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Did I just waste 3 years?

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Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#471

Post by bspammer »

fiblye wrote: post #444
fileeditview wrote: post #430

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…

>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. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't…

> To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck

This seems very logical but indie games really do seem to defy this general rule. Pretty much every single popular indie game out there is really, really good in it's own specific way, and most of them had almost no marketing budget (when they first came out anyway).

Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing. These games spread through word of mouth and quality is the main criteria that causes people to talk about a game.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#472

Post by pjmlp »

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.

Even that is a lost game, because only professional studios pay for tools, as indies tend to just grab FOSS tools and feel entitled to get their issues fixed.

And in the professional market, the quality bar is pretty high.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#473

Post by jondubois »

detritus wrote: post #443
jondubois wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear that a lot of jobs today are useless and if you've worked for enough big companies, you might have realized that big companies are extremely inefficient. If big companies are so inefficent, why then are they able to generate so much profit from the economy? The reason is monetary policy. The Fed constantly 'prints' new money out of thin air and injects it into the economy via a combination of 1. loa…

...and what about all the other countries?

The currencies of developed countries are pegged to the US dollar and so their reserve banks are just copying whatever the Fed is doing; their main goal is to make sure that the value of their currencies doesn't change too much relative to the USD. All countries reinforce the same economic distortions on a global scale.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#474

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

fiblye wrote: post #444
fileeditview wrote: post #430

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…

>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. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't…

Incorrect. Factorio is _LIFE_.

https://reddit.com/r/factorio

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#475

Post by pjmlp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #399
scrollaway wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is completely wrong on their last assertion. You do not need AAA quality to make it as a game dev. But citing Minecraft reinforces their first assertion. Minecraft was an underrepresented genre, released early, with an (accidentally) excellent marketing technique. Above all, the code is an atrocious, unoptimized Java pile of crap (Yeah, I used to be into Minecraft dev in the early days). It's the best proof you ca…

SDV is another example; the author himself admitted on numerous occasions that the code is, well, not stellar , and in the community we also had some fun reading through decompilations of the parts of the game. Yet another proof would be surprising number of very games made in tools like GameMaker - think Nuclear Throne, or Cook Serve Delicious. I actually took a peek at the sources of the latter (they were distribut…

Yes, many programmers get lost discussing what programming language to use, GC or not, which 3D API to use, instead of what actually matters, gameplay, design, graphics, audio.

I always advise indies to attend local meetups from game design schools, to learn about what actually matters when making a game.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#476

Post by fiblye »

bspammer wrote: post #471
fiblye wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't…

> To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck This seems very logical but indie games really do seem to defy this general rule. Pretty much every single popular indie game out there is really, really good in it's own specific way, and most of them had almost no marketing budget (when they first came out anyway). Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had n…

>Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing.

Nope, nope, and nope.

Stardew Valley has a notable indie publisher. There was marketing on various internet communities (reddit, 4chan, etc) leading up to the months of release. There it can pass off as organic word of mouth. Terraria was marketed months before release. As for Minecraft, Notch himself was throwing his game around a load before it got released and using anonymity to drive interest--it was the most organic of the 3.

Other notable indie games like Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy also had especially significant marketing efforts behind them. And let's not forget Fez.

Most indie breakout hits aren't miracle successes. The just have very clever and modern marketing methods. They're not wasting money on magazine ads and gaming news sites banners like AAA studios do.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#477

Post by beaconstudios »

bspammer wrote: post #469
beaconstudios wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the point is that if the game wasn't well marketed, you wouldn't even know it existed in the first place.

Definitely not true, I've never seen an advert for Stardew Valley but it's talked about all over the internet because it's a really good game.

> but it's talked about all over the internet

Word-of-mouth is marketing too. Perhaps you are thinking that marketing === advertising? Because marketing doesn't have to be advertising. Building a community, attending conferences, getting influencers to play your game - these are all marketing activities. If people are talking about the game, it's surely fueled by a quality experience but marketing has to bootstrap that conversation.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#478

Post by fiblye »

bspammer wrote: post #469
beaconstudios wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the point is that if the game wasn't well marketed, you wouldn't even know it existed in the first place.

Definitely not true, I've never seen an advert for Stardew Valley but it's talked about all over the internet because it's a really good game.

And few of those people discovered the game by scrolling through steam. Most found it through a youtube playthrough, word of mouth, and "word of mouth" (i.e. how all content is marketed these days)

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#479

Post by Angostura »

bspammer wrote: post #471
fiblye wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't…

> To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck This seems very logical but indie games really do seem to defy this general rule. Pretty much every single popular indie game out there is really, really good in it's own specific way, and most of them had almost no marketing budget (when they first came out anyway). Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had n…

> Minecraft had no marketing.

... ish.

You can certainly think of the prolonged free alpha (and beta?) as marketing

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#480

Post by Xenos_Ender »

OP, Try contacting some streamers that love trying new games like CohhCarnage. If they play your game for 10+ hours it will be better than any other form of advertising. Also, make sure they pay for your product, don't offer it free.
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