Weird to think that the video game market went from, “this is too niche to have much hope of making it in” to “this is too oversaturated to have much hope of making it in” in less than a human lifetime. That’s going from freezing in the void of space to falling into the sun at near superluminal speed.
As a consumer of games, the latter is better, but if I were a producer? ... I don’t know.
And it’s not just an indie thing – corporate games companies have become so insanely toxic that the success of your work has nothing to do with the longevity of your employment. Sure, some game companies have 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 been capital ‘E’ 𝑬vil (Konami was very much ahead of the curve on that front), but that’s increasingly the norm, not the exception.
Every tier of this industry seems utterly miserable.
Been playing your games for quite a while, but for the last few years I had to stop. Why? Tendonitis and a shoulder injury prevents me from playing with a mouse, so only games with controller support from now on. Another issue is that by adapting your games to newer resolutions, the games become ridiculously tiny, I had to squint my eyes all the time. I can only guess how hard it is for one guy only to redesign the UI for controller, but it would be cool if you thought about "older" gamers (I'm just 43:)). Cheers.
Came here from your video with Thomas, but not before listening to your GDC talk. Remarkable consistency in the message over the years. Do you disagree with the conclusion in that Reddit post?
"More than half the market is outright slop or barely competent yet unattractive. If you spend time on polish, you’re really competing with the top ~30 %: half the games are instantly ignored, and another 15–20 % just aren’t polished enough to be considered."
I'm going to take my copium right now, and say that if I you have a niche and gather an audience before release, you may still do okay.
You kind of buried the lede on Thronefall, though. It is a good game, with the critical acclaim and the audience to prove it. What is agonizing to see as game dev is "King Shot" which ripped almost everything off from Thronefall, and monetized in worst scummy way mobile game bullshit way. They now earn many multiples of what Thronefall is receiving.
I wish that consumers could be educated away from giving money to game developers who treat them as chumps.
Seems crazy to me that the brotato dlc got 2k reviews while the original game got 93k. Did not seem worth while to do at least for financial reasons. Also loved brotato but I feel I took too long of a break from it to try the DLC.
The discoverability problem just keeps getting worse and worse. And while I agree that it's not quite right to just dismiss the glut of games as low-effort asset flips, I think the algorithm *does* prioritize those kinds of games more often than not, because a lot of those titles are porn games (many of which seem to be heavily-reliant on AI), and that makes them sell.
And even outside of the Steam client (I am, of course, speaking purely as a consumer here) there used to be a number of sources I could go to find find recommendations for obscure indie games I'd otherwise have missed. The odd highlights or columns on websites that no longer exist, or are shadows of what they were (eg Richard Cobbet comes to mind), or youtubers who've since moved on to other things (EG Errant Signal, Super Bunnhop, etc.).
Even relatively promising indie games with slick production values and preexisting fanbases are struggling. Colony Ship, for example, had a decent audience right out of the gate with all the Age of Decadence fans out there... many of whom (IME) don't even know the game exists. Even among CRPG fans, it's relatively unknown, despite doing everything "right."
If 50 games come out on Steam a day, it's several full time jobs sorting through them to find the quality, even if you could get copies. It's just too much of a firehose for amateur reporters.
Weird to think that the video game market went from, “this is too niche to have much hope of making it in” to “this is too oversaturated to have much hope of making it in” in less than a human lifetime. That’s going from freezing in the void of space to falling into the sun at near superluminal speed.
As a consumer of games, the latter is better, but if I were a producer? ... I don’t know.
And it’s not just an indie thing – corporate games companies have become so insanely toxic that the success of your work has nothing to do with the longevity of your employment. Sure, some game companies have 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 been capital ‘E’ 𝑬vil (Konami was very much ahead of the curve on that front), but that’s increasingly the norm, not the exception.
Every tier of this industry seems utterly miserable.
Hi Jeff.
Been playing your games for quite a while, but for the last few years I had to stop. Why? Tendonitis and a shoulder injury prevents me from playing with a mouse, so only games with controller support from now on. Another issue is that by adapting your games to newer resolutions, the games become ridiculously tiny, I had to squint my eyes all the time. I can only guess how hard it is for one guy only to redesign the UI for controller, but it would be cool if you thought about "older" gamers (I'm just 43:)). Cheers.
Looking forward to Avernum 4! I will immediately buy it for full price.
Came here from your video with Thomas, but not before listening to your GDC talk. Remarkable consistency in the message over the years. Do you disagree with the conclusion in that Reddit post?
"More than half the market is outright slop or barely competent yet unattractive. If you spend time on polish, you’re really competing with the top ~30 %: half the games are instantly ignored, and another 15–20 % just aren’t polished enough to be considered."
I'm going to take my copium right now, and say that if I you have a niche and gather an audience before release, you may still do okay.
You kind of buried the lede on Thronefall, though. It is a good game, with the critical acclaim and the audience to prove it. What is agonizing to see as game dev is "King Shot" which ripped almost everything off from Thronefall, and monetized in worst scummy way mobile game bullshit way. They now earn many multiples of what Thronefall is receiving.
I wish that consumers could be educated away from giving money to game developers who treat them as chumps.
I agree with the conclusion to the post, but run the numbers. If 50 games come out a day and 30% are polished? Then, by my formulae,
0.3 * 50 = YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT
Seems crazy to me that the brotato dlc got 2k reviews while the original game got 93k. Did not seem worth while to do at least for financial reasons. Also loved brotato but I feel I took too long of a break from it to try the DLC.
DLC sales always fall way off. Plus, it took a long time for it to come out. Plus, honestly, it didn't offer anything really sexy.
I think the DLC is OK. I put my hours in, but I think that games (amazing) design has explored most of its design space.
The discoverability problem just keeps getting worse and worse. And while I agree that it's not quite right to just dismiss the glut of games as low-effort asset flips, I think the algorithm *does* prioritize those kinds of games more often than not, because a lot of those titles are porn games (many of which seem to be heavily-reliant on AI), and that makes them sell.
And even outside of the Steam client (I am, of course, speaking purely as a consumer here) there used to be a number of sources I could go to find find recommendations for obscure indie games I'd otherwise have missed. The odd highlights or columns on websites that no longer exist, or are shadows of what they were (eg Richard Cobbet comes to mind), or youtubers who've since moved on to other things (EG Errant Signal, Super Bunnhop, etc.).
Even relatively promising indie games with slick production values and preexisting fanbases are struggling. Colony Ship, for example, had a decent audience right out of the gate with all the Age of Decadence fans out there... many of whom (IME) don't even know the game exists. Even among CRPG fans, it's relatively unknown, despite doing everything "right."
If 50 games come out on Steam a day, it's several full time jobs sorting through them to find the quality, even if you could get copies. It's just too much of a firehose for amateur reporters.