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Did I just waste 3 years?

infinitroid.com

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#41

Post by Nition »

solipsism wrote: post #33
stupidcar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 creat…

You may have missed the nuance in the comment you're replying to. Everyone knows that it's possible to win the lottery. But the best advice you can give is to tell people they're never going to win the lottery. People who are super passionate about making indie games I'm going to do it regardless, so this is good advice.

I don't think Stupidcar was disagreeing, I think their point was just that you can tell people a million times that the chance of it working out for them is 1 in a million, and they'll still be out there trying to be that 0.0001%.

Of course I agree that if they can do it because it's something they really want to create, and not worry about whether it makes money, then they'll be much better mentally (and financially!) prepared.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#42

Post by Retra »

jtchang wrote: post #9

What is the target market for the game? I played Metroid when I was a kid on NES and the original gameboy. Games these days are a lot about marketing and huge budgets. The indie ones that do well need to be targeted as well as refreshing. Some hard thoughts just watching the video and reading a bit about the game: 1. I don't really like the graphics as much as I liked the original Metroid. This is probably just a per…

Super Metroid is literally my favorite game, and I don't really have a strong urge to play this.

Metroid is an exploration-based game. The game rewards you for finding secrets and for knowing how to get places. It teases you to find a way to break sequence, and much of the replay-ability of that game is based on the possibility to do that and to bask in what you've already learned about the world. Procedural generation takes a big dump on any sense of familiarity, which is a big part of the reward for exploration.

In fact, the _only_ games I've played where procedural generation were good for the game are story-building games, such as Rogue-likes and Dwarf Fortress. They reward you for building a story, not for traversing obstacles. In every other game, they are just a weak thematic obscuration of the underlying mechanical goals. The Dryad's name in Terraria doesn't matter. Dig deep enough and you'll find diamonds in Minecraft. Kill a boss enough times in Borderlands, and you'll get a good gun. There's no story about achieving these goals. Procedural generation doesn't participate in making the goals more interesting to achieve, it's a forgettable and incidental fact about something almost wholly unrelated.

Game developers need to stop trying to lean on it as a substitute for content. A game is what people can expect from it each time they play it, and if all it is is a bundle of mechanics and throw-backs, then there's not going to be much appeal.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#43

Post by wernercd »

solipsism wrote: post #33
stupidcar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 creat…

You may have missed the nuance in the comment you're replying to. Everyone knows that it's possible to win the lottery. But the best advice you can give is to tell people they're never going to win the lottery. People who are super passionate about making indie games I'm going to do it regardless, so this is good advice.

I play lottery occasionally for the entertainment... not because I'll win.

Likewise, if you are going to put your heart into something like this... do it because you want to...

if you win? great. but it'll be the exception to the rule.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#44

Post by DevX101 »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #22

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…

These are damning stats for anyone interested in getting into indie game dev.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#45

Post by wainstead »

acangiano wrote: post #11

He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall into so easily. Market need/fit > Marketing > Design > Programming when it comes to software products. You can't just build it and expect that they will come, unfortunately.

In "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup," Rob Walling states three wrong reasons to launch something:

1. Having a product idea

2. To get rich

3. Because it sounds like fun

This and other books on launching your own thing stress that you first have to find a market, then fill that market's needs. In the world of indie games I can't even imagine what that would be.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#46

Post by CM30 »

acangiano wrote: post #11

He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall into so easily. Market need/fit > Marketing > Design > Programming when it comes to software products. You can't just build it and expect that they will come, unfortunately.

Not just programmers, many creatives and makers in general. Same rule applies whether you're running a startup, creating a video game, making movies, writing books/articles or playing in a band. The ones who succeed realise they've got to market their work, whereas the ones that don't still believe in the build it and they'll come mentality.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#47

Post by ehsankia »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #22

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…

Could someone explain what this trend even shows, other than making a cool looking curve? It seems to be a layer of abstraction over the graph in the blog (showing the indie explosion), but which adds nothing of value.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#48

Post by mooreds »

> I’ve had a lot of fun building and sharing the game. But I did have some hope of creating something that a lot of people would check out and enjoy, and making some return on my time investment, perhaps enough to keep doing this as an independent career.

I wrote a video course on Amazon Machine Learning [0]. I spent about 80 hours researching, writing the outline, putting together the material, recording and re-recording the 105 minute course. I think I've made about $200 from it, directly.

But, I've done several talks on it (which were non paying, but sharpened my presentation skills), wrote half a book on it, and got one consulting opportunity around it. I also got a bit of schwag from AWS because someone noticed my forum contributions, which was cool.

If everything you do is a hit, you aren't taking enough risks. However, I will say that 2600 hours without market validation is far more commitment than I would make.

0: http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/amazon-machine-learning

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#49

Post by lasagnaphil »

'Infinitroid is a roguelike (or rogue-lite) sci-fi platformer with procedurally generated levels and deeply customizable weapons"

The problem is that the "roguelike" "metrovania" "platformer" genre is oversaturated with so many indie games, so if you're going to grab some money with it it's better gotta be absolutely perfect. From my first impression I don't know if the mechanics are solid, but the art and sound seems too... generic? Maybe if the game had some unique style in it (and some marketing too) it shouldn't have bombed this much...

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