5 ms·

I feel like relying on a big splash release is an intuitive, obvious, and wrong approach. It's like a kind of waterfall methodology, where we should be doing it

by aedron 9y ago

I feel like relying on a big splash release is an intuitive, obvious, and wrong approach. It's like a kind of waterfall methodology, where we should be doing iterative: Release something early to a limited audience, gauge reactions, fix the obvious mistakes and implement the feedback from players. Then keep doing that. If you can't even get a small audience (like a small gamer forum) to play, then you're already in trouble and should revise your idea. Once the game starts to look like something with mass appeal, start planning a real release. If you want a splashy go-live at this point then change the name of the game and do it as a clean new release, but this time you are releasing something that has been market tested and proven to have appeal. Also, and this is encapsulated in the ideas above, don't freaking rely on family, friends, or acquaintances, to tell you what they think of the game. Not even other devs. Nobody wants to be the asshole that shoots down someone's dream. Again, if you can't even get actual players to try your game then you have big problems that you need to work on.

FeepingCreature 9y ago
Can confirm. Tried big splash release, didn't work, gave up. Don't do big splash releases.
- jblow 9y ago
  I recommend being careful from whom you take advice.
  - aedron 9y ago
    I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a little.
    - meheleventyone 9y ago
      Not jblow but it's rather obvious that anecdotal evidence isn't a sound basis for the sort of general advice given. That some people fail to make a big splash isn't evidence that a big splash is a tactic that will fail. Particularly if you take a broader view as this has been a successful part of the business model of games for a long time. Whether or not it's right for a specific game and the longer term business of the developer is a much more nuanced question.
      - jblow 9y ago
        Exactly -- some kinds of games are soft-launch-and-iterate kinds of games, but some other kinds are very much not, and if you soft-launch them you make it tremendously harder to build an audience.
    - jblow 9y ago
      Not really worth it -- if I put in effort to write a substantial comment here, it's just buried in the noise of all these people who think they can give advice on how to build and launch a game.
      - emsy 9y ago
        I for one usually do a CTRL+F "jblow" on game related articles, since I know you're commenting on HN and have the actual competence to do so.
        erikbye 9y ago
        Same.
      - deafcalculus 9y ago
        Jon, there are many here who would very much like to hear what you have to say. If you think it'll get buried, please leave it as a comment to the main thread. BTW, Jon Blow is the creator of Braid and The Witness. He is also working on Jai, a programming language.
        jblow 9y ago
        Thanks for the nice comments. But I only think this because I have had the experience many times in the past! I feel the best place to focus my creative energy is on making livestreams, doing speeches, and just on day-to-day programming. Putting effort into a posting here often doesn't take too much energy, but it does take some, and I'd rather put it into something bigger than mostly toss it away.
    - mikeklaas 9y ago
      Not jblow, but the video game industry is extremely dependent on big splash releases. Something like 50% of sales occur in a game's release week. A few games have managed to become huge hits growing only organically in early access (factorio and rimworld come to mind), but they are extremely special games. That's not something you can replicate with a relatively generic title. To be fair, I'm not sure there is any path to success for a solid albeit generic game these days. There are just too many releases.
      - FeepingCreature 9y ago
        If you're releasing a videogame and the first the world hears of it is the announcement of your 1.0 release, you've not done a stellar job of marketing.
petercooper 9y ago
Release something early to a limited audience, gauge reactions, fix the obvious mistakes and implement the feedback from players. That worked for Minecraft. The core group of players was pretty small. Nearly all male geek types for the first year. You had to look up almost everything in the rather chaotic wiki to get anywhere.. which is what made it fun for me at the time.

by aedron 9y ago

FeepingCreature 9y ago

Can confirm. Tried big splash release, didn't work, gave up. Don't do big splash releases.

jblow 9y ago
I recommend being careful from whom you take advice.
- aedron 9y ago
  I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a little.
  - meheleventyone 9y ago
    Not jblow but it's rather obvious that anecdotal evidence isn't a sound basis for the sort of general advice given. That some people fail to make a big splash isn't evidence that a big splash is a tactic that will fail. Particularly if you take a broader view as this has been a successful part of the business model of games for a long time. Whether or not it's right for a specific game and the longer term business of the developer is a much more nuanced question.
    - jblow 9y ago
      Exactly -- some kinds of games are soft-launch-and-iterate kinds of games, but some other kinds are very much not, and if you soft-launch them you make it tremendously harder to build an audience.
  - jblow 9y ago
    Not really worth it -- if I put in effort to write a substantial comment here, it's just buried in the noise of all these people who think they can give advice on how to build and launch a game.
    - emsy 9y ago
      I for one usually do a CTRL+F "jblow" on game related articles, since I know you're commenting on HN and have the actual competence to do so.
      - erikbye 9y ago
        Same.
    - deafcalculus 9y ago
      Jon, there are many here who would very much like to hear what you have to say. If you think it'll get buried, please leave it as a comment to the main thread. BTW, Jon Blow is the creator of Braid and The Witness. He is also working on Jai, a programming language.
      - jblow 9y ago
        Thanks for the nice comments. But I only think this because I have had the experience many times in the past! I feel the best place to focus my creative energy is on making livestreams, doing speeches, and just on day-to-day programming. Putting effort into a posting here often doesn't take too much energy, but it does take some, and I'd rather put it into something bigger than mostly toss it away.
  - mikeklaas 9y ago
    Not jblow, but the video game industry is extremely dependent on big splash releases. Something like 50% of sales occur in a game's release week. A few games have managed to become huge hits growing only organically in early access (factorio and rimworld come to mind), but they are extremely special games. That's not something you can replicate with a relatively generic title. To be fair, I'm not sure there is any path to success for a solid albeit generic game these days. There are just too many releases.
    - FeepingCreature 9y ago
      If you're releasing a videogame and the first the world hears of it is the announcement of your 1.0 release, you've not done a stellar job of marketing.

petercooper 9y ago

Release something early to a limited audience, gauge reactions, fix the obvious mistakes and implement the feedback from players. That worked for Minecraft. The core group of players was pretty small. Nearly all male geek types for the first year. You had to look up almost everything in the rather chaotic wiki to get anywhere.. which is what made it fun for me at the time.