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[cynicalsandel]

there is a limited mind share when it comes to games. i don't like using a complaint that many people who hate indies use, but even with all that freedom it still feels lots of devs are following trends or are entering crowded genres.

i'm not going to tell anyone what to make, but when someone makes another roguelike/roguelikelike/roguelite they have to realize that they are chasing customers which probably already have a favorite. potential customers have probably already played binding of isaac, spelunky, dungeons of dredmor, darkest dungeon, FTL, don't starve, crypt of the necrodancer, rogue legacy or nuclear throne. (yes i'd argue some of these aren't roguelikes or whatever, but they have a very similar feedback loop of short gameplay runs that are different every time) unless you do something better than any of these games, it's gonna be difficult to succeed.

i'm probably just grumpy because my tastes aren't catered to.

tldr: find a niche. competition is hard.

[Schoq]

At the same time, there is no such thing as free labor, and while it's a hobby, trying to have a return on a demanding labor help sustain that labor. Expecting a return for labor is only fair.

it's only fair if you're under an agreement to do work in exchange for money. expecting payment from anyone just because you spent time on something is dumb and obnoxious

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

At the same time, there is no such thing as free labor, and while it's a hobby, trying to have a return on a demanding labor help sustain that labor. Expecting a return for labor is only fair.

it's only fair if you're under an agreement to do work in exchange for money. expecting payment from anyone just because you spent time on something is dumb and obnoxious

Kickstarter( indiegogo &co) changed this mindset.

[Schoq]

what it did was shift it further into people expecting a lump sum before even doing anything and without accountability, while still reaping 100% of the rewards if the venture does succeed

[jeremiah]

i'm not going to tell anyone what to make, but when someone makes another roguelike/roguelikelike/roguelite they have to realize that they are chasing customers which probably already have a favorite.

So you may be right, but I really don't understand why roguelikes get this special hatred. "Find a niche" ... it is a niche. FFS, there are more Assassin's Creed games on Steam then there are legitimate traditional roguelikes.

As far as abuse of the term to essentially mean "permadeath" or "procedural content", no one picks out a game mechanic like "rpg elements" and says time is up. Necrodancer and FTL are so vastly different, I don't know how someone could make another game just as different and players respond "nah, I played it."

If you look at the tags on Steam, compared to "roguelike", there are twice as many games that have "survival", twice as many that have "sandbox", four times as many that have "zombies". And the thing is those types of games usually seem to do quite well for themselves because people keep buying them. If anything, I think the unique problem with RLs is that the grognards think paid games are some sort of cancer on the community. But I don't think that applies to the larger, mainstream audience.

Anyway, I'd be curious to see what genres you think are actually underserved.

Oh, and let me just save you some time. No need to point out that my opinion is invalid because my game is shit. I'm already aware of both facts. Thanks in advance.

[cynicalsandel]

Well, I was going to also mention survival games and zombies, but I typed out that post about 3 different times and deleted it over the past few days, and I forgot them this time. (Including a stupid story about being super disappointed when Adam Saltsman's new game turned out to be a survival zombieish game) I think I originally transitioned my mentioning of Don't Starve into the survival game topic.

Roguelikes aren't necessarily special. I wasn't trying to "hate" on roguelikes. It was just the one I decided to mention because my argument of mindshare applies especially to that specific genre (See bolded). You could even mention puzzle platformers, but that one feels a bit more dated. Puzzle platformers were much more the case a couple of years ago, but the trend was slightly upsetting to me at the time. You could also mention indie horror games.

Also, my point was there isn't that roguelikes shouldn't exist or should stop being made. The topic at hand is the "Indiepocalypse", and I would argue that a decent portion of the devs complaining about this are making games in genres with a lot of competition. At one point roguelikes/roguelikelikes/roguelites/roguelike elements were niche, but I'd argue that isn't the case anymore. Even your argument is "legitimate traditional roguelikes", but traditional roguelikes still have to compete with every single one that has ever existed. Games with roguelike elements specifically seem like harder competition to me because THEY ARE INFINITELY REPLAYABLE. People have played thousands of hours of Binding of Isaac. Once a person beats a linear game, they might never play it again. If I beat a Zelda game, a Mario game, a JRPG, etc, I can't immediately replay the game and have it be completely different. People move on from linear games to different games, but your potential audience might never leave other roguelikes.

I also wouldn't say your opinion is invalid because your game is shit. That's some weirdly defensive shit you're putting on me.

[gimymblert]

To be frank I use to lump Rogue like (RL) with RPG, they are literally rpg with progen and perma death, and those two things make sense with each other (die and the world vanish). So rogue lite is really taking only the distinctive gameplay of RL (permadeath progen) and applying it to other genre.

At the same time, there is no such thing as free labor, and while it's a hobby, trying to have a return on a demanding labor help sustain that labor. Expecting a return for labor is only fair.

it's only fair if you're under an agreement to do work in exchange for money. expecting payment from anyone just because you spent time on something is dumb and obnoxious

It's fair to expect monetizing labor, however expecting success is another problem.

[s0]

but aren't almost exclusively narrative focused games a new trend that is slowly but surely creeping its way into the mainstream? telltale games have been popular for a long time and this year undertale and soma were successful. all those youtube horror games, regardless of what you may think of them, are also basically that.

that seems like the polar opposite of "roguelikes" to me.

[gimymblert]

To be frank story game use to be adventure game, then rpg, then cinematic rpg, then etc ...


It was never niche, even heavy rain sold well

[cynicalsandel]

but aren't almost exclusively narrative focused games a new trend that is slowly but surely creeping its way into the mainstream? telltale games have been popular for a long time and this year undertale and soma were successful. all those youtube horror games, regardless of what you may think of them, are also basically that.

that seems like the polar opposite of "roguelikes" to me.

I'm sorry if this is obvious and I'm stupid, but what is this in reference to? The existence of narrative games doesn't also mean that roguelikes aren't a popular genre. Multiple trends can exist at once. As I stated before, I specifically mentioned roguelikes because of infinite replayability compared to linear games in a reference to mindshare.

If this is an argument that those games are also replayable because of branching paths and choices, I don't disagree, but they aren't replayable to the extent that roguelikes are. Plus the 1 hour I might take to play a run in Binding of Isaac isn't comparable to the amount of time it takes to get through a Telltale game.

Again, I'm sorry if I'm just flat out missing your point.

[s0]

oops i totally misread your post, sorry. 

yes you're right.

[Xonatron]

Welcome to the post-indiepocalypse
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-12-09-welcome-to-the-post-indiepocalypse

[J-Snake]

"All indications are that the market for games is still growing; it's just not growing as fast enough to support the number of people willing and able to work in the industry."

That might be the key point.

[Cobralad]

i wonder if some games would make more money if they stayed ad-revenue. Recently i saw some people shoveling straight up garbage at google store or armor games and telling they receive like $2000-$5000 a year from that.

[s0]

armor games

people still use that site? wow woah

[Cobralad]

maybe this year flash games died for good, but i remember hearing people getting around $1000 for year-two for some low effort garbage, which is pretty decent if you are not from sweden francisco

[FREAKNARF]

Hi there !
So, it's "cancelled"...

I have 2 small questions :

1 Did you felt a great disturbance in the force ?
2 Does somebody have an idea of what the dotted lines mean, in the "scary graph" ? Previous years ?

cheers !

[Mark Mayers]

(Reviving some discussion)

There isn't an 'Indiepocalypse' necessarily, but the bar for quality has been raised exponentially.
I see this as a good thing, we'll see better games produced as a result.

There are more games being produced today than there were in ~2008-2012 during the 'Indie Golden Age.'
However the difficulty in making games hasn't increased, it's always been difficult to make a successful game.

The ostensible challenge increase is due to two factors:
-The democratization of publishing platforms and ubiquity of free development tools created an influx of indie games
-Powerful development tools raised the achievable quality ceiling and thus the minimum bar for success

The effort in creating a small game from scratch in ~2008 is (arguably) the same effort in making a complex game with Unity or Unreal in 2016.
A single person or small team can do considerably more now than before.
Inversely speaking, the effort for creating simple games has vastly decreased due to these tools.

I still think 'the cream has potential of rising to the top' and the 'Indie Dream' still lives.
However unless you're making something exceptional in its genre, creating a unique game which appeals to common markets, or plain lucky, you're unlikely to do well.

Quality can mitigate failure; but success is never guaranteed.

[gimymblert]

Also the ratio of effort to game is a lower bar, which mean you have lower threshold to ROI, which mean a lot of "low quality" game can actually be profitable (in a pure mathematical sense) with less sales, though might not hit living wages point.

Also unique experience at some point are no more unique, you need good concept and great marketing.