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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperBusinessAdvanced Indie Developer Mindset
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Gurigraphics
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« on: May 10, 2016, 02:14:16 PM »



http://gurigraphics.blogspot.com.br/2016/05/advanced-indie-developer-mindset-what.html

Do you agree? Disagree? Something to add? Something to improve?
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gornova
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« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2016, 06:31:13 AM »

I think from a "research" prospective define a common set of data and share for comparison and analyzing is really useful. Some metrics for example using Steamspy on Civ V (http://steamspy.com/app/8930):

Quote
Release date: Sep 21, 2010
Price: $29.99
Score rank: 96% Userscore: 96% Metascore: 90%
Owners: 8,601,969 ± 70,394
Players in the last 2 weeks: 795,342 ± 21,687 (9.25%)
Players total: 8,144,336 ± 68,550 (94.68%)
Peak concurrent players yesterday: 38,827
Peak on Twitch yesterday: 4,075 viewers, 17 channels
YouTube stats: 34,610 views and 328 comments for videos uploaded last week, 12 new videos uploaded yesterday.
Playtime in the last 2 weeks: 14:13 (average) 05:52 (median)
Playtime total: 166:51 (average) 40:46 (median)

your "method" could be use this kind of services to create some comparison?
Like, you know, I'm an indie developer, I have my game out, so here my metrics, what about games on same genre ?
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2016, 07:49:31 AM »

Hi gornova,

I'm not expert that. That's just something I want to learn more.

Many developers have a prejudice about marketing e metrics. They say that you need only make what you like and blablabla.

However, I realized that this is just a noob speech.

Marketing and metrics can be part of the game from the development. Do not use this today, it is how to make a game without music. As in the past, that the games had no music, just sounds. It is an extra feature, uses it, who knows how to use. Do you agree?

You do not need make a game that you even do not like. You need is adapt the game for the needs and realities of the a determined audience. Because there is no way to please everyone. And if you please just yourself, you can not survive on that.

Feedback about the game is not sufficient. The level of feedback are usually very bad. You can not waste time on irrelevant changes. Change something to please one person and displease many others is only lack of intelligence. Feedback is useful only when many people complain about the same thing.

Quote
your "method" could be use this kind of services to create some comparison?
Like, you know, I'm an indie developer, I have my game out, so here my metrics, what about games on same genre ?

In text I just divide the indie developers into three categories.

I thought about data of itself game. But these data from other games can also be useful.

If the game is of same genre, this audience may have similar behaviors.

For example, this data of this database: Median Time Per Player

If, in a game of "success" the players usually play, on average, two hours, you can set this as a goal.

If, in your game, they play only 15 minutes, so, you, at least, get to know how far you are that.

You can make changes in the game, and examine if the time has improved or worsened.

For example, take a test A / B.
First 100 people playing version 0.1.
And 100 play version 0.2.

So you define what the best version and repeat the test with other versions.

And learn what most influences this metric: Median Time Per Player

This is an example of how to use it. I will not write more because I wrote too much. ^^

Thinking about that, what other data can be used?
« Last Edit: May 11, 2016, 07:58:36 AM by Gurigraphics » Logged

gornova
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« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2016, 11:01:27 PM »

I'm not an expert too, but in my experience:

1) define target audience: age, location, sex, preferred genres and so on is mandatory
2) play a lot of games that your target audience like is mandatory
3) define metrics to track and evaluate your results is mandatory

Do you know about Business Canvas ?
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2016, 04:03:35 AM »

Yes. I know but never used.

Exist also the Gamification Canvas.
http://www.gameonlab.com/canvas/
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2016, 05:46:09 AM »

Other Categories:

Each day increases exponentially the amount of produced games.
There are many thousands of games fighting for the attention of the same players.

In this universe, two natural questions are:

- How to stand out in this crowd?
- What does your audience want?

We currently live in a hybrid world. The traditional way of categorizing games and people do not work very well.

A better way of thinking about this is to find new categories:

1. What skills my game teaches?

- Cognitive skills: Memory, Logic, etc.
- Sensomotoric skills: Perception, Movement, etc.

2. What are the dimensions of this learning?

Angry Birds - Single-dimensional progression:

- Learn - Learn to pass simple steps.
- Use - Use what you have learned in the most difficult challenges.

Clash of Clans - Multi-dimensional progression:

- Prepare - Learn, plan, invest, manage, etc.
- Attack - Use all conquests in the most difficult challenges.

Based on:
Know Your Game’s Competitors and Target Audience
http://www.gamerefinery.com/know-your-games-competitive-landscape-2-revolutionary-ways-to-categorize-mobile-games-part-1/
« Last Edit: May 12, 2016, 05:57:43 AM by Gurigraphics » Logged

Gurigraphics
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« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2016, 06:23:24 AM »

This chart is also relevant:


http://www.gamerefinery.com/
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2016, 03:02:42 AM »

More about the three categories:

Mindset Noob

You want to make a game only for love?
You think that success is just do what you like?
You think that people do not need to pay by their work?
You pretend that not want to make money with the game?
You pretend it does not care about the results of the game?
You're making a game only for yourself?

Okay. This is a noob mentality. And noob does not mean worse, and advanced not means better. They are just different categories. Each one does what is capable of perceive and thinking.

The difference is that a noob developer can become an advanced developer. But, a developer advanced does not return to mindset noob. Because a advanced developer not want only joke of make games. A developer advanced seek more and better results.

Quote
“The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.”(Albert Einstein)

Mindset Average

You want to make a game just because it is fashionable?
You looking only to make as much money as possible?
You think that you can get much time doing what you not like?
You think that dispassionately you can get the best results?
You do not know how to use data and feedback to improve your results?
You think that marketing that promote bad games will work forever?
You look for immediate results and does not think in the long run?
You think that you meet a wider audience with less quality is better that meet a smaller audience with more quality?
You think that your game will please everyone?

Okay. This is a Average mentality. And average does not mean worse, and advanced not means better. They are just different categories. Each one does what is capable of perceive and thinking.

Mindset Advanced

Advanced Mindset is implicit in everything that was written.

Think: Thesis versus Antithesis = Synthesis = Dialectics = Development


Mindset Extreme

Fun is a human need. Learning too. And one thing is not better nor exclude the another. Because fun is also produced by learning.

Even so, a serious game that cause a social impact of fun and useful learning, I think that can only be produced by an extreme mindset. However, the audience also need want this.

And one day we will get there. Because:
Quote
"Developing games is developing yourself".

« Last Edit: May 13, 2016, 03:44:27 AM by Gurigraphics » Logged

2DArray
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« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2016, 08:45:44 AM »

I don't think that analytics are the best way to get feedback about your game.  As you say, direct feedback is only useful when you get similar complaints from multiple people...but why is that a problem?  You get a vague picture of what's wrong from one person's complaint (and your existing knowledge of the game), and with each additional related complaint from another person, you can refine your image.  Generally it only seems to take two or three strangers + an understanding of the game to figure out a concise way to address whatever problem is being encountered.  Factoring in the unspoken cues that people give while playing the game is vital to me because they communicate more (with deeper honesty) than what the person will say out loud.  Do their eyes widen when certain things happen?  Are they holding their breath?  What were they looking at when they get stuck?

Analytics vs intuitive feedback is, I believe, a conflict between two schools of thought.  Both methods will find insights that the other overlooks, so I don't think it's a good idea to tell people that one of them is The Right Answer For Sure.  Each developer will have their own preference.

Remember that when you use analytics to evaluate your game, you're not measuring the things you actually want to measure, because those are all wishy-washy notions like people's feelings.  All you can really measure is finite stuff like how long this part took, what level they quit from, etc.  There will always be a black box between each person's true reaction to the game and the numbers that are measured to represent their play session.  I believe that this divide is much more substantial than what the proponents of heavy analytics would imagine.

There are extreme cases of really clever measurements, like Left 4 Dead using the player's style of mouse movements to determine how tense they're feeling at each point in the level - this seems like great data to me, and I think it's a rare exception.  Note that in this stand-out example, they're not doing mass data collection to inform the developer's tweaks to the game.  Instead, the data is used in the current round of play to help their Director AI adjust the upcoming combat scenarios.  When I hear indie devs talk about analytics, they always talk about broad averages like how much time/money each user is spending or what level the most users are quitting from.  It's good data for certain moments, but I don't think it's good enough to be considered mandatory.

It's like a genetic algorithm.  You can define any fitness function you want and let the system try to optimize it, and it will always do that - but depending on extremely subtle details about the data, it might get stuck at a poor-quality local maxima, or you might have picked a poor-quality fitness function that doesn't quite measure the thing you wanted to measure, so it's actually optimizing something else...how would you know if one of these things had already happened?  I think the presence of "hard data" makes people feel that their decisions about people's emotions are more discrete and pure than the reality of the situation.

I'm not 100% firm on this stance, though, so I'd be happy to hear other arguments supporting the use of analytics as a use-everywhere kind of tool.

(Source:  Paid for gamedev for over 10 years; designed/programmed/modeled/wrote a Steam game that grossed over $150k; have never used analytics in a game for the reasons listed above)
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2016, 10:59:32 AM »

Yes. The ways to analyze something are endless.

I prefer what is more organized, practical and which generates results.

Because, as indies, we do not have so much money and time available. Nor laboratory of experiments or neuroimaging equipment to get more reliable data.

In the past, there was not analytics. Super Mario, for example, was not done with analytics. And many other successful games also not used this.

But now times have changed...

I consider that, to know, for example, at what stage the players exit of game, a really important thing to improve the level design of a game.

Currently, you not know this, it's like not realize students sleeping in the room or jump the window.

And this means that his pedagogy or entertainment is fail.

But, if you have a lot of experience with games, you may not need to know this. You can copy games that works. Or you can depend on luck, make decisions based on guesses, and still have a significant success.

Analytics does not do magic. It only serves as a compass to point out errors and performance levels.

Analytics is an extra tool. It's something That You are not required to use, if you do not know how to use, or this do not provides what you wanna know.

Even so, for the best professionals and companies it is mandatory. Because, currently, not using something that is proved that improves your results, it is not a professional or advanced attitude.

I think that you agree with me, but do not realize it.

You have 10 years of experience and earned $150k?

This is analytics.
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« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2016, 04:47:32 AM »

I would change the word noob in the post - it is immediately off putting for some reason.
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Gurigraphics
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« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2016, 12:38:45 PM »

Beginner is noob. What's the problem?

How much worse the title more desire will they have to progress.

But, if you want you can call them of Beginners.

However, this discussion does not add up.
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