Hard facts: Steam has over 73k games - and is growing at over 10k games per year and increasing. The median game on Steam earns less than $800 - down from $4k in 2020.
Making a game is not hard - marketing a game is.
Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
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Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#12How will you ensure the content created for a game is free from copyright violations? Or is that up to the user to determine?
We haven't looked into exactly how this will be handled yet, but I believe this would fall under the same laws and restrictions as any other online platform (YouTube, TikTok etc.), it's just that the production tools are different.
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#13Hard facts: Steam has over 73k games - and is growing at over 10k games per year and increasing. The median game on Steam earns less than $800 - down from $4k in 2020. Making a game is not hard - marketing a game is.
I think that, while making a game is not hard, making an excellent game is hard.
And I think making an excellent game is a lot like reaching product-market fit. It takes fast iteration with user feedback to find the fun, then a ton of polish to make it extraordinary. It has to be so good that, out of those 73,000 games and counting, I’ll spend some of my money and time on it.
The way GenAI can help here, I think, is the first part of this problem. Help me iterate quickly to find the fun.
Then, let me export to Unity / Godot / Unreal to begin the polish process.
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#14Hard facts: Steam has over 73k games - and is growing at over 10k games per year and increasing. The median game on Steam earns less than $800 - down from $4k in 2020. Making a game is not hard - marketing a game is.
The majority of those games are now visual novels / pornography.
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#15Hard facts: Steam has over 73k games - and is growing at over 10k games per year and increasing. The median game on Steam earns less than $800 - down from $4k in 2020. Making a game is not hard - marketing a game is.
Huh. That's close to what I was earning from Mac shareware games 14 years ago, something like £2k over 2 years (not inflation adjusted) if I remember correctly.
(And that's why I stopped making games :P)
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#16we are in need of a good 2D strategy game such as Advance Wars or Fire Emblem that can be played with infinite variations
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#17How will you ensure the content created for a game is free from copyright violations? Or is that up to the user to determine?
The demo shows making a game with unlicensed Star Wars IP, I don't think they care about copyright violations.
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having done a couple indie games myself over the years, I think you're addressing many of the pain points of building such a game. However the REAL problem as an indie gamer is getting a marketing/get-the-word-out campaign such that said game produces enough income to cover the cost of making it. Will you be adding a "marketing" add-on to this to help developers actually get their games noticed and played?
So far we've focused 100% on the creation side of things, but we're absolutely interested in helping people on the marketing side too. Something we've discussed here is; since it's an online platform, could it be possible for creators to form communities around their games as they are being built (even more than now), with perhaps features to engage your community around what you create (imagine that your players can…
Same issue - who is going to play it?
There are many indie games that never got made, lots of iterations of the current hotness (the Vampire survivors era may almost be over?)
People still play CS:GO. People still play The Sims. There are an infinite number of alternatives.
Professional game devs will talk about marketing because thats the problem when it comes to selling games.
The alternative is to make game creation fun - which then gets you to Roblox territory. Have people make games and share them quickly with each other.
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#19That's sweet! Like the UI and threads approach.
How does it generate 3d models?
Btw there is also https://frvr.ai for more casual games
Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far
#20Hi HN. We want to make it possible for anyone to build games without first learning to code or make art, by giving them access to an “AI game studio”. It’s early days, but here’s what we’ve learned so far building this product. Would love to hear what everyone thinks, and see if we can find some alpha testers for this!
Is this like GameMaker but AI-based, or is it more lofty and at risk of biting the hand that feeds it?
I'd say it's something in that direction (GameMaker) yeah. One big difference (other than the AI part) is that both building and playing is multiplayer by default. (Though of course, you can choose to make things single player and to build solo). With biting the hand that feeds it; I sure hope not! :) I've built my fare share of obscure indie games, and we in the company have friends and family members who do now as well, so the aim is to build something that can help people like this.