Honestly just sounds like a boring game. Wouldn't have been fun without VR, so immersion isn't going to be some kind of magic bullet. The steam page does it no favors; I couldn't find any examples of gameplay, and both videos show the same general content. I suspect no one bought it because, well, there was no reason to buy it.
Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
21–30 of 83 posts
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#22The story is informative -- VR games don't sell well, except if you can time to new hardware -- but the math behind the $42.5k number is dubious. Can I value all my hobby projects at $60/hour too? Over a million USD accumulated losses during my adult life so far...
> The story is informative -- VR games don't sell well, except if you can time to new hardware
I disagree - the story doesn't really tell you that. All the story tells you is that OP didn't really do any research (see "As far as I’m aware, Fruit for the Village is the first VR clicker game to exist as a published title." - maybe there's a reason), didn't publicise his game ("I really only showed it off in the 6–8 weeks before it launched"), and made a pretty crappy game (see steam links - 3 reviews, all bad, one was even free. Game breaking bugs not resolved 6 months later). Any one of those things should be enough to sink a game in the current market, but all 3, and you're just asking for failure
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#23"Platform holders need to make it easier for VR game developers to get their games onto their platforms and reach the people who want the game they’re making. This goes beyond just financial, this goes towards publicity, mentorship and more." This point needs to be fleshed out more. What is say the Oculus App store not doing that the iOS app store is? As a user (not a developer) of both, I'm not seeing a difference.
It doersn't really - The poster made a crappy game, didn't market it, didn't test it, and seems to blame others. There are 3 reviews, all negative, with show stopping bugs even 6 months after they first reviewed it. Poster says he didn't market it until 6 weeks before release. This is just shovelware, unfortunately
Yes, in this case there isn't much more platform holders can do, even if they feature his game on the front page indefinitely it will get flooded with negative reviews and sales will be low. You can't compare VR platforms with iOS especially, but even Steam or a console market, because the number of users is orders of magnitude smaller (250K-1 million VR users per platform). In this case the best a platform holder can do is fund development so he can potentially make a better game (hire a programmer and an artist for example), but it doesn't seem like a situation where the concept was amazing and he failed on execution.
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Currently making $17/hr pre-tax and it is liveable in my suburban area. With overtime which is generously available at 1.5x pay, I could afford to raise a family even, and this job feels much more stable than other tech industry jobs I've had in the past. I currently work for Star Gas, which is a northeastern USA based company that delivers heating oil to over 600,000 customers with revenue of about 1B per year (but…
What is the cost of living? That seems rough almost anywhere to support a family. What do you do?
> That seems rough almost anywhere to support a family
Plenty of families in the UK survive off much less than that. Median income in the UK is less than it...
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#25Seems like an article that was written to get purchases from people that like supporting this kind of indie development--pity sales. Which, honestly, I wouldn't mind, except that the article itself is pretty bare of any actual content. The cash figure is made up, the game itself is apparently awful, and the information in the article doesn't support the conclusion(s).
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#26Check out the reviews of the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/528930/Fruit_for_the_Vill... There are three reviews and they are all negative. Maybe the only reason he didn't make money is it's just not a good game.
If the reviews were positive, would it have made a difference? You may think so due to word of mouth. However the Steam store has hundreds of games with high reviews that still have no players. Discoverability goes beyond making a good game.
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#27This is pretty poor analysis on his part about why the game wasn't successful and what it means for the state of the VR market. From a talk at the Game Developer's Conference last March it was shown that the average Steam game makes about $30k in it's first year. That's non-VR.
According to the Steam hardware survey, about 1% of users own a VR headset. This paints a pretty grim picture about what an average VR game can expect to make on Steam.
However that's what you could expect an average game to make. You make exponentially more money the more standard deviations you are from the average.
A few things that push you in the direction of success: an obvious and interesting hook, a compelling trailer, some basic marketing, and quite obviously fun mechanics. I have not played his game, but I can tell from a glance that it is missing the majority of those requirements.
It may be survivorship bias, but I can back this up with experience. I made a good-but-not-great VR game that hit all those major success points, and combined the PC and PS4 have grossed us mid-six figures.
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#28Check out the reviews of the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/528930/Fruit_for_the_Vill... There are three reviews and they are all negative. Maybe the only reason he didn't make money is it's just not a good game.
If the reviews were positive, would it have made a difference? You may think so due to word of mouth. However the Steam store has hundreds of games with high reviews that still have no players. Discoverability goes beyond making a good game.
I try a lot of games with both good and bad reviews. I am more likely to try a game with good reviews.
If you read the reviews for this specific game you will notice that they all point to very similar game breaking bugs which would make me even less likely to try the game. Why would I want to try a game that doesn't allow me to save more than once ever?
I have 500+ games on steam, I buy games I never play and this game is giving me every signal not to buy it.
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#29Check out the reviews of the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/528930/Fruit_for_the_Vill... There are three reviews and they are all negative. Maybe the only reason he didn't make money is it's just not a good game.
It's a narrative game at that. They're incredibly niche even when they're not VR games.
Re: Why I lost $42,500 making a VR game
#30Nothing really to do with VR itself. If anything VR is more favorable for an indie developer as there are less titles on the stores and a more fervent / willing base of users (for desktop VR users), and more room to be creative with interactions versus leaning on visuals.
But making money from indie games is tough in general, it takes a long time, execution is difficult, and marketing is needed. Can even apply to just general making money from app stores or software. Need to have a good idea, execute, market, and stand out from the rest. App stores though give you some boost in discoverability.