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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

#191

Post by kipchak »

password54321 wrote: post #177
fzeroracer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Void Rains Upon Her Heart [1], Fear and Hunger [2] are two examples. You'll look at both of these games and think 'wait, they're actually successful, what's the deal?' and not see the whole story, which is why I linked the charts. Both of these games launched to little to no success, with few (highly positive) reviews. What changed is that deep into their lifespan (~3-4 years after release), a popular youtuber di…

>There are a lot of games exactly like that, but haven't had the person with the viewerbase to boost them up. Nor will they ever. Such as? Just name one so we can all know. This is your time to help them out no matter how little and there are "a lot" apparently so it shouldn't be hard.

Shout out to All Day Dying. 76 reviews. Also both of Colorgrave's games. One way to look for interesting stuff is SteamDB > 50 reviews and over 80%. For example Wild Dogs, Downpurr and Vetrix look cool.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#192

Post by daedrdev »

Hammershaft wrote: post #182
somenameforme wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent game is, practically by definition, a game that people would recommend. And the Steam algorithm does a pretty good job of snowballing success. My favorite example here is Kenshi. [1] It started with modest interest and within a few months it was down to literally tens of players. This is normally where somebody driven by profit would just shrug, complain, and go try something new. But they guy clearly be…

For every Kenshi there are many dozens of excellent indie games that languish. The steam algorithm is not as cooperative for surfacing small niche games as it was of Kenshi, and it's harder to get your game seen in a more saturated market. There has been a gradual shift from the 2010's where nearly all great games we're handsomely rewarded.

Personally I've dug quite deep into steam and come to the conclusion that there are just a lot of bad games, and that a good indie game most likely will break out eventually.

I've found steam review percentages to be one of the biggest tells of a games quality, and so many games don't even have good reviews.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#193

Post by Arrath »

itishappy wrote: post #158
aredox wrote: post #3

What a neat idea! Next: a strategy game where you give orders in plain text, instead of hundreds of clicks per minutes

Sounds like the premise of Tom Clancy's EndWar from 2008. It was supposed to be an entirely controllable via voice commands. No clue how well that worked out in practice.

It actually worked fairly well, but obviously wasn't freeform since you couldn't order units to move to any arbitrary point on the map with a voice command.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#194

Post by password54321 »

rurp wrote: post #190
password54321 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I immediately knew someone would claim "survivorship bias" but at the same I knew that they would fail to come up with a single counterexample.

Survivorship bias is the norm in any system with high variance and a low success rate. I would say that arguing against the phenomenon is by far the more out there position. A analgous statement like, "There are actors with world class talent who never became successful" is one that pretty much everyone would intuitively agree with, outside of maybe an internet agrument. Whether or not I can come up with some talente…

God exists. I can't show you God. But believe me God definitely exists.

Also low success rate comes from the fact that most of these games are asset flips. But we can conveniently ignore that fact so we can believe in the imaginary.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#195

Post by pjlegato »

jarjoura wrote: post #95
dkarras wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just about marketing though. There is this belief, especially among fledgling indies that if they make a game that they think is good, and if they are able to market it well, it will be a success, even a hit. A hit in gamedev is not easier than creating a hit in the music industry really. Even the veteran composers are not able to replicate (or even achieve) creating a hit. Possibility of success depends on…

Hate to break it to you, but the pop star success formula is actually meticulously detailed and very repeatable. The producers and song writers know exactly how to do it. It’s not about challenges in finding success, so much as, at least in music, artists don’t want to follow a formula. They want to create songs and melodies that are personal and meaningful to them and their fans.

While some necessary factors about what makes a pop hit are known, even with that knowledge -- and a huge marketing budget -- the vast majority of songs written even by the very top producers and songwriters flop massively, all the time.

They know this, too. They budget so that their 1% massive hits pay for the 99% that nobody cares about.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#196

Post by [deleted] »

itishappy wrote: post #176
stale2002 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. That is a great question, and I am glad that you asked. I have lots of examples. Here you go: https://www.google.com/search?q=play+star+wars+fan+game+onli... https://www.google.com/search?q=star+wars+fan+mod https://www.google.com/search?q=star+wars+conversion+mods Just go to those links, and then at those links start clicking at random anywhere on the page. I'm sure you'll find some.

That's about what I'd expected: Mods and flash-tier free web games. It gets to the core of my concern: OpenAI API calls aint cheap, and Disney has not made a habit of letting others profit from their IP.

[deleted]

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#197

Post by superb_dev »

iamleppert wrote: post #188

This is genius! I currently work on attention loop games (the kinds you see ads for on your social newsfeed). A big bottleneck is the number of new games we are able to produce per week. New games generally have a better ROI and get more installs and clicks than older games, which age out. Having the ability to programmatically generate new games would be amazing. It would be great to have the game completely generat…

Finally we can shovel garbage attention stealing games at an unprecedented rate!

New games per week is an insane metric.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#198

Post by to-too-two »

iamleppert wrote: post #188

This is genius! I currently work on attention loop games (the kinds you see ads for on your social newsfeed). A big bottleneck is the number of new games we are able to produce per week. New games generally have a better ROI and get more installs and clicks than older games, which age out. Having the ability to programmatically generate new games would be amazing. It would be great to have the game completely generat…

Maybe this is a totally different market from what I'm in, but as an indie game developer, this reads dystopian to me.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#200

Post by PurpleRamen »

password54321 wrote: post #28
EncomLab wrote: post #11

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.

Word spreads fast on good games due to Reddit and Twitch. Look at the success of Balatro and how much marketing that had. The number of games you listed just highlights how little Steam filters.

What exactly do you mean? Reddit and Twitch are marketing-channels too. Marketing does not mean someone has to pay for it, just that people are talking about it and are aware of it.
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