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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

#31

Post by GuiA »

archagon wrote: post #25
GuiA wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monument Valley is visually gorgeous, and I like a lot about it. However it has zero depth as a game- you can easily move through it by tapping randomly on the screen. Also it's built by ustwo, and while they're lovely people, they're far from a small one man shop (they have hundreds of employees in several offices worldwide and know what they're doing when it comes to marketing). I don't think Monument Valley is a s…

It's a puzzle-box/adventure-game-type experience — mostly a beautiful and interesting toy to fiddle with in your hands. Some people enjoy that, others don't. I personally love it, and I can see that a lot of App Store gamers do too. In that particular genre, it's a gem! From what I've read in interviews, the team was comprised of about 6 people, and they didn't do any marketing or advertising. Another recent example…

Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world.

As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's besides the point- which is that it's far from a one man indie success.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#32

Post by archagon »

GuiA wrote: post #31
archagon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a puzzle-box/adventure-game-type experience — mostly a beautiful and interesting toy to fiddle with in your hands. Some people enjoy that, others don't. I personally love it, and I can see that a lot of App Store gamers do too. In that particular genre, it's a gem! From what I've read in interviews, the team was comprised of about 6 people, and they didn't do any marketing or advertising. Another recent example…

Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world. As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's bes…

Well, as a long-time gamer who loves these sorts of toy-box games, I'd say it's one of the very best. So THERE! :)

For more modest success by an actual one-man developer, you can look at Michael Brough's games. I think he makes a living off of them now, even though they're very niche.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#33

Post by sago »

omg_ketchup wrote: post #17

We're rising again. We're just building VR software instead of mobile games.

One person dev will rise every time there is a new viable games platform. Because such platforms will initially have low market penetration, small customer bases, and be high risk for larger developers. But as soon as those platforms are established, one person teams will be eaten alive by others.

VR is primed to be a game tech. You can maybe do some interesting stuff now, when the only hardware out there is a few hundred thousand dev-kits. But if the Oculus launch goes okay, the production values needed to compete will very quickly take it out of one-person territory.

Of course, there are always new tech. But for every platform that turns into money, there are many that are dead ends. Many single person devs who crash and burn because they are early to a party that never starts. I developed WAP games. I know this :)

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#34

Post by dirkk0 »

_pius wrote: post #26
dirkk0 wrote: post #22

"For the lone game programmer that day has already arrived. Twice." If one sees 'the art of lone game programming' as a genre then this might be true. One successful lonely game programmer leads to a gold rush of many lonely game programmers digging the iKlondike for gold. But I am pretty sure that there is always room for the brilliant idea that no one can grasp when you pitch it. I personally would have talked Notc…

But I am pretty sure that there is always room for the brilliant idea that no one can grasp when you pitch it. You're right, but I don't think the author would claim otherwise. The article is not about the possibility of breakout success, but about lone, reasonably skilled game developers being able to make a consistent living. Not the same thing.

I see, and I agree, you have a point.

I still stand to what I wrote , because I think it is important to stress that it is important to follow your ideas, even if their odds might be low. Being downvoted is somewhat ironical on a meta level.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#35

Post by jkscm »

Tell me if I missed it, but the chance to make a living as an independent game has increased, didn't? Companies get as big as their market will allow it. Saying no one can make a living from games anymore because of the big companies is like saying there can be no more start-ups because of Google and Facebook.

The gaming market is big and fast. It's fine if you don't want to run anymore but there are a lot more other people in the race who have a chance of seeing the finishing line.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#36

Post by zinxq »

Remove barriers to creating something and the market tends to devolve towards, well, marketing.

Anyone can write a book now - and get it to market. It's never been easier technically to write anything including games. And app markets take away much, if not all, challenges of go to market.

Such markets are destined to get flooded and to (reliably) get noticed in such a market, you need a marketing budget.

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#37

Post by minthd »

archagon wrote: post #25
GuiA wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monument Valley is visually gorgeous, and I like a lot about it. However it has zero depth as a game- you can easily move through it by tapping randomly on the screen. Also it's built by ustwo, and while they're lovely people, they're far from a small one man shop (they have hundreds of employees in several offices worldwide and know what they're doing when it comes to marketing). I don't think Monument Valley is a s…

It's a puzzle-box/adventure-game-type experience — mostly a beautiful and interesting toy to fiddle with in your hands. Some people enjoy that, others don't. I personally love it, and I can see that a lot of App Store gamers do too. In that particular genre, it's a gem! From what I've read in interviews, the team was comprised of about 6 people, and they didn't do any marketing or advertising. Another recent example…

>> the team was comprised of about 6 people

Did you count in the failures and almost-failures for the rest of the company on their way to discovering this ?

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#38

Post by ANTSANTS »

More like, the iOS app store gold rush ended. The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Stop throwing your time and money away developing for a platform overwhelmingly used by people that don't really care about your games, that are looking for brief distractions while they wait in the checkout line, and by and large refuse to pay even a dollar for the privilege. Don't blame the industry because you avoided the platform used by people that actually buy games, play them for hours a day, tirelessly promote the good ones on message boards and amongst their friends, and will actually appreciate the effort you put into your work.

Also, Donkey Kong was not created by a "lone game developer." Miyamoto may have designed Donkey Kong by himself, but he had entire team of contract developers at his disposal.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134790/the_secret_hist...

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Company:Ikegami_Tsus...

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#39

Post by wwweston »

smacktoward wrote: post #10
vparikh wrote: post #6

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. 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 p…

> but the dream people had was that their games would generate enough profit that they could make a living making them.

Yep. And anyone who likes a game enough to think they'd enjoy something else the developer might make should hope the dev could make a living off it too.

Otherwise, the dev will have to go back to the corporate IT salt mines, and you'll get whatever relative crumbs get produced in what we call "spare time," if that... and certainly not whatever their greatest work might have been.

(Hope we're all paying for what we like!)

Re: The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer

#40

Post by Sevores »

archagon wrote: post #18
Sevores wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep and unique? It’s like a mashup of Naya’s Quest [1] and Fez [2] (or Crush or Super Paper Mario). [1]: http://terrycavanaghgames.com/nayasquest/ [2]: http://fezgame.com

Have you played it? It's like watching an animated movie. There is negligible repeated content, at least as far as the art and levels are concerned. Unlike 99% of iOS games, I felt as satisfied in level 1 as I did in 10. (And in fact, some of the best content is in the last few levels.) Everything feels alive and dynamic, from the crows to your friendly neighborhood totem. I even felt feelings . In an iOS game. Can y…

I have. It is like an animated movie. Very pretty, but while the mechanics could be deep, I felt that the levels themselves were not. Unlike for example Braid or recently The Swapper, there were no epiphanies, just “rotate all the things and try to tap on the correct tile”.

Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a puzzle game, but this sort of space bending would really lend itself to more interesting problems to solve.

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