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Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

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Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#361

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

xvector wrote: post #348
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: "Make sure your hook is glowingly radioactively good. Don't overbalance. Leave in some jank. Scope down and finish quickly. And avoid tropes. Stand out." For games with a limited run time is it possible to balance this against Steam's 2 hour return policy? Feel like we're now trapped in a position where you can make short little proof of concepts on itch but when it comes to trying to make something professional…

How many people really would abuse the return policy like that? I can't imagine it's that many.

I can't find the source now but I recall reading about some game that was heavily impacted by it. I don't think it was this one but here's an example I found just now https://kotaku.com/steams-two-hour-refund-policy-forces-horr...

A big part of the issue is that a lot of people do not consider it abuse. The value of games is so heavily burned into a lot of people's minds as being a dollars to hours ratio and Steam having this blanket policy could be perceived to be endorsing that perspective.

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#362

Post by japhib »

newobj wrote: post #55
japhib wrote: post #41

Amazing work! Questions: - How/why did you decide to talk to a publisher? When in the process did you feel like you had a good enough prototype to do that? - What have been the pros/cons of working with a publisher? When, in your opinion, should someone do that vs. self-publishing? - What was your confidence level throughout various stages of the project? Was there a point before releasing the game where you maybe go…

I worked with a publisher for a few reasons: 1) I didn't know what I didn't know, and didn't want to "find out" AND make the game at the same time. I needed a partner for the business/marketing end. 2) An advance (funding) helped de-risk things for me. 3) I needed help to find an artist. I was having no luck on my own. Even with the traction the game had! Publishers actually came to me. In a weird coincidence, I happ…

Thanks for the in depth answer! Good luck with the recovery - hopefully the game has left your financials in a good enough spot that you don’t have to worry about the next project for a bit, at least.

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#363

Post by makerdiety »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #356
makerdiety wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is apathy toward society—which is, really, only your local community you're trying to defend and not something that is universally significant or even objectively capable of growth and sustainability—a dire crime I've committed? Because I do not in fact care about the "society" thing. And claiming to have technical skill while also claiming that technology is stopping you from creating is a contradiction. An artist w…

>Is apathy toward society—which is, really, only your local community you're trying to defend and not something that is universally significant or even objectively capable of growth and sustainability—a dire crime I've committed? Not particularly. You're free to interpret and navigate as you see fit. >And claiming to have technical skill while also claiming that technology is stopping you from creating is a contradic…

If you are held back by a lack of artistic creativity, then you should simply expend the effort to do a journey of self-improvement in the name of acquiring artistic creativity. Life is that simple, yes? Because game development without game development is what leads to consequences like the stagnation of the game development industry whose population decline you lament. Making tools for nobody or nobody in particular is aimless unproductivity. But the desire for quantity over quality is the fatal economic mistake you are making. Especially when you're not amiable toward the idea of filtering bad development skills out of your social industry you're envisioning. You only need one good game, made by one good developer, at the minimum. Any more enthusiasm than that is just silly post-scarcity arrogance and delusion which is very harmful to sensible progress.

What is more ambitious would be something like incubating or founding a small province of dedicated developers who aim to fulfill your wish. Exclusivity, selection, and culling ineffectiveness would definitely be essential here, rather than being tolerant to policies which would want to try to cram a bunch of diverse individuals into a melting pot of a future failed empire of creative ideas and technology that only serves as an ironic example of what not to do in building your own development industry and securing your own game production economics. Caring one bit about the ontological time of today and its youth, a mere phenomenological axiom which leads to concerns about some content creator crisis, is the tendency you need to abandon, if you want to start your theoretical project and see its successful completion.

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#365

Post by guywithahat »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #196
guywithahat wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean video games are notoriously competitive, and very little money comes in until it launches after a year of building. It was not impossible OP was going to launch to 4000 customers. I think OP’s story is inspiring, and I’m happy to hear he had support, but I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any). When…

>It was not impossible OP was going to launch to 4000 customers. Having a publisher helps a lot. But 4000 copies for many indies would be a rousing success (albeit, not a financial success). It is simply that competitive. >I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any). Very true for 99.99% of indie devs. But I f…

Not only is VC funding very competitive, but it takes an enormous amount of time to raise. My first startup we spent months and months doing nothing but fundraising.

Recently, I didn't want to bother with that and just went straight to building product. In this case, I built product, got a couple customers, and saw zero growth. From there, no VC would touch us, because we had no growth, and in some cases they just made fun of us.

Like myself, OP was the founder/cofounder, and it's not uncommon for family to be very unsupportive of risky career moves. Unsuccessful startups lead to divorce all the time, it's very sad and a part of startups nobody talks about

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#366

Post by ghfhghg »

newobj wrote: post #63
ghfhghg wrote: post #62

Wow congratulations. The game presentation is awesome. When working on this how long did it take before the game felt fun to you?

Honestly it felt fun on day 3, the first time you could drop a ball and there were a couple triggers that did things. As a verrrrrrry pessimistic person, the fact that I actually thought it felt fun was like a huge flashing light above my head that there was something to the idea.

Awesome! Especially as a pessimistic person being able to find that and break through.

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#368

Post by CptFribble »

SXX wrote: post #325
CptFribble wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are refunds so commonly counted against sales in this way? Wouldn't a refund cost essentially nothing?

To be honest it's just a thing from financial models inside industry. When you plan how much copies you suppose to sell to turn profit you must consider refund rate as well. Another reason is that games on Steam can and are often refunded after quite long time has passed. E.g people buy lots of games on holidays or sales and then refund them when they decide not to play it. Sometimes refunds can happen even after a y…

Ah, I see - thank you for the context! If you don't mind one more question - do you have to leave a substantial amount of cash in the Steam account in case of very late refunds? Or does Steam just send you an invoice or something?

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#369

Post by SXX »

CptFribble wrote: post #368
SXX wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest it's just a thing from financial models inside industry. When you plan how much copies you suppose to sell to turn profit you must consider refund rate as well. Another reason is that games on Steam can and are often refunded after quite long time has passed. E.g people buy lots of games on holidays or sales and then refund them when they decide not to play it. Sometimes refunds can happen even after a y…

Ah, I see - thank you for the context! If you don't mind one more question - do you have to leave a substantial amount of cash in the Steam account in case of very late refunds? Or does Steam just send you an invoice or something?

As developer you don't have "cash on Steam account". Valve just do automatic payouts to a bank with a delay around ~1 month.

As for refunds AFAIK if you have bunch of refunds later they will just be substracted from future sales. But games I worked on didnt have refund spikes so no clue how Valve handle situations with mass refunds.

Re: Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

#370

Post by autoexec »

genewitch wrote: post #233
autoexec wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days grandpa developers (and many grandpas in general) grew up playing rogue/roguelikes and watching plinko played on TV while being reminded to help control the pet population by having their pets spayed or neutered. I don't know how popular pachinko is outside of japan though. All the pachinko video games I've played to date were old and intended for a Japanese audience.

My favorite is pachincremental but I have an unnatural affinity for those games. Number go up. Someone called doom and quake boomer-shooters and that's funny to me.

pachincremental really was a fun diversion! Too short though, so now I'm giving Universal Paperclips another go (never did finish it)
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