Did I just waste 3 years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#421

Post by zeroname » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #239

zeroname wrote: post #127

The game looks bad . You will not get a foot in the door with a game that looks like this in 2018. It looks like amateur/programmer art. There are some people that aren't bothered by that, but when it comes to media the looks are paramount. If this game had an appealing art style, it might stand a chance in the already saturated market of Metroidvanias.

That's not really true - take a look at the graphics from Factorio 0.1, released in 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_a8_zxYLik They've since sold about 20M copies at $20 (now $30) apiece. I started playing in 2017 with Factorio 0.14, when the graphics were better but still decidedly retro and they'd sold maybe 4M copies. The difference is that Factorio has a unique gameplay concept that is both extremely addic…

> That's not really true - take a look at the graphics from Factorio 0.1, released in 2012

Yes, that was in 2012, well before the indie explosion. If you saw this game today, you would assume it is one of the hundreds of crappy 2D Minecraft clones.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#422

Post by zeroname » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:22 AM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #233

zeroname wrote: post #127

The game looks bad . You will not get a foot in the door with a game that looks like this in 2018. It looks like amateur/programmer art. There are some people that aren't bothered by that, but when it comes to media the looks are paramount. If this game had an appealing art style, it might stand a chance in the already saturated market of Metroidvanias.

Looking at the trailer, personally I think it looks awesome. Nice subtle shading and detail on the environment and enemies that doesn't detract from the overall simplicity, and then you get to light up the whole screen with massive firepower when you start shooting with one of the big weapons. What do you think looks bad about it? (Not a rhetorical question. I'm not a graphic artist. I'm curious if I am missing somet…

> What do you think looks bad about it?

If it's not immediately obvious to you, then I can't explain it either, or at least I can't be bothered to try. Some people don't see it. It has nothing to do with being a graphic artist. It's not about technicals, it's not something that comes off a checklist.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#423

Post by lazyjones » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:23 AM UTC

Sadly, the author apparently mostly wasted his time pursuing an idea he considered good, based mostly on his high opinion of his own experience. Had he tested the idea with neutral, honest people (kids are great), he might not have been so stubborn.

As for the references to „Superstar economics“: as if modern superstars in the music or film industry weren‘t 100% reliant on test audiences... It‘s why we don’t get much original, experimental stuff these days.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#424

Post by zeroname » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

projektir wrote: post #353

BigJono wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factorio also has some of the most compelling gameplay that almost perfectly fills a niche I've ever seen. OP's game is a Metroidvania in 2018...

I don't disagree, but I'm responding to the parent, which does not mention gameplay.

I'm talking about that particular title, which is one Metroidvania amongst many Metroidvanias. It's not a unique concept, that's a given.

Even with a unique concept, Factorio started out when there were 20x fewer indie games being released and it took five years to gain traction. Today, such success would be even more unlikely.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#425

Post by jondubois » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:39 AM UTC

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…

I don't think that it's just technological change which has brought us there. It's also because of the last 10 years or so of Federal Reserve Bank policies. The elites have figured out how to maximise their profits during expansionary economic times and a big part of the elite strategy is limiting the number of winners.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#426

Post by fileeditview » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:40 AM UTC

rolleiflex wrote: post #159

izacus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With engines like Unity and Unreal, supporting multiple platforms (including modern consoles like PS4, Xbox One and Switch) has a level of complexity of writing a portable Electron app. As an indie developer, you need to maximize that market coverage (and develop with portability in mind). Having said that, it's probably not the primary reason why his game failed.

- 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…

The market may be tiny but it is a lot easier to sell copies of a (decent) game because Linux users will love you for supporting their platform.

You also don't need to support every distro on the planet. Just focus on Ubuntu. With proper planning and choosing your game engine wisely it's not the biggest deal to build for Linux.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#427

Post by taway_1212 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #385

gmueckl wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it turns out that artists and game programmers are too cheap to pay for tools, even if you can present them with a clear benefit in terms of productivity gain vs. sales price. To make matters worse, big companies that could afford those tools will generally only buy exceptionally well established tools and rebuild the rest from scratch in-house. The only way to make money with games is to sell games.

RAD Game Tools has people with ferraris

Anybody else except the owner?

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#428

Post by seventhtiger » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

MrMember wrote: post #379

gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a lesson to be learned too. Stop making games for the general public. There are too many people trying to reach everyone.

You won't be Minecraft, but you won't waste 3 years for $30 either.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#429

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:57 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #393

eksemplar wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was always like that though. Game programming had always been the worst field for programmers, and the industry had and is exploiting the fact that some people like games enough to work on them under horrible conditions. I don’t think it’s the equivalent to writing the great American novel though, because programming is just a minor part of game creating and arguably one of the least important. Design I’d the most…

> The author of this article rants about the swarm of unity games, but some of those unity games are better than what the author made exactly because they took design seriously. Did we read the same article? Not only the total number of games, but the rate of their release seems to be geometrically increasing! Holy crap. And while many of them are Unity shovelware, etc., many are polished games that a lot of effort w…

Re. The shovelware bit: Once upon a time, when men were real men, etc, making a game meant writing it from the ground up, writing your own engine and then writing the game logic on top of that engine to make something unique.

Now that game engines are commonplace, free and work better than what any single developer would be able to come up with after a lifetime of hard work the end result is that games have a very hard time to differentiate themselves from each other. There isn't really an unlimited space of game scenarios out there, even in the days of the 2D arcade games after a couple of years it became much harder to come up with something truly unique.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#430

Post by fileeditview » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:08 AM UTC

After being active in the indie game dev scene for many years I see this kind of story again and again. I see many people ask why didn't it work or others say he should have done better marketing. I think they all don't understand the real problem.

You have to look at really successful indie games, such as Terraria, Factorio, Mini Metro, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Papers Please.. and there are many more. If you look at these games do you really think there is an alternative reality where they would not sell many copies? I don't.

And if you have a good look at them you should realize that they all are extremely polished and coherent. None of them has realistic AAA graphics but they still look good. None of them is just a "copy" of an existing game. They either bring something totally new or bring something known but with a greater overall quality.

Then you have successful niche games such as Cogmind or the Zachtronics games. They still have the mentioned properties but also target only a subset of players where there are not many games. I think that makes them guaranteed sales.

Now what's wrong with all the stories about failed games? They all are generic. They don't offer something special. And this is what doesn't work in a saturated games market. And I'm not saying the authors didn't work enough. They just don't see what's wrong with their games and continue on their path to demise.

I guess what I'm saying is: to make a successful game you don't need to be the greatest coder or greatest artist. But you need to understand what makes a game great and enjoyable.

Maybe the days (years) will come where I finally will make a (bigger) game of my own and maybe I will totally fail like many have. Maybe I will revoke everything I said here but today this is my opinion. :)