4 ms·

Lottery implies its entirely luck based. When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control. Sure, some streamer random

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

Lottery implies its entirely luck based. When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control. Sure, some streamer randomly picking up your game is beyond your control. But you can certainly create conditions that would make it easier for your game to be picked up by a streamer (build relationships with journos, streamers; get paid marketing, etc.) Calling it a lottery is a disservice to the people who actually put in effort to create these games.

fragmede 4y ago
Except that creating games and marketing games are two separate things, so calling it a lottery is an insult to marketers, and game developers would do well to recognize that simply building a game and not marketing it should be a conscious decision to shoot themselves in the foot.
KronisLV 4y ago
> Calling it a lottery is a disservice to the people who actually put in effort to create these games. I think that both for simple and complex games there are those that nobody cares about and those that end up really popular. Sometimes it's about good marketing, sometimes it's about making what people actually want to play (instead of what you want to make), sometimes it's about developing it really well, other times it's just about being at the right place at the right time. Those aren't mutually exclusive qualities, for certain titles you might need lots of one of them, or maybe a mix of all of them. In regards to what you actually need, it can indeed be a lottery and thinking that hard work (or marketing) is all that's necessary in ample amounts (or even is a pre-requisite) might be misleading, because it's not the full story. For an example of how any mix of those aspects can lead to failure, look at the launch of Brigador, a well made game that was a flop: https://youtu.be/qUsuusNLxik https://youtu.be/qUsuusNLxik Then contrast that (years of development) with something like Vampire Survivors. Or maybe 2048, or Flappy Bird, or Wordle for examples of even simpler projects that were also easier to make, that still were immensely popular and much more successful.
rexreed 4y ago
Here's what I learned in life that's applicable to many areas, this being one: Not sucking isn't enough. Even being "Great" isn't enough. And even being "amazing" just isn't good enough to be successful. You need people to notice and care and help you and carry you to success. Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Truly great things die every day from lack of attention and the willingness / motivation of others to help you carry that greatness forward. No greatness succeeds on its own, despite how great it might truly be.
- kcartlidge 4y ago
  > Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Great point.
pms 4y ago
> When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control. If every creator does marketing, then everyone is in the same position and nobody has control. Also, check out this research paper, published in Science, showing that popularity signals like the number of downloads and ordering by popularity increases the unpredictability of a music market, which is an opposite effect to what you expect. I suspect similar effects happen for game and other cultural markets: Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5762), 854–856. https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full....

fragmede 4y ago

Except that creating games and marketing games are two separate things, so calling it a lottery is an insult to marketers, and game developers would do well to recognize that simply building a game and not marketing it should be a conscious decision to shoot themselves in the foot.

KronisLV 4y ago

> Calling it a lottery is a disservice to the people who actually put in effort to create these games. I think that both for simple and complex games there are those that nobody cares about and those that end up really popular. Sometimes it's about good marketing, sometimes it's about making what people actually want to play (instead of what you want to make), sometimes it's about developing it really well, other times it's just about being at the right place at the right time. Those aren't mutually exclusive qualities, for certain titles you might need lots of one of them, or maybe a mix of all of them. In regards to what you actually need, it can indeed be a lottery and thinking that hard work (or marketing) is all that's necessary in ample amounts (or even is a pre-requisite) might be misleading, because it's not the full story. For an example of how any mix of those aspects can lead to failure, look at the launch of Brigador, a well made game that was a flop: https://youtu.be/qUsuusNLxik https://youtu.be/qUsuusNLxik Then contrast that (years of development) with something like Vampire Survivors. Or maybe 2048, or Flappy Bird, or Wordle for examples of even simpler projects that were also easier to make, that still were immensely popular and much more successful.

rexreed 4y ago

Here's what I learned in life that's applicable to many areas, this being one: Not sucking isn't enough. Even being "Great" isn't enough. And even being "amazing" just isn't good enough to be successful. You need people to notice and care and help you and carry you to success. Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Truly great things die every day from lack of attention and the willingness / motivation of others to help you carry that greatness forward. No greatness succeeds on its own, despite how great it might truly be.

kcartlidge 4y ago
> Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Great point.

pms 4y ago

> When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control. If every creator does marketing, then everyone is in the same position and nobody has control. Also, check out this research paper, published in Science, showing that popularity signals like the number of downloads and ordering by popularity increases the unpredictability of a music market, which is an opposite effect to what you expect. I suspect similar effects happen for game and other cultural markets: Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5762), 854–856. https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full....