13 ms·

It was always like that though. Game programming had always been the worst field for programmers, and the industry had and is exploiting the fact that some peop

It was always like that though. Game programming had always been the worst field for programmers, and the industry had and is exploiting the fact that some people like games enough to work on them under horrible conditions. I don’t think it’s the equivalent to writing the great American novel though, because programming is just a minor part of game creating and arguably one of the least important. Design I’d the most important. The author of this article rants about the swarm of unity games, but some of those unity games are better than what the author made exactly because they took design seriously.

kbenson 8y ago
> The author of this article rants about the swarm of unity games, but some of those unity games are better than what the author made exactly because they took design seriously. Did we read the same article? Not only the total number of games, but the rate of their release seems to be geometrically increasing! Holy crap. And while many of them are Unity shovelware, etc., many are polished games that a lot of effort went into. A tiny percentage are hits, but most are forgotten in the deluge. To me that reads as someone that's fully aware that some people are putting a lot of effort in and making good games (Unity or not), but is upset by the realization that quality doesn't seem to be nearly enough. The problem is not (just) that a lot of crap is being released, but that a lot of everything is being released, good and bad. So much so that even the good things can't make good money because supply has so far outstripped demand. It's sort of like the Netflix queue problem. I'm continuously adding things to my Netflix queue that look interesting, but my time to actually watch them is such that my chance of getting through even a majority of the queue is almost nil.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  To me it reads as someone who disregards unity games, while praising well made indie games in general. And in the light of the rest of the article, the author seem to favor people who did good programming, but the truth is that you don’t need to be a good programmer to make good games. I think supply is an issue, but I also think the author added to the problem by releasing a game that doesn’t have appealing graphics, gameplay or sound. Where as many much of the unity “shovelware” is exactly the opposite.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > Where as many much of the unity “shovelware” is exactly the opposite. I think the difference of interpretation we're having is that I think you are interpreting "Unity shovelware" to mean "If it's Unity it's crap", which nobody who follows that space could easily defend (a lot of high quality well known games and publishers use Unity). But a lot of shovelware uses Unity, because it's easy to get assets for and publish with. It's sort of like saying "Java enterprise crap-ware". I wouldn't assume that means all Java programs are crap, or that all enterprise software is crap, but that of the crappy software targeted towards the enterprise, a lot uses Java. That's not an indictment of Java, and might actually be the opposite, given that it has qualities that cover up other poor choices.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Shovelware typically does not have "appealing graphics, gameplay or sound". It is term used for low effort games and imply nothing special in all aspects.
    - smolder 8y ago
      Shovelware can have appealing graphics and sound by way of licensing premade assets, but you can't really buy a game design and paste that into your own title to get appealing gameplay.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  I get the shovelware feeling from Netflix too tbh; as with the Unity games mentioned, there's a lot of effort and they're high quality, great writing, visuals, direction, they tick all the boxes and we live in a golden age of TV series and films - but there's just so much of it. Not hearing about any of the shows or movies beforehand from my social circles doesn't help either - the network effect is super important. And that's from a service with a fixed fee per month, so the bar for watching something new is super low.
  - test1235 8y ago
    >so the bar for watching something new is super low I think you mean the opposite: the bar is super high because the chances of watching something new are low ... it's more difficult.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Re. The shovelware bit: Once upon a time, when men were real men, etc, making a game meant writing it from the ground up, writing your own engine and then writing the game logic on top of that engine to make something unique. Now that game engines are commonplace, free and work better than what any single developer would be able to come up with after a lifetime of hard work the end result is that games have a very hard time to differentiate themselves from each other. There isn't really an unlimited space of game scenarios out there, even in the days of the 2D arcade games after a couple of years it became much harder to come up with something truly unique.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    No. It was never difficult to "come up with something truly unique". Your unique thing might be rubbish, but that's not the problem for the millions of shovelware Unity asset flips. Jim Sterling has covered this at length, even running a competition to show that people can take a horribly over-used cheap asset and do great original stuff - if they try. Asset flips don't even try. The are tens of thousands of games in which you are an elite soldier running around shooting zombies. There are zero games where you're a pot plant using psychic powers to create sculptures. Like Hollywood the video game industry chases trends until they're beaten completely to death, and then goes one more round just to make really sure.
eloisant 8y ago
I think there has been some windows of opportunity for single-developers teams. - In the 80's and 90's when PC games where simple enough. - At the beginning of Steam - At the beginning of the App Store and the Play Store At those time, there wasn't that much competition so while it was still hit or miss, you still had a decent chance to be successful as a single-person indie developer.
- kayoone 8y ago
  true, the first generation of successful iphone and android games that made their authors rich were extremely simple remakes of classic games.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  I remember buying games in the 80ies and 90ies, I’d go to a supermarket and rummage through a mixed box with literal hundreds of different $5 games and pick the one that looked the most exciting. The biggest treasure I found that way was the original x-com. I don’t think times have changed that much. The upcoming game I’m most excited by is it lurks below, and that’s being developed by a single developer. Stardew Valley released in 2016, after the explosion. Into the breach, though not single developer did well in 2018. I mean, it’s not uncommon for solo-small teams to top the steam charts, but you really do need both quality and a little luck. I just don’t think that’s different from how it’s always been, and I think the author of this article in particular lacks quality. What has changed though is the amount of games people own. In the 90ies you didn’t have a backlog of thousands of games that you picked up from a humble bundle where you only really wanted one game. You also didn’t have MMOs or forthnite competing for your attention. So I agree with you somewhat, it’s become much harder to sell bad-mediocre games in the past few years, and that’s 99% of indie games. And there is obviously always a market for remakes when a new platform/generation arrives.

kbenson 8y ago

> The author of this article rants about the swarm of unity games, but some of those unity games are better than what the author made exactly because they took design seriously. Did we read the same article? Not only the total number of games, but the rate of their release seems to be geometrically increasing! Holy crap. And while many of them are Unity shovelware, etc., many are polished games that a lot of effort went into. A tiny percentage are hits, but most are forgotten in the deluge. To me that reads as someone that's fully aware that some people are putting a lot of effort in and making good games (Unity or not), but is upset by the realization that quality doesn't seem to be nearly enough. The problem is not (just) that a lot of crap is being released, but that a lot of everything is being released, good and bad. So much so that even the good things can't make good money because supply has so far outstripped demand. It's sort of like the Netflix queue problem. I'm continuously adding things to my Netflix queue that look interesting, but my time to actually watch them is such that my chance of getting through even a majority of the queue is almost nil.

eksemplar 8y ago
To me it reads as someone who disregards unity games, while praising well made indie games in general. And in the light of the rest of the article, the author seem to favor people who did good programming, but the truth is that you don’t need to be a good programmer to make good games. I think supply is an issue, but I also think the author added to the problem by releasing a game that doesn’t have appealing graphics, gameplay or sound. Where as many much of the unity “shovelware” is exactly the opposite.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > Where as many much of the unity “shovelware” is exactly the opposite. I think the difference of interpretation we're having is that I think you are interpreting "Unity shovelware" to mean "If it's Unity it's crap", which nobody who follows that space could easily defend (a lot of high quality well known games and publishers use Unity). But a lot of shovelware uses Unity, because it's easy to get assets for and publish with. It's sort of like saying "Java enterprise crap-ware". I wouldn't assume that means all Java programs are crap, or that all enterprise software is crap, but that of the crappy software targeted towards the enterprise, a lot uses Java. That's not an indictment of Java, and might actually be the opposite, given that it has qualities that cover up other poor choices.
- watwut 8y ago
  Shovelware typically does not have "appealing graphics, gameplay or sound". It is term used for low effort games and imply nothing special in all aspects.
  - smolder 8y ago
    Shovelware can have appealing graphics and sound by way of licensing premade assets, but you can't really buy a game design and paste that into your own title to get appealing gameplay.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
I get the shovelware feeling from Netflix too tbh; as with the Unity games mentioned, there's a lot of effort and they're high quality, great writing, visuals, direction, they tick all the boxes and we live in a golden age of TV series and films - but there's just so much of it. Not hearing about any of the shows or movies beforehand from my social circles doesn't help either - the network effect is super important. And that's from a service with a fixed fee per month, so the bar for watching something new is super low.
- test1235 8y ago
  >so the bar for watching something new is super low I think you mean the opposite: the bar is super high because the chances of watching something new are low ... it's more difficult.
jacquesm 8y ago
Re. The shovelware bit: Once upon a time, when men were real men, etc, making a game meant writing it from the ground up, writing your own engine and then writing the game logic on top of that engine to make something unique. Now that game engines are commonplace, free and work better than what any single developer would be able to come up with after a lifetime of hard work the end result is that games have a very hard time to differentiate themselves from each other. There isn't really an unlimited space of game scenarios out there, even in the days of the 2D arcade games after a couple of years it became much harder to come up with something truly unique.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  No. It was never difficult to "come up with something truly unique". Your unique thing might be rubbish, but that's not the problem for the millions of shovelware Unity asset flips. Jim Sterling has covered this at length, even running a competition to show that people can take a horribly over-used cheap asset and do great original stuff - if they try. Asset flips don't even try. The are tens of thousands of games in which you are an elite soldier running around shooting zombies. There are zero games where you're a pot plant using psychic powers to create sculptures. Like Hollywood the video game industry chases trends until they're beaten completely to death, and then goes one more round just to make really sure.

eloisant 8y ago

I think there has been some windows of opportunity for single-developers teams. - In the 80's and 90's when PC games where simple enough. - At the beginning of Steam - At the beginning of the App Store and the Play Store At those time, there wasn't that much competition so while it was still hit or miss, you still had a decent chance to be successful as a single-person indie developer.

kayoone 8y ago
true, the first generation of successful iphone and android games that made their authors rich were extremely simple remakes of classic games.
eksemplar 8y ago
I remember buying games in the 80ies and 90ies, I’d go to a supermarket and rummage through a mixed box with literal hundreds of different $5 games and pick the one that looked the most exciting. The biggest treasure I found that way was the original x-com. I don’t think times have changed that much. The upcoming game I’m most excited by is it lurks below, and that’s being developed by a single developer. Stardew Valley released in 2016, after the explosion. Into the breach, though not single developer did well in 2018. I mean, it’s not uncommon for solo-small teams to top the steam charts, but you really do need both quality and a little luck. I just don’t think that’s different from how it’s always been, and I think the author of this article in particular lacks quality. What has changed though is the amount of games people own. In the 90ies you didn’t have a backlog of thousands of games that you picked up from a humble bundle where you only really wanted one game. You also didn’t have MMOs or forthnite competing for your attention. So I agree with you somewhat, it’s become much harder to sell bad-mediocre games in the past few years, and that’s 99% of indie games. And there is obviously always a market for remakes when a new platform/generation arrives.