4 ms·

The industry doesn't need fixing. It's working perfectly well. Working hard, very hard, producing something means nothing. As a producer you have no rights. Yo

The industry doesn't need fixing. It's working perfectly well. Working hard, very hard, producing something means nothing. As a producer you have no rights. You are making something that exists in an absolute sea of similar hard work. A market where supply stunningly overwhelms demand. This is to be expected. When I was 11 years old I was playing games, dreaming of being a programmer. I picked up a book and started learning. The next 6 years were mostly spent writing games. For reasons that won't shock you I didn't immediately think of writing a new spreadsheet program. The one exception was a program I wrote for school - and it failed. People write games because it's fun writing a game. Because it's a good way to learn how to write code. Because one's immediate circle are impressed. But the market for indie games is tiny. And every wannabee programmer is making them. Somewhere along the way you discover the laws of supply and demand. You'll also discover that a business is one part product, one part support, three parts marketing. Marketing is waaaay more valuable, and important, than product. Sure there are exceptions. There are stories of some random game with no marketing going viral. It happens. There are also stories of people winning the lottery. One of those is more likely. The indie game market works completely as designed. Low startup costs. Accessible to anyone. A fun way to get into programming. A cool way to impress your friends. A fantastic hobby where you can have more fun in the process than the result. Don't try and "fix it". It's not broken.

plufz 4y ago
You don’t think there is anything broken when 3/5 parts of the project budget should be marketing and only 1/5 in creating the product? I’ve worked in advertising and I think that sounds broken.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Who said that games should only spend 1/5 creating the product?
  - plufz 4y ago
    The parent "You'll also discover that a business is one part product, one part support, three parts marketing."
- bruce511 4y ago
  When you are in an over-supplied environment, then marketing becomes more crucial. Indie games are massively over supplied. Thus to get traction you need to be out-marketing (not necessarily out-spending) the other guy. In one sense building the game is the easy part. Selling it is the hard part. It's a crowded market, and most games are, well, not great. It takes time, effort, and yes money, to market well, and get any kind of traction. Arguably OS/2 was better than Windows 95, but MS spent a billion $ marketing it, and today OS/2 is a history footnote, if you've heard of it at all. The more compeditive the market, the more marketing matters.
  - plufz 4y ago
    Yeah, I don't disagree on why the marketing is needed. I still think it shows something broken about our system when the majority of the time is spent marketing and not producing the product and supporting the customers. In the same way that it is usually a bad sign when the financial markets starts to become too big in comparison to the rest of the economy.
avereveard 4y ago
The thing is it's super easy for indie to get the other parts of the business today. There's loads publisher that focus on some indie niche, and they will do the things that indie dev don't like / don't know how to do. But indie dev don't like to hear their game sucks, because an indie dev put his heart and soul into production. So they stay well away from the well established publishing pathways Blaming public taste is so much more comfortable.
somenameforme 4y ago
I would not say the market is small by any possible stretch of the imagination. Minecraft, a game made by one guy in his spire time, is obviously the definition of an outlier. However, it's relevant to note that it sold over 238 million copies. And that's not even scratching the surface of potential, especially globally. The market for games of all sorts is just crazy huge. For some scale, the PS2 is the best selling console of all time (by a wide margin) at 159 million units shipped, the best selling Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls (Skyrim) games both sold "only" about 30 million units a piece. I think the real issue is that most games are mostly just uninspired knock offs of other games. And this includes AAA games. And here marketing is absolutely critical, because your game may be fun but it doesn't really stand out on its own in any meaningful way. By contrast games that have distinct identities (and, critically, are also fun!) tend to have extremely long tailed success where word of mouth is vastly more important than marketing. An amusing example is Kenshi [1]. The guy went from tens of people playing his game while working as a security guard to make ends meet, to making millions from the game. And I don't think those examples are particularly rare either, certainly nothing like winning the lottery. But coming up with an idea that's both unique and fun isn't easy. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/233860 https://steamcharts.com/app/233860

plufz 4y ago

You don’t think there is anything broken when 3/5 parts of the project budget should be marketing and only 1/5 in creating the product? I’ve worked in advertising and I think that sounds broken.

Jensson 4y ago
Who said that games should only spend 1/5 creating the product?
- plufz 4y ago
  The parent "You'll also discover that a business is one part product, one part support, three parts marketing."
bruce511 4y ago
When you are in an over-supplied environment, then marketing becomes more crucial. Indie games are massively over supplied. Thus to get traction you need to be out-marketing (not necessarily out-spending) the other guy. In one sense building the game is the easy part. Selling it is the hard part. It's a crowded market, and most games are, well, not great. It takes time, effort, and yes money, to market well, and get any kind of traction. Arguably OS/2 was better than Windows 95, but MS spent a billion $ marketing it, and today OS/2 is a history footnote, if you've heard of it at all. The more compeditive the market, the more marketing matters.
- plufz 4y ago
  Yeah, I don't disagree on why the marketing is needed. I still think it shows something broken about our system when the majority of the time is spent marketing and not producing the product and supporting the customers. In the same way that it is usually a bad sign when the financial markets starts to become too big in comparison to the rest of the economy.

avereveard 4y ago

The thing is it's super easy for indie to get the other parts of the business today. There's loads publisher that focus on some indie niche, and they will do the things that indie dev don't like / don't know how to do. But indie dev don't like to hear their game sucks, because an indie dev put his heart and soul into production. So they stay well away from the well established publishing pathways Blaming public taste is so much more comfortable.

somenameforme 4y ago

I would not say the market is small by any possible stretch of the imagination. Minecraft, a game made by one guy in his spire time, is obviously the definition of an outlier. However, it's relevant to note that it sold over 238 million copies. And that's not even scratching the surface of potential, especially globally. The market for games of all sorts is just crazy huge. For some scale, the PS2 is the best selling console of all time (by a wide margin) at 159 million units shipped, the best selling Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls (Skyrim) games both sold "only" about 30 million units a piece. I think the real issue is that most games are mostly just uninspired knock offs of other games. And this includes AAA games. And here marketing is absolutely critical, because your game may be fun but it doesn't really stand out on its own in any meaningful way. By contrast games that have distinct identities (and, critically, are also fun!) tend to have extremely long tailed success where word of mouth is vastly more important than marketing. An amusing example is Kenshi [1]. The guy went from tens of people playing his game while working as a security guard to make ends meet, to making millions from the game. And I don't think those examples are particularly rare either, certainly nothing like winning the lottery. But coming up with an idea that's both unique and fun isn't easy. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/233860 https://steamcharts.com/app/233860