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Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

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Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#31

Post by girmad »

soup10 wrote: post #25
joeld42 wrote: post #10

protip: (Note I am not really pro) Don't spend a year making one game. Make as many games as you can in a year.

Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK ones. Gaming is a hits based business. Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project. But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

Actual business advice: creating a really good game is a black swan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory) and multiple attempts will yield better results than a first big one (think very low probability as opposed to very very low probability).

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#32

Post by vinceguidry »

Zergy wrote: post #28
soup10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK ones. Gaming is a hits based business. Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project. But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

You are assuming quality is correlated with it being a hit, this is not true at all. Thinking of Flappy Bird as an obvious example.

Flappy Bird was extremely well-designed and was very high quality, there was a lot of work put into it. Dong Nguyen has been designing games for awhile and isn't stopping anytime soon.

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#33

Post by MarkTee »

Zergy wrote: post #28
soup10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK ones. Gaming is a hits based business. Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project. But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

You are assuming quality is correlated with it being a hit, this is not true at all. Thinking of Flappy Bird as an obvious example.

Quality isn't the be-all, end-all, but there's definitely a correlation. Flappy Bird wouldn't even have gotten off of the ground if there were problems with something like collision detection. Even something as simple as increasing the delay between rounds (by as little as a few seconds) could have hindered its success.

The game is not without merit.

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#34

Post by simonhfrost »

veeneck wrote: post #3
malkia wrote: post #2

Now this would be a reality show I would like to watch :) Thanks!

Yeah, we're brainstorming how to throw in some video / audio (podcast) to keep it entertaining.

I'd personally love to see a weekly recap hosted on youtube and embedded in your site. You could do a 2 minute interview each, and further down the track start including screencaps.

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#35

Post by alttab »

veeneck wrote: post #22
opendais wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel all in-app purchases are shady? Or just the 'pay to win' types?

Not at all -- they are a necessity. I just feel that some developers implement them tastefully (map packs, new characters) while others are only focused on money. I'd like to offer IAP's that look like a mini expansion where at least a solid amount of dev effort is recognizable.

This is nice in theory, but the masses (aka mobile game players) have mental space for three game types: free, paid, and scammy/clone/ripoff.

You will put a sizable dev effort into a 5.99 IA purchase that statically will not sell nearly as much as the game itself. Maybe that's not the exact case but this is the balancing act.

Personally I'd like to see the brothers produce concrete milestones. For instance, in the first month you have to ship the first paid version. Or whatever. So far, they haven't put their butts on the line for anything less than a year.

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#36

Post by soup10 »

girmad wrote: post #31
soup10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK ones. Gaming is a hits based business. Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project. But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

Actual business advice: creating a really good game is a black swan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory ) and multiple attempts will yield better results than a first big one (think very low probability as opposed to very very low probability).

If making games were like spinning a roulette wheel this might be true. Making games is an art though, and part of that art is learning how to make really great experiences for the player. You can't do that without a focus on quality over quantity. Especially as an indie-developer with limited resources, what exactly are you going to make that anyone is going to care about if you're constant releasing half baked stuff and starting new projects?

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#37

Post by xerophtye »

Zergy wrote: post #28
soup10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual business advice: one really good game is better than a thousand OK ones. Gaming is a hits based business. Making small games and prototypes may be helpful for learning code and game design since there is more experimentation in the early stages of a project. But there's lots of things shipping a larger project will teach as well.

You are assuming quality is correlated with it being a hit, this is not true at all. Thinking of Flappy Bird as an obvious example.

Quality isn't just cool graphics and complex plots and all that. Dong understood how people want a game that is simple to learn but insanely difficult to master. And he understood the need to make controls simple enough (tap anywhere on the screen) so that people can play even in the subway with only one hand free. So gotta give the guy credit

Re: Battle of Brothers: A Video Game Programming Duel

#40

Post by xerophtye »

veeneck wrote: post #22
opendais wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel all in-app purchases are shady? Or just the 'pay to win' types?

Not at all -- they are a necessity. I just feel that some developers implement them tastefully (map packs, new characters) while others are only focused on money. I'd like to offer IAP's that look like a mini expansion where at least a solid amount of dev effort is recognizable.

Great! I love that sort of IAPs.

Some things i really loved about the devs of BADLAND are that not only did they provide a huge amount of free content before the paid expansions, but the expansions were absolutely worth it! Further more they recognized the existence of a particular audience segment that would get absolutely hooked to their game and would aspire to be the "hard-core" ones. They rewarded them by providing challenges that would unlock the premium content. And while these were reasonably tough, they were also doable.

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