Choice of platform.
polycounter lvl 7
So I'm slowly finishing the storyline for my first game and this question is coming back and forth like a boomerang. I decided to use unity because I can't program at all and the playmaker plugin for visual scripting pretty much gave me most of what I need within 2weeks of starting to learn the whole thing.
I've read all I could find on the net about it and besides the obvious polycount and shader stuff I can't find any reasonable answer why people choose one platform over the other.
My game is a little adventure based on a old point and click stuff but in first person.
PC/Mac vs ipad. Those are the platforms it went down to.
How would you guys go on deciding which to go with? I'm a single developer and budget is pretty tight so apart from few general scripts that I will need to hire a programmer for I'm doing the whole thing by myself. I'm leaning towards ipad because in my head I kinda see it as less time consuming to achieve a acceptable visual standard while PC/Mac games for most part have a very polished look and feel. But like I said it's my idea of it because I have zero experience in this field. The whole process is pretty much a unexplored territory
Any thoughts?
Appreciate in advance.
I've read all I could find on the net about it and besides the obvious polycount and shader stuff I can't find any reasonable answer why people choose one platform over the other.
My game is a little adventure based on a old point and click stuff but in first person.
PC/Mac vs ipad. Those are the platforms it went down to.
How would you guys go on deciding which to go with? I'm a single developer and budget is pretty tight so apart from few general scripts that I will need to hire a programmer for I'm doing the whole thing by myself. I'm leaning towards ipad because in my head I kinda see it as less time consuming to achieve a acceptable visual standard while PC/Mac games for most part have a very polished look and feel. But like I said it's my idea of it because I have zero experience in this field. The whole process is pretty much a unexplored territory
Any thoughts?
Appreciate in advance.
Replies
Anyone with more experience of both want to chime in?
UI - how will the player interact with your game, kb/mouse, touch, controller, something else...
Game design - Is your game meant for longer play sessions or shorter ones. The smaller the screen + more portable the device = typically shorter play sessions.
Price - Free, F2P, fixed price, pay what you want. What "price" will your target platform bear? On iOS/Android you'd better be Free or F2P if you want a lot of download numbers. If you're game is niche enough with a fan base starving for new games and willing to pay for them then a higher fixed price might be doable.
Distribution - You distribute it yourself and handle all support emails VS. put it up on an appstore and let the store handle distribution, support, returns, etc.
Hardware capabilities & fragmentation - There are tons of different windows version + hardware configuration combinations out there. Can you support a significant subset easily? VS. iOS not too many different devices to deal with, even less if you set a reasonable minimum iOS version.
Selling on your own site VS. appstore - You can build up a loyal customer/fan base on your own site. You don't have to give a 30% cut to anyone (more like ~8-10% to a payment processor). You'll struggle to get noticed by anyone. PC/Mac you'll hear "I'd buy this game if it was on Steam" a lot. Getting on Steam through Greenlight isn't easy. On an appstore you won't have to deal with purchase trust issues, you might get "featured" which can give a boost to sales (though this is not easy to get nor is it that great of a long term boost either). On an appstore you'll also be competing for space directly with the onslaught of apps that come out at the same time yours does and all the ones that come out after it. If you're not on the front page, you basically don't exist.
PC seems like a logical choice it's just I'm not sure I'm able to output highly polished graphics in a reasonable timeframe. My only real issue pretty much.
Oh we'll. Here goes testing
I'm confused by that part, what do you consider highly polished graphics? If you're talking AAA stuff, art can be good without normal maps and fancy shaders.
The unanimous answer is you must release it on PC. The internet (reddit, FB, etc) is free marketing to a good game via word-of-mouth.
If the game is on PC, people talk about it and share links on where to buy with one another.
Other than that, you're most likely to get it on PS4, sounds like Sony is going to try to open their doors to more indie devs. Xbone still sucks and requires a publisher.
Nope, they reversed that some time around August. ID @ Xbox One. I don't know if everyone gets 2 free dev kits or established indie developers.
It looks like it's going to be curated a bit more, XBLIG was basically curated by the community and it was pretty much 90% shitty games about massaging avatar zombies.
Well good! Perhaps we will consider Xbone when we get to that stage.
I would still just focus on a PC release if you are unsure about how/what/why for consoles.
I would start on PC, just because there is considerably fewer barriers. Even if every publishing service turns you down, you can still publish the game yourself from your own website. Even in the worst-case scenario, PC will still allow you to sell your game.
From there I would port it to every platform that it would fit on.
Much appreciated.
PC/MAC first then