Older Gammasutra blog post, What indies shouldn't do?

What Not to do

Not sure I agree with the one below, even with the signal to noise ratio on the app stores.

"9. Do not start on the mobile market.
This one is the one I get most of people disagreeing with me. It's the first item on this list making young developers see everything optimistically. The real truth is: the good things on mobile are far less numerous than the bad things going on on the platform."


Some good points in the rest of the post like:

• #2. Do not start with a complex idea.
• #6. Do not underestimate the power of good planning.
• #7. Do not leave marketing to the last months of development.

Like his notes and comment on Brazil at the end of the article.
"Unfortunately, here in Brazil, even a one man corporation with no income would need to pay a good amount of taxes."

Shoot! There goes my plan to move the .Inc to Brazil!


Cheers

 

Everyone should focus on mobile. The expectations there are so low. Games can be so minimal. In fact it may even be preferred to make highly minimalistic mobile games. So players can jump in and out quickly. Just use some creativity like maybe make kit kat koe which would be tic tac toe with kittens. Or maybe zic zac zoe with zombies. The thing that amazes me is how so many people want to make games and seem to be making the exact same infinite runner and flappy bird stuff over and over and over. And yet obvious stuff like kit kat koe, hang a zombie and so forth... where are they?

 

I think it means the Mobile Market as a get rich quick scheme lol.

 

Marketing you shouldn't do at all unless it's marketing via asking for reviews and write-ups.

Paid marketing? That's a conflict of interest between the App Store / Search Engine Owners and the Publishers (aka developers hoping to get rich quick and retire). Watch them drain your wallet with intangible services.

 

Well that is just the "desperation & wishful thinking" that has caused this insane flood of people into game development. Lots of people want to believe it is their "get rich quick" strategy. Or at least think they will make a living at it.

My advice just from my own personal experience and anyone can do with it what they wish include flush it down the toilet... if you want to make money... get a job. You'll make money there guaranteed. If you want to make more money than you currently make on your job then... get a second job or at least get a different job. Or figure out how to advance at your current company (if possible). Or find a real need and fill it. You know start a business. A real business that provides some real value. But don't expect that just because you sit on your arse in front of the computer every night making games that you will make more than $50 per month from it anytime within the next year or two. Once people come to grips with that (you know... little thing called... reality) they should feel an immense burden lifted off from them. Much stress will be gone. They will be able to think clearer. Sort out their issues better. All just by stopping the madness of chasing rainbows and unicorns. Although admittedly it can be fun to do so for a little while.

 

Well most folk dabbling in Unity and UE4 already have jobs, usually very good paying jobs. If you are refering to HS & Uni students well the time they should dream about 'getting rich' is when they have alot more free time then the average job holder that's for sure; although they should limit their time on the computer and get out more. It's not anymore expensive than many people's PowerBall and MegaMillions habits that's for sure and alot more likely to make them money in the future even if it is only through regular hum-drum employment using the discipline learned in creating a game.

 

I'm just fortunate enough to have all the time in the world to make my games, I quickly came to grips that I know I won't get rich quick lol.

My goal overall is to produce an amazing game, that's why I have never finished making a game, because I realize a major fault in a game, a fault that I just don't understand at the time, eventually understanding it and fixing what my problems were, which wasn't the coding or Unity, but with my self...

So, I'll continue to make more and more stuff that will probably never see the light of day, until I know I have something worthy enough to sell. Which even then, most likely will still never be what I am comfortable with.

But it's a way to get my name out there, and hopefully the right people will see my work one day.

But then again, no gaming empire was created over night either, it's not like EA games just randomly became a created company, I'm sure someone had to bust their ass off for little to know wages at the beginning.

 

I agree it has the potential to help them make more money in the future. It can certainly help people gain some skills and pick up some experience. Whether it actually helps people to make any more money depends on what they do. A person can spend their whole life chasing rainbows and unicorns and have nothing to show for it. They keep doing it because all they focus on is the one person out of 10,000 who caught unicorn or found the pot of gold. All I am saying is it is this "gold rush fever" that is causing so many people to flood into game dev and then get hit with major disappointment when they work their fingers off for a year and make much less than a part time minimum pay job would pay.

 

I don't think anybody's majorly disappointed from not making a game they tried or making money from one they published any more that I frowned for more than a second after checking a losing lottery ticket and tossing it.

 

Yeah I hear you man.... It's just lukily I came from a background of years and years and years almost 2 decades of modding games, so I have the dedication to spend time to work for free lol. It's taught me a valuable lesson that a lot of new people coming to Unity will never understand for years.

I know for a fact if I hadn't jumped into modding games sense I was 9 years old, I wouldn't even be able to handle any of this, I'd be so overwhelmed doing 300 peoples jobs just to make a decent game.

 

??? You've gotta be joking? There are tons of them all over the Internet. There are people who have posted about it here on these forums. Spending months or a year making a game and barely getting any downloads at all and of course very little to no money as a result. In fact even the article linked in the OP here is about the major disappointment from not making the money they expected.
.
You and I may be doing this for fun because we enjoy it but there are a lot of people doing it to make money. They read about these people making flappy bird or minecraft or whatever and suddenly they get gold rush fever.

EDIT: oops my bad. Sorry I read a few articles one after the other including the one linked in the OP and had them crossed in my head as a result. Lol. But anyway yes there are many MANY people doing this to make money. Even many of the people who say they do it for fun I am fairly certain are really doing it because they dream of making minecraft or flappy bird like money.

I don't think there is anything wrong with having those dreams. Just need to keep a realistic view. I just think it would be cool for people to realize hey you are probably not gonna make much money at all. Maybe even no money. Heck your game may hardly get noticed and played at all. If they expect that and still do it then more power to them.

 

You do realize you're complaining about a lack of creativity, but then just skinning tic tac toe, right? Sure, that might be creative for the mobile market, but any other marketplace would think it's complete garbage. Somehow, the fact that it's a game on your phone has caused the bar for quality standards to be so low that only microbes can limbo under it.

If you have any measurements for success or at least want to see a return on investment, studios shouldn't bother with mobile. It is the worst place to try to build a fan-base from nothing.

 

Ha ha. Yes I do. That is kind of my point. I meant that even obvious "creativity" seems to be missing (there are probably less reskinned Tic Tac Toe and Hangman games then there are reskinned runners and flappy birds at this point). But there are some cool things of course. And some of those runner games are nice. I remember someone on these forums making one that had a lot more to it than the standard fare.

These days "everyone" seems to want to be in mobile.

 

@RockoDyne "has caused the bar for quality standards to be so low that only microbes can limbo under it."

Lol!

 

The problem is no one knows what the viable business models are for mobile. Worse yet is the ones predominantly being used is just throwing out as wide a net as possible in the hopes of catching a whale. After that, they haven't got a clue and don't even care what the F***ing game is about because they already snagged their cash cow.

Of the games that actually are bought outright at normal prices in other markets, all of the ones that I know of have actually been successful because of outside forces. Most of the time it's a game that was already successful and had a fan-base before even coming to mobile like FTL.


To flip the script a bit; is there anything good that comes out of mobile? Is there any example of people being able to say that because they were developing for mobile that they were able to make a better game?

 

Birds man! It's all about birds! That is what mobile gaming has provided. It has shown that while some people spend months and years making epic games that sell poorly others can spend a few days make Flappy Bird and make so much money so quickly they freak out and pull the game off the market. That is what mobile gaming has done.