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,…
Demo (please)?
...never mind, youtube delivers where devs don't :(
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 Shro…
Ha! Wow, thanks man. Hope you enjoy it.
I remember the old days of reading about video games in catalogs. Do I want Ultima V or Wasteland or Kings Quest?
Ironically, those are all still active properties in one way or another, after 30+ years!
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 th…
You don't need to be a star to make good six figures. You just need to be good enough to get into a top-tier studio.
While financial data is hard to obtain in general, luckily, the Activision lawsuit has made a lot of it available to the public, everything from project budgets to the salaries[1] is now a part of public record.
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,…
Demo (please)? ...never mind, youtube delivers where devs don't :(
Hi Paul! Sorry, there's no demo for our game. The first Spider game is a much smaller version of the one we're releasing now - you can buy it cheap on Google Play or the App Store. If it looks good to you, the new Spider game is currently on the front page of the App Store and on Steam. You'll get much more content, way higher production quality, crazy cool new features like real local weather and time of day, etc etc..
> 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 Shro…
Ha! Wow, thanks man. Hope you enjoy it. I remember the old days of reading about video games in catalogs. Do I want Ultima V or Wasteland or Kings Quest? Ironically, those are all still active properties in one way or another, after 30+ years!
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.
Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are what originally motivated me to learn to program. But some point along the way, I came to believe (whether true or false) that game development was really not a very enticing career path, both in terms of compensation and technical & creative challenges open to s…
I was a game developer for 20+ years (Looking Glass Studios, Harmonix) and boy oh boy were there a lot of technical and creative challenges. I ended up leaving largely to reduce stress and because I wanted to try doing something else with my career, but if what you want are technical and creative challenges, it's a pretty good job.
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,…
>a game about programming in Assembly language.
That sounds very intresting. I'm currently enjoying TIS-100, which is on the same subject.
Ha! Wow, thanks man. Hope you enjoy it. I remember the old days of reading about video games in catalogs. Do I want Ultima V or Wasteland or Kings Quest? Ironically, those are all still active properties in one way or another, after 30+ years!
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,…
>a game about programming in Assembly language. That sounds very intresting. I'm currently enjoying TIS-100, which is on the same subject.
Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about! Obviously there are not TWO games about programming in Assembly. Wait another few years and there will be, though.
I also started with game development for Windows phone using XNA, switched to marmalade then Unity. Stopped creating games a few months ago thinking mostly like you plus wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. However, searching for companies looking for developers with game development background and familiarity with Unity, I found a few startups who…
>wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. Keeping ourselves entertained on this planet is a very real user problem. It has been a core part of all human cultures for millennia. As we become more productive at producing all the essentials for survival, entertainment will take an ever growing share of our economies. Entertainment is the one industry that…
I would make the opposite prediction. Entertainment is becoming cheaper and more abundant all the time due to computerization, and this is happening faster than in industries like energy and health care. So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a lot more and better entertainment, but it seems unlikely that we'll pay a larger percentage of income for it. More likely, people will be paying less and getting more.