Reminds me why I went into boring SAAS instead of gaming in the early oughts: games are too hit driven and too many passionate people want to do it anyway. So there is no safe way to a balanced, financially stable life except grinding out sequels for big name publishers.
Still I do have regrets and keep promising myself I'll make the time someday... once I'm financially secure. Props to them for taking risks on hard sell products. It enriches us all.
I dunno about that. I think there's a sweet spot with "AA" developers kinda like Obsidian (at the top end of the scale) and Coffee Stain... if you are lucky enough to wind up in one.
And by sweet spot I mean both business efficiency and quality. They arent just burning money and melting devs' faces for a soulless rehash like many AAAs, but they can stay above water better than an indie (especially with a big "hands off" backer like many have). And I think that sweet spot will be even more pronounced in the coming years since AAAs are losing many of their advantages, like high budget VA/asset making being replaced with AI, and fully bespoke engines being more of a liability than an advantage.
It's a bit different now, but in the early 2000s everything had to be 3D, everything had to be a shooter, and everything had to be an action game. I'm exaggerating here, but entire genres all but died out for a decade or so; ~2000-2015 (give or take) was probably the worst time period in gaming, according to my tastes at least.
In comparison nowadays is a renaissance. What I like about Indies today is they often bring forgotten genres and concepts from the past back to life and there actually is a market for all this. However it can be a slog trying to get your game to market.
I'm glad that they're continuing. I love indie games, I love passionate people and their output—but it's a visual novel. What did they expect? Artistic merit et al don't equal commercial success. The reason to make a very personal project that you're passionate about is because you enjoy the process, not because you're hoping for a return on investment of time. For many people, the joy itself is in the process.
VNs are niche enough, trying to compete with the established heavy-hitters is going to be an uphill struggle. That they saw previous success is a fluke and depends which way the wind is blowing on any given day. Now isn't a great time to sell anything with economic uncertainty, especially as they self-published. Publishers frequently make or break indie games, and clearly it made previous attempts. Lesson learned is that maybe they need a publisher and don't yet yield enough clout or budget to make something a success numbers-wise. Maybe reaching out to a publisher to do a remastered version in a few years might make sense to them, I've seen a few indies do well with a rerelease.
If you go into something creative, you’re going to have to accept that you’ll have to play the marketing game. This studio sucks at marketing; their Reddit post, which may well have had tens or hundreds of thousands of views by now, doesn’t even have a link to the game’s steam page. It’s all about the acquisition funnel.
I went to GDC last month solely to attend business/marketing talks as I have a couple game projects in early stages and I’ve been wondering whether I wanted to commit the effort and money to see them through production.
Everyone there seemed to be unanimous that as far as marketing goes, the only thing that matters right now is TikTok. Posting a 10 second video once a week - even if it’s just a silly recording of your dev process - can and will net you hundreds of thousands of views, all through the organic “For
You” page. None of the marketing people who spoke had good things to say about Instagram/Twitter and the general takeaway was to not waste your time with them.
So many indie game developers want to work on their project alone in a cave until they release it to the world and everyone unanimously declares it to be a work of genius and they sell 10 million companies. Every once in a blue moon that does happen, but if you’re investing years of your life into making a game, do you really want to take that gamble? There are people who have made it their specialty to figure out how to get your game in front of people, can you really afford to not listen to them?
Florent, if you’re reading this, hire a marketing person. (if you already have one, fire them). With 2 award winning games under your belt this is where your problem is.
> This studio sucks at marketing; their Reddit post, which may well have had tens or hundreds of thousands of views by now, doesn’t even have a link to the game’s steam page
Many subreddits (maybe even reddit as a whole) have rules against self-promotion. I don't see why they need to link to the games. They're easy enough to find, and those who are interested can easily find them (I just did)
People are much more likely to click a link than do a Google search. There’s no need to do anything really, but if you’re complaining about lack of attention, why wouldn’t you maximize your (people who see the post) -> (people who visit the steam page) conversion rate?
The indie dev subreddit has no rule against making your game name a clickable link. (The whole point of the subreddit is kind of self promotion for indie devs…)
I don't really know what the standards on that subreddit are, but in my reading the author of this post is looking more for a "community discussion" rather than "promotion" here. Trying to promote your product can distract from the community discussion aspect.
Aside: one problem is that from looking at [1] is that I have no idea what kind of game this is; I get that it's mostly story-based, but is this a point-and-click adventure? Or more like Gone Home? Or something else? "3D visual novel" almost sounds like a movie in a .exe format. I feel like I'd be spending €19 for a cat in a bag.
From Wikipedia: “Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustrations and a varying degree of interactivity.”
To my understanding, it is a stretch to call them video games at all. More like “Oops! All Cutscenes”.
They’re basically choose your own adventure books, in digital format. You could say it is the exact minimum level of interaction required to differentiate between games and say movies. But they’re also a major class of video games since the 80s, and still a popular format for Japanese games (nearly every dating sim you’ll find is a VN), so their choice of label isn’t likely the problem
I don't think there is a single art form where you can expect to make a decent living, even working yourself to the bone and/or 'treating it as a business'. The successes we see are all outliers. Any medium where this turns out to be not the case (such as changes in technology or fashion) quickly gets swamped and supply again exceeds demand. The most reliable way of being a successful artist is to become financially stable some other way (get a job), allowing you to redefine what success means to you.
The Wreck is highly rated on Steam, but the negative reviews point to some practical problems. More than one mentions motion sickness. It sounds like they put an option in to try to mitigate that, but it didn't work for everyone.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 59.3 ms ] threadStill I do have regrets and keep promising myself I'll make the time someday... once I'm financially secure. Props to them for taking risks on hard sell products. It enriches us all.
And by sweet spot I mean both business efficiency and quality. They arent just burning money and melting devs' faces for a soulless rehash like many AAAs, but they can stay above water better than an indie (especially with a big "hands off" backer like many have). And I think that sweet spot will be even more pronounced in the coming years since AAAs are losing many of their advantages, like high budget VA/asset making being replaced with AI, and fully bespoke engines being more of a liability than an advantage.
VNs are niche enough, trying to compete with the established heavy-hitters is going to be an uphill struggle. That they saw previous success is a fluke and depends which way the wind is blowing on any given day. Now isn't a great time to sell anything with economic uncertainty, especially as they self-published. Publishers frequently make or break indie games, and clearly it made previous attempts. Lesson learned is that maybe they need a publisher and don't yet yield enough clout or budget to make something a success numbers-wise. Maybe reaching out to a publisher to do a remastered version in a few years might make sense to them, I've seen a few indies do well with a rerelease.
I went to GDC last month solely to attend business/marketing talks as I have a couple game projects in early stages and I’ve been wondering whether I wanted to commit the effort and money to see them through production.
Everyone there seemed to be unanimous that as far as marketing goes, the only thing that matters right now is TikTok. Posting a 10 second video once a week - even if it’s just a silly recording of your dev process - can and will net you hundreds of thousands of views, all through the organic “For You” page. None of the marketing people who spoke had good things to say about Instagram/Twitter and the general takeaway was to not waste your time with them.
So many indie game developers want to work on their project alone in a cave until they release it to the world and everyone unanimously declares it to be a work of genius and they sell 10 million companies. Every once in a blue moon that does happen, but if you’re investing years of your life into making a game, do you really want to take that gamble? There are people who have made it their specialty to figure out how to get your game in front of people, can you really afford to not listen to them?
Florent, if you’re reading this, hire a marketing person. (if you already have one, fire them). With 2 award winning games under your belt this is where your problem is.
Many subreddits (maybe even reddit as a whole) have rules against self-promotion. I don't see why they need to link to the games. They're easy enough to find, and those who are interested can easily find them (I just did)
The indie dev subreddit has no rule against making your game name a clickable link. (The whole point of the subreddit is kind of self promotion for indie devs…)
Aside: one problem is that from looking at [1] is that I have no idea what kind of game this is; I get that it's mostly story-based, but is this a point-and-click adventure? Or more like Gone Home? Or something else? "3D visual novel" almost sounds like a movie in a .exe format. I feel like I'd be spending €19 for a cat in a bag.
[1]: https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_wreck
To my understanding, it is a stretch to call them video games at all. More like “Oops! All Cutscenes”.
> Rock Paper Shotgun’s Bestest best good. 9/10 on Pocket Tactics, 8/10 on Gamespew and 8.5 on Well Played good
... Don't get me wrong, I love RPS, but anyone using written reviewers as a yardstick is operating in a different decade.