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Did I just waste 3 years?

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#261

Post by [deleted] »

honkycat wrote: post #168
rolleiflex wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Linux desktop market share is tiny. My own app supports Linux, but I'm 100% aware that I'm doing it at a loss in every possible way, it's a passion project. Bang for buck is terrible, so you need to justify as a labour of love. - The amount of pain one needs to endure to get a Linux desktop to work as it should is huge, and there are several competing packaging providers with no clear winner, and all have very much…

I disagree with your assertion Linux desktops are hard to set up. You plug in your Ubuntu drive and install it, it detects your video card and install the drivers. Everything just works, when people rag on Linux desktops they are talking about Linux from 6 years ago. A ton of effort has been put into making the experience smooth and there are multiple projects to make it even more user friendly like elementary os and…

[deleted]

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#262

Post by ransom1538 »

Nokinside wrote: post #150

Game industry is the economics of superstars. The Macroeconomics of Superstars[1] >Abstract >Recent technological changes have transformed an increasing number of sectors of the economy into so-called superstars sectors, in which a small number of entrepreneurs or professionals distribute their output widely to the rest of the economy. Examples include the high-tech sector, sports, the music industry, management, fna…

The problem with games is the amount of effort involved just to determine if it is “fun”. When I was in it cancelling a game 1 year deep with 10 people was normal.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#263

Post by ReverseCold »

ransom1538 wrote: post #262
Nokinside wrote: post #150

Game industry is the economics of superstars. The Macroeconomics of Superstars[1] >Abstract >Recent technological changes have transformed an increasing number of sectors of the economy into so-called superstars sectors, in which a small number of entrepreneurs or professionals distribute their output widely to the rest of the economy. Examples include the high-tech sector, sports, the music industry, management, fna…

The problem with games is the amount of effort involved just to determine if it is “fun”. When I was in it cancelling a game 1 year deep with 10 people was normal.

I think this is why minigame-style games (battle royale, fighting games, first person shooter competitive, etc) are so common. You can implement a simple version of your game idea in a weekend and, if your idea was good, people would likely already have fun playing it.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#264

Post by Aeolun »

VLM wrote: post #93
acangiano wrote: post #11

He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall into so easily. Market need/fit > Marketing > Design > Programming when it comes to software products. You can't just build it and expect that they will come, unfortunately.

Its not necessarily marketing in the sense of A/B testing his game play or fictional background or artwork or whatever, but consider general user experience stuff. So I hear its a cool rogue-like but unlike the fifty indie rogue-likes I have languishing unplayed in my steam account already, I can play this one in the browser, whoa cool, technically impressive and maybe fun too. So I go to the web page expecting a sli…

I read the blog post. Thought, “Sad, maybe I’ll buy the game on Steam just for shits and giggles.” And it’s not released yet!

How can you complain about lack of sales for an unreleased game! Fuck off! All sympathy instantly gone.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#265

Post by mikemotherwell »

Nokinside wrote: post #154
aphextron wrote: post #137

You made the mistake of thinking that anyone would care how many hours you spent optimizing some C++ function that does something already solved a hundred times in a hundred different game engines. It's a natural tendency for all programmers. But making a game in 2018 is far more of a creative endeavor than anything to do with programming really. You need a massive amount of top notch artwork, music, 3D modelling, sh…

If a lone programmer wants to write tight code for games, they should build game engines or libraries that games can use and then sell those to game developers. There exists large value added chain for specialized tools, arts and libraries.

... or call it a hobby. Just because someone does the same thing they make a living from for fun, doesn't mean it isn't also a hobby. It's weird, that because people pay coders for some of the work they do, expecting money gets wrapped up in what is a hobby for so many.

Programming is fun for a lot of people. They love the process, enjoy the reading and learning, get a kick out of things like optimising code for a speed boost. IMHO that's awesome. So few people have any real interests, so if you have one, indulge it.

Just call it what it is - a hobby - and reframe your thinking. No other hobbies are indulged because we expect to make money directly out of them, e.g. no one playing soccer in a park expects to go pro, they just love playing. Why should hobby coding be different?

Reframing it as a hobby changes the equation from $0.01 an hour, to "OMG, someone, anyone, wanted to give me money to indulge my hobby!" Then what starts as a time and money sink becomes instead what you live for, and a positive in your life.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#266

Post by dahart »

exit wrote: post #149
dahart wrote: post #70

> I’m kinda floundering right now and not really sure what to do release it focus on marketing for a while Treat it as a purely hobby project Make it into an ethical game experiment pour a lot more time in, improve graphics and music, add more levels and variety As someone who's gone through this, put years into a software startup, nearly had it fail completely after spending a lot of my own money to keep the family…

these projects evolve during their production. it's difficult to market what you haven't finished imagining.

Indeed, that's very true. I've experienced first hand trying to market something that I haven't finished imagining. But that's the whole point, you have to start before you've finished, even though it is hard.

It's difficult to market in general, at any stage of doneness. Marketing can be hard, boring, frustrating, and not fun. It's especially tempting as a dev to think that if you just make the product better, people will see it, and recognize its amazingness, and it'll go viral and market itself. It's tempting to keep adding features and making the product better. But that strategy doesn't work, it's important to buckle down and do the marketing, otherwise nobody will ever know about your game or product, no matter how good, and no matter how done it is.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#267

Post by alain94040 »

dahart wrote: post #70

> I’m kinda floundering right now and not really sure what to do release it focus on marketing for a while Treat it as a purely hobby project Make it into an ethical game experiment pour a lot more time in, improve graphics and music, add more levels and variety As someone who's gone through this, put years into a software startup, nearly had it fail completely after spending a lot of my own money to keep the family…

Find someone who is good at marketing and believes in your game enough to get 30% of all revenue in exchange for marketing it. In other words, find a business partner with a clue.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#268

Post by 1auralynn »

aswanson wrote: post #190
aphextron wrote: post #137

You made the mistake of thinking that anyone would care how many hours you spent optimizing some C++ function that does something already solved a hundred times in a hundred different game engines. It's a natural tendency for all programmers. But making a game in 2018 is far more of a creative endeavor than anything to do with programming really. You need a massive amount of top notch artwork, music, 3D modelling, sh…

Minecraft.

People always say Minecraft doesn't have good graphics or whatever, but that game's color palette and overall design aesthetic is VERY good. Everything is consistent, and when you're playing it you forget that it doesn't look "real." The game from the article is not in the same league.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#269

Post by zer00eyz »

stordoff wrote: post #191
zer00eyz wrote: post #95

Market, marketing and basic UED on the site are all issues here. 1. why would I pay 7 bucks for this, when something like PUBG is ostensibly free? There is no easy "trial" download (Do I even down load this?) Does it work on my phone (a lot of the low end game market went there. 2. Selling things is hard when your up against free. I dont like the freemium model but free stuff with ad's makes money - give it away and…

PUBG is $30: https://store.steampowered.com/app/578080/PLAYERUNKNOWNS_BAT...

I was thinking of the current mobile version! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tencent.ig...

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#270

Post by kayamon »

WalterBright wrote: post #249
Nokinside wrote: post #150

Game industry is the economics of superstars. The Macroeconomics of Superstars[1] >Abstract >Recent technological changes have transformed an increasing number of sectors of the economy into so-called superstars sectors, in which a small number of entrepreneurs or professionals distribute their output widely to the rest of the economy. Examples include the high-tech sector, sports, the music industry, management, fna…

This isn't new. It happened before the internet to books, music and film. The internet has just amplified it.

Do you ever think about getting back into games?
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