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Did I just waste 3 years?

infinitroid.com

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#71

Post by notafraudster »

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…

You are looking at lifetime sales of games that have been on sale for different periods of time. All of these should be divided by number of years of sales, which gives you:

2017: 49k, 2016: 36k, 2015: 37k, 2014: 39k

2013: 120k, 2012: 89k, 2011: 73k, 2010: 48k

2009: 35k, 2008: 27k, 2007: 75k, 2006: 48k

2005: 43k, 2004: (this really just means Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike): 820k

With the sales normalized by year, and noting that 2004 did not actually allow third party games on sale, there is not an appreciable drop or trend across the entire time range.. I suspect the crazy spike in 2013 can be attributed entirely to Dota2 and 2012, Counterstrike Global Offensive causing mean skew.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#72

Post by snissn »

jmcgough wrote: post #68

I don't mean to poopoo how hard it is to succeed as an indie game maker now, but I can barely find /any/ press or information about the game when I search for it. It's rarely enough to just build something and cross your fingers, especially in a saturated market. Coding heads down without any marketing or validation (like selling early release steam copies) and hoping it'll see viral growth is a mistake, for both sta…

Also from this page it simultaneously says the game is free and asks me for money https://infinitroid.com/new_account

Also doesn't have any screen shots, info about the game, etc

It's actually hostile to someone coming across the page trying to check out the game

Edit it's possible the note about "You can skip the payment section below" was literally just added

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#73

Post by meritt »

The indie game marketplace has a massive discovery problem that is not whatsoever met by current tools. Humble Bundle tried to solve this for a while but I just checked their site and it's filled with AAA titles to include Overwatch, Assassin's Creed, and COD: Black Ops.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#74

Post by paulcole »

rococode wrote: post #50
adamnemecek wrote: post #3

> I’m not a dumb guy—I got good SAT scores. Lol ok.

Bad SAT scores may not be a good indicator that you are a dumb guy, but good SAT scores are definitely an indicator that you aren't a dumb guy.

I think the point is that it doesn’t matter what SAT scores the author got. If you’re older than about 18, a 1500 on your SATs and $4 will get you a cup of coffee at Philz.

Additionally, high SAT scores don’t prevent you from making dumb decisions, like say, spending 2,600 hours developing an indie game and thinking you’ll make money on it.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#76

Post by hacker_9 »

stupidcar wrote: post #26
rocky1138 wrote: post #15

If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.

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…

Yeah and many other indies worked for 4+ years and got about 10 downloads on release, and you never hear of them.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#77

Post by gavanwoolery »

notafraudster wrote: post #71
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…

You are looking at lifetime sales of games that have been on sale for different periods of time. All of these should be divided by number of years of sales, which gives you: 2017: 49k, 2016: 36k, 2015: 37k, 2014: 39k 2013: 120k, 2012: 89k, 2011: 73k, 2010: 48k 2009: 35k, 2008: 27k, 2007: 75k, 2006: 48k 2005: 43k, 2004: (this really just means Half-Life 2 and Counterstrike): 820k With the sales normalized by year, and…

great point! would be interesting to see the average sales drop-off over time. Typically games have sales spikes during the early release and then later during sales, but it tends to drop off over time. "Classic" or "must play" games, however, like Portal, tend to sell pretty well over their entire life.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#78

Post by kartan »

iameli wrote: post #31

7672 games released in a year still seems so, so low to me. How many books are published in a year? How many albums? I don't say this to minimize the pain of indie devs that find themselves suddenly deluged with competition... but that's where things are headed, yeah?

Around 2,256,508 books (data is not up to date https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_pe...)

But I guess it will be fair to compare also with Movies. As some games have budgets on that scale.

That is around 730 movies per year for USA and Canada. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187122/movie-releases-in...

> I don't say this to minimize the pain of indie devs that find themselves suddenly deluged with competition... but that's where things are headed, yeah?

Yes. In the 90s there were not so many people with the skills and equipment to create games. Nowadays is a global market where everyone can give it a try. From cheap computers to Unity3D it is easier and cheaper than ever to create games.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#79

Post by raverbashing »

stupidcar wrote: post #26
rocky1138 wrote: post #15

If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.

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…

Well even though it looks like, creative fields are not split only between the top hits and the starving hopefuls.

You might not be the next star musician, but even big artists need session players, there's teaching, arranging, etc

Artists and writers can find some work in commercial endeavours.

It might not be a big market but it exists.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#80

Post by benologist »

avianlyric wrote: post #37
benologist wrote: post #13

If I'm reading it correctly you're considering: - call the game finished and walk away now you finished the dev work - call the game a hobby to excuse the sales now you finished the dev work - code some arbitrary addition to be ethical just to be coding something cause dev work is probably the only work that exists - keep iterating cause you can always invent more dev work to do - get a different project going for an…

Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Walking away now might mean throwing away 3 years, but that’s still better than working for another 3 years, still not succeeding, and wasting 6 years.

If someone has spent 1000 days building their MVP and 0 days establishing market fit it's a terrible time to quit.
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