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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

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.
    - duaneb 12y ago
      > Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. I actually trace this to Diablo II and Torchlight. Yes, they aren't strictly rogue-likes—among other things they're realtime—but they raised excitement for the genre just the same.
      - barbs 12y ago
        I think Diablo and Torchlight were inspired by early roguelikes, but I wouldn't say the current wave of roguelikes were inspired by these games except maybe in terms of style (e.g. Binding of Isaac). FTL and Diablo 2 for example are quite different games.
      - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
        I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
      - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
        I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
      - Kurtz79 12y ago
        Roguelikes are defined by permadeath, quick runs and procedural generation. Diablo 2 and Torchlight have the latter, but they are quite old, and the resurgence of roguelikes is relatively recent. I believe it's just has to do with it being a very solid (and addictive) gameplay model, and one that fits much better indie games than AAA titles.
  - codexon 12y ago
    I think we are headed for the dark ages of PC gaming. Before, the top AAA studios made games with mods in mind. This allowed massive genres like Dota and Counter-Strike to come into existence. Nowadays AAA studios see modders as leeches and try to cut them out of the game so they can sell DLC and skins to whales. You can see this happening everywhere. - No modding in Blizzard's new games. - No modding in Dota2. - CS:GO and TF2: Making 3rd party servers hard to find compared to official ones. - Minecraft declaring freemium servers to be illegal The indie games on Steam Greenlight don't make up for this. It is much harder to prove a concept by making a game from scratch. Most of them are quite shoddy and get abandoned after they receive a bunch of money from early access.
    - gavanwoolery 12y ago
      Some say it is the Golden Age (see MrMember's comment), some say the Dark Age. I say there is a bit of both, but it is getting so crowded with people trying to make a buck, vs. people trying to make good games, that it is easy to be pessimistic (I definitely am in many regards). There is not enough accountability on Early Access and Kickstarter, and this is magnified by the fact that most people are not good at judging a team's ability early on (see: YogVentures, etc).
      - codexon 12y ago
        Things are still rosy because most players are not tired of the genres (MOBA / CS) that grew from the last generation of being friendly to modders. It may take a while but I forsee people getting tired of getting milked for DLCs and skins, and the major studios won't have another genre like Dota or CS to copy because they screwed over modders.
    - bkurtz13 12y ago
      Actually, just as Warcraft allowed for modding which led to Dota, Starcraft 2 supports modding. So that spirit is still alive in some form at Blizzard.
      - codexon 12y ago
increment_i 12y ago
I agree. I think one of the worst things to happen to indie devs on mobile was the concept of the App Store(s) itself. When I open the App Store, my brain just...drifts off. Its a bunch of icons with little context. It's like looking at the rack of magazines and trinkets while you checkout at the grocery store. While Moore's Law marches on, I'm hoping the days of AAA titles for mobile are just around the corner. It's true - I suppose I'm not willing to pay even 0.99 for some generic platformer or cutesy puzzle game. I would be willing, however to pay 20+ dollars if someone could give me something close to say, Fallout 3 for my phone though.
- nl 12y ago
  I think one of the worst things to happen to indie devs on mobile was the concept of the App Store(s) itself. I'm old enough to remember mobile dev before the App Store(s). No matter how bad they are, they are thousands or times better than how it used to be. For example, typical returns to a developer back when you had to sell via a Telco was less than 30% of the price the consumer paid. And you felt lucky to get that 30% - that was a high point of the whole experience.
- tvararu 12y ago
  > I would be willing, however to pay 20+ dollars if someone could give me something close to say, Fallout 3 for my phone though. We're already there. You can play, today, on your iPhone and/or Android device: GTA San Andreas, Bioshock and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. These are complete ports that spare no features from the originals. However, I found that the experience is not what I sought it out to be. I realised that these are games that require focus, since they rely on immersion. The only situation in which I can actually sit down to play them for any meaningful amount of time is when I'm at home on a weekend; in which case, why not just use a console or my computer, with vastly superior input devices and display quality?
ekianjo 12y ago
> Consoles have not generally been indie-friendly That's the least you can say... you need an official dev kit and those used to cost several thousands of dollars if not more.

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.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    > Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. I actually trace this to Diablo II and Torchlight. Yes, they aren't strictly rogue-likes—among other things they're realtime—but they raised excitement for the genre just the same.
    - barbs 12y ago
      I think Diablo and Torchlight were inspired by early roguelikes, but I wouldn't say the current wave of roguelikes were inspired by these games except maybe in terms of style (e.g. Binding of Isaac). FTL and Diablo 2 for example are quite different games.
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
    - Kurtz79 12y ago
      Roguelikes are defined by permadeath, quick runs and procedural generation. Diablo 2 and Torchlight have the latter, but they are quite old, and the resurgence of roguelikes is relatively recent. I believe it's just has to do with it being a very solid (and addictive) gameplay model, and one that fits much better indie games than AAA titles.
- codexon 12y ago
  I think we are headed for the dark ages of PC gaming. Before, the top AAA studios made games with mods in mind. This allowed massive genres like Dota and Counter-Strike to come into existence. Nowadays AAA studios see modders as leeches and try to cut them out of the game so they can sell DLC and skins to whales. You can see this happening everywhere. - No modding in Blizzard's new games. - No modding in Dota2. - CS:GO and TF2: Making 3rd party servers hard to find compared to official ones. - Minecraft declaring freemium servers to be illegal The indie games on Steam Greenlight don't make up for this. It is much harder to prove a concept by making a game from scratch. Most of them are quite shoddy and get abandoned after they receive a bunch of money from early access.
  - gavanwoolery 12y ago
    Some say it is the Golden Age (see MrMember's comment), some say the Dark Age. I say there is a bit of both, but it is getting so crowded with people trying to make a buck, vs. people trying to make good games, that it is easy to be pessimistic (I definitely am in many regards). There is not enough accountability on Early Access and Kickstarter, and this is magnified by the fact that most people are not good at judging a team's ability early on (see: YogVentures, etc).
    - codexon 12y ago
      Things are still rosy because most players are not tired of the genres (MOBA / CS) that grew from the last generation of being friendly to modders. It may take a while but I forsee people getting tired of getting milked for DLCs and skins, and the major studios won't have another genre like Dota or CS to copy because they screwed over modders.
  - bkurtz13 12y ago
    Actually, just as Warcraft allowed for modding which led to Dota, Starcraft 2 supports modding. So that spirit is still alive in some form at Blizzard.
    - codexon 12y ago

increment_i 12y ago

I agree. I think one of the worst things to happen to indie devs on mobile was the concept of the App Store(s) itself. When I open the App Store, my brain just...drifts off. Its a bunch of icons with little context. It's like looking at the rack of magazines and trinkets while you checkout at the grocery store. While Moore's Law marches on, I'm hoping the days of AAA titles for mobile are just around the corner. It's true - I suppose I'm not willing to pay even 0.99 for some generic platformer or cutesy puzzle game. I would be willing, however to pay 20+ dollars if someone could give me something close to say, Fallout 3 for my phone though.

nl 12y ago
I think one of the worst things to happen to indie devs on mobile was the concept of the App Store(s) itself. I'm old enough to remember mobile dev before the App Store(s). No matter how bad they are, they are thousands or times better than how it used to be. For example, typical returns to a developer back when you had to sell via a Telco was less than 30% of the price the consumer paid. And you felt lucky to get that 30% - that was a high point of the whole experience.
tvararu 12y ago
> I would be willing, however to pay 20+ dollars if someone could give me something close to say, Fallout 3 for my phone though. We're already there. You can play, today, on your iPhone and/or Android device: GTA San Andreas, Bioshock and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. These are complete ports that spare no features from the originals. However, I found that the experience is not what I sought it out to be. I realised that these are games that require focus, since they rely on immersion. The only situation in which I can actually sit down to play them for any meaningful amount of time is when I'm at home on a weekend; in which case, why not just use a console or my computer, with vastly superior input devices and display quality?

ekianjo 12y ago

> Consoles have not generally been indie-friendly That's the least you can say... you need an official dev kit and those used to cost several thousands of dollars if not more.