3 ms·

> Newell and Harrington had long enjoyed playing games. Now, it seemed, there were huge piles of money to be earned from making them. The gaming market today i

by kleiba 2y ago

> Newell and Harrington had long enjoyed playing games. Now, it seemed, there were huge piles of money to be earned from making them. The gaming market today is completely different, very competetive, very saturated, ranging from huge stakes at the top end, to an enormous number of indie studios and individuals toward the other end that are trying to make ends meet. Yet, I've been seriously thinking for a while to start-up a game studio. The hope being that it would be one of these crazy ideas that everybody recommends against ("it can't be done") until you actually do it and prove them wrong. Ideally, I would like to start the studio as a loose group of like-minded people that have time for developing a game solely a hobby, and if that pans out, transition it into a business. Not AAA, of course, but with the definite goal of making the best game that such a setup could realisitically produce. The thing is, with today's tech, you can get started with very little capital if you begin doing this as a hobby.

markus_zhang 2y ago
The indie market is a bloody red sea right now. But as long as you don't care about money or can expense your hardware and internet costs, I think it's good enough.
999900000999 2y ago
I sorta want to do this, but developing completely open source games. Maybe even developing my own game engine. Of course all this costs a lot of money with no clear way to make it back. If I had to come up with a monetization model, I would come up with an ad network similar to Unity. If Unity needs 2 billion in revenue to barely keep going, I reckon a more focused engine could be funded for 20 million a year. It's a moot point since I'll never have that much money or be able to raise a VC round. But HN, let's dream. Imagine a .net or JavaScript engine that's web first. With mobile and PC support coming later( PC can just run a local server). The engine developers dog food their own engine, making very high quality examples for the community. Keep the engine focused on small lightweight games. Unity's ultimate problem is they keep trying to do literally everything. I wouldn't do that. I'd say straight up this engine isn't going to do AAA gaming. It's not going to scale. I'm not supporting 800 design patterns.
- kleiba 2y ago
  Don't write your own engine, unless you want to do that just for fun. But if you actually want to make a game, use one of the exiting engines. If you want to develop a game engine as a product to make money of, it's probably better to forget that idea. There are enough very sophisticated engines out there, so why would any third-party developer take the risk and use yours instead? I mean, even the big open source engines that already exist today have trouble gaining traction.
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    I don't have the money to do this anyway, it's a moot point. But the idea is you build the engine, and make better tools for advertising hooked into your own commercial service. That's by and large how Unity makes money. I want to actually make quality open source games, and I want to use one easy language, like C# from the engine to the scripting. Or maybe one day I'll learn Rust and Bevy...
    - kleiba 2y ago
      IMO, that's not a feature that would set your engine apart enough from the existing ones. And if it were, the big ones could add that feature as well. Thousand of man hours have gone into the development of the big commercial engines. You'd have to match that and then add your new feature on top in order to become a serious competitor. What's the advantage of making your game open source? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a big free software fan but what do you think will come out of that?
      - 999900000999 2y ago
        I don't exactly have commercial goals here. I want to go open source so people have something to learn from. I think Unity, Unreal, and even Godot try to do too much at once. I want an engine to do one thing really well.
  - butlike 2y ago
    Which license would be best to get out of the hell of "30% to the distribution store" "25% to UDK" so 50% of your revenue is skimmed off the top before you see a dime. Assuming you'll make _some_ money.
dijksterhuis 2y ago
> Not AAA, of course, but with the definite goal of making the best game that such a setup could realisitically produce. have a read up on Savage Game Design and the SOG Prairie Fire CDLC for Arma 3. hands down, the best DLC ever created for Arma3. a good chunk of the original team were Unsung modders. they went down the road of CDLC, now they’re working on their own standalone game and a bunch of other stuff (look through Rob/Eggbeast’s posts on the SOG PF discord for more info). Arma is actually a great way to hack something together for basically nothing. buy Arma, start scripting sqf to build a gamemode, create new assets in blender and stick ‘em in a mod, host a server. though the engine has lots of weird bugs/footguns, your costs are basically Arma+devtime+servers. disclaimer: i’m a maintainer on the Mike Force multiplayer gamemode they released. do it in my spare time for kicks (although been slacking recently).
- tomaytotomato 2y ago
  I love a bit of SQF although trying to get missions to work with server sync was a PITA. Often thought about making a lost in the woods sort of game using Arma 3 and Chernarus.
  - dijksterhuis 2y ago
    server sync? do you mean remoteExec? that did take me a minute to get my head round. a lot of headaches the first time i needed to JIP without understanding i needed to JIP. scheduled/unscheduled environment is another fun one.
bombcar 2y ago
There’s a ton left that can be done by small companies - factorio is just one example out of the hundreds waiting to be discovered. Find a niche and polish it to perfection and you can make headway. Most big-budget games have more to do with interactive movies than with gameplay, anyway.
- cryzinger 2y ago
  Balatro also comes to mind. And that one's the work of a solo dev!
  - kleiba 2y ago
    The problem is - there are literally thousands of indie devs that don't make the cut. The days of Mojang or Fez are long over, the novelty of the indie dev has worn off, unfortunately.
    - cryzinger 2y ago
      Yeah, I mean, for every indie dev who's successful enough to make a career out of it, there'll be countless others who try and fail. But it's still technically possible to break through, in the sense that you don't need a huge team or tons of resources to make a hit game. (And having a huge team and tons of resources isn't a guarantee of success, either :P)
      - kleiba 2y ago
        True. There is always the chance that you get lucky - case in point, Minecraft. If you read the old devlogs when Notch first started to develop the game, it's really interesting how quickly it started to generate genuine interest, if only among other indie game devs at first who frequented the same forum. But that's a one in a million strike of luck - hitting on a fresh idea and being able to implement it in a way that appeals to a sufficent market. Like you say, just from raw statistics, if you're an indie dev, most likely you're going to fail.
Pannoniae 2y ago
Yeah, similarly, there's quite a few established games/genres just waiting to be disrupted because of the incumbents losing their ways and their charm. The most obvious, blatant example is Minecraft - a game where you can survive, thrive, build anything and mod it to your hearts' desire. That's not true about it anymore - but any game which would fulfill this would probably go big. It's one of those things where someone's going to eventually do it. As they say, "watch this space".

by kleiba 2y ago

markus_zhang 2y ago

The indie market is a bloody red sea right now. But as long as you don't care about money or can expense your hardware and internet costs, I think it's good enough.

999900000999 2y ago

I sorta want to do this, but developing completely open source games. Maybe even developing my own game engine. Of course all this costs a lot of money with no clear way to make it back. If I had to come up with a monetization model, I would come up with an ad network similar to Unity. If Unity needs 2 billion in revenue to barely keep going, I reckon a more focused engine could be funded for 20 million a year. It's a moot point since I'll never have that much money or be able to raise a VC round. But HN, let's dream. Imagine a .net or JavaScript engine that's web first. With mobile and PC support coming later( PC can just run a local server). The engine developers dog food their own engine, making very high quality examples for the community. Keep the engine focused on small lightweight games. Unity's ultimate problem is they keep trying to do literally everything. I wouldn't do that. I'd say straight up this engine isn't going to do AAA gaming. It's not going to scale. I'm not supporting 800 design patterns.

kleiba 2y ago
Don't write your own engine, unless you want to do that just for fun. But if you actually want to make a game, use one of the exiting engines. If you want to develop a game engine as a product to make money of, it's probably better to forget that idea. There are enough very sophisticated engines out there, so why would any third-party developer take the risk and use yours instead? I mean, even the big open source engines that already exist today have trouble gaining traction.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  I don't have the money to do this anyway, it's a moot point. But the idea is you build the engine, and make better tools for advertising hooked into your own commercial service. That's by and large how Unity makes money. I want to actually make quality open source games, and I want to use one easy language, like C# from the engine to the scripting. Or maybe one day I'll learn Rust and Bevy...
  - kleiba 2y ago
    IMO, that's not a feature that would set your engine apart enough from the existing ones. And if it were, the big ones could add that feature as well. Thousand of man hours have gone into the development of the big commercial engines. You'd have to match that and then add your new feature on top in order to become a serious competitor. What's the advantage of making your game open source? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a big free software fan but what do you think will come out of that?
    - 999900000999 2y ago
      I don't exactly have commercial goals here. I want to go open source so people have something to learn from. I think Unity, Unreal, and even Godot try to do too much at once. I want an engine to do one thing really well.
- butlike 2y ago
  Which license would be best to get out of the hell of "30% to the distribution store" "25% to UDK" so 50% of your revenue is skimmed off the top before you see a dime. Assuming you'll make _some_ money.

dijksterhuis 2y ago

> Not AAA, of course, but with the definite goal of making the best game that such a setup could realisitically produce. have a read up on Savage Game Design and the SOG Prairie Fire CDLC for Arma 3. hands down, the best DLC ever created for Arma3. a good chunk of the original team were Unsung modders. they went down the road of CDLC, now they’re working on their own standalone game and a bunch of other stuff (look through Rob/Eggbeast’s posts on the SOG PF discord for more info). Arma is actually a great way to hack something together for basically nothing. buy Arma, start scripting sqf to build a gamemode, create new assets in blender and stick ‘em in a mod, host a server. though the engine has lots of weird bugs/footguns, your costs are basically Arma+devtime+servers. disclaimer: i’m a maintainer on the Mike Force multiplayer gamemode they released. do it in my spare time for kicks (although been slacking recently).

tomaytotomato 2y ago
I love a bit of SQF although trying to get missions to work with server sync was a PITA. Often thought about making a lost in the woods sort of game using Arma 3 and Chernarus.
- dijksterhuis 2y ago
  server sync? do you mean remoteExec? that did take me a minute to get my head round. a lot of headaches the first time i needed to JIP without understanding i needed to JIP. scheduled/unscheduled environment is another fun one.

bombcar 2y ago

There’s a ton left that can be done by small companies - factorio is just one example out of the hundreds waiting to be discovered. Find a niche and polish it to perfection and you can make headway. Most big-budget games have more to do with interactive movies than with gameplay, anyway.

cryzinger 2y ago
Balatro also comes to mind. And that one's the work of a solo dev!
- kleiba 2y ago
  The problem is - there are literally thousands of indie devs that don't make the cut. The days of Mojang or Fez are long over, the novelty of the indie dev has worn off, unfortunately.
  - cryzinger 2y ago
    Yeah, I mean, for every indie dev who's successful enough to make a career out of it, there'll be countless others who try and fail. But it's still technically possible to break through, in the sense that you don't need a huge team or tons of resources to make a hit game. (And having a huge team and tons of resources isn't a guarantee of success, either :P)
    - kleiba 2y ago
      True. There is always the chance that you get lucky - case in point, Minecraft. If you read the old devlogs when Notch first started to develop the game, it's really interesting how quickly it started to generate genuine interest, if only among other indie game devs at first who frequented the same forum. But that's a one in a million strike of luck - hitting on a fresh idea and being able to implement it in a way that appeals to a sufficent market. Like you say, just from raw statistics, if you're an indie dev, most likely you're going to fail.

Pannoniae 2y ago

Yeah, similarly, there's quite a few established games/genres just waiting to be disrupted because of the incumbents losing their ways and their charm. The most obvious, blatant example is Minecraft - a game where you can survive, thrive, build anything and mod it to your hearts' desire. That's not true about it anymore - but any game which would fulfill this would probably go big. It's one of those things where someone's going to eventually do it. As they say, "watch this space".