"Good isn't good enough"

It sounds like you are talking about the commercial money making aspects. What I mean is I am surprised people aren't excited by just having the tools and the information to be able to easily create games right in the comfort of their homes. Not thinking about the money part of it. That seems to be the thing people are kind of obsessed with. I mean besides that aspect just the fun of creating. Much like a person playing music or painting, etc.

 

I think we proved its less good than they thought, though.

The game isn't bad, but I wouldn't call it fully featured, either. Super Mario World - a game more than two decades old - has only a few more mechanics, but orders of magnitude more depth and potential for engagement. This game simply doesn't stack up to its competition.

The developer spent his hard-won blood, sweat, and tears on their game. I respect that. However, the whole post-mortem is built on two assumptions: A) that their game is sufficiently good, and B) that media attention is responsible for the 'death spiral.' Condition A is what is off about this game. I say that, because this is familiar to me. I've written games where I sunk my heart, time, and talent into it, to fail due to lack of execution, even with more humble goals.

The developer of their game overvalues their game. They need to patch up and rebrand. As I said before, there are good ideas and strong, proven mechanics in this game. The execution is where it all failed.

 

This is where all of the hype about things like Flappy Bird and even others that obviously were the result of a lot of time and effort such as Minecraft has greatly distorted people's perceptions of reality. People honestly think it is easy to make a game and make money. They think "I don't need to make millions just $5k or $10k would be awesome!" and because those numbers are so tiny compared to the numbers they see in the ultra rare Indie hits they think they are being reasonable. It never seems to cross their minds that most people doing this stuff are making pennies and dollars (as in single or double digits) if anything at all. A small percentage is making that $5k to $10k and a tiny percentage is making a lot more. And as soon as they hear that even they think instantly they will be that person who makes more... completely overlooking the fact of just how many people are doing this stuff and how few are actually making any decent money from it.

Remember it is not just people using Unity that are making games. There are a lot making HTML5 games. There are a lot making Flash games. There are people using GameMaker Studio, Unreal, Construct, and dozens of other "game kits". All making games. All trying to make money. The number of people doing this is astronomical these days and yet when people read about this one person (of the month or whatever) who has made it big that gets everyone all excited all over again thinking "oh man! He made $300k in one month! Geesh! I'd be happy with just $3k this month!" and again they think that is a very realistic goal. They don't realize it is as easy to make the $300k as it is the $3k in many cases because in many cases you will either make nothing (pennies, single to double digit dollars) or make a ton. And 99.99% of the time you will be making none.

It also comes down to business and marketing sense. Again, the cases the media focuses on are almost always the ones where the developer has done nothing or very little, the planets lined up and they made a lot of money. They do not cover all of the thousands of people who are working on marketing and doing all they can think of and still not succeeding. This again keeps the unrealistic expectations alive and well.

The game we are looking at in this thread represents what an Indie can expect when you work as hard as they did, spend as much thought and time on marketing as they did. This is a real case study. Real world. Normal. Not the kind of thing the general media focuses on.

Of course, there are always ways to increase the odds significantly. I have a plan for what I will do when the day comes that I take the plunge. But it is all based on slow growth, effort over time. Basically just solid business building principles. And that is something that it seems like 95% or more of the Indies are not doing. They are literally just making games and spamming them out there. Over. And over. And over. Again.

 

I wonder if there is some type of gamer chart to show how many gamers actually play platformer vs people that don't. I personally never play these games and I don't know anyone who plays them either...but everyone would play a good JRPG game instantly though! I don't understand how people expect to make money off their platformer game when majority of them released are utter garbage...sure some of them good but how would people find them over the pile of garbage? I don't understand why everyone rushes to make these boring platformer games...spend a few years making JRPG or some tactical game and you will have better chances of success?

 

Oh and we also need to keep in mind that these devs are definitely learning the ropes. They are learning business. They did a brilliant thing with their postmortem. Has anyone actually noticed that yet?

They could not get any attention when they focused on their game and tried to get people to cover it. But they are doing a hell of a fine job flipping it around and getting attention through the "death" of their game.

 

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DanielWe...d_enough__releasing_an_indie_game_in_2015.php

Personally I'd play platformer games over any `JRPG` any day. Personal preferences.

 

Yeah that is the write up I was talking about as their postmortem. As a result of that article they probably have way more people seeing their game in the past two days then they had in the past few weeks.

And I agree on the platformer games over JRPG. It really has nothing to do with the game genre. No matter what game genre you can think of there will be a lot of people who like those games and a lot who do not. Some people might be familiar with Shovel Knight a game that last I knew had somewhere around 750,000 sales. You could make a JRPG and sink to the bottom as easily as you could with anything else. You could make a platform game and rise to the top as easy as anything else. In some ways it is not even about the game itself.

 

I guess flappy bird etc are good examples of bigger draws for social movements or crowd-like behavior or people following what their friends are doing. Obviously, technically, a really simple basic game, graphics are ok but nothing amazing, little animation, but somehow it touched on something, intentionally or otherwise (probably not intentionally). We are all still trying to identify what that thing is. Some kind of deep commentary on social norms? Some kind of super-universal appeal? Some kind of reminder or trigger of some old fond memory? Just the sheer fact that it got enough people to spread word-of-mouth and rocket up the app-store charts? A certain demographic that were the perfect audience match? Perfect timing? Human behavior?

 

This is still thinking there is an actual market for it though. At this point platformers in general are a tough sell if they aren't named mario or are grafted onto another genre (I'll include torture simulator probably having the most recent, well known cases).

 

Well everyone has a personal preference, but 11 Million copies sold of Final Fantasy 7 alone says there's a lot of people who would prefer the JRPG..

FF8 sold 8.5 Million copies on PS1 alone, that's pretty good going..

 

Apples to oranges. Is there an Indie JRPG out there?

 

No one pays attention to them since they are all made in RPG Maker.

 

How many copies have the Mario games sold? I'm pretty sure their numbers are up pretty high too.

 

He really did nail the core issues in this video.

It isn't just the number of games. The "race to the bottom" issue is definitely in the mix. Someone had a fun (horrifying) analogy about what is happening. Things that cost $3 in a Dollar Store don't sell, even if they cost $10 at Walmart. There are a lot of games with six and seven figure build costs that players can get for free.

Here is the thing though. Almost everyone who is a huge success struggled as badly as everyone else at first. Some rock band analogies have been thrown on this forum, I think that is something to keep in mind. Whatever you think of Kurt Cobain, he probably had a thousand hours into the music before anyone started to notice it was going some place.

 

Why are you comparing fruit? Bit of an odd thing to do. Anyway no I haven't actually seen one about, but still there's a big market out there because Squenix are actually re-building FF7 and that can't be cheap.. It doesn't have to be "JRPG" but there's a market..

I got side tracked looking through the steam catalogue for "RPG", 168 Pages.. Metric boat load them were DLC and a lot of them weren't RPG's.. No wonder it's difficult to get some attention.

@HemiMG

Come on, you must know that's not the point.. There is a market for it, seems pretty rare as well.. Might be a niche for someone there. P.S what's the old 2D Super Mario got to do with today's market?

 

I think the problem with this specific game is that the game is not as good as the developers are assuming. At a glance, the game appears polished. However, when watching a reviewer play the game, I had no interest in playing the game myself. There are design issues that prevent this game from doing well.

Here are the prime issues I noticed: (based on watching the video; I have not played the game)
1) The art style is at odds with the game play mechanics.
2) The player character evokes no emotional connection.
3) Gamers who love difficult games demand extremely precise controls. They are fine with dying and retrying over and over as long as the deaths were their own fault and not sloppy control issues. The rotating camera takes away the feeling of control. And several times during the game play video, it is clear the player is simply struggling to get the player character to go where the player wants. This was especially evident when transitioning between land and water.
4) Gamers will tolerate and enjoy a lot of difficulty as long as the punishment is minimized. In a platformer, the punishment is typically a measurement of how far back the respawn is from where the player died. Large distances feel punishing because they force the player to re-play the boring section of a level that the player has already mastered.

Contrast this game with Super Meat Boy on the four items I listed above, and it is obvious why Super Meat Boy sold well and Airscape: The Fall of Gravity did not sell well. Both games are platformers, but only one of them nailed the critical metrics.

I feel a tad bit bad for being so critical of the game, but it is important to be honest about specific examples before trying to make industry wide generalizations. The conclusions from the developer are based on the assumption that the game is good. The four issues I listed above strongly question that assumption.

 

Ha ha! I guess I must have been getting hungry.

Yeah, tell me about it. I was looking for platform games on Steam. I don't even see how you are supposed to find these games considering they don't even have a category for them. Searching for platform brings back all kinds of games.

I don't doubt there is a big market for JRPGs. I think these days there is a big market for every genre.

Unless it is has been surpassed within the past couple of years Super Mario Bros. 3 remains the best-selling video game of all time (for games never bundled with console hardware). It sold over 17 million units. Considering this was a time when games were not nearly as popular as they are these days it is even more impressive.

A more recent (and 3Dish) example is New Super Mario Bros 2 (2012) which sold over 7 million copies.

(example of what a game should look and play like to sell over 7 million copies)

The thing is with both SMB and the FF series they have an established fanbase which gives them quite a boost anytime a new game in the series comes out. I think @HemiMG was using SMB as an example that plenty of people will buy a platform game. It is not the genre that keeps a game from becoming popular.

 

I found the article about this on Gamasutra yesterday...in my view the game dev has missed at least one of the fundamental rules of design.

He claims his game is good, I'll give him that whether it is or not as that isn't the real point here. He also says a "good game isn't enough". Ok, fine I'll give him that too because it's true and has been true ever since designing products has been around.

The fundamental rule of design that he's missed is that you have to cater to your target audience or demographic. This is a 2D platformer that is difficult. Ok, there's an established demographic for that, they have some basic expectations that a game needs to meet in order for them to play it or even to bother looking at it to begin with.

I'm not a fan of 2D platformers, difficult or otherwise but right off the art work doesn't mesh with other popular titles (super meat boy comes to mind). By mesh I don't mean he has to have the same style, but his game has a cute style of cartoony art work that's all bright and happy and makes me think it's an easy game aimed at 5-10 year old children.

Straight away he's alienated most of his target audience. Graphics or art work might not be the most important part of game design but if it's so different to what your target audience expects that they won't even recognise it's a game that's aimed at them then it will never succeed.

This is only just scratching the surface though, the art work is the first thing people see and if the game has already failed to engage the target audience then it doesn't have much hope of getting people to look further.

That said, I haven't bothered to look further at it but there's likely a long list of other reasons for why it doesn't fit his target audience otherwise the art style wouldn't hold it back. You can have bad visuals but still succeed with solid gameplay mechanics as has been shown many times, but if there's issues with both then it'll fail.

So basically this may be a good game but aimed at the wrong demographic. Likely many design changes would be required to either fit the demographic better or change who the target audience is.

 

Yeah I get that, but were talking about a game released for a Nes / Snes a long time ago, I'm talking about if you made a 2D platformer, right now and released it this year would it sell? Or would the JRPG style be a better option?

Because simply put what's the difficulty difference between the two? How many people could make a FF game and how many could make a 2D platformer? That's the point, finally there appears to be a market for it, but without lots of analytical data it's neither here or there really.

End of the day, you can think about it until the cows come home. Just do the best you can release it, if it flops try again.!

Oh BTW, I was reading some Early access reviews. Seems to be a bit of a mistake, you get bad reviews before they really understand what it's all about.

 

The scary part is that even if he made his game free for a day, I would still be too lazy to log on Steam and download it.
Too much effort for something I don't have any interest in.

 

FF7 was released in 1997, and yet you use its sales numbers for evidence of today's market. And who said anything about old Mario? They still make Mario, and they still make versions with 2d gameplay, presumably because they know that people still want that. And with good reason.

New Super Mario Bros Wii sold almost 30 millions copies: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/35076/new-super-mario-bros-wii/

New Super Mario Bros 3DS sold almost 30 million copies: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/1582/new-super-mario-bros/

Both of them are more recent, and three times as successful, as the example you gave. In fact, they are among the best selling video games of all time. I get that you prefer JRPG, that's fine. But to assume everyone does is a bit a silly. There is clearly a market for both genres. But what AAA guys can do with the genre, sales wise, and with established IP is not the same as what indies can do. The latest Call of Duty will sell bucket loads. The average indie FPS on Steam will not. The key to successful Indie sales isn't picking the best genre, it's knowing what works in that genre and what doesn't. The Trine series for example, has sold 7 million copies as of last year around this time. Can the average developer of a platformer expect those sales numbers? No. That's the whole point of this thread. But neither can the average developer of a JRPG.

 

You are completely missing the point from head to tale.. Of course Indies won't sell like AAA publishers, it's pretty daft to think otherwise. Talking about preferences when you don't understand someone's preference, is pretty silly as well.. I've not cared to play a JRPG in a long time FYI..

I'm not quoting FF7 figures like they're applicable today, even though fact of the matter is it's still on Steam (selling) I've not seen much in the competition stakes. You have no clue how an Indie JRPG game would sell, I don't.. Nobody would. But common sense dictates, less competition equates to more potential revenue?? Also if AAA has stakes in it (plus a re-build) it's generally not going to be some wacked out niche genre that nobody buys.

For all the Super Mario stuff you're talking about on a thread that's talking about 2D platformers failing, something seems a little contradictory here.

I'll leave at that, if were just stating obvious things it'll become cyclical quickly.

 

Probably the jRPG. Slap a new coat of paint on FF6 and I don't think anyone would have a complaint that hasn't been there from the beginning. Try to do that with SMW and I think you'll have far more people point out anachronisms like lives and timers, that are just out of place in a single player setting and only serve as punishments.

 

@HemiMG Impressive! I did not know they actually beat SMB3. You are right though. The genre is not the deciding factor. People should know that. Just think about the most popular Indie games of the last five years and odds are you will find many different genres represented.

I do not understand why people think just because it is 2015 people suddenly hate platform games or even 2D graphics. The technology changing doesn't make people suddenly hate games they used to enjoy or hate how games used to look. If anything as more and more developers cater to the features of the new tech gamers will miss the kind of games they used to enjoy playing and find games that look like older games to be interesting simply because they are something different. Not the same old striving for perfection 3D graphics (remember all AAA games these days do this). Of course, now with all of these Indies making games that is not much of a problem. Before all of the indies started making such games it was.

Flood the market with enough 2D and pixel graphics games and many of the people playing such games will likely get burnt out and find 3D games refreshing.

 

I really enjoyed the 2.5D Mario games specifically because they reminded me so much of the old ones I grew up on. Of course, the newer 3D versions are also really great because they retain the gameplay feel of the old ones better than say, Mario 64 did. There's really fantastic level design in them that allows for that.

 

@GarBenjamin

It's not about love or hate for any genre, is a 2D platformer easier to make then an FPS / RPG / RTS for example? So how much competition will be in each segment? What would increase your chance of sale? Simple game with lot's of competition or more complex game with less?

I'm not sure how that could be confusing? Or am I tripping over something here?

 

Your post reminds me a lot of people who argue for socialism but sort of from a different perspective. Reality is, even as "easy" as games are to make, not everyone will go that direction, for the VERY REASON that the market is already becoming so flooded that only the "best" survive and make it big. But reality is, lots of people are content to be farmers, janitors, doctors, and lawyers.

 

That's the thing though. How much effort went into Call of Duty vs how much effort went into The Slaughtering Grounds? How much effort went into New Super Mario Bros vs how much effort went into the game in the OP? How much effort went into Final Fantasy vs how much effort went into the tons and tons of crappy RPG Maker games?

Yes, there are a ton of platformers out there that took a minimal or medium amount of effort to make. If you are going to succeed in any genre, you have to rise above what the average indie developer is putting out. That's really hard to do, which is why it is really hard to make a living in this industry. Many people have pointed out valid reasons why the game in the OP didn't appeal to the audience that he was targeting. A crappy JRPG might sell better than a crappy platformer, I'll give you that. But you aren't going to make a living in this industry putting out crappy games.

 

Pretty much the point all along ..

 

You're right that it's not about the genre. In a way it isn't about the game complexity either.

Game design and whether it succeeds or not is about design. A lot of games fail because they don't hit the mark with their target audience, or they don't set a target audience to begin with and cater to the minimum standards that the audience has.

Catering to who you want to sell your product to is one of the most fundamental rules of design. If you fail at this then your product is going to fail unless by some miracle it lines up with what a different demographic is looking for.

The majority of indie games fall into this category because the people making the games don't understand design.

 

I agree (especially about the min standards), but you've also got to be willing to introduce your target market into components not necessarily associated with said target market to inspire something a little different. Like Fallout 3 which is an FPS with RPG elements, it just has to be done right..

Adding RPG elements to an FPS isn't exactly "out there" or a wacky idea, it feels like a logical progression hence forth they did it right. Simple rinse and repeat aimed directly at target segments (whilst it works) isn't always the best idea.

Today due to Fallout being such a success, it's deemed usual now but I could guess that wasn't always the case.

But yeah, logical practical design ensures correct exposure to segments.

 

Well adding to/altering an existing game mechanic/design is exactly what developers should be aiming to do and it's exactly what is done with physical products too (look at car engine designs for example)

If you don't change anything from the formula then you're creating a clone, and clones don't surpass the game they've copied unless they manage to do the same mechanics better...but again that's a change.

In terms of Fallout 3, i'd call that primarily an RPG but played as an FPS (or 3rd person). In terms of an RPG it meets the minimum standard of the target audience - progressions system, story, quests etc but it does something different by merging it with the popular FPS genre (the VATS system helps here too for RPG players that are unfamiliar with FPS).

At the fundamental level though they've hit what their target audience wants first and then built on that....They haven't made something that they think is cool and then tried to set the audience they think will like it.

 

This year, Shovel Knight sold 75K units in the first month. That should answer your question.

 

I've never played it, so I guess the final question is. What did they do right and what did the guys in the article do wrong? Of course some of the feedback here seems valid, is that all? Faults in the game? Or is there more to it?

 

To me their screenies look like screenies from many, many other games on the same store fronts. Yes, if I click on it I may well find that it's a sweet looking game with neat mechanics that I might enjoy playing.

But why would I click on it?

I don't mean to say it's not worth clicking on, but I do mean to point out that at best it's competing with a dozen other games for my click, and probably far more than that. In its name, logo, screenies and other first-glance collateral, what does it have to make its target audience want to click on it over and above clicking on any other game they can see on the shop front?

It doesn't matter how cool your game is if you can't get people to look at it to see that it's cool.

 

I have a monthly bandwidth limit until midnight to 5am that I am nearly over so I just watched the video. I had seen Jacksepticeye play the game, but stopped halfway through because I didn't find it interesting. Which isn't a good sign because I like platformers, and Jack is usually entertaining enough even if I don't find the game itself interesting. I did listen to the Total Biscuit video all the way through. I say listened to rather than watched because watching it quickly gave me a headache and even made me a bit nauseous. He was going through much more difficult levels than Jack was though. None of these are signs that point to a game that I would try.

Compare that to the game in the Jim Sterling video below. It has a similarly interesting mechanic, but is much less polished. Still, I'd actually like to play the one below. I probably won't, because I don't even have time to eat these days, much less play games. But I'd bet that this game sells more than 150 copies.

 

That was my take as well, in fact when I saw the trailer I was surprised it only said PC, Mac, and Linux. The problem is that whether it actually is or not, it looks like a mobile game. Steam users already hate seeing ports of mobile games, especially because they know that if they got the mobile version it would be much cheaper. So you have a game that looks like a mobile game being sold for $10. So whether it's actually worth it or not, it seems overpriced (the fact that it was made by a student team doesn't help either). Adding to it looking like a mobile game is that it has like 60 levels--gives the impression to the seasoned Steam user they're going for quantity rather than quality.

The screenshots also don't do much--if a person only ever saw one screenshot, what would they see? Not much unfortunately, something that looks simple and aimed at kids (when the game is actually the opposite). I know I didn't become remotely interested until I saw extensive gameplay footage. Most people won't bother going that far though, I only saw it because I happened to see the Gamasutra article.

And then compounding things even further...this is the developers first game (or at least the first one on Steam). This is a major factor because they're going in with no reputation (good or bad), and thus no fanbase. Almost every major indie success came from someone with at least a couple games under their belt--that includes Super Meat Boy, Flappy Birds, even Minecraft. If the dev makes more games and consistently gets good reviews, they'll find success eventually.

But $10 for a game that looks like a mobile game, from a developer who has never made a game before, with 60 levels, with graphics that look like they belong in a simple, relaxing platformer...that's a tough sell for PC gamers on Steam.

 

Seems I've heard that somewhere before, haha...

 

Also with AAA or even just large studio games, there a lot of people looking at and evauating the games, it is harder to get tunnel vision. If you are a very small small team, or even just one developer, you can get very attached to your idea and think it is the best thing ever and never see it objectively. Which is also the trade off, big game are less likely to be risky and break ground, but also less like likely to be a total fail.

Often half or more of the budget on a big game is marketing, so it is not uncommon for a game to be completed, and then never released. A failure from a big name studio can be more expensive than the cost to develop, so they are killed before they launch. Ideally very early in the process. But clearly not always.

Yea, the game in the video is pretty much a meh. Like pretty much every other creative pursuit, there are tons of practitioners of the meh. There are no points awarded for time invested or previous work or opportunity to explain how good it is to the consumer of your work. If the first couple of tracks from your new album are boring, I'm not going to buy the rest.

Whenever I see devs like that, the ones pointing fingers at everything other than their game for its failure, not actually critically assessing their work to improve it, I think it is fantastic! They'll soon be out of the field and back doing whatever normal people do. Hopefully others will step up and build games that are good and I would want to play.

 

I wouldn't quite go that far. He clearly thinks his game is good, but he did outline some criticism of it and he's hardly claiming it's a masterwork. Plus, for a first game it is pretty good.

 

True, not the worst offender of that type for sure. I didn't realize it was his first game, so I would agree not bad for a first game. But to be fair, 'not bad for a first game' means nothing outside discussions by other developers. It doesn't translate to sales. Maybe that was the best game concept he ever had or ever will have. Maybe his next games will kick ass, and he will look back and laugh at this game. Who knows.

First or 20th, it's still meh. If he is competent he will learn and improve.

In a perfect world, our first games would pull an Andy Weir and knock it out of the frigging park, getting a extra bump from the first time aspect. But those are rare and special cases.

 

No there are lot of crappy games made by people that have today all tools to make great games.
You don't have a "Make my game great" tool or button
Good games are hard work , or a great concept (Minecraft), or some appealing universe (Journey) etc ...

I just reacted to the video posted and just listed all points i don't like in such games, they don't have put enought work on graphic research even if it should keep some flash like style. And finishing level after level without purposes, goals and rewards is something i don't like in a game.

It's a specific JRPG , one of the best with the best story, best musics and great cusotmisation , combats, content.
Let's stay on track , the suvject is not JRPG

Many gamers simply will avoid the game because of that mobile look and this price.
I see many small games with such prices on Steam, it's like anyone can make more or less advanced games and just put them on Steam.
But these people just forgot a successfull game even with simple graphics and small game is lot of work behind, lot of polishing and reasearch and some unique graphic touches or style.

 

@zenGarden

It's nothing ultimately to do with "JRPG's" you need to read between the lines a little. I'm pussyfooting because I drafted up a descriptive reply and it sounded insulting. Even if I mean well probably best to leave it to everyone's own conclusions as no matter what you post people do anyway, Plus it was Asvarduil who brought it up originally .

I think @zombiegorilla is pretty much on the money and the point I was getting at roughly.

 

I still don't quite see why it is viewed as a failure. Yes I get they spent about 3 years making it. Still 3 years or 3 weeks it is their very first game as far as I can see. They completed it. That is a success. They released it. Could see that as a success. They already made 150 sales on PC for a game they are charging a reasonable price for not throwing away for a few dollars. That is a big success.

I like how they put the game on desktop and charged $10 for it. That is what more Indies need to do instead of training players to expect to pay only a dollar or three for such games. I give them credit for going against the grain. Someone had to do it and they were the ones who did.

 

At least I don't think that success and failure has something to do with the genre. Shovel Knight was insanely successful while this one here failed.
You can also create a AAA-like MMO and fail, or you can create one that does really well.

In case for Shovel Knight. I think they hit the right buttons. NES nostalgia, with a popular game mechanic similar to Duck Tales, wrapped up in a funny idea (a knight with a shovel instead of a sword). Alone the last thing is almost a guarantee for media coverage.

 

As you've pointed out, success is a subjective thing. It needs to be defined in order to determine whether or not you've achieved it.

In this case I'd say it's a failure because the game dev called it a failure. If their goal was to release the game and sell at least 100 copies then time to party, it's a success! If their goal was to have a runaway standout game that would be a genre defining title then it's a failure.

All comes down to a matter of perspective, but most importantly it depends on what the dev team were trying to accomplish and whether they achieved that goal or not.

 

Absolutely agree with that. I just think they (and probably most Indies) have very unrealistic expectations for their first game(s). And this one took about 3 years before they saw the reality. Which goes well with what @Gigiwoo and many others recommend for people: make small games. I also think it is wise to start with small games. Get it done in a month or so. Work up to bigger projects over time. Each new game project can build on the knowledge gained, skills acquired and tech built for the previous games. Failing faster while always improving.

I think the biggest mistakes made here were spending about 3 years on their first game and having unrealistic expectations.

 

Most AAA games fail as well. A handful of hits generate most of the profit.

It's the case in all creative works. Many genius people will go unnoticed. Life is unfair .

 

Or it could just be a well made game that sold well because there was nothing better around at the time, AAA's falling off the rate of roll out after all that happened. Console market releases are slim at best..

I found myself playing / buying a lot more "retro" and other games, simply because there's nothing better.

Genre has nothing to do with it, but type of game definitely does.. It's pure common sense, if there's tens of thousands of games similar between mobile and PC the chances of you getting a look in is near non existent.

 

I played shovel knight and I didnt like it. But I guess it targeted retro gamers (who actually old enough to have money 20/30's) and are willing to pay $15 a pop. Remember those old games you used play as a kid and no one makes them anymore will we did (and its better then ever) its got the same old look and feel but with better graphics and gamedesign