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[Chris Bischoff]

A question has been on my mind for a while. Do you guys, as players, and developers, take into account if a game has been created by one person when playing it?

Does that factor into how well you enjoy the game, or how hard you are on it?

If an average game was advertised as a 'one man game', would you be less harsh in terms of recommending it to other people, or is it a case of 'quality is what matters, how you got there is irrelevant.'

I'm really just curious as to how much of a selling point the 'made by one guy' line is, and if its more of a hindrance than a help.

[JMickle]

[Udderdude]

"Made by one guy" makes for a good tagline, but when I'm playing the actual game it doesn't matter if one guy worked on it, or a hundred - if it's good, it's good, if it sucks, it sucks. :p

[Christian Knudsen]

I'm really just curious as to how much of a selling point the 'made by one guy' line is, and if its more of a hindrance than a help.

It can be a selling point, but it can't stand alone. If all I know is that a game was made by one guy, that neither increases nor decreases my interest. But if it's an impressive looking game that's made by one guy, that'll definitely pique my interest. When it actually comes to playing the game, though, how many people worked on it doesn't matter at all. If it's good, it's good.

[Klaim]

Maybe making the user notice that it have been made by one guy around the time he is proposed to buy the game (assuming it's buyable) is a good way to make the player realize better what will be the consequences of buying this game.

A bit like the famous Doom message to say "hey you seem to like this game, we worked on it hard and want to make more, consider buying ".

I think I'll put a little personal letter to the user inside my one man game.

[ntdb]

I'm drawing from fairly limited experience here but if a game is made by a single person it does actually change the way I approach the experience. This may be because I often find myself exploring the mind of the designers/developers of a game as I play it, having worked on games myself. When that consists of only one person I find playing the game to be a much more intimate experience. It borders on art (I know I know) in the sense that I am engaging an artifact that expresses one other person's experiences, beliefs, likes, dislikes, etc..

[EdgeOfProphecy]

The "made by one man" tag really only adjusts my expectations, but doesn't make me judge the game's quality and differently.  It's pretty key that my expectations of scope are what adjust, not my expectations of quality.

Mostly my expectations are scaled in terms of graphical fidelity and amount of content.  Now, this doesn't mean I'll accept bad graphics, because the only thing that can ruin graphics is a poor sense of aesthetics.  You don't need to have a fleet of engineers massaging the U3 engine to make a game look appealing.  Minecraft looks appealing, Spelunky looks appealing, and Cavestory look appealing because of their strong aesthetic design.

Scale of content also comes with the caveat that the content that exists is good, and must be at least of appropriate size to convey the gameplay experience.

The difference I see is that the AAA industry has the time and resources to dump into things like graphical fidelity and vast amounts of content, which while very cool and highly appreciated, are not prerequisites for a game being good.  If a AAA studio releases a game for $60 that's light on content or has a simple, but appropriate, aesthetic, I probably wouldn't buy it even if it's good.  That's an indie game, and it costs less than $60.

[TomHunt]

In terms of actually selling a game (vs soliciting feedback on a WIP), I would personally just leave it out and let people discover that it was made by one person after the fact. It really depends on who your audience is and what it is you're trying to communicate.

This might seem counter-intuitive, but having fewer # of selling points is actually better - so long as they're high-value, because it makes it easier for me to communicate the game to my friends. What makes your game "must have"? That's pretty much all that matters. If you can communicate that in a single phrase/image/video/sound/etc, and get a sale out of that, then I think you're onto something. So yeah, I'd say it's more of a quality of the end result thing.

I don't think I've ever bought a game purely on the premise of it being a solo effort. I've bought games that I thought were good games based on what I saw/heard about them that happened to have been made by one person, and my respect for those people tends to go way up as a result, but I wouldn't say it's something I'd put down as a bullet-point. As others have said, it doesn't excuse a mediocre result.

[PompiPompi]

People don't... read much... heh.
So unless someone specifically reads your blog or reads walls of texts before buying your game(which most customer probably won't?) and unless you have to put your name at the start of the game(adding, "I made this game on my own") I don't think most players will even know. At least until they finish the game and reach the credits.
Kind of like when I play an AAA game and then reach the credits and then I think "Wow, that many people worked on this game?"

Just look at indie games on steam and see if you can spot any developer names in there(I didn't spot).

[Udderdude]

Also like to point out that one person doing all of the programming, content and "gruntwork" while hiring an artist and musician to do that part of the project for him/her is pretty close to "one person did everything", if only because the actual game rules, coding and level design were all done by one person.  That's the part that really matters to me, anyway.

[shig]

As the video started I was thinking "wow I didn't expect a destructoid dude would get this right" but halfway through I was beginning to think that this dude is actually kind of dumb and just happened to stumble upon a good conclusion.

[SundownKid]

I don't think it would really be a good selling point, since most people would just equate that with a lack of quality rather than a badge of honor (regardless of whether the game is good or not). It would probably just turn people away from the game.

[mirosurabu]

Game devs are no rockstars. The game world is though.

The only reason I care about game developers is because I'm game developer myself. There is no other reason to care about whether it's single guy or not otherwise.

[hanako]

Knowing that all of a game was made by one person increases my level of being impressed with it if it was already impressive. It's a little "WOW" on top - but only if I liked the game already.

Other than that, I don't differentiate between "one person" and "small low-budget indie team" in terms of how I judge the game.

I don't think it's a selling point. It is a talking point, if the game is awesome.

[Chris Bischoff]

I don't think it's a selling point. It is a talking point,

I really like that quote!

[Manuel Magalhães]

Me too. It's a great quote.

[nico]

I think it's a great thing to feature on your site (it DOES impress more, especially if you have high quality or volume). But there's nothing unique about it of course, so I wouldn't TRY to impress people with it.

[Klaim]

Knowing that all of a game was made by one person increases my level of being impressed with it if it was already impressive. It's a little "WOW" on top - but only if I liked the game already.

Other than that, I don't differentiate between "one person" and "small low-budget indie team" in terms of how I judge the game.

I don't think it's a selling point. It is a talking point, if the game is awesome.

I remember playing Aveyond demo, not believing that a RPG Maker game could be sold.
After 1 hour I got this :

1 woman + very interesting RPG + GameMaker => Wowowow!


So I guess that

1 people + very interesting game => Impressive!


I also like that quote too.

[Chris Bischoff]

I asked this question on another forum (more a gamers forum than a gamedev one), and something one of the guys said was pretty interesting. He said that when he sees a 'one man game', he expects, and usually gets, a more personal play experience. Now granted it was specifically directed towards Adventure Games, and I take it that he was more referring to the more personal STORY that a one-man-game can tell.

[benni05]

I don't agree with what mirosurabu said. With computer games finally accepted as main stream entertainment Game Devs are increasingly perceived as rock stars. Even people playing video games can become famous, we've seen people living of "Let's play" videos posted on youtube who also remind me of rock stars with their huge following (for example Gronkh in Germany).

I've noticed in the mobile/app markets that there are more and more games listed with their developer names instead of a company name and I've heard several times when friends recommended a game to me that this was developed by just one guy. This must be for a reason...

So, personally I regret not to have chosen my real name when starting out as an Indie dev, escpecially because I tend to do everything on my own including music.

Side note: I've always thought about setting up a special competition/reward of games having been developed by a single person, maybe on a yearly basis. This surely would be of interest to the gaming community. Wouldn't be tigsource be a good place to organize this?

Ben