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Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

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Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#31

Post by joshburgess »

Reedx wrote: post #14
emsy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most games are generic crap. I've seen crap games make money, but I haven't seen a great game fail. People see Flappy Bird and want to imitate it because it's easy. Those who work hard don't rely on luck can still build a sustainable business. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=1BCg31KVJok

I agree for the most part, but great games do fail even on the AAA side. See Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, Okami... Critically acclaimed and loved by gamers, but commercial failures. I'd guess it's more common in mobile and indie, but don't know for sure. I'd be really curious to see an in-depth analysis of it.

All 3 of those are fantastic games. Cheers.

Okami was rereleased on a newer console at one point wasn't it? I think it probably did a little better.

But yeah, in general, I think that because AAA games cost so much to make and usually cost more to buy, they have to cater to the masses more in order to be successful, whereas indie game devs are more like startups.... lean and mean. So, they don't require the same level of sales to be a success, and they are also free to make more niche and obscure games.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#32

Post by joshburgess »

DanBC wrote: post #27
emsy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most games are generic crap. I've seen crap games make money, but I haven't seen a great game fail. People see Flappy Bird and want to imitate it because it's easy. Those who work hard don't rely on luck can still build a sustainable business. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=1BCg31KVJok

Ico failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ico

Shadow of the Colossus did pretty well though, didn't it?

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#33

Post by philbarr »

Toine wrote: post #30
hellofunk wrote: post #2

Admire anyone who can go full time into the game industry, which is one of the most competitive anywhere. And to do so as an independent is a high challenge. To pull that off for five years deserves great merit. Anyone who has published games to Apple's app store knows how hard it is to see any money from it.

I disagree. The mistake many developers make is that they'll just make a fun game, upload it on the App Store/Play Store with a naive hope that it will get viral, and they'll get money. The reality is that mobile gaming is extremely competitive right now and you mainly have to work on getting your game known, understand how to monetize it, analyze the behavior of your users to optimize every important metric. Sadly,…

> So it's not that it's really hard, it's just not something we like to do.

I think it's hard. I think it's REALLY hard - but I'm more than happy to learn, I just don't know what to do. And that's after reading Tim Ferris, signing up to various blog sites and reading as much as possible.

There seams to be plenty of books on marketing theory out there; but very little in the way of practical, actionable advice.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#34

Post by PythonicAlpha »

geminiradio wrote: post #28
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, Randy, for sharing your thoughts, too! As aspiring indie-developer myself, I always love to read about those that already have marketed their first games and can share their experiences. I hope, your game will be a success! I saw, at Steam the reviews and images look very good!

Cool! I wish you luck on your career. What are you hoping to do in indie games? What field, what kind of games, what platforms, etc.?

Thanks!

To make it short: I am currently building a strategy online game as a browser-game (only a current browser and JavaScript is needed). I think, that currently most online games lack strategic/tactical depth and rely on almost all the same mechanics (city-building and build up the biggest army), with only small differences (topic, graphics and some minor mechanics are different, the basics are mostly the same).

I hope, that I can convince enough grognards that online-gaming can have depth.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#35

Post by emsy »

Reedx wrote: post #14
emsy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most games are generic crap. I've seen crap games make money, but I haven't seen a great game fail. People see Flappy Bird and want to imitate it because it's easy. Those who work hard don't rely on luck can still build a sustainable business. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=45&v=1BCg31KVJok

I agree for the most part, but great games do fail even on the AAA side. See Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, Okami... Critically acclaimed and loved by gamers, but commercial failures. I'd guess it's more common in mobile and indie, but don't know for sure. I'd be really curious to see an in-depth analysis of it.

Thanks to you I've found this great article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_failures_in...

Also thanks for your comment, that's the reply I was hoping for. I think a lot of the reasons why and how games fail (commercially) have changed with things like social media and increased usage of stock game engines. Unfortunately most of the post mortems of failed (indie) games I've read are of rather bad games. This is what I've meant when I said I've never heard of a great failed game. The most vocal group are people with a bad game who feel like they're entitled to earn millions (rethoric hyperbole intended).

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#36

Post by ebt »

geminiradio wrote: post #21

Can a great game fail? I guess I'm finding out right now. It's early, it's currently scary, and it could still go either way. Pure drama! Our game was released 2 days ago (Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon - ShroudedMoon.com). It's metacritic'ing at 94, which is stellar. It's got almost exclusively very very positive reviews on Steam and the App Store. It's the sequel to the Game of the Year in 2009, per TouchArcade,…

> But the worry is that in 2015, no matter how good your game is, the audience has way way way way too many amazing games to choose between.

And it has also become way too easy to acquire games. Back in the 1980/90's, unless I wanted a specific game, I could easily spend an hour in a store trying to decide which one game I could afford to buy.

Meanwhile, it took less than a minute to purchase Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon on Steam, looks like fun, cheers.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#37

Post by pandaman »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #12
ahmedbaracat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, I think compensation might be more prevalent when you are indie because you are less likely to have a stable income compared to working in a company. But I may be wrong :)

I did not want to touch that topic, since there are different things to consider and experiences can differ. I mentioned only working in a company, since from that what I saw in my country, compensation for ordinary developers in a company are far less than when working in other sectors as software developer (in deed, I do not know any sector, where payment is less than in the Gaming industry). At least one plus is t…

Compensation in the games industry varies wildly. In my opinion, this is because there are many people who have <5 years experience and few people who have 10+ years. The veterans have high salaries and other forms of compensation (profit sharing, bonuses) while newbies are given less than in an average consulting/web shop.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#38

Post by PythonicAlpha »

pandaman wrote: post #37
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not want to touch that topic, since there are different things to consider and experiences can differ. I mentioned only working in a company, since from that what I saw in my country, compensation for ordinary developers in a company are far less than when working in other sectors as software developer (in deed, I do not know any sector, where payment is less than in the Gaming industry). At least one plus is t…

Compensation in the games industry varies wildly. In my opinion, this is because there are many people who have <5 years experience and few people who have 10+ years. The veterans have high salaries and other forms of compensation (profit sharing, bonuses) while newbies are given less than in an average consulting/web shop.

I guess so. But it is a little difficult to get data from veteran people, since those figures are most often negotiated in silence. All I can see are the entry level offerings and they are in deed often below those for web-developers. I think, it is similar as in other areas -- when you manage to be seen as key-developer, you are in a much better negotiation position -- but for that, you must be either a star from the beginning or done some real great tasks in the company.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#39

Post by geminiradio »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #34
geminiradio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! I wish you luck on your career. What are you hoping to do in indie games? What field, what kind of games, what platforms, etc.?

Thanks! To make it short: I am currently building a strategy online game as a browser-game (only a current browser and JavaScript is needed). I think, that currently most online games lack strategic/tactical depth and rely on almost all the same mechanics (city-building and build up the biggest army), with only small differences (topic, graphics and some minor mechanics are different, the basics are mostly the same).…

Good luck! That's a crowded space, but seeing some innovation there would be fantastic.

Re: Five Years of Being a Full-Time Indie Game Developer

#40

Post by Paul_S »

rsaarelm wrote: post #15
GuiA wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I haven't seen a great game fail. Think for a bit about your sentence and what it implies :) (solution: that you've seen 100% of all great games ever submitted to the app store, which seems doubtful)

It is falsifiable though. All you'd need is for someone to notice that a game that has been lingering in obscurity for years is actually great and start bringing attention to it.

There many games that only achieved success years after release (for example Psychonauts). It's the same thing as with films (my favourite: Blade Runner).
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