8:23 critical error - survivourship bias. When you choose most impactful games or the like, you are broadly selecting for success. If you want to look for why something succeeds or fails, you need both successes and failures, equally sampled. Otherwise you're just gonna come up with a justification for your hypothesis, not a validation of it, and it won't tell you why games that have failed actually failed. In my mind, there's any number of games which fulfil your criteria, or any given set of criteria, but which you will struggle to remember. There's also broadly two different kinds of success - a hit, an overwhelming success; and a nice little success which funds your next production but is not a hit. Hits coming from nowhere are, by their nature, rare, and in my mind, it's a lightning in a bottle, it's something you can't manufacture, you can merely try to avoid mistakes that may prevent it. What if there is a choice between a high-risk high-reward type of production, and low-risk low-reward, wouldn't you rather choose the latter? It's not gonna land you on the "most impactful" list of any kind, but it will hone your skills and establish you as a name that people recognise and maybe even trust.
An interesting note about "feeling off" - ive been hearing this camera shutter bleep sfx in this video a couple too many times and now my ears are hyper focused on it! (I will continue watching)
This is a good video, one thing you did not tuoch on was the need for honest feedback. Too many studios from Indie to AAA have either internal testing or family and friends. In both cases you will not get an accuruate picture of your project.
@caldex1557Capcom, Konami, Nintendo, Activision, EA and Ubisoft released game used retro pixel graphic 2d image scrolling before made into 3d game Singleplayer offline narrative experience in any action game genre like platformer and open world and has local multiplayer game just own device before time comes internet connection required to play game has account login instead of play co-op.
It think that's why the demo is so important for indies, as well as keeping the price low enough that it doesn't take much effort to give the full game a try (PS > For instance if a new indie game is 10 bucks but an established older game I don't have yet is also 10 bucks I'm most likely buying the older game, unless the indie game's gameplay in the demo is truly exceptional)
Palworld Terraria Disney Speedstorm minecraft were all indie games at one point and i always have to ask what kind of indie game did you make. A game that looks like 9/10 it's something i could of easily thrown together in rpgmaker you dont innovate gameplay you dont do anything with cinematic gameplay designs and nothing is done in rng design Before people are allowed to make pixel rpgs they have to play any final fantasy first
Also too many indie devs trying to make AAA games. Solo devs and Small Teams should play more successful small games and not games with huge dev teams, like Shelldiver, Loop Hero, etc.
Rocket league still confuses me because it was loudly mocked when it was first show off, “car soccer?!! How stupid!” Etc etc. I guess all that hate was still publicity. Still weird how big it became.
Interesting. I've always thought Rocket League had the single easiest pitch in games history: "It's football, but with cars." Enough said. It's understandable immediately and sounds like a lot of fun. The majority of people - whether they were casual or pro gamers - I've talked to about the game wanted to try it themselves. Maybe this might differ slightly for the US, but in Europe and a lot of other countries the HUGE popularity of football certainly helped as well.
Rocket league just like Track Mania, Elasto Mania are simple enough and fun enough. You can pick these type of games any time, they are short easy to learn and you can choose to compete or climb on difficulty level. No matter how many people hate them there will be huge player base. For example card games on the other hand huge time or money commitment.
The list of indies that are either upcoming, or not that old, I'm really interested in, AND are PC only titles, is probably over 100 games long, and if I include multiplarforms we are talking about like 130. I made it by looking at the Best Indie Games channel videos, and I stopped adding games after I realised that it was getting too long and I'll never get to play them all, considering I sometimes get addicted to one of them and drop like 50 to 200 hours, like with Ultrakill or Hero's Adventure. CRPs too. They are the most time consuming, and now Solasta 2 is looking awesome, and I'm also playing Slay The Spire 2 like probably anyone you know. It's not a matter of money. It's a matter of time. Your game could look awesome, and it may be awesome, but there are just too many great games to play. You get out of the AAA world and it's just... a lot. Suddently you start to realise that gaming isn't dying at all, and it's the complete opposite. On top of that, some times AAA games like Resident Evil Requiem come out, and I want to take advantadge of the PC I built for current gen games, or I want to play a multiplayer like CS 2 where I have over 3K hours. I think that it's no longer enough for indie games to just be "good". You have to be better than any other upcoming indie, or, fun as hell with friends, like Schedule 1, REPO, Peak, RV There Yet, etc. We are humans. We have limited time to do things, and I'm a programmer with a job that only requires me to be actually working for 2 to 3 hours a day.
fr spire is great game for sure , but also a greater time sink than it justifies , at 150+ hours in myself i feel sully satiated with it , having gotten as far as ascension 17 with the silent , so not even beating the game on the hardest difficulty with 1 character out of 4 (not including mod characters) but i would like to reccomend an indie game that's not just "good" but i would assert is the best indie game ever made which is also not a massive time comitment , that being Chrono Gear: Warden Of Time
Forgot some indie devs are Aholes who chase their potential fans\buyers away on the steam forums when they even slightly give constructive criticism even banning them for nothing.
Also the whole getting political thing. Just don't comment on it! Left or Right you will get hate if you get political. You may say, that you can also get hate for not being political but only deranged people listen to those opinions. A good game sells game regardless of political leanings.
When you look at movies for example, everything has already pretty much been thought of or done. So making something new and unique can be really hard to find. So the other route is trying to make something that's already been done but better, or different, which risks feeling stale. The gaming industry struggles with this even more because you are attempting to pull players away from their favorite game or their comfort zone. You are asking for hours and hours of their time and need to provide an experience that respects that. We're also fed up with being manipulated by these big companies so as soon as we get a whiff of that we are all out, so there's that. As for indie devs, we can feel the fire in their heart when that inspiration is strong and love is poured in. Something amazing will pull us away from the other stuff but you need to have a borderline OCD level of attention to how good every individual aspect is. "Good enough" is not good enough. That's felt when playing
I am always amused and bothered by the "everything has been done now" because it gets used in the same context when the medium is 1 year old, when it's 100 years old or 1000 years old. they use it when there are 100 games. when there are 10 000 games or a million billion games. if you don't have the knowledge of all there is, making absolute statements is obviously an exercise of stupidity. there is plenty films and games to be done that are significantly original in some shape or form. and when there isn't, nobody will know we reached that point for certain.
@001Responding to you is also an exercise in stupidity. I didn't say "there is no more new ideas". I've been following the gaming industry very closely for years so when you talk about knowledge of all there is, I'm closer than most people you'll come across. The point is that you can feel more of the games being made now, while some can claim to be unique, are just iterations and not new ideas. Crimson Desert coming out falls into that, so did Clair Obscur. Matter of fact if you were to list every game coming out this year, at least 70% of that will be iterations of already been done ideas. So I don't want to hear "nobody will know when we've reached that point for certain" cause there isn't a specific point. You don't have to be the frog getting cooked alive in boiling water to realize the temperature has been rising slowly the whole time, as much as you want to sit there defending the water around you
@gnarface3831you are correct. you responding to me is an exercise of stupidity indeed. since you are so ignorant you don't even understand how what you believe is knowledge of the industry is just an anecdote among any serious discussion. if you stop wasting your time arguing and go look up this topic in film, for example, music or any medium will work. but it's best the older the medium. just search on RUclips for "originality in film" or wtvr. consume enough of the content and maybe you will learn something. ps: I just love how your arguments defeat themselves and show how massive the ignorance is. go look at any given season of anime, where 70% of the works will be chasing the trend of the moment, and then realize any innovation or originality does not make sense for that business model while in OVAs it CAN be profitable. it's almost like trends of releasing works might reflect aspects of the business unrelated to the product's art details. where actually being original almost always ensures your financial failure for what should be obvious reasons but idiots like one I'm talking to feel they have mastered a subject while being utter Neanderthals that can even join the conversation table meaningfully.
One of my favorite twist in known stories is the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. - so yeah they can make new things, it's a shame they didn't continue that storyline Lots of indie devs listen to too much feedback and they dumb down their gamplay or divert from their original design just to please the masses, making generic slop and alienating their original support base so when the game comes out nobody promote it, the alpha and beta testers gone and the generic players not interested in a new generic game just an other drop in the ocean. Games in general should be much harder, not too hard, players should still see the light to the end of the tunnel. Duke Nukem, Max Payne, Tomb Raider 2013 all starts rough and even resets the situation halfway trough or even make it worst for the main character than the begining but we know we can pull it trough. WoW and WildStar are classic example, in WoW I was scared what happens when the caracter dies, in WildStar which suppose to be superior to WoW I felt like my character couldn't die, they tought everything trough, but made the game too easy and you can't adjust the difficulty level because it's an MMO.
The market is oversaturated with games, your game has no more space to live. Make games only if you really love the process and your life goal is to make the best games and genuinely care about the gamer even if you end up homeless. If you only want to make a clone and make a few bucks, forget about it ... do that on mobile android that is where people seem to tolerate more of the bullshit.
Money don't make magic mystic grand power expand peoples countries let alone suit up corporations legal steal peoples money without FTC involve attention madness diplomacy corporate speaking before Blender the open source 3d respectful peoples community behalf existence enthusiast simply Donate passively soft.
Although, I really love the explanation of your video. This is a very great and informative video that helps us gain a much better understanding of how to make great games, and one I already learned by now prior to this video. The most critical problem is on being able to properly execute it. My greatest weakness in this matter is timing. I have always struggled with this - not just with solo dev, but even when i use to rely on or trust teamwork for my own projects. Every experience I had with team projects has failed miserably in failure for Néotl Empire - with the arguable exception being Army Men III (which honestly just got lucky to a point, then lost luster even before its cancellation). I got a little more fortunate since I worked on the Jam Scrapz Collection, and much more fortunately critically and commercially since I worked on a solo dev game just for another studio (which I don't wish to name at this time due to some toxic people who will probably just defame it as a 'fetish' and terrorize me for it, despite it just following that ever-suggestive but not actually NSFW anime-like design formula). Regardless my experience on the suggestive movie sandbox game is what brought me to the conclusion that game dev for profit or even a living is just not a favorable pursuit for me. I am not against making commercial games but I rather just treat them as secondary or tertiary income. That way I can still enjoy making games for fun and not be demotivated from the experience. Apologies for any spam - it is not my intention to do that . My mind just gets loose thinking sometimes (a neurological disability matter). This will be my final independent response on this video.
Bro, i gotta tell you. You are very talented in making these videos. I've been watching and devving for a decade, and your videos always had me fully interested and always left me with some new knowledge. Anyway, imo you have a field you are good at, lean into it more!
14:18 eh, I don't think being constantly supported is what helped it to be successful, being successful is what allowed it to be constantly supported and therefore create a strong brand that allowed it to get even stronger.
Dude, your game is failing because it looks like low effort shovelware made using generic stock/ai assets. Like that trailer is absolute garbage, literally the first thing you see is a poorly made (you can see the edge of the map!) static scene with the particles loading in. How could you think that would be in anyway acceptable? And no, "Not being great artists" is NOT a excuse, there are plenty of popular games with "bad" art, not to mention there are plenty of art styles that basically anyone can make look good. You NEED to show that at least a bare minimum amount of effort was put into making the game look good, to show that you actually care about what your making and trying to sell. Not to mention that you also seem to suck at marketing the game, seeing as you can't even bother to link the game in the description.
Yeah everything about his game looks cheap and generic. A forgettable game without any worthwhile ideas even down to the generic name. Also that description for the game looks AI Generated at best. Trailer is literally just static characters standing around and a generic lion-man. Then the floaty combat with no impact and generic skinner box loot system of "number go up" stats. Years of effort for a game that seems to run at 24 fps is also insane. Nothing about that trailer looked good. No thanks, I'll stick to my backlog.
Great video! I'm working on a game as well and I am hoping I can hit all these pillars strong (or at least as strong as I can get them) I usually view "Model" as "Onboarding". Since the onboarding process is all about how a player hears about a game, how they download it, and their experience when they first start to play. So it can be further divided into those sections: hearing about the game, researching the game, obtaining the game, and beginning experiences.
Wow, this guy has over 100K RUclips subscribers and only has a single Steam review on his game after a year. The indie scene is rough. Respect to people who try anyway.
the reason I think some games doesn't get popular because of this reason -Too expensive for its worth -Lack of life in the game -Lack of flashiness -the pfp of their game is not eye catching (if its a indie game i often choose based on the pfp then I click to its store front) -The gameplay is boring and nothing new -Complex system shoving to you in the tutorial part rather than letting the player explore its skills -too long tutorial -lack of advertisement? this are the things that makes me play the game lol but I thinks their a tons of factors why games fail. loving your creation is not always going to be successful you need to pay attention to what people wants and don'ts
Most of the games I play are considered difficult for beginners. I crave complexity, like Pathfinder WotR and UnderRail (so many others, indie, AA and AAA). So not everyone is like you say in this video (gameplay-wise). I like more niche games that are deep in complexity. Shalow games don't engage me, despite their brand. To me, you described how to make a game that will sell well, but may be shalow as a puddle of water.
This made me think of RIFT, a game that had a tremendous amount of hype at launch, has died a quiet death and is barely played. It released in 2011, during the height of Cataclysm, which can also be the year where the MMO genre began to collapse in on itself. What ultimately hurt RIFT was a combination of its gameplay being way too similar to WoW's at the time (complete with two factions; one red and one blue). What made me dissuaded from considering it was it's god awful marketing. Trion Worlds decided that to market the game, they pretty much punched up, claiming the players, known as Ascended, were "Not in Azeroth anymore". A gameplay loop way too similar to WoW at a point where MMOs were in abundance and subsequently crashing with aggressive punching up marketing... the game _needed_ massive support to survive, and they didn't. By 2013, two years after launch, it went free to play, and by 2018, Trion Worlds was bought by Gamigo and subsequently disbanded. The game has been in "Maintenance Mode" since. RIFT is an example of "Wrong Place, Wrong Time". If they waited at least two, maybe four more years, they could've hooked players longing for WoW's "Golden Era".
Indeed, sometimes ppl get lucky and something happens. I think about it all the time with Among Us. They had disbanded afaik by the time it suddenly went viral, way after launch. What’s even funnier is I had wishlisted the game before launch(always enjoyed mafia-likes), somehow didn’t hear about the launch, then was reminded of it by a viral video that triggered this huge phenomenon. They had a good game, but essentially failed their launch. Then a confluence of quarantine and meme revived it. Maybe no amount of resources at launch or different approach would bridge that.
I saw that game you mentioned last year, but I didn't buy it because the art style isn't consistent. The 3D looks like multiple asset packs, and the 2D art looks like AI. Art doesn't always have to be amazing in a game, but it needs to be consistent.
17:22 Starfield struggled cause gameplay overarchingly was ass, with Bethesda not focusing on world building, story telling, or level design. It was just simply a bad game.
for indie games, Its not that deep (alt tho not that easy to pull of), games that succeed generally have a level of polish that matters in the right places, not just good and pretty visuals, but fluid and intuitive visuals that makes playing the game enjoyable and not a struggle, a lot of the devs give little to no attention to accessibility features, localization (you should localize your game to as much languages as possible from demo release), controller support... etc, all those add up to the sales, they act as multipliers. most games that succeed have enough content to keep people busy for at least enough time so they can pump the next batch of content (speaking for early access games), it doesn't have to be a lot of content, but well implemented systems that leverage replayability to extend the lifetime of the game long enough (don't you wonder why simulation and sandbox games are so successful when done right), and guess what, the most important part of every game is "fun" and how do you achieve that ? lots of playtesting, most devs focus on implementing the systems and testing if they work right, and not give it enough time and effort to balance such systems and adjust them to maximize fun, at the end of the day a well balanced game with little content is far better than a game with lots of content but unbalanced (as an example: some games have 10 weapons, but you only use 3 of them because the rest are weak, thus the game would feel like it only has 3 weapons). does the game have bugs ? because enough of them will detract people from playing it and recommending it ... etc, from my observations, a well made game is bound to succeed, the issue is how to optimize the game development process so its cheap enough for the team to survive and push forward, because most do not get that far, and here comes the role of marketing, which is to accelerate the success of the game to be sustainable, for me in a perfect scenario, I should make a game that is so good that it doesn't need any marketing, but at the same time do enough marketing to sell a crappy game. good luck to everyone reading this.
What Point game made by Indie just mostly 2d games, pixel graphic, turn based game and low poly stylized 3d game short gameplay long meant online connection required 😅. Not even meant just release mobile platform to play game after tested in PC and console.
If I knew how to make games I tell you, I got the ideas all lined up, but one of the talent, and I been trying, but I can’t get my mind around it, just doesn’t work for me
Big factors for buying indie games for me: 1. Is it a genre I like to play? (there are always exceptions where I buy outside my preferred genre but it is rare) 2. Does it look/feel unique? If not does it have enough twist to feel "new"? (no game needs to invent the wheel, sometimes it's a unique gameplay, sometimes a well written story, sometimes it's an unusual setting) 3. The gameplay looks fun in trailers/testing videos (I can't judge gameplay on trailers videos alone so gameplay is nr. 1 once it's bought.) 4. Is the price OK?)(depends on contend delivered, replayability, quality delived and fun I expect to have) 5. the demo was fun/ I liked it when a friend or streamer played it 6. I already got a game from the same developer that I like (the whole brand/developer thing becomes more important for dlc/addons/expansions/updates)
You said gameplay is the only non-negotiable part I will expand on that Gameplay= fun + problem solving fun- attracts general audience, that is highly dependant on strong marketing, either from the company or the gamers themselves. Problem solving- attracts hardcore gamers... the nerds, the autists, the introverts. And are key for building a strong core of the playerbase, and for word of mouth marketing. They are the ones with reputation of recommending good games to their friends and family.
Amy JRPG on steam struggle to sell well in the long run. It is fir a niche audience that is never meant for casuals. Stellar blade on Steam had 192k players peaked with 2m digital copies sold but it didn’t hit a huge success milestone as major casual titles.
I dunno man, Fallen Worlds looks pretty interesting too me. But personally I truly get why nowadays, Indie games is massive competitive market. It makes me feel intimidated to think of making my games someday. I'll take this advice for when I start tho!
AAA companies, also seem to get too involved with creating the indie games or they banhammer the games they deem as better. There are games that sell as niche, because they expect they're popular enough to sell a game. AVGN collection as well as AVGN 8-Bit. And his games were backed by retro studios.
the game space is so atomized into niches those that make you smile and play again and again are combo titles , mechanics from 3 games, style from 2, timing in market for the efforts, and lethargy in the market a game is in, throw in format as in platform and cost associated, and ultimately its the market its consumers choice and some burger joints are happy being solo shops they do ok they dont wanna be macdonalds ya feel me.
Another way to improve the brand pillar is to sign with a (good) publisher. They can bring a level of brand awareness and trust you don't have. When people see a game published by Devolver, they at the very least give it a second look
I think the Heroes of Newerth thing was more nuanced than you conveyed in the video. Actually, the gameplay of Heroes of Newerth was not good in comparison to the original DotA, because the feel of the game was just so drastically different compared to what it was trying to emulate that the DotA fanbase had issue with it. LoL was different in that it wasn't explicitly trying to be like DotA, but an alternative to DotA with an emphasis on making it such that every character could be played in a variety of ways and still maintain relevance even in the late-game. For example, having AP items for characters that scaled with Ability Power was a fairly foreign concept to DotA at the time as most Intellect-based things in DotA only boosted the mana pool of Heroes and not the amount of damage they did based on Intellect. Obviously, trying to explain that nuance in a video covering brand/etc is not easy, so it's understandable why you used your comparison, but I just wanted to chime in with my opinion on the matter as someone that saw the rise and fall of HoN and the rise of LoL.
1:34 I know you're building up to something, but it was hilarious to hear you say "It feels so hard to explain why these games just stand out and why others don't" and go from four screens of iconic aesthetics or unique approaches to gameplay to copies/heavily inspired of other games with bland graphics and unremarkable game design. I had a single look at Fallen Worlds and although I am heavily focused on co-op games I instantly thought "oh, not for me". Why another game of "fight endless enemies" in a diablo style when PoE2 is a thing? What is special and what's the flavour I would not get from choosing any other isometric arpg with better graphics, less generic evil monsters, and more varied gameplay? Not to be harsh as I can understand that making a game is a huge endeavour. But the start of your video felt so blind imo.
A game needs to look good. This is what makes people stop and look at your game's screenshots. The vibes, the art direction, the atmosphere, the world building. Not so much the writing but the one thing that tucks players into your magical realm. Once they are in, to make them stay you need good gameplay. I see so many indie games with 0 art direction and thats why most of them lack the visibility and therefore success. Your model explanation is correct but a game that looks good is easier to market. Minecraft for example has no graphic fidelity but its art direction fits perfectly for the advertised gameplay. Minecraft would not be as successful if it was cylinders instead of cubes. Think about that.
This is so true. You have 2 lines of description that people might read. The first few categories/genres and a few screenshots or a short snippet of video. Average reviews. Then they are gone if nothing grabbed them or it was recommended to them somehow.
@yurie2388 Most people dont even read. Steam user behaviors is a whole topic on itself. Capsule art for steam pages is rarely discussed and makes a huge chunk of catching a potential customers attention.
Great thoughtful video, mister. 😅 What so call Why good games fail is because rushed to released game unpolished before obsession market tactic patriotic loud announcement real life than online silent show narrative into online only to play game unlike games released 3d game low poly from N64 PS1 to PS2 GameCube Original Xbox before released port mobile games were not with online required to play game tryout from console port different version handled version like 2d or low graphic detail poly. Look at Spyro enter the dragonfly poor technical test gameplay issue left unchecked before make Spyro The Hero Tail before The Legend of Spyro Trilogy before remake classic Spyro trilogy. Many classic old games mid poly to high poly after made game low poly low graphic detail just released 1 game per year as per Name title of brand game like Ace Combat at same time released Resident Evil. Rushed released games if were not under with higher ups corporate suit up behavior than creative game director ran out idea management exhaust game team supervisor responsible game pipeline industry😊. Live service trend login game meant business in gaming as official position not real game Devs themselves care for interest game director real enjoyed own games anytime to released without major bugs glitches hyped up name turn out to be undocumented workers experienced scandal.
0:50 I ain't an expert but I think that number is closer to 90%. Even if an indie game is good in this age where everything tries to draw our attention good isnt good enough I watch your vids but never tried your game cuz I dont like rogue likes. If you ever make a game in the genre I like I will try it❤❤
starfield is not timing, its repetitive boring walking simulator gameplay, with rehashed enemeies. so u were wrong on that one. in othere words make a great game, and market it and u will be sucesfful.
With gameplay all simple: do good, be good - all good. Fun part is brand and model. Sometimes less is more. Like you said your target audience coop fans of diablo. You found your niche. But how to sell this project? How to show it them? This reminds me of 2 recent examples: Orbitals and Chrono Gear. Orbitals is Switch 2 exclusive. Why limit yourself when near Steam shines? Because thanks to good oresentation they gave free pass not even in Indie World, but in Nintendo Direct. In theory they limited their sales by one platform (yet I'm sure game will be released on Steam sooner or later), but yhey got big attention. GalaxyTrail's Freedom Planet was a hit. One of yhe best Sonic-like games. It WAS sonic fan game during early development, they rightfully decided game was too good to stay as free fan game. They created their own IP. Sequel wasn't that successful for many reasons (7 years of crunches is major one). Trying to make bigger and better and in the end sell wirse can destroy devs will. Yes, another example of smaller is better. Their games did sell even worse. Nobody heard of them at all. As result, "studio of one game", like band of one song. But stiry didn't end. One of the team began their own game, fan game based on kinda popular IP. It's fan game, dev didn't think to make of it new IP to sell it. Pure passion project. But something major happened. IP holders seeing big attention to fan games based on their IP (for example, HoloCure is in top 10 best rated Steam games on SteamDB) and decided to help them: they created "holo indie" - publishment that allows devs to monetize their fan games on Steam and Switch. I don't know what the cuts but they allow any pricing, even free. Like this Chrono Gear got attention, prestablished userbase, and was made only in 2 years qithout crunches. And yes, Freedom Planet fans didn't heard about their new (yet pretty successful) game.
I've noticed that almost all successful games have a distinctive art style so if players see them they'll immediately recognize them. Frankly many current games are just copies of each other and have no identity. For example Slay the Princess doesn't even have complex gameplay but if you watch it you'll instantly recognize it.
Gris reminds me of this, instantly recognizable, interesting but not groundbreaking gameplay. OSRS my most played game of all time is also instantly recognizable due to how iconic and unique it's art style is. Even more recognizable than Wow the bigger game because it's stuck to it's brand. We don't talk about rs3.
Meh. This is not why your game is off. Its always because the game is just not great. Mediocre. Nothing special. Uncreative. Why play a shitty souls like you and your friends made over 4 years instead of elden ring, nioh 3, lies of P etc. If you don't have an answer for this you will fail.
it's Legendary Hoplite from TripleBricksGames (aka IndieLab in the video credit) *just my two-cents if you feel curious, but they are currently developing 2 more games called Just a Shadow Game and WinMon too
The branding part is why I don't really give a sh*t anymore. I honestly don't care for branding to the point where I would rather do a 9-5 instead. After all; if you're making a business then you should enjoy what you're doing and if you don't, then refer to the alternative because you'll at least enjoy that more than branding. I wish money wasn't a concern so I could just make games. I don't care if people notice my games or not. I don't give a shit about "legacy", I just want to enjoy my life and I honestly just enjoy making games, not selling them. It's capitalism that demotivates me.
Thank your for this video, I really like you analysis. I think your game might be really good, but checking Steamdb, I see you had very few wishlists on launch and I also think the name of the game is pretty bad, as it is extremely generic. Launching with such a low following obviously translated in low sales. Hope your next game benefits from your youtube presence and you can build a brand!
Great video. Have been working on a game as a solo dev for 3-4 months in spare time. Guessing my grades would be moderate in gameplay, weak in brand, and moderate in model.
1. You own something 2. People want access to that thing 3. The model describes this process of generating $ from connecting the thing you own to the people who want it.
The model is to analyse the gameplay, brand and revenue model. If you have strong gameplay in your niche and a good brand with a monetisation model that does not push people away, you'll make decent sales.
7:05 - 7:45 MODEL is one of the worst described blanket term in this video which tries to sum up these terms 1. pricing 2. distribution 3. marketing Basically the guy screwed up and didn't want to speak about 5 pillars so he smashed up the last 3 to "1 pillar" the MODEL, which is pretty stupid because all three can make or brake the game too.
Randomly seeing your video. As a passionate gamer (with more than 4K games on steam) your game "Fallen Worlds" sadly doesn't appeal to me (at all) The graphical design looks like a random mobile game. I don't say good Art give good sales (it help but it's not enough) but here it's the opposite. I think pixel art can hide some bad art design sometimes, but 3D just reveal every weakness there. No hating, just my two cents.
Oh that's why your game failed, your list of the strongest games, The games you listed were not the strongest, they were the servivors, GTA is the live service that survived the ps3 gen, WOW survived the MMO boom, fortnight, overwatch, all of them limped to the end, people don't truly enjoy the games, they are to tired to ther ADDICTION, think about real games and not addictions E33, eldin ring, nier: automata
I feel as though it's based on the discoverability and presentation that is the main focus of the game doing well for its sales. When you first mentioned your game, I had no idea it existed and that's because there's too many games as it is to be diving into on a daily basis and it's very easy to miss some real gems from skipping it over due to the amount of time we wanna look into things.
I'm writing this comment only because I trust that you had a good idea, but this video is not great. With all possible respect, this is a Captain Obvious video. Games fail because they are either bad, have no appeal, or the business model can't sustain itself. Love your work, hope you guys will get success with your game.
Honest feedback, Your game looks like an unpolished demo. The first thing I noticed is the bland level design. It's all monotone with sudden changes to different materials to switch things up presumably? Your levels do not look like a finished game. The animation of your character doing a spin attack also looks like a placeholder. The trailer didn't answer "what do I do in this game" within the first 5-10 seconds. I was left wondering more than half way through the video. If I didn't have a special interest in understanding it (due to you and your video) I would have clicked off of it instantly. Even the opening scene of the trailer was slow and cryptic to a new player. It's like you're waiting for new players to leave so you can sell your game to existing players. Also the healthbars look cheap and placeholdery. I feel like the entire game is a WoW inspired Diablo ripoff, which is a market saturated by much bigger games already. Gameplay looked very generic and I saw Player dashes or something Spins Repeat Which did not look like fun to me... I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but I don't see anyone else giving their honest feelings, and you mentioned people give vague "something's wrong" when the "something" appears to be the gameplay/visual identity of your entire game. Also, take what I've said with a big grain of salt. I'm not your target demographic I think. I've only played WoW and BDO, I don't like moba games, I've never played Diablo, LoL, or others. But I can identify jank stank from a mile away when it comes to games.
It's a good analysis but you literally described a standard business model applied to a game. Nothing new. Also you overcomplicate it. Create a good game, pay Asmongold to play it. Boom, nailed it.
Are. You. Sure. Your. Game. Is. Actually. Good??? Like fr. fr fr. fr bruh . bruuuuh is it? is it fr? ya sure there buddy? lol. But yeah it's really hard to make something new and good.
Brands and trust are build on succes. Not the other way around. You are failing because your game is not good the gameplay is just not good. You are blind to reality. Its not fun. Vampire survivors gameplay is why they have succes. I think you never had any or listen to any honost feedback. Look at the intro of your game than go read vampire survivors intro. See the difference? What is the point of batteling endlessly against a immortal god? Is there a end goal? Reading that i think hmm why bother? Do you know why i should play it?
Everyone is looking for reasons why don't they make millions with games, but the real reason is way simpler than you think. Humans simply don't have enough time to play every great game on the market. It's not because the games are "bad", it's because we are not immortal beings living in a vacuum of space for eternity and trying to stave off our boredom. The last year goty "Expedition 33". Apparently a great game. I wanna play it, but still hasn't simply because I don't have time for it. Eventually I will get it, but no idea when. And you want people like me to play every single indie game on the market? Not gonna happen bro, no matter how good the game actually is. This is just a reality.
That is actually not accurate. Although, we do have limited time in our lives particularly as adults, there are those selected people who will find time for anything compromising even their own responsabilities. There are tons of those customers throughout the gaming world and if your game reaches one of them who loves it (good gameplay/model) recommends it to another and so, then games go viral. People who always have time for this exist, trust me.
1:50 This is wrong. Experts can't explain what they are doing any better than non-experts because their expertise has become subconscious. Only an "expert teacher" can adequately communicate ideas, and even then, the student has to be speaking the dialect as the teacher, or it won't work. Already getting a bad feeling about this video.
bro the entire video felt like a good game succeed because they are good, but still good game failes because they do, tell you something maybe this craft wasn't meant for you...just saying just saying
I have a huge problem with the title, YOU are not the one who decides if a game is good or not, the playerbase does. The whole pillar hypothesis falls apart with the first pillar the product, if the product is bad it will be bad if I give it for free, a bucket or hose with extra holes in it pretty bad even i it costs $ 0. There are 5 pillars in total in the video the guy just summed up the last 3 as "model" 1. product 2. brand 3.1. pricing 3.2. distribution 3.3. marketing Just imagine the black samurai as a non deciding factor. No advertising, but every streamer and their dog play the same game for a week, yeah sure buddy. BTW what you see succes stories on the internet not really succesful at all, the money they make ranges from 1 to 1/4 what they would make with regular job, what they do anyway next to the game development. The succes feeling comes from owning your own product, getting direct feedback and not just working in a 9-5 job, where you are not valued and the product what you make not yours.
As gamer the ability to try before I buy is essential in case of most new games. That means 1. have a demo and 2. Do. Not. Remove. The. Demo. Far too many games remove demos when the game releases or only have them available for a week during NextFest. This to me says one of two things: A. lack of confidence that your game has enough content for the full version to be worth the money. B. you're trying trick people into buying the game even if they wouldn't buy it if they could try it first. Even if your demo is "out of date" that doesn't mean it doesn't still have some value unless you have changed the game so much since release that even people who already bought and played your game might now not like it. Also as an indie dev you need to understand your "position" in the market. You're not an EA or Nintendo that can just ignore the negative sentiment and get to nickel and dime the player base. People turn to indie games for a more fair experience where we aren't being tricked into Skinner box style systems filled with FOMO. This means people give you more slack but it also means that lost trust is hard to regain.
your example of rocket league is lacking very important info, that it seems you don't have a clue about, which significantly impact conclusions and observations: - rocket league is a sequel game to the original made by the same studio - the original was on ps+ as well yes. and it has a lot to do with the success *of the sequel* - first game failed hard. just not so hard they couldn't try again. - correlation =\= causation. also, plainly, have you considered studying the very most basics of economy and marketing so that you don't over analyse gaming for days trying to discover and find what is established science for decades as if you just solved world hunger. for clarity, I end the video not thinking you have some kind of ill agenda, or that you are on a completely wrong path. your direction is good but, I guess you need better "gameplay" on the video.
0:50 - 70% is an understatement. Try 90%. Making a living is not even worth the trouble with game dev. Just get a lucrative job if you want money that badly folks. Gaming was always designed for passion and little else. This is one of the worse traps and crises about video games - too many people keep trying to turn a profit and make it their cash cow. Its rarely ever going to work and that rare chance its often never worth pursuing. Many learned this the hard way (including me). Doing this for free finally made me so happy for the first time in my life. Also take your time on the game dev. Never crunch on the development. The time I regretted working freelance... The few good faces (yours included in case you remember me, we had that interview or something) I have ever met in that entire time... I wish I could just rewind back in time, undo all of that (especially wasting years in a college scam), and pursue a more serious career to make a living. I think then, my old games would never been canceled. A better path and future would have existed. Not to be a Negative Nathan or Debbie Downer. I am just being very realistic here. We really must stop placing too much faith in gaming.
Too much AAA analysis, you should look at small indie games that make 100k+ that is more achievable for a solo dev and small teams. A Short Hike, Islets, Rusty's Retirement, Shelldiver ... A GREAT game sells, too many devs think their AVERAGE game is amazing when it is not. All the marketing/branding/model copying won't make a below average game sell. A decent game can easily make 20k+
Random developers: I'm gonna make my totally niche passion project game and expect millions of sales ill be the best developer of all time. pfft. True successful developers: I have this vision for a game I want to play I don't plan on it being successful no instead I just make the game because I want to maybe others will see it and feel and think the same maybe my game will meet that itch that something we all been looking for in this gaming market who knows either way I'm not in it for the money I just want to make a fun game that I myself want to play. THERE IS NO SECRET FORMULA! some people can make good games and others cannot. You can paint a tree but a talented gifted person can paint it better. Too many talentless people think there's a formula that anyone can be a successful game developer but this is False and proven to be false time and time again.
This video is all so confusing. You name "brand" as a pillar and then give examples of successful games that didn't have brand at launch (thank God, imagine if you had to be famous to publish a successful game). So it's not a pillar, just a booster, or a helper, like a crutch. Also I didn't get many examples of successful games with weak model from the video. Seems like gameplay and model, as you defined, are the keys to a successful games, as vague as that can be.
The problem is that gamers are gamers not reviewers. Most are morons that can describe de exact spawn pattern of diablo 2, but can't express into words what exactly they like or dislike about a product.
![Lp. Мастерская [47] • #61 САМЫЙ ПЕРВЫЙ [Тот, кто начал...] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xA0o5b1VNoU/mqdefault.jpg)
Americans explaining game dev marketing: Imagine a burger...
8:23 critical error - survivourship bias. When you choose most impactful games or the like, you are broadly selecting for success.
If you want to look for why something succeeds or fails, you need both successes and failures, equally sampled. Otherwise you're just gonna come up with a justification for your hypothesis, not a validation of it, and it won't tell you why games that have failed actually failed. In my mind, there's any number of games which fulfil your criteria, or any given set of criteria, but which you will struggle to remember.
There's also broadly two different kinds of success - a hit, an overwhelming success; and a nice little success which funds your next production but is not a hit. Hits coming from nowhere are, by their nature, rare, and in my mind, it's a lightning in a bottle, it's something you can't manufacture, you can merely try to avoid mistakes that may prevent it. What if there is a choice between a high-risk high-reward type of production, and low-risk low-reward, wouldn't you rather choose the latter? It's not gonna land you on the "most impactful" list of any kind, but it will hone your skills and establish you as a name that people recognise and maybe even trust.
An interesting note about "feeling off" - ive been hearing this camera shutter bleep sfx in this video a couple too many times and now my ears are hyper focused on it! (I will continue watching)
I literally clicked off because of it. And he won't get to the point 😂
This is a good video, one thing you did not tuoch on was the need for honest feedback. Too many studios from Indie to AAA have either internal testing or family and friends. In both cases you will not get an accuruate picture of your project.
True, since you don't want to damage your relationships.
@caldex1557Capcom, Konami, Nintendo, Activision, EA and Ubisoft released game used retro pixel graphic 2d image scrolling before made into 3d game Singleplayer offline narrative experience in any action game genre like platformer and open world and has local multiplayer game just own device before time comes internet connection required to play game has account login instead of play co-op.
This is why it's important to tell testers to say it how it is. Encourage blunt honesty. Toxic positivity is a killer.
It think that's why the demo is so important for indies, as well as keeping the price low enough that it doesn't take much effort to give the full game a try
(PS > For instance if a new indie game is 10 bucks but an established older game I don't have yet is also 10 bucks I'm most likely buying the older game, unless the indie game's gameplay in the demo is truly exceptional)
Palworld Terraria Disney Speedstorm minecraft were all indie games at one point and i always have to ask what kind of indie game did you make.
A game that looks like 9/10 it's something i could of easily thrown together in rpgmaker you dont innovate gameplay you dont do anything with cinematic gameplay designs and nothing is done in rng design Before people are allowed to make pixel rpgs they have to play any final fantasy first
So you made a recipe how to make an _INDIE SLOP_ . Kudos to you ! 😀
Too many people that don't play games making games. And it shows.
Also too many indie devs trying to make AAA games. Solo devs and Small Teams should play more successful small games and not games with huge dev teams, like Shelldiver, Loop Hero, etc.
Rocket league still confuses me because it was loudly mocked when it was first show off, “car soccer?!! How stupid!” Etc etc. I guess all that hate was still publicity. Still weird how big it became.
Interesting. I've always thought Rocket League had the single easiest pitch in games history: "It's football, but with cars." Enough said.
It's understandable immediately and sounds like a lot of fun. The majority of people - whether they were casual or pro gamers - I've talked to about the game wanted to try it themselves.
Maybe this might differ slightly for the US, but in Europe and a lot of other countries the HUGE popularity of football certainly helped as well.
Rocket league just like Track Mania, Elasto Mania are simple enough and fun enough. You can pick these type of games any time, they are short easy to learn and you can choose to compete or climb on difficulty level. No matter how many people hate them there will be huge player base. For example card games on the other hand huge time or money commitment.
bro just yappin
The list of indies that are either upcoming, or not that old, I'm really interested in, AND are PC only titles, is probably over 100 games long, and if I include multiplarforms we are talking about like 130. I made it by looking at the Best Indie Games channel videos, and I stopped adding games after I realised that it was getting too long and I'll never get to play them all, considering I sometimes get addicted to one of them and drop like 50 to 200 hours, like with Ultrakill or Hero's Adventure. CRPs too. They are the most time consuming, and now Solasta 2 is looking awesome, and I'm also playing Slay The Spire 2 like probably anyone you know.
It's not a matter of money. It's a matter of time. Your game could look awesome, and it may be awesome, but there are just too many great games to play. You get out of the AAA world and it's just... a lot. Suddently you start to realise that gaming isn't dying at all, and it's the complete opposite. On top of that, some times AAA games like Resident Evil Requiem come out, and I want to take advantadge of the PC I built for current gen games, or I want to play a multiplayer like CS 2 where I have over 3K hours. I think that it's no longer enough for indie games to just be "good". You have to be better than any other upcoming indie, or, fun as hell with friends, like Schedule 1, REPO, Peak, RV There Yet, etc. We are humans. We have limited time to do things, and I'm a programmer with a job that only requires me to be actually working for 2 to 3 hours a day.
fr
spire is great game for sure , but also a greater time sink than it justifies , at 150+ hours in myself i feel sully satiated with it , having gotten as far as ascension 17 with the silent , so not even beating the game on the hardest difficulty with 1 character out of 4 (not including mod characters)
but i would like to reccomend an indie game that's not just "good" but i would assert is the best indie game ever made which is also not a massive time comitment , that being Chrono Gear: Warden Of Time
Forgot some indie devs are Aholes who chase their potential fans\buyers away on the steam forums when they even slightly give constructive criticism even banning them for nothing.
Also the whole getting political thing. Just don't comment on it! Left or Right you will get hate if you get political. You may say, that you can also get hate for not being political but only deranged people listen to those opinions. A good game sells game regardless of political leanings.
You should try reading Chris Zukowski's blog on indie game marketing
When you look at movies for example, everything has already pretty much been thought of or done. So making something new and unique can be really hard to find. So the other route is trying to make something that's already been done but better, or different, which risks feeling stale.
The gaming industry struggles with this even more because you are attempting to pull players away from their favorite game or their comfort zone. You are asking for hours and hours of their time and need to provide an experience that respects that.
We're also fed up with being manipulated by these big companies so as soon as we get a whiff of that we are all out, so there's that.
As for indie devs, we can feel the fire in their heart when that inspiration is strong and love is poured in. Something amazing will pull us away from the other stuff but you need to have a borderline OCD level of attention to how good every individual aspect is. "Good enough" is not good enough. That's felt when playing
I am always amused and bothered by the "everything has been done now" because it gets used in the same context when the medium is 1 year old, when it's 100 years old or 1000 years old. they use it when there are 100 games. when there are 10 000 games or a million billion games.
if you don't have the knowledge of all there is, making absolute statements is obviously an exercise of stupidity.
there is plenty films and games to be done that are significantly original in some shape or form. and when there isn't, nobody will know we reached that point for certain.
@001Responding to you is also an exercise in stupidity. I didn't say "there is no more new ideas". I've been following the gaming industry very closely for years so when you talk about knowledge of all there is, I'm closer than most people you'll come across. The point is that you can feel more of the games being made now, while some can claim to be unique, are just iterations and not new ideas. Crimson Desert coming out falls into that, so did Clair Obscur. Matter of fact if you were to list every game coming out this year, at least 70% of that will be iterations of already been done ideas.
So I don't want to hear "nobody will know when we've reached that point for certain" cause there isn't a specific point. You don't have to be the frog getting cooked alive in boiling water to realize the temperature has been rising slowly the whole time, as much as you want to sit there defending the water around you
@gnarface3831you are correct. you responding to me is an exercise of stupidity indeed. since you are so ignorant you don't even understand how what you believe is knowledge of the industry is just an anecdote among any serious discussion.
if you stop wasting your time arguing and go look up this topic in film, for example, music or any medium will work. but it's best the older the medium. just search on RUclips for "originality in film" or wtvr. consume enough of the content and maybe you will learn something.
ps: I just love how your arguments defeat themselves and show how massive the ignorance is. go look at any given season of anime, where 70% of the works will be chasing the trend of the moment, and then realize any innovation or originality does not make sense for that business model while in OVAs it CAN be profitable. it's almost like trends of releasing works might reflect aspects of the business unrelated to the product's art details. where actually being original almost always ensures your financial failure for what should be obvious reasons but idiots like one I'm talking to feel they have mastered a subject while being utter Neanderthals that can even join the conversation table meaningfully.
One of my favorite twist in known stories is the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. - so yeah they can make new things, it's a shame they didn't continue that storyline
Lots of indie devs listen to too much feedback and they dumb down their gamplay or divert from their original design just to please the masses, making generic slop and alienating their original support base so when the game comes out nobody promote it, the alpha and beta testers gone and the generic players not interested in a new generic game just an other drop in the ocean.
Games in general should be much harder, not too hard, players should still see the light to the end of the tunnel. Duke Nukem, Max Payne, Tomb Raider 2013 all starts rough and even resets the situation halfway trough or even make it worst for the main character than the begining but we know we can pull it trough.
WoW and WildStar are classic example, in WoW I was scared what happens when the caracter dies, in WildStar which suppose to be superior to WoW I felt like my character couldn't die, they tought everything trough, but made the game too easy and you can't adjust the difficulty level because it's an MMO.
Not everything has been done.
The market is oversaturated with games, your game has no more space to live. Make games only if you really love the process and your life goal is to make the best games and genuinely care about the gamer even if you end up homeless. If you only want to make a clone and make a few bucks, forget about it ... do that on mobile android that is where people seem to tolerate more of the bullshit.
Didn't know Ted Lasso had such a great RUclips channel. That's an incredible video.
I've accepted this reality and I simply make games because I love the process. I go in full in knowing I'll lose money doing this.
Money don't make magic mystic grand power expand peoples countries let alone suit up corporations legal steal peoples money without FTC involve attention madness diplomacy corporate speaking before Blender the open source 3d respectful peoples community behalf existence enthusiast simply Donate passively soft.
Although, I really love the explanation of your video. This is a very great and informative video that helps us gain a much better understanding of how to make great games, and one I already learned by now prior to this video. The most critical problem is on being able to properly execute it. My greatest weakness in this matter is timing. I have always struggled with this - not just with solo dev, but even when i use to rely on or trust teamwork for my own projects. Every experience I had with team projects has failed miserably in failure for Néotl Empire - with the arguable exception being Army Men III (which honestly just got lucky to a point, then lost luster even before its cancellation).
I got a little more fortunate since I worked on the Jam Scrapz Collection, and much more fortunately critically and commercially since I worked on a solo dev game just for another studio (which I don't wish to name at this time due to some toxic people who will probably just defame it as a 'fetish' and terrorize me for it, despite it just following that ever-suggestive but not actually NSFW anime-like design formula).
Regardless my experience on the suggestive movie sandbox game is what brought me to the conclusion that game dev for profit or even a living is just not a favorable pursuit for me. I am not against making commercial games but I rather just treat them as secondary or tertiary income. That way I can still enjoy making games for fun and not be demotivated from the experience.
Apologies for any spam - it is not my intention to do that . My mind just gets loose thinking sometimes (a neurological disability matter). This will be my final independent response on this video.
Bro, i gotta tell you. You are very talented in making these videos. I've been watching and devving for a decade, and your videos always had me fully interested and always left me with some new knowledge. Anyway, imo you have a field you are good at, lean into it more!
This video is bible for what games to make and how to make. You can code or do art, but to make a successful game you need this video
14:18 eh, I don't think being constantly supported is what helped it to be successful, being successful is what allowed it to be constantly supported and therefore create a strong brand that allowed it to get even stronger.
Dude, your game is failing because it looks like low effort shovelware made using generic stock/ai assets. Like that trailer is absolute garbage, literally the first thing you see is a poorly made (you can see the edge of the map!) static scene with the particles loading in. How could you think that would be in anyway acceptable?
And no, "Not being great artists" is NOT a excuse, there are plenty of popular games with "bad" art, not to mention there are plenty of art styles that basically anyone can make look good. You NEED to show that at least a bare minimum amount of effort was put into making the game look good, to show that you actually care about what your making and trying to sell.
Not to mention that you also seem to suck at marketing the game, seeing as you can't even bother to link the game in the description.
Yeah everything about his game looks cheap and generic. A forgettable game without any worthwhile ideas even down to the generic name. Also that description for the game looks AI Generated at best. Trailer is literally just static characters standing around and a generic lion-man. Then the floaty combat with no impact and generic skinner box loot system of "number go up" stats.
Years of effort for a game that seems to run at 24 fps is also insane. Nothing about that trailer looked good. No thanks, I'll stick to my backlog.
Great video! I'm working on a game as well and I am hoping I can hit all these pillars strong (or at least as strong as I can get them)
I usually view "Model" as "Onboarding". Since the onboarding process is all about how a player hears about a game, how they download it, and their experience when they first start to play. So it can be further divided into those sections: hearing about the game, researching the game, obtaining the game, and beginning experiences.
i really like ur mustache
Thanks for the video. I’m considering getting into game dev again. Tried about 25 years ago and it wasn’t great timing.
Wow, this guy has over 100K RUclips subscribers and only has a single Steam review on his game after a year.
The indie scene is rough. Respect to people who try anyway.
You dont need to be a good game developer to get on game dev youtube evidently
It's a REALLY bad game, it's about as corporate slop as you can get
the reason I think some games doesn't get popular because of this reason
-Too expensive for its worth
-Lack of life in the game
-Lack of flashiness
-the pfp of their game is not eye catching (if its a indie game i often choose based on the pfp then I click to its store front)
-The gameplay is boring and nothing new
-Complex system shoving to you in the tutorial part rather than letting the player explore its skills
-too long tutorial
-lack of advertisement?
this are the things that makes me play the game lol but I thinks their a tons of factors why games fail. loving your creation is not always going to be successful you need to pay attention to what people wants and don'ts
Most of the games I play are considered difficult for beginners. I crave complexity, like Pathfinder WotR and UnderRail (so many others, indie, AA and AAA). So not everyone is like you say in this video (gameplay-wise). I like more niche games that are deep in complexity. Shalow games don't engage me, despite their brand.
To me, you described how to make a game that will sell well, but may be shalow as a puddle of water.
This made me think of RIFT, a game that had a tremendous amount of hype at launch, has died a quiet death and is barely played. It released in 2011, during the height of Cataclysm, which can also be the year where the MMO genre began to collapse in on itself. What ultimately hurt RIFT was a combination of its gameplay being way too similar to WoW's at the time (complete with two factions; one red and one blue). What made me dissuaded from considering it was it's god awful marketing. Trion Worlds decided that to market the game, they pretty much punched up, claiming the players, known as Ascended, were "Not in Azeroth anymore". A gameplay loop way too similar to WoW at a point where MMOs were in abundance and subsequently crashing with aggressive punching up marketing... the game _needed_ massive support to survive, and they didn't. By 2013, two years after launch, it went free to play, and by 2018, Trion Worlds was bought by Gamigo and subsequently disbanded. The game has been in "Maintenance Mode" since.
RIFT is an example of "Wrong Place, Wrong Time". If they waited at least two, maybe four more years, they could've hooked players longing for WoW's "Golden Era".
Indeed, sometimes ppl get lucky and something happens. I think about it all the time with Among Us. They had disbanded afaik by the time it suddenly went viral, way after launch. What’s even funnier is I had wishlisted the game before launch(always enjoyed mafia-likes), somehow didn’t hear about the launch, then was reminded of it by a viral video that triggered this huge phenomenon.
They had a good game, but essentially failed their launch. Then a confluence of quarantine and meme revived it. Maybe no amount of resources at launch or different approach would bridge that.
Saturation. There are only a certain amount of eyeballs and wallets. Steam has what, 120k-ish games released a year which is an insane stat.
I saw that game you mentioned last year, but I didn't buy it because the art style isn't consistent. The 3D looks like multiple asset packs, and the 2D art looks like AI. Art doesn't always have to be amazing in a game, but it needs to be consistent.
17:22 Starfield struggled cause gameplay overarchingly was ass, with Bethesda not focusing on world building, story telling, or level design. It was just simply a bad game.
for indie games, Its not that deep (alt tho not that easy to pull of), games that succeed generally have a level of polish that matters in the right places, not just good and pretty visuals, but fluid and intuitive visuals that makes playing the game enjoyable and not a struggle, a lot of the devs give little to no attention to accessibility features, localization (you should localize your game to as much languages as possible from demo release), controller support... etc, all those add up to the sales, they act as multipliers. most games that succeed have enough content to keep people busy for at least enough time so they can pump the next batch of content (speaking for early access games), it doesn't have to be a lot of content, but well implemented systems that leverage replayability to extend the lifetime of the game long enough (don't you wonder why simulation and sandbox games are so successful when done right), and guess what, the most important part of every game is "fun" and how do you achieve that ? lots of playtesting, most devs focus on implementing the systems and testing if they work right, and not give it enough time and effort to balance such systems and adjust them to maximize fun, at the end of the day a well balanced game with little content is far better than a game with lots of content but unbalanced (as an example: some games have 10 weapons, but you only use 3 of them because the rest are weak, thus the game would feel like it only has 3 weapons). does the game have bugs ? because enough of them will detract people from playing it and recommending it ... etc, from my observations, a well made game is bound to succeed, the issue is how to optimize the game development process so its cheap enough for the team to survive and push forward, because most do not get that far, and here comes the role of marketing, which is to accelerate the success of the game to be sustainable, for me in a perfect scenario, I should make a game that is so good that it doesn't need any marketing, but at the same time do enough marketing to sell a crappy game. good luck to everyone reading this.
What Point game made by Indie just mostly 2d games, pixel graphic, turn based game and low poly stylized 3d game short gameplay long meant online connection required 😅. Not even meant just release mobile platform to play game after tested in PC and console.
plz use paragraphs
There's so much more competition nowadays. Some games are amazing and would have sold great 15 years ago, but barely get any visibility now.
Awesome video, thank you!
Амонг ас лежал на дне 2 года и воскрес исключительно по причине случайного стрима, а не благодаря хитроумной схеме монетизации
Also somehow I get a Deja-Vu feeling from this video. Didn't you made a similar video like this before?
You gotta make a hollow knight put years and dedication my brother you got this
If I knew how to make games I tell you, I got the ideas all lined up, but one of the talent, and I been trying, but I can’t get my mind around it, just doesn’t work for me
Big factors for buying indie games for me:
1. Is it a genre I like to play? (there are always exceptions where I buy outside my preferred genre but it is rare)
2. Does it look/feel unique? If not does it have enough twist to feel "new"? (no game needs to invent the wheel, sometimes it's a unique gameplay, sometimes a well written story, sometimes it's an unusual setting)
3. The gameplay looks fun in trailers/testing videos (I can't judge gameplay on trailers videos alone so gameplay is nr. 1 once it's bought.)
4. Is the price OK?)(depends on contend delivered, replayability, quality delived and fun I expect to have)
5. the demo was fun/ I liked it when a friend or streamer played it
6. I already got a game from the same developer that I like (the whole brand/developer thing becomes more important for dlc/addons/expansions/updates)
You said gameplay is the only non-negotiable part
I will expand on that
Gameplay= fun + problem solving
fun- attracts general audience, that is highly dependant on strong marketing, either from the company or the gamers themselves.
Problem solving- attracts hardcore gamers... the nerds, the autists, the introverts. And are key for building a strong core of the playerbase, and for word of mouth marketing. They are the ones with reputation of recommending good games to their friends and family.
Amy JRPG on steam struggle to sell well in the long run. It is fir a niche audience that is never meant for casuals.
Stellar blade on Steam had 192k players peaked with 2m digital copies sold but it didn’t hit a huge success milestone as major casual titles.
The art of your game is very reminiscent of old league of Legends
I dunno man, Fallen Worlds looks pretty interesting too me. But personally I truly get why nowadays, Indie games is massive competitive market. It makes me feel intimidated to think of making my games someday. I'll take this advice for when I start tho!
AAA companies, also seem to get too involved with creating the indie games or they banhammer the games they deem as better. There are games that sell as niche, because they expect they're popular enough to sell a game. AVGN collection as well as AVGN 8-Bit. And his games were backed by retro studios.
the game space is so atomized into niches those that make you smile and play again and again are combo titles , mechanics from 3 games, style from 2, timing in market for the efforts, and lethargy in the market a game is in, throw in format as in platform and cost associated, and ultimately its the market its consumers choice and some burger joints are happy being solo shops they do ok they dont wanna be macdonalds ya feel me.
ya hear that bungie !?great video !
Another way to improve the brand pillar is to sign with a (good) publisher. They can bring a level of brand awareness and trust you don't have. When people see a game published by Devolver, they at the very least give it a second look
100%
I think the Heroes of Newerth thing was more nuanced than you conveyed in the video.
Actually, the gameplay of Heroes of Newerth was not good in comparison to the original DotA, because the feel of the game was just so drastically different compared to what it was trying to emulate that the DotA fanbase had issue with it.
LoL was different in that it wasn't explicitly trying to be like DotA, but an alternative to DotA with an emphasis on making it such that every character could be played in a variety of ways and still maintain relevance even in the late-game. For example, having AP items for characters that scaled with Ability Power was a fairly foreign concept to DotA at the time as most Intellect-based things in DotA only boosted the mana pool of Heroes and not the amount of damage they did based on Intellect.
Obviously, trying to explain that nuance in a video covering brand/etc is not easy, so it's understandable why you used your comparison, but I just wanted to chime in with my opinion on the matter as someone that saw the rise and fall of HoN and the rise of LoL.
Agreed, HoN was squeezed between DotA and Dota 2. Never killed the original and the sequel killed them.
Lol ur not slick. I see you building a brand with your honest and comprehensive analysis, even on ur own game.
1:34 I know you're building up to something, but it was hilarious to hear you say "It feels so hard to explain why these games just stand out and why others don't" and go from four screens of iconic aesthetics or unique approaches to gameplay to copies/heavily inspired of other games with bland graphics and unremarkable game design. I had a single look at Fallen Worlds and although I am heavily focused on co-op games I instantly thought "oh, not for me". Why another game of "fight endless enemies" in a diablo style when PoE2 is a thing? What is special and what's the flavour I would not get from choosing any other isometric arpg with better graphics, less generic evil monsters, and more varied gameplay? Not to be harsh as I can understand that making a game is a huge endeavour. But the start of your video felt so blind imo.
A game needs to look good. This is what makes people stop and look at your game's screenshots.
The vibes, the art direction, the atmosphere, the world building. Not so much the writing but the one thing that tucks players into your magical realm.
Once they are in, to make them stay you need good gameplay. I see so many indie games with 0 art direction and thats why most of them lack the visibility
and therefore success. Your model explanation is correct but a game that looks good is easier to market. Minecraft for example has no graphic
fidelity but its art direction fits perfectly for the advertised gameplay. Minecraft would not be as successful if it was cylinders instead of cubes. Think about that.
This is so true. You have 2 lines of description that people might read. The first few categories/genres and a few screenshots or a short snippet of video. Average reviews. Then they are gone if nothing grabbed them or it was recommended to them somehow.
@yurie2388 Most people dont even read. Steam user behaviors is a whole topic on itself. Capsule art for steam pages is rarely discussed and makes a huge chunk of catching a potential customers attention.
You are talking about indie games and branding for investment. Those to dont mix
Great thoughtful video, mister. 😅
What so call Why good games fail is because rushed to released game unpolished before obsession market tactic patriotic loud announcement real life than online silent show narrative into online only to play game unlike games released 3d game low poly from N64 PS1 to PS2 GameCube Original Xbox before released port mobile games were not with online required to play game tryout from console port different version handled version like 2d or low graphic detail poly. Look at Spyro enter the dragonfly poor technical test gameplay issue left unchecked before make Spyro The Hero Tail before The Legend of Spyro Trilogy before remake classic Spyro trilogy. Many classic old games mid poly to high poly after made game low poly low graphic detail just released 1 game per year as per Name title of brand game like Ace Combat at same time released Resident Evil. Rushed released games if were not under with higher ups corporate suit up behavior than creative game director ran out idea management exhaust game team supervisor responsible game pipeline industry😊.
Live service trend login game meant business in gaming as official position not real game Devs themselves care for interest game director real enjoyed own games anytime to released without major bugs glitches hyped up name turn out to be undocumented workers experienced scandal.
0:50 I ain't an expert but I think that number is closer to 90%.
Even if an indie game is good in this age where everything tries to draw our attention good isnt good enough
I watch your vids but never tried your game cuz I dont like rogue likes. If you ever make a game in the genre I like I will try it❤❤
starfield is not timing, its repetitive boring walking simulator gameplay, with rehashed enemeies. so u were wrong on that one. in othere words make a great game, and market it and u will be sucesfful.
With gameplay all simple: do good, be good - all good.
Fun part is brand and model.
Sometimes less is more. Like you said your target audience coop fans of diablo. You found your niche. But how to sell this project? How to show it them?
This reminds me of 2 recent examples: Orbitals and Chrono Gear.
Orbitals is Switch 2 exclusive. Why limit yourself when near Steam shines? Because thanks to good oresentation they gave free pass not even in Indie World, but in Nintendo Direct. In theory they limited their sales by one platform (yet I'm sure game will be released on Steam sooner or later), but yhey got big attention.
GalaxyTrail's Freedom Planet was a hit. One of yhe best Sonic-like games. It WAS sonic fan game during early development, they rightfully decided game was too good to stay as free fan game. They created their own IP. Sequel wasn't that successful for many reasons (7 years of crunches is major one). Trying to make bigger and better and in the end sell wirse can destroy devs will. Yes, another example of smaller is better.
Their games did sell even worse. Nobody heard of them at all. As result, "studio of one game", like band of one song.
But stiry didn't end. One of the team began their own game, fan game based on kinda popular IP. It's fan game, dev didn't think to make of it new IP to sell it. Pure passion project. But something major happened. IP holders seeing big attention to fan games based on their IP (for example, HoloCure is in top 10 best rated Steam games on SteamDB) and decided to help them: they created "holo indie" - publishment that allows devs to monetize their fan games on Steam and Switch. I don't know what the cuts but they allow any pricing, even free.
Like this Chrono Gear got attention, prestablished userbase, and was made only in 2 years qithout crunches. And yes, Freedom Planet fans didn't heard about their new (yet pretty successful) game.
I've noticed that almost all successful games have a distinctive art style so if players see them they'll immediately recognize them. Frankly many current games are just copies of each other and have no identity. For example Slay the Princess doesn't even have complex gameplay but if you watch it you'll instantly recognize it.
Gris reminds me of this, instantly recognizable, interesting but not groundbreaking gameplay.
OSRS my most played game of all time is also instantly recognizable due to how iconic and unique it's art style is. Even more recognizable than Wow the bigger game because it's stuck to it's brand. We don't talk about rs3.
Meh. This is not why your game is off.
Its always because the game is just not great.
Mediocre. Nothing special. Uncreative.
Why play a shitty souls like you and your friends made over 4 years instead of elden ring, nioh 3, lies of P etc.
If you don't have an answer for this you will fail.
McDonald's movie was pretty interesting.
What is the game in the first few seconds ? Cannot find it
it's Legendary Hoplite from TripleBricksGames (aka IndieLab in the video credit)
*just my two-cents if you feel curious, but they are currently developing 2 more games called Just a Shadow Game and WinMon too
@LittleLunaKitsathank you I'll check it out :)
Please work on microphone placement. The plosives were very distracting.
The branding part is why I don't really give a sh*t anymore. I honestly don't care for branding to the point where I would rather do a 9-5 instead. After all; if you're making a business then you should enjoy what you're doing and if you don't, then refer to the alternative because you'll at least enjoy that more than branding. I wish money wasn't a concern so I could just make games. I don't care if people notice my games or not. I don't give a shit about "legacy", I just want to enjoy my life and I honestly just enjoy making games, not selling them. It's capitalism that demotivates me.
Thank your for this video, I really like you analysis.
I think your game might be really good, but checking Steamdb, I see you had very few wishlists on launch and I also think the name of the game is pretty bad, as it is extremely generic. Launching with such a low following obviously translated in low sales.
Hope your next game benefits from your youtube presence and you can build a brand!
Great video. Have been working on a game as a solo dev for 3-4 months in spare time. Guessing my grades would be moderate in gameplay, weak in brand, and moderate in model.
still confused. what is model?
How to make money and what kind of games do you make.
basically accessibility to the game, how easy is it to actually get there
1. You own something
2. People want access to that thing
3. The model describes this process of generating $ from connecting the thing you own to the people who want it.
The model is to analyse the gameplay, brand and revenue model.
If you have strong gameplay in your niche and a good brand with a monetisation model that does not push people away, you'll make decent sales.
7:05 - 7:45 MODEL is one of the worst described blanket term in this video which tries to sum up these terms
1. pricing
2. distribution
3. marketing
Basically the guy screwed up and didn't want to speak about 5 pillars so he smashed up the last 3 to "1 pillar" the MODEL, which is pretty stupid because all three can make or brake the game too.
What kills most games for me are games with agendas. I Just to play the game, please!
That‘s why demo was and is important to test if the game works and what needs to be optimized, but nobody cares anymore, greed is their demise…👎🏻😁😂
Randomly seeing your video.
As a passionate gamer (with more than 4K games on steam) your game "Fallen Worlds" sadly doesn't appeal to me (at all)
The graphical design looks like a random mobile game. I don't say good Art give good sales (it help but it's not enough) but here it's the opposite.
I think pixel art can hide some bad art design sometimes, but 3D just reveal every weakness there.
No hating, just my two cents.
Soooo basically just make good games lol. Already knew that
fallen wolrds just looks like ai slop
Your game looks amazing im going to go find it and play it
This is an extremely insightful video. We need more content like this.
Americans live inside a simulation xD
Oh that's why your game failed, your list of the strongest games,
The games you listed were not the strongest, they were the servivors, GTA is the live service that survived the ps3 gen, WOW survived the MMO boom, fortnight, overwatch, all of them limped to the end, people don't truly enjoy the games, they are to tired to ther ADDICTION, think about real games and not addictions E33, eldin ring, nier: automata
10/10 video sir🤝
I feel as though it's based on the discoverability and presentation that is the main focus of the game doing well for its sales. When you first mentioned your game, I had no idea it existed and that's because there's too many games as it is to be diving into on a daily basis and it's very easy to miss some real gems from skipping it over due to the amount of time we wanna look into things.
Last!
in a shortcut bro made league but rouge like and doesnt know why noone wants it
I'm writing this comment only because I trust that you had a good idea, but this video is not great.
With all possible respect, this is a Captain Obvious video. Games fail because they are either bad, have no appeal, or the business model can't sustain itself.
Love your work, hope you guys will get success with your game.
Honest feedback, Your game looks like an unpolished demo.
The first thing I noticed is the bland level design. It's all monotone with sudden changes to different materials to switch things up presumably? Your levels do not look like a finished game.
The animation of your character doing a spin attack also looks like a placeholder.
The trailer didn't answer "what do I do in this game" within the first 5-10 seconds. I was left wondering more than half way through the video. If I didn't have a special interest in understanding it (due to you and your video) I would have clicked off of it instantly. Even the opening scene of the trailer was slow and cryptic to a new player. It's like you're waiting for new players to leave so you can sell your game to existing players.
Also the healthbars look cheap and placeholdery. I feel like the entire game is a WoW inspired Diablo ripoff, which is a market saturated by much bigger games already.
Gameplay looked very generic and I saw
Player dashes or something
Spins
Repeat
Which did not look like fun to me... I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but I don't see anyone else giving their honest feelings, and you mentioned people give vague "something's wrong" when the "something" appears to be the gameplay/visual identity of your entire game.
Also, take what I've said with a big grain of salt. I'm not your target demographic I think. I've only played WoW and BDO, I don't like moba games, I've never played Diablo, LoL, or others. But I can identify jank stank from a mile away when it comes to games.
Why is the video so dark and why is there intermittent beeping in the first 70 seconds (perhaps thought but I stopped watching)?
PC games dont need top hardware? Lets make DLSS subscription only - probably Nvidia
It's a good analysis but you literally described a standard business model applied to a game. Nothing new. Also you overcomplicate it. Create a good game, pay Asmongold to play it. Boom, nailed it.
Graphics.
Are. You. Sure. Your. Game. Is. Actually. Good??? Like fr. fr fr. fr bruh . bruuuuh is it? is it fr? ya sure there buddy? lol. But yeah it's really hard to make something new and good.
first
Every game except Thief 1, 2, and 3 sucks
Brands and trust are build on succes. Not the other way around.
You are failing because your game is not good the gameplay is just not good. You are blind to reality. Its not fun.
Vampire survivors gameplay is why they have succes.
I think you never had any or listen to any honost feedback.
Look at the intro of your game than go read vampire survivors intro. See the difference?
What is the point of batteling endlessly against a immortal god? Is there a end goal? Reading that i think hmm why bother?
Do you know why i should play it?
Everyone is looking for reasons why don't they make millions with games, but the real reason is way simpler than you think. Humans simply don't have enough time to play every great game on the market. It's not because the games are "bad", it's because we are not immortal beings living in a vacuum of space for eternity and trying to stave off our boredom. The last year goty "Expedition 33". Apparently a great game. I wanna play it, but still hasn't simply because I don't have time for it. Eventually I will get it, but no idea when. And you want people like me to play every single indie game on the market? Not gonna happen bro, no matter how good the game actually is. This is just a reality.
That is actually not accurate. Although, we do have limited time in our lives particularly as adults, there are those selected people who will find time for anything compromising even their own responsabilities. There are tons of those customers throughout the gaming world and if your game reaches one of them who loves it (good gameplay/model) recommends it to another and so, then games go viral. People who always have time for this exist, trust me.
1:50 This is wrong. Experts can't explain what they are doing any better than non-experts because their expertise has become subconscious. Only an "expert teacher" can adequately communicate ideas, and even then, the student has to be speaking the dialect as the teacher, or it won't work.
Already getting a bad feeling about this video.
Because players are selfish.
bro the entire video felt like a good game succeed because they are good, but still good game failes because they do, tell you something maybe this craft wasn't meant for you...just saying just saying
I have a huge problem with the title, YOU are not the one who decides if a game is good or not, the playerbase does.
The whole pillar hypothesis falls apart with the first pillar the product, if the product is bad it will be bad if I give it for free, a bucket or hose with extra holes in it pretty bad even i it costs $ 0.
There are 5 pillars in total in the video the guy just summed up the last 3 as "model"
1. product
2. brand
3.1. pricing
3.2. distribution
3.3. marketing
Just imagine the black samurai as a non deciding factor.
No advertising, but every streamer and their dog play the same game for a week, yeah sure buddy.
BTW what you see succes stories on the internet not really succesful at all, the money they make ranges from 1 to 1/4 what they would make with regular job, what they do anyway next to the game development. The succes feeling comes from owning your own product, getting direct feedback and not just working in a 9-5 job, where you are not valued and the product what you make not yours.
As gamer the ability to try before I buy is essential in case of most new games. That means 1. have a demo and 2. Do. Not. Remove. The. Demo.
Far too many games remove demos when the game releases or only have them available for a week during NextFest. This to me says one of two things: A. lack of confidence that your game has enough content for the full version to be worth the money. B. you're trying trick people into buying the game even if they wouldn't buy it if they could try it first.
Even if your demo is "out of date" that doesn't mean it doesn't still have some value unless you have changed the game so much since release that even people who already bought and played your game might now not like it.
Also as an indie dev you need to understand your "position" in the market. You're not an EA or Nintendo that can just ignore the negative sentiment and get to nickel and dime the player base. People turn to indie games for a more fair experience where we aren't being tricked into Skinner box style systems filled with FOMO. This means people give you more slack but it also means that lost trust is hard to regain.
your example of rocket league is lacking very important info, that it seems you don't have a clue about, which significantly impact conclusions and observations:
- rocket league is a sequel game to the original made by the same studio
- the original was on ps+ as well yes. and it has a lot to do with the success *of the sequel*
- first game failed hard. just not so hard they couldn't try again.
- correlation =\= causation.
also, plainly, have you considered studying the very most basics of economy and marketing so that you don't over analyse gaming for days trying to discover and find what is established science for decades as if you just solved world hunger.
for clarity, I end the video not thinking you have some kind of ill agenda, or that you are on a completely wrong path. your direction is good but, I guess you need better "gameplay" on the video.
0:50 - 70% is an understatement. Try 90%.
Making a living is not even worth the trouble with game dev. Just get a lucrative job if you want money that badly folks. Gaming was always designed for passion and little else.
This is one of the worse traps and crises about video games - too many people keep trying to turn a profit and make it their cash cow. Its rarely ever going to work and that rare chance its often never worth pursuing.
Many learned this the hard way (including me). Doing this for free finally made me so happy for the first time in my life.
Also take your time on the game dev. Never crunch on the development. The time I regretted working freelance... The few good faces (yours included in case you remember me, we had that interview or something) I have ever met in that entire time... I wish I could just rewind back in time, undo all of that (especially wasting years in a college scam), and pursue a more serious career to make a living. I think then, my old games would never been canceled. A better path and future would have existed.
Not to be a Negative Nathan or Debbie Downer. I am just being very realistic here. We really must stop placing too much faith in gaming.
Too much AAA analysis, you should look at small indie games that make 100k+ that is more achievable for a solo dev and small teams. A Short Hike, Islets, Rusty's Retirement, Shelldiver ... A GREAT game sells, too many devs think their AVERAGE game is amazing when it is not. All the marketing/branding/model copying won't make a below average game sell. A decent game can easily make 20k+
Random developers: I'm gonna make my totally niche passion project game and expect millions of sales ill be the best developer of all time. pfft. True successful developers: I have this vision for a game I want to play I don't plan on it being successful no instead I just make the game because I want to maybe others will see it and feel and think the same maybe my game will meet that itch that something we all been looking for in this gaming market who knows either way I'm not in it for the money I just want to make a fun game that I myself want to play. THERE IS NO SECRET FORMULA! some people can make good games and others cannot. You can paint a tree but a talented gifted person can paint it better. Too many talentless people think there's a formula that anyone can be a successful game developer but this is False and proven to be false time and time again.
This video is all so confusing. You name "brand" as a pillar and then give examples of successful games that didn't have brand at launch (thank God, imagine if you had to be famous to publish a successful game). So it's not a pillar, just a booster, or a helper, like a crutch.
Also I didn't get many examples of successful games with weak model from the video. Seems like gameplay and model, as you defined, are the keys to a successful games, as vague as that can be.
Generic non-actionable „advice“
Even worse: it should be about indie games but a lot of comparisons are about AAA like LoL and rarely some old indies are mentioned.
The problem is that gamers are gamers not reviewers. Most are morons that can describe de exact spawn pattern of diablo 2, but can't express into words what exactly they like or dislike about a product.