Question Game market and monetization today. How is the game market now?

Most of these billion dollars are going to big AAA game companies that know the market and its players.

It’s very unfair but look at Valve software. They own a game store with many players. They have a better view on things and can take huge risks that hit well. Compared to other companies.

Metaverse is under the hand of these store owners like Valve, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and Epic. They have the data!

The job is 100 times easier when you have market data. Unity should make this better for us.

 

Well you can always partner up with a publisher. They will end up sharing tons of data with you when they learn to trust you, most likely more than you'd know what to do with. Plus, most mobile publishers keep good devs on their payroll to get testing exclusivity, on top of rev shares for hits.

 

Where's your data? All I see are lots of players playing games and spending money.

So it's not good enough that Unity turn what used to be tapping in 1's and 0's for weeks just to make something move around into saying 'move there!' and it goes there. Now they have to help you sell your game as well.

'But' you might say 'things have evolved since then, game engines solved that problem but now there are new ones.'

OK let's say Unity gave you reams of data. You couldn't possibly analyze it yourself. So you need a tool to analyze it. So let's say they even made a tool to analyze it. Congratulations, every game developer and their dog is finding out that platformers don't sell anymore and strategy and simulation games are in. How would that help you, if now everyone is aiming for the same target?

The reality is that there is NEVER a time when you have enough information, when you have got risk firmly under control, when you know for a fact that things are going to work. The successful people of all generations are those who operated on pitifully incomplete knowledge and data, and went ahead anyway. They simply sniff the winds, make up their minds, and move.

The opportunities provided by Unity and all the other game engines out there are so vast you could never take them all in one lifetime. But if you wait for someone to give you some magic data before you make up your mind, they will be taken by someone else who does not suffer waiting so easily.

 

And by the time you finish your project, all the great and important data is going to change yet again, which would pose a dilemma: should you adapt your project to current market data or just go against the numbers.

 

Data didn't predict minecraft, kid like to kill stuff and not be lost back then, they like fancy graphics, we're are you going with gross pixel art and approximate shape with cube? Also voxel? Don't do that! That's too much for memory. Procedural generate boring games, never use that. 2,6 billion dollar later, the tunes changed.

Also even recently, data showed that player need to be hold hands at all time, cue horizon forbidden west, but they took an elden ring in the knee.

Here is the thing with art, fashion, culture and therefore games, familiarity led to boredom, then to rot, which mean every fad is on a curve:

- First is the surprise, it's a new experience, the hype is high,
- then it's familiar and safe, the popularity is establish,
- then it's more of the same, it's safe and easy,
- then it's fatigue, it's good but yearning for something different sets in.
- then it's rot, player feel trap and start fantasize alternative.

When rot takes roots, switch can happen in an instant and the success seems like its coming from nowhere. Actually it has been gestating in the shadow, as cult following iterate and perfect principles over time. Elden ring started from kings field, got cult with demon souls. Minecraft have root in infiniminer, dwarf fortress and rogue like, you can't get more obscure and niche.

It's worth mentioning that this cycle get also dev drunk on their popularity, they end confusing their method with success, and they get complacent, when rots sets in, they generally get defensive and defiant about it (you don't have phone guy). Which allow the market primed for a transition.

The conclusion is that if you hadn't nurture alternative during the heyday of a trends, you probably won't reap the result when the trend crashed. Nintendo survive many centuries, because they themselves nurture odd ideas, when animal crossing was invented it was the antithesis of any game of that time, it took long before it evolved from comfortable niche to absolute sales juggernaut.

 

This one was fun to watch as it unfolded. There are entirely too many companies that create a UI that is filled with little indicators, or quests where every little step is detailed out for you in advance. After a while people get tired of that.

 

Facebook likely has the most user data in the world. Despite that, their metaverse adverts and visions are pure idiocy.

That implies that having data alone is not enough, you need someone who can make sense of it.

 

They had the man boy former data scientist of Uber hiring for the art engineer positions. He gave Unity devs tests on command line prompts. Pure unadulterated idiocy and inbreeding of tech companies. Creativity out the window but order abounds. Buh bye to money. He has lost billions and billions since his ill fated hawking of brutalist condos with sea views to a green hump with a Flintstone's worthy tree planted in the center. Wowza. Bet the Uber data scientist was impressed under his goggles. The problem with Oculus is the absolutely invasive logging behavior of Oculus running as service you can't stop unless removing every last vestige, thereby breaking your multi-hundred dollar goggles.

 

Would say the success chances of Metaverse are less about data but good software and influence: How much of a good framework for such a virtual world can you develop and how many companies can you convince to use it and join your service.
Fairly sure Meta is developing something in the background and ties relations with companies already...

 

Surprisingly, this thing works with access to all oculus, meta and facebook domains blocked (if they're blocked, it can't report anything). It just can't update, and can't display anything in "events" screen. Works as a decent headset this way, and probably will continue working beyond their forced account date.

However, I'll probably go for pico neo when I'll need to update. I don't want to deal with facebook/meta ever again.

They also have S*** software.
Virtual Desktop is better than Air Link and was developed by a third party.
Controllers are bad. Stick drift and cracked rings are a common issue. Those things are not made to last, at all.

Spoiler

 

Speaking of VR and "S*** software" I wonder which malevolent individual made reprojections work the way they work now in VR. On Quest (Quest connected to PC) at least, when a frame is missed, the device tries to do some sort of prediction and guesses the right shape you were supposed to see. It always guesses wrong, which means a single dropped frame is going to be incredibly obvious because things are going to flicker and deform.

Virtual Desktop treats things you see as something projected onto a giant floating screen. When a frame is missed, the last screen remains in its original position (or, rather, direction), but no attempts to guess the missing frame is made. So if you were looking to your left, it will be floating in that position, you can rotate your head meanwhile.

As a result, with this approach you can comfortably play VR games at VERY low framerates, even 30 and below, without getting sick. Nobody ever mentioned that, so I'm starting to wonder if this is some sort of secret knowledge.

 

I had a nice experience with the quest 2 while playing many games including HL Alyx. I returned it to wait for the quest pro. We don’t have data on what’s selling on the VR sector yet outside of steam

 

My subjective opinion is that VR currently doesn't have nearly enough content. You need to raincheck this, however.

 

There are very few big vr titles. Only half life Alyx gives you all vr has to give. It’s a shame no other company is pushing.

The weird thing is it feels like meta is pushing vr on a mobile headset while valve is proving that you need to hook the headset to a powerful pc for the best vr experience. It’s a small fight but a very interesting one. I personally think meta did well with the link cable because you need both. It’s nice to surf the web without a cable.

 

There are very few vr titles total. Not just big ones.

It actually does not give all. They've handled environmental clutter well, but that's the extent of it.

Alyx fails to provide player a body, and has poor interactivity when it comes to dealing with other characters.
You can't grab people, and the world does not react to your environmental shenanigans.

Spoiler

You can bring a dead rat and put it into Russel's teacup. You can also wreck his room and try to stab him with a fork. Nothing is gonna happen. The fork will pass through, he'll ignore the mess and the rat. The illusion shatters.

See Blade and Sorcery or SkyrimVR with VRIK+HIGGS+PLANCK. And Boneworks.

 

There are plenty of high end VR games on PSVR and desktop. Alyx has great production values but so does Asgard's Wrath and Stormland, both of which have bodies (full/partial) and AAA production values.

It's true they're not so common but a peep at PSVR2 (which I see as a true driver of VR production values) shows that there's great things to come.

 

Spot on! The market value of "something to play" is pretty much zero. Epic alone are giving away enough decent games for free to fill most people's gaming time completely.
But there absolutely is a shortage of games that the super jaded gamers like me would still want to play.

 

there could be a curated list or youtube review channel I might follow:
games for people who played too many games and are thoroughly unimpressed.

I think in last ten years I may have played like 4 games that left an impression. That's not a statement about the market, just about me. But I think many of us might be same boat.

 

I am one of the thoroughly unimpressed. Not that I have played alot of games. I started some..Gears Of War and left in five minutes. I have no desire to be a big brute and navigating terrain and all I can see is shaders, textures, material types, code and where they did a poor job with the models or animation. I would have 20X the fun creating an actual military sim than playing a fake one like Call of Duty. I might like some building strategy game or something like Factorio. I wanted to do something similar for a few decades called The Political Machine involving economics, political dynamics, social engineering and culture and you turn dials, pull sliders and human get run thru the machine and see ho many live and die. I would much rather read and watch wildlife documentaries than play casual games.

But yeah.. a curated list for the totally unimpressed with all the cover bands and everyone playing the same four guitar solos

 

The problem is that every game you play raises the quality bar for all future games you'll be playing. That applies to other things as well, not only games. Music, movies, food. Everything. You get used to it and need more in order to imperess you again.

Meanwhile a little kid who just got GTA for the first time will be probably very happy just driving an ambulance.

From the most recent titles I played one that I enjoyed was Opus Magnum

Spoiler

And in general, things that appeal to imagination seem to have bigger impact.

 

Agreed, that's a factor that contributes to the entire "games are just not the same anymore" thing. If the goal is to be impressed, rather than just enjoying the medium, then frankly at some point a ceiling is going to be hit that isn't going to be that easy to go past, hence i like to think that most people prefer to just enjoy the medium (whether it is for the first time or not) rather than thrillseeking.

 

I like that..a rube goldberg simulator widget thingee. The rules for how it would work would be fun to suss out. The first iPhone game I made was a bunch of widgets that would topple stuff and roll down slides and swing a pendulum one after another etc. to trap a loud mouthed rat in a dropdown cage by hitting a gong with a cannon fired pinballl.

 

Yes and you can still enjoy the old stuff too. I'm still playing DOS games and I enjoy them as much as I enjoyed them when they were new.

 

Glad to have my guess confirmed.

 

Fun fact, GOG rejected that game at first:

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/6/16858740/opus-magnum-gog-rejected

 

Is Apple Arcade type of service that include games without ads the true future of indie game dream?

 

Depending on implementation it could be both good and bad. For example netflix pays better for low budget if you do long drawn out series that are cheap to make but actually rather bad, as it, like ads pays by impressions, or how much people are watching and how long.

With a higher budget, like a blockbuster movie, it can bring in more, obviously but costs a lot more to make.

The best is you sell your game for an amount of money but that won't earn much unless your stuff is rather impressive or unique in some way.

Apple Arcade or netflix is extremely far from indie dream though. It's just another thing that benefits them more than you, that you have little choice but to work with if you are in that space.

It is important to realise all these structures exist for the platform owner's benefit first and foremost. So you do what you can to get money without ruining your soul or burning out. Hopefully along the way you make something that makes you happy.

 

Have you ever play paradox games? Like Europa Universalis 4 and crusader king 2? if not, just reading the beefy manual (free on steam, the manual not the game) will gave you tons of fun.

 

Depends on the definition of "indie game dream" and terms and conditions under which the games are published.

Honestly, this can be said about anything, including the games the indie developers are making. Monetarily, a game benefits an indie developer first and foremost yet it provides entertainment to those who pay for it. Stores, services and platforms are kinda similar: they benefit those who invest in creating and maintaining them (through fee income and expanding the library of available content) and at the same time they benefit those who use them to publish their works.

 

Sure, but the context is... he mentioned it being a "dream" scenario. Which is not something that can be said about anything, at all.

A dream scenario for indies is being able to sell from their own websites like we did. I used to, because I was there selling 3dsmax plugins I wrote myself, almost 20 years ago from my website.

That was great. Control, customers, you name it. Good times! But then stores went and captured people's free-roaming interest on the web into huge funnels people can't actually get out of. So yeah my definition from experience is that it's not like anything.

 

So...a funnel on a funnel? I don't agree with comparing stores to funnels, because by that logic, the Internet itself is a funnel, this very forum is a funnel and so on... The free-roaming interest is still there in my opinion, it's just stretched across multiple platforms and formats: social media, the web, content-specific services, etc.
As for the "dream scenario"...well, i was under the impression that the common definition of that in the gaming industry is "people play the stuff that i made on the platforms that i made it for" and nothing else.

 

Well that only applies to a pure hobyist, I'd say. A professional indie dev (aka who does it as a job) would likely add: "and I can earn enough money to live reasonably well to not constantly wish I would work in a large studio or studied something else instead." xP

 

The "dream" would be a store which has a number of games that is still humanely possible to browse through if you take time AND only takes minimal fees AND has millions of users or at least enough to make a living selling a decent game.

 

Hmm, have fun with an even stricter acceptance system than Steam Greenlight, if you want to achieve that small size..

 

Yes it would be basically 80's or 90's physical store situation where it was very hard to get your game published or maybe very marginal situation like Appstore right in the beginning when everything was new and top sellers were apps like the fart simulator.

 

At the moment steam appears to have 69409 games in its catalog. Steam discovery queue claims that I've seen front page+description of 16309 titles. That took a long time, and that's still less than quarter of everything.

So "humanely possible to browse through" is not going to happen.

 

Obviously in real life over time there are always going to be too many painters, too many authors and too many game developers. There are some rare situations when there aren't though with new platforms coming and going.

 

isn't battlestate games (escape from tarkov) selling from their own store though? It's not on steam at least.

How do you think they managed that (assuming I'm correct) in this day and age?

 

They were in dev for about 5 years so had reasonable ramp. Also a larger funded team with a lot of native speaker support. I call it a unique situation or outlier, which it obviously is.

In general when you can only think of 1-2 examples, it's not an example, just an outlier.

Still, it's a dream scenario for them, I guess!

 

If you're unable to be successful on the larger platforms like Steam you'd have no chance of getting onto a platform with that degree of curation. Back when it was just getting started Steam was this and only a few indie games were accepted.

 

Kinda was implied by default, but i need to be more explicit next time, i suppose

 

I see that even Nintendo is accepting indie games in a fast paste.

How will the market be if it’s too fed up? Most people would only see the little window on the main store or go to the top free options I might guess.

Oh my God, this feels like the music business and being a new artist.

 

It always resumes to: There's no real success without being smarter than the majority.
Either you are smarter by being way early in a new domain, like gaming was once new. Or by being smarter about marketing, product placement, production cost, monetization etc.

 

"Just getting started" is a funny way to say "until nearly a decade after launch."

 

Being smart is not enough, I think. Luck and resources matter.

"Success is being in the right place at the right time, with the right skill and making the right decision".

 

True, but no amount of luck is going to help if a person does not recognize an opportunity. At that point, if someone is capable if recognizing opportunity regardless of in how "lucky" of a position they are, luck just stops being a factor that have contributed to their success.

 

Not quite. Producing an indie game is much, much harder than producing an indie album, both time-wise and skill wise. Musicians require one one skill to be mastered, while gamedevs (the ones with tight budgets) require multiple. The issue with the music industry was that it was too centralized around two things: labels and physical media. Almost all succesfull bands that started out as indies eventually became signed to labels. While the game industry has it's own version of labels (publishers), there are plenty of success stories of self-published devs, meaning that there is no need to be a part of someone elses enterprise.

 

No amount of skill will help if the opportunity does not present itself.

There's a limited time window to capitalize on opportunity, but you are not alone, and there are other people with the same ideas. If you're not in the right place/time/etc, other people will seize the opportunity instead of you.

 

Opportunity as in "right place, right time" or opportunity as in "observing the environment and finding what the environment lacks regardless of whether the conditions are suitable"? Because if you take "right place, right time" as one the the key factors for the opportunity, then yes, first come – first served. I know that it is starting to sound like all that motivational speak that you might have come across on social media, but those...pages (?) (individuals?) are not exactly bringing previously unknown ideas to the public as all of that has been around for ages.

 

Opportunities can be forced by big companies. Let’s see how the metaverse will become. It’s being forced by every valley company on to people.

The music business got saved from piracy but it’s still struggling. Is Apple Arcade or Xbox cloud beta/ps now something similar?