Did I just waste 3 years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#551

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

stubish wrote: post #505

int_19h wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, that is true. I should have been more specific: > We now have enough people with skills, experience, tools, and free time necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Where "free time" is that not used up by work that pays for food etc. Which does mean that people for whom art is a hobby are des…

Absolutely. I predict that more and more Indy games will be created by the retired, and the starving. Same as happened with novels and other arts like painting and photography.

don't forget the rich!

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#552

Post by clarry » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #152

Mortiffer wrote: post #2

Whats the equivalent of testing your business idea before building a business in the gaming world ?

Don't start by trying to test your idea. That's already getting ahead of yourself. Instead, start by identifying and checking the assumptions behind your idea. For example, let's say you want to make a retro platformer. The assumption is that many people would be interested in a new retro platformer. That's easy to check: browse through Steam's new releases, find the 10 newest retro platformers, and see how much inte…

And yet Shovel Knight is doing so so great. Cuphead too. Turns out retro platformers can do great. But way too many indie retro platformers are just trash with nothing to save them.

I don't think you can gauge success by looking at existing titles. It's like asking if there's a market for scifi novels. What do you find? People like scifi novels, and there are lots of scifi novels that suck and nobody reads them. Do people like metal music? There's tons of successful metal bands, and there's an ocean of trash.

Every work is unique.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#553

Post by fileeditview » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #540

fileeditview wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I disagree a lot with what you are saying. Marketing is important sure. But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. Maybe big gaming companies can do that but even they fail often enough. Luck is an important factor and maybe I would even rate it higher than 5%. I find the number of 90% marketing for an indie game ridiculous. Stardew Valley is based on existing formula but it is incredibly polished…

> But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. This doesn't seem to be a disagreement? Quality is necessary for a successful indie game, but that's very different than being sufficient . I can easily imagine a world where Stardew Valley failed, but I can't imagine a world where Hunt Down The Freeman succeeded. Given the sheer rate at which new games are released, I expect that a majority of polished, fun…

I didn't say that no marketing is needed. I said that you can market all you want if a game is bad it usually won't be successful, with some hype exceptions. I think you are basically making the same point in your second paragraph?!

I don't think to be successful you need to be as successful as Terraria..

As for Factorio.. it's not about graphics. Not every type of game needs great graphics. It's the same as with Dwarf Fortress. Both games offer such a deep complexity that graphics is secondary, especially to the type of player interested in it.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#554

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

fileeditview wrote: post #553

Bartweiss wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. This doesn't seem to be a disagreement? Quality is necessary for a successful indie game, but that's very different than being sufficient . I can easily imagine a world where Stardew Valley failed, but I can't imagine a world where Hunt Down The Freeman succeeded. Given the sheer rate at which new games are released, I expect that a majority of polished, fun…

I didn't say that no marketing is needed. I said that you can market all you want if a game is bad it usually won't be successful, with some hype exceptions. I think you are basically making the same point in your second paragraph?! I don't think to be successful you need to be as successful as Terraria.. As for Factorio.. it's not about graphics. Not every type of game needs great graphics. It's the same as with Dwa…

I think this might be one of those "forceful agreement" situations, yes. I suppose the way to see is to check all four cases: good and bad indie games with and without marketing.

Presumably we agree that bad indie games with no marketing will certainly fail.

It looks like we agree that bad indie games with strong marketing will usually fail, unlike bad AAA games and with a few debatable exceptions. (Mostly, I think, games that preordered well on hype and reputation but crumbled post-release. Clockwork Empires comes to mind.)

For good indie games with poor marketing, I think they'll usually fail, and it sounds like we might disagree? There are exceptions, but I think lots of them are older than the indie boom (e.g. Dwarf Fortress), or followup titles from successful indie devs. This might just be terminology or statistics though, because I agree that a chance favorable RPS writeup could jumpstart a game with no real marketing plan or budget. I guess the question is how often that happens, versus games doing the convention and reviewer circuit to ensure they get seen and written about.

For good indie games with good marketing, I think there's still a decently high chance of failure these days, which might be another disagreement? This probably requires a better definition of 'failure', people definitely bought e.g. Orwell, but if the standard is "makes enough money to release the next similar game" then even Failbetter Games is on the razor's edge, and they're one of the most acclaimed indie studios I know of.

(On that final point, I think I simply misunderstood you. I was noting that indie games can have any of the failings you mentioned and still succeed, but if your point was just that the specific game in this thread was hampered by those issues then we agree.)

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#555

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

fileeditview wrote: post #553

Bartweiss wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. This doesn't seem to be a disagreement? Quality is necessary for a successful indie game, but that's very different than being sufficient . I can easily imagine a world where Stardew Valley failed, but I can't imagine a world where Hunt Down The Freeman succeeded. Given the sheer rate at which new games are released, I expect that a majority of polished, fun…

I didn't say that no marketing is needed. I said that you can market all you want if a game is bad it usually won't be successful, with some hype exceptions. I think you are basically making the same point in your second paragraph?! I don't think to be successful you need to be as successful as Terraria.. As for Factorio.. it's not about graphics. Not every type of game needs great graphics. It's the same as with Dwa…

> Both games offer such a deep complexity that graphics is secondary, especially to the type of player interested in it.

Separate to my other comment, I should acknowledge that this seems overwhelmingly true. Dwarf Fortress is famous, but I've learned recently that there are also thriving communities for Cataclysm DDA, Dominions, Aurora, every imaginable Nethack derivative, and half a dozen other equally-opaque games.

As long as the genre or mechanics are new, there seems to be a (limited, but) perpetual apatite for ludicrously deep games with minimal player handholding.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#556

Post by int_19h » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #500

int_19h wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, that is true. I should have been more specific: > We now have enough people with skills, experience, tools, and free time necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Where "free time" is that not used up by work that pays for food etc. Which does mean that people for whom art is a hobby are des…

If you only hang out with people who have enough free time to fulfill their creative desires (mostly in good health, mostly without kids, mostly who have "good" jobs which in most cases means their parents did too, which probably means they aren't taking care of their parents or other family members either) it can seem like a widespread thing. In fact, it's not; most people, in the U.S., and especially globally, are…

To be clear, I'm not saying that it is widespread! But it is more widespread than it used to be, IMO - this sort of thing was historically confined to the elites, and now it's slowly creeping its way down middle class. Hence why I called it a manifestation of an ongoing march towards post-scarcity.

When and where the goal would actually be achieved is hard to speculate; I hope to see it in my lifetime, but only out of sheer optimism.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#557

Post by kayoone » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #538

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…

I think there has been some windows of opportunity for single-developers teams. - In the 80's and 90's when PC games where simple enough. - At the beginning of Steam - At the beginning of the App Store and the Play Store At those time, there wasn't that much competition so while it was still hit or miss, you still had a decent chance to be successful as a single-person indie developer.

true, the first generation of successful iphone and android games that made their authors rich were extremely simple remakes of classic games.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#558

Post by jrochkind1 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #556

jrochkind1 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only hang out with people who have enough free time to fulfill their creative desires (mostly in good health, mostly without kids, mostly who have "good" jobs which in most cases means their parents did too, which probably means they aren't taking care of their parents or other family members either) it can seem like a widespread thing. In fact, it's not; most people, in the U.S., and especially globally, are…

To be clear, I'm not saying that it is widespread! But it is more widespread than it used to be, IMO - this sort of thing was historically confined to the elites, and now it's slowly creeping its way down middle class. Hence why I called it a manifestation of an ongoing march towards post-scarcity. When and where the goal would actually be achieved is hard to speculate; I hope to see it in my lifetime, but only out o…

> this sort of thing was historically confined to the elites, and now it's slowly creeping its way down middle class

I'm not sure that's true. I don't see much ongoing march towards giving most people more free time. Inequality is generally _growing_, not shrinking. There is no ongoing march of history, just humans in political struggle for how resources are distributed.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#559

Post by int_19h » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

yboris wrote: post #498

int_19h wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to think more along these lines in general; it's going to be needed a lot. This is the ongoing march towards post-scarcity. We now have enough people with skills, experience and tools necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Essentially, these developers are spending (resources: time etc…

I would love to read this Sci-Fi story -- If anyone knows -- could you share the title (and author)?

I wish I remembered it! It's something I've read as a kid, and for the life of me I can't remember either the title or the author, or even most of the plot; just the setting.

Re: Did I just waste 3 years?

#560

Post by clay_to_n » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

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…

Factorio works because the gameplay is completely original. It scratches a building + automating + researching loop that no other game has. Many people compare it to programming or electrical engineering design - the satisfaction of automating something that used to take manual effort is great, and very addictive.

The graphics are bland and the early parts of the game feel like a pre-release / beta build, but the addictive gameplay and infinite end-game potential got it a lot of great coverage.