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This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile/casual game development I've read, and I think anybody looking to get into that niche should stop

This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile/casual game development I've read, and I think anybody looking to get into that niche should stop here first: "Yesterday 304 apps were released in the App Store. I didn’t bother counting, but about half of them look to be games. 152 fresh new dreams went on sale. How many of those will hit the top 100? Probably 0. How many of those will be profitable? Probably 0. How many will cover their costs? Probably 0. But here is the real kicker: tomorrow, 152 NEW dreams will go on sale. Today's will be old and discarded, for you only make the new lists the day you launch. Apple boasts about hitting 1 million apps. That is about the worst number a developer could hear. It means 999,999 other people are competing with me for a customer’s attention and wallet." Author loses friends, money, and time in pursuit of a super-fickle audience, and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go.

ErikRogneby 12y ago
I wonder what the release numbers are for 2nd tier markets like Kindle and Windows phone? Sometimes a smaller pond makes a fish look bigger.
SiVal 12y ago
realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. Of course it remains to be seen whether even that is the way to go. He might enjoy the work more, but that won't matter much if this business turns out to be unsustainable, too.
personZ 12y ago
This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile/casual game development I've read Eh, is it? The author was sure that mobile was where it was at in 2010, observing that no one was playing consoles (consoles were and are as hot as ever), with nary a mention of PC gaming. They made a, sorry to say, easily replicated game for a niche market, among what already was 100s of thousands of app. In these sorts of stories it's always a little more complex, and of course someone will be looking out and making broad conclusions about externals, when some of their own decisions were questionable. I'm not trying to be a critic of the author, but given the number of "see?" type posts, people need to be somewhat more skeptical. and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. This is almost too much. Steam greenlight is just overwhelmed with hundreds of entrants, and they're opening the floodgates even wider. And while I'm very likely to try out random little games on mobile (particularly if they're free to play -- not that I like the model when abused smurfberry style, but it is turning into a "try before you buy" tactic that is reasonable), then pay a dollar or so and get an hour or two of entertainment out of it, it's extremely unlikely that I'm going to install anything from a small studio on my PC -- everything is from megastudios where teams of hundreds worked for years, because that's the competition. On the topic of large teams, the baseline on the PC is incredibly high now. Not only the triple-As, of course, but every amateur has a very high baseline of Unity/Unreal/etc. This seems like a godsend ("Yay I have Unity and all of these cool shaders and techniques and seemingly endless power"), but it means that the artistic and technical demands are enormously high and resource intensive.
- joeheiniger 12y ago
  I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers/designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. Chris Roberts' Star Citizen was initially successful almost entirely due to the name Chris Roberts and his reputation. The recent game Transistor was made by the studio that made Bastion, and got more attention than it would otherwise have gotten initially because of that fact. If you establish yourself with one good game, PC gamers are far more likely to try your next game, where in mobile frequently people have no idea who wrote Threes, or Draw Something, they just download an app that their friends or Twitter feed mentioned. You still have to make at least one successful game, but if you get there it's a lot easier to maintain gamers' attention at that point.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers/designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. If that's the case, the guy has not much to hope for in the PC market. What kind of brand name can he build with the kind of games he makes?
coldtea 12y ago
>Author loses friends, money, and time in pursuit of a super-fickle audience, and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. More than 152 games are released for the PC per day. And here's the kicker: they ALSO have to compete with the 150+ new iOS and the 150+ new Android games for the users interest too.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  > More than 152 games are released for the PC per day. Is that true? I'm sure far less than that are launched on Steam or in stores, unless you count every random demo or JS game someone uploads to the internet.

ErikRogneby 12y ago

I wonder what the release numbers are for 2nd tier markets like Kindle and Windows phone? Sometimes a smaller pond makes a fish look bigger.

SiVal 12y ago

realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. Of course it remains to be seen whether even that is the way to go. He might enjoy the work more, but that won't matter much if this business turns out to be unsustainable, too.

personZ 12y ago

This is one of the most gut-wrenching condemnations of mobile/casual game development I've read Eh, is it? The author was sure that mobile was where it was at in 2010, observing that no one was playing consoles (consoles were and are as hot as ever), with nary a mention of PC gaming. They made a, sorry to say, easily replicated game for a niche market, among what already was 100s of thousands of app. In these sorts of stories it's always a little more complex, and of course someone will be looking out and making broad conclusions about externals, when some of their own decisions were questionable. I'm not trying to be a critic of the author, but given the number of "see?" type posts, people need to be somewhat more skeptical. and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. This is almost too much. Steam greenlight is just overwhelmed with hundreds of entrants, and they're opening the floodgates even wider. And while I'm very likely to try out random little games on mobile (particularly if they're free to play -- not that I like the model when abused smurfberry style, but it is turning into a "try before you buy" tactic that is reasonable), then pay a dollar or so and get an hour or two of entertainment out of it, it's extremely unlikely that I'm going to install anything from a small studio on my PC -- everything is from megastudios where teams of hundreds worked for years, because that's the competition. On the topic of large teams, the baseline on the PC is incredibly high now. Not only the triple-As, of course, but every amateur has a very high baseline of Unity/Unreal/etc. This seems like a godsend ("Yay I have Unity and all of these cool shaders and techniques and seemingly endless power"), but it means that the artistic and technical demands are enormously high and resource intensive.

joeheiniger 12y ago
I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers/designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. Chris Roberts' Star Citizen was initially successful almost entirely due to the name Chris Roberts and his reputation. The recent game Transistor was made by the studio that made Bastion, and got more attention than it would otherwise have gotten initially because of that fact. If you establish yourself with one good game, PC gamers are far more likely to try your next game, where in mobile frequently people have no idea who wrote Threes, or Draw Something, they just download an app that their friends or Twitter feed mentioned. You still have to make at least one successful game, but if you get there it's a lot easier to maintain gamers' attention at that point.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >I think the key difference that the article points out is that the PC gamer does pay more attention to brands, and even individual developers/designers. People still remember John Romero and John Carmack worked on Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. If that's the case, the guy has not much to hope for in the PC market. What kind of brand name can he build with the kind of games he makes?

coldtea 12y ago

>Author loses friends, money, and time in pursuit of a super-fickle audience, and realizes that returning to their roots as a PC gamer is the way to go. More than 152 games are released for the PC per day. And here's the kicker: they ALSO have to compete with the 150+ new iOS and the 150+ new Android games for the users interest too.

jiggy2011 12y ago
> More than 152 games are released for the PC per day. Is that true? I'm sure far less than that are launched on Steam or in stores, unless you count every random demo or JS game someone uploads to the internet.