The WORST gamedev hot takes
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- We've had our fair share of bad takes the last year. Now we asked you for your hot takes, so we can clown on them and break them down.
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Timestamps:
00:00 It's your turn to clown
00:37 Games just aren't good
02:25 More polish from indie than AAA
04:23 Work on art early
06:20 Unity is trash
09:48 Gamedevs have no skills
12:31 2D is easier than 3D
14:35 Games are uninspired
18:03 Photorealism is easy
19:47 Don't program much
21:13 Unity New input system
23:23 You don't need a degree
24:41 Don't work every day
26:43 Scope creep is good
30:52 UI is easy
31:58 Make MMOs
36:16 Learn fundamentals not tutorials
38:13 Ask audience what game to make
41:11 Closing
---
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![Darren Waller - Who Knew (Her Perspective) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GytDjB8u6bM/mqdefault.jpg)
00:56 “your games aren’t great” *shows my game* 💀
nah you is good mate playtime is astronomical
oof
lmaoooo
Lol you literally had the best game by far on that stream don't worry 😂
Nah bro your game's great, I just wish that editing railroad tracks didn't reset carts (rip its contents💀).
My hot take: Don't get your Steam page up as soon as possible, but only when it's as good as it will look when you launch the game
pls!!! YES!!!!! 100% YES!
those 40 wishlists in 3 months is a drop in the bucket compared to what you actually need 😅 right on imo
I would say it's fine to get it as soon as you get visuals and some screenshots. Basically, you don't need whole game finished to make a Steam page but vertical slice or even solid intro should be mandatory.
My hot take: make a vertical slice of your game, focus on visuals, then put up your Steam page, then widen content.
If you can honestly make a vertical slice that's representative of the final quality while you're still quite early in development, then by all means do that. But in my experience and especially as having a highly iterative development workflow, I can tell you there's a good probability the game will end up looking a lot better (and different) before release than the initial vertical slice you created six months ago.
And imo when you publish your Steam page you should also start your external marketing activities with full force at the same time if you think it's representative of the final game, since otherwise Steam will just bury your page deep and you'll end up with those 40 wishlists in 3 months, and then what was the point of publishing the page?
I love the guy on the left just coming out swinging for every take and then the guy on the right trying his best to damage control while holding back laughter (ps. please show your names at the beginning of videos for the new viewers)
Thomas and Marnix I believe.
Absolutely this! The reaction from marnix at 3:26 was priceless, it made me LOL
Y’all sleeping on the “choose your passion project” hot take. For goal oriented people, chasing that dream can be a never-ending source of motivation - the problem is, finding a dream project you can actually scope reasonably.
It certainly makes more sense than trying to be another "dime a dozen" indie game that nobody cares about (not pointing at anyone specifically).
The indie studios that made it big didn't follow the mold, they created it. And that was through making games they were passionate about.
The best piece of advice I heard is: you shouldn't have a passion or dream project, your passion should be game development, because if you are unable to create your passion project or it turns out it's not good you have a higher chance of quitting game development entirely. You should care enough about your project to want to finish it, but not so much that if you can't it destroys your passion for game development.
Yes you need to go in with goals, and if you put too much time into one project even if it sucks you can't bring yourself to leave it because you put so much time into it
I'm not sure about passion project or dream game, but I just come up with cool concepts and write them down, I think even just the fact of having multiple ideas ready is great, because it's like devs think they only have one idea,l and when that doesnt work out they quit, you need to design the game before you make the game
My trick: break up that dream project into learning milestones, and break those up into learning projects.
For example, one big game I plan to make is purely for organizing the worldbuilding for PART of the dream game. And that game already has 3+ games for me to learn the skills for, with only one of those being worked on. (Besides worldbuilding and design)
By working on that game, I'm learning a part of that game, and working my way up to that dream game.
Learning to reduce scope is a skill you have to learn as a game dev, I think you should just go for it and make sure to edit yourself every step of the way. Does the game need this minigame? No, scrap it. Do I need impeccable animation? No, just make like 3 frame animations. Does the game have to be a full length 50 hour adventure? Absolutely not, condense it down to 10 hours maximum. As long as you keep asking yoirself where you can cut corners, you won’t get bogged down in the umnecessary details and will probably end up with a stronger product by the end as what will be left from all the cuts will be the best parts.
32:00 is the best take in the video and I dont think they understand what he was saying there.
You are MUCH better of starting a project that you are passionate about, building your own relationship to game development, learning what you like/dislike, what works/doesnt work etc. and grow from that experience rather than listen to game dev youtubers about what they think you can and cant do.
Obviously building an mmo as your first project is likely a bad idea, but you are so much better off to learn that by yourself rather than have someone tell you. And you are going to learn SO MUCH when you take on a project even when you dont finish it. It also allows you to keep your motivation/creativity and independence and the number one way to lose all of those is to listen to other people and make the game that they think you should make.
i 100 % get the advice about the mmo, i think the point is saying that if your being told to make a simple platformer because its easier and so you spend months or maybe a year or two working on something you dont care about you will burn out anyways, so might as well focus on what drives you. i think a lot of people want to make a specific game and not be a general game developer, a feel making the 5 billionth match 3 game just because its easy is a waste of time. ( although experience is important it can feel like its not building to your goal and passion)
Also platformers don't really sell.
One problem with MMO is that it is always huge world high fidelity 3d graphics
I think the heyday for low fidelity MMOs that are just well designed is coming soon.
i think the better advice would be: make a slice of your dream game. i agree that working on a game you have no interest in is doomed to failure, but trying to make an mmo solo is also doomed to failure. try make a game that is one feature of an mmo - mmo's are an amalgamation of so many genres, so you can take something you love from that and make an isolated slice to start with
You got it. Looked like thomas read the comment regarding mmos literally so I made a follow up comment regarding that. Have fun whilst making your stuff, its more important than going "the right path". We all agree that most games wont be financially successful anyway, so just make something you want to make.(and no, obviously you wont actually make a wow sized mmo as a single person)
If you want to be successful, an MMO is pretty much impossible to do alone.
If you are not able to work on project that you are less motivate, you are doom to fail in any case. There is a considerable amount of things that are not pleasant to do in game development, you need to be able to by pass that.
Also, I believe that most of the time you can recycle a considerable amount of your idea for your MMO into an alternate gender.
High poly 3D assets (blackbelt level sculpting or hard-surface modelling) will be the most difficult overall, but this is an indie focus. Anything "beneath" has strengths and weaknesses.
For 2D, the challenge is finding a niche stylization (an aesthetic hook) and complex animations can require a very skilled hand.
For 3D lower poly stuff, it is easier for the assets to be more time consuming even if animation is technically easier (since you don't have to start every keyframe from scratch). Don't get me wrong, Minecraft is waaay less time consuming that the oldschool King of Fighters series, but most 3D games that make an attempt to be truer to recognizable silhouettes require more time to model/texture and animate than a 32x16 grid sprite sheet ... overall.
Am I right?
Mostly agree. 2d requires more artistic talent to do well, and to stand out. 3d has more concepts to understand and get right, between models, rigs/animations, textures & shaders, and lighting. But that also gives more levers to create a unique look & feel. Mechanics are just as hard in both, I think - more about genre and the appeal of your design.
Have heard ppl complain that 3d math is harder, but I like math, and use an engine, so 🤷
3d high-fidelity realism is easier because you can use already existing assets. "Realism" as an artstyle is pretty consistent, so you are able to use things that are already out there without them clashing. For low-fidelity 3D and 2D, you'll have a much harder time finding assets that have a consistent artstyle. You'll either need to make most of the things in-house or risk your game looking like garbage.
@@blakkerr Reality is boring 😅 Realism is pretty hard to get "right" or to stand out with, since everyone knows what reality is supposed to look like. Also requires good lighting & performance - traps for the unwary.
Stylized 2d & 3d aren't impossible to get assets for - there are some common artstyles that people gravitate towards. And you can get far with one or two prolific asset-creators. But again, you have to have an eye for aesthetics, and be willing to put in the work to seek/modify assets to work with your chosen style. There's no 'easy art' button.
@@blakkerr Are you saying that asset stores have waay more high-poly models than low-poly? Personally, I'd rather make new assets for a game than go shopping for them, but I understand the need for rapid prototyping.
I think the first take is saying more that most of the time games that have already released and sold poorly, the reason for that is that they are bad games. This does NOT imply that good games _will_ sell well or that bad games _will_ sell poorly.
if it sells it's good
if it doesn't it's bad
bit of a self fulfilling prophecy
but in general good games marketed well are more likely to succeed
Marketing/discoverability are huge factor. I bet there are dozens of amazing games I haven't been playing because I don't sit on Steam and look at every game. I just check sales and my top tags.@@TESkyrimizer
It is true a lot of indie games aren't good. But from someone who has played hundreds of indie games over the past 10 years, most good indie games don't get far because of marketing and lack of luck in getting some sort of internet publicity like from a streamer.
Remember: Among Us was like 3 years old before it blew up. Went from a barely sold game to one of the largest. It wasn't the quality, it was lack of awareness (marketing).
The take isn't wrong but I reject that it is "most". Maybe 30% to half.
@@SenkaZver Most indie games are bad, because most of anything is bad. There are some hidden gems, but 70% of games can't be "top-tier" 😅 Players don't pay for mid, basically
@@mandisaw I don't think mid is bad. When someone says "game is bad", I think it's
Unplayable
You get zero enjoyment from it
Has high costs in $ and/or time.
If a game is not "top tier" but still enjoyable (mid tier), it's still a good game. This recent obsession of calling all ok but enjoyable games bad, basically anything not on the level of Elden Ring or Baldur's Gate 3, is ridiculous. People are missing out on enjoyable games and one of the reasons why this false narrative of "gaming is dying/games suck now" exists.
Most indie games are enjoyable. Which makes them not bad.
I'd say the camera focus is also a C tier :D
I know, it's pretty sad, but the camera I usually use that focuses better can only record for about 25min before overheating :( -M
@@bitemegames You can do manual focus and lock it on a plane about midway between where you'll both be sitting. Protip from a onetime/sometime TV producer 😅
HARD disagree on the making art and animation early. Artists tend to do this first, me included, and it puts you in the place where you have pretty graphics but no gameplay. A game without a gameplay loop isn't a game. Make the prototype, then make it pretty. You can replace art and animation later.
I just want to say I have so much fun listening to you guys bantering with each other while drawing my assets. Keep up your good work!
Still amazed to see how some people still don't understand the issue with the Unity drama. It was never about the costs. It was about Unity trying to retroactively changing the TOS, while also deleting the repository that they created to damage control their previous sneaky TOS change in 2019. It's about trust. Especially since Unity comes with mandatory DRM check..
07:07 "95% of you don't make enough money to care about the pricing changes so it's not relevant"
I have to strongly disagree here. Especially if you make games as a business and hope to one day succeed, this is the number one thing imo to take into consideration before you start.
The "make a best selling game first and then worry about the fees" mentality doesn't make any sense. At that point there IS nothing to worry about. The game is done and you are stuck with whatever engine you made it in.
Now, add to the fact that Unity showed they are willing to change their policy retroactively, and many people can't take this chance anymore.
Even if you don't make a game hoping for wide commercial success, you can never know. Among Us became a hit 2 years after it was published and with retroactive changes any game you publish is "at risk" of becoming succesfull and incurring whatever fees Unity might decide on in the future.
TL;DR: If you choose to stick with Unity because you thought this through and the benefits outweight the risks, more power to you.
But please don't ignore this important step in choosing an engine and dismiss other people's valid concerns because "you won't make it big, don't worry about it"
Making decision on things that are highly improbable is not a good approach neither. The chance that Unity goes through with something that could potentially wreak you financially is terribly low. It would probably be deem illegal in any case. In truth, you probably has the same amount of chance of getting screw by Unreal and potentially Godot on other aspect (Such as nobody to make the support for X platform).
Also, "make a best selling game first and then worry about the fees" makes absolute sense. If you have a successful game but you are not able to make it profitable, it is not an issue given that you started with the mindset of not having a profitable game from the start. It is like having the last digit of a winning lottery wrong. However, due to how you were able to make your game successful, you will have other doors open for you. Unity, will greatly increase the chance that your game is such a game.
There's an important thing in business that a lot of small and large studios screw up on. Data-driven decision making. Working under the hope that your game is a breakout success will kill your project faster than incompetent staff. Most people will not ever hit the previous thresholds.
You're right about the retroactive changes, but at the same time they had to change things retroactively because of community backlash (which was, for the most part, overblown by content creators who knew literally nothing about the issue).
@@xxkillbotxx7553 Sure but that is not what I'm saying. I don't treat the success of my game as a given or as a statistical probability at all. In fact with the Unity business I decided to treat the game's success as a risk that I have to mitigate. What happens if it's on steam for 10 years and suddenly it blows up? Who know what fees will be there.
I think people also focus too much on this specific policy change and not the bigger picture. Sure my games might never reach THESE thresholds by why can't they lower it the next time they update the fees? Why can't they decide ALL games published on steam need to pay a one time fee to Unity? Why not try to enforce it again retroactively on games already out?
Sure, it doesn't sound reasonable or possible to enforce but the same was said about these changes they just tried to pass.
I am also not relieved by the fact they rolled the changes back but I'm concerned that it took the entire community and yes, maybe overblowing the issue, in order for them to finally roll it back after a month. Next time we might not be as lucky or the community might not be as vigilant and persistent in their stance. I don't want to cross my fingers and hope for the best. I think this already served as "creeping normality" so next time they attempt something that's just half as bad the backlash might be small enough to let it pass.
However, that's my take on this and for me it's not worth the risk to go with Unity.
@@xxkillbotxx7553 For some reason my reply doesn't show up so I will rewrite it briefly.
I'm not saying you should work under the hope or assumption that your game will be a breakout success. I am saying you should not dismiss the *risk* that your game might become a success. And it was displayed to be a risk by Unity.
People also focus too much, in my opinion, on this specific change and not the bigger picture:
"You will never reach *these* thresholds"
"You will still make a profit if you have to pay *these* fees"
What if they decide to lower the thresholds, increase the fees, introduce a one time fee for any game you publish on steam, etc?
What if they try to enforce it retroactively again?
I also don't feel relief from the fact they rolled these changes back. I am more concerned by the fact it took the entire communities, big studios included, non stop coverage and yes, even overblowing the situation a bit, to finally make them reconsider what was a poorly thought out and unreasonable plan in the first place.
Next time, we might not be as vigilant, lucky or persistent to stop the next attempt.
This is also a form of "creeping normality". If people are now already excusing this behavior, dismissing concerns and saying it isn't / wasn't that bad, the next unreasonable change might pass.
Overall, the risk is not worth it for me to build my game in Unity when alternatives are there.
Great game idea @30:26. You are running through a minefield... And you are being chased by a bear.
I was thinking about turning this into a dumb infinite runner game whilst editing this video... -M
@@bitemegames Make it mobile, sell bear bait & minesweeper bots as power-ups - gold!
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at a game idea 😂
**Take glances, scribbles notes**
I'm just taking a look, ok?
@@bitemegames Instead of coins, the track is lined with coke, and you have to pick it up or else the bear snorts it and gets faster.
Photorealism is absolutely hundreds of times harder then stylized/2D/pixel art etc. the level of extra work required to make it not dive head first into the uncanny valley is astronomical. all of a sudden, you need facial rigs, eye blinking animations, dynamic IK for feet, different dust particles depending on what material your walking on, lip syncing if you have dialogue etc. Even if you get the actual models for free, there is probably weeks if not months of work just doing the setup. thats not even including the level of extra polish and content expected from a realistic game, because all of a sudden it looks AAA.
Ngl, the "train fountain girl dating sim" idea is actually very intriguing.
On the Art/Animation for a prototype or early phase topic. I am a programmer by trade. So you'd think I'd agree that prototype doesn't need it yet and you should be able to use boxes or whatever. But I don't, at least not always. A lot of times having the actual assets ready or developing the asset while coding at the same time so both can flex with one another makes it way easier and way more interesting in the end IMO. Sure there are some basics you should be able to do with a placeholder but if you're trying to create more than a box that will get a nice skin later, it is quite nice to have the actual art and plan it and develop it all together.
Realy love Your videos guys. Very informative and also funny. Thank You!
If you can lock the focus of the camera, that would help a lot when viewing these videos. Just a tip. Otherwise a really good video.
Yeah, the angled POV makes for a more interesting frame, but they're too far apart for autofocus.
I work on my game almost everyday but im a chronic procrastinator so it's probably still gonna take me 7 years to make a game that should take 1 year, yes that's genuinely how bad my procrastinating is.
More polish from indie than AAA actualy hits hard in the indie feelings, and why I basically agree with you I think its important to note that, the better the marketing the more people ignore "shittyness" of the game. So its not just AAA is easy to sell, its actually the better you market, the worse stuff you can sell.
Sure, but it follows that if you don't have the cash for Keanu Reeves, then better not risk dropping a buggy af game. If most indies have a low/zero mktg budget, then the game itself has to be god-tier (and pull off some guerilla marketing).
Yeah I relate to that, I´m also making games in my freetime without any budget, while games with massive investment and huge teams like Palword and Hades still in the indie area.
You have to get some insane luck and also being discovered by social media/influencers to get around the +1000 games released each month at Steam.
Yeah, 45mn of content (and it's not even a tierlist)! So excited to go home and listen to all these hot takes 🔥
I trully love how you guys are brutally honest about your own flaws and this shows a lot of maturity, wich is a thing i respect greatly.
I've shipped 60+ games/experiences with Unity since 2011. It makes things that shouldn't be difficult and 60%+ of your time is spent fighting the engines half implemented or flat out broken features and systems. With Unreal I can do in two days what would take me a week in Unity. If Unity shipped a single game with their engine, it would be 10x better; which is ironic that they fired the department that was pointing these shortcomings out while making their showcase project, Gigaya. I wouldn't call it Z-Tier, but it is C-Tier at it's best.
At 4:23, I thought I read in 'The Art of Game Design' about four types of prototypes (aesthetics, systems/mechanics, technology, and feel) that, when implemented together in a level around the core theme with a purpose/objective, would make a vertical slice. This would make it quantifiable because now you know how much it takes to make a level, as well as what you need in order to make it scalable.
However, I looked it up and while it talks about some of those things, it doesn't say that specifically. Maybe I watched/read it somewhere else, but I do think those prototypes should be made in parallel and "clic" before starting production.
It's not "more polish". It's that I don't care about who made it. I expect quality. I can compromise on scope, when it's indie. But not on quality. I mean, compare it to say a restaurant and some burger enthusiast with his food stand.
Godot for live. Honestly, I do not feel like going back to Unity after having used Godot for the past 2 months.
I also tried out Godot after the Unity debacle, and stuck with it. Its possible to make some decent 3D game with it too.
When I buy any game, I expect polish. $5 or $50. The expectation of polish doesn't change. What I buy for the extra $45 is content. Content is: expansive gameplay, VO, graphics, narrative, replayability, and a lot more.
When you buy a game for $5, do you expect $50 of value? 😅
If not, what exactly is $5 dollars worth of polish?
hahah peanut brain take, I love it 🤣 There were basically 2 parts to my "hot take" so I will spell it out for you in a literal sense instead of an implied message
1.The implication was that most devs fail(usually a number that are thrown around in videos is 90%+) to make their first game, no matter the scope. Not to make a literal MMO, but rather, do something that is fun to you, than painfully make your first crap game. You are most likely not going to make it anyway, so have fun while doing it.
2.Don't ape eachother just because someone told you this is how it is done. Explore it for yourself and make up your own mind you sheeple!
I agree completely with your take. It is so important to stay motivated when working on a game- you'll spend so much time on it to actually finish it. You need to be in love with the idea to see it through. The MMO example came across to me as hyperbole for comedic effect =) If the only games you can be passionate about are huge in scale, that is okay too. But then you should learn to 'finish' games through short game jams where you learn the basics for each system you need to implement in your 'real' project. You'll learn a lot and get the skills you need to succeed on your longer term project.
@@PillBugGames yep pretty musch exactly what I was sayinh without literally saying it. Obviously making an mmo isnt the actual message here, but as you say hyperbolic to make the example extreme.
1. Dont just go for the tips everyone is copying from eachother
2. Fun should be the focus for everyone making the games at a hobby level, not doing "what is correct "
Making bigger games is fun to me, so that is what im doing, besides, the tools available now are incredible
2 reasons i use godot over unity:
- potato computer i had
- my brain
Godot slaps
i think, the more a game dev or dev studio tries to make games as a business, the more likely the games are to suck.
making a game that sells well, especially for indie devs, is often a very good approximation of making something that's good. it's just that, though. you can still get cases where the game suffers due to profit being the primary motive. whereas if your primary motive is e.g. making a fun game (obviously with a target audience, such as yourself, in mind), that brings your goal and 'good game' closer together, i think.
of course, not to say that companies can't make good games, or that hobbyists cant make trash games.
This is where the "cost time quality" triangle comes in, where you can pick two aspects to prioritize, but sacrifice the third.
For example, for indie studios, while it's temping to just work on the game for as long as possible in order to make it as good as possible, sometimes you have to make the tough call to cut on scope or extra features if it means the game even sees the light of day before money or time runs out. You also have to decide where that extra polish and effort brings value to the game and where it might not be as effective in the long run.
To make a game as a business, you need to have a good game. The truth is that they simply failed to make a good game that warrant the degree of monetization they have.
@@jean-claudelemieux8877 who is 'they'?
@@lanata64 People that focus business instead of fun. If they have not reach their expected profitability, it is mostly because their game is not fun.
That was as very fun video and I think this would be a good video to do every once in a while! Only note, please make sure your camera is not set to auto focus, it was constantly switching who was in focus, and it was very distracting. Good stuff as always, keep up the good work!
32:32 Tim Cain released a vid recently where he talked about making Fallout and Arcanum - primary objective of creation process was making a game thats fun for the developers working on it, everything else was secondary and lower
making manageable, not necessarily small, is a good approach and i agree not to make MMO right away, but if you have a mathematical calculation on what game has the biggest chance to succeed and make you the most money and you focus on that, you will end up with game that have no soul. As indie best thing to do is make something for YOU, there will most likely be ppl out there that have similar tastes and will like it as well. Just dont make another vamp survivor, stardew valley, match 3 puzzle or next call of duty please...
if you compromise too much, you will probably wont see it as yours anymore and you already setting yourself up for failure
What's your studio's monthly burn rate?
Looking forward to part 2 of this.. 🤞🏼
Ohh I missed this post, but my hot take is: if you have a publisher helping you publish your game, it's not an indie game.
Oh yeah, that reminded me of some youtube video I lately watched which was "indie" dev talking about how he is working with 10 people from publisher. Lol.
unless you basically finish the game and use the publisher to port it to consoles
Tricky, some publishers really just do marketing & community/platform-mgmt, some devs are 100s of ppl with multimillion dollar budgets. Team-size & budget are still the metrics. Larian self-published, but BG3 is not an indie game.
@mandisaw marketing is honestly more than 50% of the work, so...to state "just do marketing" is already giving a lot of credit to the publisher.
Take the perspective from the music industry, for instance. There are millions of artists self publishing and trying to promote themselves doing crowdfunded albuns and whatnot.
Meanwhile gamedev studios are getting funds from government in the scale of tens of millions of dollars and calling themselves indies.
Make no sense. Indie means independent, if you have an institution giving you safety to not risk your own wallet, you aren't not independent.
Yeah this is wrong. I'm a solo dev that made $1000 on a Steam release and had a publisher port my game to switch. I guess I'm not indie?
I really appreciate your cosmoteer reference
Idk, I'm making a 3D game using free assets for Unreal. I only opened Blender once to rig Maximo to the UE5 characters, but 5.4 UE5 will do that automatically so I won't need to once it comes out. The hardest part for me is learning the code, everything else actually is pretty easy since I'm not even doing anything more than downloading CC assets or getting the free asset packs that come out every month.
Right now I have a problem with assets belonging to different visual styles, but I keep finding replacements either that cost money or for free.
You will and should over-scope your game, always. Start with the big, ideal version and cut the fat. Don't start basic and Frankenstein pieces on if you have time.
Also, you have zero idea how to scope a game when you start game dev UNTIL you over-scope a game and get a sense of it.
Both can work. The issue most of the time come in the implementation of those approach.
Having a strong base that you can iterate on can be a really valid strategy in my opinion.
I think scoping a game knowing that you will be cutting fat is the solution. The issue is the cutting part. People over scope and can't bring themselves to cut any ideas and their game never gets made.
Photorealistic games are NOT easier to make. You can get away with a LOT in stylized games / retro games whereas in photoreal games, even the smallest seams are very clearly visible and expectations are much higher.
Hey guys, I really love your channel. aspiring indie game Dev here enjoying your content
These guys are awesome. I love these videos!
unless you are talking about Unity Free. Unity is more expensive then Unreal during the worst time in your project; Unity can bankrupt your studio before you ever release, Unreal at least waits until you have made money.
an indie doesn't need to worry about the enterprise version of either, because why are you needing an emergency hot-line to a Epic/Unity-inc Engine Developer, what are you doing?
Unity wants like 2K USD per seat per month, Unreal costs nothing to work with. then Unity wants 2.5% (yes this is less then 5% but you are still paying that monthly fee)
Unreal you can make a game break a million, then only pay the royalty on the sales, Unity you have to pay the monthly as well.
directly comparing numbers doesn't work because to get a reference to Unity you need Team Size, Time to develop, and revenue, Unreal you just need revenue.
Unreal is a X-Y graph to figure out how much it will cost you, and as the "ALL MIGHTY SWEENY" has said "we only make money when you make money" and when talking to Indie devs he should instead say "We only make money when you make a LOT of money"
Unity you need an X-Y-Z-W Graph.
the difference of 2.5% and 5% is 25K on the Million, so if you have 12.5 developers for a month it is the same as paying for the extra 2.5% for each million you earn beyond the first
a studio with 50 developers working for 6 months on Unity cost 600K USD, under Unreal it is Zero.
If these same teams release a title and make 2M USD in sales: for Unreal they will have paid 50K USD, under Unity they will be paying 625K USD
if we pull this out further continuing to support your game with half the team (25 devs) for an additional 6-months, and you make another half a million USD in that same time span.
under Unreal you owe Epic 25K, and to Unity you owe 62.5K
Unity is the more expensive engine if you look at the real numbers not even the optimistic numbers make Unity the lower value.
Fun video format. Keep it up crew.
I chose Godot over Unity only because Unity keeps changing too much and tutorials get outdated quickly and become hard to follow. And also because some things just work nicely out of the box in Godot, like lightmaps. And also because UE4 doesn't have a scripting language, and doesn't even run on my potato anyway. Also because Godot has a richer ecosystem at this point, than other Unity/UE alternatives.
But I like to keep my feet on the ground about FOSS. Yes, there are some advantages to it, which people keep bringing up, but there are also some disadvantages too, that aren't so frequently mentioned. Namely the fact that the pace of development depends entirely on the level of popularity and voluntary funding, and since most developers are hobbyists, there are always bugs that no one wants to fix and crappy features that stay crappy indefinitely. Godot even keeps problems that are easy to fix "for beginners to have something to work on", instead of just fixing them already.
Another problem is the lack of proper feature testing. Features get discussed and implemented, but that doesn't mean they're actually ideal or well implemented. There's no internal team of testers guiding the development: the users are the testers. But the problem with that is that it's then much harder to weed out bad decisions, because users may already be using them in production.
I use Blender, Godot, Krita, Aseprite, etc, but it's mostly because I'm broke. I would be trying different things if I wasn't. (Aseprite is probably the only one I have barely any complaints about.)
Such a fun, interesting, and informative watch!
Which hardware do you use for game development?
"Photorealism is easier than pixel art" is such a horrible take. I'd really like to see you try. You can't just throw 100 photogrammetry assets in a scene and expect it to look good. Animations and Lighting take insane amounts of time if you want to get a photorealistic result.
If photorealism was easier than pixel art then why does every single indie go for pixel art and AAA games go for photorealism? The argument makes no sense.
People forgot to mention that "Your success rides on influencers's whims...or paychecks"
I also think 3d is MUCH more complicated than 2d. 2D is easier but has much more work with modular assets, like itemization(switching from a 1h weapon to 2h requires separate animations unless you're lazy and just slap the png in there). 3D has so much complexity in it that the learning curve is exponential, like topology, rigging clothes with perfect weight painting so it doesn't get clipped by the body, bad geometry, vfx shaders to apply on materials, UV unwrapping, poly counts for performance, mip mapping, bump mapping, normal mapping.
I fully agree about Unity. So many devs on reddit and twitter complaining about Unity and saying they are switching to Godot practically overnight... That's just so unrealistic for anyone actually doing this professionally. I've been making my game in Unity for 4 years. I'm not gonna just dump Unity and try switching the whole game over to Godot on a whim.
Making realistic games is easier today if, and only if, you use store or pre-made models... If you want to design, model and texture your assets, then you have a big problem
Have you guys followed Ravendawn? It's a 2 months old indie MMORPG that has been pretty sucessful. Developers are pretty open about the game.
It's actually pretty impressive what they've done, there are several really cool features in the game, even tho it has a few awful flaws.
How's Palword not indie? you are basing the definition of indie dev purely on monetary basis and it's flawed. They had no track record, it's their second game. A basement dweller could've invested multiple millions because he does it as a hobby and release a game after 10 years of dev, be succesful out of nowhere and it would be an indie game. In order for a studio not to be so "indie" anymore is if it's somewhat succesful in the long run. Indie means independant so basically any dev without publishers as long as they don't become publishers themselves in my opinion.
I think the term indie was changed over the years. Quick googles tells me palworld spent roughly 6.7-7 million US dollars on development and a studio of roughy 40 people.
I wouldn’t say that counts as indie
@@jamiewalker6296 so basically, everyone has their own definition of indie. is it money, number of employees or else? it was basically my question when replying to this video
@@DjBuRnOuTx yeah basically. It also doesn’t help that people have seem to focus on AAA and indie and try and force most studios/games into that role. Clearly some are smaller than AAA yet bigger than indie.
My hot take, make the art put up a steam page, then do a vertical slice. im biased since im more of an artist but honestly this i found saves you time , cause that’s how you know if people are even interested in your game
Keep in mind that people that are going to demonstrate interest in a steam page is a really small and specific group of people.
There is also the factor of first apparition that you give away when you do that. First impression is really, really important.
As for the last point ("ask your audience what game to make"), I think it can be modified to your benefit. Like, you don't need to make exactly what your audience "wants", but you clould do something like a poll to choose from several ideas you come up with, and go with the one that gets the most feedback. Say, you have some ideas for an RPG, a simulation game and a visual novel -- why not make a poll to see which one would get more whishlists if you decide to focuse on it
How much representative the audience is of the target audience of the game ?
Not what we want, most of us even rarely play games, but they can ask for opinions about their ideas and get advice from game dev point of view.
"Most Indie games are uninspired"-I think it's true that scope is a real part of this and so is safety/marketability...but as someone who doesn't make games as a job and is only getting into it fully as a hobby (finally)-I just wanna make what I consider to be fun
I treat it like my 2D art-it's for me first and I'll go make it as nice as possible and if ever someone else enjoys what I made or my vision then that's great
Again-this is of course going to be different if you make games as a fulltime job, but I am sure there are a lot of indies who are just in it for funsies as well making those uninspired games
Also-it's the two cakes meme, you get more of what you enjoy as well with some new gems sprinkled throughout
I like you guys making these videos but I wonder what in the world happened to Thomas to go and say %99 of your audience has peanut brains. Don't be a jerk Thomas.
Such a jerk statement, especially coming from these guys who have 1 failed unreleased game and 1 shitty game…
People who think they’re so smart and good at what they do and shit on everyone else are the worst
Yeah very wrong statement from me. Not meant in a jerky way more as a (bad) humor way. We don't think we are very smart or good however, all our own disses of our failures and talking about them is proof in my opinion.
-T
Just finished watching your previous video... I love how you guys interact and your opinions about game dev.
"...the hive mind isn't that smart" is my new favorite quote
6:44 You can see the murderous intent on Thomas' eyes
Something I'd add to the topic of "take it easy for the sake of your mental health even if it means not releasing a game for 7 years" - if you take this approach, either be okay with releasing a game that looks and plays like it should have come out 7 years ago, or you'll be constantly creating more work for yourself as you try to update your pipeline, tools, engine and ideas to keep up. I'm sure if you're making an indie game and taking it easy, you'll take the former option, but if so that needs to be your mindset from the start - don't get inspired by the latest trendy genre or by a cool new engine feature, because those will be passe by the time you release.
I guess I speak somewhat from experience as an amateur game dev with chronic fatigue syndrome. Some of my ideas will be fine whether I release them ten years ago or ten years from now, others will not, and it's important to recognize that the latter are not viable.
Oh and you'd better hope that windows 15 will still support UE4 when you're done.
tl;dr - it's not just about profitability - if you want to make a timely game, you gotta be on that grindset.
On the visuals point, I do agree its very genre dependant. Take an FPS game for example like the one I'm working on. The gameplay side of attacking a creature with a melee weapon is dependant on the animation of the attack. A crappy animation can make the gameplay element of the attack feel and look awful. Its important not to spend 100's of hours perfecting small details within your art during this stage, but it can drive a lot of decisions in the design of the gameplay mechanics and not just the way the game looks. This is only 1 example, I could think of many more.
Second disagreement: Photorealism is easy if you don't make it yourself, and you use Unreal/Megascan assets. But in order to keep performance, you can't have a bunch of megascan assets in close proximity. This works better in horror games because you only see a little bit of the level at a time. Try making a large open level with megascan assets, and you'll find it's not that easy to be performant.
So as the boys say: it depends. It depends on your level layout and visibility.
Autofocus is not your friend.
To defend unreal a bit: I've worked about a year in unreal and a couple years in unity and i would say they crash the same amount. The nice part about unreal crashes though is that I can see exactly what happened because I have the full source code and it gives me a stack trace
Blueprint is a LOT better than bolt, but I also agree that C# is much nicer to work with than blueprint if your game isn't super performance dependant
Honestly, I originally wanted to leave those parts out, because I felt like Thomas didn't really know what he was talking about, but it would ruin the flow of that part of the video and not really make sense. It was all a bit too much based on his personal experience and not real supporting "facts"
Blueprint is miles ahead of Bolt, and you can't really make a game using purely Bolt, you still need to write code in the end for certain things.
-M
Unity also has crash logs (check manual), but if they're both crashing often, that's more likely something with your computer/config. Bottleneck could be in the RAM, disk I/O (SSD preferred), or even the system bus if you're on an old motherboard, or a laptop. Project-wise, could also be smth with your assemblies/project, but that's harder to diagnose...
@@bitemegames Unity is feature rich, but its integrity level does not come up to its size of feature list.
It is good / mature engine but not worth mocking someone criticizing it.
TL;DR
Talking about scope creep and stardew valley, the developer had time to do that commitment because he started to make his game as soon as he finished his degree and choose to have a simple job (a job that you don't need to be learning constantly, like flipping burgers) only to survive and have time to work on stardew.
And his girlfriend at the time was helping him, so only take the 'scope creep path' if you can afford it and have sure that it will be beneficial to your game.
My advice is: Make a lot of crappy games, you'll achieve a good knowledge in yout choosen tool and will be able to create more crappy games in less time, soon you'll start to see the matrix and with your current knowledge will be much easier (still hard) to create your own commercial game.
And please, stop doing tutorials, start playing with the engine and go look for answers only when you have a problem. Do only a few tutorials at the beggining, if you have little or zero knowledge, to know the basics.
18:00 as a 3d artist that started with realism, no its definitely not easier.
in fact its 2-3 times the amount of work depending whether or not you just buy assets or dont.
even then you will need to tweak them to make it work. not just from a lightning perspective, but also from performance.
you might end up with something like "why is my performance so bad?" oh, because this drawer i bought has 50 million faces.
when it comes to realism theres a saying. imperfections are perfection. meaning you will need tons and tons of fidelity, to make it credible and coherent. just slapping on realistic textures wont cut it.
and theres also the problem of visual aging.
realism that looked good back then looks pretty bad now, while games that went for a cartoony style, look decent even to this day. (borderlands, tales of versperia just to name few)
Here's my hot take, build up to your favorite project. Wanna make an Roguelike, make a small platformer to create the basis of the main gameloop and reuse as much as possible. Features should be their own games. Like your Factorio could be the basis of a SV game.
Oh gosh... okay, question on the hot take "Gamedevs have no skills" part, more specifically, that you will not be able to feasibly develop quality/non-mediocre game-dev skills unless your background "stands out game design-wise or code mechanics-wise or it stands out visually."
Many of us never got to experience game development as an idea because of external reasons (family or cultural pressure, in my case), but developed other skills that were also technical or artistic (such as education in engineering and physics in my case, with music and acting pursuits as well). I recognize that these don't directly correlate with programming, 3D modeling/texturing, sound design and all the many other skills required for game development, but are they so different that the leap into game development would be too massive?
its just hard to be above average in multiple disciplines
My hot take is that game design is becoming less and less of a priority for indies and AAA games. Whenever people talk about game dev they always talk about the difficulties behind programming and art as if those are the things prohibiting them from making their great game design a reality when in most cases, the design just isn't that great to start with.
I think a lot of aspiring devs should try and spend a week designing a board game and they'll get a glimpse into how difficult it is to design interesting systems that are fun to play.
Unity can't harm me, it has been busy for 1:37 minutes
Nice video bro!
These types of videos are great lol
When I tried Unity, the fact I had to download something everytime I wanted to do something. but I get the appeal.
I love unreal just because it's more fun to code in, I don't think in lines, I find I can experiment more in blueprints.
22:26 "never skip a day or take a vacation" is terrible advice (especially if you're suggesting people shouldn't even take weekends off, which is insane). If you want to survive long term (commercial and hobby both) you need to *pace yourself and take breaks.* Your project is not going to go away if you take a week or two off to recharge your batteries when you need to. In fact you will come back to it refreshed with new ideas and more clarity and perspective than you've ever had. If you work non-stop and never take breaks you will burn out 100% guaranteed.
2d vs 3d - depends on kind but overall if u don't make totally LOPOLY 3d is always more time-consuming - modeling ,(not mention sculpting and retopo) texturing , baking .
Good project != good game.
and that beer simulator looks unique which a lot of indies aren't
u have an intern? do you pay them?
Unreal loves to crash with art related stuff.
Don't worry guys, my brain is the size of a peanut but I still like your videos. You can ask your audience for opinions, but the most important thing to making the game you want to make is your vision.
That hot take with people saying Unity F tier never shipped a game, actual cold take, because it is just facts, pure truth, they probably didnt even install any Unity version ever
This made me think of I think a hot take of mine that I feel a lot of indies don't do.
I think you should work in the industry for at least 5 years before even considering making a game of your own. There's so much to be learned by working under someone that is more experienced and knowledgable than you and I think a lot of indies fail because they haven't got the refined skillset from working in the industry.
Hell no. Unless it's overall computer science/engineering then maybe. I would say that it's better if you try learning/making your own game asap with as small scope as possible, increasing difficulty each game you make.
I was trying to do that by getting a bachelor's degree so I got some actual work experience, never got into the industry because they are surprisingly quiet job-posting-wise and one of the few industries that actually care about the portfolio over the paper.
Kind of struggling now trying to figure out solo game dev now since I cannot understanding code for the life of me. It sucks because this is something I want to do.
@@anonimowelwiatko9811 To be clear by industry I mean game industry. I personally would never know the way to build complex game mechanics properly if I hadn't worked in the industry for as long as I have. I'd be making many more mistakes and writing really bad code if I hadn't.
@@markguyton2868 To be fair to you the industry is in bad shape right now and as a newbie you'll be compared to a vet that recently got laid off so it's rough for sure. I also should clarify that you SHOULD be making prototypes and game jams and small games that are not made really for commercial success as avenues to get into the industry. The but here is I don't think that betting it all on making a game and have it be profitable as someone that has little industry experience, as I don't think it is going to go well.
@@RiskyBiscuitGames Makes sense, I did want to work in at least an A tier company at one point, it just sucks effort doesn't always equal results . I'll just keep trying to attempt to make ideas, but just not having that base coding experience is gonna make it slow. Apologies if this response sounds like a rant.
2D is objectively easier than 3D, tho.
Try to make the exact same game using a 2D workspace and a 3D workspace...oh forget it you guys use Unity, there's no use in making this comparison.
But with real engines that can differ 2D and 3D, you will be dealing with a lot less complexity just by removing 1 dimension from the equation. It's not linear, it's like a 100, maybe 1000 times less complexity specially when we are not talking about just physics and general engineering, but also visual effects, audio, sound effects, drawing, even interface.
So I hardly disagree that 2D vs 3D is debatable
There are exceptions, but overall I'd agree.
Would you rather open up Blender and make a handful of asteroids and spacecrafts for a cartoony 3D space-shooter OR would you rather make 2D *fully animated* sprite sheets for a King of Fighters clone that features 12 different kinds of semi-historical martial arts (the characters will be at least 64 pixels in height)?
I tried making 3D and 2D game in Unity. 3D was easy, I got working prototype with jumping, moving platforms, sound, some interaction with switches/buttons etc in one day. Making it in 2D was a nightmare.
@anonimowelwiatko9811 yeah, that's because Unity is a 3D engine that fakes 2D and to fake it you have to "re-engineer" the engine. So it's double the work of making a 3D game which is by itself complex.
If you work with true 2D, such as Godot or Game Maker, you'll see how much easier it is
Unity just has a button in scene view, "2D", and 2d variants of all the physics colliders. You can even open a new project as "2D project" and it'll push the button for you. All the built-in code can take xy (ignoring z) parameters, and you can either use the default Sprite renderer, 2d tileset, fancy 2d tools, etc or write your own. Everything that's not graphics is the same, so the same amount of work's involved.
@@mandisaw nah, engineering wise, working in rendering units instead of pixels makes all the difference. On top of many other things. Having an actual canvas instead of an ortho cam, layers instead of playing with Z. Anyway, just play around with Godot and you will understand what I mean.
for 32:10 I feel like you should make smaller games that are a part or have something to do with your main dream game, for example if your dream game has different boss fights just make a small game with like 3 bosses in a boss rush with no levels in between and just 1 set of whatever kind of weapon, then you can slowly scale it up to make your dream game
I enjoyed this a lot. You guys seem authentic and fun.
Also, as a straight man who's been with his wife for fifteen years... left guy is so handsome???
"UI is easy" ?!?!?!?!?!?!? :D that one has killed me
People forgive big companies for making trash games because of fomo and because they are basically paying for peoples attention with advertisment..whereas the indie game cant afford to basically pay to get customers. All they have to do is a bit of false advertisment to hook the player with a non game play trailer. Its sad.
I can see Thomas insults the audience just to be funny.
Most of the time he can also be right about what he says, but this time I felt like he over did it.
Just saying.
Agreed, I went a bit too hard in this video. Still love you all!
-T
@@bitemegames did Marnix force you to say so? Ahahah no problem anyway 😜
Surprisingly, he didn't!
-T
I think in the MMO section, the person in the comment is just saying to let the beginners learn from their mistakes and don't worry about doing it right the first time.
The guy who believe it is easier to make a photorealistic game than a retro one is very ignorant... If he think that all you have to do it take some megascan and metahuman then he should try and he will find out very soon...
The settings, trees, walls, buildings, cars, clothes, accessories ect ...
Unity is an A tier engine with an F tier corporate management. Their stock has tanked 60% since IPO and they keep destroying trust in their company with their PR debacles.
If Unity engine was left to the engineers instead of the suits, it would be paradise for developers.
Idk about the general opinion, but personnally, not only I am more forgiving towards jankiness on indie games, but I mostly expect AAA games to not give me that jankiness since it's a god damn big studio. I won't expect the same quality of a indie game to be like a AAA game. I play often janky games that cost nothing to around a dollar and when I'm with a friend and we encountering something glitchy or bad designed we say: Ah it's normal it's an indie game after all and not the other way around
HOT TAKE - I prefer to pay the 5% for useful tools (ever tried making a multiplayer with unity default networking)
Also blueprints are faster than bolt
OK, but how much weight does the opinion of guys - who recently cancelled an action roguelike because they went into it with no idea on what they wanted to do with the mechanics that players will be interacting with for 99% of the game's runtime - really hold?
I would say Unity USED to be S tier, but has fallen to C tier over the past few years. The editor has become increasingly unstable and sluggish, new features never seem to get past the preview stages, and the incompleteness of URP and HDRP has caused a schism for both game and asset developers, with many choosing to either put up with how incomplete the new RPs are, or just stick to the unsupported Built-in RP. That's not even mentioning the licensing controversy and the shift of focus to AI garbage rather than trying to salvage the aging and bloated editor.
me whos currently in my 2nd year of a game dev uni course ........ based in the uk ......... so much money ,,,,........
I agree, PocketPair is technically independent from what I can tell but "indie" typically refers to a group that is small. $7million is not small. It feels wrong to call them indie and put them next to tiny groups with low budgets like yours.
I feel like we need a new term to seperate the small game dev teams from the large but independent game dev teams.
We had one, "AA" or "mid-size studio". Not sure why it's not used as much these days.
@@mandisaw I use AA a lot still but so few do and one person even objected to the term. It's weird.
@@SenkaZver Not-so-hot take: "People are weird, and some are ignorant" 😅
There is "III" for such productions, I think. Like AAA, but independent.
Like your content, but at about 22 mins into that video the music takes over too much space - too distracting from your voices and maybe to loud (on headphones)
Fun video.
Thomas seems to be quite salty from all our hot takes😅
Dude, if you don't have proper prototype in the first place then the early visual will hinder you by a lot. I tried once and I'd rather use placeholders for the prototype.
As someone _with_ a degree in object oriented programming (game dev), yeah, you don't need it, it didn't help me learn the fundamentals (doesn't help I don't understand code logic either), find a job, find others to collaborate with, or start solo. Its awful because I truthfully still don't know how to make something I love after 8 years of "learning" it...
The $40K debt didn't help either (which was relieved thankfully)...
You got screwed, buddy (not alone, tho). Part of college is building relationships - with classmates, professors, alumni, and recruiters. Besides giving you a solid basis in fundamentals, you should have project experience in multiple contexts, solo and in groups, with your own ideas, and working from a spec.
I did geochem in undergrad, IT & programming was a side hobby then PT job in school, and now a 25yr career. That school was hardcore, but even the humanities kids were pushed to practice their craft & network in/out of their field. Even in HS in the 90s, we were encouraged to do summer jobs, study programs, internships, and the like.
But I see a lot of students now who tell a similar tale as you - degree, but no confidence in their job skills. Can't say if it's poor schools, insufficient co-op/career resources, if younger gens just don't know how to make friends or network, or if it's "just" a manifestation of imposter syndrome. It's fixable, tho.
@@mandisawWell, I can definitely say I met no one in my career field since it went all online at the latter half (you know, the part where you actually start to do the real work) and any people I _did_ meet in calls I never met in person and always ended up in different classes. So in the end, I came out as a dead fish than ready to swim the ocean. To be fair this isn't the first time this has happened to me (I was a chem major before I tried game design), but this did cause the biggest stumble because I'm still trying to pick myself up over 5 years after I got the degree.
Thank you for the response, apologies if mine sounds like a rant. I can say poor schooling is indeed a part of it though, or at least poor management of it.
How is it possible to not understand code logic after years of learning it and getting a degree? Your degree/course/schooling must've been really bad... I finished computer science and last three years were filled with projects, alome or in teams, all from scratch to the finish line, all code must be yours, and that was after they taught us programming from zero, first on c, then c++, then c#, then at the end it was more like "yeah this project requires this language" and we had to deal with that - but we were well prepared. Of course the project weren't huge but still, you were judged on the quality of architecture too. I don't think there was even one person not knowing how to code after the second year, let alone get a degree (I mean, those that didn't learn, had to repeat classes or dropped out). I attended a public uni in my country though, not in USA, so for free and you had to get (relevant) good marks in an exam to get in. So the situation was a bot different.
@@markguyton2868 Hmm, virtual networking is its own skill, but this field (game-dev or comp-sci) is very well-represented online. Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn, even WhatsApp, are great for joining professional networking groups, or chatting "offline" with folks you met at a game jam or talk.
The pandemic was a system-shock of legendary proportions (I know this!!). But it didn't change some life fundamentals, like the need to actively build connections, practice your skills in & out of class, and find ways to learn & retain knowledge that work for you.
You definitely don't have to do these things alone, or without guidance - loads of videos & books for each, and your school might have career-counseling resources for alumni. A therapist also might help if personal anxieties or insecurities are playing a role (that's what I'm hearing more than a rant, honestly). Whatever the past was, whatever tomorrow will bring, today is yours for the taking & doing, just up to you how you'll approach it. Good luck, dude!
@@tymondabrowski12 It's probably a me thing + bad schooling. I think I am one of those weird people who can learn something without ever understanding it. I know what to do, but not how to actually do it. I mean, I must have been doing _something_ right to get a Bachelor's + High Honors, but clearly not enough to fly solo (or find an in-field job apparently).
TL;DR: I don't understand what I learn and my college didn't help. Hopefully this didn't sound like a rant.