Those sales have occurred over the last 26 months, which is an average of $384 per month. One of those sales was direct (via cheque) and the other 174 were made up of 118 Paypal sales and 56 Share-it sales. I added share-it in case people didn’t want to use Paypal for any reason - good job I did! Because my customers are worldwide I made 3 buy buttons so that people could purchase in Dollars, Pounds and Euros depending on what they are most comfortable with (and people do use all three).

In total I’ve spent 387 hours on the framework. The bulk of this was the initial development (lots of development time is now often logged separately as part of whatever game I’m working on currently), and the rest is marketing and supporting the customers.

After my costs (£830), which include Paypal and Share-it fees, VAT, BlitzMax and promotional refunds, I have worked for £10.78 per hour which is not stellar but it’s pretty good considering I just had an idea one day that went “Hey, this framework is pretty good. I wonder if anyone would buy it?” - and the rest, as they say, is history Don’t forget that I needed the framework ANYWAY for my own games, so any money made selling it is pure bonus. Plus my customers have helped me to improve it and fix bugs and I’ve met some great people - bonus!

Some people told me that this would result in a sales spike but I was dubious because I didn’t know the “power of penny arcade”. Well I monitored the game’s position in the BFG Top 100 and it’s gone up 20 places in 3 days (from 43 to 23). That’s DEFINITELY a spike! It’s also gone from around position 20 to 7 on the Mac games page, which is nice

I’ll be watching the top 100 for the next few days and will report any more changes. I’ve also been given some sales figures by BFG (which I can discuss I’m afraid) but I gather there was a one day increase in sales of 400+% which is pretty cool, plus it’s remained high since then.

So there you have it folks, the power of Penny arcade!

2nd dan grading

I’m training up for my 2nd dan grading in Aikido which is in September. This is the culmination of 11 years of training and teaching - so it’s pretty important to me. Having a hernia meant that I couldn’t carry on with my hard training in case it got worse, so I needed to get it operated on ASAP in order to resume training.

Health Mind and Body

Aikido helps to keep my mind and body healthy, and when my general health drops I get more tired, ill more often, and less motivated to do stuff (like work). Also, when not training, I notice that my mind thinks about work all the time and starts to get paranoid about dumb stuff. Aikido really helps because when I’m there I’m doing something totally different - so I don’t think about work or my day to day life. The breathing and meditation also helps a LOT of course, so I’ve tried to keep that going.

Waiting around is not good

If I waited for an operation on the NHS I would have missed my 2nd Dan grading and had to wait for a whole year before I could take it again. Furthermore I would’ve been walking around for months knowing that I had to be really careful not to make my hernia worse. Plus my health would have suffered and, ipso facto, my work would have suffered. Therefore I decided to take action and pay to have the operation done privately.

Spend more for a better result

I was given a choice of two types of operation: open surgery and keyhole surgery (which cost more). Keyhole surgery is less invasive and so there is a quicker recovery time. Thus I opted to spend the extra money on keyhole surgery because:

a) it meant that I could get back to work sooner and thus earn money sooner (the extra cost of the operation would be offset by increased earnings by getting back to work days earlier)

b) it meant that I could start training for my 2nd dan again quicker and harder (and as a side effect my work motivation and output would improve)

c) in theory there would be less pain (well it still bloody hurt!).

Your body is like your car

So there you have it. Let me make an analogy: if you had a car that you needed for work, you’d spend the money to get it fixed ASAP rather than waiting around for a friend to fix it for free several months later. Also if you had a choice of two repair methods and one method cost more but you’d make that money back through your ability to work sooner, you’d do that too because it makes business sense right? Well that’s what I did with my body.

Now spend some money on yourself!

As an aside, people would often PREFER to spend money on their car than themselves, when maybe they need to see a dentist, or get some new glasses, or have a massage or some acupuncture, or even just join a gym. This is quite amusing, but it’s a common trait. So, I challenge you to think “how could I spend money on my body or some holistic treatment that will improve my life and work?” and then go and do it!

P.S.

I want to say two more things:

One is that I think the NHS is great and we are very lucky to have it. I just needed things to move faster this time which is why I went private. I’m considering health insurance so that I can have more choice in the future - this seems to make sense if your business can be affected by your health; after all, you insure pretty much everything else right?

Also, I didn’t have enough money for the operation. I used all my savings and also asked for money gifts from relatives for my birthday which helped (thanks all!), and then I got a thing called a BMI card which is basically a medical credit card that has 0% interest for 6 months - bargain! I put the remainer of the cost on the BMI card and will pay it off before the interest kicks in. There’s always a way if you look for it!

Monday, Hotel Max, Seattle

Hi all, I’m currently lounging around in Hotel Max in Seattle using the exorbitantly priced wi-fi.

Helen and I flew over on Sunday from London Heathrow, it was a 10 hour flight and was fine, although I found some glass in my melon! I got some free travel vouchers for not suing. Also I watched some sub-par movies. It’#s a real shame that airlines can’t get awesome movies for their media systems.

So today I went to the Big Fish Games offices on 4th Avenue. They have a whole floor on this big central skyscraper with nearly 300 employees.

I finally met John Cutter, the designer who I’m working with. I also met Adrian Woods, the developer of the highly successful Mystery Case Files series (the one which kick-started the Hidden Object genre). I met the guy that made Blood (an old Duke 3D era game where you could play football with the heads of your victims). I saw Azada 2, and heard that Hidden Expedition Amazon has broken all sales records in the last 4 days - it’s sold a pretty crazy number. Met some other developers, designers and nice people. There’s this cool bit of the office where all the artists are working on huge TFTs displaying really lush graphics from up and coming games - some if which I got to see in action. Also everyone gets around on scooters!

So anyway it’s been a good day although I feel very tired due to the time difference. I wanted to go to sleep after I finished at the office but Helen said we needed to go out and get some more sunlight to help us adjust. So we took the ferry over to Bainbridge island. It was really nice and the Seattle skyline looked cool. We ate vegetable burritos, yum. Reminds me, for the first time I had U.S.-style pancakes with maple syrup on this morning. We made the mistake of ordering a “high stack” which was just impossible to eat - tasted great though!

Naturally Helen’s been shopping and bought some nice things whilst I’ve been busy. All the people are really nice here.

On Wednesday we are catching a train to Vancouver, Canada, to stay there for a few days and then we are flying back to London on Saturday. We heard loads of great things about Vancouver so are really looking forward to the visit.

Tuesday Morning, Hotel Max, Seattle

I woke up at 5:30 am today and I’m wide awake. Must be not quite used to the time difference yet. The flight was actually just under 10 hours and the time difference is 8 hours. I watched some inflight movies but the system crashed a few times when I tried to play games (Bejewelled was on the list of games!). Apparently going back is the killer due to jet lag.

Today I’m going over the powerups and enemies for my current game with designer and the artists which should be good fun. Then I’m meeting the CEO, CFO, CTO etc, all the C-level bigwigs. Helen is going wine tasting!

I’m currently debating if I should have pancakes again for breakfast…or eggs.

Tuesday Evening, Hotel Max, Seattle

Phew another crazy busy day. Met loads of people today including the artists for the Mystery Case files and other games. I know what the next Mystery Case files game is going to be and some other secret projects too. I got taken up to the 20th floor which has all the email and phone support staff on it. It has an incredible view of the city and the sea - just amazing. (One helpdesk guy I stood next to whilst I looked out the window must have the best view in the entire company!) They have 300 staff there and are soon moving to new premises. I met people in quality control who I worked with and also the Spanish, French and German translators who did the localisation for Fairway. Then this evening the VP took us to dinner, which was nice. I’ve spoken to so many people and been feeling the jet lag quite a bit so that everything has just been a blur.

In the morning we are catching a train up to Vancouver and having a look around. On Thursday night we are meeting a load of Indie programmers from Vancouver (from the Indiegamer forums), including the programmer of the Professor Fizzwizzle games that my kids and I love playing.

Friday, Hotel L’hermitage, Vancouver

So anyway, we traveled to Vancouver by (slow) train on Wednesday morning and went to the hotel which had only just opened on that day and so we couldn’t check into the room. That was OK though because we took a nice walk through downtown to Granville Island and then over to Kitsalano (where I found a lovely community garden on the old railway tracks). Later that night we ate a meal in Robson street. The weather was great, really sunny.

Yesterday we were taken on a tour of Vancouver by someone who knows it really well and then we had lunch on Kits beach (well in a restaurant there). Then we took a sea bus over to North Vancouver and had a stroll around - it’s nice a peaceful in the residential areas.

In the evening we went to the Indie developer meetup at Earl’s restaurant. It was organised by Ryan Clark of Professor Fizzwizzle fame. I met some interesting people there. Most people weren’t making casual games but were in fact making games for XBLA or iphone or were making MMOs etc. Met some guys who used to work for Relic Entertainment including the programmer of N and N+, he was about my age and on my wavelength about making core games easier and more accessible because when we kids games were just waaaaay too hard. Also met the programmer of Eets who has given up on casual games and is now making an “mmo-thing” as I called it and they were horrified.

Yeah so lots of successful programmers here doing varied things.

Today we will go for a walk around Stanley park as the weather is really great, then it’s a bus back to Seattle for one more night before we fly home.

Monday, Home, Dorset, England

I planned to post about my last day in Vancouver in a Starbucks but was disappointed to find out that the wireless is not free, bummer. There was wireless on the bus, but it didn’t work, arg.

The walk round Stanley Park in Vancouver was great. We only did a short walk round a lake but the weather was awesome - I nearly burned my forehead. We also sat on the beach English Bay which was really cool. What topped it for me was the vegetarian hot dog I bought!

Just as the bus was leaving Vancouver (for Seattle) there was a huge bike rally. Loads (and I mean LOADS) of people brought the city to a standstill as they cycled along a major route, it was cool, and luckily our bus was not delayed and the border crossing was fine.

Back in the U.S. on our last day we went to the Pike St. Market and bought a Zelda Ocarina for my eldest son, way cool. Then we visited the Japanese gardens which were really peaceful. It was a REALLY nice hot day so I bought a “life is good” cap (btw, I ate pancakes AGAIN for breakfast, couldn’t resist).

Flight home was long and movies were still sub-par, but we made it back fine! It’s nice to be home and see the green English countryside.

1: Friends For Sale! (633,897 active players)
2: TexasHoldEmPoker (553,999)
3: Scrabulous (444,548)
4: (Lil) Green Patch (437, 847)
5: Mob Wars (288, 372)
6: Who Has The Biggest Brain? (279,242)
7: Speed Racing (207, 283)
8: Bowling Buddies (205, 716)
9: Pokey! (202,161)
10: Word Challenge (193, 850)

That’s pretty impressive. I haven’t actually tried any of these because Facebook is EVIL (well, actually it’s just a waste of my precious time, so I don’t bother). I assume these games generate revenue from adverts (I could be wrong) in which case they should be doing pretty well.

Another approach would be to link to download games (or ad-driven online games) on your own site so that users might play the Facebook game and then end up on your site (great for generating traffic especially as some Facebook games generate MILLIONS of unique visitors per month).

First

“After writing several free downloadable games as “practice pieces” I produced my first commercial casual game, Xmas Bonus (a match-3 puzzle), and launched it at the end of 2005. Since then I have written four more commercial games: Easter Bonus, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Holiday Bonus and Fairway Solitaire. I was contracted to write the Oz game for Injoy Games, and I was contracted to write Fairway Solitaire (a downloadable conversion of an online game) for Big Fish Games. Fairway Solitaire is currently the #1 card game on BFG, and even achieved #1 on apple.com – I’m very proud of this game. At present I’m writing my sixth game as a contractor for BFG.”

Second

“I honed my game development skills by writing several free downloadable games as “practice pieces” before producing my first commercial casual game, Xmas Bonus (a match-3 puzzle). I then built and managed a small team to develop Easter Bonus. My Grey Alien Game Framework has achieved international success and has powered not only my own games but also those of numerous other developers. One example is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I programmed for Injoy Games. I then produced Holiday Bonus, another highly polished match-3 game, just in time for Christmas. Now gaining recognition for my tight game programming and polished style, I was happy to be approached by Big Fish Games (BFG) to develop Fairway Solitaire (a downloadable conversion of an online game). I am proud that Fairway Solitaire is currently the #1 card game on BFG, and even achieved #1 on apple.com. At present I’m writing my sixth game, for BFG, and co-producing a time management game as a hobby.”

Note the skills that I’ve dropped into the 2nd version. I’ve mentioned that I can “produce” my own games, build teams, develop powerful engines, do contract work, meet tight deadlines, be head hunted for my quality, convert online games, and that I live and breathe games so much that I’m even making one in my spare time

So in conclusion, sell yourself with your CV. It’s basically self-marketing, not a dry list making exercise…

This story is inspiring to me in a few ways. 1) he has amassed enough cash through making games to be able to pay $30,000,000 for a ticket! 2) he always wanted to go into space and he is about to achieve that aim, nice one! 3) his family thought that game development was a temporary windfall and that it would dry up, but he sure made it work big time.

Actually, like most kids, I wanted to go into space and build rockets as well and I thought that working at NASA might be a good way to get that done, but perhaps it could be done privately. So lets see what the future holds…

Oh and I loved the Ultima serious of games, they are brilliant.

I first realised something was wrong this morning when I tried to post a comment and realised that the post had no comments box (which I hadn’t switched off). So I went to edit the post to enable comments but it wouldn’t save the edits! (It just showed a blank page with wp-admin/post.php as the URL) Lots of googling proved fruitless and frustrating.

Then I got an email from a reader (you know who you are, thanks!) who said that my last couple of posts were full of spam and it was coming out in the RSS feed. I checked them out and they had tons of hidden spam links which didn’t show up online! This is presumably to boost the Google ranking of some other site. Problem was that I couldn’t edit the posts to remove the spam links!

I re-uploaded my Wordpress backup and still no change. So I upgraded Wordpress to 2.5 and still no change. I discovered that I could manually edit the two posts with spam links with phpMyAdmin so I removed the links and enabled comments, but still my wordpress was seriously broken. Plus I proceeded to mess it up more with the sort of dumbass mistakes that you make because you’ve sat in your chair for 6 hours without moving and your brain and body is shutting down (plus I’m a neophyte at this sort of stuff). Later on I discovered that I couldn’t save Wordpress options either, (same blank page thing), but I could edit comments. Crazy!

Finally tonight I examined the wp_options table and found two suspicious entries. With a path that looked like ../../../../../../../../tmp/ and a file called ro8kbsmag.txt. A quick Google was very revealing with this page. Anyway, I removed the suspect plug-in and TADA I can edit and save posts again and my options works, woo.

Well that was a pain in the arse but I knew somehow I’d prevail - the Universe likes to send me these unasked for challenges Hopefully this post will be useful to other people Googling the same problem. Now to make another backup…

P.S. Sorry to any of you that received the spam links via RSS.

Me, My Family and Location

- I’m 32 (33 in June)
- I’ve got a partner (for nearly 10 years) called Helen who writes science articles at home.
- I’ve got two boys called Conan and Callum aged 7 and 4
- We have a cat called Suki.
- I live in Bridport, Dorset, England. This is on the south coast very near to the beach.
- I’ve got a house and car (Impreza Turbo 2000, it rocks!) and bills which is why I need my games to make money
- I’m 5′6″ (that’s like 166cm) tall, medium build and have long black hair in a ponytail.

Computing

- I’ve been programming since I was 8. I had a Spectrum a C64 and Amiga 500, an Amiga1200 then finally PC (and later on Macbook Pro).
- I’ve been making games all that time in Basic and Assembly and C++ and Blitz Basic 2 on the Amiga (this was the most fun).
- I made business software in Delphi and SQL for 9 years and it made millions of pounds BUT that money was not mine it belonged to someone else. Now I want to make millions in games
- I started programming Blitz Plus in Nov 2004 and quit my job in Summer 2005 to release XMas Bonus in December 2005.
- I also released Easter Bonus, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Holiday Bonus and Fairway Solitiare (which was a big hit). I’m working on my 6th commercial game now (for BFG), and I’m contracted to make a 7th for them too.

Hobbies

- I teach Aikido (I’ve been practising it for nearly 11 years) and I’m going for my 2nd Dan in September. It keeps me healthy (and is a contrast to sitting in my computer chair), and is very good for the mind and spirit.
- I love Sci-Fi and Fantasy books and movies, oh and Stephen King books.
- I love all sorts of music from Heavy Metal, to Trance and Chip music, to Classical Music.
- I play the guitar (classical, blues, heavy metal) and have been in a couple of metal bands. I’ve got a massive Marshall valve amp+cabinet and a USA Fender Stratocaster guitar (+ some others).
- I like making trance music with Fruity Loops (I used to use Trackers on the Amiga and in DOS on the PC)
- I love playing games (but seem to be too busy these days!) and have played countless games over the years including tons of FPS games since Doom. I’ve played lots of casual games too for research (and fun). I love RPGs but they take up too much of my time so I’m careful to avoid them in case I get hooked. I’ve never played an MMORPG (from fear of addiction) although I did some online Quake 3 and other deathmatch once (way too addictive).
- I have a Mega Drive, Playstation 1 and 2, Game Cube and Wii, oh and a Nintendo DS.
- I write game news and reviews for www.binaryjoy.co.uk
- I used to be good at art when I was at school, but I don’t do the art for my games. However, I’ve got good graphic design skills regarding layout and how things look etc that I can put to good use for game programming.
- I like gardening. I grow some veg, not on a big scale, but it’s fun. Also I’m meticulous (fanatical) about keeping my lawn smart and tidy.

Self-Improvement

- I’m really into self-improvement (have been since I started Aikido, in fact before that). I read and implement lots of self-help stuff because it helps me, my family and my business, oh and my friends (when they ask me for advice).
- I’m vegan (although occasionally I have dairy products e.g. ice cream!). I went Vegetarian when I was 14 in a pact with two girls who were already vegetarian but who smoked - they gave up smoking and I went vegetarian. At first it was hard but it’s easy now and I wouldn’t go back to eating meat or fish. People wonder if I can be healthy, and the reality is that I’m more healthy than most people - I wouldn’t have got a black belt in Aikido if I was unfit.
- I’m a perfectionist but I try to control it and balance it against getting stuff done. I’ve probably annoyed quite a few people in the past with my perfectionism but it helps to make good games.
- I’ve got tons of ambitions ranging from self-improvement, through what I want to own and where I want to live, to how I can help people for the greater good. I’m a determined person and I’m sure that I’ll meet lots of my goals.

There’s probably tons more but you may have fallen asleep already