6 ms·

One more harsh truth: the easier it becomes to make games, the higher the standard of quality needed to be considered "good". Everybody else benefits from impro

by mrob 5y ago

One more harsh truth: the easier it becomes to make games, the higher the standard of quality needed to be considered "good". Everybody else benefits from improved tools too, and they're your competition.

zinxq 5y ago
This also increases the sheer quantity of "not good" games. And the ability for copycats to copy games in record time. Relevant Escapist video about out-of-control rampant copying in Mobile Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30qZSEnI9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30qZSEnI9Q
- vlunkr 5y ago
  Exactly, even if you make something novel and win the indie lottery, it's going to be ripped off immediately. Apple and Google are really failing at maintaining any level of quality in their app stores.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    It’s pretty much all their fault. The same way the internet is overflowing with ad-riddled blogspam due to Google, the appstores are filled with scammy/exploitative clones because that’s what makes the most money when there’s no competitive forces to drive quality control of any kind. For example, if the Epic game store became known as a source for good mobile games, customers will stop browsing the App/Play store for games and will instead go to the curated and high quality alternative, because why the hell wouldn’t they. If Apple and Google are forced to stop suppressing competition on iOS/Android, it may lead to an entirely new mobile gaming industry that’s actually somewhat respectable.
  - TillE 5y ago
    If you make a game which can be cloned quickly, you've made something extremely simple. Don't do that. Anyway, I would certainly not choose to develop mobile games, seems like a bad idea for many reasons. But look at PC games: you can make something as absolutely weird (and arguably 'unmarketable') as Disco Elysium, which needed no "lottery", it's simply a masterpiece.
    - vlunkr 5y ago
      I agree, when it comes to larger indie games. But there are still simple games that are worth playing, and certainly don't deserve to have their revenue stolen by content farms. The game referenced in the video above is an example of this. And people forget that 2048 was heavily "inspired" by Threes. It's a separate discussion, but I believe there's still a "lottery" aspect to indie games. There's a lots of survivorship bias as play there. For every Hollow Knight or Disco Elysium, how many other passion projects run out of funding, or get released and go unnoticed?
      - jlawson 5y ago
        There's a huge infrastructure for game discovery - Dedicated subreddits with millions of subscribers, curators, massive infrastructure from companies like Valve (Steam) and Google to help discoverability, forums and discussion groups and Discords and Kickstarter... People are hunting endlessly for good games. But cannot find them. Even me! I'm a knowledgeable nerd with time, but I can't find anything worth playing. I know many people in the same situation. There aren't really unknown gems. Great games don't go unnoticed. Many indie devs just like to think they do because they don't want to accept that their game just isn't very good. Hollow Knight and Disco Elysium are great examples. These could never have gone unnoticed. These are professional efforts from teams of dedicated, very skilled developers, who did a lot of non-obvious things the right way. Nothing replaces a game like Disco Elysium especially. It was always going to get noticed. (I don't know HK as well but from what I've heard it is also exceptional at what it does.) I'd be interested if you could name any unnoticed game that approaches either of these two in being compelling to play.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    > Exactly, even if you make something novel and win the indie lottery, it's going to be ripped off immediately. Yep, see any of the 200+ Wordle clones and derivatives out there, only about two months after it went viral. One of my video games has had at least five clones made that I'm aware of (probably several more than that), and it didn't have anywhere near the same success that a game like Wordle did.
hwers 5y ago
This generalizes interestingly to any tooling that makes things easier. You may feel more efficient with better tooling but it's an arms race and once everyone has access to it you're all competing equally again (and it's back to whoever puts in the biggest product of time and energy). Hence why you should sell shovels in a gold rush, and why it's a bit of a lie to sell any tool as "be able to do 2x in the same amount of time", since that's only a short term effect until everyone is aware of it and '2x' is the expected new norm.
bcrosby95 5y ago
I disagree. Maybe if you substituted "AAA" for "good". But the plethora of tools for making games have once again made it possible to make some really good games with comparatively small teams.
jerf 5y ago
I've seen several people online talking about their grandiose plans for making a game better than Grand Theft Auto or something, and my advice to them is to sit down and read aloud the entire ending credits for Grand Theft Auto or whatever game they think they're going to do so much better. Then remember each of those names probably represents at least a year of their time. Even "indie" games typically take a dedicated team of several people a few years. If you want to do a game by yourself, you either need a ton of skills or you need to be brutal about cutting the features. For example, a single person can build an interesting ASCII roguelike today. But you're not going to get an AAA look, that's for sure.
- mathgladiator 5y ago
  Or alternatively, you need to define better in different terms. Something that I feel has stricken the heart of what good is the nature of run as found via Minecraft or Roblox. For anyone that cares about graphics, this was a punch in the face. Fun, however, is a much harder quality to define.
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    There's 20 million games on roblox, and I read that 9 year olds are losing money trying to promote their games just to get players.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  Completely agree. However there are a few exceptions to the rule, for example Minecraft was written by one person (Notch) which was successful before he expanded the team and then sold it off to Microsoft.
  - brianjlogan 5y ago
    I mean arguably Minecraft is in the same category of "feature" cutting that the OP is mentioning. It certainly did not feel like it was a AAA game. I started playing Minecraft in Alpha and it sure felt like one person made it.
  - 5y ago
whateveracct 5y ago
Explain Undertale and a bunch of other games then. Good games are good games. You can always sell a DRM-free executable and it'll have the potential to be considered "good" if it's..fun, memorable, clever, challenging, etc etc etc etc
ensan 5y ago
Wordle alone proves you wrong. The "goodness" of the game is in its core mechanics and ideas, not what most people refer to as high quality (graphics, art assets, etc.).

by mrob 5y ago

zinxq 5y ago

This also increases the sheer quantity of "not good" games. And the ability for copycats to copy games in record time. Relevant Escapist video about out-of-control rampant copying in Mobile Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30qZSEnI9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30qZSEnI9Q

vlunkr 5y ago
Exactly, even if you make something novel and win the indie lottery, it's going to be ripped off immediately. Apple and Google are really failing at maintaining any level of quality in their app stores.
- bogwog 5y ago
  It’s pretty much all their fault. The same way the internet is overflowing with ad-riddled blogspam due to Google, the appstores are filled with scammy/exploitative clones because that’s what makes the most money when there’s no competitive forces to drive quality control of any kind. For example, if the Epic game store became known as a source for good mobile games, customers will stop browsing the App/Play store for games and will instead go to the curated and high quality alternative, because why the hell wouldn’t they. If Apple and Google are forced to stop suppressing competition on iOS/Android, it may lead to an entirely new mobile gaming industry that’s actually somewhat respectable.
- TillE 5y ago
  If you make a game which can be cloned quickly, you've made something extremely simple. Don't do that. Anyway, I would certainly not choose to develop mobile games, seems like a bad idea for many reasons. But look at PC games: you can make something as absolutely weird (and arguably 'unmarketable') as Disco Elysium, which needed no "lottery", it's simply a masterpiece.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    I agree, when it comes to larger indie games. But there are still simple games that are worth playing, and certainly don't deserve to have their revenue stolen by content farms. The game referenced in the video above is an example of this. And people forget that 2048 was heavily "inspired" by Threes. It's a separate discussion, but I believe there's still a "lottery" aspect to indie games. There's a lots of survivorship bias as play there. For every Hollow Knight or Disco Elysium, how many other passion projects run out of funding, or get released and go unnoticed?
    - jlawson 5y ago
      There's a huge infrastructure for game discovery - Dedicated subreddits with millions of subscribers, curators, massive infrastructure from companies like Valve (Steam) and Google to help discoverability, forums and discussion groups and Discords and Kickstarter... People are hunting endlessly for good games. But cannot find them. Even me! I'm a knowledgeable nerd with time, but I can't find anything worth playing. I know many people in the same situation. There aren't really unknown gems. Great games don't go unnoticed. Many indie devs just like to think they do because they don't want to accept that their game just isn't very good. Hollow Knight and Disco Elysium are great examples. These could never have gone unnoticed. These are professional efforts from teams of dedicated, very skilled developers, who did a lot of non-obvious things the right way. Nothing replaces a game like Disco Elysium especially. It was always going to get noticed. (I don't know HK as well but from what I've heard it is also exceptional at what it does.) I'd be interested if you could name any unnoticed game that approaches either of these two in being compelling to play.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  > Exactly, even if you make something novel and win the indie lottery, it's going to be ripped off immediately. Yep, see any of the 200+ Wordle clones and derivatives out there, only about two months after it went viral. One of my video games has had at least five clones made that I'm aware of (probably several more than that), and it didn't have anywhere near the same success that a game like Wordle did.

hwers 5y ago

This generalizes interestingly to any tooling that makes things easier. You may feel more efficient with better tooling but it's an arms race and once everyone has access to it you're all competing equally again (and it's back to whoever puts in the biggest product of time and energy). Hence why you should sell shovels in a gold rush, and why it's a bit of a lie to sell any tool as "be able to do 2x in the same amount of time", since that's only a short term effect until everyone is aware of it and '2x' is the expected new norm.

bcrosby95 5y ago

I disagree. Maybe if you substituted "AAA" for "good". But the plethora of tools for making games have once again made it possible to make some really good games with comparatively small teams.

jerf 5y ago

I've seen several people online talking about their grandiose plans for making a game better than Grand Theft Auto or something, and my advice to them is to sit down and read aloud the entire ending credits for Grand Theft Auto or whatever game they think they're going to do so much better. Then remember each of those names probably represents at least a year of their time. Even "indie" games typically take a dedicated team of several people a few years. If you want to do a game by yourself, you either need a ton of skills or you need to be brutal about cutting the features. For example, a single person can build an interesting ASCII roguelike today. But you're not going to get an AAA look, that's for sure.

mathgladiator 5y ago
Or alternatively, you need to define better in different terms. Something that I feel has stricken the heart of what good is the nature of run as found via Minecraft or Roblox. For anyone that cares about graphics, this was a punch in the face. Fun, however, is a much harder quality to define.
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  There's 20 million games on roblox, and I read that 9 year olds are losing money trying to promote their games just to get players.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Completely agree. However there are a few exceptions to the rule, for example Minecraft was written by one person (Notch) which was successful before he expanded the team and then sold it off to Microsoft.
- brianjlogan 5y ago
  I mean arguably Minecraft is in the same category of "feature" cutting that the OP is mentioning. It certainly did not feel like it was a AAA game. I started playing Minecraft in Alpha and it sure felt like one person made it.
- 5y ago

whateveracct 5y ago

Explain Undertale and a bunch of other games then. Good games are good games. You can always sell a DRM-free executable and it'll have the potential to be considered "good" if it's..fun, memorable, clever, challenging, etc etc etc etc

ensan 5y ago

Wordle alone proves you wrong. The "goodness" of the game is in its core mechanics and ideas, not what most people refer to as high quality (graphics, art assets, etc.).