5 ms·

So You Want to Make Games

98 points by szafranek 9y ago

animal531 9y ago
Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).
- supercoder 9y ago
  What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    Top paid app on the app-store show games that are of significant age (minecraft, plague inc) or with significant name recognition (monopoli, risk, etc) hinting at a stagnant market for independent, paid for games. Now, evidence is a hard word, but I've the hunch that unless your game is an addictive style freemium incremental, all other genres are as of today more suited to desktop, because of user disinterest on paying a mobile game upfront.
    - animal531 9y ago
      Pretty much this. It's far more difficult to gain recognition and get word of mouth going on the app store (due to volume), combined with the lower selling point as compared to desktop (for example $1 vs $15). People don't want to pay up front for games and the race to the bottom on prices have really hurt the little guy. All graphs I've seen of sales on the app store show an inordinate amount of sales for the top sellers, whereas the tiers in the middle and below don't make anything significant at all. Then go look at steamspy etc stats, even games 2/3rd's down the lists for a year's releases would have made a few thousand $ (as compared to app store where they might have been sitting on tens of $). Either way, learning to code via writing a game is something I recommend for anyone, anywhere.
      - clarry 9y ago
        And then I guess mobile gamers don't feel so excited and invested in their $1 break time distraction that they would talk about it on chats, streams, forums, or with friends. Heck I don't think I've ever seriously heard people discuss a mobile game, whereas discussions or passing mentions of PC & console games (both old and new) happen all the time on various media.
        lfowles 9y ago
        The only two examples of that I can think of are Puzzle&Dragons and Clash of Clans. I suspect it definitely contributes to them being so large.
  - douche 9y ago
    The price point of an average game that is sold tends to be about an order of magnitude higher on PC than on iPhone ($9.99 vs $0.99). PC gamers haven't been sold on the race to the bottom quite as much yet - there's more disdain for slot-machine type in-app-purchases, which as far as I can tell, is the only way to make any money in the mobile market.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  The general sentiment is that, for a regular guy, the app store is beyond hopeless and Steam is "just" extremely difficult and competitive.
- Dzugaru 9y ago
  You can also make free games just for the challenge and fun and getting some hundreds of people to play it is easy for web-based games.
- p0nce 9y ago
  You can have people very happy about your product and still little to no "word of mouth" if your product is niche. For a niche product each happy user would have to tell many other potential user to make one conversion. So practically niche products rarely get viral. Hence why Steam focuses on games that can be sold easily, not especially those with the happiest users. To make a game greenlit the voters vote on the screenshots and the beginning of the video, not the gameplay.
- JabavuAdams 9y ago
  To be successful, one still has to be focused on the business, something that many devs complaining about the app stores are not. Game development is more of a passion / calling / addiction than a rational business decision. It's an even dumber idea than startups. But if it's all you want to do, then...
madshiva 9y ago
Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself, they are for dumb users (sorry I don't have other word for, and it's not even casual) making game like this is more commercial than a passion for gaming. There's plenty exemple of sucessful game that have only few developper and are better than AAA. I personnaly have started to make game because I like it to try other approach of programming and I want try to do things that other don't do more or don't focus. Like choice, cooperation, rewards on cooperation, etc. Just focus on doing things that YOU would play, that make fun and people will talk about it, pay for it (I'm not even close to this but finish something always give reward.)
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  > Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself, they are for dumb users The PC AAA developers a very, very quickly catching up in dumbing down games; DA:Inquisition comes to mind.
  - jads 9y ago
    DA:Inquisition was dumbed down? I'm about 20 hours in and find it much more complicated than DA:O and DA2 (or I'm just misremembering those games)
- maccard 9y ago
  > Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself That's a sweeping generalisation. Mobile games are not "focused more on money than the game itself". There are plenty of examples of PC games which are straight up cash cows, just as there are plenty of examples of mobile games which are deeply rewarding and fun to play. To make statements like that is insulting to both sides.
  - dagenleg 9y ago
    >plenty of examples of mobile games which are deeply rewarding and fun to play Really?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
drops 9y ago
This video will always stay relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw
JabavuAdams 9y ago
One thing I would strongly recommend against is going to a private game-development school. These tend to market very aggressively and be very expensive. The education provided is hit-or-miss, largely dependent on the specific high-turnover instructors you get. In my province, you can pay > $25k for an 18 month program. At the end of that program, only the top handful of programming students will actually know how to code vs. copying and pasting. If there's any way you can get into a college or university CS or engineering program, do that instead. Four years may seem like a long time, but if you include the time spent looking for a job after your 18 month program, it could easily be 4 years before you get your first reasonably paying game gig. Also, you can do a four-year engineering degree for about 8-10k a year in Ontario. Co-op can help defray those costs further and make you more attractive for that first full-time job. Universities all have game-development clubs. Also, these are the people you're competing with for that first job. I would much rather hire a CS grad from University of Toronto, or University of Waterloo than someone who barely knows C# from a game school. The flip-side is that there are exceptions. It's possible to find those diamonds-in-the-rough who weren't able or willing to go to university.

98 points by szafranek 9y ago

Focusing only on for example the Apple app store in deciding whether to go into making games or not is not a great idea, since it's by far the most congested (as the article also shows). But for the moment other markets also exist, such as desktop where one can still be very successful (as long as you can hit a certain level of word of mouth).

supercoder 9y ago
What evidence do you have that your game will make any more on the desktop than it would on the App Store ? (Given the same amount of word of mouth)
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  Top paid app on the app-store show games that are of significant age (minecraft, plague inc) or with significant name recognition (monopoli, risk, etc) hinting at a stagnant market for independent, paid for games. Now, evidence is a hard word, but I've the hunch that unless your game is an addictive style freemium incremental, all other genres are as of today more suited to desktop, because of user disinterest on paying a mobile game upfront.
  - animal531 9y ago
    Pretty much this. It's far more difficult to gain recognition and get word of mouth going on the app store (due to volume), combined with the lower selling point as compared to desktop (for example $1 vs $15). People don't want to pay up front for games and the race to the bottom on prices have really hurt the little guy. All graphs I've seen of sales on the app store show an inordinate amount of sales for the top sellers, whereas the tiers in the middle and below don't make anything significant at all. Then go look at steamspy etc stats, even games 2/3rd's down the lists for a year's releases would have made a few thousand $ (as compared to app store where they might have been sitting on tens of $). Either way, learning to code via writing a game is something I recommend for anyone, anywhere.
    - clarry 9y ago
      And then I guess mobile gamers don't feel so excited and invested in their $1 break time distraction that they would talk about it on chats, streams, forums, or with friends. Heck I don't think I've ever seriously heard people discuss a mobile game, whereas discussions or passing mentions of PC & console games (both old and new) happen all the time on various media.
      - lfowles 9y ago
        The only two examples of that I can think of are Puzzle&Dragons and Clash of Clans. I suspect it definitely contributes to them being so large.
- douche 9y ago
  The price point of an average game that is sold tends to be about an order of magnitude higher on PC than on iPhone ($9.99 vs $0.99). PC gamers haven't been sold on the race to the bottom quite as much yet - there's more disdain for slot-machine type in-app-purchases, which as far as I can tell, is the only way to make any money in the mobile market.
taway_1212 9y ago
The general sentiment is that, for a regular guy, the app store is beyond hopeless and Steam is "just" extremely difficult and competitive.
Dzugaru 9y ago
You can also make free games just for the challenge and fun and getting some hundreds of people to play it is easy for web-based games.
p0nce 9y ago
You can have people very happy about your product and still little to no "word of mouth" if your product is niche. For a niche product each happy user would have to tell many other potential user to make one conversion. So practically niche products rarely get viral. Hence why Steam focuses on games that can be sold easily, not especially those with the happiest users. To make a game greenlit the voters vote on the screenshots and the beginning of the video, not the gameplay.
JabavuAdams 9y ago
To be successful, one still has to be focused on the business, something that many devs complaining about the app stores are not. Game development is more of a passion / calling / addiction than a rational business decision. It's an even dumber idea than startups. But if it's all you want to do, then...

madshiva 9y ago

Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself, they are for dumb users (sorry I don't have other word for, and it's not even casual) making game like this is more commercial than a passion for gaming. There's plenty exemple of sucessful game that have only few developper and are better than AAA. I personnaly have started to make game because I like it to try other approach of programming and I want try to do things that other don't do more or don't focus. Like choice, cooperation, rewards on cooperation, etc. Just focus on doing things that YOU would play, that make fun and people will talk about it, pay for it (I'm not even close to this but finish something always give reward.)

_pmf_ 9y ago
> Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself, they are for dumb users The PC AAA developers a very, very quickly catching up in dumbing down games; DA:Inquisition comes to mind.
- jads 9y ago
  DA:Inquisition was dumbed down? I'm about 20 hours in and find it much more complicated than DA:O and DA2 (or I'm just misremembering those games)
maccard 9y ago
> Mobile industrie are not the same than game for PC, they are really focused more on money than the game itself That's a sweeping generalisation. Mobile games are not "focused more on money than the game itself". There are plenty of examples of PC games which are straight up cash cows, just as there are plenty of examples of mobile games which are deeply rewarding and fun to play. To make statements like that is insulting to both sides.
- dagenleg 9y ago
  >plenty of examples of mobile games which are deeply rewarding and fun to play Really?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

drops 9y ago

This video will always stay relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw

JabavuAdams 9y ago

One thing I would strongly recommend against is going to a private game-development school. These tend to market very aggressively and be very expensive. The education provided is hit-or-miss, largely dependent on the specific high-turnover instructors you get. In my province, you can pay > $25k for an 18 month program. At the end of that program, only the top handful of programming students will actually know how to code vs. copying and pasting. If there's any way you can get into a college or university CS or engineering program, do that instead. Four years may seem like a long time, but if you include the time spent looking for a job after your 18 month program, it could easily be 4 years before you get your first reasonably paying game gig. Also, you can do a four-year engineering degree for about 8-10k a year in Ontario. Co-op can help defray those costs further and make you more attractive for that first full-time job. Universities all have game-development clubs. Also, these are the people you're competing with for that first job. I would much rather hire a CS grad from University of Toronto, or University of Waterloo than someone who barely knows C# from a game school. The flip-side is that there are exceptions. It's possible to find those diamonds-in-the-rough who weren't able or willing to go to university.