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It is interesting to note how the biggest earner (High Vaultage) is a straight up generic launcher game clone. The general fault of indie game developing is th

It is interesting to note how the biggest earner (High Vaultage) is a straight up generic launcher game clone. The general fault of indie game developing is the lack of proper motivation. Most just try to grab some money without real development team, and hope to live of it. Now, that can work, but rarely. Succesful attempts at that are succesful under many conditions: being meticulous with development, aiming for lowest common denominator gameplay, not trying to innovate and preferably clone popular mechanics, and having discipline to ship it. Examples: Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, Kingdom Rush. In my book, that's not indie, it's built on monetization from starting game design. And that's precisely why it fails. The process at most sucessful indie games was actually quite opposite. Let's create something we want to play, and meanwhile or even just at the end of it, try to monetize. Or not even bother with it. Examples: Braid, World of Goo, Meatboy. EDIT: Added some reference game titles.

zaguios 14y ago
Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative or are you saying they're the mechanics that everyone copies? None of those games had original mechanics, but they each added something new to their respective genres (Especially Cyclomaniacs). I'm a fairly successful flash game developer, and while I do try to innovate with some of my games, I find just as much success by using popular mechanics. However, I do try to add in a twist or two. All games can be traced back to a similar game that came before it, building something with monetization in mind doesn't make you any less of a developer. There's also a huge difference between flash games and normal PC games. It's not economically feasible to spend a long time making extremely high quality and unique games in flash since there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000. As you said, the goal is to get as many people as possible to like it, not target a niche that really really likes it. Meatboy was a flash game to begin with, but it was nowhere near the quality of the Super Meatboy and I can guarantee it made nowhere near as much money. The mechanic used is also nothing original.
- dsirijus 14y ago
  >> Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative? Yes, I do. In fact, the author does too. 4:24 PM [dsirijus] LongAnimals, for the record, do you think Cyclomaniacs is an innovative game? 4:24 PM [LongAnimals] no 4:24 PM [LongAnimals] it's a ripoff 4:24 PM [dsirijus] thank you >> there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000 Yes, a handful EVERY MONTH on just a particular distribution channel. https://www.fgl.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php https://www.fgl.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php
  - zaguios 14y ago
    Despite what LongAnimals thinks, he brought opponents and upgrades and levels to a dirtbike game in flash which had never been done before. Unless there was a console game or something he copied, then I would call it pretty darn unique. It may not be a completely novel idea, but it's a hell of a lot more innovative than most of the games you listed as being successes on Steam. According to FGL's stats only 1 game has made more than $20,000 in the past 6 months from what I'm reading. That's how much money ALL GAMES TOTAL make, not how much single games make. Try clicking on Dollar Value - Accepted Bid from the drop down menu. After you do that click on the red bar at the far right of the screen to see the breakdown of sales for that month. Then hover your mouse over the red dot at the far right to see how much money the largest game made that month. Most of the games that gross over $20,000 from sponsorship actually do so outside of FGL or through performance bonuses.
seagaia 14y ago
Thank you for bringing this up. I would still draw the "indie" label at a small dev team, but those games you mentioned - at least Burrito Bison - while fun, and it has some interesting bells and whistles but at the end of the day isn't particularly meaningful - just press a button and sit back, maybe have a few interactions with it in-game, buy a few things, wash and repeat. They're still "indie", but perhaps in a whole different level of games, compared to Super Meat Boy or Braid...there is no way the intention wasn't to make something addictive that would monetize well. But, it is the Flash game market and to make a living off of that, that's what you have to do, I suppose. Thanks for reminding me why I even do game development. Occasionally I get too wrapped up in marketing and the like...trying to think how I'll make any money off of it, and while important, what's the most important is the actual game itself (who would've thought?). Although to reiterate, I do understand why Flash games tend to usually be different in terms of intention - it's hard to deviate a lot from the formula and still manage to have food on your plate. To add to stats, my first game sold for less than a thousand :P
- dsirijus 14y ago
  I'm not trying to be judgmental. Like you said, you need to put food on the plate.
  - seagaia 14y ago
    I know you're not - I just wanted to point it out for the audience who isn't as familiar with the Flash game market.

zaguios 14y ago

Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative or are you saying they're the mechanics that everyone copies? None of those games had original mechanics, but they each added something new to their respective genres (Especially Cyclomaniacs). I'm a fairly successful flash game developer, and while I do try to innovate with some of my games, I find just as much success by using popular mechanics. However, I do try to add in a twist or two. All games can be traced back to a similar game that came before it, building something with monetization in mind doesn't make you any less of a developer. There's also a huge difference between flash games and normal PC games. It's not economically feasible to spend a long time making extremely high quality and unique games in flash since there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000. As you said, the goal is to get as many people as possible to like it, not target a niche that really really likes it. Meatboy was a flash game to begin with, but it was nowhere near the quality of the Super Meatboy and I can guarantee it made nowhere near as much money. The mechanic used is also nothing original.

dsirijus 14y ago
>> Are you calling Cyclomaniacs, Burrito Bison, and Kingdom Rush non-innovative? Yes, I do. In fact, the author does too. 4:24 PM [dsirijus] LongAnimals, for the record, do you think Cyclomaniacs is an innovative game? 4:24 PM [LongAnimals] no 4:24 PM [LongAnimals] it's a ripoff 4:24 PM [dsirijus] thank you >> there have only been a handful of games to ever earn more than about $20,000 Yes, a handful EVERY MONTH on just a particular distribution channel. https://www.fgl.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php https://www.fgl.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php
- zaguios 14y ago
  Despite what LongAnimals thinks, he brought opponents and upgrades and levels to a dirtbike game in flash which had never been done before. Unless there was a console game or something he copied, then I would call it pretty darn unique. It may not be a completely novel idea, but it's a hell of a lot more innovative than most of the games you listed as being successes on Steam. According to FGL's stats only 1 game has made more than $20,000 in the past 6 months from what I'm reading. That's how much money ALL GAMES TOTAL make, not how much single games make. Try clicking on Dollar Value - Accepted Bid from the drop down menu. After you do that click on the red bar at the far right of the screen to see the breakdown of sales for that month. Then hover your mouse over the red dot at the far right to see how much money the largest game made that month. Most of the games that gross over $20,000 from sponsorship actually do so outside of FGL or through performance bonuses.

seagaia 14y ago

Thank you for bringing this up. I would still draw the "indie" label at a small dev team, but those games you mentioned - at least Burrito Bison - while fun, and it has some interesting bells and whistles but at the end of the day isn't particularly meaningful - just press a button and sit back, maybe have a few interactions with it in-game, buy a few things, wash and repeat. They're still "indie", but perhaps in a whole different level of games, compared to Super Meat Boy or Braid...there is no way the intention wasn't to make something addictive that would monetize well. But, it is the Flash game market and to make a living off of that, that's what you have to do, I suppose. Thanks for reminding me why I even do game development. Occasionally I get too wrapped up in marketing and the like...trying to think how I'll make any money off of it, and while important, what's the most important is the actual game itself (who would've thought?). Although to reiterate, I do understand why Flash games tend to usually be different in terms of intention - it's hard to deviate a lot from the formula and still manage to have food on your plate. To add to stats, my first game sold for less than a thousand :P

dsirijus 14y ago
I'm not trying to be judgmental. Like you said, you need to put food on the plate.
- seagaia 14y ago
  I know you're not - I just wanted to point it out for the audience who isn't as familiar with the Flash game market.