5 ms·

Making an excellent game isn't even enough these days, that's just table stakes. With so many games out there it's a market of lemons. You need to have a way of

Making an excellent game isn't even enough these days, that's just table stakes. With so many games out there it's a market of lemons. You need to have a way of rising above the noise. For AAA, it's having budgets to make games on a bigger scale than everyone else. For mobile games, it's generally about leveraging a large war chest to fuel an advertising-driven margin game. For prestige/indie games you need something that people will want to talk/write about, or build a dedicated fanbase over time. For tiny games like flappy bird / wordle you need massive built-in virality and lots of luck.

bavell 2y ago
Just get some popular streamers/channels to do a review/let's play and if they like it you'll get tons of free exposure. I've spent probably hundreds of dollars on indie games in the last year or so from first seeing them on a gaming channel and then pulling it up in steam. Channels like Splattercat are a great resource for indie gamers & studios alike: https://youtube.com/@splattercatgaming https://youtube.com/@splattercatgaming
- jokethrowaway 2y ago
  This has been known for more than a decade, you can bet the competition does that too
  - Jensson 2y ago
    Competition doesn't have excellent games. There aren't that many excellent games released per year, if you have an excellent game just getting noticed is enough.
- vunderba 2y ago
  "Just get some popular streamers/channels to do a review/let's play" Just is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    You give them money. It's not a very heavy lift except for the wallet.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Popular streamers don’t accept every offer to demo a game.
      - jaggederest 2y ago
        True, but it also depends how many zeroes are in the amount. You have to find streamers interested in your genre, for sure.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      do you know how much it costs to even get a small but recognizable streamer to stream your game? Remember, Microsoft gave Ninja a $55m contract to stream on the now dead Mixer. And ofc Ninja mostly streams the most mainstream of mainstream games anyway. These top streamers are way more expensive than any ad program to just approach and inquire to. anyways, to answer my rhetorical question: I hear the rule of thumb is either $0.10-0.20 per video view, or $1 per concurrent view as a starting point. you can use that to guestimate whoever you had in mind when you were thinking of paying a streamer.
  - foliovision 2y ago
    One doesn't start with the marketing. One starts with the great game. This is the one of the biggest issue now in culture – one is taught to promote one's awful films, music novels, games, paintings. Instead the creators should teach themselves how to make great, or at least good, art first. Then the division of labour was to find the editor or the producer to take your work to the next level.
Capricorn2481 2y ago
> For AAA, it's having budgets to make games on a bigger scale than everyone else Does this matter? There are lots of big budget games that don't feel big budget.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Part of the scale is that unlike an indy game, whatever junk EA puts out will end up on every platform and in physical and virtual game stores around the world. Every year when they rerelease the same game.
  - Capricorn2481 2y ago
    I don't know what you mean by this. It sounded like OP was talking about scale of content. But it does not take a triple-A budget to be on multiple platforms on physical disk. It takes a relationship with a distributor (through your publisher). I would even go as far as to say it's easier to distribute indie games to different platforms, for a lot of reasons. Mainly that you have a lot less people to pay and you're likely using an engine that can do a lot of that technical work for you instead of an in house engine. Source: I worked in game distribution.
sandworm101 2y ago
>> Making an excellent game isn't even enough these days, that's just table stakes. With so many games out there it's a market of lemons. You need to have a way of rising above the noise. Maybe if your goal is to "win", to be the biggest and most profitable game. But most of the best games become so because they don't try to rise above the noise. Do something very very well and you can abandon all the trappings of the top-tier games. I just paid 20$ for a game about puzzle boxes. It isn't flashy. It is just a fun game about a very niche topic. It will never top any steam charts, nor is it trying to do so. It is just a fun game for people that want to do puzzle boxes. It is still "great" imho because, frankly, I bought it and don't regret paying for it. That alone puts it above 99.99% of games on steam, all those games I would never consider paying a dime for.
- fwip 2y ago
  This thread is rooted in a comment saying that the median revenue for a game on Steam is $800. There's a large, large gulf between "the biggest and most profitable game" and "I spent months of my life working on this, and made less than a month of rent." The puzzle box game may be awesome and well-worth your $20. The developer still might rightly have concluded that "damn, this was a huge waste of time. Gotta go back to my Wal-mart job."
somenameforme 2y ago
An excellent game is, practically by definition, a game that people would recommend. And the Steam algorithm does a pretty good job of snowballing success. My favorite example here is Kenshi. [1] It started with modest interest and within a few months it was down to literally tens of players. This is normally where somebody driven by profit would just shrug, complain, and go try something new. But they guy clearly believed in his game, kept going, and now a decade later it's an extremely popular game that still has thousands of regular players - verging on overcoming Hogwart's Legacy. I think a lot of smaller developers are misled by things like game jams. Get a highly enthusiastic group of people in a room and the games they're going to respond well to, and the feedback they're going to give is going to be utterly worthless. What's fun to play in a highly social setting with lots of other hyper enthusiastic people, for 5 minutes at a time, does not translate at all to what people are interested in buying and playing at home. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/233860 https://steamcharts.com/app/233860
- Hammershaft 2y ago
  For every Kenshi there are many dozens of excellent indie games that languish. The steam algorithm is not as cooperative for surfacing small niche games as it was of Kenshi, and it's harder to get your game seen in a more saturated market. There has been a gradual shift from the 2010's where nearly all great games we're handsomely rewarded.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    > For every Kenshi there are many dozens of excellent indie games that languish. Can you list some here?
    - Hammershaft 2y ago
      Sure! Pinning down some shared criteria for quality and obscurity might be a challenge, but I can give it a try. I'll only include games that I've played recently with an overall steam review score of >=%94 and less than 1000 cumulative steam reviews. Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545990/Deadeye_Deepfake_Simulacrum/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545990/Deadeye_Deepfake_... Tandis: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1297210/Tandis/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1297210/Tandis/ Nidus: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372170/NIDUS/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372170/NIDUS/ Recursed: https://store.steampowered.com/app/497780/Recursed/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/497780/Recursed/ HyperRogue: https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/ Can Of Wormholes: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/ Mosa Lina: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/ Sigma Impact: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654890/Sigma_Impact/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654890/Sigma_Impact/ Wilmot's Warehouse: https://store.steampowered.com/app/839870/Wilmots_Warehouse/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/839870/Wilmots_Warehouse/ Filcher: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1355650/Filcher/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1355650/Filcher/ Magicube: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2216120/Magicube/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2216120/Magicube/ Stick It: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1828900/Stickit/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1828900/Stickit/ There are a ton of indie multiplayer games that at one point would have appeared on this list, but as small multiplayer games are starved of population they enter a death cycle where new reviews are negative as a result.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> You need to have a way of rising above the noise. if you believe in the social media discuourse, "making a good game" is enough, and Steam algorithms + word of mouth will boost it up for you. I think that's highly unrealistic, but I do think making "a really good game" will guarantee a certain minimum sales on Steam. I also don't think that minimum sales is close to sustainable compared to a minimum wage job, but that's always the part of the conversation left out. $10k in a year is a great side hustle and well above the median. It's a complete failure even for the most humble game dev that lives in a carboard box and survives off of potatoes.

bavell 2y ago

Just get some popular streamers/channels to do a review/let's play and if they like it you'll get tons of free exposure. I've spent probably hundreds of dollars on indie games in the last year or so from first seeing them on a gaming channel and then pulling it up in steam. Channels like Splattercat are a great resource for indie gamers & studios alike: https://youtube.com/@splattercatgaming https://youtube.com/@splattercatgaming

jokethrowaway 2y ago
This has been known for more than a decade, you can bet the competition does that too
- Jensson 2y ago
  Competition doesn't have excellent games. There aren't that many excellent games released per year, if you have an excellent game just getting noticed is enough.
vunderba 2y ago
"Just get some popular streamers/channels to do a review/let's play" Just is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  You give them money. It's not a very heavy lift except for the wallet.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Popular streamers don’t accept every offer to demo a game.
    - jaggederest 2y ago
      True, but it also depends how many zeroes are in the amount. You have to find streamers interested in your genre, for sure.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    do you know how much it costs to even get a small but recognizable streamer to stream your game? Remember, Microsoft gave Ninja a $55m contract to stream on the now dead Mixer. And ofc Ninja mostly streams the most mainstream of mainstream games anyway. These top streamers are way more expensive than any ad program to just approach and inquire to. anyways, to answer my rhetorical question: I hear the rule of thumb is either $0.10-0.20 per video view, or $1 per concurrent view as a starting point. you can use that to guestimate whoever you had in mind when you were thinking of paying a streamer.
- foliovision 2y ago
  One doesn't start with the marketing. One starts with the great game. This is the one of the biggest issue now in culture – one is taught to promote one's awful films, music novels, games, paintings. Instead the creators should teach themselves how to make great, or at least good, art first. Then the division of labour was to find the editor or the producer to take your work to the next level.

Capricorn2481 2y ago

> For AAA, it's having budgets to make games on a bigger scale than everyone else Does this matter? There are lots of big budget games that don't feel big budget.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
Part of the scale is that unlike an indy game, whatever junk EA puts out will end up on every platform and in physical and virtual game stores around the world. Every year when they rerelease the same game.
- Capricorn2481 2y ago
  I don't know what you mean by this. It sounded like OP was talking about scale of content. But it does not take a triple-A budget to be on multiple platforms on physical disk. It takes a relationship with a distributor (through your publisher). I would even go as far as to say it's easier to distribute indie games to different platforms, for a lot of reasons. Mainly that you have a lot less people to pay and you're likely using an engine that can do a lot of that technical work for you instead of an in house engine. Source: I worked in game distribution.

sandworm101 2y ago

>> Making an excellent game isn't even enough these days, that's just table stakes. With so many games out there it's a market of lemons. You need to have a way of rising above the noise. Maybe if your goal is to "win", to be the biggest and most profitable game. But most of the best games become so because they don't try to rise above the noise. Do something very very well and you can abandon all the trappings of the top-tier games. I just paid 20$ for a game about puzzle boxes. It isn't flashy. It is just a fun game about a very niche topic. It will never top any steam charts, nor is it trying to do so. It is just a fun game for people that want to do puzzle boxes. It is still "great" imho because, frankly, I bought it and don't regret paying for it. That alone puts it above 99.99% of games on steam, all those games I would never consider paying a dime for.

fwip 2y ago
This thread is rooted in a comment saying that the median revenue for a game on Steam is $800. There's a large, large gulf between "the biggest and most profitable game" and "I spent months of my life working on this, and made less than a month of rent." The puzzle box game may be awesome and well-worth your $20. The developer still might rightly have concluded that "damn, this was a huge waste of time. Gotta go back to my Wal-mart job."

somenameforme 2y ago

An excellent game is, practically by definition, a game that people would recommend. And the Steam algorithm does a pretty good job of snowballing success. My favorite example here is Kenshi. [1] It started with modest interest and within a few months it was down to literally tens of players. This is normally where somebody driven by profit would just shrug, complain, and go try something new. But they guy clearly believed in his game, kept going, and now a decade later it's an extremely popular game that still has thousands of regular players - verging on overcoming Hogwart's Legacy. I think a lot of smaller developers are misled by things like game jams. Get a highly enthusiastic group of people in a room and the games they're going to respond well to, and the feedback they're going to give is going to be utterly worthless. What's fun to play in a highly social setting with lots of other hyper enthusiastic people, for 5 minutes at a time, does not translate at all to what people are interested in buying and playing at home. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/233860 https://steamcharts.com/app/233860

Hammershaft 2y ago
For every Kenshi there are many dozens of excellent indie games that languish. The steam algorithm is not as cooperative for surfacing small niche games as it was of Kenshi, and it's harder to get your game seen in a more saturated market. There has been a gradual shift from the 2010's where nearly all great games we're handsomely rewarded.
- hiatus 2y ago
  > For every Kenshi there are many dozens of excellent indie games that languish. Can you list some here?
  - Hammershaft 2y ago
    Sure! Pinning down some shared criteria for quality and obscurity might be a challenge, but I can give it a try. I'll only include games that I've played recently with an overall steam review score of >=%94 and less than 1000 cumulative steam reviews. Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545990/Deadeye_Deepfake_Simulacrum/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545990/Deadeye_Deepfake_... Tandis: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1297210/Tandis/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1297210/Tandis/ Nidus: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372170/NIDUS/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372170/NIDUS/ Recursed: https://store.steampowered.com/app/497780/Recursed/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/497780/Recursed/ HyperRogue: https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/ Can Of Wormholes: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/ Mosa Lina: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/ Sigma Impact: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654890/Sigma_Impact/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1654890/Sigma_Impact/ Wilmot's Warehouse: https://store.steampowered.com/app/839870/Wilmots_Warehouse/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/839870/Wilmots_Warehouse/ Filcher: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1355650/Filcher/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1355650/Filcher/ Magicube: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2216120/Magicube/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2216120/Magicube/ Stick It: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1828900/Stickit/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1828900/Stickit/ There are a ton of indie multiplayer games that at one point would have appeared on this list, but as small multiplayer games are starved of population they enter a death cycle where new reviews are negative as a result.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

> You need to have a way of rising above the noise. if you believe in the social media discuourse, "making a good game" is enough, and Steam algorithms + word of mouth will boost it up for you. I think that's highly unrealistic, but I do think making "a really good game" will guarantee a certain minimum sales on Steam. I also don't think that minimum sales is close to sustainable compared to a minimum wage job, but that's always the part of the conversation left out. $10k in a year is a great side hustle and well above the median. It's a complete failure even for the most humble game dev that lives in a carboard box and survives off of potatoes.