Press Play: Danish indie scene is gaining support

Rune Dittmer, the co-founder and CEO of Copenhagan-based studio Press Play, has said that the indie scene is growing in Denmark thanks to the increasing number of supports schemes on offer.

The small studio of ten has just completed work on its acclaimed first self-published WiiWare title Max & the Magic Marker - a title which the team partly funded itself, but which also received assistance from a number of schemes, including the Nordic Game Development Fund and New Danish Screen.

And ahead of delivering a talk at this year's Nordic Game conference on the trials and successes of self-publishing a game from scratch, Dittmer spoke to GamesIndustry.biz on the growing Danish indie scene, saying that companies could start to receive more support in the future.

"I think we're in a transition right now because there's a lot of evaluation going on with support schemes," he said. "And they are putting into process right now in Denmark, to see if we should establish a more permanent support scheme for initial support of games. I think it's necessary. But it also reflects on the state of Danish game development right now."

"There's a lot of small companies that kind of need to have something to believe in their project, to get them going. And perhaps to see all these alternative forms of distribution and types of games that are opening up - digital download, internet, Facebook and all of that."

Dittmer added that it feels like there is a small indie scene in Copenhagen in particular - "There are ten companies in this building. I think it's very helpful for us that we inspire and help each other."

Speaking about the development and publishing processes for Max & the Magic Marker, Dittmer said that the team had learnt a lot of valuable lessons making its first game. But that the most important one he would pass onto developers thinking of self-publishing would be to know its target audience.

"The big thing about indie publishing [is] that you have the freedom to do whatever you want. But if that freedom helps you to make a game that nobody wants, it's not really helpful for you either," he said.

"I would say that you should definitely make sure that you have a good fit between your target audience and the platform you choose. Because I think that it's really essential if you want to self publish that you know who you're going to aim for.

"I mean, you can't make a very broad title and just hope that somebody will pick it up. You really need to know who you're making the game for and that needs to fit with the platform because otherwise - with no marketing budget - it's impossible."

You can read the full interview with Dittmer in which he also talks about Nordic Game and working with Nintendo on Max, here.