6 ms·

Apparently, a lot of indie developers do well on switch for some reason. Breaking even is so hard for most indies that it sort of made me sympathize with the co

Apparently, a lot of indie developers do well on switch for some reason. Breaking even is so hard for most indies that it sort of made me sympathize with the console model at least a little bit more

Vanit 6y ago
It was a gold rush at the start due to lack of market saturation (I remember having my new Switch and being able to peruse the entire store in 15 minutes). It's now approaching Steam levels of saturation / shovelware.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  I'm not sure it's that bad -- every game I've seen on Switch has been, at the very least, a functional game with effort put in. I think it's simply that there are too many games.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    While a lot of games on Steam (I don't know about Switch) are shovelware, at the same time we live in a golden age of (indie) game development, with so many great titles coming out every year - some of which only get discovered years after the initial release (like last year's Among Us).
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      The golden age were the 8 and 16 bit days, where game genres were yet to be invented and publishers were keen to take anything that came their way, and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. Modern games, in whatever form, most of the time are just watching yet another x-men remake.
      - hnlmorg 6y ago
        > The golden age were the 8 and 16 bit days, where game genres were yet to be invented and publishers were keen to take anything that came their way, and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. None of that is true though. It's just the rose tinted glasses one wears when looking back at the games one grew up with and loved. > where game genres were yet to be invented Actually by the 16-bit era quite a number of genres were already really well defined. This was even true for the 8-bit era for some genres (like platformers, maze games, etc). > publishers were keen to take anything that came their way That very much depended on the publisher -- just the same as it does now (some publishers will buy any old indie crap and others are more selective). And it wasn't just publishers who were known to reject games, Sega Japan were famously strict about the titles they'd allow to be licensed on the Mega Drive. It was Sega America who allowed any old release to be licensed. > and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. That's selection bias. There was a lot of mediocre titles around too. Many of which didn't push the hardware or was less creative about the use of hardware resources. But people tend to remember the more impressive titles, in part because they have aged better, but also literally because they had that "wow" factor. > Modern games, in whatever form, most of the time are just watching yet another x-men remake. The 8-bit and 16-bit era had their fair share of copy cat games. When Mario Bros was a hit everyone seemed to jump on the bandwagon to make a Mario clone. There were hundreds of Pac-Man inspired games (and Pac-Man itself wasn't the first game of that style). Not to mention all the side scrolling shooters, JRPGs that are almost identical from one another, etc. Even popular games like Galaxian was themselves a knock off (eg Space Invaders). And don't get me started on the number of Space Harrier and Outrun clones on the Famicom. Even copy cat games aside, most successful games saw sequals (and even many unsuccessful ones). Alex Kid had 4 games. Wonderboy had 3. There are around a dozen 8/16-bit Sonic games that are 2D platformers (ie not counting Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic Pinball) and Mario has even more titles to it's name. Don't get me wrong, I do love that era of gaming. In fact I'm a massive collector of the original hardware and have ~20 consoles (including some obscure ones) still hooked up in a spare room...all of which still get regularly played. You could say this is a big passion of mine. But with that it does mean I also see my fair share of shelf fillers -- and they do outnumber the classic titles despite what your fond memories of the era tell you. As for what the golden age was, well that's subjective and likely whoever you ask will say it's the era they grew up in. Each new generation of gamers have seen a new paradigm in gaming and that's what they'll remember fondly.
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    There are some pretty awful games on there too. If picked up a couple of retro-inspired games that were on sale for ~£1. Turned out their sale price was about all they were worth. There was also a glut of mobile games that were ported to the Switch quite early on. That all said, I have generally been happy with the quality of the games on that platform. Initially the best titles were Nintendo's own IP (to be expected) and RPGs with a few good indie titles. But now there's a real plethora of good games ranging from shorter indie titles through to AA-quality games (albeit not on the same scale of Playstation 4 / Xbox One -- but that's to be expected given the different hardware platforms). Plus more than enough older titles re-released to keep your average retro-gamer happy.

Apparently, a lot of indie developers do well on switch for some reason. Breaking even is so hard for most indies that it sort of made me sympathize with the console model at least a little bit more

Vanit 6y ago

It was a gold rush at the start due to lack of market saturation (I remember having my new Switch and being able to peruse the entire store in 15 minutes). It's now approaching Steam levels of saturation / shovelware.

freeone3000 6y ago
I'm not sure it's that bad -- every game I've seen on Switch has been, at the very least, a functional game with effort put in. I think it's simply that there are too many games.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  While a lot of games on Steam (I don't know about Switch) are shovelware, at the same time we live in a golden age of (indie) game development, with so many great titles coming out every year - some of which only get discovered years after the initial release (like last year's Among Us).
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    The golden age were the 8 and 16 bit days, where game genres were yet to be invented and publishers were keen to take anything that came their way, and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. Modern games, in whatever form, most of the time are just watching yet another x-men remake.
    - hnlmorg 6y ago
      > The golden age were the 8 and 16 bit days, where game genres were yet to be invented and publishers were keen to take anything that came their way, and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. None of that is true though. It's just the rose tinted glasses one wears when looking back at the games one grew up with and loved. > where game genres were yet to be invented Actually by the 16-bit era quite a number of genres were already really well defined. This was even true for the 8-bit era for some genres (like platformers, maze games, etc). > publishers were keen to take anything that came their way That very much depended on the publisher -- just the same as it does now (some publishers will buy any old indie crap and others are more selective). And it wasn't just publishers who were known to reject games, Sega Japan were famously strict about the titles they'd allow to be licensed on the Mega Drive. It was Sega America who allowed any old release to be licensed. > and we were creating stuff that were told the hardware wasn't capable of. That's selection bias. There was a lot of mediocre titles around too. Many of which didn't push the hardware or was less creative about the use of hardware resources. But people tend to remember the more impressive titles, in part because they have aged better, but also literally because they had that "wow" factor. > Modern games, in whatever form, most of the time are just watching yet another x-men remake. The 8-bit and 16-bit era had their fair share of copy cat games. When Mario Bros was a hit everyone seemed to jump on the bandwagon to make a Mario clone. There were hundreds of Pac-Man inspired games (and Pac-Man itself wasn't the first game of that style). Not to mention all the side scrolling shooters, JRPGs that are almost identical from one another, etc. Even popular games like Galaxian was themselves a knock off (eg Space Invaders). And don't get me started on the number of Space Harrier and Outrun clones on the Famicom. Even copy cat games aside, most successful games saw sequals (and even many unsuccessful ones). Alex Kid had 4 games. Wonderboy had 3. There are around a dozen 8/16-bit Sonic games that are 2D platformers (ie not counting Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic Pinball) and Mario has even more titles to it's name. Don't get me wrong, I do love that era of gaming. In fact I'm a massive collector of the original hardware and have ~20 consoles (including some obscure ones) still hooked up in a spare room...all of which still get regularly played. You could say this is a big passion of mine. But with that it does mean I also see my fair share of shelf fillers -- and they do outnumber the classic titles despite what your fond memories of the era tell you. As for what the golden age was, well that's subjective and likely whoever you ask will say it's the era they grew up in. Each new generation of gamers have seen a new paradigm in gaming and that's what they'll remember fondly.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  There are some pretty awful games on there too. If picked up a couple of retro-inspired games that were on sale for ~£1. Turned out their sale price was about all they were worth. There was also a glut of mobile games that were ported to the Switch quite early on. That all said, I have generally been happy with the quality of the games on that platform. Initially the best titles were Nintendo's own IP (to be expected) and RPGs with a few good indie titles. But now there's a real plethora of good games ranging from shorter indie titles through to AA-quality games (albeit not on the same scale of Playstation 4 / Xbox One -- but that's to be expected given the different hardware platforms). Plus more than enough older titles re-released to keep your average retro-gamer happy.