Could I make a living being an Indie Game Dev?

That's objectively false, I say that after compiling ALL the interview, video, forums discussion, reaction after the lauch of the game, features list check and etc ...

The game did good at launch, was played an healty amount of time on average and get great bump everytime there is a big update and beat some big games and rise to the top of the chart when there was the soft re released. That's a market that is clearly not understood, the audience is not understood and some vocal player latch on to create a narrative that isn't verifiable in practice. Two years after and the game is still selling more than the launch!

My analysis is that it had some overlap with player expecting a kind of mass effect type of experience and got burnt out by the result. And some outsider like to latch on confirmation bias popularized by other, despite ALL metrics saying a very different story.

The counter example is starlink, it's everything that no man's sky people complain about, has traditional gameplay in spade with complex customization system, action and deep progression system, minus the multiplayer and it bomb so hard! Like I said, it's an audience that's easy to misread.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/22/uk-r...l-as-starlink-flops-in-latest-charts-8062137/

 

I think that is a fair assessment. Definitely what many customers were expecting to get was very different from what they got (upon initial release I mean). And it might be that part of it was these people were focusing way too much on the little tidbits the developer mentioned here and there. I still think it would have be best to not say those things to begin with or at least to have simply qualified them... that is a possibility but it will not be in at the time of release.

Definitely agree it is not an easy thing. I understand this stuff as far as I mean I know it but there is a huge difference between knowing it and doing it and particularly doing it flawlessly. Sometimes I think it all just got away from them. And maybe it wasn't really deliberate exaggerations to sell more copies and instead just a person very excited about what their team was building and they really wanted to do all of the things they were saying. Maybe at the time they said things that didn't match the initial release they thought they could get it in there in time.

Definitely I think they clearly worked very hard to correct these things. From what I have heard from people is the game has improved dramatically since initial release.

 

And no one suggested otherwise.

They simply were lying about their game and gave misleading interviews. In other words, they were overselling their game. It does not mean it is a bad game per say. It means they were overselling it.

 

The two players visiting the same location at the same time and can see no trace of the other and developer Twitter response "Two players finding each other on a stream in the first day - that has blown my mind" and then going on talking about how they had added support for that and wanted it to happen just never expected it would on the first day... is interesting.

At first it seems like this person is just crazily implying that it is working and talking like the two had actually seen each other when they hadn't. But... it is possible he misunderstood and thought it really had happened IF they truly had implemented support for that and just never had a chance to test it out.

Who knows. I can't really throw stones at them because they made something pretty cool to many people and it seems quite ambitious in some ways I think. Clearly a great lesson about setting realistic expectations with your target audience though.

I might make a version some day. It would be more along these lines (back when this game was released on GameJolt it got a lot of comments from people saying this was actually the same experience as NMS only better lol). "1600-bit 18-bit" lol

 

They did not, they were actively tampering expectation, what happen is what they said was truncated and that lead to misinterpretation.

What oversold the game is that their initial reveal trailer touch on on a real untapped nerve, it was so spot on, it had excited a core starved market (people like me) and the excitation of that market drove people other people with contagion who had no business in that type of game.

But like I said I can prove they did not oversell the game and all the excitation comes from second hand retelling:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/why-is-no-mans-sky-getting-so-much-hate.426926/page-6#post-2793686
And that's just a partial compilation from the bigger one I did.

Reading this allows you to understand this:

The whole seeing each other was about leaving trails in the solar system, as every interview since 2013 allude to, they did had intention to implement model (a model was found in the datamining day one) but their intention was all about the feeling of presence, the entire concept of the game was about existential solitude in the face of an infinite universe, that feeling being the definitive nerve that was lacking from other space game.

I care a lot about this situation, because I have been (and still are) actively working on making a very similar game, I was always complaining that a limitation of space game was that they all had only black sky and military theme, ignoring huge set of scifi visual culture. That game was so spot on everything it hurt.

 

Well. You really should rewatch these:

Because he said exactly that "Yes", you can encounter with other players (not just traces), moreover you can and they expect you to work together with other players.

And it wasn't in the game. I don't know if it is now but it was not.

 

I have watch ALL of them, and I also know the timeline of them, they were pressured 3 years to make a multiplayer game and 3 years they said it was not, at the end they consider it but couldn't make it and retracted publicly before the game released, and a model was found inside the game.

I mean no amount of confirmation bias and cherry picked edited information can change facts, you presented me one video, I presented a complete compilation trail of years since the game was announced. You know at some point you need to inject back context to correct a bias. But I guess that's how we get ignorance in the world, we can just ignore everything for the single thing that confirm our long held belief, that's not rational at all.

I'm sorry I don't deal with emotion, I like to verify and measure to make my own judgement instead of following popular hearsay. I hope next you won't send me a video a video that prove that earth is flat

 

There is tons of materials on internet showing so much discrepancies from what was advertised and what was actually in game from start.

 

And there is tons of evidence on internet that earth is flat, what's the point?

edit
That's why the ethical thing is to verify your source, I provided sources interview, a lot of them, dated and ordered.

 

That game was miss sold from the start.

 

That's an opinion not an argument lol, I'm amused, I like to respond, because it's funny to see people held on belief, even when you actually source.

It was miss sold and sold well even two years after the released, good for them, I'm not sure where you are going on with that one. Personal vendetta? Where did Shaun Murray touch you?

 

Man, if you're not sure, that you will do "A" in your game, do not say "Yes, I will do A", say "I will consider it, will see". This is Molyneux level 2 BS.

I'm not sure you understand the word "evidence" fully. There is no evidence of the Earth being flat on the internet.

 

Except game do that all the time? If you want evidence I'll just point at Bioshock infinite for a very obvious one, but bioshock one and many game like the witcher 3 and other stuff.

I'm not sure that molyneux level bullshit, monlyneux never follow up. ALSO they didn't made the promise to begin with, unlike monlyneux, they were pressure and it was only at the end they start conceding. In fact even now they are talking about how they compromise their vision to please player. Molyneux straight up lie at the inception. The fun thing with nms is that at the breaking point were they were pressured they start making joke about molyneux because no matter what they said, people heard the opposite.

The flat earth evidence is similar to nms evidence, they are distortion to fit an argument. Cherry picking. I don't do cherry picking, I do exhaustive.

 

Image is worth more than thousands words.



And that only happens, when developer miss advertise their product.

 

Well, if you think that the
- will the game contain multiplayer, will the players be able to meet each other
- yes

is bending the truth we have no common ground. I think it's straight up lie, you think, it's completely okay. Whatever.

 

SO you are saying the game is good, notice how fast the bad review disapeared it does not make your point very well, especially when there is a big huge positive spike too.

 

Okay let's play the direct quote game

2013

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/09/first-look-no-mans-sky/

2014

https://gamerant.com/no-mans-sky-no-multiplayer/

2015

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/07/no-mans-sky-interview/

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...ng-of-no-man-s-sky-as-a-multiplayer-game.aspx

I mean they clarify everytime, in the end they tried to put the damn thing, then retracted, I mean they actively spend 3 years telling no. Of course if you pick a sequence like this.

And turn it into

And tell the later is the truth, and shrug when the former is presented.

Then yes I call that bending the truth

Whatever!

No wonder fake news is rampant these day, people lost all their critical thinking.

 

IF that was to me, that not what I was saying. Please don't put words to my mouth.

Please stop cherry picking (what you claim you are not). I wrote "From the start".
You just picked

last bit, which is fraction anyway, from what was on first sale time.

I haven't seen any single convincing evidence for flat earth theory.
So don't bring irrelevant arguments. That weak.

Get focus on your game, not some mix noise around other games.
You shouldn't be worry on such matters.
If I was you, I would rather learn from such lesson, if applicable.
Do what you think is feasible and enjoyable.

 

Why? and why you think I'm worried? I said I was amused!

I mean you have to realized all of these where rethorical I mean to show how absurd all of this really is. I mean of course you aren't convince by flat earth, neither I am, and neither are people who believe flat earth convince of round earth either.

I mean the picture didn't say anything either and could be interpreted either way, so it could be as much supporting my point than not. Or just be totally irrelevant. Game still sold well at lauch and 2 years after. A game that did bad is starlink.

 

You know @neoshaman I remember that now... I do remember there being a big thread here on it and digging into it and like you showed there were many documented times of them downplaying the multiplayer view and treating it as a single player experience.

So where do you think all of the unrealistic expectations came from? Was it simply a large group of people wanting to actively play the game with their friends as a multiplayer experience that did it? Like they wanted that so much every time they saw any wording that possibly hinted at it they took that to mean "wow it really will be just what I want!!"?

When someone says there can be evidence you were there or a person can leave messages that could be literally anything. In the context of what he is saying in the pieces you shared I would interpret that as maybe I could move some objects to a location or collect some items and both of these cases might be experienced by the other players at some point. I mean they might not even see it happen to know it was done by a player but still that would be a way to do what he is describing.

 

I think that they were not PR people, and they spend too much time without a "narrative" that had key point, all their PR was interview, most player don't read interview, they rely on word of mouth. Since they didn't have a true marketing campaign and it was organic interest fuel by the visually impressive art direction of the trailer, player put what they wanted in a game of telephone, ie player relaying information to other player, and fact getting distorted, so multiplayer like feature akin to dark souls (which was just message left by other player for a certain number of time) became just multiplayer (truncation) and from that you would assume player seeing each other "physically" instead of just having a presence of passage they were going for.

BTW the thing they DO lied about ... nobody cared lol, they always saying the game had 18 quintillion planets (2^64), that's not true, each 256 galaxy has a 4096²*256 cells which can hold a single solar system with 6 planets max ... that's 2^8*2^32*6 ie not 18 quintillion by a thousand magnitude ... no wonder two player where able to met, they all start on the first galaxy, there is only 4 billions position in a galaxy and since it's easy to see most vertically stack planets that makes only 2^24 (16 777 216) cells to survey, it's even smaller because most player are generated close to the outer ring because they need to travel to the center. The game had millions of players at launch. An even distribution with 1 millions player makes them at 16 cells appart from each other, you can see that the probability of having one met another make all the sense! Especially when truly random number do have clump of values!
The game is so much smaller than advertise people have no grasp of astronomically big number either, nor statistic.

TO be frank they where expecting around 15 000 player with 1000 playing at all time (sony did tell them to expect million), which is exactly what they got at their lowest point. The size of the universe make sense at these projected number, for the experience they were going on.

 

Wellllll... now thats a bit of a stretch. Sure, they made big promises that they didn't totally deliver on (perhaps some that never got in even in updates) but I feel like that was just mostly a hype machine grown out of control, and a team of devs with good intentions that maybe didn't realize how massive of a smash hit they were cooking up until the hype machine was already godzilla scale.

The things they said got held onto tight by gamers who wanted some super game, and of course those sky high expectations didn't get lived up to.

But does that make the publisher a "pathological liar".... uhhh... naw dude.

EDIT: I just realized I was a little late to that discussion

 

They are not the first announcing something that finally is not included in the game

Killzone 2 fake in game trailer

Anthem downgrade compared to E3 showcase, does't seem epic while playing , finally a Destiny clone.

 

I was thinking that too not specifically these games you shared but I seem to remember W3 having set some huge expectations on graphics fidelity.

IIRC they had shown a demo with these epic quality graphics and when the game came out graphics fidelity had been noticeably reduced. Which to us as devs makes sense but gamers weren't too happy about it. Many were expecting the entire game to look like that sneak peek demo. And as a result there was a lot of discussion and even some game media coverage of it.

I learned this firsthand when releasing very early wips in Feedback Friday thread here years ago. Much of the feedback was focused on graphics. At the time I thought "these people are so obsessed with graphics" which was partly true but I realized most of these people were simply going by what they saw only. Which is completely understandable and all that can be expected.

It's just that I focus on all of things I consider most important first... the structure / overall game design, controls, mechanics etc. Presentation & polish comes in iterations with focus on those aspects increasing as development gets further along and "the core" is solid.

So I used that experience this time around spending much more time and doing a few iterations of polish before even putting the demo out for feedback from other developers on a forum. Then I took that feedback and improved it more and finally decided yesterday to put it out for feedback in FF here as well.

So basically the takeaway is imo and experience don't show a demo too early whether you are experimenting with presentation that isn't possible with the load of the full game OR if you haven't got the demo anywhere close to as good as the final game will be. Anytime you show / release a demo you are settting expectations.

 

I really don't understand your reasoning here. You're quoting vague statements where he is downplaying multiplayer. Fair enough. On the other hand he has made clear statements saying that you will be able to see each other, customize your appearance, etc. Yes, he said it like that. These are not just comments taken out of context. That seems like a clear lie to me. Or are all these video 'fake news'?
I agree that expecting much from the multiplayer part would be wrong, he tried to make that clear many times. But he also made many statements that were plain wrong. The biggest problem for me was, that they kept playing these vague games after realease.
When these two players were on the same spot and coulnd't see each other, everyone wanted to know if that was a bug or if indeed it isn't possible to see each other. If Murray planned on being honest, he would have come out and said that at the current moment it is not possible to see each other. Instead they left the players in the dark.

Would you bother explaining why the times he clearly said that you would be able to see each other don't matter, but the ones where he is downplaying the multiplayer part do matter?

 

I don't want to play the moving goal post game, so I'll just post this

Free updates that goes beyond what was promised makes you a pathological liar

 

You again "cherry picking", only what suits you.
And please don't address people in abusive way here, if you don't have a good argument to discuss.
Just leave NMS topic alone.

 

No I'l not amused anymore lol I'm refering to people above calling Shaun a pathological liar not calling them as much But anyway I have some reference I can point out but why I'm doing all the whack a mole work for lazy peoples who can't do research for themselves? The rhetorical strategy of moving the plot to the next lazy question, and let the opposition made all the search is well known and has a name, it's call Loki's wager DO I have to play Loki's wager? I think only when I'm entertain and I'm bored right now

 

Yes, they hyped their game out of control. See my original argument, before we put this thread off the rails completely: they were overselling their game big time.
I also call Peter Molyneux a pathological liar, because he seems lack of self control to not oversell his games. It's the same with Murray. He has no control what he says in the interviews most of the time. Sometimes flip-flopping, but overall, he is selling BS. I think he's a very bad man to the job (making interviews).

Oh no, not even remotely the first. Moreover, I think every AAA or AA developer does that to some extent. But there is a limit. At least for me for sure. I can understand the oversell, I can understand the value of hype. Of course. I know basic marketing. But this was something totally different. It's not "the demo was prerendered", it wasn't just a lie about graphical fidelity, they lied about almost all of the valuable aspects of the game. Like PM.

And don't get me wrong, I don't think that NMS is a bad game per say, it's not my cup of tea, but it's not bad. But, with all the bells and whistles they promised it would be a groundbreaking game, without them, it's an 'okay' game. This is the dictionary definition of overselling.

 

An idea is... we could see if we can collectively identify Joe (alright Jane too) who is a huge Resident Evil fan. And see if we can figure out how to reach JJ and how to know exactly what is needed (and only what is needed) in a game for JJ to be a huge fan.

Or we could make something up like a game about a rainbow-colored squirrel that hates nuts and loves birthday cakes... and do the same thing as above. Who is the target audience? Who is Jane & Joe here? How do you reach them? What are the minimum things needed for them to be huge fans of the game?

I do little thought experiments like this from time to time just because I think it is both fun & helpful. But with so many other sharp folks here to draw ideas and experiences from this should be a lot better.

Just an idea. Or not.

 

They did very well and corrected things with important DLC.
I wish a coop mode , where players must share the same ship , so it could be done as they would always be on the same planet.
I'm curious about what could be their next game ?

 

I think it would be a really interesting example, mostly because I am unsure if it is even possible. I believe there is a lot about Resident Evil that wouldn't work today in the same way it did at the time those games came out. Also there are weird aspects of "loyalty" at play with gamers. If you look at Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, the game was not entirely without criticizm, but overall it was very well received. Metal Gear: Survive, a spinoff game made by the same studio, but without Hideo Kojima as creative leader, and you get something that is largely considered a "soulless cashgrab". I have rarely seen a game get so much hate. If you did your analysis on "minimal scope that is needed to make MGS5:TPP fans like a game", I wouldn't be surprised if you came to the conclusion that MG:S ticks most of the boxes, but "Fans" - i.e. not some random consumer without prior knowledge - care about some things that wouldn't cross your mind unless you are a fan yourself.
I'm not a "fan", I just liked MGS5:TPP a lot, and I also had some good fun with MG:S, but I definitely can see that by comparison there is a lot of stuff missing in MG:S and for "fans" those must be a "slap in the face" as probably hundreds of reviewers have called it.


P.S.: for an example that did it right: Path of Exile was the Diablo 2.5 for "Diablo 2 fans" who were disappointed by Diablo 3.

 

MSG survival is very different , non interesting story and characters, no diversity in environment and enemies, no offline, survival game instead of action infiltration.
And the price was too high for a game that is re using MSG5 assets and used 'Metal Gear' title when it has nothing to do with MSG.

 

Well you've hit on some important things I think and also think these things fit in very well here. Sounds like Survive failed to deliver on the expectations of the target audience based on the previous games (sounds like... I have never played it & don't know much about it). I think it is a different situation though when talking about a line of games with a huge number of fans and then you change "the recipe" dramatically with the latest game.

Maybe the new driver of the game wanted to innovate and ended up introducing too much of a change too different from the fans expectations. Or maybe the fans hatred of Konami was at an all time high at that point for letting Hideo go and no matter what was delivered they would have been ticked off. Again, I don't know much about that game series except there are a lot of people who seem to be huge fans of it.

For something like a new game inspired by Resident Evil meant to create a great experience for fans of those games or a random new game inspired by crazy ideas I think it is possible and you'd have more flexibility as far as innovation goes too. I mean it is different as far as even if you made a new game for fans of MG I think you'd have more flexibility in what you do than if you are making an actual official game in the series and be judged differently.

EDIT: Oh and definitely I think you always are in a better position if you are a fan of the kind of game you are making. Ideally you are in the target audience. I don't think I would ever make a game for an audience I am not in. At least make it so the game is molded designed for your target audience.

 

There's also this: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/02/23/metal-gear-survive-sv-coins-explained/

Survive is pretty much the very definition of a cash grab. It's attempting to capitalize off of brand recognition to sell a product that was rushed to market. Many of its assets and code were ripped directly from MGSV without any modification. Its core gameplay loop is completely half baked. It's... honestly, it's a F***ing mess and I only like two games out of the whole series and MGSV isn't even one of them.

 

These games are actually charging money for character slots now? I had no idea it was to this point. Very out of touch with modern AAA scene and sounds like it is a great thing I am. Lol

 

The character slot thing doesn't bother me a huge deal because it's a reasonable way to cover the operation costs of the game servers, but the way they handle selling their currency means that you're always going to pay more than you had to for the character slot. What really bothers me are things like the boosts which serve no purpose other than making it so you have to play the game less. You also have to pay for emotes which, just... whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyy?

 

So how much does the "full experience" cost for these games? Do you think it will get to point where marketing is "fully customize your game experience. Want checkpoints? No problem! Available in game for only $19.95" ?

 

Thankfully, the DLC doesn't gate content, but if you want to EXPERIENCE the content, you have to grind.

A lot.

A couple hours in the game every day a lot.

Which is why they sell boosters.

 

Well @Martin_H I spent some time digging into some RE fan sites and watching some YT videos. It seems the first thing that must be done is narrowing the target audience down. There seem to be basically two camps... the real fans who want the fixed camera angles and the so called tank movement and don't want it to be an action shooter. And then there the fans of the watered down versions that were made to appeal to a much larger general audience.

Since making any modern style AAA game is completely out of scope for Indies (what I consider Indies) especially a lone very part-time developer this is an easy choice for me... zeroing in on the fans of first RE and RE2 games.

Of course there are a lot of things they like about what they call the classic RE games. Much of it to me sounds like a longing for how games were in general at that time... more hardass, more unforgiving.

It would take some more digging to get to the essence of it. And that is what we need to find... what is the essence of that experience that appeals to them so much? Lots of dark n creepy locations to explore. Minimal resources available. Tense dark survival horror feel. Maybe that is the essence of the experience they enjoy. I am not sure yet.

 

Good points. But back then the usability conventions were not as deeply entrenched as they are now. And I think frustration tolerance and attention span were higher, due to less gaming alternatives being available. If you release a game with tank-controls today, you will have no shortage of complaints about the "controls being bad". You can't prevent people from buying it based on expectation-management, because they'll think "eh, it's gonna be fine, how hard can it be?", and then they can't deal with it and go complaining on the forum or write bad reviews. Brigador tried really hard to stick with tank controls, because they even make sense mechanically in the game. But ultimately they caved and added regular "screen aligned" wasd control options months after release. They have good sales numbers now, but the vast majority of that came from a humble monthly bundle. Before that, the game was a total financial desaster, even though it was good, unique and super well polished.

Myself I'm wondering why no one ever made a spiritual successor to "Crusader: No Regret" (or remorse? whatever the second one was). Imho the gameplay and even graphics hold up fairly well and back in the days it was very successful.

And regarding the Resident Evil series, my understanding is that the consensus is that some of the games are really good, and some really bad, and I'm sure I don't have the skill and knowledge to make sure I'd be leading a project towards being "one of the good ones", if even the original devs can't do it (assuming those were all done by the same studio, which I'm not sure about).

If you want to look at other "clone games", compare "Lords of the Fallen" to "Dark Souls".

 

Well I look at this like it is to be expected. If we make a game for a specific niche that wants fixed camera angles and tank controls then we don't care about all of the people who don't want fixed camera angles or tank controls because we are not making the game for them.

If the video and game page had a large notice: IMPORTANT: THIS GAME USES FIXED CAMERA ANGLES AND SO CALLED "TANK CONTROLS" ... IF YOU HATE EITHER THEN DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. IF, ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU ARE THINKING "FINALLY!!! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!" THEN GIVE THE GAME A TRY.

... that should do a lot of good in targeting the right people. Any who bought and complained under these circumstances would almost certainly get comments from other customers saying "Disregard all the people complaining about the tank controls... the developer went out of their way to make it super clear this has tank controls. It's not their fault people can't read".

The info you shared about Brigador is interesting. It reminds me of a few forum discussions and videos I have seen in the past year or so where some fans of various games are getting fed up with "this insane sense of entitlement so many people have".

This is why a lot of these people are looking for very specific game experiences. Apparently many times when someone sets out to make a game for a specific niche a bunch of people completely not understanding the idea of a niche game (i.e. if they don't like it then it is not for them... play one of the countless other games) and instead want the game to be changed to what they want it to be. For me... they can cry and complain and neg the game all they want but I would not change it to a watered down candy coated version. I didn't realize until just the last several months or maybe year just how much of a sense of entitlement there seems to be with a lot of gamers these days (based on hearing about it in videos and forum discussions).

 

@GarBenjamin & @BIGTIMEMASTER I finally bought "Receiver" ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/234190/Receiver/ ) and I can barely contain my disappointment about that game, even though I had low expectations going in.
How can someone sell something sooo random? I was once spawned in front of an active sentry turret and was dead in one second... PCG is not so hard that it wouldn't be possible to think of this case and make sure it doesn't happen. Sorry, but I can't understand such sloppy gamedesign. I know I like "randomness" less than many other gamers, but I can really see no semblance of trying to balance this into a "designed experience" that has some sort of progression and/or interesting risk/reward choices. I don't understand how so many people reviewed this positively? Do I really have sooo much higher expectations than the average Joe?
Sorry for the rant, but it was either this or a negative review on steam, which I didn't want to write because in general I support the idea of the super focused short and unique indie experience...

 

That is a very strong possibility. You're thinking about good game design for years after all. Average Joe does not. And sometimes they are willing to sacrifice certain comfort for some mindless fun (and fun should be understood in a very broad way here). (IDK anything about this particular game, just general impression)

 

I don't know... I'd say you definitely very obviously had different expectations than the majority of people who bought it on Steam and left positive reviews.

Would need to read the reviews to see why they are able ignore things like you mentioned (and perhaps it was a fluke?). My guess is the game offers something else that makes it worth it. Story. Atmosphere. Interaction. Something.

Now it is possible that you really are just damn hard to please! Lol Maybe you have spent so much time playing AAA games you view everything through that lens? I don't know. I am mainly being silly here.

 

Reciever is just a game jam thing to test out an idea. It was made in 7 days. It cost $2.

I got a few hours of enjoyment from it and I think it's a very interesting idea that could be incorporated into big budget games -- and certainly the tactical shooter/milsim genre could use a little innovation.

So, yeah, you probably have unrealistic expectations for games. I mean, you spend more money on food and how quick does that disappear? What do you want from a game anyway? Especially a two dollar game mechanic demo?

 

Reading what @BIGTIMEMASTER said about it being from a game jam increased my curiosity enough to check it out now instead of later. I see it selling for $5 but happens to be on sale now for $2 probably as part of their Halloween sale. It actually sounds quite interesting especially for the price even the normal price.

I do agree with @BIGTIMEMASTER the cost has to be considered. If I pay $5 for a game and get 2 hours of great enjoyment from it that is a bargain. Hell I can't even watch a movie at the cinema for the price even at the matinee.

For $2 I'd expect like 20 to 30 minutes. Even that might be unreasonably high. I have bought many games for $1 or less not because I wouldn't pay more but because they looked interesting and I can't help it if the dev is selling it for $1 or 75 cents on sale. In those cases if I get 5 to 10 minutes out of it that is a bargain. Usually any game I can get 15 minutes or more out of. There are some of course that are just "not my thing" even though I thought I might like them so I play for maybe 2 to 3 minutes and that is it.

 

I want something that is made with great care and thought put into it, and has good feedback, like e.g. Devil Daggers (same pricepoint, also very indie). When Devil Daggers was released, you could see that the main developer had played it for over 300 hours already, and that was just the time tracked by steam, I assume there are hundreds more, before the game was even on steam. This has nothing to do with AAA or not, but I think you can usually tell when a game went through a lot of iteration cycles to tighten up the gameplay and balance it to be a very specific experience.

 

What I meant by AAA games possibly influencing your expectations... is it realistic to expect an ultra low cost game to have gone through rigorous playtesting & polishing? Everyone is different of course. And maybe you do expect that.

For me when I pay less than $10 for a game I have a very different expectation than I do compared to paying $11 to $20 for a game. And over $20 my expectations will be higher still.

For a game that is $5 or less I think many people view it more like it is rolling the dice. Sometimes you get a nice surprise. Sometimes you get something terrible. Most of the time you get a fairly solid imperfect game that gives you a fun experience for a little while.

 

Ok... so 3-4 dudes worked hard for a week to build a novel idea that was Receiver... you can learn all this with a quick google search. Again, it's a game jam entry, not a polished product intended for marketability. It just happened that it was pretty well done and very interesting so they sold it and a lot of people enjoy it.

I mean, several skilled workers working hard for a week to create a product that is being sold for a few dollars and may provide several hours of entertainment. Where else can you get a better deal?

Certainly they are not making anything close to a profit. It's a nominal fee so that you can enjoy an interesting idea they created. I don't understand why you think care and thought wasn't put into reciever. THey took a completely novel and challenging idea, and implemented it very well. Perhaps you don't like it, but plenty of people do. Being a shooting enthusiast, I appreciated the idea and how they implemented it. I can't hardly think of a better way to do it myself. As for the "game", that's not a factor. It's a game jam thing, it's just about boiling down a game mechanic and having fun with it.