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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)

#171

Post by bequanna »

diabolo96 wrote: post #164

The problem of indie games is that indie devs with no prior knowledge of programming, no prior artistic talent, either in terms of crafting an enticing narrative and/or graphical design wake up one day, decide to drop of university/quit their job to create their big commercial "dream game". The problem is that they often jump over the first step of learning how to make a game and go straight to publish their barely p…

Is there any indication that games that do have excellent art and storytelling are much more likely to succeed?

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

#172

Post by karpierz »

bdw5204 wrote: post #163
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…

Game development has turned into the same kind of nightmare that music is for anybody who wants to go into it. Unless you're really good at marketing/get really lucky, you're never going to make a living doing it because the market is insanely oversaturated and the gaming media focuses most of its attention on a handful of popular high budget games because that's what draws the traffic. Another major problem is how l…

Analogously:

I wonder if many of the low budget films, especially narrative focused films, might be better off as games. Given how everybody has a computer these days, AAA games are formulaic garbage and games aren't centered around a single developer any more, there's probably a market for innovative low budget games made in a basement on a single computer by a few friends and with little to no art assets. That seems like it'd be lower time/money cost and higher expected reward than movie production, plus you'd get to spend time on the internet researching interesting technical problems rather than just sitting in a movie editor for years, working on a movie that will most likely be watched by a few dozen people.

tl;dr: I don't think a good movie is any easier to make than a good game.

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

#173

Post by bequanna »

xeonmc wrote: post #11
Quarrelsome wrote: post #3

> You also need to have a good title that is both memorable/catchy and describes the game well. I feel like "get the goat" was just screaming to the be the name of this title. (they even use this term in some of their marketing)

There are only two hard problems in computer science...

P=NP and Sales?

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

#174

Post by jeroenhd »

wodenokoto wrote: post #77
jeroenhd wrote: post #12

First the Ouya, which turned out to be a total flop, and then the Wii U, which Nintendo marketed so badly many people thought it was an extension for their Wii. This company sure made some unlucky bets! Throughout the article I kept coming back to how generic the name sounds. It conjured pictures if the digital slot machines that are free mobile games, with gameplay loops mostly consisting of waiting or paying money…

> First the Ouya, which turned out to be a total flop, They still paid for the initial development, so it is hard to argue that was a bad place to start.

It's a good deal for sure, but it didn't do the creative work that is the game any favors. It basically killed off the exclusivity deal that indie studios can often get for on-platform advertising.

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

#175

Post by karpierz »

dbspin wrote: post #167
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.…

You're describing survivorship bias. It's impossible for you to know about the great games that you haven't heard about. I'd suggest listening to the devs on this one. I can attest that 'the cream rises to the top' isn't remotely true in areas I know more about - short stories, movies, music. There is indeed lots of cream (in addition to lots more crap with money behind it) at the top. there's also lots of cream, vas…

Can you point to some great movies that didn't see any success this year?

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

#177

Post by Kapura »

Extremely detailed and good analysis, and I agree with just about every point. A lot of it feels like a mystery story, 'why did this game that had good convention vibes not sell?' and I think their ultimate root cause analysis is spot on:

> we think the biggest factor is because it’s a local-multiplayer game with no online play.

Ultimately it's important to think about who the people on the other end of the console are who buy the game are looking for; in 2023, multiplayer games without online play don't fill a critical niche. I think it's easy to see people at festivals enjoying a game and think it's guaranteed money, but festival games atmosphere is unique, and not necessarily the same as just some dude scrolling thru steam looking for something to play.

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

#178

Post by spywaregorilla »

karpierz wrote: post #172
bdw5204 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game development has turned into the same kind of nightmare that music is for anybody who wants to go into it. Unless you're really good at marketing/get really lucky, you're never going to make a living doing it because the market is insanely oversaturated and the gaming media focuses most of its attention on a handful of popular high budget games because that's what draws the traffic. Another major problem is how l…

Analogously: I wonder if many of the low budget films, especially narrative focused films, might be better off as games. Given how everybody has a computer these days, AAA games are formulaic garbage and games aren't centered around a single developer any more, there's probably a market for innovative low budget games made in a basement on a single computer by a few friends and with little to no art assets. That seem…

You can only play so many small narrative focused games before you realize they're pretty boring. Especially if you're saying they have few art assets. People say these things are great, but part of that appreciation is for the novelty of a game being so stripped down and devoid of gameplay that it feels interesting.

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

#179

Post by erikerikson »

cttet wrote: post #79
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.

I don't consider the comments helpful as well, but quite contrastively, because of the over optimism. Lots of the comments contribute the failure to quite a few reasons, and emphasize on the effect of the reasons. But the real thing is this actually can imply that the failure can be narrow down to "a few simple obvious fixes". To me it make me feel good since "a bad title" can be a very simple excuse to think that "w…

A different interpretation of "you tried your best" is valid. It's not a remark that one has reached their capacity but that one made their honest best effort for the moment they made it (even if it often doesn't feel that way). In fact, because of that effort they'll have learned things that will make their next best efforts even more effective and less prone to the risks that reduced the desired outcome of the prior effort. Bests are a constantly evolving target.

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

#180

Post by pier25 »

> At the end of the day, we think the biggest factor is because it’s a local-multiplayer game with no online play.

I actually played the game with the OUYA and then on PC. I think it failed simply because it wasn't super fun. We consistently got bored after 10mins of playing it.

Compare it to Towerfall. Also local multiplayer only and released initially for the OUYA. We played it for hours on end and I think it was a great commercial success.

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