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Did I just waste 3 years?

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#371

Post by chii »

alain94040 wrote: post #267
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.

I initially dismissed this advice. However, when i thought a bit deeper, it makes a lot of sense to do this.

If you can't convince somebody to market your game, how can you convince somebody to buy it from you directly?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#372

Post by rabidrat »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #225
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…

> You need a massive amount of top notch artwork, music, 3D modelling, shader effects, SFX, etc. to have a polished nice looking game. That takes either superhuman talent or a large team of specialized people beyond yourself. I think gameplay and marketing win here. Consider two gamesL one has great graphics but bad gameplay, the other has bad graphics but great gameplay. The great gameplay game is going to win that…

> one has great graphics but bad gameplay, the other has bad graphics but great gameplay. The great gameplay game is going to win that match up.

Yes, in terms of player satisfaction, but no, not in terms of sales. Terrible movies with great explosions out-earn great movies with low budgets every single summer.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#373

Post by chii »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #52
ehsankia wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could someone explain what this trend even shows, other than making a cool looking curve? It seems to be a layer of abstraction over the graph in the blog (showing the indie explosion), but which adds nothing of value.

Graph in the blog is number of games released. My data is actual unit sales (approximated), which is important data as well. In other words, if more games were released on steam, but they were still as profitable per game, it would not be a huge issue. But the trend clearly shows the average sales per game going down. However, there is also a huge uptick in shovelware, so this could be a problem as well.

> But the trend clearly shows the average sales per game going down. However, there is also a huge uptick in shovelware, so this could be a problem as well.

doesn't this imply that shovelware is actually taking away some of the sales? In other words, making a large number of low-effort shovelware is a better money making scheme than making 1 (or few) mediumly good game?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#374

Post by chii »

marcosdumay wrote: post #325
airstrike wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically they've spent 1,000 days building a pet programming project with little regard to market fit.

Yet it would be wise to try to stablish market fit of the toy he has first, before throwing it away and getting another toy to test for fitness.

> throwing it away and getting another toy to test for fitness.

how do you know what the opportunity cost of continuing is? It's hard to know either way.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#375

Post by rabidrat »

Retra wrote: post #237
gnulinux wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda like games like nethack and brogue but my only problem with them is since it's extremely easy to die, it emphasizes attention a bit too much imho. I'm not a very attentive person and when I play games I'd much rather it be a bit more relaxed. When I know that even if I play the game for a whole Saturday, one floating eye can just randomly kill me for no reason, it kinda demotivates me...

It works like gambling. You play the game 100 times and you just lose most of them, but on the rare occasion you get very lucky... and you walk away with an unforgettable story about how you defied all the odds and did something wonderful and amazing. That's where procedural generation shines the brightest.

> It works like gambling. You play the game 100 times and you just lose most of them, but on the rare occasion you get very lucky

And then there are some players who can win virtually every game they play: https://alt.org/nethack/ascstreak-360.html

That's right, Tariru has won 61 times in a row. So that makes my 100 losses 'avoidable' in some sense, which spurs me on to do better. It only requires luck if you play inattentively :)

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#376

Post by davidork »

i just looked at the website, went to the main page and watched bits and pieces of the gameplay video.

rogue-lite: check. metroidvania(gotta get that retro street cred) : check. Bland uninspired assets: check. post mortem blog post posted to some link aggregator about how you released the same thing that every other copypasta developer on greenlight has crapped out for the past 3 years and it isn't selling well?: check.

yep. 3 years, down the crapper.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#377

Post by wingerlang »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #294
1auralynn wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minecraft was unique to 99% of people who picked it up and played it. OPs game looks dated, weird and reminds me of about 30 games I have in my library already. Terraria seems closest to what he has done, but Terraria is so, so much fun and I've yet to finish it. It's tough to break into the 2D platform market.

It reminds me of those games you'd get in a cereal box, shareware games or maybe with a computer magazine in the early 2000s. Probably due to the visuals being 'pre baked 3D converted to 2D sprites'.

It's almost nostalgic, but nothing I'd buy to be honest.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#378

Post by TheRealPomax »

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.

He also mentioned that even the guy(s) who made Super Meat Boy don't get a pass anymore just because they once made something that earned millions.

You can't build it and expect them to come. But you also can't even build it and have someone be your dedicated marketer, because you STILL can't expect them to come. There is no market right now, just people getting lucky.

There is no market.

Let that sink in.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#379

Post by MrMember »

gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #187
barbecue_sauce wrote: post #184

To be a successful indie dev, you need to take an auteur approach: have a singular vision, create a unique aesthetic, and possess a fundamental understanding of the medium (gameplay). You also need to be able to balance all of these qualities with the resources you have at your disposal. If you have a great story, but no gameplay, you shouldn't be making a game. If you have an aesthetic, but can't implement it correc…

woah, that certainly took a turn. not that i think it's wrong , just a humorously abrupt shift.

It's kind of funny how true it is. I think development shut down but there was an erotic furry Pokemon-like game in development that was pulling in like $35k a month on Patreon. There is definitely a market there.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#380

Post by choicenotchance »

vagab0nd wrote: post #326

I used to think that making money was extremely easy. You can make an App, a website, a YouTube channel, etc. How absolutely naive I was. Turns out it's very hard to convince people to pay you. I adopted a different strategy later on. I try to make things that I use myself. So if it turns out no one else uses it, at least my effort doesn't go to waste. My Android App is now sitting at 10+ downloads but I made peace w…

What's the app? I wanna try it just out of curiosity.
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