► Play Bonerooms: store.steampowered.com/app/2719940/The_Bonerooms/ ► Get 50% off Full Time Game Dev during the Black Friday sale: www.fulltimegamedev.com/full-time-game-black-friday
I freaking loved Jason's ability to always steer the conversation back to the heart of game dev. For anyone feeling like Jason was being negative towards me, you have to understand: Jason is a great friend and has a very strong desire to keep game dev pure in the midst of constant talk about money (which I'm guilty of). Show some love to Jason!
@@thomasbrush are you drunk man wth you talking bout people are basically saying don’t beat around the bush the game sucks he never was negative towards you at all I’m not that high while I’m watching an developing my game just listening like usual has nothing to do with Jason being nasty no no,, he is acting confused speaking market is down stop saying that dumb SHI the market is never down for game devs creative developers that inspires millions can always make history but everyone isn’t creative because if Jason saying he feels like people mocked him about his demo uhmmm dude wouldn’t you MOCK yourself for making that dumb azz game come harder dude an throw that trash azz game in the dumpster better yet throw it off the cliff bones should’ve never seen light of day apart from the people who live in 4th world countries an have Nintendo still.. the idea was crap the game play is rubbish if I could I would show Jason how you make a AAA game but I can’t show my game just yet but he should know that he is why the game didn’t sell no one fault but his own it didn’t gain traction because who would turn there head twice to look at his game page I wouldn’t ever so think how many others think that way yea it’s cool having retro style games but dude you need to be more groovy then bring something new I could give you so much ideas but hehe I don’t want just hand out things making a great game is super easy specially in 3D be more creative JASON,,,, hehe
I think it reflects well on both of you that he could be honest about his distaste for the idea, and you could be receptive to the feedback, without either of you taking anything personally.
I think it's rally simple - Cultic had a very unique and interesting visual artstyle and was in development during a boomer shooter revival - this is why it earned a huge following among retro shootr fans. If you made another retro shooter or any game with similarly interesting artstyle you could capitalise on that following. Listen I don't want to be mean but Bonerooms looks like a cheap asset flip. Visually it's the most generic slop imaginable. Instant turnoff. I could never tell it was a game from a developer of Cultic. It honestly feels like a cash grab made in order to capitalise on the success of the previous game. This is why your following didn't help. People who were excited for Cultic would not be looking forward to this. You either need to make something visually appealing or just market to a new target demo.
Yah I just couldn't get through this video. The whole 'the marketing world has changed' angle built off of the assumption that Cultic and Bonerooms have the same level of marketable curb appeal is way too much of a stretch for me.
There's a lot covered in this conversation, but my takeaways: - Cultic launched with broad appeal (single player boomer shooter), retro aesthetics (doom + quake + dusk fans), viral imagery, wishlist backing, and received very positive reviews due to gameplay and design. - Bonerooms, at surface level appears to be a decent backrooms game. Also, requires multiplayer which is a very hard sell without a huge community already. I don't think Cultic is a fluke, its was a hit because of the above. We need to get past the thought of games being solely a hit-driven industry and look at things in a more traditional lens of product marketing, development, and launch.
I absolutely love the 2 completely different viewpoints on indie gane dev. Both of you had great points and personally look at it from both angles. Imho it IS sacred but at the same time , it's a business and should be approached as such if the goal is to profit. Also in terms of social media and gaining purchases, ive only bought indie games I didn't know about beforehand, from RUclips. Spaces like Twitter makes them feel less personal and more like an ad for a game. I'll skip even watching them just like I skip the actual ads promoting mobile games. Great video.
Could listen to you both talking forever. It’s so informative and relatable. When you mention 3 months or work for 20mins of gameplay, it reminded me of how stop-motion animators have described their work.
I think a really important piece that was missing from the conversation, is having a 'call to action' in the marketing. With twitch streams, or the AGDQ example, if during those streams, the presenter requested the viewer to go buy the game, or go wishlist the game I imagine there would be a bump in the numbers. Jason also mentioned about how 'engagement baiting' works better, which is that call to action. I also believe this is why Thomas' marketing and youtube is SO effective, he is always asking for the viewer/customer to click something, or visit a page/link to wishlist/ buy the course. NEVER be afraid to ASK for wishlists, or even for people to buy your game!
30 minutes in and I am really liking the candid conversation and competing viewpoints! Just goes to show that there’s truly no right answer. Do what works for you!
20:00 BIG FACTS one this part. Sometimes big influencers are too lazy to look at a game for what it is and then call it bad because they’re not taking the time to actually figure out what the game is about.
This was definitely an interesting interview. I love how we get a glimpse of two different perspectives from two different developers. One of my take away is that both developers do it for different reasons. One does it for the providing of his family and the other one does it for pure passion. Not to say you can't have both at the same time, but clearly, one seems to over trump the other depending on the situation. I also think that depending on where you are in your life, the reason why we do things tends to change.
Sincerely the issue is the product, I really like Cultic it has very interesting art and some uniquenes to it despite it being a bommer shooter Bonerooms is just another extremely generic backrooms game, from the trailer and videos on it it doesn't even seem like a decent backrooms game so why should I get it? there are multiple backrooms games that look way more appealing. also it being $1 doesn't make me wanna buy it, it could be free and I would still not add to my library.
this video is the embodiment of how creators can blind themselves sometimes. No offense with the Cultic guy, but it's so obvious why the new game is not interesting that is just hilarious. Just make another FPS bro, you can still be creative while being commercially smart. One thing doesn't deny the other. Apply everything you learned, change what didn't worked and keep what worked, while doing what you are passionate about it.
Animal Well perfect example of what great marketing can do. Other indy titles this year didn't do as well as i thought they would. Nine Sols did pretty good too, but the game speaks for itself. I am unsure if Animal Well would have got noticed like it did if it wasn't for Dunkey.
Nine Sols is fcking amazing. I am playing through it right now and just the kind of detail and craftmannsship they put in is astonishing. Just that they include things like whole screen glitch effects, have superb sound design and just the aesthetics are spot on for me. Also great gameplay.
Only 20 mins in, and I rarely comment youtube videos. But I gotta say this, I love this guy. Jason is a very pure individual, a very pure gamedev, in the oldschool sense of it. Not that being somewhat "corporate" is bad, at all, we all need to eat, but I like that he is so passion > money in every single point of view. I find him to be an extremely LIKEABLE person and I'm sure he's a great friend
14:00 How is getting a youtuber to play your game a dishonest approach??? How are new players going to know about your game if you’re not showcasing it to different communities?
I tried very hard to market my first major game (released last week). Using twitter, reddit, youtube everything I could think of. But damn it's hard - the most difficult part of the whole process for me. This video had some great advice. I'm going to be hitting youtube hard after hearing this.
If you make a good product, ppl WILL find you. Focus on creating an actual valuable game, then word of mouth alone will be enough to spread your game far and wide and to the right ppl. With today’s search engines ppl WILL find your great game..if it’s actually GREAT. No amount of marketing or trinity hooks can save your turd of a game. Focus on VALUE, thanks for reading.
@@thomasbrusheven turds/fertilizer can be turned into beautiful flowers if you plant the right seeds ;] read up on Bible Thomas, all your answers are in there. You got huge potential, just got to water the right seeds ❤
@@thomasbrush Even Turds/fertilizer can be turned into beautiful flowers. Read up on bible Thomas, all your answers are in there. Just got to water the right seeds ❤
So weird I get amazing traction on Twitter for my game, yet nothing on youtube for the same content. My largest video got 124k views on Twitter, that same video on youtube got less than 100 views lol. These algos really are a black box, and I wish these companies were more open to how they work. But we really are at the mercy of them. When starting this path I thought it would be the opposite.
The Bonerooms - saturation of concept. That's why it didnt take off. There are tons of mp jank fests like this and the theme has spawned hundreds of games. It doesnt stand out.
It’s not that famous RUclipsrs are better than anyone else, they just have a wider audience. You want traction on Twitter, yet it’s obvious that it’s not an effective medium for marketing games. It’s objective that most traction happens with games on RUclips and Twitch. It’s not dishonest to allow RUclipsrs to play and show off your game. It would be dishonest to pay them off and make them say only good things, but when you do it with pure intentions and are willing to risk their honest opinion, you’ll get much out of it. It’s a mutual thing, too. If your game is fun to watch, those RUclipsrs are going to get a lot of views and that benefits them financially without you having to pay a dime. It benefits both parties. The thing is, you have to be willing to risk their honest opinions. Sure there might be some RUclipsrs who sh*t on your game, but hey, they aren’t who your game is for anyway. Either way, if you want it to just be a hobby and not guarantee to make a living, do what you wanna do lol. But art and business aren’t diametrically opposed. You can create art that people cherish for decades and still make a living, if not a killing, from it. One doesn’t cancel out the other.
What an awesome topic and podcast as always. With the problems with social media right now, I do believe this is a problem. I notice alot of recently released viral games with clips not getting that much download as well.
Personally, I was just more excited about Cultic than I was Bonerooms, despite hearing of it before release. I can't tell you EXACTLY why... but that was my experience. I really enjoyed this chat though! Felt like two friends disagreeing on something. I'd like to suggest something, though. The art in Cultic was more drastic and eye catching. Cultic had a lot more going for it specifically for marketing on X. Bonerooms doesn't have the same art edge to it and probably could have seen more success if it was marketed differently... even possibly on a different platform entirely. Am I wrong? sure, probably. but that's what I'm thinking about right now.
Just an opinion, if he doesn't want the money, then make free games. It feels like he's saying that selling a product is immoral but he's selling games anyway to "his audience that cares about him"
Love watching your channel Thomas, it's weird trying to sort out how I'll market a game and differentiate it from our current business. We do all different types of media creation for businesses currently, so there's definitely an asset/toolkit in place to be the game's marketing machine (even though we're very small). But will our audience, who's used to a certain kind of content, totally reject us if we show game dev? Or would it be better to start a completely different set of socials up for the game? Hard to say, but there's way more development before it's a concern.
I think the issue is that the backrooms stuff is overdone and the game doesn't stand out enough. If you could put a unique visual twist on it then it could take off.
Id say marketing is extremely important probably 60% of your time should be put into marketing the game but you need to think about who the audience is and what they do and what they wanna see ,go on those platforms like tiktok and youtube and create engaging content they want to see
It's hilarious to watch him try to rationalize away his ego problems here. His issue is that he has no respect for the customer, and an immensely pretentious attitude about anyone who makes money. Starving artist mentality. I doubt this guy will ever make anything good in the future as long as he maintains that, but then at least he'll be poor and thus a 'real artist' again.
Disregarding any of the political stuff, bluesky has the benefit that its newly growing, so there’s a lot of opportunity for organic growth. You can get a lot of eyes on your post naturally compared to really having to pay to manipulate the X algorithm
We’re not being honest has nothing to do with the market being down no no.. the game is stupid dude wtf wants to play that dumb shit be real bro specially this generation meaning not only younger kids but adults society is different. People just don’t wanna play baby games it’s waste of time gotta be real with people the game gets a 0.3/10 like wtf has nothing to do with twitter it’s your creativity that’s the issue stoping beating round the bush with them Thomas 🥹🥹
There’s a way to be honest while being kind. And there’s a market for every kind of game. It’s true that Bonerooms is definitely not going to be a mainstream game, regardless of marketing, but that doesn’t mean no one wants to play it.
@@IcarusTheEagleBut you're ignoring his confusion and frustration with the game's lack of engagement.. which is being challenged justifiably in the comments.
► Play Bonerooms: store.steampowered.com/app/2719940/The_Bonerooms/
► Get 50% off Full Time Game Dev during the Black Friday sale: www.fulltimegamedev.com/full-time-game-black-friday
I freaking loved Jason's ability to always steer the conversation back to the heart of game dev. For anyone feeling like Jason was being negative towards me, you have to understand: Jason is a great friend and has a very strong desire to keep game dev pure in the midst of constant talk about money (which I'm guilty of). Show some love to Jason!
@@thomasbrush are you drunk man wth you talking bout people are basically saying don’t beat around the bush the game sucks he never was negative towards you at all I’m not that high while I’m watching an developing my game just listening like usual has nothing to do with Jason being nasty no no,, he is acting confused speaking market is down stop saying that dumb SHI the market is never down for game devs creative developers that inspires millions can always make history but everyone isn’t creative because if Jason saying he feels like people mocked him about his demo uhmmm dude wouldn’t you MOCK yourself for making that dumb azz game come harder dude an throw that trash azz game in the dumpster better yet throw it off the cliff bones should’ve never seen light of day apart from the people who live in 4th world countries an have Nintendo still.. the idea was crap the game play is rubbish if I could I would show Jason how you make a AAA game but I can’t show my game just yet but he should know that he is why the game didn’t sell no one fault but his own it didn’t gain traction because who would turn there head twice to look at his game page I wouldn’t ever so think how many others think that way yea it’s cool having retro style games but dude you need to be more groovy then bring something new I could give you so much ideas but hehe I don’t want just hand out things making a great game is super easy specially in 3D be more creative JASON,,,, hehe
I think it reflects well on both of you that he could be honest about his distaste for the idea, and you could be receptive to the feedback, without either of you taking anything personally.
I think it's rally simple - Cultic had a very unique and interesting visual artstyle and was in development during a boomer shooter revival - this is why it earned a huge following among retro shootr fans. If you made another retro shooter or any game with similarly interesting artstyle you could capitalise on that following. Listen I don't want to be mean but Bonerooms looks like a cheap asset flip. Visually it's the most generic slop imaginable. Instant turnoff. I could never tell it was a game from a developer of Cultic. It honestly feels like a cash grab made in order to capitalise on the success of the previous game. This is why your following didn't help. People who were excited for Cultic would not be looking forward to this. You either need to make something visually appealing or just market to a new target demo.
Correct
Yah I just couldn't get through this video. The whole 'the marketing world has changed' angle built off of the assumption that Cultic and Bonerooms have the same level of marketable curb appeal is way too much of a stretch for me.
There's a lot covered in this conversation, but my takeaways:
- Cultic launched with broad appeal (single player boomer shooter), retro aesthetics (doom + quake + dusk fans), viral imagery, wishlist backing, and received very positive reviews due to gameplay and design.
- Bonerooms, at surface level appears to be a decent backrooms game. Also, requires multiplayer which is a very hard sell without a huge community already.
I don't think Cultic is a fluke, its was a hit because of the above. We need to get past the thought of games being solely a hit-driven industry and look at things in a more traditional lens of product marketing, development, and launch.
Recession/depression + Indiepocalypse = Current market😢.. good interview, thanks Thomas
I absolutely love the 2 completely different viewpoints on indie gane dev. Both of you had great points and personally look at it from both angles. Imho it IS sacred but at the same time , it's a business and should be approached as such if the goal is to profit.
Also in terms of social media and gaining purchases, ive only bought indie games I didn't know about beforehand, from RUclips. Spaces like Twitter makes them feel less personal and more like an ad for a game. I'll skip even watching them just like I skip the actual ads promoting mobile games. Great video.
Moral of this story is do not take any business advice from Jason.
Could listen to you both talking forever. It’s so informative and relatable. When you mention 3 months or work for 20mins of gameplay, it reminded me of how stop-motion animators have described their work.
I think a really important piece that was missing from the conversation, is having a 'call to action' in the marketing. With twitch streams, or the AGDQ example, if during those streams, the presenter requested the viewer to go buy the game, or go wishlist the game I imagine there would be a bump in the numbers.
Jason also mentioned about how 'engagement baiting' works better, which is that call to action.
I also believe this is why Thomas' marketing and youtube is SO effective, he is always asking for the viewer/customer to click something, or visit a page/link to wishlist/ buy the course. NEVER be afraid to ASK for wishlists, or even for people to buy your game!
Hello! Indie dev here, your project cultic is very inspiring to me! Love the work
Saw your shorts dude gj keep going, are you using gdscript or c#?
30 minutes in and I am really liking the candid conversation and competing viewpoints! Just goes to show that there’s truly no right answer. Do what works for you!
I LOVE Cultic. Jason's a wizard with a LOT of talent.
20:00 BIG FACTS one this part. Sometimes big influencers are too lazy to look at a game for what it is and then call it bad because they’re not taking the time to actually figure out what the game is about.
Great talk guys! Thomas, that chill smooth jazz vibe goal spoke to me. I’m shooting for that now too.
This was definitely an interesting interview. I love how we get a glimpse of two different perspectives from two different developers. One of my take away is that both developers do it for different reasons. One does it for the providing of his family and the other one does it for pure passion. Not to say you can't have both at the same time, but clearly, one seems to over trump the other depending on the situation. I also think that depending on where you are in your life, the reason why we do things tends to change.
Sincerely the issue is the product, I really like Cultic it has very interesting art and some uniquenes to it despite it being a bommer shooter
Bonerooms is just another extremely generic backrooms game, from the trailer and videos on it it doesn't even seem like a decent backrooms game so why should I get it? there are multiple backrooms games that look way more appealing.
also it being $1 doesn't make me wanna buy it, it could be free and I would still not add to my library.
I agree. I just can't believe he thought Bonerooms would do well in the scene amongst other Backrooms games with the way it looks at this moment
this video is the embodiment of how creators can blind themselves sometimes. No offense with the Cultic guy, but it's so obvious why the new game is not interesting that is just hilarious.
Just make another FPS bro, you can still be creative while being commercially smart. One thing doesn't deny the other. Apply everything you learned, change what didn't worked and keep what worked, while doing what you are passionate about it.
Animal Well perfect example of what great marketing can do. Other indy titles this year didn't do as well as i thought they would. Nine Sols did pretty good too, but the game speaks for itself. I am unsure if Animal Well would have got noticed like it did if it wasn't for Dunkey.
Nine Sols is fcking amazing. I am playing through it right now and just the kind of detail and craftmannsship they put in is astonishing. Just that they include things like whole screen glitch effects, have superb sound design and just the aesthetics are spot on for me. Also great gameplay.
Only 20 mins in, and I rarely comment youtube videos. But I gotta say this, I love this guy. Jason is a very pure individual, a very pure gamedev, in the oldschool sense of it. Not that being somewhat "corporate" is bad, at all, we all need to eat, but I like that he is so passion > money in every single point of view. I find him to be an extremely LIKEABLE person and I'm sure he's a great friend
14:00 How is getting a youtuber to play your game a dishonest approach???
How are new players going to know about your game if you’re not showcasing it to different communities?
I mean bonerooms looks like just another backrooms game, and the backrooms hype is pretty much gone at this point.
I tried very hard to market my first major game (released last week). Using twitter, reddit, youtube everything I could think of. But damn it's hard - the most difficult part of the whole process for me. This video had some great advice. I'm going to be hitting youtube hard after hearing this.
If you make a good product, ppl WILL find you. Focus on creating an actual valuable game, then word of mouth alone will be enough to spread your game far and wide and to the right ppl. With today’s search engines ppl WILL find your great game..if it’s actually GREAT. No amount of marketing or trinity hooks can save your turd of a game. Focus on VALUE, thanks for reading.
But what if I LIKE turds
@@thomasbrusheven turds/fertilizer can be turned into beautiful flowers if you plant the right seeds ;] read up on Bible Thomas, all your answers are in there. You got huge potential, just got to water the right seeds ❤
@@thomasbrush Even Turds/fertilizer can be turned into beautiful flowers. Read up on bible Thomas, all your answers are in there. Just got to water the right seeds ❤
So weird I get amazing traction on Twitter for my game, yet nothing on youtube for the same content. My largest video got 124k views on Twitter, that same video on youtube got less than 100 views lol. These algos really are a black box, and I wish these companies were more open to how they work. But we really are at the mercy of them. When starting this path I thought it would be the opposite.
The Bonerooms - saturation of concept. That's why it didnt take off. There are tons of mp jank fests like this and the theme has spawned hundreds of games. It doesnt stand out.
It’s not that famous RUclipsrs are better than anyone else, they just have a wider audience. You want traction on Twitter, yet it’s obvious that it’s not an effective medium for marketing games.
It’s objective that most traction happens with games on RUclips and Twitch. It’s not dishonest to allow RUclipsrs to play and show off your game. It would be dishonest to pay them off and make them say only good things, but when you do it with pure intentions and are willing to risk their honest opinion, you’ll get much out of it.
It’s a mutual thing, too. If your game is fun to watch, those RUclipsrs are going to get a lot of views and that benefits them financially without you having to pay a dime. It benefits both parties.
The thing is, you have to be willing to risk their honest opinions. Sure there might be some RUclipsrs who sh*t on your game, but hey, they aren’t who your game is for anyway.
Either way, if you want it to just be a hobby and not guarantee to make a living, do what you wanna do lol. But art and business aren’t diametrically opposed. You can create art that people cherish for decades and still make a living, if not a killing, from it. One doesn’t cancel out the other.
What an awesome topic and podcast as always. With the problems with social media right now, I do believe this is a problem. I notice alot of recently released viral games with clips not getting that much download as well.
Personally, I was just more excited about Cultic than I was Bonerooms, despite hearing of it before release. I can't tell you EXACTLY why... but that was my experience.
I really enjoyed this chat though! Felt like two friends disagreeing on something.
I'd like to suggest something, though. The art in Cultic was more drastic and eye catching. Cultic had a lot more going for it specifically for marketing on X. Bonerooms doesn't have the same art edge to it and probably could have seen more success if it was marketed differently... even possibly on a different platform entirely.
Am I wrong? sure, probably. but that's what I'm thinking about right now.
So what I heard him say was "you're right Thomas, that would make me successful, I choose not to do that and wonder why I don't sell as much"....
Just an opinion, if he doesn't want the money, then make free games. It feels like he's saying that selling a product is immoral but he's selling games anyway to "his audience that cares about him"
He never said selling was immoral, he just said that the jacksepticeye marketing tactic was a bit sleazy.
Thomas, it was good of you to remain humble as this guy constantly talked down to you. Kudos as an interviewer.
great content lads
Feel like this guys a bit stubborn and didnt want to listen to your advice
Just a note: Bonerooms have only English available. Very important for visibility
Another great interview 🎉
I didn't know Stephen Fry had a gamedev son 😂
Thomas doppelganger = Greg Kinnear
Love watching your channel Thomas, it's weird trying to sort out how I'll market a game and differentiate it from our current business. We do all different types of media creation for businesses currently, so there's definitely an asset/toolkit in place to be the game's marketing machine (even though we're very small). But will our audience, who's used to a certain kind of content, totally reject us if we show game dev? Or would it be better to start a completely different set of socials up for the game? Hard to say, but there's way more development before it's a concern.
It could be the greatest game of all time, but if no one knows it exists, no one is buying
Marketing trends have changed,twitter may have worked 4 years ago but since elon turned it to x its not big in the game dev community anymore
someone should tell jason about the asset store.
I think the issue is that the backrooms stuff is overdone and the game doesn't stand out enough. If you could put a unique visual twist on it then it could take off.
Id say marketing is extremely important probably 60% of your time should be put into marketing the game but you need to think about who the audience is and what they do and what they wanna see ,go on those platforms like tiktok and youtube and create engaging content they want to see
He can definitely revive it by just putting shorts in youtube and tiktok of gameplay
I can't find the podcast you talk about @1:27:20. Does anyone had a link to it?
Cultic => Boomer shooter nostalgia. The Bonerooms => demo hasn't aged enough to be nostalgic yet.
Jacksepticeye played my game and shit all over it lol
What is the principle behind not wanting people to get to the game because its free?
It's hilarious to watch him try to rationalize away his ego problems here. His issue is that he has no respect for the customer, and an immensely pretentious attitude about anyone who makes money.
Starving artist mentality. I doubt this guy will ever make anything good in the future as long as he maintains that, but then at least he'll be poor and thus a 'real artist' again.
I feel like Instagram is good for selling assets
Posting on twitter 1 month before releasing a game that nobody has ever heard of is not proper marketing.
Yes, YES it does.
BlueSky over X ???
Disregarding any of the political stuff, bluesky has the benefit that its newly growing, so there’s a lot of opportunity for organic growth. You can get a lot of eyes on your post naturally compared to really having to pay to manipulate the X algorithm
We’re not being honest has nothing to do with the market being down no no.. the game is stupid dude wtf wants to play that dumb shit be real bro specially this generation meaning not only younger kids but adults society is different. People just don’t wanna play baby games it’s waste of time gotta be real with people the game gets a 0.3/10 like wtf has nothing to do with twitter it’s your creativity that’s the issue stoping beating round the bush with them Thomas 🥹🥹
There’s a way to be honest while being kind. And there’s a market for every kind of game. It’s true that Bonerooms is definitely not going to be a mainstream game, regardless of marketing, but that doesn’t mean no one wants to play it.
@@IcarusTheEagleBut you're ignoring his confusion and frustration with the game's lack of engagement.. which is being challenged justifiably in the comments.
@@manashieldworld someone got it👏🏾