Free tools are awesome (and we will talk about those too!) But sometimes when working on your game you’ll need to spend some money on tools that’ll streamline your business and get you rolling faster than anything else. Here are some of the tools that we’ve used to make our lives much easier.

1) Google Apps For Work ($5 per user/month)

Many devs use an @gmail.com account for their work, which is fine when you’re starting off. But as you scale up, the professionalism, flexibility, and resources Google Apps For Work gets you is great. You get to have collaborate inboxes (great for contact/support/[email protected]), the full Google Drive and Google Apps suite synced across devices with all of your work-related files in once place, and much more, like Google Calendar, Contacts, and other great features you can share with members of your team while looking professional with a @yourcompany.com email address.

2) PromoterApp ($10/month)

It’s hard to keep track of who is writing articles on your game or making videos about it. PromoterApp uses magic to alert you every time content about your game is created, by means of a simple email. This way, you can easily see who’s saying what about your game and easily assemble press acclaim pages. It can also integrate with presskit() and has a ton more features to interact with the games press!

3) YesWare ($10+/month)

Email marketing is key in today’s day and age. YesWare gives you a bunch of features you can use to easily manage your outreach. It lets you track opens and link clicks on your emails, send out mail merges to multiple contacts at once, fill out handy email templates for fast replies and cold outreach, and more! It integrates with most mail clients and services, and is very streamlined for productivity and results.

4) Backblaze ($5 per computer/month)

PC backup is important. Tools like Dropbox and Google Drive make you do it manually. Backblaze is cheap and runs quietly in the background, sending every single file that you choose automatically to the cloud! There are no limits on storage and it is very convenient knowing that if something happens, all of your data is ready to be sent back to you by download, USB, hard drive, or DVD! You can choose which folders to scan and automatically back up, giving you utter peace of mind at all times with no work needed and minimal impact on your budget.

5) Top-shelf Ramen (usually greater than 10 cents)

Game development is hard, but ramen makes it a little easier. Stop eating terrible $0.10 ramen and get with the program! Not only does eating terrible ramen taste objectively bad, it’s also terrible for your game development ability. Quality ramen has been proven by science* to improve game development. Instead of picking the bargain bin packages, why not treat yourself to a pack of Shin Ramen Black? Ever since we’ve been stepping up our ramen eating habits, we’ve been much more satiated and satisfied after meals, which leads to much better game development performance. What are you waiting for? Splurge a bit on ramen, your taste buds will thank you.

*science = My own personal experience

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