Could I make a living being an Indie Game Dev?

I don't doubt that a bit and definitely understand that is where Indie game dev is heading if it isn't already there as you mentioned earlier.

Bottom line is making games seems to be a lot easier for people I guess (seems pretty much the same to me as it always has been) that part seems to have been more accessible but the consequence of that is "going Indie" has been made significantly harder in comparison.

How do these discussions seem to go all over? Lol

Sometimes I think things are just as they should be. No different really than it always was. Like the barrier is still there. The barrier to success is all of these games being made and being able to effectively target your audience and market your game above all of the noise. And ultimately it has made it so the old sayings the rich get richer, takes money to make money and it's not what you know but who you know are as true as they have ever been. So basically things are kind of the way they should be I suppose.

 

In fact direct sells mean you get to have less overhead, more return, and less volume to get to living wages. I wonder how well it would work for game too, I haven't crunch the number. I did do some math once where I was looking at raspberry pi level of hardware with white label, straight out of the factory, and found out that the game + hardware at 60€ of direct sells mean you could sell just a few and still have living wages, but I haven't updated and lost the data anyway. I didn't pursue it either because the controller was the most expensive due to my quality requirement. I couldn't find where to source good stuff to make custom but quality controller. I also struggled to find where to source good cheap camera for alt control.

 

I recently started programming again on a TRS-80 CoCo. That was my second computer ever, the one I learned to program on when I was 12-13 years old. It's a 35 year old computer. We might release a new game or two for it. Also about to get another Amiga to possibly make games for that, too. Make of that what you will, within the context of this thread. Have fun out there, everyone.

 

I've thought about this and certainly will do it. But not direct so much as a website of my own selling the product unless I did a humble widget kind of thing. The biggest thing with sales online is always trust. So I think it would be better to use GameJolt or Itch.io to for the majority of prospects your marketing efforts bring.

I say majority because from what I have seen of people doing this Steam always pulls in many times more than itch and GJ together but I also think those are cases where basically no marketing has been done. I would send about 20% of the traffic to the Steam page because although I have no proof of it I suspect their system will kick a game more presence based on how many people are coming into it from outside of the Steam store (oh no! within weeks there will be millions of robots visiting some game landing pages now). I mean it just makes sense. None of these places really want to give someone a "free ride" so seeing the dev put forth some effort I think would cause Steam's systems to suggest a game more often around the site. That is probably exactly what I would do if I built something like Steam.

Anyway, I have seen people even selling homebrew C64 and other games at itch and I imagine it is for that reason. Cut is lower than Steam yet you have an established well known website for the payment which breeds trust. So you might want to look at that. But again only if you are planning on putting effort into the marketing.

 

Very cool! I have thought about doing the same thing. I still have my Amiga out in the garage. lol This Indie thing has actually already spilled over to those classic computer & console markets and new games are made for them all basically but since it is lower level not fancy tools nor 3D it is a tiny tiny percentage of devs. Of course the market is tiny as well. But I hope you do it and good luck!!

 

Well it has been fun but I am pretty much talked out, my dev break is over and I need to get back to work. I am sure I will swing by again some time.

 

I am not musician of course. But I like search for something new fresh out there, since I am a bit sick of listening same thing over and over. I put one type of genre to listening, and soon after end up on the one I have listened previously 1000 times, of completely different genre, for which I am not in a mood. I really struggle with Youtube, to find new interesting content. It push me in throat all same marketed crap. Well, no, some stuff are really good, but hard to dig new Perls.

Hence I look from time to time on other places like online radios.
For example http://www.jango.com/browse_music

Then I check on interested author musics and look what youtube returns in results. And sadly, for number of good musics, youtube shows very low popularity for these authors. Which is sad.

And here we go same with game industry.

Thing is, game dev is one of the cheapest professions / skills, you can learn.
Starting from early age is beneficial. But many people got access to computer and internet, with no issue. From there, is just reach of some online dev tools, and you start learning.

So no surprise for huge massive shear volume of content.
Only the problem, pearls fall down somewhere below, to be dig out.

I Loved playing Amiga games
Oh, and it had super cool painting editor, where you could make animations.

Remember drawing frame by frame, to make cannons shooting across valley. Was so fun.

 

I agree with the first impression point. It is not about the game, but about what is the first impression it leaves on the audience.

I didn't play your game, maybe it could have a mechanic that revolutionizes all puzzle games, but if in the 5 sec attention span it would remind of tetris game with a 3D suffix more commonly used in 1990's, then perhaps it would be the case to have experimented it in a focus group to see if this is just our impression, or more people would react like that.

Think on the good side: you're still making sales, so Steam is a good platform. Imagine your next game, when you will leave a better first impression.

 

@GarBenjamin

I think you will like this site
http://www.indieretronews.com/

 

Hey just wanted to say I watched this last night right before I hit the rack. It was interesting and cool to see people branching out. Not sure why they would give a presentation on it although I guess it won't have nearly the demand since it involves really getting out there and making contacts physically setting up and so forth.

 

I am actually familiar with that site and visit it often.

Thanks though I do appreciate it really!

 

Why wait for the next game? There's no reason not to start optimising that first impression, and every step after it, right now.

 

I was thinking today (that's always how the trouble begins lol) and think I should clarify something I was saying earlier in this thread... when I said Any market can only support so many businesses. More businesses can come in but there comes a point where there are so many businesses nobody can actually make a living from it. And there comes a point where so many people are selling in the market even if they are nowhere near as experienced and good at it as the long established businesses they hurt the established businesses just through sheer numbers of them being there.

I think there is potential for a huge number of people to make a successful business out of games IF these two things happened...

1. Everyone were to spread out & target all of the different highly focused niches out there
2. More people became highly targeted curators of games

I have a big problem with many of the people leaving Steam reviews including many curators who are reviewing games they obviously don't even like that type of game to begin with. I have seen it so many times now where people leave reviews knocking every Indie game period ("more indie trash"). Or knocking any 2D game period. Or knocking down certain genres of games. This is obviously completely stupid and imo assholish.

If a person knows they hate FPS then why are they even looking at FPS games to begin with. I mean I know why... to neg review it (and how some of these even buy so many games like 1,000+ games idk but maybe they just have a lot of money and like bashing people for fun OR maybe Curators get a lot games submitted to them for free or possibly even paid idk). It's definitely not curators doing it all. A lot of just "normal" (I question that) Steam users have 1,000 games in their accounts who leave these kind of reviews on certain types of games.

Doing this would be a great thing way too many of the curators seem to cover a grab bag of games across all genres all types and there would be a lot more value with more curators who were highly targeted. "I cover 2D arcade action platform games (not metroidvania or puzzle platformers!) ONLY". "I cover 3D sci-fi FPS games only". These are just examples. But anyone covering games should be covering games they love and know inside & out.

It's why I don't waste my time going on Steam leaving reviews on games saying "looks like they wasted half the budget on cut scenes they should have put that on gameplay" or "great another 3D military FPS game the world doesn't need!" . I know I don't play those games. They aren't my specialty so why would I cover them at all? Yet other people do this constantly. And it is actually a disservice.

Getting back to #1... there are masses of things people like. And I don't doubt a person could build a business around making games catering to interests such as cat lovers, dog loggers, kitten lovers, puppy lovers, people who are crazy about bunnies, horses, parrots, etc. I am sure there are large communities out there for each of these. And hobbies obviously.

There are fishing games. And hunting games. These are just two things and I think they are way too broad. Most people that I know who fish (as well as myself although it has been years) fish for a few specific things primarily sometimes even just one thing period. And they could even be broken down into specific areas and types of fishing. Perch Ice Fishing. Crappie Ice Fishing. Catfish River Fishing. Lake Trout Fishing.

And do these fishing games even do anything beyond fishing lines and lures? Sometimes I think people making these things don't even do it and that is where a person who has the hobby for real can do it. Gigging is a big thing too. Frog gigging. Fish gigging. Spearing is a very popular form of catching fish. So on so forth. Point being people could just spread out and target these very specific niche markets but instead it seems like most people are making games about the same 50 to 150 or whatever it is different things. Some much more than others of course.

Instead we see like metroidvania. RPG. Abstract puzzle game. I mean obviously we see many many different takes on these but I think maybe the key is to specialize more. Why not make an rpg with insects or animals. Maybe an rpg on a farm. Or maybe one where you are a fisherman (or woman). Maybe one as a backwoodsman / mountain man. Probably getting more toward a survivalist type of game with some of these.

All I am getting is if people took what they love and know about in the real world and then built highly specialized games around their off the computer hobbies & interests they probably stand a very good chance of being able to own that market. Maybe you love rc helicopters. Maybe you specifically love twin blade rc helicopters. Lots of people do. Big communities. But maybe the problem is people just copy everything that does well so if someone saw Perch Ice Fishing was a hot seller instead of using their brain and making Crappie Ice Fishing they might be more inclined to make Another Perch Ice Fishing game? I don't know.

Much of what I write here is just conversation. Kind of like we are having a beer and talking / thinking out loud.

 

Truth be said, there are some gameplays, some genres, that translates well to trailers, and some genres that have a harder time to have trailers about it.

It is very common for some genres even to hide the gameplay in their trailers, like visual novels and rpg maker games , so that people doesn't turn their heads instantly. The games are not bad, but some flashy illustrations are way better than the actual gameplay footage, as the genre doesn't translate that well to trailers, and sometimes even to screenshots.

There are some extreme cases, like Potatoman Seeks the Troof , that at some point one wonders, wth I am watching here and wtf is this game about?

 

LOL I like some of PixelJam's games including Potatoman Seeks the Troof. They did a crazy trailer along these lines for their Steam golf game too. You're right for sure. You watch and have to look around the page a bit.... is this the game video?

Alright well I need to get back to work.

 

I finished my dev work and chores for the night so.... another thing that would be great is to focus on games like the PS2 and very early PS3 launches.

I plan to make some small 3D games along those lines one day. For me and I am quite sure many others see it like that era was the end of the greatest AAA games.

A lot of it when I talk about enjoying retro games isn't just 2D games like arcade games, c64, nes, amiga but actually 3D games from N64 and PS2 like Star Fox (actually wasn't that created on the SNES at least first?), Maximo Ghosts to Glory, Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter, Prince of Persia Sands of Time, God of War, DMC 3, Shadow of the Colossus, War of the Monsters (we played the hell out of that game so much fun) and so many more.

It was a time when there was such a massive variety of games cool games of different kinds like the devs were all still experimenting and innovating and game design was getting solidified.

It was just before or about the start of the massive franchises of sequelitis when companies started pouring so much money into making games like movies they had to play it safe and put their money on making last year's games with better graphics and some tiny innovative touches here & there but mainly staying true to "the recipe".

I think a lot of us miss the creativity the fun of that VIC-20 through very early PS3 era. When developers were still trying new ideas new genres even. As much as I greatly enjoyed some games on my ps3 I never was into it overall as much as I was the games on my ps2. And I think it was because the PS2 era was a time of greater experimentation and a focus on fun.

So anyway... that would be something great for people to focus on. Pick a game or genre from N64 or PS2 time and specialize in that area make it "your thing".

 

This would not change a lot.
Unfortunately, everyone is making crappy games and selling them, many good games are hidden under ton of bad games, or doesn't get attention when they are available.

I think the solution would be a new platform that would only sell high quality indie games.
Only reviewed ones, with a classification: Top, Good, Enjoyable.
Games after some minute of play, considered bad would be directly rejected.

I think many players want such platform based on quality instead of quantity.
There is definitively a place for such platform.

 

Those were the days. Although I didn't work on any PS2 games, I did work with the N64, and yes, it was definitely awesome to keep trying to push those machines to the limits.

My wife and I were just talking this morning about computers and consoles now versus then. Nowadays, you can pretty much do anything, if you have the team and the time. Modern computers offer way more power than we really know what to do with, and things just keep getting beefier. Coding and art efficiency has really taken a back seat to loading up anything and everything possible. Bloat is everywhere (even in my own games; I don't get a pass on this one). There's no real reason not to just go crazy with it.

Back then, I mean, damn, fit all that into the N64's 4MB (8 with the expansion pack) of RAM! And that was a LOT. The past few days I've been pulling up games I wrote when I was 13-19, in the 80s. They ran on a 32k system. One of my games, a Mastermind clone (graphics based), is 5k. Holy hell, I've become so spoiled over the past years.

Not saying that there's no optimization or efficiency going on these days, of course there is. Just kind of marveling at how much was fit into so little back in the earlier days. Twenty years from now we'll be thinking the same thing about today's systems. It's all good.

Anyway, yes, I'm getting old and rambling, haha. Just bought a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 from an auction, and I'm excited to dive into the real thing vs using an emulator (what I've been doing for a week or so). Let's see what this baby can do.

 

There is lot of optimization made in Unreal 4 for example.
Paragon game got lot of new techniques like shadow capsules and other things to get better performance, same for Fornite that got new hierarchy LOD groups, or optimization on loading times for consoles.
It's no more you making the optimization but the 3D engine company, Epic in particular doesn't go the brute force as before when Unreal 4 started.

 

You might enjoy this talk, if you haven't seen it already:

 

I remember asking questions about Unity aps and revenue and after getting answers I understood that trying to make money that way was just a waste of time: https://support.unity3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/205263819-How-do-I-earn-revenue-from-Unity-Ads-

 

The only way they can do this is to make dedicated stores or at least subdomains on a given website. "Quality game" has no meaning. Ultimately a "good game" is simply a game that is solid and entertaining in some way for a given person / audience. That's it. If it isn't crashing, has minimal bugs solid enough gameplay that certain people / market like it is a quality game.

The problem is there many game devs who only see AAA-like games (gfx/flash & sizzle, etc) as quality games. And they are always complaining about all of the junk on Steam. A lot of these devs don't even want 2D games to be on there or small games either. They like flashy games, bigger games, 3D games so they think only those should be there.

The thing is they don't represent the world... all people. I read a lot of Steam discussions on this where someone makes a thread about all of the trash on Steam and that little community (I guess some kind of group can be formed on Steam) would discuss and it basically always goes like this... "what do you mean by trash games... can you give some examples?" examples are given some are agreed with but often (and always sooner or later) "that's not a trash game... I really liked that one" "yeah have to agree that is a good game" ... later ... "it sounds like you want to force it so only games you personally like are being sold here and that is incredibly self-centered just because you don't like a certain game or genre of games or don't like the graphics or the music in a game doesn't mean it is a bad game. That is entirely your personal opinion. If you don't like it then don't buy it but don't try to block me and everyone else here from having that right to buy it"

It is almost always devs talking about the trash on Steam. Consumers don't want this. If they did they would go to GOG where there has always been much higher quality checks in place. GOG reviews every game from what I understand and many people even with bigger games have been rejected. So if you want bigger and more AAA like or best presentation indie games I think GOG is a great choice as a consumer and a developer. There your game would only be in competition with what GOG feels is the best of the best.

I do think Steam could do a much better job dividing up the site into more specialized sections. And that is why I mentioned more people should become highly specialized curators. From what I have read curators & reviews are a huge part of how Steam intends consumers use their platform.

The idea is people can follow one or more curators who like only or mainly the kind of games they like or can look at reviews and find other people who feel the same way about games what they like and don't like. But it is broken because there are curators & non-curators reviewing a broad spectrum of games often because they bought a humble bundle and it included a game or two they never would have bought otherwise and don't even like. But then they write a review on why it is so bad when really it is "this is not my kind of game I don't like this game or games like it".

 

Before the "problem" of steam "blew up" I proposed that the model should be akin to affiliate store, basically you have web embededable api for curators to have mini steam but only with curated game, it's compatible with the big steam store where the player have its game. Basically steam only back end and front end is multiply by curator. That will allow niche to grow around community curation, while compatibility and services are guaratee with base steam.

 

I was interested in how steam curators worked after reading this thread, in case anyone else is as well: https://store.steampowered.com/about/curators/

I think it does a disservice that they don't get a cut of any games purchased from a link on their page, even if it was small. I'd rather they get paid that way then people watching youtube videos etc.

 

I, personally wouldn't set foot in there. Not even once.
These kind of things are really heavily subjective and I don't care about the ops' taste nor their inclination toward certain genres or themes.
This is the reason I really don't read game reviews either (other than if the game works in general, gfx performance, etc). I don't care what they think about game play, if the game is 'good' or not. We have different taste, they don't know if I find it good or not. And after more than 35 years of gaming I haven't found one reviewer whom I agree 100% of the time. Not even in a genre.

At the same time I miss the free demos and shareware, I'm the rare guy who bought the full version after demos and shareware. Yeah, I'm that old.

 

Perhaps some Steam alternate store that would sell only the best games, the games would be available in it after they got many good reviews on the regular Steam and on the review sites.
Top games means the best ones that makes huge sales enough and that have the best unanimous reviews.

For example talking 2D platformers, Ori and the blind forest is ahead of moste 2D platformers, like Iconoclast.
They are lot of 2D games, but very few reach that high quality.
This is what i mean about a platform for best games only.

The only way is you do the search on internet "best 2D games" for example, with some patience you'll find the most popular ones with the most positive reviews,and the most sold ones.
While having some quality store would make it more easy and it would not contain other thousands of crappy games before finding good ones when search on the store.

This reminds me Nintendo "seal of quality", Steam should have the same lol

 

Well, thanks for the input. I agree with you and am quite aware of the issue you're talking about. However, I am not sure what to do to improve the "banners". I am open to suggestions, however.

 

This "first impression" look is indeed something I am aware of, although I am not entirely sure what I can do to improve it. And...... no, I'm not making sales. :\

 

And it would be great for all of the people who like Ori and the Blind Forest but again is this quality based on presentation again or what exactly?

Nintendo Seal of Quality was for a certain minimum on technical (i.e. bugs etc), graphics and gameplay as I recall. And even then it was focused on the content of the graphics / gameplay not the actual artistic quality of the graphics or the fun of the gameplay. And even if it was that minimum to set a standard certainly wouldn't be in the range of the best of the best possible and certainly not for presentation alone. So Super Meat Boy, Under Tale, Zzzzzzz, Hotline Miami and countless other games that innovated on story, gameplay basically anything besides graphics/presentation would have never seen the light of the store?

I do think it might be very useful if Steam had some way for users to rate different aspects of a game so those can be used as filters. Just have options I don't care how it looks as long as it is a good game and not an asset flip and the other being I want to see only the most shiny flashy awesome looking games no matter if the game sucks. And that alone might be helpful EXCEPT there would still be people rating truly superb looking games a 1 because it didn't look as good as they wanted on their 4k monitor and others may rate Vvvvvvv a 10 so that would show up. It is just the difference in preferences.

I still think the games / store experience you are after already exists... it is GOG.

 

Of course it looks better than 99% of plattformers - it had a 7 digit development budget ( source: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/OriandTheBlindForest - not sure how accurate the exact number is, but I'm 99% sure I've heard of a 7 digit dev budget from someone who was working on the game too).

 

I didn't played those because i'm more interested in 2D games with lot of graphic work behind, like Iconoclast.

I'm not sayong that, but Steam able to collect other sites review for some game, to get a more accurate global review.

I never browse Steam or GOG, when i get news about a game getting many good review i start looking for it.
I think this sill stay the only way to get the best games type you are interested in, and avoid all crappy games is still to do the search yourself.

 

Haven't been following this for awhile, but I just want to insert this : the question of "how can I make a hit game with little or zero money?" is such a tough question to answer. There is no reliable answer. It's so complicated it may as well be random.

A better question to ask is, "how can I get money to make the games I want to make?" It's no secret that money = better talent, more consistency, more opportunities, and so on. And making money is something a lot of people do and there are proven, reliable ways to make money. Not easy, and not fast, but it's something almost anybody can do if they are determined.

I understand that sometimes, you simply got what you got and you want to make your game regardless -- but if you are starting out and you are serious about making games, yet you have no money, get some money first. In the meantime, study, practice, whatever. Patience! If you are smart enough to make a game, you are definitely smart enough to make some money.

 

I think this idea will screw indies even further...

 

I can kind of see where having some sort of division like @zenGarden is talking about would be useful. I don't think it is necessary or greatly beneficial for devs or consumers but it could have some value to both.

Like if there was a section on the store Games with Amateur Art that held all of the games that simply weren't done by a real graphics artist or big team of artists that could be useful. I'd love to be digging in there trying out games and know a large number of people who do the same. For a lot of us this is what makes "indie" cool & different. Often there are great games with uber simple or even "poor" graphics that are implemented extremely well. Just because someone didn't or couldn't make flashy graphics doesn't mean they aren't an awesome game designer and programmer. And at the same time people who greatly value the graphics over anything else would know just don't look in that section.

But I think if we did that it would need one more category like Amateur Programmer Games With Awesome Art where a person would know these games may be buggy, poor collision, poorly implemented technically yet they do look awesome and may have some really good game design ideas. I'd look in there occasionally just to see what cool ideas and such people came up with.

I like itch.io and GameJolt a lot for finding experimental "crazy" games made by amateur (in one way or another) developers.

Also remember Kongregate is coming out with a store very soon where they are supposed to curate everything. It will be interesting what they are going by for quality. I think most people at least most at that level know you can't go by visuals/presentation alone unless they really want to pass on Minecraft (what is it like 100 million+ sales I think?), Undertale (about 3 to 4 million sales?) and similar non "flashy" games so I wouldn't think that would be the deciding factor although yes they may want cohesion and non programmer art. But hopefully their curation takes into account programming (control, feel, how solid the mechanics are implemented) and game design minimum standards as well.

 

That new store is called Kartridge.

WEIRD... originally I read this was supposed to be curated but the developer sign up says "no fees or approval needed to upload a game"...

 

NOW THATS AN IDEA.

Never thought about going back to Amiga dev till now! That was a really fun period for me, and not so challenging it would get annoying.

 

Hell yeah. I'd love to see what you come up with if you get back into it!

 

I'm more worried about the fact that they're basically putting monetary incentives in games, which is going to have a pretty profound effect on design.

 

I guess I didn't notice that. I read something about a metagame but figured that was just the social prestige stuff kind of like earning experience points on GameJolt or Steam trading cards, a ranking in the community or something along those lines.

 

Both these systems also affected design on their platforms, especially for smaller titles.

 

I think it is just the way it is now. Social this and social that. All the rage right? I don't care about this kind of stuff but it seems like a lot of people do. I definitely see what you are saying such as the trading cards on Steam became its own game / market within the steam store. All depends on how you look at it though. Developers are only catering to the demand. If people didn't chase the achievements developers wouldn't target it. So in this way it was another way for developers to build a business and another way for players to engage in the site. People want this social stuff. And it was around before. Xbox 360 had the achievements and lots of players chased those with websites out there tracking who was ahead. PS3 had the trophies. Again I just think it is the current age people want this social prestige so maybe games should change to reflect that in some way.

 

The problem with metric of "goodness" is that there is none, it broke down on a per community then individual basis, any filter should reflect that.

 

It's not difficult as such to be a successful game developer. You just have to know fundamentally what a game is to people, why they play games, and how they experience gameplay. What is a game? I bet very few people could give a clear answer, right or wrong.

To be successful in anything, there is always a domain you have to master at a subconscious, intuitive level. For games, in my opinion, the important one is neither coding, nor artwork, nor SFX, but rather the dance along the border of winning and losing, the provision of a clear, coherent, self-consistent feedback for every player act and move that reveals itself at just the right pace to keep the player moving along the correct path, spawning in the player's head a vague impression of the next rung on the ladder at just the right time. There are no shortcuts. There is no aspect of reality that is directly transferable to a game setting, nor is there a formula for a satisfying game loop. Instead, like chasing after beauty, there are only some vague guidelines and a sense of intuition, driven by the ability of the developer to place themselves over and over again in the shoes of a player and iteratively construct something that feels good to play from every angle.

 

That's basically been my focus in this thread and trying to throw out some alternative ways to look at things and some possible solutions, etc. This whole quality thing is meaningless unless it is put into the perspective of a specific target audience. And again a lot of things we hear... we have to keep in mind there are literally millions of game devs or at least people with dreams dabbling in game dev thinking of themselves as game designers, etc. And a lot of this stuff I am about 99.99% sure comes from these game devs. Whether they say it just because it reflects their personal preferences / work history / areas of expertise / target audience or is an attempt to take a shot at the competition I am not sure. Maybe some of both. I'd like to think it is mainly just that is what they personally like and what they personally are good at and what their target audience likes so to them that is what quality is. A sort of tunnel vision.

As a game dev, certainly as one thinking about building a business (going Indie), you cannot take that stuff seriously. Cannot doubt your own beliefs & knowledge because of what random people online are saying. That would be insane. It may be completely true for them and the people they want to make games for but that doesn't mean it is true for every person period. A game dev should know what their target audience likes. Maybe the best possible realistic style graphics really is seen as quality for that target audience. Very possible but it is certainly not true for everyone.

I mean there are people not only still playing games from 30 years ago but actively buying new games being made for those machines right now today. People on the outside call it nostalgia. It's just because they don't get it. They don't understand it. There are thriving communities out there centered around low spec fantasy consoles such as PICO-8 and TIC-80. Tired tonight. Can't think of that other more recent one for building action adventure type games. Movement is by tiles. Whatever it is has a good following as well.

Anyway you are spot on 100% right. When speaking of quality it has to be within the context of a target audience. Because it definitely isn't going to mean the same thing to someone who thinks Witcher 3 is the best game ever as it does to someone who thinks the PICO-8 games are the greatest things ever. Enough talking I need to get some work done tonight before I crash.

 

Okay but the Xbox 360's mandatory achievements are honest to god the worst thing to happen to videogames. Like, ever. I'm not even being hyperbolic. The way they have impacted design is absolutely terrible, pushing content into the metagame rather than into the game itself. The only reasons achievements have managed to last as long as they did is because Microsoft made them completely inescapable and forcibly shaped the landscape of gaming.

 

I've been working on a 25 year anniversary editon of an Amiga game I did back in the day. But, I never imagined that one could actually charge money for something like that

 

Cannon Fodder on Amiga with digitized music in the form of a .mod. Good times. Maybe I should make a spiritual sequal

 

Will it be in VR?

I agree that they aren't great, but I doubt that they are the worst that happened. Imho the push for multiplayer in every AAA game had worse impact, or microtransactions, games-as-a-service models, maybe the early access model too (or the shift from 100% disc based distribution to online distribution and post launch patches), and the times when games were balanced around coin-operated arcades. What makes you think achievements are worse than all of those?
I think achievements are mostly pointless (I see some value as a publicly accessible analytics metric for what percentage of players got how far in a linear game or "owners vs players" statistics), but I feel like their impact on games is relatively small compared to the other things.

 

But off course!

 

You may "fail", if you neglect human psychology.
Most people want to have feeling sense of achieving something.
In games either is online, or offline.
I mean, I don't care personally much about them, but many does a lot.
And many will pay solid coin, for getting certain achievement.
Understanding this aspect, puts you in beneficial position, when comes to monetizing game (if priority), or even keeping player hooked to the game.

Many if not most players, will struggle with setting own goal, if not given on the plate.

But need to be emphased that achievement can be anything from screenshot / vid prove, badge (usual), to collected loot (including from micro transaction based loot boxes).