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I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a little.

by aedron 9y ago

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.

I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a little.

by aedron 9y ago

I'm sure everyone here would be really grateful if you could expand on this a little.

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.