Indiepocalypse
polycounter lvl 5
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanielWest/20150908/253040/Good_isnt_good_enough__releasing_an_indie_game_in_2015.php
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F-zdpFb9I[/ame]
There seems to be a lot of people saying there is going to be an Indiepocalypse. In particular Jonathan Blow tweeted a few weeks ago that indie gaming is dead.
Do you think indie gaming is going to die in a few years?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F-zdpFb9I[/ame]There seems to be a lot of people saying there is going to be an Indiepocalypse. In particular Jonathan Blow tweeted a few weeks ago that indie gaming is dead.
Do you think indie gaming is going to die in a few years?
Replies
The hardest part of it all is letting people know your game is out there. Advertising is a huge part of it.
I think there are just more and more people going indie, so the percentage of successful games is going down, which makes people think it's dying. It's not dying. It's just flooded, it's hard to really stand out.
All that has changed is there's higher standards for indie games, and if your game doesn't stand out from the crowd, it's not going to sell well.
That being said, Steam is starting to feel like a mobile app store to me. There's just so much games. Fortunately Steam does a good job of recommending games I might like and has introduced me to many games I didn't even know existed.
My speculation is that a lot of large studios won't be around in the long run. They hemorrhage so much money that risking developing a new IP that they have no idea whether it will sell is simply not feasible, so they stick to their formulaic approach of sequel after sequel. This will get tired eventually, and those studios will probably split up and form smaller "indie" studios. Again, this is only speculation.
With that, I'd have to agree with slipsius, indie games aren't going anywhere but they do have to work harder to advertise their stuff. However, small teams means significantly smaller budgets for games so they don't have to get GTA-level sales in order to recoup their costs. If a small team of devs reaches just 1% of the Steam population that's easily over half a million in sales.
so i watched it, and it looks like it could be fun, but i am getting dizzy from all the screenrotation
also i am not sure it feels just like another mobile platformer with short levels, interesting for a short time and then it's just one out of a billion similar games.
BUT
i did not play it and it just doesn't speak to me
besides the whole refund policy they have, right?
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/RyanClark/20150908/253087/The_5_Myths_of_the_Indiepocalypse.php
Please read this
An no, its nonsense. Good games and work sells as much as ever.
Good was never good enough. There were several people complaining, all with games that were just not appealing enough.
Also from a logical standpoint, teams will always exists that make great games with no funds, there will always be "indies" they can not all vanish to a "higher" budget class, thats just silly. There is tons of room for good games no matter the genre. Mobile is a slightly different story , but don't listen to excuses people search for their own failures. There is some truth to it, but in the end it was all in their hands.
Also on a side note, don't make a 2D platformer with a single usp and expect a
success..
User reviews are often accurate. I find myself going straight to the reviews, like Amazon almost, even if the game looks promising. Generally if its "positive" or "overwhelmingly positive" you can rest assured it will at least be worth several hours of enjoyment. If I'm still unsure, I will find someone on YouTube who has done a Let's Play.
So, figuring out whether an indie game is worth it requires a bit of work on the user's end which I think is a bit different from AAA games where you constantly have commercials and banners and popular studio names and other advertisements shoved in your face so you know it's going to be good (typically). That difference alone, I imagine, affects indie sales quite a bit.
It's like an accelerated version of AAA game dev, nobody is getting $30,000 bonus checks anymore.
I think we'll start to see AAA studios grooming more "pet projects" in addition to their blockbuster titles. The risk/overhead is relatively low, and we'll stop putting all our eggs in one basket in the process. A recent example might be Grow Home.
From the perspective of Indie game developers, there was NEVER a time when you could expect to have a good chance of making a ton of money, or even a living wage, from creating an Indie game. Looking to the future, there will NEVER be a time when you can assume that you will make a living wage be being an Indie developer, unless you have already become successful and are riding on your reputation. (Unless your time frame includes Star Trek style futurism in a post scarcity economy)
Having said all of that, I do agree that the odds of making good money by creating Indie games has gone down over the last decade, and will continue to go down. Maybe the odds were 100 to 1 a decade ago, and now they are 500 to 1. It's still a long shot. Going Indie should be viewed as a labor of love, or a compulsion to create interesting things, rather than a reasonable business plan that is probably going to succeed.
In the old days (Circa 2012) a FAILURE game on Steam would net the developer 30k. Seriously, the WORST selling games would still make 30k. This was because the supply was limited by Valve's ability to review products and put them live (They curated the content).
The result was higher quality games (on average) on Steam and a huge willingness for players to try new things as a result.
Today there are approximately 10-15 launches on Steam per day. Approximately 2 of them (average) make it to the top new releases list, meaning about 80% of the launches on Steam make basically zero. The remaining 20% skew wildly now, with a huge chunk falling still below that old 30k marker and a small part as it always has been - making big bucks.
If I had to guess, I would say 90% now fail to reach that 30k marker that was the previous "You're the worst game to launch this year."
In short, Blow is right- the party is over. Not for indies, just for stability. In the past with steam curating products if you had a great game you'd almost always be recgonized for it (not always, but way more often than not). Today it is possible that even a great game can get lost due to lack of PR and exposure - or just bad luck!
When truly good games have no impact, then we have a problem, but it looks like we are far from such a state.
No great game is lost, PR and exposure are the jobs of the devs and either you do it well or not. If the media dosnt pick it up after you did that part well then your game is not exciting. The rest are excuses.
You forget all the great games that weren't on steam back then, they had a hard time just like anyone else.
Making indie games is not some easy way to make money, it's just like running any other business. There's the need for plans and pr beyond just a good product.
There are still so many cases where games sell themselves when they're truly fantastic, but don't mix up good with truly fantastic.
But in truth, Steam at least has gotten saturated with poor greenlit projects that people trying to make a quick buck put out as shovel ware or crap mobile ports. I mean bribing people with free copies to greenlight your project? How low can you get? Oh wait, you can get lower when you make false identities to leave positive reviews on your steaming pile of shit early access title.
http://www.thejimquisition.com/2015/08/steam-vote-rigging-and-shady-connections-the-curious-case-of-bob-middleton/
I would say if anything indies need to look past Steam as the only outlet alone.
Are there any stats on the ratio of filler versus quality content on steam to back this claim of saturation?
But releasing games is not about finding the platform that can get your game to people, it's about how YOU get people to find your game, steam can never be this tiny shopfront with a few game if it's more open to everyone.
Sometimes i really wonder if this is the case. Generic 2d "artsy" platformer with lazy retro graphics.
No, but then how would one make such a stat? What would be the separation? As said go through greenlit recent projects and look to see what you think is decent versus crap. Even if the numbers didn't match, its the publics view of such. People are weary of all early access as an example because of the misbehaving/management of a few.
Know your audience. Its about marketing and getting the best platforms your audiences are on. So I don't think we are in disagreement? I'm just saying using Steam alone is probably not the smartest move. Especially if you incorporate steam only features tying you to that service.
THIS! I wanted to write but was scared to get bashed so I didn't..
I really enjoy 2d games but they are becoming more and more the same without any depth behind them...
Anyway, it's like every industry, supply and fking demand..all sellers want a part of the cake...
ANd like everyone said, in the end, it's all about publicity.
Remember Flappy Bird?
High quality games that grab you within a few moments of seeing or playing it still do phenomenal.
Look at Rogue Legacy, it just came out a few years ago and it exploded because it was truly a quality product that grabs your attention within seconds.
Do I want to play a platformer as some weird squishy floppy thing? No.
Transistor came out within the past year and has done quite well (granted it's from a studio with previous success).
Blow's comments that you missed the bus are a little off the mark, though not completely. He's also kind of a self-entitled individual, if you read more about him and his comments. I wouldn't take anything he says to heart.
In both regards VVVVVV comes to mind. The game was not graphically intricate, but god did it work well within its context. Airscape is painfully generic (had to look up the game's name whilst writing this even though I read the whole article just a minute ago, lol). VVVVVV had also tight controls and a clear image of what it wanted to achieve (the crisp and precise representation helped a lot in that regard). I haven't played Airscape but from what i've seen it seems more vague in both regards.
What about dull octopuses and no charisma? This is pure alibism on the author's side. Rather than admiting that their game did not look like much they blame the audience for not getting their artistic choices. Bleh.
Yes, yes, the whole world is against you.
Like going on and on about marketing for the greater portion of the article and adamantly refusing to acknowledge any possible failure in other areas.
This, to me, seems like the usual rant of a butthurt snowflake.