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Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

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Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#101

Post by Aaargh20318 »

ykonstant wrote: post #87
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I look at the top amount of spent time in game (the "value" per spend money) it's some small dev management games (Factorio, Banished, Rimworld, X4) I don’t care for those kinds of games at all. That’s the problem with most indie games: they rely solely on gameplay. Me, personally, I’m more into story driven games, and that additional budget buys you better writers, actors, mo-cap, etc. > the type of game that m…

> I’m more into story driven games I have yet to see a story as good as the Blackwell series. Perhaps you have made up your mind that indie games do not have good story lines, so you are not looking for them. I don't know.

I had a quick look and it looks really low-budget.

The thing is, I have limited time to play games, so I can be very selective what I spend that time on. This means I can limit myself to games that do everything right, not just one thing. That means story, but also production value. Good acting, good mo-cap, good graphic, a good sound track, etc.

Why would I spend the limited time I have for gaming on games that don't check all the boxes ? There may not be a lot of games that do, but there are enough for me to only play those kinds of games.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#102

Post by somenameforme »

cubefox wrote: post #92
somenameforme wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you mean by "true" indie games. Valheim [1][2], by any reasonable interpretation of the word, is a completely indie game. It was made almost entirely by a single guy in his spare time after work, well at least until it blew up and he was able to expand the studio. And it was released with little more than a post on itch.io - 'Hey guys here's my game and a couple of pics. Let me know what you think.…

Of course there are some successful indie games! But the only relevant thing is the probability that any one game will be successful. That chance is very small.

I don't see what the average would matter, because not all games are created equal. It's kind of like the Steven King / Richard Bachman experiment [1]. The question he was answering was not how likely a random author was to succeed, but how likely a good author was to succeed. So it seems that the important question is what are the odds of a genuinely good game going unrecognized, flopping completely? What are the odds of a Valheim failing? And I think that percent is extremely near zero.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#103

Post by laeri »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #67
keyle wrote: post #25

When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot. But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games. It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where w…

For me the main problem with indie games is the amount of value you get for your money. Games are software, if you sell 10 copies or 10 million, it’s basically the same amount of work. That is: no matter how big your development budget is, or how many you expect to sell, 100% of that budget goes into developing 1 copy of the game. However, the actual budget does scale with the number of expected sales. A game that is…

I have a different experience. I can't play most of the AAA games as their gameplay seems quite simple in a lot of cases and they often follow common structures. Indie games are radically different in a lot of cases as they usually take more risks and just the personality of the creator(s) shines through.

My most favoure genre is roguelikes/roguelites which is just not present in AAA titles.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#104

Post by Etrnl_President »

epolanski wrote: post #54

The amount of negativity and criticism in the comments here is sad. Not only I think it's way too easy to criticize other's work and choices (in hindsight), but there's also a total lack of empathy. We should cherish many small developers and entrepeneurs that share their experiences with such honest and thorough posts about the experience as they offer unique and valuable inputs and reflections.

[flagged]

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#105

Post by cubefox »

somenameforme wrote: post #102
cubefox wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there are some successful indie games! But the only relevant thing is the probability that any one game will be successful. That chance is very small.

I don't see what the average would matter, because not all games are created equal. It's kind of like the Steven King / Richard Bachman experiment [1]. The question he was answering was not how likely a random author was to succeed, but how likely a good author was to succeed. So it seems that the important question is what are the odds of a genuinely good game going unrecognized, flopping completely? What are the od…

I think the probability is quite high that even fairly good games will flop, because there are so many indie developers, and because the tools are so advanced. So only the best of the best will succeed, or those which satisfy some unique niche, or which somehow already have an established brand.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#106

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Etrnl_President wrote: post #104
epolanski wrote: post #54

The amount of negativity and criticism in the comments here is sad. Not only I think it's way too easy to criticize other's work and choices (in hindsight), but there's also a total lack of empathy. We should cherish many small developers and entrepeneurs that share their experiences with such honest and thorough posts about the experience as they offer unique and valuable inputs and reflections.

[flagged]

That's obviously not true; but I don't get why you're saying that. What prompted it?

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#107

Post by magic_hamster »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #93
onion2k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a marketeting's game now. I don't think that's true. Not because I think an indie game can succeed without marketing, but the opposite. I think most indie games would still fail even with incredible marketing . They'd just lose more money because they'd have an additional cost. You can't always advertise your way to success in a completely saturated (or over-saturated) market, especially if your competitors are…

Non-indie games too; think Daikatana, Anthem, Babylon's Fall, Duke Nukem Forever, Shenmue, etc; all high budget, high marketing budget titles but ultimately flops.

To be fair, now that we got a chance to play a leaked (and reconstructed) version of the Unreal DNF build... If this game came out in 2001 it would absolutely be a top tier legendary title. It's tragic that they didn't finish it when they should have. It had nothing to do with marketing. Just plain old fucking up.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#108

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

barrysteve wrote: post #97
noobermin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be harsh, and may be a crash isn't needed, but clearly if there's oversaturation, it is just natural that making "indie" games shouldn't make money. It is depressing perhaps for people who want to make games which clearly is a lot of people, but you're just upset at the economics of reality.

Huah? I'm not upset about the economics though. I'm just describing what I see. What upsets me is the drop in meaningful/just games to play. I really like playing and making games, and seeing a valuable thing be created.... It's not happening often any more in the Steam games space. It genuinely hurts to go from GTA V, RimWorld, Stardew, CS and HL (ect) to empty, hollow games. It's okay with me if it crashes. My core…

> Have something to say!

So much this. This same theme repeats itself all over the place. Humans have an amazing BS filter. We can detect ingenuity even when we don't understand it. That's why I'm not too worried about AI.

With almost every aspect in life--just focus on being a real, genuine person and the rest will work itself out.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#109

Post by freeCandy »

somenameforme wrote: post #53
keyle wrote: post #25

When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot. But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games. It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where w…

It depends on what you mean by "true" indie games. Valheim [1][2], by any reasonable interpretation of the word, is a completely indie game. It was made almost entirely by a single guy in his spare time after work, well at least until it blew up and he was able to expand the studio. And it was released with little more than a post on itch.io - 'Hey guys here's my game and a couple of pics. Let me know what you think.…

Valheim and such games are very much exceptions to this, for every successful indie game released, there is an ocean of unsuccessful games out there and that may be equally as good, or even better than Valheim.

Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)

#110

Post by notThrowingAway »

somenameforme wrote: post #53
keyle wrote: post #25

When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot. But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games. It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where w…

It depends on what you mean by "true" indie games. Valheim [1][2], by any reasonable interpretation of the word, is a completely indie game. It was made almost entirely by a single guy in his spare time after work, well at least until it blew up and he was able to expand the studio. And it was released with little more than a post on itch.io - 'Hey guys here's my game and a couple of pics. Let me know what you think.…

>Forager

This is offtopic but the forager lead dev is often criticized for claiming to be a solo dev and taking credit for other people who worked on the game.

https://indiecator.org/2021/04/14/forager-the-rise-and-fall

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