10 ms·

More like, the iOS app store gold rush ended. The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Stop throwing your time and money away developing for a platform overwhelmi

More like, the iOS app store gold rush ended. The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Stop throwing your time and money away developing for a platform overwhelmingly used by people that don't really care about your games, that are looking for brief distractions while they wait in the checkout line, and by and large refuse to pay even a dollar for the privilege. Don't blame the industry because you avoided the platform used by people that actually buy games, play them for hours a day, tirelessly promote the good ones on message boards and amongst their friends, and will actually appreciate the effort you put into your work. Also, Donkey Kong was not created by a "lone game developer." Miyamoto may have designed Donkey Kong by himself, but he had entire team of contract developers at his disposal. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134790/the_secret_history_of_donkey_kong.php?print=1 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134790/the_secret_hist... http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Company:Ikegami_Tsushinki http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Company:Ikegami_Tsus...

vlunkr 12y ago
I think you're right. I know I've lost faith in mobile gaming because for every fun game I've played I've deleted 20. I'm sure there are good games out there, but how can you find them in a sea of garbage and flappy clones? On the other hand, Steam has plenty of great Indie games (selling for more than one dollar!) with plenty of reviews around so you know what's good.
- petercooper 12y ago
  Sites like http://toucharcade.com/ http://toucharcade.com/ used to be good for discovery, although I'm finding them less useful as time goes by. There really should be a weekly or monthly publication where only the most interesting and gripping mobile games are covered.. preferably ones without ridiculous ads, nickel and diming, and all the rest.
munificent 12y ago
> The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Back when I was a console developer at EA, the ambient wisdom was that the money was falling out of (non-online) PC games in large part because of piracy. Is that not the case? Do you happen to have numbers on what the PC game industry is like? How much of this is because of Steam?
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  EA is chasing a very different segment of the market than indie developers. Fancy graphics and gigantic projects that need to sell millions to break even. At that scale (and aiming at the lowest common denominator of consumers) maybe piracy is a big deal, but there are indie games that seem to do ok. Their problem isn't piracy so much as getting noticed with a marketing budget orders of magnitude smaller than most AAA games'. And to be honest, I suspect EA just likes using piracy as a boogeyman to blame their problems on and to rationalize the Origin service. I don't know that overall numbers on the PC industry would shed much light on the indie dev scene since they're still a small fraction, but I've played a lot of great games in the last few years. On mobile I basically stopped bothering, with Monument Valley being the one recent exception.
  - delucain 12y ago
    I think you've hit it right on this. I'd also add that the cost variations probably do play a big factor into what piracy does exist. I'm a lot more likely to take a shot in the dark on a $7 indie game or even a $30 indie "blockbuster" than I am a $60 AAA game (where half the cost is marketing anyway). Piracy probably just appeals more at the higher price points.
- ANTSANTS 12y ago
  When did you work there? What you heard at EA applies to AAA console devs. If you're gambling everything on a blockbuster game with an enormous budget, it's true, I don't think it would be smart to make a PC exclusive today. That has everything to do with the crazy budget management, retail relationships, unsatisfiable consumer expectations, and unsustainable nature of the western AAAs, though. When a game like Bioshock Infinite can sell over six million copies and the developer still goes out of business, there is something deeply wrong with your business model. If you are an indie, it's totally different. You can do everything on a very small budget with a very small team, perhaps even by yourself. You can plan to break even in the thousands or tens of thousands of copies sold, not millions. You can target the long tail instead of making or breaking your company on the first week of sales. You can have a direct relationship with your fans. Piracy changes from a death sentence to free marketing. So for indies, PC is a clear win, because: It's where most of the people that like indie games are. The dev tools are free and available this second. You don't need to pay or sign an NDA and go through an approval process for dev kits, you don't need to pay for QA, you don't need to go through another QA process to push updates, you don't need a publisher. Just go and make your game. There is no single gatekeeper. You always have the option to pick another digital distribution store or sell the game yourself. Even if you plan to rely completely on Steam, this fact makes Valve much more lenient and easier to deal with than Sony or Microsoft. Most importantly, you can give people your game in a zip file. Free betas are awesome, especially for unproven developers. You get free word of mouth marketing, free playtesting, often great advice in early stages of development before it's "too late" to change things, and the peace of mind that people actually like your game and will buy it when you're finished. Do not underestimate the power of the free beta, it is easily the greatest benefit of the PC platform, and has singlehandedly made countless indie devs, even back before they called them that.
gavanwoolery 12y ago
The gold rush was almost over before it started on mobile - it did not take more than a year for things to become extremely competitive. Flash games suffered a similar fate. Consoles have not generally been indie-friendly but Playstation is now making a better effort on that front, although they are still mainly catering to indie devs who have already "made it." Greenlight is becoming quite competitive (there were 17,000+ active games when I was on there). Kickstarter seems to have lost a great deal of its enthusiasm (perhaps rightfully so). And yet... There is so much unexplored space in the medium. We might have stripped the surface, but there is gold down there somewhere. :)
- CodeCube 12y ago
  > There is so much unexplored space in the medium. We might have stripped the surface, but there is gold down there somewhere. And so the cycle continues :P
  - gavanwoolery 12y ago
    :) Yes, pretty much. DotA was created as a small mod, and now look at the commercial explosion it has spawned, with tournaments containing $2+ million in prizes and everyone wanting to make MOBAs. I think in the past 20 years, we actually have not made as many breakthroughs in game mechanics (of course, this was easier in the early days). Games are still fairly similar to those of the 90s, only technically more complex. I think we are beginning to maybe get a better handle on game design, which I am seeing creep in with more appreciation of more obscure (now less obscure) game types like roguelikes and CCGs. Little known fact is that Plants vs Zombies was largely inspired by deck building mechanics found in Magic the Gathering, so you are beginning to see some more obscure mechanics like that get mainstreamed.
    - MrMember 12y ago
      I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Genres completely abandoned by AAA developers ages ago are seeing a resurgence thanks to crowdsourcing. Space sims have been all but dead since Freelancer in 2003 but now there are several to play and look forward to. Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. Hell, even the impenetrable Dwarf Fortress brings in enough money from donations to support future development.
barbs 12y ago
> The indie dev scene is thriving on PC Arguably this market is becoming over-saturated as well. http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-is-popping.html http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-i...
speeder 12y ago
On PC it is also "gold rush over", although we see a bunch of successful indie devs, the amount of failed ones is much, much larger. I guess the percentage of successful devs on PC is probably on a historically low point. On Reddit there was comments from one guy that gives from 10 to 100k to indie devs, he get 9 thousand applications per month.

vlunkr 12y ago

I think you're right. I know I've lost faith in mobile gaming because for every fun game I've played I've deleted 20. I'm sure there are good games out there, but how can you find them in a sea of garbage and flappy clones? On the other hand, Steam has plenty of great Indie games (selling for more than one dollar!) with plenty of reviews around so you know what's good.

petercooper 12y ago
Sites like http://toucharcade.com/ http://toucharcade.com/ used to be good for discovery, although I'm finding them less useful as time goes by. There really should be a weekly or monthly publication where only the most interesting and gripping mobile games are covered.. preferably ones without ridiculous ads, nickel and diming, and all the rest.

munificent 12y ago

> The indie dev scene is thriving on PC. Back when I was a console developer at EA, the ambient wisdom was that the money was falling out of (non-online) PC games in large part because of piracy. Is that not the case? Do you happen to have numbers on what the PC game industry is like? How much of this is because of Steam?

wlesieutre 12y ago
EA is chasing a very different segment of the market than indie developers. Fancy graphics and gigantic projects that need to sell millions to break even. At that scale (and aiming at the lowest common denominator of consumers) maybe piracy is a big deal, but there are indie games that seem to do ok. Their problem isn't piracy so much as getting noticed with a marketing budget orders of magnitude smaller than most AAA games'. And to be honest, I suspect EA just likes using piracy as a boogeyman to blame their problems on and to rationalize the Origin service. I don't know that overall numbers on the PC industry would shed much light on the indie dev scene since they're still a small fraction, but I've played a lot of great games in the last few years. On mobile I basically stopped bothering, with Monument Valley being the one recent exception.
- delucain 12y ago
  I think you've hit it right on this. I'd also add that the cost variations probably do play a big factor into what piracy does exist. I'm a lot more likely to take a shot in the dark on a $7 indie game or even a $30 indie "blockbuster" than I am a $60 AAA game (where half the cost is marketing anyway). Piracy probably just appeals more at the higher price points.
ANTSANTS 12y ago
When did you work there? What you heard at EA applies to AAA console devs. If you're gambling everything on a blockbuster game with an enormous budget, it's true, I don't think it would be smart to make a PC exclusive today. That has everything to do with the crazy budget management, retail relationships, unsatisfiable consumer expectations, and unsustainable nature of the western AAAs, though. When a game like Bioshock Infinite can sell over six million copies and the developer still goes out of business, there is something deeply wrong with your business model. If you are an indie, it's totally different. You can do everything on a very small budget with a very small team, perhaps even by yourself. You can plan to break even in the thousands or tens of thousands of copies sold, not millions. You can target the long tail instead of making or breaking your company on the first week of sales. You can have a direct relationship with your fans. Piracy changes from a death sentence to free marketing. So for indies, PC is a clear win, because: It's where most of the people that like indie games are. The dev tools are free and available this second. You don't need to pay or sign an NDA and go through an approval process for dev kits, you don't need to pay for QA, you don't need to go through another QA process to push updates, you don't need a publisher. Just go and make your game. There is no single gatekeeper. You always have the option to pick another digital distribution store or sell the game yourself. Even if you plan to rely completely on Steam, this fact makes Valve much more lenient and easier to deal with than Sony or Microsoft. Most importantly, you can give people your game in a zip file. Free betas are awesome, especially for unproven developers. You get free word of mouth marketing, free playtesting, often great advice in early stages of development before it's "too late" to change things, and the peace of mind that people actually like your game and will buy it when you're finished. Do not underestimate the power of the free beta, it is easily the greatest benefit of the PC platform, and has singlehandedly made countless indie devs, even back before they called them that.

gavanwoolery 12y ago

The gold rush was almost over before it started on mobile - it did not take more than a year for things to become extremely competitive. Flash games suffered a similar fate. Consoles have not generally been indie-friendly but Playstation is now making a better effort on that front, although they are still mainly catering to indie devs who have already "made it." Greenlight is becoming quite competitive (there were 17,000+ active games when I was on there). Kickstarter seems to have lost a great deal of its enthusiasm (perhaps rightfully so). And yet... There is so much unexplored space in the medium. We might have stripped the surface, but there is gold down there somewhere. :)

CodeCube 12y ago
> There is so much unexplored space in the medium. We might have stripped the surface, but there is gold down there somewhere. And so the cycle continues :P
- gavanwoolery 12y ago
  :) Yes, pretty much. DotA was created as a small mod, and now look at the commercial explosion it has spawned, with tournaments containing $2+ million in prizes and everyone wanting to make MOBAs. I think in the past 20 years, we actually have not made as many breakthroughs in game mechanics (of course, this was easier in the early days). Games are still fairly similar to those of the 90s, only technically more complex. I think we are beginning to maybe get a better handle on game design, which I am seeing creep in with more appreciation of more obscure (now less obscure) game types like roguelikes and CCGs. Little known fact is that Plants vs Zombies was largely inspired by deck building mechanics found in Magic the Gathering, so you are beginning to see some more obscure mechanics like that get mainstreamed.
  - MrMember 12y ago
    I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Genres completely abandoned by AAA developers ages ago are seeing a resurgence thanks to crowdsourcing. Space sims have been all but dead since Freelancer in 2003 but now there are several to play and look forward to. Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. Hell, even the impenetrable Dwarf Fortress brings in enough money from donations to support future development.

barbs 12y ago

> The indie dev scene is thriving on PC Arguably this market is becoming over-saturated as well. http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-is-popping.html http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-i...

speeder 12y ago

On PC it is also "gold rush over", although we see a bunch of successful indie devs, the amount of failed ones is much, much larger. I guess the percentage of successful devs on PC is probably on a historically low point. On Reddit there was comments from one guy that gives from 10 to 100k to indie devs, he get 9 thousand applications per month.