Two great sessions from the Indie Games Summit this morning - Rob Pardo from EA's casual games label talked about being an indie from the viewpoint of the "big players". He dispensed wisdom including what kind of budget breakdown you should expect in your projects, what to do when (not if, when) you fail, how to manage success and not come off as a dick (unless that's what you want) or a one-shot wonder, not to get into games for money but because you love to do what to do, etc. He actually almost went over his allotted time he had so much to share.

Then Kyle Gabler from 2D Boy and Phil Fish from Polytron gave a paired talk about how Indies should market their game, because none ever have the massive million-dollar budgets that big companies do to push titles in front of people. Indies mainly leverage word-of-mouth - not really specifically viral, just the spread of information. So you start on blogs like TIGSource and GameSetWatch, and then are picked up by Joystiq and Kotaku and then maybe even make it up to CNet, CNN Tech, etc. Along the way get to know journalists and be buddies - they want to help you. Phil shared some exclusive video with 1UP and they really liked that, and helped him out a lot more afterwards. Have a blog you can direct people to, and a good trailer and clear game concept people can pick up on quickly. Promote yourself as much as possible, so it's more like PR than marketing. To demonstrate, Phil showed off a trailer of Fez, promoting himself right there.

Then I had to trade badges with Seyi (who's toting around an Exhibitor badge) so he could sit in on IGS while I met up with the IGDA student scholar I'm mentoring this year. Then I found out the student scholars are touring the Three Ring offices - which are amazing and I talked to Daniel James yesterday and he said they had to cancel the Three Rings party this year so I wouldn't be able to see the offices in person - until I found out about the student trip. So I'm tagging along with that - pictures! You bet.

In fact we have to meet in half an hour so I better get going. I'll be back at IGS afterwards.