I have decided not to immediately court investors in the project.
The reason for this is two-fold:
1) While I attempted to scale down the project to a single person job, I've found I've been struggling to keep it that way.
I keep coming up with new ideas and ways to expand the concept. New areas to explore and ideas to push the boundaries.
While I probably still CAN finish the game alone with some outsourcing, my feeling is that the project would not have the potential it would with a team of competent and creative developers who can all contribute their unique talents.
So maybe it would be beneficial to return to a team building strategy when starting up again. I'll certainly be thinking along those lines.
2) Reason number 2 is, doing so much of the work myself for so long has taken the edge off my work and productivity.
While I'm still enjoying the work, I'm at the point where I need to do something else for a while.
This "unmotivated" state is also not a great first impression when courting a potential investor.
I've instead decide to pursue an online affiliate marketing business as a side-line activity..
I also feel that this has the potential to be part of the future (game) business model.
It should also have some distinct benefits for the project:
PASSIVE INCOME: Affiliate websites derive income from selling other people's products through the internet for a commission.
Once the hard work of designing a targeted website and generating traffic has been done, it can theoretically generate income 24 hours, with low ongoing maintenance.
IMPROVE MY MARKETING SKILLS: It will force me to address my marketing and selling skills
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION: I've already learned some nifty tricks for SEO.
I should have no problem ensuring that my website is well ranked in the search engines.
IMPROVE MY WEB DEVELOPMENT SKILLS: More time to invest in finding nice website templates and graphics and maybe I'll find some time to give the currently boring website a makeover.
I'll try and keep this blog active.
In my next post I'll elaborate on my progress in the month of April when I was cramming quite a lot of work into the story and sideline missions for Freehauler.
I'll try and articular my overall vision and general philosophy for the game in the next post.
