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As someone who lives outside of America, I find the article's implicit assumption that every videogame developer is American makes many of his arguments less co

As someone who lives outside of America, I find the article's implicit assumption that every videogame developer is American makes many of his arguments less convincing. Like, I understand that $120,000 isn't a lot for a team of 3 Americans. But that's a pretty good amount of money in Poland, Brazil, or Vietnam. So why don't we see these "missing middle" games coming from those places? Sure, American publishers aren't interested in writing small checks... But what about Chinese or Indian publishers?

bobthepanda 3y ago
What’s interesting is that with national markets there’s a bit of product market fit. A good example is Japan; there are a lot of Japanese games developed that have good domestic product fit but zero appeal internationally. Poland actually had CD Projekt Red, but Cyberpunk 2077 from that studio was perhaps one of the greatest dumpster fire releases of the current decade. Don’t know about India, but a lot of Chinese development is gacha-based with limited western appeal. (It also does not help that the CCP censors are not particularly fond of video games.)
- skynode 3y ago
  It's quite disingenious to talk about the failure of Cyberpunk 2077 while discounting the massive success of The Witcher from the same studio
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    It’s the most recent release and the Witcher 4 is projected for 2026.
- bb611 3y ago
  > Cyberpunk 2077 from that studio was perhaps one of the greatest dumpster fire releases of the current decade That may have been its critical reception but the game was wildly profitable for CDPR: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/04/17/cyberpunk-2077-broke-cdprs-profit-record-triple-the-witcher-3s-launch-year/?sh=14fa5d3059d0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/04/17/cyberpunk-...
  - giancarlostoro 3y ago
    Look, they had me at Keanu Reeves. Still loved the game. It was pretty decent. I think maybe they overpromised before release, if you didn't expect nothing more than "oh cool Keanu Reeves is on this thing!" then you would have enjoyed it like I did. I think gamers keep expecting groundbreaking games, but there's only so much "new" most games come up with. The really creative games are made by Nintendo I feel like, every other one is once in a blue moon from different studios.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      I don't think it was that, it was how amazing their announcement video was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99qJGrPNLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99qJGrPNLs I still watch that thing sometimes because it was so good. I think people reacted to the potential of the ideas put forth in that trailer. in hindsight, I'm pretty sure that video was used to gauge interest before they started building the game, but for many of us it was a sign of what could be. And I think a large part of the response to Cyberpunk's release was what it wasn't.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      I mean it was also very buggy on release to the point that it got delisted on Playstation, which is not a thing that has happened to a major release before.
- freddie_mercury 3y ago
  > Don’t know about India, but a lot of Chinese development is gacha-based with limited western appeal. Is this really true? My understanding is that the best selling mobile games in the US and EU are largely from Chinese developers and Chinese studios and Chinese publishers.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I believe any mobile game on the App Store that is MMPG and does their ads up in a cartoonish illustrative way (rather than just going with unadorned or loosely adorned screenshots) is Chinese. Tencent has some really popular ones in the west, though it might be an age thing since I don’t know anyone who actually plays them except my wife (who is Chinese).
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    Genshin Impact is extremely popular in the west.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Right but that’s not the “missing middle”, that’s the most popular game on the app stores making billions in revenue. Mid-range stuff has not really come ouy of China. The only game that comes to mind by Chinese indies is My Time at Portia, which had alright gameplay but was noted for janky localization.
      - spondylosaurus 3y ago
        Ah, I was just trying to rebut the claim that Chinese developers can't capture western markets in general. Mihoyo is a juggernaut at this point, which speaks to the worldwide appeal of Chinese game dev but absolutely precludes them from the "mid-range" category, lol.
        bobthepanda 3y ago
        It’s also a sample size of one. So to me at least it’s still the exception that proves the rule.
sgt 3y ago
> But that's a pretty good amount of money in Poland, Brazil, or Vietnam. I've never been to Brazil myself, but someone said that an iPhone is $3000 USD in Brazil, so I wouldn't blindly assume that $120k is super amazing to developers there. Also, I quickly googled and found something that resembles an family house and it is very expensive at $280k[0]. I could very well be googling incorrectly so HN Brazilians can hopefully add some context. [0] https://www.realtor.com/international/br/alameda-ezequiel-mantoanelli-1446-indaiatuba-sao-paulo-120087363490/ https://www.realtor.com/international/br/alameda-ezequiel-ma...
- whstl 3y ago
  120k is definitely a lot there. According to Glassdoor that's almost 10x the average software developer salary in Brazil. You can see people making 25k-50k, but that is not really normal, unless you're working for a foreign company. iPhones are expensive for other reasons, people just gotta sacrifice other things in order to buy them. This house is definitely way up in the upper range. It's not where a middle class developer would live. I just sold a couple flats in a big city there (60m2 / 80m2) and made around 80k.
  - sgt 3y ago
    So who are the wealthy in Brazil? If software developers are making peanuts, what is the road to financial success? I hope it's not just inherited money.
    - whstl 3y ago
      Probably. Maybe a CEO or CTO? I don’t know those people. Maybe my parents who bought their house cheap in the 90s? But don’t get me wrong, software developers do incredibly well there compared to the rest of the population. But income inequality is off the charts, so you have people earning nothing and also those million dollar houses that few can afford. An engineer working for an USA company remotely could probably rent it.
      - sgt 3y ago
kaycey2022 3y ago
No matter where you are, you can still embrace adtech and get your work monetised through that route. I personally know of a team in India that spent 2 years working on some mobile game, which was plain garbage after all that time investment. I don't think they even released it. Smaller games churned out every quarter would have been so much better for them. Working for years on the same project with no reward would likely drain most people and turn them away from any profession.

bobthepanda 3y ago

What’s interesting is that with national markets there’s a bit of product market fit. A good example is Japan; there are a lot of Japanese games developed that have good domestic product fit but zero appeal internationally. Poland actually had CD Projekt Red, but Cyberpunk 2077 from that studio was perhaps one of the greatest dumpster fire releases of the current decade. Don’t know about India, but a lot of Chinese development is gacha-based with limited western appeal. (It also does not help that the CCP censors are not particularly fond of video games.)

skynode 3y ago
It's quite disingenious to talk about the failure of Cyberpunk 2077 while discounting the massive success of The Witcher from the same studio
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  It’s the most recent release and the Witcher 4 is projected for 2026.
bb611 3y ago
> Cyberpunk 2077 from that studio was perhaps one of the greatest dumpster fire releases of the current decade That may have been its critical reception but the game was wildly profitable for CDPR: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/04/17/cyberpunk-2077-broke-cdprs-profit-record-triple-the-witcher-3s-launch-year/?sh=14fa5d3059d0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/04/17/cyberpunk-...
- giancarlostoro 3y ago
  Look, they had me at Keanu Reeves. Still loved the game. It was pretty decent. I think maybe they overpromised before release, if you didn't expect nothing more than "oh cool Keanu Reeves is on this thing!" then you would have enjoyed it like I did. I think gamers keep expecting groundbreaking games, but there's only so much "new" most games come up with. The really creative games are made by Nintendo I feel like, every other one is once in a blue moon from different studios.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    I don't think it was that, it was how amazing their announcement video was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99qJGrPNLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99qJGrPNLs I still watch that thing sometimes because it was so good. I think people reacted to the potential of the ideas put forth in that trailer. in hindsight, I'm pretty sure that video was used to gauge interest before they started building the game, but for many of us it was a sign of what could be. And I think a large part of the response to Cyberpunk's release was what it wasn't.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    I mean it was also very buggy on release to the point that it got delisted on Playstation, which is not a thing that has happened to a major release before.
freddie_mercury 3y ago
> Don’t know about India, but a lot of Chinese development is gacha-based with limited western appeal. Is this really true? My understanding is that the best selling mobile games in the US and EU are largely from Chinese developers and Chinese studios and Chinese publishers.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I believe any mobile game on the App Store that is MMPG and does their ads up in a cartoonish illustrative way (rather than just going with unadorned or loosely adorned screenshots) is Chinese. Tencent has some really popular ones in the west, though it might be an age thing since I don’t know anyone who actually plays them except my wife (who is Chinese).
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Genshin Impact is extremely popular in the west.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Right but that’s not the “missing middle”, that’s the most popular game on the app stores making billions in revenue. Mid-range stuff has not really come ouy of China. The only game that comes to mind by Chinese indies is My Time at Portia, which had alright gameplay but was noted for janky localization.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Ah, I was just trying to rebut the claim that Chinese developers can't capture western markets in general. Mihoyo is a juggernaut at this point, which speaks to the worldwide appeal of Chinese game dev but absolutely precludes them from the "mid-range" category, lol.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        It’s also a sample size of one. So to me at least it’s still the exception that proves the rule.

sgt 3y ago

> But that's a pretty good amount of money in Poland, Brazil, or Vietnam. I've never been to Brazil myself, but someone said that an iPhone is $3000 USD in Brazil, so I wouldn't blindly assume that $120k is super amazing to developers there. Also, I quickly googled and found something that resembles an family house and it is very expensive at $280k[0]. I could very well be googling incorrectly so HN Brazilians can hopefully add some context. [0] https://www.realtor.com/international/br/alameda-ezequiel-mantoanelli-1446-indaiatuba-sao-paulo-120087363490/ https://www.realtor.com/international/br/alameda-ezequiel-ma...

whstl 3y ago
120k is definitely a lot there. According to Glassdoor that's almost 10x the average software developer salary in Brazil. You can see people making 25k-50k, but that is not really normal, unless you're working for a foreign company. iPhones are expensive for other reasons, people just gotta sacrifice other things in order to buy them. This house is definitely way up in the upper range. It's not where a middle class developer would live. I just sold a couple flats in a big city there (60m2 / 80m2) and made around 80k.
- sgt 3y ago
  So who are the wealthy in Brazil? If software developers are making peanuts, what is the road to financial success? I hope it's not just inherited money.
  - whstl 3y ago
    Probably. Maybe a CEO or CTO? I don’t know those people. Maybe my parents who bought their house cheap in the 90s? But don’t get me wrong, software developers do incredibly well there compared to the rest of the population. But income inequality is off the charts, so you have people earning nothing and also those million dollar houses that few can afford. An engineer working for an USA company remotely could probably rent it.
    - sgt 3y ago

kaycey2022 3y ago

No matter where you are, you can still embrace adtech and get your work monetised through that route. I personally know of a team in India that spent 2 years working on some mobile game, which was plain garbage after all that time investment. I don't think they even released it. Smaller games churned out every quarter would have been so much better for them. Working for years on the same project with no reward would likely drain most people and turn them away from any profession.