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>You have to look at really successful indie games, such as Terraria, Factorio, Mini Metro, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Papers Please.. and there are many

by fiblye 8y ago

>You have to look at really successful indie games, such as Terraria, Factorio, Mini Metro, Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeon, Papers Please.. and there are many more. If you look at these games do you really think there is an alternative reality where they would not sell many copies? I don't. Very much yes. Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't very spectacular. Stardew Valley takes the formula of an existing series (Harvest Moon). Papers Please is a truly unique game that was lucky enough to get youtuber coverage. Plenty of equally unique and just as fun games are ignored. I've never heard of Factorio, but looking it up, it's graphically very unappealing. Maybe my opinion would change if I watched a playthrough of it, but it doesn't stand out. Mini Metro might be fun. But so are many of the hundreds of other minimalistic puzzlers released monthly. There are loads of games that just don't sell but become classics decades later. Earthbound sold horribly in America until the main character appeared in a more popular series (Super Smash Bros). Almost nobody played Killer 7. Panzer Dragoon Saga is considered one of the best RPGs of all time. Nobody bought it. Its popularity mostly grew after people discovered it through emulation. The game in this article flopped because there are an abundance of games, it falls into an overcrowded genre, and it doesn't stand out, but most importantly, nobody important played it. If pewdiepie played this, it'd see 10000+ sales in a week and likely appear in a humble bundle. To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck. If the right person finds your product and endorses it, quality doesn't matter. You'll get guaranteed sales. It's then that it takes quality to sustain those sales.

Rainymood 8y ago
>Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't very spectacular. Stardew Valley takes the formula of an existing series (Harvest Moon). >To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck. If the right person finds your product and endorses it, quality doesn't matter. You'll get guaranteed sales. It's then that it takes quality to sustain those sales. I strongly disagree. Stardew valley did well because it is a fun game with good graphics. That's it, it's fun and addictive, graphics are good and it gets the gestalt right. Stardew Valley is just a truly truly fun game in which you say "just one more day" a bit too often. It's just that much fun. The game is FUN and addictive. Did I mention I had a lot of fun playing it? It has nothing to do with marketing it had everything to do with how I played the game and whether I had fun or not. The first time I picked it up I poured in more than 40 hours in a single week! And that's a lot! I just read this article about the creator who spent 4 years making Stardew Valley and it is a really interesting read: https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  the point is that if the game wasn't well marketed, you wouldn't even know it existed in the first place.
  - bspammer 8y ago
    Definitely not true, I've never seen an advert for Stardew Valley but it's talked about all over the internet because it's a really good game.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      > but it's talked about all over the internet Word-of-mouth is marketing too. Perhaps you are thinking that marketing === advertising? Because marketing doesn't have to be advertising. Building a community, attending conferences, getting influencers to play your game - these are all marketing activities. If people are talking about the game, it's surely fueled by a quality experience but marketing has to bootstrap that conversation.
      - Draiken 8y ago
        Word-of-mouth might be marketing, but it's not something you can work towards. To get that you need a good fun game. IMO that's not a marketing effort, it's a symptom of a good unique game. I'm not a marketing expert tho, but I can't think of any way to force word-of-mouth onto people.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        the game's quality acts like a force multiplier for word of mouth, essentially you're more likely to promote or talk about a game you enjoyed. But you need some critical mass for that to have any real impact. What good is it if each player refers 1.5 others on average, but you only get to 5000 before the game becomes old news? Most games don't continue to sell forever and the hype will die out eventually, so you want that hype to reach a large audience quickly.
fileeditview 8y ago
Well I disagree a lot with what you are saying. Marketing is important sure. But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. Maybe big gaming companies can do that but even they fail often enough. Luck is an important factor and maybe I would even rate it higher than 5%. I find the number of 90% marketing for an indie game ridiculous. Stardew Valley is based on existing formula but it is incredibly polished and even people not from this genre play(ed) it. It has something special, similar games don't. However I think that quality trumps for indie games. There are always exceptions and some "shit" games are hyped because of some Twitch or Youtube coverage. And of course there are some (maybe many?) games that have a high quality and fail. You don't just need quality. But you need it. And you obviously can make a good game in a bad time. As for the game in the article. I don't want to disparage the author because making a game of this scope is incredible! However watching a video on his game's site instantly gave me two reasons why the game is not successful. - The movement of the character looks very stiff and unnatural. - It is missing atmosphere. A lot of repeating textures. No details which makes the whole world uninspiring and uninteresting. Now these things can be changed and improved still. But in the end the market for this specific type of game really is a hard one. And you compete with game's made by bigger teams and bigger budgets.
- bartread 8y ago
  I'm inclined to agree. Certainly for games, quality is necessary but not sufficient, and the same goes with marketing. You need them both. The GP makes a point that pewdiepie picking up this game would result in thousands of sales whereas, although I'm basing this purely on watching the gameplay video, I'd have to say maybe: I don't think pewdiepie, or any other major YouTube reviewer, would pick this up because it's not distinctive enough. This is especially the case when Infinitroid is going up against games like Dead Cells within the same genre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfxPptEU6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfxPptEU6M. Infinitroid is an impressive piece of work but, as a game, I don't think it comes off well in the comparison. There are markets where quality is of much less importance, such as enterprise software. How else does a company like Deltek survive? Answer: there aren't that many viable competitors and they're all just as crappy. Then it's down to the quality of and investment in the business development and sales process.
- 8y ago
cursorial 8y ago
Factorio doesn't look very visually appealing, but if you play it for an hour you can pretty much write off your next week because you'll be hooked.
- Draiken 8y ago
  People use the word "graphics" and "sound" often, but that's not all that makes a game. So many indie "ugly" games work out just fine. It's all about the gameplay. You can make the graphics and the sound be a core part of that, but you can also focus on other places. Factorio and Dwarf Fortress are two examples of those. Can someone say their graphics are amazing? Probably not. Yet they focused on their differentials: the unique gameplay. I have to agree with the GP. They're always unique in one form or another. People however overuse the marketing card IMO, saying that you need a lot of marketing. Good games do stand out for being good games. Word of mouth only works if your game is good. Nobody will urge their friends to play a bad game and for indie games, word of mouth is king. You can't "force" word of mouth marketing, so it's not really a marketing effort. It comes naturally with good games.
baud147258 8y ago
I'd say the part of marketing is lower than luck, since you'd have to be very lucky to have your game shown by a big streamer/youtuber.
aranelsurion 8y ago
While I wouldn't disregard the importance of marketing, I think quality, as in both quality of game itself and quality of the idea behind it, matters. I think having a competitive advantage/value and having unique qualities are not the same thing. For example, before Stardew Valley, an entire genre of "calm, casual, farming oriented games" were mostly unknown to PC gamers. For years I have wondered when someone would notice an entire genre missing. At some point, someone noticed the same thing, and instead of building just another sandbox/crafting game they built a polished Harvest Moon alternative. It turns out, from a pool of millions of PC/XBone/whatever gamers, some people liked this genre of games. By the way, I cannot stress the importance of polish: great artwork, fluid animations, good UI, proper bg music, smooth learning curve and of course, being generally exciting to play. Most of the games mentioned (maybe Factorio being the exception) have these qualities. Your average gamer has 15sec attention span at best for a new game. Most wouldn't even wait until the end of your launch trailer. I've gave my full 30 seconds to watch the trailer of Infinitroid (OP's game) and I cannot see why I would choose it over, for example Dead Cells. They are not exactly the same game, but they are competing for the same resources. (entertainment budget and spare time) Just watch trailers of Infinitroid and Dead Cells side by side, the difference you will see cannot be written off as marketing success. Just my 2cents as an avid gamer and potential customer.
bspammer 8y ago
> To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck This seems very logical but indie games really do seem to defy this general rule. Pretty much every single popular indie game out there is really, really good in it's own specific way, and most of them had almost no marketing budget (when they first came out anyway). Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing. These games spread through word of mouth and quality is the main criteria that causes people to talk about a game.
- fiblye 8y ago
  >Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing. Nope, nope, and nope. Stardew Valley has a notable indie publisher. There was marketing on various internet communities (reddit, 4chan, etc) leading up to the months of release. There it can pass off as organic word of mouth. Terraria was marketed months before release. As for Minecraft, Notch himself was throwing his game around a load before it got released and using anonymity to drive interest--it was the most organic of the 3. Other notable indie games like Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy also had especially significant marketing efforts behind them. And let's not forget Fez. Most indie breakout hits aren't miracle successes. The just have very clever and modern marketing methods. They're not wasting money on magazine ads and gaming news sites banners like AAA studios do.
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    Super Meat Boy had the backing of the xBox store (they were promised a feature page release) and several major gaming websites/magazines wrote pre-release articles or reviews for it ... plus they got the tail end too with The Indie Game movie which I'm sure added some later sales numbers for Meat Boy, Fez and Braid.
- Angostura 8y ago
  > Minecraft had no marketing. ... ish. You can certainly think of the prolonged free alpha (and beta?) as marketing
  - 8y ago
cbm-vic-20 8y ago
Incorrect. Factorio is _LIFE_. https://reddit.com/r/factorio https://reddit.com/r/factorio
Jnr 8y ago
I have to agree that exposure is probably more important. I have bought many games after watching popular Youtubers play them.
tcfunk 8y ago
> being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage I don't think this is good fortune so much as a good pitch, a good product, and a lot of persistence.
clay_to_n 8y ago
Factorio works because the gameplay is completely original. It scratches a building + automating + researching loop that no other game has. Many people compare it to programming or electrical engineering design - the satisfaction of automating something that used to take manual effort is great, and very addictive. The graphics are bland and the early parts of the game feel like a pre-release / beta build, but the addictive gameplay and infinite end-game potential got it a lot of great coverage.

by fiblye 8y ago

Rainymood 8y ago

>Most of their success is due to being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage. From screenshots, most aren't very spectacular. Stardew Valley takes the formula of an existing series (Harvest Moon). >To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck. If the right person finds your product and endorses it, quality doesn't matter. You'll get guaranteed sales. It's then that it takes quality to sustain those sales. I strongly disagree. Stardew valley did well because it is a fun game with good graphics. That's it, it's fun and addictive, graphics are good and it gets the gestalt right. Stardew Valley is just a truly truly fun game in which you say "just one more day" a bit too often. It's just that much fun. The game is FUN and addictive. Did I mention I had a lot of fun playing it? It has nothing to do with marketing it had everything to do with how I played the game and whether I had fun or not. The first time I picked it up I poured in more than 40 hours in a single week! And that's a lot! I just read this article about the creator who spent 4 years making Stardew Valley and it is a really interesting read: https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile

beaconstudios 8y ago
the point is that if the game wasn't well marketed, you wouldn't even know it existed in the first place.
- bspammer 8y ago
  Definitely not true, I've never seen an advert for Stardew Valley but it's talked about all over the internet because it's a really good game.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    > but it's talked about all over the internet Word-of-mouth is marketing too. Perhaps you are thinking that marketing === advertising? Because marketing doesn't have to be advertising. Building a community, attending conferences, getting influencers to play your game - these are all marketing activities. If people are talking about the game, it's surely fueled by a quality experience but marketing has to bootstrap that conversation.
    - Draiken 8y ago
      Word-of-mouth might be marketing, but it's not something you can work towards. To get that you need a good fun game. IMO that's not a marketing effort, it's a symptom of a good unique game. I'm not a marketing expert tho, but I can't think of any way to force word-of-mouth onto people.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        the game's quality acts like a force multiplier for word of mouth, essentially you're more likely to promote or talk about a game you enjoyed. But you need some critical mass for that to have any real impact. What good is it if each player refers 1.5 others on average, but you only get to 5000 before the game becomes old news? Most games don't continue to sell forever and the hype will die out eventually, so you want that hype to reach a large audience quickly.

fileeditview 8y ago

Well I disagree a lot with what you are saying. Marketing is important sure. But you cannot market "bad" indie games to be successful. Maybe big gaming companies can do that but even they fail often enough. Luck is an important factor and maybe I would even rate it higher than 5%. I find the number of 90% marketing for an indie game ridiculous. Stardew Valley is based on existing formula but it is incredibly polished and even people not from this genre play(ed) it. It has something special, similar games don't. However I think that quality trumps for indie games. There are always exceptions and some "shit" games are hyped because of some Twitch or Youtube coverage. And of course there are some (maybe many?) games that have a high quality and fail. You don't just need quality. But you need it. And you obviously can make a good game in a bad time. As for the game in the article. I don't want to disparage the author because making a game of this scope is incredible! However watching a video on his game's site instantly gave me two reasons why the game is not successful. - The movement of the character looks very stiff and unnatural. - It is missing atmosphere. A lot of repeating textures. No details which makes the whole world uninspiring and uninteresting. Now these things can be changed and improved still. But in the end the market for this specific type of game really is a hard one. And you compete with game's made by bigger teams and bigger budgets.

bartread 8y ago
I'm inclined to agree. Certainly for games, quality is necessary but not sufficient, and the same goes with marketing. You need them both. The GP makes a point that pewdiepie picking up this game would result in thousands of sales whereas, although I'm basing this purely on watching the gameplay video, I'd have to say maybe: I don't think pewdiepie, or any other major YouTube reviewer, would pick this up because it's not distinctive enough. This is especially the case when Infinitroid is going up against games like Dead Cells within the same genre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfxPptEU6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfxPptEU6M. Infinitroid is an impressive piece of work but, as a game, I don't think it comes off well in the comparison. There are markets where quality is of much less importance, such as enterprise software. How else does a company like Deltek survive? Answer: there aren't that many viable competitors and they're all just as crappy. Then it's down to the quality of and investment in the business development and sales process.
8y ago

cursorial 8y ago

Factorio doesn't look very visually appealing, but if you play it for an hour you can pretty much write off your next week because you'll be hooked.

Draiken 8y ago
People use the word "graphics" and "sound" often, but that's not all that makes a game. So many indie "ugly" games work out just fine. It's all about the gameplay. You can make the graphics and the sound be a core part of that, but you can also focus on other places. Factorio and Dwarf Fortress are two examples of those. Can someone say their graphics are amazing? Probably not. Yet they focused on their differentials: the unique gameplay. I have to agree with the GP. They're always unique in one form or another. People however overuse the marketing card IMO, saying that you need a lot of marketing. Good games do stand out for being good games. Word of mouth only works if your game is good. Nobody will urge their friends to play a bad game and for indie games, word of mouth is king. You can't "force" word of mouth marketing, so it's not really a marketing effort. It comes naturally with good games.

baud147258 8y ago

I'd say the part of marketing is lower than luck, since you'd have to be very lucky to have your game shown by a big streamer/youtuber.

aranelsurion 8y ago

While I wouldn't disregard the importance of marketing, I think quality, as in both quality of game itself and quality of the idea behind it, matters. I think having a competitive advantage/value and having unique qualities are not the same thing. For example, before Stardew Valley, an entire genre of "calm, casual, farming oriented games" were mostly unknown to PC gamers. For years I have wondered when someone would notice an entire genre missing. At some point, someone noticed the same thing, and instead of building just another sandbox/crafting game they built a polished Harvest Moon alternative. It turns out, from a pool of millions of PC/XBone/whatever gamers, some people liked this genre of games. By the way, I cannot stress the importance of polish: great artwork, fluid animations, good UI, proper bg music, smooth learning curve and of course, being generally exciting to play. Most of the games mentioned (maybe Factorio being the exception) have these qualities. Your average gamer has 15sec attention span at best for a new game. Most wouldn't even wait until the end of your launch trailer. I've gave my full 30 seconds to watch the trailer of Infinitroid (OP's game) and I cannot see why I would choose it over, for example Dead Cells. They are not exactly the same game, but they are competing for the same resources. (entertainment budget and spare time) Just watch trailers of Infinitroid and Dead Cells side by side, the difference you will see cannot be written off as marketing success. Just my 2cents as an avid gamer and potential customer.

bspammer 8y ago

> To make a successful anything, it's 90% marketing, 5% quality, and 5% luck This seems very logical but indie games really do seem to defy this general rule. Pretty much every single popular indie game out there is really, really good in it's own specific way, and most of them had almost no marketing budget (when they first came out anyway). Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing. These games spread through word of mouth and quality is the main criteria that causes people to talk about a game.

fiblye 8y ago
>Minecraft had no marketing. Terraria had no marketing. Stardew Valley had no marketing. Nope, nope, and nope. Stardew Valley has a notable indie publisher. There was marketing on various internet communities (reddit, 4chan, etc) leading up to the months of release. There it can pass off as organic word of mouth. Terraria was marketed months before release. As for Minecraft, Notch himself was throwing his game around a load before it got released and using anonymity to drive interest--it was the most organic of the 3. Other notable indie games like Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy also had especially significant marketing efforts behind them. And let's not forget Fez. Most indie breakout hits aren't miracle successes. The just have very clever and modern marketing methods. They're not wasting money on magazine ads and gaming news sites banners like AAA studios do.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Super Meat Boy had the backing of the xBox store (they were promised a feature page release) and several major gaming websites/magazines wrote pre-release articles or reviews for it ... plus they got the tail end too with The Indie Game movie which I'm sure added some later sales numbers for Meat Boy, Fez and Braid.
Angostura 8y ago
> Minecraft had no marketing. ... ish. You can certainly think of the prolonged free alpha (and beta?) as marketing
- 8y ago

cbm-vic-20 8y ago

Incorrect. Factorio is _LIFE_. https://reddit.com/r/factorio https://reddit.com/r/factorio

Jnr 8y ago

I have to agree that exposure is probably more important. I have bought many games after watching popular Youtubers play them.

tcfunk 8y ago

> being fortunate enough to get a bunch of coverage I don't think this is good fortune so much as a good pitch, a good product, and a lot of persistence.

clay_to_n 8y ago

Factorio works because the gameplay is completely original. It scratches a building + automating + researching loop that no other game has. Many people compare it to programming or electrical engineering design - the satisfaction of automating something that used to take manual effort is great, and very addictive. The graphics are bland and the early parts of the game feel like a pre-release / beta build, but the addictive gameplay and infinite end-game potential got it a lot of great coverage.