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Did I just waste 3 years?

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#121

Post by izacus »

meritt wrote: post #116
sweden wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself as a big fan of Metroidvanias, I'm even the kind of person who actively looks for new games in this genre, and those were my thoughts as well. I would even say that this game manages to hit the 3 points in which I avoid on a Metroidvania: 1. Rogue-like. I really dislike rogue-like, no special reason, just a personal preference 2. Lack of a plot. I appreciate the feeling of exploring a world the feel…

> Also... no Linux version? Really? You're criticizing an indie game developer who feels he just wasted 3 years of his life making a failure, for not spending the extra year or whatever it'd take for it to be cross-platform?

With engines like Unity and Unreal, supporting multiple platforms (including modern consoles like PS4, Xbox One and Switch) has a level of complexity of writing a portable Electron app.

As an indie developer, you need to maximize that market coverage (and develop with portability in mind).

Having said that, it's probably not the primary reason why his game failed.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#122

Post by breabrea »

mypalmike wrote: post #102
randombrea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but would you say its industry wide? Because I have also heard (non-gaming) the exact opposite. Also, would he get through HR? They are more often than not, the real gatekeepers. It would require someone to vouch for him personally to go through, and that isn't very scalable when applying for jobs.

Hiring in both gaming and non-gaming is about your resume, phone screen, and interview. The first two are gating factors for the interview. The interview is how the actual decision is made. References are of much less significance, often go unchecked, and are usually focused on simply confirming the truthiness of your resume. If you spent 3 years of your life working on a game, it's not a gap on your resume. In fact,…

Yes and no. You are still at a disadvantaged even if you write a good resume. As an HR, when I need to fill a job, I search my existing database for candidates. I input keywords such as Unity3d, Unreal Engine, UI, etc. If I know another AAA studio has a specific department with those skillset, I input that studio name (disadvantage #1).

Let's say the candidate pool comes back with 30+ results. I will only interview 10 candidates realistically because I have other jobs to fill too. I will rank those candidates by experience and background. People that work at existing AAA studios always goes on top of the pile because I know their chances of filling the job is much higher (disadvantage #2). If there are more than 10 candidates from AAA studios, then too bad for you. Indie game developers goes to the bottom pile unless their skill set matches exactly what I need. Even then, he/ she is an unknown, for the simple reason, they might exaggerate their experience and AAA studios can guarantee the candidates quality.

As an HR, I need to meet quotas. And I have only so many hours to spend per day interviewing candidates. Each candidate takes an hour. Interviewing an indie game developer takes more time because I need to make sure he know his stuff. If I keep on passing indie developers that are not up to par to hiring managers, they will reflect that back to my manager.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#124

Post by salembeats »

If you released a game with no market research and under the naive expectation that "if you build it, they will come", you likely learned a very painful lesson.

There needs to be a market for what you're writing, you need to find and reach out to this market, and you need to entice them by providing more value than the spare $X they have in their pocket (plus, you need to communicate this so that they realize this).

You also need to realize that small differences in quality can lead to huge differences in interest, ESPECIALLY given how "copycat" your game seems appears from the homepage. If your game is only 1% worse than the other game I'm interested in, I'll probably give the other game 100% of my free gaming time (others may not be so extreme, but you get the idea).

Marketing/sales folks exist for a reason. You just figured out why.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#125

Post by bitL »

sweden wrote: post #119
meritt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also... no Linux version? Really? You're criticizing an indie game developer who feels he just wasted 3 years of his life making a failure, for not spending the extra year or whatever it'd take for it to be cross-platform?

I would say that nowadays is not that difficult to have a game that works on both Windows and Linux. Also, it is a legit thing to point out when and developer complains about the lack of sales.

Seriously, how many Linux users you know that pay for software? How much would that increase indie's sales? By 2?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#127

Post by zeroname »

The game looks bad. You will not get a foot in the door with a game that looks like this in 2018. It looks like amateur/programmer art. There are some people that aren't bothered by that, but when it comes to media the looks are paramount.

If this game had an appealing art style, it might stand a chance in the already saturated market of Metroidvanias.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#128

Post by meritt »

sweden wrote: post #119
meritt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also... no Linux version? Really? You're criticizing an indie game developer who feels he just wasted 3 years of his life making a failure, for not spending the extra year or whatever it'd take for it to be cross-platform?

I would say that nowadays is not that difficult to have a game that works on both Windows and Linux. Also, it is a legit thing to point out when and developer complains about the lack of sales.

There's not a ton of information available on the breakdown of sales by platform, but the data that is out there shows Linux sales usually compromise ~2-4% for cross-platform games [1]. If you get linux support "for free" by utilizing an engine, then absolutely go for it, but even major companies with massively popular games are still skipping out on first-class Linux support [2], due to the low market share.

[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-game-sales-stat...

[2] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/president-of-blizzard...

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#130

Post by gavanwoolery »

the_duke wrote: post #89
notafraudster wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't mean probably very, very skewed for this? Median would be much more interesting.

median would definitely be better. As noted, median for 2017 was 2k units sold per game, but I lost the rest of that data. Regardless, average still carries some meaning. :)
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