a Studio Without a Huge Hit

The stories we hear are often about the huge, mind-numbing successes. They are the one-in-a-million, lottery winning-type tales. Those success stories are great, and can inspire us to work hard and cross that finish line. However, they are few and far between, and aiming for that type of success can set you up to fail. In this GDC 2023 talk, Yngvill Hopen, CEO and Game Director at Henchman & Goon AS, shares her thoughts on how they have kept indie studio, Henchman & Goon, running for 10 years without any gigantic successes.
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[@arenkai]

This is an important topic ! The general public doesn't realise that most of the industry is composed of small structures that go by unnoticed. Expectations need to be set properly when entering the game's industry, not everyone wants to work on big projects. And even if working on games that don't succeed massively can be heartbreaking, some would still prefer that to working in big structures.

[@alec_almartson]

Great Talk. 💯👏🏻 In most of the cases, surviving with no big hits for a looooong time is a necessity.

[@QuietPenguinGaming]

Such a great talk!! It's so refreshing to hear from game devs with a more "typical" experience - people who haven't made any hits but are happy just surviving and getting to make cool stuff. Living a life where you get to do what you want for a living with cool people sounds like the ideal life to me :)

[@doublej69]

very inspiring talk. thank you

[@vapidfire68]

Thanks so much for this. I too am in a small studio and your perspective and advice are inspiring.

[@julio1148]

Very inspiring. I wonder of their initial launch was disapointing because some other big game may have launched around the same time? I am no expert of course. The organic growth they’ve seen though must be reassuring that their product was of good quality!

[@vakuzar]

This was fantastic

[@leolightfellow]

Great lessons here. :) I think a big takeaway is the importance of the whole marketing/outreach kind of stuff, like having a booth at game exhibit things, conferences, conventions, etc.

[@fabioecco]

Very inspiring and really important talk. Congrats!

[@zaidlacksalastname4905]

Great talk. Thank you

[@muzboz]

Good talk, thanks. :D

[@davidcodeandart]

Great talk, this really helps (':

[@tiagomelogames]

Inspiring story!

[@toymakergames]

Man that title cracked me up I had to watch 😂 good info thank you!

[@ColonelKurtz]

I thought they did another print run/reprint of A Feast for Odin... I guess they didn't print a ton because I can't seem to find it anywhere.

[@hakimitus]

30:43 sounds like he's using an alias for Prez Obama running a side hustle

[@BillyViBritannia]

I was like "he definitely reminds me of someone" 😅

[@ExpensivePizza]

The way I like to think about this is simple... 99.9% of people haven't seen your game yet.

[@MarioDoodles]

My game Remote Life had its success...and im a solo dev ❤

[@imzasoft]

Congrats!

[@boohoo5419]

they are really lacking game dev skills if they needed multiple people, 3 years and investors for these hobby project level games. the games looked like somehting done in a game jam. she describes herself as an lifelong artist but uses AI art in her presentation.. mhh.. idk.. i really wonder what her actual skills are. running a business? seems more like a therapy session then a GDC talk..

[@sharpc-tudent]

Have you actually gone out and see the game or judged it as a hobby game by simply looking at the graphics? Also, these people seem to have no tech skills, a lot of people on dev jams have them and have done a lot of hobby games before. This was not the case at all for these people.