Did I just waste 3 years?

I wrote this controversial tweet on the matter a while back (embedded here for convenience [1], controversial because it uses averages!) Which might make things seem more or less bleak depending on your perspective, but an important note from this data is that the 2017 median sales were about 2000 units per game (yikes).

[1] https://twitter.com/gavanw/status/967249172804943872

Average number of units sold per game on steam by year (note many games have long tails)

  2004 - 11.6m

  2005 - 569k

  2006 - 581k

  2007 - 833k

  2008 - 279k

  2009 - 322k

  2010 - 391k

  2011 - 512k

  2012 - 535k

  2013 - 601k

  2014 - 157k

  2015 - 111k

  2016 - 73k

  2017 - 49k

It's hard to context switch between marketing and programming. You can spent many hours marketing with little return, especially without a product. Programming by itself is slow, but there is a definitely return in terms of progress. So many people choose programming first before marketing. But I get what you mean. Its though.

That's clearly not entirely true though, because there are hits. They're just extremely rare, but extremely visible. You can read interviews with the Stardew Valley guy all over where he talks about spending 4 years working solo on his game, refusing to give up on realising his artistic vision. Then he releases and it's a mega-hit. That's a very seductive story.

This isn't a problem unique to indie games. Every creative field has an overabundance of hopefuls, all chasing a tiny chance of turning it into a success. The problem, as Daniel Clowes observed back in 1991[1] is that everyone thinks that they'll be one of the lucky ones.

[1] https://artinfiction.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/asc-3.jpg

I work at a AAA games studio and if this guy came to us with nothing else on his resume but this game he would definitely get a chance.

I mean, in terms of chances in the industry - I got in by completing a 4 year CS degree. If he gets in by spending 3 years building his own game then I'd say it was worth it.

Releasing a basic game with the same mechanics/concepts before expanding on it through updates?

Well, that seems to be how many multiplayer games are released nowadays anyway. Look at ARMS or Mario Tennis Aces on the Nintendo Switch, or Pokemon GO, or Sea of Thieves* on Xbox. Released in very basic states, then slowly expanded upon via regular updates. You could even possibly say Minecraft went the same way.

That said, this sort of 'Minimum Viable Game' idea may not work as well here as it does for business products or web services. People are practically spoilt for choice when it comes to what games to buy, and a game that leaves an initial 'meh' impression (due to a lack of content/replay value) can often die out before the updates ever come. And the critics will certainly not be kind to it either...

* Admittedly, that one took four years to develop, which may not have been the best setup given the lack of content.

Other ways this is sometimes done are:

1. By releasing demos on a regular basis to test the waters 2. Splitting the game up into episodes and selling them one at a time. Valve did this with Half Life, but it was arguably TellTale Games who ran with it. 3. Or by running a beta test for the game and gauging reactions from that.

Of course, all the above assumes you can build at least a somewhat sizable portion of the game in a reasonable timeframe. If you want to know whether a completely untested idea will be viable... well good luck with that in this industry. You'll always need at least a core gameplay loop setup to know whether the idea is fun, and you'll need much more if you want to know whether anyone will buy it.