Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap • Hacker News Board

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#251

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #115

sfg wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad somebody sane has shown up. The guy is doing well, relative to his own aims and objectives, and has found a way to work within his limitations to hit a sweet spot that allows him to support his family in a happy life and provide games enjoyed by a loyal fanbase. What do we discover from HN? He's a lazy bugger that hasn't put any real effort in to respond to his customer's complaints and has failed to lear…

This is what I said in a different comment: there are people like that in film too – they make films their whole life, found a certain level that they feel comfortable with and settle there. That is a perfectly fine choice and in no way should anybody talk bad about it. The only thing that bugs me however is when they try to come up with excuses why their works don't live up to the standard of other artists judge the…

Why should he expend effort getting better at something he doesn't really care that much about when he can spend his time getting better at things he does? People like you always seem to miss the thing about time being a scarce resource.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#252

Post by ddingus » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #221

Goronmon wrote: post #214

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed. Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum. Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games…

I agree with your aside comment. That quote in the original article really jumped out to me. There are a ton of great indie games that have solid cohesive art direction but wouldn't be considered even close to AAA quality in terms of production effort. Some beloved heavy hitters would include the Steamworld series, Celeste, Undertale, Super Meat Boy. These are games made on a shoestring development team that don't lo…

Actually, he completely owned his mediocrity, and he cited cost and risk, as well as his own comfort with said mediocrity as reasons for continuing with it.

Then he talked about great stories.

Definitely not mediocre.

So, the take away is story can sell to fans of story and game play.

That is not wrong. It has, does, and I suspect, will continue to.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#253

Post by eropple » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

nimblegorilla wrote: post #247

Goronmon wrote: post #214

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed. Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum. Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games…

> If the context of the discussion was about developers instead of artists, how would HackerNews feel about someone lamenting the fact that they can't get any "affordable" developers to work on their projects? That's an interesting way to look at this article. It seems that many solo entrepreneurs have a hard time evaluating the skills of those outside their own domain. It feels arrogant to criticize someone profitab…

I'm not sure such a firm exists, for what you're talking about. In games, you often have an art director whose job is to create that consistent look (and such an art director can make freelancer work way, way more cohesive!). But you have to pay that person, and it's an ongoing task.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#254

Post by Majromax » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #214

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed. Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum. Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games…

> If the context of the discussion was about developers instead of artists, how would HackerNews feel about someone lamenting the fact that they can't get any "affordable" developers to work on their projects?

I'm not sure the reaction would be all that negative, to be honest.

The problem to me isn't when someone says "we want cheap work and we understand it will not be particularly high-quality," but when they say "we want top-quality work but we're not willing to pay for it."

Voegl's expectations here are honest -- refreshingly so. He's openly paying for artists, but he's paying for art to a budget rather than budgeting to art.

> There is a large grey area between "crap" and "AAA-quality".

I think Voegl addresses that in the middle of the "1." section -- he has had games with "improved" art, but the improved art did not increase sales enough to justify the expense. If an epsilon improvement in art did not improve profits, then it suggests he's near a local optimum.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#255

Post by ddingus » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #84

> People who grew up with Nintendo and Sega really like pixel art. As one of those people, I really don't like pixel art at all. Today's pixel art looks nothing like games did back in the day. The simple reason is that those Nintendo and Sega games weren't played on 27" 4k LCD monitors or 65" OLED TV's but on on the barely 14" CRT in my bedroom. We didn't have huge pixely sprites, they were small and blurry. It had a…

I happen to have gained considerable experience with TVs growing up.

Am able to take most vintage sets, align and calibrate them to perform much better than that image. In some cases, modifying the set does even more.

I love pixel art. Back then, I definitely saw the pixels.

Some of my sets were comparable in performance to what people seek for retro today, the PVR.

And I have a PVR, because they are cheap right now. Actually. I have two, but one will need service before I use it. Can still definitely see the pixels.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#256

Post by segmondy » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

I think most people in this thread are missing the point.

The point is know your constraints!!! Be willing to say NO to some things! Anything you say YES to has a cost!

If you can do the above, you can find success in most things.

If you apply the author's idea, it would be the same as. Why he has decided to own a small business and not a startup or a big enterprise. "Why my revenue looks like crap, and our growth is not a hockey stick" Most of us on here would be better off making $500k a year working for ourselves than chasing $1 billion valuation. Nothing wrong with that. He has a family to feed. He prefers having a small pie that's a sure thing than trying to go for a large pie that he might not be able to get.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#257

Post by baud147258 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #214

I wonder what the sentiment would be if the situation was reversed. Here we have a developer effectively looking to pay below market rates for artists, and then unsurprisingly not finding many good artists willing to do that long term. Not a judgment on my part, just saying that he's looking to keep the art budget to an absolute minimum. Instead if it was an artist defending his choice to make relatively simple games…

>> The key problem here is that, when most people say, "Your art looks bad," what they mean is, "I want art that is good." They mean, "I want AAA-quality art." And I can't make that. Not even close.

> That seems like a pretty big strawman to me. There is a large grey area between "crap" and "AAA-quality".

And even then, you can have low-budget (like what Vogel is doing) with good-looking art, as in good art direction, which he has already done.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#258

Post by bonestamp2 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #207

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #84

> People who grew up with Nintendo and Sega really like pixel art. As one of those people, I really don't like pixel art at all. Today's pixel art looks nothing like games did back in the day. The simple reason is that those Nintendo and Sega games weren't played on 27" 4k LCD monitors or 65" OLED TV's but on on the barely 14" CRT in my bedroom. We didn't have huge pixely sprites, they were small and blurry. It had a…

For me, pixel art is a technical limitation. I don't see the point of romanticising a technical limitation. What limitation are we going to do next? Retro low-poly 3D models? A soundtrack consisting of six songs only? Distributing the game on 13 floppy disks? Games that never get updates? Low quality collision objects? Null-model cable multiplayer? game_demo.exe file download from CNET.com? Anti-piracy methods by hav…

True, but that technical limitation inadvertently created a "style" and some people like that style even if the technology now exists to make art with more detail.

For example, just because the technology exists to make a virtually unlimited range of sounds and effects doesn't mean that we should abolish simple acoustic music... some people like that style, which originally existed because that's all the technology that was available.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#259

Post by Pfhreak » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #250

cosarara wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, can't. This doesn't change the rest of what I said, though: Have the freelance artist spend some time fixing up the tileset as a whole!

I think you may not be grasping how tiny the margins here are. Where's the money come from to do it?

Not only the margins, but the number of units sold. Many indie devs are lucky to sell a few hundred or a few thousand copies.

Re: Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap

#260

Post by baud147258 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #248

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your aside comment. That quote in the original article really jumped out to me. There are a ton of great indie games that have solid cohesive art direction but wouldn't be considered even close to AAA quality in terms of production effort. Some beloved heavy hitters would include the Steamworld series, Celeste, Undertale, Super Meat Boy. These are games made on a shoestring development team that don't lo…

JV spends astonishingly little on art because his games don't make very much . His audience is small (I am part of it) and his audience values that particular kind of game way more than it does art-- and the marginal return from making it look a little better to appeal to a little wider of a crowd is historically negative. He cited as much, and he's talked about his numbers in concrete terms before. Every game you li…

I think the issue is that this particular game look worse than his previous games (of course here YMMV), which were done with lower budgets (not Kickstartered).