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He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall

He doesn't mention how many hours he spent marketing it. I suspect not that many. I fully sympathize with his struggle, but this is a trap most programmers fall into so easily. Market need/fit > Marketing > Design > Programming when it comes to software products. You can't just build it and expect that they will come, unfortunately.

EngineerBetter 8y ago
That hierarchy of importance is quite apt. If the game concept doesn't sell itself as an elevator pitch, then it doesn't matter how good the implementation is. I once met an indie dev who was surprised that their Space Invaders mobile clone didn't sell on Windows Mobile, "despite its amazing particle effects."
randombrea 8y ago
It's hard to context switch between marketing and programming. You can spent many hours marketing with little return, especially without a product. Programming by itself is slow, but there is a definitely return in terms of progress. So many people choose programming first before marketing. But I get what you mean. Its though.
wainstead 8y ago
In "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup," Rob Walling states three wrong reasons to launch something: 1. Having a product idea 2. To get rich 3. Because it sounds like fun This and other books on launching your own thing stress that you first have to find a market, then fill that market's needs. In the world of indie games I can't even imagine what that would be.
- Negitivefrags 8y ago
  There are even now niches in gaming that are under served, and games in these niches are much easier to market. You can engineer a relatively high chance of success but it requires two things: 1) Actually picking an under served market. Meteriodvania style games are not one of these, there are a ton of game out there fulfilling that need. 2) Really really understanding the audience. You have to know what details of the previous games in the genre were actually important, and what were not which you can innovate in. Even the tiniest details can be super important.
  - BigJono 8y ago
    The easiest way to find an underserved niche is to find a beloved series that died, or has been on life support for 10+ years with devs that just continuously drop the ball and can't recreate the magic. See: Stardew Valley, Cities Skylines, etc. I'm very keen to see how Ready or Not does, when it releases. Everyone I know who played SWAT 4 back in the day loves it, and there hasn't been a comparable game since. To throw out an example of an "available" niche: I think the first dev to bring out a modern version of Need For Speed: Underground, with decent car physics (similar to something like Grid: Autosport), is going to strike an absolute gold mine. NFS was literally all anybody at school talked about for years and years when U1, U2 and MW were coming out. Every game since has been complete rubbish, the new ones have physics so bad it feels like you're just gliding around on a magic carpet with a car body attached to it.
- Impossible 8y ago
  It is obvious what finding a market in indie games means and that you can't imagine it shows that you aren't particularly creative. There are a couple of different approaches to finding a market. Find a game that is fun or popular but doesn't have a polished or commercial version and make that. Find a set of users that would like to play games but doesn't have many games that appeal directly to them and make a product for them. Find an old game or genre that hasn't had a release and make a game in that style. Release a lot of small experiments and prototypes, build a small audience around one of them and iterate, killing ones that don't catch on, etc. Finding product market fit with and indie game might not always be cheap or easy, but there are a variety of ways to do it and it's definitely not unimaginable.
CM30 8y ago
Not just programmers, many creatives and makers in general. Same rule applies whether you're running a startup, creating a video game, making movies, writing books/articles or playing in a band. The ones who succeed realise they've got to market their work, whereas the ones that don't still believe in the build it and they'll come mentality.
lasagnaphil 8y ago
Humorously this HN post also kinda acts as marketing... (although a weak, halfhearted one at best)
- Macuyiko 8y ago
  I was going to say: this "moment" on HN might increase the sales more than all of previous efforts did. Today, the market is so saturated that even if you have the funds and interest (as a player / fan of genre), there is no way you can discover or keep up with all new releases. Steam has no way of listing them in an easy to parse overview, publications have now way of keeping up, streamers only have so much time. The solution is to market, market, market. Distribute keys to streamers, contact publications, optimize for off-days when they need something to write about. Finally, your game needs to be either hyper-polished or have some sort of novel angle. No disrespect, but looking at the trailer of this particular game, it seems its about 70% of the way their. Everything looks okay, especially for a small team effort, but it needs more polish. The alternative is putting yourself into a niche and marking the hell out of everything, see e.g. the success of Cogmind, whose creator has been really good at Tweeting, posting on reddit, on HN, and so on...
  - zeroname 8y ago
    > The solution is to market, market, market. Distribute keys to streamers, contact publications, optimize for off-days when they need something to write about. There are no "off days". There is no "solution" for this title, except maybe a total visual makeover, which is probably out of the question. Some titles fail, end of story. > Everything looks okay, especially for a small team effort, but it needs more polish. It doesn't look okay, it looks bad. Few people will tell this to someone's face, and that's part of the problem. Programmers often can't tell. "More polish" is the last thing the game needs. It needs a makeover or be shelved. Just call it "done" and use it as a portfolio piece, it's good enough for that, any more polish is a waste of time.
    - byron_fast 8y ago
      Yes. Sadly, this is correct.
tomc1985 8y ago
The problem now is that all the people using that thought process are producing games that look and feel the same, and use the same ideas, because there are only a handful of prominent markets and sets of needs. (For example, why does almost every popular need to use the same oversaturated color palette?) You're discouraging the kind of artistry that indie dev needs to truly succeed.
VLM 8y ago
Its not necessarily marketing in the sense of A/B testing his game play or fictional background or artwork or whatever, but consider general user experience stuff. So I hear its a cool rogue-like but unlike the fifty indie rogue-likes I have languishing unplayed in my steam account already, I can play this one in the browser, whoa cool, technically impressive and maybe fun too. So I go to the web page expecting a slither.io like experience where I'll be playing in 10 seconds. And there's too many choices. First its a wall of text I can already be playing slither.io before I figure out what to do here in a RPG-adventure-IRL sense. Second there's confusion I should click on "Update Try it now on the play page" or the button "Join early access to play the game" or the tab labeled "Play Game" or down in the text its got a hyperlink to "play online" in the "play online, in-browser" section. Or they're different or the same or cognitive load thats un necessary. Is one link free and one link paid, or they all go to the same place but I better check them all first? Then the choice confusion continues. I click on one of many widgets to get to the same place, "join early access". No I don't want to join I want to play. And more decision problems crop up, I can pay $7.50 for the free steam key (huh?) or there's a note from Luke that I can skip the payment section and get an account anyway wonder if it comes with a steam key or not what if I change my mind this is all so confusing and I want to make in-game decisions not the second page between me and the game experience. And the page is full of three ways to pay or its also free or the steam key is free or what all is going on here why am I stopping to research this and why am I researching instead of playing. I got a tab open with slither.io to make this stream of consciousness post and its calling to me... What if I don't like it and want my money back what if I make a free acct and later decide to toss some cash in its just all so overly complicated. There is another interesting impedance bump where there' three federated ways to pay, via amazon, paypal, or stripe CC, which is convenient, I'm not complaining at all. The point is just above that there is no federated login or account generation at all; I have to provide my email for harvesting (come on, I know Luke is a good guy, but I've been on the internet for longer than most kids have been alive; I know better than to provide my email address "for free" it ain't 1990 anymore so say hi to vlm@example.com). Then I need to create yet another username and password to forget because there's no federation. I must have created over a thousand logins in the last couple decades; tired. You integrated three payment processors how about one-click login via google / FB / whatevs. After all this uphill battle in the user acquisition phase, the tab with slither.io is beckoning to me... Note that I'm exclusively complaining about the new user acquisition process; everything else is pretty cool! Its just a lot of work and cognitive load to get to play compared to the competition in the market (the fifty unplayed indie roguelikes in my steam account, or .io style instant casual web games) My constructive suggestion: One page one click login via federated accts and don't forget "click here to play as anonymous coward" then in the UI "click here to sign up or give us piles of cash". The competition can get them playing in one click and 10 seconds... Interesting marketing mechanic that some might say is evil, whatevs, in game while playing as "anonymous coward" click here to have a federated account (play with your facebook or google acct) and get a minor in-game reward for signing up. Not so ridiculous that people claim its cheaty, but something at least amusing or an in-game joke or something making it a trade in users minds. Don't give people a chance to think about doing something else while they're trying to decode the onboarding process. Low friction is where its at. Think of the "S" in SOLID the single responsibility principle, don't make new users ponder if they're paying for something (what, a free steam key?) or joining a club forum or playing a game or whatnot. Give the new user exactly one single responsibility "play the game". Later on, buddy up with "membership" or "gimmie money" but get them into the game first. Looks like a fun game, once you get into it. Cool!
megaremote 8y ago
Marketing isn't magic, not every game makes it. In fact most do not.
TheRealPomax 8y ago
He also mentioned that even the guy(s) who made Super Meat Boy don't get a pass anymore just because they once made something that earned millions. You can't build it and expect them to come. But you also can't even build it and have someone be your dedicated marketer, because you STILL can't expect them to come. There is no market right now, just people getting lucky. There is no market. Let that sink in.

EngineerBetter 8y ago

That hierarchy of importance is quite apt. If the game concept doesn't sell itself as an elevator pitch, then it doesn't matter how good the implementation is. I once met an indie dev who was surprised that their Space Invaders mobile clone didn't sell on Windows Mobile, "despite its amazing particle effects."

randombrea 8y ago

It's hard to context switch between marketing and programming. You can spent many hours marketing with little return, especially without a product. Programming by itself is slow, but there is a definitely return in terms of progress. So many people choose programming first before marketing. But I get what you mean. Its though.

wainstead 8y ago

In "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup," Rob Walling states three wrong reasons to launch something: 1. Having a product idea 2. To get rich 3. Because it sounds like fun This and other books on launching your own thing stress that you first have to find a market, then fill that market's needs. In the world of indie games I can't even imagine what that would be.

Negitivefrags 8y ago
There are even now niches in gaming that are under served, and games in these niches are much easier to market. You can engineer a relatively high chance of success but it requires two things: 1) Actually picking an under served market. Meteriodvania style games are not one of these, there are a ton of game out there fulfilling that need. 2) Really really understanding the audience. You have to know what details of the previous games in the genre were actually important, and what were not which you can innovate in. Even the tiniest details can be super important.
- BigJono 8y ago
  The easiest way to find an underserved niche is to find a beloved series that died, or has been on life support for 10+ years with devs that just continuously drop the ball and can't recreate the magic. See: Stardew Valley, Cities Skylines, etc. I'm very keen to see how Ready or Not does, when it releases. Everyone I know who played SWAT 4 back in the day loves it, and there hasn't been a comparable game since. To throw out an example of an "available" niche: I think the first dev to bring out a modern version of Need For Speed: Underground, with decent car physics (similar to something like Grid: Autosport), is going to strike an absolute gold mine. NFS was literally all anybody at school talked about for years and years when U1, U2 and MW were coming out. Every game since has been complete rubbish, the new ones have physics so bad it feels like you're just gliding around on a magic carpet with a car body attached to it.
Impossible 8y ago
It is obvious what finding a market in indie games means and that you can't imagine it shows that you aren't particularly creative. There are a couple of different approaches to finding a market. Find a game that is fun or popular but doesn't have a polished or commercial version and make that. Find a set of users that would like to play games but doesn't have many games that appeal directly to them and make a product for them. Find an old game or genre that hasn't had a release and make a game in that style. Release a lot of small experiments and prototypes, build a small audience around one of them and iterate, killing ones that don't catch on, etc. Finding product market fit with and indie game might not always be cheap or easy, but there are a variety of ways to do it and it's definitely not unimaginable.

CM30 8y ago

Not just programmers, many creatives and makers in general. Same rule applies whether you're running a startup, creating a video game, making movies, writing books/articles or playing in a band. The ones who succeed realise they've got to market their work, whereas the ones that don't still believe in the build it and they'll come mentality.

lasagnaphil 8y ago

Humorously this HN post also kinda acts as marketing... (although a weak, halfhearted one at best)

Macuyiko 8y ago
I was going to say: this "moment" on HN might increase the sales more than all of previous efforts did. Today, the market is so saturated that even if you have the funds and interest (as a player / fan of genre), there is no way you can discover or keep up with all new releases. Steam has no way of listing them in an easy to parse overview, publications have now way of keeping up, streamers only have so much time. The solution is to market, market, market. Distribute keys to streamers, contact publications, optimize for off-days when they need something to write about. Finally, your game needs to be either hyper-polished or have some sort of novel angle. No disrespect, but looking at the trailer of this particular game, it seems its about 70% of the way their. Everything looks okay, especially for a small team effort, but it needs more polish. The alternative is putting yourself into a niche and marking the hell out of everything, see e.g. the success of Cogmind, whose creator has been really good at Tweeting, posting on reddit, on HN, and so on...
- zeroname 8y ago
  > The solution is to market, market, market. Distribute keys to streamers, contact publications, optimize for off-days when they need something to write about. There are no "off days". There is no "solution" for this title, except maybe a total visual makeover, which is probably out of the question. Some titles fail, end of story. > Everything looks okay, especially for a small team effort, but it needs more polish. It doesn't look okay, it looks bad. Few people will tell this to someone's face, and that's part of the problem. Programmers often can't tell. "More polish" is the last thing the game needs. It needs a makeover or be shelved. Just call it "done" and use it as a portfolio piece, it's good enough for that, any more polish is a waste of time.
  - byron_fast 8y ago
    Yes. Sadly, this is correct.

tomc1985 8y ago

The problem now is that all the people using that thought process are producing games that look and feel the same, and use the same ideas, because there are only a handful of prominent markets and sets of needs. (For example, why does almost every popular need to use the same oversaturated color palette?) You're discouraging the kind of artistry that indie dev needs to truly succeed.

VLM 8y ago

Its not necessarily marketing in the sense of A/B testing his game play or fictional background or artwork or whatever, but consider general user experience stuff. So I hear its a cool rogue-like but unlike the fifty indie rogue-likes I have languishing unplayed in my steam account already, I can play this one in the browser, whoa cool, technically impressive and maybe fun too. So I go to the web page expecting a slither.io like experience where I'll be playing in 10 seconds. And there's too many choices. First its a wall of text I can already be playing slither.io before I figure out what to do here in a RPG-adventure-IRL sense. Second there's confusion I should click on "Update Try it now on the play page" or the button "Join early access to play the game" or the tab labeled "Play Game" or down in the text its got a hyperlink to "play online" in the "play online, in-browser" section. Or they're different or the same or cognitive load thats un necessary. Is one link free and one link paid, or they all go to the same place but I better check them all first? Then the choice confusion continues. I click on one of many widgets to get to the same place, "join early access". No I don't want to join I want to play. And more decision problems crop up, I can pay $7.50 for the free steam key (huh?) or there's a note from Luke that I can skip the payment section and get an account anyway wonder if it comes with a steam key or not what if I change my mind this is all so confusing and I want to make in-game decisions not the second page between me and the game experience. And the page is full of three ways to pay or its also free or the steam key is free or what all is going on here why am I stopping to research this and why am I researching instead of playing. I got a tab open with slither.io to make this stream of consciousness post and its calling to me... What if I don't like it and want my money back what if I make a free acct and later decide to toss some cash in its just all so overly complicated. There is another interesting impedance bump where there' three federated ways to pay, via amazon, paypal, or stripe CC, which is convenient, I'm not complaining at all. The point is just above that there is no federated login or account generation at all; I have to provide my email for harvesting (come on, I know Luke is a good guy, but I've been on the internet for longer than most kids have been alive; I know better than to provide my email address "for free" it ain't 1990 anymore so say hi to vlm@example.com). Then I need to create yet another username and password to forget because there's no federation. I must have created over a thousand logins in the last couple decades; tired. You integrated three payment processors how about one-click login via google / FB / whatevs. After all this uphill battle in the user acquisition phase, the tab with slither.io is beckoning to me... Note that I'm exclusively complaining about the new user acquisition process; everything else is pretty cool! Its just a lot of work and cognitive load to get to play compared to the competition in the market (the fifty unplayed indie roguelikes in my steam account, or .io style instant casual web games) My constructive suggestion: One page one click login via federated accts and don't forget "click here to play as anonymous coward" then in the UI "click here to sign up or give us piles of cash". The competition can get them playing in one click and 10 seconds... Interesting marketing mechanic that some might say is evil, whatevs, in game while playing as "anonymous coward" click here to have a federated account (play with your facebook or google acct) and get a minor in-game reward for signing up. Not so ridiculous that people claim its cheaty, but something at least amusing or an in-game joke or something making it a trade in users minds. Don't give people a chance to think about doing something else while they're trying to decode the onboarding process. Low friction is where its at. Think of the "S" in SOLID the single responsibility principle, don't make new users ponder if they're paying for something (what, a free steam key?) or joining a club forum or playing a game or whatnot. Give the new user exactly one single responsibility "play the game". Later on, buddy up with "membership" or "gimmie money" but get them into the game first. Looks like a fun game, once you get into it. Cool!

megaremote 8y ago

Marketing isn't magic, not every game makes it. In fact most do not.

TheRealPomax 8y ago

He also mentioned that even the guy(s) who made Super Meat Boy don't get a pass anymore just because they once made something that earned millions. You can't build it and expect them to come. But you also can't even build it and have someone be your dedicated marketer, because you STILL can't expect them to come. There is no market right now, just people getting lucky. There is no market. Let that sink in.