Steam Strategy now that Greenlight is gone

Sorry. A bullshot is a screenshot with things like downsampling (rendering an image at a higher resolution than what it's displayed at to increase the quality) and other effects like high quality AA which either aren't typically done by or aren't available to the end user at all, such as with console games.

 

never played nidhog only ever watched it a few times, and the simplicity of the graphics really works to highlight the gameplay, the subtlety in things like players running through grass etc adds a certain amount of elegance to using graphics only where it adds to gameplay.

Looks like v2 will have some visual clarity problems, not so much that the graphics aren't alot better (because they are better graphics), but the style and choices in color palette for things really adds to the visual clutter. While the gameplay looks to have improved with more weapons, including the fx with characters getting fked up (though the style of the character design is eh not my thing), I think its biggest problem in the graphics department is really in the level environment art work, its neither bad or good for the type of game.. almost too distracting from the action. That sort of artwork is more of other platformers and gameplay that is more story driven and not as intense ins action between 2 characters dueling it out.

I'm sure it will be as popular as the first and reach a bigger new audience though. Given the choice of v1 with less gameplay, and v2 with more gameplay.. you'll get used to the extra S*** surrounding it. Which is why developers who put time into developing modding api's for there game are nice, because then modders can just go in a fix and redo all the stuff they didn't like about the game without literately having to remake everything about the game as a clone.

 

Strategy:
Make a game that someone would pay for and play and build your audience.
Wait for a period when the number of games added to Steam decreases, so you have more chance of being spotted. Number of games released per month will(should) now slowly adjust to reflect saturation of user interest.
I like it that Valve is now letting people fail on their own instead of preventing them from trying.

 

I'm not so sure about it being as popular as the first and reaching a larger audience. I think there is a great chance Nidhogg 2 will end up serving as marketing to buy Nidhogg 1. Based on initial reactions I could see it becoming "get Nidhogg 1 it's kind of like Nidhogg 2 only better!" If that's the case Nidhogg 1 sales will end up increasing as fast or even faster than Nidhogg 2 sales.

Time will tell. But either way should be good for the devs making sales.

 

I draw the line at "scenes or perspectives that are not possible to happen on a regular playthrough without using cheats or hidden dev commands".

http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/Infestation_Survivor_Stories_Classic/

From what I've read way back, all the screenshots of that game that show large zombie hordes are bullshit, because they just aren't in the game.

And you'll probably remember Max Payne 1, where nearly every screenshot was some dramatic camera angle with no HUD, and then the game didn't look like that at all for 99% of the time you were playing. Still a good game, but I felt a bit cheated back then.

So basically a bullshot is a screenshot that makes someone who is very knowledgable of the game say "this is bullshit, that's not how the game looks".

 

They stated pretty clearly why they wanted to upgrade the graphics - to provide better visual feedback for the new features in the sequel, so it is in direct support of the updated gameplay. Although I really don't like the 'style' of the art, I can accept the developers reasoning why they wanted to update.

From the user feedback I've seen - a lot of people state they do not like the increased visual fidelity. This might be due to the style they picked, or simply the fact people enjoyed the original aesthetic.
Me personally - I think the aesthetic of the first game was nice and elegant, but it had what all games need to be successful - it had polish in gameplay and also in the art.
Those graphics in version one are not simply, basic pixel art characters. They created a lot of thought out animations to make the characters lean, dodge, parry, attack and die in varying different ways.
The games visuals and gameplay is polished well and this is why it was such as successful game, beyond it's interesting gameplay. I suspect the sequel will also sell well - regardless of the style of the graphics, because they have shown how to polish a game enough for it to be successful.
Nidhogg 1 is definitely not a mvp product.

 

Yes I agree with much of that.

What I mean by focusing on the gameplay by making the graphics to directly support the gameplay instead of the other way around (i.e. making great graphics in spite of how that may impact gameplay or changing gameplay to suit the graphics) is function over form. It's making decisions such as using very simple ultra clear graphics instead of more defined (some would say better quality) art for the benefit of gameplay. Deciding to limit an animation sequence to 3 frames instead of 6 because it feels better for gameplay. Choosing to spend money & time on other areas of the game that would produce a better benefit than spending that same money & time on graphics would.

It could be the art style they chose considering they seemed to try to intentionally make grotesque looking characters. It could also be because it simply did not need any changes to the graphics to begin with.

I don't want to keep this going on so maybe I shouldn't even write more on it. I think it is one of those things where people just have strong views and that is how it is.

What I think & have seen reflected in comments of some reviewers and players is why did they completely replace all of the graphics not because the characters are "ugly" or the scenes are too busy (which I think they certainly lack the clarity of the original)... but simply "why?". Reason being because it wasn't needed and instead that money & time could have been spent on the real shortcomings of the first game. The netcode and the single player experience. And them not doing that is a clear example of choosing graphics over gameplay. Even though they did add levels and weapons. Nobody is saying they did nothing except graphics. Just that graphics weren't an issue.

That is all I am referring to. I get what the developers said and I know you think it is great they replaced the graphics (and am sure there others who do too). The dev said in one article that he didn't want to make another game using that simple Atari graphics style. I just think it would have been a better choice had he not thought that way and either left the graphics alone or slightly enhanced them... AND focused the bulk of that money & time on the important things. I think it would have dramatically changed the reception of the game.

If the majority of the reviews & player comments were along the line of "the biggest changes from Nidhogg 1 are the network play is now fantastic and the single player experience has been significantly improved!" imagine how much of a difference that would have made. It would open the game up to a lot more people because of having a great single player experience. And it would have greatly improved the net play experience. Double win. That is what I mean by focus on the important things. These two things would make a huge difference in the game and how much value it provides to gamers by directly addressing two of the biggest flaws with the original game.

Lol I think there is a disconnect sometimes due to the nature of forum communication. My use of terms like "focus on the important things" in this context doesn't help. I can see how an artist could take offense to that. And that is not how I intend it. I mean graphics are not some automatically top priority thing that should always be focused on. There are clear cases where other things are a much higher priority. And this was one of those. It is not that spending time on graphics is always wasting money & time it is that in some (perhaps many) cases yes it is a waste of money & time and the wrong decision.

EDIT: I don't want to take away from their efforts so am done with the Nidhogg thing. At the end of the day they have completed and released 3 games now: Nidhogg, Flywrench and Nidhogg 2. They can be proud of that. And I am sure they will learn lessons from Nidhogg 2 just as they did from the other two. Nobody is perfect. Try. Improve. Try again. Etc. It will be interesting to see how they approach their next game.

EDIT 2: I mentioned somewhere that I think Nidhogg 2 has a very good chance of serving more as marketing for Nidhogg 1 and increasing the success of the first game than surpassing the first game itself.

I just took a quick look at SteamSpy...

Nidhogg 1: YouTube stats: 1,263,536 views and 7,746 comments for videos uploaded last week ... 44 new videos uploaded yesterday.

Nidhogg 2: YouTube stats: 1,295,337 views and 7,793 comments for videos uploaded last week ... 32 new videos uploaded yesterday.

People can interpret that as they like. My own interpretation is that yes Nidhogg 2 is actually serving as a great marketing vehicle for Nidhogg 1. Do I know for certain? No. Again I just thought that was likely and still do. My guess is Nidhogg 1 is likely making as many, if not more, sales than Nidhogg 2 is due to this exposure.

 

That was an epic typo.

Your way of reasoning is very ... interesting.

You're asking for "devil's proof" here.
To determine amount of "suffering" the game received from betrayed expectations, I'd need to get access to financial data (sales) within the company AND compare it to financial data from parallel universe where the game did not betray the expectation. It'll be possible to dismiss anything less than that by claiming that "this is not enough suffering, so it doesn't matter". In case of watchdogs, you already saw the how company - ubisoft - "suffered from it". Due to their decisions they got several angry people bashing their products which negatively impacted their reputation.

So, why not flip the argument? AAA status is determined by a budget. Can you name a title with 80 million development costs that had pixelart graphics? There ARE titles that were successes despite low development costs. However, those do not have AAA budgets.

-----
The reason why budgets reach AAA level in the first place is because companies invest heavily into presentation. MoCap, Voice Acting, Visuals, etc. Mechanically, however, there is very little change. For example, GTA 5 gameplay is largely similar to GTA 3. If we take, for example, Skyrim, then it is mechanically simpler and offers less possibilities than daggerfall. What's more, in case of TES series they were actually continuously removing features that existed in previous versions. For example, In daggerfall, you could have a cart to carry your stuff with you. You could also climb walls. In Morrowind, there was a levitation spell and unarmored combat. In Oblivion, it was still possible to create custom spells with custom effects, and affect someone's attitude towards you. ALL those features are removed from skyrim.

Those kind of development seem to contradict the idea that "AAA are better games in general". They aren't. AAA tend to focus heavily on presentation, and presentation is the part of the game that increases the budget. However, mechanical part is frequently largely abandoned. Those games are designing a rollercoaster ride or a hollywood movie. The problem here is that those kind of experiences are passive.

 

I couldn't get into previous elder scroll because clunky control, dubious gameplay balancing and weird interface. I would say Skyrim fixed the basic to acceptable level, if only someone start back adding the complexity on this clean state lol In fallout 4 you can build a base, so maybe they are climbing back?

 

It sounds like what you're saying is you have no proof that they rely on it. If you can't name one.

I suppose suffering is kind of vague. You can use critical reception, then. According to Wikipedia, "Watch Dogs received fairly positive reception."

PC Metacritic is 77. From the blurbs I see there (Metacritic), main complaints were with the story and some technical issues.

PS3 only has two scores, 75 and 70. Rather low. Both mention technical issues, not surprising for a previous-gen console.

X360 has two 79s. Neither mentions any negatives.

PS4 has an 80. Largely positive blurbs, with a couple of comments about story or general concepts/ideas.

X1 is 78. Some complaints about story.

WiiU is 62, vey poor. Most complaints are related to technical issues, however, which is totally unsurprising consider thing console. Considering how abandoned the WiiU was for third parties, the fact that it's on there at all is significant.

So by and large complaints are about story (nothing new for a ubisoft game, and an open-world game), and technical issues as I already mentioned. It's entirely possible that it's in a blurb that I didn't see, but I saw no comments talking about the game relying on graphics and being weak there.

So, do that then. Name me a game which relied on graphics, betrayed that expectation, and had a low metacritic as well as complaints about those graphics. Or to get back at the original topic, games which relied on graphics but had low scores relating to poor gameplay. As I mentioned before, the obvious example is The Order 1886. But outside of that, I can't think of a single one.

Now, we CAN take a look at AC Unity, which DID put a lot of emphasis on (its truly gorgeous) graphics, and had severe backlash which caused them to put that annual series on hold for a year and completely change up the formula. Thing is, though...AC Unity is arguably the most mechanically different AC game, with the possible exception of its sequel Syndicate. The series had many complaints about super easy, boring combat. They changed that up by making enemies quite powerful with quick counters - to the point where, if you go into places with high-leveled enemies and fight them--you're dying. That was new for the series. Speaking of which, it also introduced the leveling system, as well the extensive set of weapons and outfits (which affect combat stats). In addition, there were many complaints about parkour - people getting stuck on a ledge with the character refusing to jump, the character leaping for a wall when trying to go around, no easy way to go down buildings, etc. They attempted to rectify this by revamping that system and adding parkour up and parkour down buttons.

So it's mechanically different. It's NOT rehashing the same formula and just relying on graphics for a quick buck. And the thing is, severe technical issues (I assume most have seen the face bug?) along with dissatisfaction over some of the changes caused the mighty backlash and caused Ubisoft to postpone the series, costing them millions of dollars. It didn't happen because they "relied on graphics."

So much text. And I'm not yet done. I apologize.

I don't really care about whether AAA games have pixel art or not because that's not the issue. The ultimate issue is AAA games relying on their graphics to make up for weak mechanics, weak gameplay. Which I don't see.

And about your examples - the amusing thing is that you're comparing AAA games to...AAA games. Please name a few indies that are as mechanically complex as the games you're mentioning. And not just "complex," but with the design behind it that actually makes it good to play, rather than just another boring aspect of the game. Probably the closest you'll get is one of these survival games, but even then it's mostly the first kind of "complexity" where you just throw stuff in, without actually designing it.

AAA games are, by and large, mechanically superior to indies. There are a greater percentage of AAA games with mechanical superiority (NOT relying on graphics to sell) than the percentage of indies with the same (even if you account for the wide swaths of dross in the indie market).

 

Most complaints about Fallout 4 were about the lack of RPG elements, which were "dumbed down" (or so they say). I don't think that crowd is looking for building bases. Though I personally loved it, it's the only reason I got the game.

 

Which are the same as skyrim to be frank, try skyrim intro just after morrowind and you see the point, just the dialog as more stuff to explore than in skyrim.

Let's not be extremist here. Good game are good games and that's regardless of scope. But I'm afraid you will advance subjective argument so that's a dead end. I also notice almost nobody, who game since being a kid and being over 35, hold these opinions. Mostly because some genre aren't even touch by AAA themselves. Also because some subgenre are just better done in indie, also the cut off from indie can get blurry after success, Warframe is technically indie and has been under the radar of popular gamer culture despite boasting 40 000 daily player on steam. Pubg is taking the shooter crowd by storm and it's not AAA either. And what about the bread of rpg like Torment and pillar of eternity? If you don't like them and their gameplay the argument is dead and don't make sense to begin with, but they go way beyond mainstream AAA rpg (made by the fallout new vegas dev, which is considered the best AAA fallout), even undertale has more branching factor than any AAA games, and most rpg fan cream themselves with mount and balde. I don't even want to get into the horror genre in between amnesia, fnaf or outlast ... I mean even fangame regularly produce piece that have nothing to be afraid, AM2R was so good it is considered as the same as the best in the series, sega just released the best sonic game by hiring fan dev. And I don't even keep track of what's hot right now, I just don't have the time. Meanwhile Uni soft are consistently mock for their lack of inspiration and rot gameplay formula. Meanwhile a game like minecraft spawn and revive many genre such as survival, crafting, rogue lite, etc ... Indie are so much more diverse mechanically than AA game it doesn't even make sense in comparing as AAA tend to work on just a few mechanics, all AAA RPG are action battle based fantasy inspired with quest progression, how do I compare that to a game like war of mine or paper please or sexy brutale or Edith finch? none of these game rely on shooting or slashing like 99% of AAA third person game, none have chest high wall as cover either, and you are not set out to save the world or beat a big villain.

 

And this is really the problem. Most of the people who say things like "AAA games rely on graphics to sell" are people who don't even play those AAA games so they have no idea what they're talking about.

But allow me to refine my statement, because of course you can claim Crusader Kings tops all AAA games: A greater percentage of AAA games in a given genre are more mechanically complex than the percentage of similarly complex (and not just complex, but designed well so the complexity is meaningful) indie games in the same genre.

And I want to point out - when "indie" and "AAA" were first mentioned at the beginning of this specific discussion, it was referring to a couple of games made by, like, one guy. Obsidian, the company who's made Star Wars, Fallout, and South Park games, and who has as many devs as Bethesda, doesn't really qualify for "indie" status in comparison. But even if we allow them, that's a genre (CRPG) AAA hasn't even put their hat into the ring for. You get an AAA making the same type of game and I'd wager it's going to be as complex or more so.

 

Nah bro I can't keep track of all the good indie is what I meant lol, it's easier to track all the AAA they are mostly the same.

What genre it is then because it is certainly not RPG. And most indie try to move away the third person chest wall shooter. Aside from sports AAA don't cover a lot of genre anyway. None of which are complex, you need to define complex. The main complaint of player regarding AAA is "dumbing down" the gameplay.

Obsidian ain't AAA either, and regarding the budget they are operating NOW they moved away from publisher, they qualify as indie. But okey, there is the whole middle ground of notindie notAAA too, crusader kings' dev would qualify as midtier, so is warframe's dev, and demon/dark souls wasn't AAA until the second.

 

Ah, I see.

I'm not sure what you're referring to there. Are you talking about Crusader Kings? I wasn't trying to say it was an RPG, I was just saying you can point to one complex genre and say it's a more complex game than simpler genres but that's not a fair comparison. Crusader Kings is typically called "grand strategy."

Rather disingenuous. A heck of a lot of AAA falls outside of "third person chest wall shooter. Ubisoft games released in the last two years, as well as upcoming 2018 games:

Eagle Flight - VR flight simulator
Far Cry Primal - first person adventure game
Grow Up - procedural climbing game
Just Dance 2017 - dancing game I guess?
Steep - open-world winter sports game
The Division - TPS/RPG
Trials of the Blood Dragon - ???Some crazy mashup between a campy shooter and a racing game?
Trackmania Turbo - racing game
Watch Dogs 2 - TPS/Adventure
For Honor - hack n slash fighting game?
Ghost Recon Wildlands - TPS
South Park Fractured But Whole - RPG
Just Dance 2018 - more of the same
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - XCOM. With Mario (who has a gun). And Rabbids. (tactical RPG)
Star Trek Bridge Crew - VR game
AC Origins - TP Adventure
Far Cry 5 - FPS
Skull & Bones - ship combat game

That's 18 games. With, let's see...Just Cause 2017/2018, The Division/Ghost Recon, maaaaybe Watch Dogs 2 and AC Origins, as overlap. So conceding that last one, that's 15 unique games in different genres. Please don't try to pretend that's "not covering a lot of genres."

Now Ubi's a bit of a special case - they're far more diverse than your EAs and your Activisions. Regardless, however, that's plenty of diversity from a single publisher.

Edit: Forgot about Anno 1800, just announced at Gamescom. RTS. Ignoring Beyond Good and Evil 2 for now because that looks to be like three years out. Probably a couple others I'm forgetting about as well.

They don't qualify as indie. They belong to that little referenced group known as "AA." Significant though not extravagant budgets, high polish and attention to detail. They really have not been a part of the discussion.

 

Dwarf Fortress.

To be honest, I seriously dislike the way you're constructing arguments.

The impression I'm getting is that you entrench in a position, and then try to twist every incoming argument into supporting your original argument, which would be sophistry. When you ask for examples, there's exception clause ("and not just complex , but..."). Similar issue happened in the last discussion with you. I'm not sure if my impression is correct.

If it is, I would largely prefer to discuss normally without the whole arguing over definitions thing. For example your statement about "many people who" would require proof, and it is possible to waste half a year arguing about it alone.

My position is:

• I'm not aware of a high budget game that did not waste most of the budget on graphics. How exactly are you gonna waste 80 mil without graphics anyway? On what?
• The only high budget games with complex gameplay I know of are fighting games. Everything else is ... awfully primitive. Even skyrim. Even Doom from the last year was dumbed down compared to original (didn't think it was possible)
• Due to high graphical budget I cannot say that "Graphics don't matter for AAA" title, because graphics is what makes the game high budget in the first place. So, they matter. No matter how I look it, they're criticially important, and studios waste awful amount of cash trying to make sure that player feels like they're walking through a hollywood movie.
• At the same time, I can't recall many high-budget games with actually complex mechanics. Most of the titles released can be reduced to a very small number of core elements, and that's it. GTA, for example, is 4 or 5 mini-games total with narration added over it. Layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of complexity usually doesn't happen pretty much anywhere. So, I cannot say that AAA games are better, because complexity is lower.

And that's pretty much it.

 

I mean just googling AAA dumbing down video games yield at least 10 page of people complaining. If i restrict the search to one years, you still see a lot of complaints:



Also you misunderstood my argument about "third person chest wall high" genre, I'm saying indie aren't pursuing them, I can't think of any indie that follow that formula, unlike FPS for example, which is well represented at both end of the scale.

Let's reorganize your list by genre affinity:
1. not different in quality and scope of any indie, hardly AAA
- VR flight simulator
- procedural climbing game (not different in quality and scope of any indie, hardly AAA)
- ???Some crazy mashup between a campy shooter and a racing game?
- VR game
- XCOM. With Mario (who has a gun). And Rabbids. (tactical RPG)

2. party games, small scope not AAA
- dancing game I guess? (party game with license)
- more of the same dancing

3.sports
- open-world winter sports game
- racing game
- hack n slash fighting game?

4. slash or shoot AAA world roaming with skill tree, they have minor variation of the core formula, have a lot of overlap, have the highest budget
- TPS/RPG
- TPS/Adventure
- TPS
- RPG
- TP Adventure
- FPS
- first person adventure game

 

@neoshaman I think this is also one of those things where you either see it or you don't and although I don't like to be age-biased I do think it is a lot easier to understand if you are old enough to know how things work especially business.

I think the main difference is some people don't make the connection between focusing on uber presentation quality having any impact on the other areas of the game. And it would simply because of budget and increased complexity.

Actually there was some buzz about this just a year or so ago where one or more AAA companies said something had to change because the focus on pushing the presentation building elaborate set pieces etc just isn't sustainable. And there have been AAA companies mentioning here and there about the focus being on the presentation because they feel like gamers expect them to always outdo the presentation quality of last year's game.

I think it is more of a thing where it is so obvious to many people that very few out there really sees the need to literally spell it out on the AAA scene. And I think it is also a case where one AAA company doesn't want to come right out and say hey would make even better games but we sink way too much money & time into the presentation. They probably feel doing so would make them look bad unless other AAA companies joined in and agreed.

On the Indie side they are more vocal about it. There was a game earlier this year some Sniper 3 or something where the devs admitted they had made a huge mistake focusing so much on achieving AAA level presentation and the rest of the game suffered a lot for it.

Anyway... again I think it is easy enough for anyone to understand this they just have to want to.

And I am done with it but good luck! Lol

 

It's laughable defending AAA with claims of "they didn't promise" this or that. Of course they don't. Unity doesn't either. No business does.

What they do is sell a little bit of everything with a hell of a lot of implication. This helps sell much harder as people see what they want to see, and nobody gets sued.

AAA have marketing down to a fine art. Film, any business. Unity. Intel. Pizza, you name it. Marketing is about letting people pick the element that appeals to them.

AAA games are typically way too much style over substance. Nearly all recent ones I've played, I had much more fun playing indie titles. The graphics were indeed compensating for fairly piss poor root-motion driven gameplay and bad controls punctuated with far too many cutscenes.

Wish it wasn't the case, but that's what sells.

 

Would you classify Deserts of Kharak as indie or AAA? I've finished that recently, and for my taste there were way too many scripted scenes or cutscenes. I wonder if the game would have sold better, if there were just less of those and more freeform gameplay, where you get to make more choices.
Visually the game looks pretty great. Would love to read more about how they render their terrain and how they implemented their decals. Do you think it's worth to try to debug a frame using renderdoc? I have no experience with that tool, yet.

Sounds just like kickstarter ^_^

 

Totally indie, medium sized. The reasons the cutscenes were a bit much were that it did get a cash injection and they did try to AAA-ify it a fair bit.

AAA is stuff that Rockstar or EA put out, or first party devs, you know megabucks

 

Well, they also spend lots of money on voice actors, scriptwriters, etc.

Far too many AAA games also take "cinematic" to the absurd level of forcing the player to just act out a script rather than making free decisions. Some of them are barely interactive. Many of them have very little challenge aside from acting out the script - e.g. I have never seen anyone lose a single battle in Assassin's Creed, because the bad guys always seem to attack one by one, each waiting their turn while standing idly around the player (mighty sporting of them, of course, but what's the point?) Many of these games also tend to have typical Hollywood plotlines with the same predictable agendas, characterization, etc.

 

I miss the days when all you needed was a catchphrase and a mullet.

 

Ok, thanks. I wasn't sure because the credits seemed to have everyone who works at gearbox in them (who only published it, I think).

@GarBenjamin: I'd be interested to hear what you think of this video, because iirc you liked Diablo 3 quite a bit:

I think he makes a compelling point. I skipped Diablo 3 entirely after playing a 20 minute prerelease demon (epic typo - I'm not changing that one x] ) at GamesCom. It just didn't seem to have what I was looking for, but I played Diablo 1, Diablo 2, and Path of Exile.

Can absolutely not confirm this for AC:Unity (only one of the series that I really played). I died plenty of times and I've finished Dark Souls 1 and 2, so I'm not just super bad at third person melee combat.

That and mustaches might have a revival soon, DrDisrespect is paving the way:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqpnY6vL5z__s630z9hSy1w/videos

 

Dwarf Fortress is a good example.

That's not sophistry, unless you're saying I'm doing it deliberately to deceive, rather than because I believe it supports my position. If I'm anything I'm pretentious and prideful, not deliberately deceptive.

I'm not trying to add additional clauses to artificially limit answers to those that fit my criteria, I'm doing it to limit answers to being reasonable.

It's like someone complaining about a superhero movie getting a good review, when it's all action schlock. Of course it's action schlock - it's a superhero movie. Its purpose isn't to be Citizen Kane. It's in a different genre from more intellectual films, so it doesn't get evaluated by the same standards. Reviewers for video games do the same - consider the ridicule for the "if only we could talk to the monsters" comment in a review of DOOM (the original I believe). The criticism or praise should be within the expectations of the genre. That's why I made that comment to neoshaman about labeling Crusader Kings as more complex than any AAA game.

It's probably my background. I'm a bit of a prescriptivist. But the problem is that definitions are important. If you mean something different than I do by something, then everything we perceive from the other person's statements on that topic is basically wrong (to some level).

It's like people saying "Mass Effect became less of an RPG over time." That statement is founded in their definition for RPG. My response disregarding definitions would be "No it didn't." Now we can either go back and forth like children (yes it is, no it isn't, it doesn't have as many skills, who cares about skills, yada yada), or we can get to the heart of the matter - our definition for RPG. If I look at things through their perspective of what RPGs are I'll probably agree with their statement. And if they look at things through my perspective of what RPGs are they'll probably agree with my statement. So the fundamental difference in our points of view is our definitions.

Being able to understand a person's definition, and their conclusions from that, is utterly trivial. I've never had a problem with that. It's boring to me. What I see as important is actually discussing and arguing these definitions, because that's the only way change happens. I want to continue this for another paragraph or two, but I'm already being too pretentious I think so I'll stop.

I don't know about waste. Spend, sure. A great deal of their budget is spent on graphics. That's an objective statement. I can't (and have no desire to) disagree with that.

Woah, woah, woah. Who said graphics don't matter? Not me. I said they don't rely on graphics. Referring to the original statement that AAA games weren't "solid" without their graphics.

Graphics do matter. Otherwise I wouldn't be the kind of tool who spends hundreds on computer hardware every year. But just because it matters doesn't mean those games RELY on it - they're not solid without the graphics.

This is the problem with discussions that aren't about definitions - the thing people are arguing drifts until it's not really about what it was initially. Focusing on definitions and on clear, declarative statements allows one to stay on track and more easily argue for/against something.

You initially say you can't think of many AAA games with complex mechanics. I could probably argue that a little, but by and large, sure. However, then you make the claim that their complexity is "lower." You're implicitly saying that indie games DO have complex mechanics. And there I disagree with you. Sure, Dwarf Fortress is a good example. But look at the other 99.99% of the market. Crappy 2D platformers. Survival (zombie, ugh) games. Whatever the latest trend is. The majority of them don't have complex mechanics either.

And the point of my "good complexity" comment was something like this: if you get the chance take a look at this. I remember reading it years ago. This is complexity. But I don't know if it's good design. Now we won't know until it's available (if it ever is). But this strikes me as complexity for the sake of complexity which really isn't good design. That's what I was referring to, and that's something it seems easy to fall into when adding mechanics to a game - throw in everything but the kitchen sink, because it's complex and complexity on its own is good, right? Not necessarily.

 

Hmm. I suppose I was thinking in terms of AAA referring to a company. You indirectly implied it with your previous comment, where you talked about Obsidian "not being AAA," as though a company defines "AAA" or not. If one judges it based on game, however, I see your point.

 

Not being AAA meaning not having access to the budget to make AAA games.

There is no way you can RPG in this day and age in a way that can satisfy everyone. It's the best way to start a semantic war. Word are label to describe fuzzy pattern of experience anyway, definition is adhoc attempt to control, under the pretense of communication, but tend to become a turf war.

 

The way I see it "relying" means you can't throw it away. If something is "important" to the point where it can't be removed, then you rely on it. Audio/Visual Component takes 50..80% of modern high budget title, if not more. So, yeah, they aren't solid without their graphics.

Actually I'm not implicitly saying anything. What I write is exactly what I say. What is "implicitly said" is NOT what I said, and is product of someones imagination, or jumping to conclusions.

How is this even relevant?

This stuff isn't really new and was present in operation Flashpoint and few other milsims. Basically, this is a sales spiel that spends one page describing a minor detail.

A decent complexity is something that can keep you interested in a game for a month. A decent example of a decent complexity was X3. The game was progressively exposing you to more and more complex events, and you progressed from a space taxi driver to a fleet commander/corporate magnate.This is decent complexity level.

 

As I said, definitions are important. But anyway, fair enough. I disagree on whether it can be thrown away or not, but that's not something objective so I can't argue it.

Actually, yes you are. Or you're not using English properly. The word "lower" is a comparative (note the first point--adding "-er"). You may not have stated what you were comparing AAA games to in that sentence, but your use of the comparative is an objective statement that something else (implicit if not explicitly stated) is the opposite (or "less-so") of whatever is being mentioned.

My logical leap was that you were talking about indie games, not that you implied some other game had higher complexity. You did imply that.

That's not debatable. That's English. Period.

I wasn't saying it was new, I was saying it looked like pointless complexity (especially all the talk of breathing).

I like this example. I mainly skipped the taxi driver stage though and traded myself until I got a couple larger ships - freighters, I guess. Didn't play all that much though unfortunately. Never got to the place where I was building my own factories.

 

Steam Strategy Now That Greenlight is Gone

Make good game (whatever your definition of that is)
Polish (regardless of resolution/complexity target)
Market good game

For those considering to deploy less polished games on steam - maybe consider less risky portals to deploy on, itch.io, gamejolt, kong, newgrounds, etc.

 

No. No jedi mind tricks.

If you seriously think that you know what I mean/think better than I do, then no discussion with you is possible.
If you try to assert that your interpretation of my statement is correct when I say it is not, then you're wrong and I'm right, and it doesn't matter what kind of argument you try to use. I know what I meant, what I thought of and what I meant to say, and I'm the final and ultimate authority in this matter, because this is my mind, and not yours.

And this is not debatable.

 

Back on the original thread topic... I checked out a bunch of new releases on Steam and must say I am really liking the way things are looking.

I see many games that I feel reasonably confident would have been greatly delayed (or even stopped entirely) from entering the shop that are now sitting out there available for all to check out.

A lot of rough stuff but some is also interesting because it doesn't follow the norm. That's all I could have hoped for from canning Greenlight and implementing Direct. The best thing IMO was to get rid of the self-appointed gate keepers. I mean they still have a presence on Steam and can still target games with negative reviews but don't have quite as much power because they can't delay (or block) a game's release onto the store. And this has created a more level playing field I think where we can find Jimmy's First Weird Game sitting in the same shop as Witcher 3. That's pretty cool. Let the gamers decide if they want to buy it and support lil Jimmy or not.

Of course there is a risk of it becoming like mobile but I think it won't happen super fast because I think a lot of the appeal for the mobile market is those folks can carry their games around with them and show their friends. Can't do that with a desktop game.

And I used to think it is bad this flood of games... still do to a degree (but it makes no difference to me if it is a flood of Witcher 3 style games or a flood of Little Jimmy's first games... a flood is a flood and depending on your viewpoint it can even be seen as the people like Lil Jimmy are the ones bringing in fresh content). HOWEVER... it is inevitable. The market is saturated and will be saturated. Nothing will stop that unless all of you and many others out there want to get out of game dev. So best to just accept and focus on how to succeed in that environment.

The bigger problem is the race to the bottom. People need to price their games sensibly. Lil Jimmy charging 99 cents makes sense. Your game maybe should be $4 or even $9. All just my opinion.

 

Yeah, the price for a lot of indie games is really low right now, and I suspect a lot of indies will drop prices significantly this year to see if it does anything to help sales. The problem right now is that there is so much total digital media available for consumers that consumers are unable to consume everything they are interested in. Not just games either. There are movies, music, books, websites, forums, YouTube, Twitch, a million other things, and games. Even if a consumer decided to pay nothing for digital media, that person would still be saturated from all of the free media already available. An indie game at any price still has to compete with all of that total digital media.

The founder of Steam Spy posted an article recently about indie games being too cheap:
https://galyonk.in/the-indie-games-are-too-damn-cheap-11b8652fad16

He basically said the price of indie games did not significantly affect the number of sales of those games. If gamers were interested in a game then they bought it. Setting the price lower did not increase interest in the games. Clearly that guy has studied the data more than probably anybody else outside of Valve.

 

Thanks for sharing that article I'll have to check that out tonight.

Yeah definitely I think this is the biggest problem as far as Indie game devs go. People complain so much about lack of quality and so forth. I don't see a problem with someone selling a "rough game" or super tiny game for $1 or less on Steam. I'd say that is exactly what should be expected for $1 or less. And that helps to set an appropriate expectation by them doing that.

It's the larger games and oozing with quality from end to end games being sold for a few dollars that I think does more harm than anything else. This kind of thing creates unreasonable expectations.And it is the kind of thing that will ultimately make it so a person can labor on a game for a long time and end up almost giving it away making maybe $15k or so for all of that effort and time.

We end up with an extreme market where you either can make a top level game and have a good chance to make enough money to make it worthwhile or you make super quick throwaway games priced ultra cheap to make it worthwhile. But in the middle between these two extremes is basically not worth the effort and time.

And I hate to see that happen (probably already has) because it could have been a case where many people could truly make a living from this or at the very least have a very respectable second income.

People just freak out though and the first thing that seems to cross their minds is I'll lower the price. Really it just creates even more problems. Some curiosity seekers may buy the game because of that but I think they are also the ones more likely to complain about the game because they aren't really the target market.

It's like the folks leaving negative reviews saying I only got this game because it came in a humble bundle or whatever. Then go on to butcher it. I don't put the same level of importance on those reviews because the game simply wasn't for them. More customers isn't a good thing. More of the right kind of customers is a good thing. IMO.

 

Honestly, there are so many games right now that a lot of good games are getting buried regardless of the price point. At least some of the problem for developers is the tendency for gamers to gorge on one game constantly instead of checking out many of the games available. In previous years, that might be a game like Counter Strike or No Man's Sky.

This summer, 8 million people purchased Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (often called PUBG). Many of those people have played hundreds of hours in that game. During that same period of time, thousands of other games have been released and completely ignored. PUBG sells for US$30. A lot of the ignored games sell for less than that. Pricing games below the price of PUBG did not cause gamers to look at those other games. A lot of YouTubers and Twitchers have shifted to pumping out PUBG footage constantly instead of playing the other games.

My prediction is that those people currently playing PUBG constantly will only stop once they find a new $30-$60 game to dedicate a thousand hours to. Those PUBG players will not stop playing PUBG to play inexpensive indie games no matter how low the price is for those other games. This is one of the factors that will make sure unknown indie games stay unknown.

 

Yeah, I'm going to be careful when determining the price for my game. I don't want to sell it for less than its worth.

I figure I'll still keep it under $20 because I don't want to raise expectations too high. I mean, I am a solo dev after all. It'll look nice, be fun to play, be re-playable, and give people enough play time to get their money's worth, but it will still be an indie game, not a $60 AAA release.

Of course, even AAA games these days seem hardly worth the $60. I only spend that much if it's something I REALLY want and have been waiting for.

I think there is a sweet spot for price. Too high, and people may expect too much. Too low, and people will see it as something that's not worth much. With a lot of products, when people see a higher price, they assume it's higher quality, even if this is not the case.

 

@ShilohGames Okay I needed a bit of a brain break so read that article. The author makes excellent points and I completely agree with them.

I often wonder why people are charging such low prices. People just don't seem to realize they are making Indie game dev as a legitimate business extremely hard by doing that. Basically shooting themselves (and everyone else) in the foot.

I wonder if it caused by a complete lack of business sense (perhaps not even looking at it as growing a business over time at all and instead seeing it like a lottery... just throw it out there priced ridiculously cheap if it fails no big deal they can move onto something else), developers living in countries where $10 is a lot of money or a combination of the two.

I wonder if there is a much higher percentage of game dev indies than music indies and book indies living in countries where prices are much lower than USA and UK.

I think those two things have a lot to do with it. Especially since we've seen posts around here where people have said they can live on $500 per month. For such a person they may very well think setting a price of 75 cents on a game is reasonable even if they spent 6 months or more working on it.

 

I think $5.99 is a sweet spot, it worked for golf with friends which sold over 1 million units. Although I guess you would need multiplayer for that
http://steamspy.com/app/431240

 

I'm not sure how we can look at it that way. Someone else could have made the exact same game and same price and it sells 1200 units. Or the same dev could make the game now and sell 1800 units.

There are just too many factors involved. What else is going on at the time (maybe some news story is going on getting their attention, maybe gamers are busy playing some recently released game, maybe a bunch of them all just bought the new iPad 9MillionX3 and are putting purchases on hold then forget about the game or maybe another game is being released around same time they have been waiting for many months even years). The right people covering the game at the right time.

So far what we've seen is nobody (well very few) people have been able to duplicate their success stories. That, I think, is because there are too many factors outside their control. What we end up summarizing as "luck".

 

Well made golf games sell really well on steam, but it has to be above a certain level of quality (which is very surprisingly doable for indies)
http://steamspy.com/search.php?s=golf

Golf It!
Developer: Perfuse Entertainment Publisher: Perfuse Entertainment
Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation, Sports, Early Access
Release date: Feb 17, 2017 Price: $8.99
Score rank: 40% Userscore: 77% Old userscore: 76%
Owners: 118,958 ± 9,926
Players in the last 2 weeks: 30,769 ± 5,048 (25.87%)
Players total: 111,158 ± 9,595 (93.44%)

Vertiginous Golf
Developer: Kinelco & Lone Elk Creative Publisher: Surprise Attack
Genre: Indie, Sports
Release date: May 6, 2015 Price: $9.99
Score rank: 30% Userscore: 71% Old userscore: 58% Metascore: 63%
Owners: 419,495 ± 18,634
Players in the last 2 weeks: 1,293 ± 1,265 (0.31%)
Players total: 136,293 ± 10,625 (32.49%)

Golf With Your Friends
Developer: Blacklight Interactive Publisher: Blacklight Interactive
Genre: Casual, Indie, Sports, Early Access
Release date: Jan 29, 2016 Price: $5.99
Score rank: 77% Userscore: 91% Old userscore: 91%
Owners: 1,401,713 ± 34,026
Players in the last 2 weeks: 170,528 ± 11,884 (12.17%)
Players total: 1,307,023 ± 32,860 (93.24%)

 

It'll probably be next spring before I'm even thinking about releasing, though I may put out a demo before that.

Still, I want to start planning ahead. Hopefully, there is a bit more scientific way to pick a price other than looking at a popular game and hoping it works for you too.

I just read that article that was just posted on indie games being too cheap, and it makes sense. If players are willing to spend more money than we charge, then we have wasted a lot of potential profit.

Personally, I would be hesitant to charge less than $10 dollars, and I feel like I would even like to go up to $19.99. I feel like the presentation quality of my game will be good enough for people to feel it is worth it just by going through the trailer and screenshots.

I haven't done much research yet, but until someone says for sure that there is guaranteed more sales (and a higher profit earned) from selling under $6, then I don't know why anyone would do it. It seems like it would be better to start higher and then have some room for sales or discounts as product gets older.

It'll probably vary by genre, but I still feel like if the game "looks" appealing enough, then it won't matter if we charge $6 or $19. I'm not talking just graphics, but overall presentation and quality through out. Obviously, I feel like good graphics will help get impulse buyers too, but that's another matter.

I don't know if there are any "minimum requirements" for charging a particular price.

The only things I worry about are charging so much that I lose all impulse buyers, or the game gets compared to higher quality titles and cannot meet expectations.

 

Ha ha well there are other factors that come into play besides just "golf games" I think. One of the biggest things is these days a person can make just about any game support multi-player as long as it is not junk gameplay (and offers real advantages over the original if it is a sequel) and it will be many times more popular than if it was single player. All three of these games support multi-player.

Another thing to consider is all of these games may have been featured in a humble bundle, bundle stars, etc bundle at some point and moved a huge amount of units from just being in the bundle and not actually bought specifically because of these games.

Another factor for why some games do much better is because they use a publisher who can sell a lot more units than most any normal Indie developer can ever hope to. Not sure if any of these are using one but maybe Vertiginous is based on the names listed for Developer and Publisher being different.

One of them features steampunk settings and steampunk itself is quite popular and that may be a part of that game's appeal.

Of course, it could well be that mini golf games are just in high demand. But if that was the case then I would expect every mini golf game on Steam unless it is outright trash to be selling at least tens of thousands of copies.

Again I am not knocking it. Is possible. Just saying there truly are many factors that come into play why a game can show high sales and yet if that same exact game had been made by someone else or simply at a different time or some key incidents did not occur the results would be very different.

At least that is how I see it.

Make a mini golf game and throw it up there!

 

Just from watching some of your videos and seeing your visuals I think your game is worth a $20 purchase, although I do not know how extensive the single player experience is. That is my draw and I really enjoy RTS's, so I'm biased.

 

Thanks!

My focus has been on single player, so I'm trying to make it as enjoyable as possible for players who like Age of Empires or games like Company of Heroes where you focus more on controlling the land and using the environment rather than base building. I feel like people who also like tower defense games may also like it since the big focus is on keeping your campsite alive and moving it around strategically.

I have thought about multiplayer, but it scares me a bit. It just seems complicated. I'm more of an artist than programmer. And, well the game is designed so that the enemy is not the same as the player, so I'd have to do a lot more work to implement multiplayer, not to mention changing the story.

So, I have put my focus thus far on creating a quality experience. I'm working more on quality than quantity. The gameplay will be tight and well thought out. The choices in the game will be meaningful (like whether to set up camp in an area, or what to upgrade next). The A.I. will be fun and challenging. I'm trying to put some "charm" into the game where ever possible, like giving the bad guys a unique personality to differentiate them from the player characters (which will be reflected in their animations and behaviors).

I do have to keep the scope of my game manageable, but I believe I can inject enough quality in it that it will be fun, and it will "feel" complex enough that players will have enough to keep them satisfied.

 

I currently have a game in Steam Early Access that is priced at US$4.99. I worked on this game for over three years, but it does not need to pay the bills since I also have other successful businesses. So in my case, I did not choose a low price point due to a lack of business sense. I chose the low price because I wanted to make it widely available so I could get useful feedback from players. I was struggling to get useful feedback from my local playtesters because they had gotten too used to my game. They could no longer see the flaws and opportunities for improvement.

Since placing my game on Steam Early Access in June, I got a lot of useful feedback. I rapidly implemented requested improvements, and my game is drastically better now than it was two months ago. So in terms of getting useful feedback, Steam Early Access has been really fantastic. I am planning to officially release my game at US$9.99 once it is done in Early Access, which will probably be a few more months.

One thing that I found very interesting was that the low price did not yield more sales. I was projecting more people would grab it cheap, play it, and give some feedback. I think the article from the SteamSpy blog is largely correct that gamers are relatively insensitive to price at this point in time.

Most people tell me US$4.99 is a very fair price. People who like my game say is easily worth $14.99 to $19.99. People who don't like my game tell me it is not worth even $0.99. Both of those comments largely confirm what the SteamSpy blog was saying. People who really like my game are willing to pay more than I am currently charging, and people who don't like my game would likely not be happy with it regardless of how low I set the price.

 

I don't think there is a general pricing sweet spot. There are games selling very well and very poorly at every price point. I think the current take home message is that a lot of thing affect sales, but price does not have much impact at this time.

 

I wasn't thinking so much of $5 but it really all depends on the scale of the game and so forth. It was more for when some games go on sale I think and their price is very little like $2 to $3 or even much less. I don't mean just the summer sale but like I get email alerts an item on your wish list is on sale. But I also am sure that does generate a lot of sales for them because when I get those emails it generally serves two purposes.. reminds me of the game and with a crazy low price I generally just grab it. And there are games that just seem like they are priced way too low IMO normally even.

You bring up a great point though. That is probably a big reason why there are so many games priced low. Because a lot of them are made by people who already have a job or business paying the bills. Game dev is not a full-time business for them.

EDIT: Maybe it is mainly the games I look at that makes this stand out to me. But I am talking about things like this...

Almightree: The Last Dreamer normal price $4.99 currently 49 cents

On the other hand... some are pricing them very well...

The Escapists 2 $19.99

Maybe The Escapists 2 is made by some "big Indie" and I am sure there is a lot more to it than the game above. So I think the $4.99 for the other game is very reasonable. It's the 49 cents current price that seems a bit insane.

Oh wow I just noticed The Escapists 2 is made by Team 17 of Alien Breed and Worms fame. I didn't think any AAA company even made 2D pixel art games these days. Or maybe they are not AAA now and are AA or A or maybe even Indies who knows.

A good example overall of why there is so much variance in game quality, scale and pricing. We have the big AAAs, little/used to be AAAs then big indies and medium indies and tiny indie teams and then husband and wife teams and finally one lone developer. On top of that many of these "classes" are doing it full-time and many more are doing it part-time. I am sure this is a huge factor in all of these differences.

 

I already pointed out what a comparative is in English. You used a comparative. A comparative is a word which compares one thing to another thing. If one of those is unmentioned, then it is implied.

Again, that's English. That's grammar. That's not my opinion. If you don't want to use grammar, then you're right, we can't have a discussion.

 

This is just conjecture, but I wouldn't be surprised if a great number of those people weren't going to buy those other games anyway.

When Mass Effect 3 was released with multiplayer, it had an influx of new players, new people on the forums, people who basically only played multiplayer and nothing else. These people weren't interested in a single-player game at all--they were just there for multi-player. Similarly, you have some people who only play MMOs, putting thousands of hours into those.

So I can hardly pretend that that accounts for everyone playing the game, but a big portion of the people who consistently play those types of games and don't play others will only play those types of games. They aren't lost sales for a single-player only indie game.

 

I'm certain you're already aware of this, but I will "warn" you that a fairly substantial part of RTS gaming is multiplayer. I have many fond memories of getting together with friends for either an Age 2 or Command and Conquer Generals LAN party. So it's definitely something you want to consider carefully.


(not aimed at you in particular) The question of how much a game is "worth" is a good one. Generally I prefer to price things at $1 per hour. I look at the reviews for a game and see what the general amount of time is. 10 hour game gets 10 bucks.

However, if a dev consistently puts out quality work I can "trust" I sometimes bump it up to 2$ an hour or maybe more. This is where most AAA games I buy (not a whole lot) lie, along with some not-quite-indie companies like Obsidian, inXile, Cyan Worlds, Spiders, Platinum Games, etc.

I think one reason for that is what someone else mentioned. There are just too many good games to play. I need some kind of artificial limiter for defining what I buy, and a somewhat restrictive price-to-playtime ratio is a good way of doing that.