2 ms·

I would argue that a sure fire way to make sure your game is more likely to succeed is actually making sure that your game is something that people genuinely wa

I would argue that a sure fire way to make sure your game is more likely to succeed is actually making sure that your game is something that people genuinely want to play. Which kinda goes against the indie mantra of "make what you want to play", but that mantra only holds 100% if you're doing this as a hobby. Otherwise, it's "make games that you're interested in and have a solid chance of being bought by asking potential customers what they think and see how they react to a simple demo you put together". Kickstarter is kinda nice in this regard, but most games from there fail because the game mechanics aren't conveyed very well to potential buyers, hence why you should really put together a demo for them to play before you start to really seriously consider the idea. I would also go even further and say that a solid formula is a game that uses familiar and fun game mechanics, but then builds on top of that to make something interesting. Stardew Valley is a great example. It's a Harvest Moon clone but with some pretty interesting characters with unique personalities. That's why it made an estimated revenue under $25 million on Steam (http://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-made-way-more-money-than-call-of-duty-on-steam-and-other-2016-sales-insights/ http://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-made-way-more-money-th...) At the risk of sounding harsh, Positech's games are pretty damn niche in terms of ideas and in some cases mechanics (look at Democracy 3). They're very original, it's just that being very original in indie game development doesn't pay nearly as well as being fairly original.

mattnewport 9y ago
The problem is that nobody has really come up with a reliable way to figure out in advance what people want to play. Even the professional game development companies with perhaps the best track record of delivering consistent hits like Blizzard haven't hit on a reliable formula to figure out what's going to be successful before they invest a ton of resources into building it. Not saying you shouldn't bother with market research but when some of the biggest hits have resulted from people just building what they want to play and when big companies with a string of previous successes had done their market research and still released something that bombs I think it's fair to say there's no simple formula to producing a hit.
- meheleventyone 9y ago
  Most large companies have and have been in business for decades. The key very much is driven by making what you can sell and understanding that well. Every bet is not necessarily a success but there are enough that are not only to sustain these companies but grow them. Building what you want in the hope it's a crazy viral success is not a very good or sustainable business model. Pretending that these behemoths that employ well paid staff don't know what they are doing is just myopic. It's a long standing myth that you cannot know reasonably well what sort of game will succeed or work in such a way as to find it. But it's "selling out" to many, me included and I wish more people could find success on their own terms. That's just not the commercial reality though.
  - mattnewport 9y ago
    I worked at EA for years and have worked at other AAA studios, I've seen the big companies from the inside and know pretty well how they work, what they do well and what they don't. Sure, EA continues to exist because it has more hits than misses (and is helped in that regard by huge, reliable annual franchises like FIFA) but I've seen plenty of projects with relatively low expectations become huge hits (like the original need for speed underground) as well as titles with high expectations crash and burn (I won't name names). The big companies do a good enough job to be fairly consistently profitable but they by no means have a foolproof formula for success. Show me a famous studio without titles that didn't meet expectations.

mattnewport 9y ago

The problem is that nobody has really come up with a reliable way to figure out in advance what people want to play. Even the professional game development companies with perhaps the best track record of delivering consistent hits like Blizzard haven't hit on a reliable formula to figure out what's going to be successful before they invest a ton of resources into building it. Not saying you shouldn't bother with market research but when some of the biggest hits have resulted from people just building what they want to play and when big companies with a string of previous successes had done their market research and still released something that bombs I think it's fair to say there's no simple formula to producing a hit.

meheleventyone 9y ago
Most large companies have and have been in business for decades. The key very much is driven by making what you can sell and understanding that well. Every bet is not necessarily a success but there are enough that are not only to sustain these companies but grow them. Building what you want in the hope it's a crazy viral success is not a very good or sustainable business model. Pretending that these behemoths that employ well paid staff don't know what they are doing is just myopic. It's a long standing myth that you cannot know reasonably well what sort of game will succeed or work in such a way as to find it. But it's "selling out" to many, me included and I wish more people could find success on their own terms. That's just not the commercial reality though.
- mattnewport 9y ago
  I worked at EA for years and have worked at other AAA studios, I've seen the big companies from the inside and know pretty well how they work, what they do well and what they don't. Sure, EA continues to exist because it has more hits than misses (and is helped in that regard by huge, reliable annual franchises like FIFA) but I've seen plenty of projects with relatively low expectations become huge hits (like the original need for speed underground) as well as titles with high expectations crash and burn (I won't name names). The big companies do a good enough job to be fairly consistently profitable but they by no means have a foolproof formula for success. Show me a famous studio without titles that didn't meet expectations.