"50% in marketing is common, especially for AAA games"
Yes, but you're not an AAA game! Be small, act small. Smarter. More strategically.
But yeah, games are hard
Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
21–30 of 280 posts
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#22The whole game looks just like tons of other mobile games, that come for free. The style reminds of the "Hero Wars" scam that was profusely advertized on Facebook about 4-5 years ago.
The trailer is just incomprehensible. I played a lot of PC games, but here I see the same drama like in pompous movie trailers, just 10x faster, and I still didn't get, whom on the screen I'm supposed to play for.
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#23> You also need to have a good title that is both memorable/catchy and describes the game well. I feel like "get the goat" was just screaming to the be the name of this title. (they even use this term in some of their marketing)
Goato Temple
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#24First the Ouya, which turned out to be a total flop, and then the Wii U, which Nintendo marketed so badly many people thought it was an extension for their Wii. This company sure made some unlucky bets! Throughout the article I kept coming back to how generic the name sounds. It conjured pictures if the digital slot machines that are free mobile games, with gameplay loops mostly consisting of waiting or paying money…
We kept improving the game afterwards and released the final version
of Toto Temple Deluxe on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U and Steam on September
29th 2015.
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#25When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot.
But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games.
It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where we failed.
Steam says that there is no better or worse day of the week or month to plan your release... That should be your first red flag. There are about 30-35 quality titles being put out on steam alone, every day of the week, weekends included. Other markets are a bit of a joke, they hardly fly on the revenues radar, unless you have a special deal with them for increased visibility.
You see the title you've worked on for the last 6 months solid just fly off the list quicker than you can say woof.
I know for a fact (we talk) that most indies don't make a 10th of their budget back. It's a marketeting's game now. So you probably want a publisher to be in charge of that... and we're back to the old days of non-indies, or essentially small studios.
"True" Indie games are dead, by the law of numbers and algorithms. Even people that saw success in the past are now having a hard time pushing signal through noise.
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#26First the Ouya, which turned out to be a total flop, and then the Wii U, which Nintendo marketed so badly many people thought it was an extension for their Wii. This company sure made some unlucky bets! Throughout the article I kept coming back to how generic the name sounds. It conjured pictures if the digital slot machines that are free mobile games, with gameplay loops mostly consisting of waiting or paying money…
> Wii U, which Nintendo marketed so badly many people thought it was an extension for their Wii
I can't decide if that's better or worse than Xbox. Xbox One isn't the original Xbox? And do I want Series S or X?
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#27The game looks just bland.
It was 8 years ago and the Indie game scene was not so saturated with games in this style and genre.
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#28The images didn't load for me, but this archived version has them: https://archive.ph/jlWJX
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#29When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot. But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games. It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where w…
6 months is a very short development cycle. It's also very hard to build an audience in such a short time frame. Obviously if you repeat this cycle you are going to get very frustrated.
Re: Releasing an indie game on 3 consoles at once and failing financially (2016)
#30When the movie "Indie games" came out, this was the prime time to get indie games out. The whole indie market thing was hot. But at a certain point, thanks to the free availability of game engines and their overal quality, the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games and releasing top quality indie games. It became a game of marketing. And sadly that's where w…
> the market got flooded with developers living on 5c a week and eating noodles, working on serial games
The line between indie game and zero budget side project/potential small business often gets skewed in these sorts of discussions. Anyone in the startup scene eventually learns the distinction between a startup legitimately chasing high growth and a small business caught up in a trend.
Sometimes you should just be a small business, not simply because you as a person are not capable of making something high growth, but because your own circumstances, team, effort, and product simply aren't much beyond a niche play.
There's nothing wrong with running a small business, plenty of people live fulfilling lives fully supported by one, but if you really want to be something more (like topping console charts absent a lottery viral win) it's going going to take plenty of chutzpah and commitment. Otherwise as a business model it's way more profitable and time saving to be realistic.