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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGeneralI didn't realize the indie scene was exploding 10x more than "totally exploding"
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Author Topic: I didn't realize the indie scene was exploding 10x more than "totally exploding"  (Read 1083 times)
RJAG
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« on: September 25, 2014, 04:11:22 AM »

I knew the indie scene was exploding with games. No one into gaming is ignorant of this, as indie titles are everywhere- even reaching into the console market. However, I took a look at the devblog section to see what type of people visit this forum, and the entire first page just blew me away.

Graphic styles and animation quality that literally just blows my mind. I've seen awesome games elsewhere or games successfully funded on kickstarter, but the games I see here are new ones to my eyes.

It makes me think, "I thought it was already exploding. What we've seen is nothing compared to what is coming..." almost like a tense Game of Thrones "Winter is Coming" when you already thought it was too cold.

Even more, this is very intimidating. I have had a lot of people compliment my game's pixel art style and many say they can't wait to release because it is their "dream game". However, taking a look at other projects in development here, with art styles and animations that explode my eyes, it is very disconcerting.

It is exciting as a gamer, but intimidating as a developer. Why intimidated? Game Exposure.

Currently, few titles are released that impress me or blow my mind. Yet it seems indie devs are becoming more and more innovative every year. This forum's devblog section alone makes me so excited to play so MANY games! To the point of making me think my own innovation, by the time it will release, will have to compete with some absolutely amazing looking games...which may not get much exposure!

I knew indie devs had trouble getting exposure for their game...but my goodness...the in a year or two the market will be flooded with some AMAZING looking titles! All competing for that "feature" title in [insert popular game site].

Yet I knew not about any of them. They look so awesome, but I've heard nothing. The most intimidating aspect is that if these awesome looking games have a hard time getting exposure, what will happen to my game if it isn't as popular?
Marketing is not a strength of indies, and not everyone can go viral or get featured.


Do some of these amazing looking upcoming titles intimidate you and your game?
Is it a bad idea to wait to build a fanbase? Do we have to start a campaign, marketed similar to a kickstarter (constant updates, screenshots, daily blogging), to start building a fanbase as early as possible? Or will slacking off in this department be okay until closer to release?

Share your thoughts, concerns, and excitement over the amazing phenomenon occurring in the indie scene. To be honest, as a gamer, I couldn't be happier.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2014, 04:23:16 AM by RJAG » Logged
Netsu
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« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2014, 05:25:48 AM »

This is how the indie scene has been for as long as I take part in it, it's nothing new.
There are hundreds of games being made every day, great many of them looking promising and interesting, but making the game is actually only 10% of success. The rest is marketing, trying to break through the noise of a myriad indie games.

All you say is true, except the market won't be flooded 'in a year or two'. It's been flooded for the past 3 years at least.

Continuing the topic, if you seriously want your game to be a success and believe it is good enough you need to have a marketing plan, you need to build connections and look for poeple who might be interested in what you have to offer. The quality of game media you release to the public is also very important I think. One amazing gif going viral can change everything.

Just silently making a game and then releasing it is not a good idea.
Making a kickstarter right away when no one has heard of your game yet is not a good idea.
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airman4
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« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2014, 06:04:37 AM »

This is how the indie scene has been for as long as I take part in it, it's nothing new.
There are hundreds of games being made every day, great many of them looking promising and interesting, but making the game is actually only 10% of success. The rest is marketing, trying to break through the noise of a myriad indie games.

All you say is true, except the market won't be flooded 'in a year or two'. It's been flooded for the past 3 years at least.

Continuing the topic, if you seriously want your game to be a success and believe it is good enough you need to have a marketing plan, you need to build connections and look for poeple who might be interested in what you have to offer. The quality of game media you release to the public is also very important I think. One amazing gif going viral can change everything.

Just silently making a game and then releasing it is not a good idea.
Making a kickstarter right away when no one has heard of your game yet is not a good idea.

I totally agree !
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melos han-tani
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« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2014, 06:57:54 AM »

Build a fan base earlier. Contact press with demos at some point, if you wait entirely to release to put the game on the unconscious of the gaming market, you will be screwed.

Also what is your game?

Here's the thing, there are tons of games being released, but 99% of them are rehashed / reused game concepts that are steeped in the culture of games. Maybe  1% of those are actually interesting concepts that aren't just "Metroidvania but on a dark planet" or "capitalist-cycle poo poo".

A good art style absolutely is a ticket to entry, but a good art style, by no means, does it EVER imply a good game. It's a necessity because of the visual-focus (yet illiteracy) of the gaming market consumers.

However, a really beautiful, visually-appealing art style (which I'm not a fan of for various reasons) can override average gameplay. Lots of games coming out that are overhyped are just boring rehashes of SoTN or some other stupid formula.

What this amounts to is that if you DO indeed have a great art style and can make it thematically meaningful in relation to your gameplay (and that gameplay is something fresh and not just Super Metroid with different weapons), then you have a better chance. There's no guarantee you'll do well financially, you'll have to do some amount of marketing. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to fly to every convention, e-mail people every day, hire a marketer, but at least a little bit of effort a week will pay off upon release (assuming your visual appeal (which I artistically don't like, but is necessary) and gameplay are in order.)

Thus I'd argue that marketing and making the game are intertwined, but you can do considerably less marketing if your game is actually above average (and it's easy to be delusional about this)
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RJAG
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« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2014, 07:22:37 AM »

Thank you for your input.

If this is nothing new and has been happening for the last 3 years, then I feel relieved. It sure seems that there are a lot of great indie games exploding, but this is probably just in my eyes, not in reality. (There is an art style that is very popular right now, which seems to have several great, incredibly animated, games being developed- but none with that style have been released yet.)

So if this has been around for awhile, then it's just me realizing there are a lot more games I want to play. Games that I am excited about. Meanwhile there have been plenty of indie games in the last few years, but nothing I thought was all that good.

I appreciate the motivation to focus on gameplay as well, and the insistence that most of these games are probably as hollow as the indie games released in the last few years.
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RJAG
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« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2014, 09:57:54 AM »

Thus I'd argue that marketing and making the game are intertwined, but you can do considerably less marketing if your game is actually above average (and it's easy to be delusional about this)

Great post. How much considerably less marketing? I was thinking about it. Hear me out.

Using some logic, I was theorizing of what would happen if a great game was released, but had little to no exposure.

Let's say that the retention rate is extremely high, the game is extremely fun. For a hypothetical, let's say it is "perfect" with a 100% rate on those who find it, to those who buy and love it.

Now, if this game had no virility, not marketing, and places like youtube, reddit, etc. didn't exist to make things a success over night. It was simply small-time word of mouth. What would happen?

Well, it would release, and make very little money, right? No exposure means few sales, meaning little money. Yet the game exists, and will continue to exist, indefinitely. (Let's ignore hosting costs, or assume it just always has a website with no bandwidth costs but the capability to buy and download it.)

OVER TIME though, the only possible outcome can be success. Why?

If 100% of people who find this fictional game like it and buy it, then give it a silent review on an unpopular website (remember, in this hypothetical, there are no popular websites and no marketing budget for commercials or ads), then OVER TIME, it would sell the same amount as if it was well known, MINUS sales based on hype or marketing.

Granted, hype and marketing sales are probably very high, if this fictional game had a 100% rate of success when it was found, it would, OVER TIME, become the most successful game of all time. The same game marketed with a huge budget, would have the same success, only QUICKER. (Ignoring that it would pull in non-gamers who would be convinced they have to own it for some reason.)

Based on that theory of "the perfect game" in a hypothetical "no one knows about it" world, wouldn't that mean that if someone made a good game, over time, NO MATTER THEIR EXPOSURE, they would EVENTUALLY become a success based entirely on the quality of the game?

A defeating point to that theory is the premise that "marketing is everything". If marketing is a requirement for financial success, because marketing convinces people to buy a game they don't care for (which is certainly true of many products), then it could not possibly be a success in the hypothetical.

HOWEVER, in the real world, isn't it only a matter of time before a good game gets featured by a popular indie review site? Then that catches the eye of other review websites, who also review the game? Eventually resulting in everyone talking about it?

Thus the theory that "No good game can remain hidden." must be true, unless "Marketing is a requirement for success, because you cannot succeed unless you convince people to buy something they don't need."?

It's just an idea, but one that I was thinking about as so often I have before scoured the website for "hidden gems" which never exist- not even in the deep recesses of the indie scene. Why don't they ever exist? Because the good ones become the popular ones. In genres where few good ones exist, it is because the bad popular ones ARE the best ones.

So I conclude that there are only two factors to success of a video game (financial success, anyway): Quality of Game & Marketing Prowess. The former being the superior one, but the latter being capable of making extra money entirely irrelevant of (or multiplied by) the former.

Something like:


(QUALITY * TIME) + (MARKETING * QUALITY * TIME) + TRICKERY = $UCCESS

or maybe more correctly


MarketSuccess  = (MARKETING * QUALITY * TIME) - (NEGATIVITY * REVIEWERS);
TrickMarketing =  (TRICKERY * TIME) - (FOOLED * TIME);

$uccess = Quality * TimeElapsed + MarketSuccess + TrickMarketing;
« Last Edit: September 25, 2014, 10:22:43 AM by RJAG » Logged
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« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2014, 05:31:20 PM »

My main strengths are Programming and Design. Im working on improving my artistic ability while coding my game on the weekends, and am seriously worried about my mediocre art standing out enough to have people even try the game when finished.

The market will only become more flooded in time and I wonder if in the time it takes to complete my simple game if it will even have a remote chance of succeeding. Working 60+ every week for the past 4 months has really eaten into any progress on my own project, and it will probably be two years before I can hope to launch.

But, even with all these fears and the knowledge that I will not make much money with my labor of love, I will definitely be continuing work on it since I do it more for myself than for anything/anyone else really. Its the game I want to make, the game I want to play. It might not have every feature I wish I could add into it, nor will the art look nearly as good as I would like it to, but I can add more into the next game, and even more into the one after that. I will only improve with time and practice.

Who knows, If I create a few good games I might be able to see some commercial success too. My goal is to at least cover my student loan debt with what I make from my indie games, which is no small sum.

Marketing is something I am super unfamiliar with, but I have been studying up on the methods of success and failure stories and taking note of how they did things. Going to be hard since Im limited on time and money and am a one man studio, but I dont think its an impossibility.
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rj
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« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2014, 07:02:53 PM »

basically if you're not making games for yourself and you're not making a fuckload of money making games then why the fuck are you making games, is my view

make games you love or make games that make you money so you can make games you love at some point. if you can do both at once, congratulations for the miracle
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« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2014, 07:43:14 PM »

I feel happy i am not the only one feeling this. My bet is on the promotional content, mostly the video, which I'll dedicate more time on making something that really catches the viewer attention.
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