The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
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The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
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Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#2Retro is where it's at for lone developers.
Systems are small, expectations low, challenges firm.
I very seriously enjoy the retro scene today. It's possible for ordinary people to participate, even make games others will play and pay for. Homebrew.
Completing that experience was one of those life checklist things. I had a great time and have learned a lot and was able to explore games on a technical level in an achievable way.
Personally, I see this being cyclic. The big names and players will always be there. But little scenes pop up regularly, and those are a treat for those who go looking.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#3I'm floored that this post got so few upvotes. It's interesting and beautifully crafted.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#4I had a long stint with game development. Started contributing to MUD codebases as a teenager, later invested a lot of time in XNA and web games, although none of that work was particularly successful.
As satisfying as that work was, I get as much satisfaction from writing Enterprise/B2B apps. The thing about game development is that, when you're years into it, it's just another app. Video game lovers especially start out thinking they want to do game dev and game dev only, but a great many of them would benefit from exploring what are thought of as "boring" areas of development. It's only boring if you don't like making software.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#5Retro is where it's at for lone developers. Systems are small, expectations low, challenges firm. I very seriously enjoy the retro scene today. It's possible for ordinary people to participate, even make games others will play and pay for. Homebrew. Completing that experience was one of those life checklist things. I had a great time and have learned a lot and was able to explore games on a technical level in an achi…
Are there good sites for discovering these sorts of games? In the category of retro-style games for mobile platforms, it's an enormous chore to find anything good by just paging through the app stores.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#6Maybe I am being a bit naive, but I don't think many of those games in the good old days were made with the intention of making huge profits. Most of the people were hobbyists who just had an itch to create the game they wanted to play - and they lucked out that a lot of other people wanted to play their game too.
I think the state of the game market is good -- let the hobbyists of today create the game they want to play - and maybe it will make them a boat load of money. Or maybe they will be happy because they had their vision come true.
Now the big corporations -- well they will just push whatever makes them money.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#7I'm floored that this post got so few upvotes. It's interesting and beautifully crafted.
I feel that I see these types of posts come up every few months.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#8Excellent article! Though I'd say, somewhat, that it's still as difficult to make an engaging game as it's ever been.
Just the bar has been lowered so much that poorer games are made by people with less ability. I like that anyone can make games now, some cool stuff has been made because of that...but yeah, as I said it is hard.
I'm a pro and I've been made homeless because of lack of work (and a moral stance against predatory IAP's).
I'm a damn fine developer, but that don't save you from the bottom line of what makes money.
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#9Personally, I'd like to think that the good games will still rise to the top. Monument Valley wasn't a fluke; it's a game based entirely about the art and the content, rather than stale one-off game mechanics that could be cloned in an afternoon. It got noticed because it was deep and unique. (Did they even do any marketing?) I've rarely found a game with that same level of quality that got no attention[1].
Most of the time, whenever somebody complains about their games getting no sales and I look at the stuff they've made, I see games that are fun and clever, but very one-note. Like, you can already see how the rest of the game is going to go just by looking at a screenshot. That's not a bad thing, but I don't think it's the kind of stuff that sells anymore. (With obvious viral exceptions that occur unpredictably every so often.) Whereas with a game like Monument Valley, you want to get in and explore it because every single level is unique.
Several years back, the developers of Sword and Sworcery talked about how their business model was entirely about chasing the long tail rather than aiming for the mass market. It paid off wonderfully for them, and I think — I hope! — it still makes sense.
[1]: Hey! If you liked Monument Valley, you should totally check out Windowsill. Short but gorgeous. Listed as an inspiration by MV's developers. Demo in browser: http://windosill.com
Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
#10Maybe I am being a bit naive, but I don't think many of those games in the good old days were made with the intention of making huge profits. Most of the people were hobbyists who just had an itch to create the game they wanted to play - and they lucked out that a lot of other people wanted to play their game too. I think the state of the game market is good -- let the hobbyists of today create the game they want to…
> Maybe I am being a bit naive, but I don't think many of those games in the good old days were made with the intention of making huge profits.
They weren't -- but the dream people had was that their games would generate enough profit that they could make a living making them.
I read the post's message as being that they did, for a while, but those days have receded due to the collapse in what people are willing to pay for games. In a world where $0.99 for a game is considered expensive, it's hard to make a living making games unless you come up with some way to consistently make absolutely massive hits -- and that's a nut that nobody has ever cracked.