Steam Strategy now that Greenlight is gone

I don't know about that specific time frame but when he's stuck with a project more than one week he made 0x10c.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0x10c

 

That's somewhat misleading though because it says he was the lead designer on the game so he had a team working on it. Ironically, it goes on to say that he... found several creative blocks, citing the main problem as "it not being very fun to play". Persson then stated he will instead, most likely continue to work on smaller projects for the rest of his life.

 

I've been doing this same thing over the past few weeks just taking a good look at what is there in what I consider would be "my space". There are a few excellent games in there for sure but the majority seem flawed in design, controls, feedback or whatever to one degree or another.

I think one of the best games I'd see as direct competition (for scale of game to work up to) would be Blasting Agent. It is an extremely well done game that unfortunately (and is often the case) hasn't got the attention it deserves. But that could be due to problems with the game at first release. Some people left negative reviews about problems with the controls and even crashing and I haven't experienced either of these. I just left a positive review earlier because potential competition or not they did an excellent job.

I find reading the reviews on games so weird many times. I'm not saying people are making up the control issues and crashing problems because I know all too well sometimes for whatever reason an application just doesn't work right on someone's machine. But in some cases it is like the things people are listing as why they love a game are decribed very differently as the exact reason why a few others hate the game.

Mental note... make entire game configurable from controls to special FX... I read reviews for some game yesterday where positives loved the FX such as screen shake and explosions and other negative reviews for the same game complaining about the FX because the explosions hid the enemies and screen shake messed with their head and confused them.

 

Yeah, that might be more work than it's worth. Personally, I am okay with a single player only game. I had only toyed with the idea of adding in multiplayer since someone brought it up a few posts back.

I can make a solid single player experience. If my time is wasted on multiplayer, and it doesn't do much to help, then I don't know if it's worth that.

Like snacktime said, it would just be a small thing like co-op or a private server (maybe 1 vs 1, or at most 4 players). I would not be promoting it as some kind of big multiplayer game.

So, I don't know. I don't even know how much extra work it is going to be in the first place to have even simple multiplayer. I was definitely going to hold off until much closer to release to see if that many people even require it or else no purchase.

I still need to watch that video you posted.

 

This discussion remind me of this video

 

I mentioned it before, but the history of RTS games is heavily steeped in multiplayer. That doesn't mean one has to include it, but it's one of the main expectations in the genre. Especially if the game doesn't have Total War-esque procedural or variable campaign systems (which allow for tons of replayability).

How many hours?

I don't want you to feel you HAVE to have multiplayer. But just keep in mind that, as I mentioned, it's one of the expectations of the genre, so you may "lose some points" with gamers if you don't have it. And of course the fact that it can add replayability.

I will say that outside of these few sessions with friends years ago I never play multiplayer in games. but at the same time I've drifted away from the RTS genre. However, my current disinterest is mainly due to the LACK of significant single-player content in these games. My favorite parts were the campaigns.

So just keep my comments in mind, don't take them as gospel.

 

It's difficult to say how long the game will be. I mean, you could sit there collecting gold and just defending the camp for a while if you wanted to. There's no rule that says you have to be constantly attacking and trying to finish quickly. I'm sure some people will want to play fast and try to beat a record or something, but others might want to play defensively and take their time.

Once I figure out how big I will make the maps, and how many enemies there will be, stuff like that, then I'll get a better idea of how long it will take. Plus, I can make as many maps as I want.

All maps will be done by hand rather than procedural because I am designing them with purpose. The goal is to use the landscape to your advantage, so I'll be setting up spots for potential campsites and places where the enemy might be. It'll be sort of like Company of Heroes in this regard, like how it had points across the map.

The replayability will be how you decide to take on the map, what upgrade paths you choose, what order you choose to upgrade stuff, and general AI variation in the way they attack.

Whether or not I include multiplayer just depends on how hard it will be to include it.

 

Glad to see the comparison. The only picture I saw reminded me of Age of Empires, which is a very different experience from Company of Heroes.

My favorite RTS was Command and Conquer Generals, and I was typically the player who would sit and wait while I collected resources and upgraded everything as much as possible.

I don't know if you said this before or not, but are you planning a story campaign?

 

It won't have a separate story campaign. Everything will be sort of integrated together. In all honesty, the story is mainly there to set the mood, give you goals, tell you who the enemy is, and get you going. It's not going to be heavily story-based. The goal is more to create a world and a cool setting to get immersed in.

 

Got it, thanks. So the main focus is on the mechanics.

 

I remember seeing that around here before. Definitely fits the thread very well and seems like good solid stuff. I like how he is actually very business focused. He knows what each game earned per hour he put into it. That's very good. Have to track that stuff.

I was thinking earlier today hopefully nobody took anything I posted as saying I think a person should never spend a long time on a game. All I was getting at really is for me personally I wouldn't approach it that way for various reasons. And just suggesting that focusing on smaller games may be a better approach.

Ultimately of course everyone should spend as much time on their games as they think makes sense to do so. If you don't care at all about money then spend 10 years on it no problem. If you do care then just try to keep it all in mind... how much time are you putting in and how much money do you need to make to be paid a fair rate for that time. And of course maybe people are also looking at it like they will take one big shot at winning the game dev lottery and really don't care if it ends up at 10 cents per hour because it is one of those things where they either want to make a game that requires a huge amount of time or not make one at all. Completely understandable.

The path I described fits me well because I don't like large projects. Part of it is I find it very interesting how to do more with less... get the most out of a little. It makes me think and I enjoy the problems in such projects. I'm always weighing options.... if I do this it will take x amount of time... what are some other ways to solve this / achieve this more efficiently. And I just find that satisfying but doesn't mean everyone will.

 

I have my wonderland game that I am working on. I am going to work on it until its done. Now that I have a job to pay the bills and can actually afford to pay an artist. I can make it how I want to, and if it makes money great, if not who cares. And if its worth it I can simply change the theme using my same engine/framework and make more games selling to my audience.

 

That's ideal. And really that is something very important you mentioned because it is easy for me to talk about making faster dev cycle games because the games I really want to make fit into that. In 13 weeks I'm sure I can get 64 hours into a game working very part-time. So really I'd be making what I want to make especially if doing it full-time with about 500 hours of work time available in 3 months. And for others to make what they want to make it might take 3,000 hours or even more.

Do you know how the free Steam games work? I've noticed there are many free games on Steam. Does it cost $100 to release a free to play game... as in completely free no ads nothing?

 

I think/hope so.

@GarBenjamin, have you considered developing mainly for iOS? We've talked about missilecards a while ago and since Nathan is kind enough to share his sales numbers on twitter, we now know that it earned like 10 times as much on iOS compared to steam:

https://twitter.com/nmeunier/status/901940483232079878

Keep in mind though, that there is a genre bias. Steam gamers don't like card games very much (with a few exceptions).

Shouldn't iOS also be more welcoming to very short games? And I'd imagine the whole "culture" in that userbase is less hellbent on calling out assetflippers etc., since more of them are casual gamers. Though I don't actually know - I'm avoiding smart phones and mobile games.

 

I've never had any interest in mobile games beyond just the novelty of making a game for the phone. I see mobile as a terrible platform for games and never play mobile games (have none on my cell). Something like a true handheld game console now that would be entirely different. But the games I've tried on mobile always play poorly other than super simple games. Mainly because controls are virtual and fingers cover the game view. Even for things like shmups it seems like auto-fire is common which removes a major piece of gameplay and interaction IMO.

Like that Blasting Agent game I mentioned above. It is perfect for PC or consoles but I suspect it would be terrible on mobile.

 

Yeah, I can relate.



Something else, steam/marketing related. How come that the typical "digital boxart" or "banner" of games usually does nothing to convey how the games actually play?

Like this screenshot I took today on indiegala:





I have no clue what genres those games are. Maybe I'm wrong, but I almost feel like everyone has it backwards on what kind of information people need to get out of these artworks. As a gamer I do not care one bit about how those games are called, these brands mean nothing to me. All I wanna know is whether I might like the game or not, and usually screenshots do a good job of telling me that. So... why does no one focus on communicating how the gameplay is in these things? You can wave your title/brand around once people know what it stands for, but for indie games I almost see no point in having the title in the artwork at all (at least in the typical prominently featured positions).

"So why does this even matter, you could just click on each game and see what's it all about"

That's the point though, we're getting so flooded with input, I can no longer be arsed to click on everything that has a fancy logo. And I'm sure many gamers are the same.

 

I hear ya. I think because everyone thinks just make a great looking / interesting looking "cover" and it will stand out. But like I said before and you just said that is not the case when there are so many games doing it. I agree having gameplay screenshots would do more to distinguish the games although even that will have less value the more games there are.

I think we are long past the point of being able to judge a game by its cover and really a person has to look closely or even play each one unfortunately. At the very least investigate each reading reviews watching YT vids. Some games that look like they would be great suck and others that look meh end up being great.

Still at least a screenshot or two of gameplay would let us know if we MIGHT be interested.

 

Good luck reading a 1.5 inch wide, 0.75 inch high screenshot for any meaningful detail. It's not that much space.

You mention clicking on the title to go to the page--you don't even have to do that. Just hover your mouse over it for about 1 second, and you'll get 4 repeating screenshots of the game.

 

@Martin_H This is a great example of a (mobile) game I would have never considered for Steam but it found a lot of success there. Very positive rating with a large number of positive reviews and a few hundred negative reviews crying "it's a mobile game!" Seems it was also ported to Xbox One. I'm thinking the draw on Steam was the multiplayer aspect.

Timberman

The scale of the games I want to make are way beyond this. Heck the tiny games I've released for free have more to them than this. But can't knock it really considering a lot of people seem to really like it.

After seeing Timberman's reception on there I think the guy who made Flappy Bird made a big mistake in not releasing on Steam. There probably would have been a lot of Steam gamers that would have bought it and rated it highly.

Just sharing this because until just now checking out IndieGala I never realized this game was ported to Steam

 

As an artist, I will soon be doing my title screen/ promotional art. It's difficult to really convey what kind of game it is. I mean, I can easily set the mood, show off the characters, and give people an idea of what the setting is.

But, in order for me to show that it is some sort of strategy game, I would have to work harder. I would have to draw more characters, zoom out a little, show more of the environment, show maybe a little town scene or something, I don't know.

Even if I just used a screenshot rather than an illustration, it would still have to do all of these things, so it would have to be carefully chosen.

The design has to do three things. It has hold up at small sizes. It has to get people excited enough to actually click it. And, on top of this it has to show what the game is about (or at least the overall theme).

It's going to take me a lot of work to design. The more stuff I have to draw, and the more complex the scene is, the harder it will be.

 

Really don't understand all of these games (actual real games not just quick asset flips or quickly thrown together achievement based stuff) being priced so low. Just checked out some Early Access stuff and is crazy the amount of items less than $5 including a cool looking shmup priced at 99 cents.

I don't quite get why people want to turn Steam into the mobile stores. Nothing to do with the kind of games made. Talking here only about the price. I get people thinking well if I set the price at a buck or less it should sell a lot of copies but I doubt it will sell twice as many units as it would at $2. Or even 3 times as many as $3. So $2 or $3 would likely generate more money for the game dev AND help to keep the prices reasonable instead of helping to make a $7 game look way overpriced.

If a game has the scale of Timberman then sure sell it for a buck. We're talking literally a left right flip-sides movement whack a chunk out of a tree single screen mobile game. A buck or two for that is reasonable. A game that has maybe 1 level that you threw together in a weekend sure charge $1 or even 59 cents for that. This way people can figure out what they should expect for a game costing such a ridiculously low price. But an actual game that you've sat there putting real value in maybe it has a lot of levels, maybe it has some cool mechanics, maybe it has a lot of variety... maybe it even has all of that... don't try to set a precedent that people should expect all of that for $1 or less.

People say well they have to charge what the market will pay. Well the thing about that is it is a catch-22... devs are in control of that to a good degree. As they continue to lower the prices that changes expectations and lowers what the market is willing to pay. It should be common sense.

End of this ramble.

 

If I wanted to make a golf game that would have a shot on steam -- like the ones I was showing you I would need to pay an artist for at least 6 months fulltime work. Then it might not make any money anyway, I feel like you need to have money to burn (especially to make games how I wan to). To create a new sound track for your game or the art assets it will take time and money and creativity to work on the gameplay especially any game that relies on level design

 

One thing about Steam is that those users strongly prefer longer, more in depth games instead of shorter action/arcade games. Simulators with really deep levels of realism can ask a higher price than arcade shumps on Steam. I am not saying that applies to all Steam users, but there seems to be a general trend.

Similarly, multiplayer games that can provide hundreds or even thousands of hours can ask a higher price than single player games on Steam. Counter Strike and now Player Unknown's Battleground can ask a higher price than many games because users know they can play those games for many hours.

Some people quote the $1 per hour of play time as a general value rule for games, but I think most Steam users have an even more aggressive number (possibly even $1 per ten hours of play). If you want to charge $10 on Steam, you need to prove that at least some Steam users can get 100 hours of play out of your game. And that total play time cannot feel repetitive for players.

The main thing to remember is that pricing has nothing to do with what you put into the game, and everything to do with what the player gets out of the game.

 

@ShilohGames I get that and is good stuff. It is the whole reason I tend to view games differently than many around here do. I don't judge them by their production quality but by how much value I got out of them. I still think it is bad though to set prices so ridiculously low. I guess it would be nice if they at least tried a $2 or $3 or even $5 price instead of seemingly going straight to 99 cents and then discounting for sales from that point.

It's already evident many Steam users are expecting this kind of thing. I don't know how many reviews I've read now along the lines of $5 is way too much for this game... so-and-so has more levels (or whatever) and I got it on sale for 75 cents. That is what I think is bad... setting unrealistic expectations. Course there are others left thankfully who post things like this game is priced way too low. But overall a race to the bottom on prices isn't good for anyone devs or gamers and I don't understand why these game devs keep doing it on every market they get into.

It's almost like they want to destroy it. But I think that would be very strange. lol So I'm not sure if it is just a short-term view get in make money and get out kind of thing. Like just not looking ahead and thinking of how they will be able to afford to create bigger games. Just complete inexperience or what. Ultra low prices may seem like a great thing to some gamers now but I think there are other gamers who realize that ultimately what it will do is make it so the vast majority of games fail financially which means people cannot keep making them. I guess though there might always be yet another person willing to come in work 3 years and make a few thousand dollars to keep things alive. lol

 

Put a game on Steam and evaluate the feedback you receive from gamers on Steam. That will give you the best idea regarding prices for indie games. Developers are not trying to destroy the market by setting their prices low. They are just trying to be part of the market. Since there is a massive surplus of games to choose from, game developers don't have a lot of control over prices right now.

As for low prices and sales, that is how Steam works. Most users will add games to their wishlist to wait for them to go on sale, even when the price is already really low. Steam has trained gamers to wait for sales. Some gamers will even wait for the next sale, assuming it might be an even better deal in the future. It goes back to having that massive surplus of games, including unplayed games. When a gamer has several games in their Steam library that they did not even play yet, then there is no urgency to immediately purchase each new game that comes out.

 

Good that they aren't doing it intentionally. I can see like everything else this is very much a matter of opinion as well. I don't agree with it because one can simply look at mobile or wherever to see the results of constantly lowering prices. As well as just common sense IMO.

This is the kind of thing where the discussion would last for eternity though. I do agree it is from all of these people wanting to be apart of it... I just think one extra bit goes along with that... most are either not looking at the longterm as a business, simply doing it on the side for extra dollars, kicking tires or whatever.

I am working on getting ambition enough to build something and put it on Early Access one day before I am dead.

 

Not to mention you can pick up AAA games on sale for like $5.

 

From gamerperspective the market will self-regulate and they don't have to worry. When too few indie devs are willing to make new games, the gamers will start to feel that void and new, more business savvy, indies will fill it, most likely via kickstarter projects. AAA will always make games, gamers will always buy them, countless big studios will go bankrupt in the process as usual. None of this is really new from gamer perspective, they have no reason to care. And most of them don't.
For indie gamedevs... it simply sucks. Same as for many many other artistic professions. Steam and Unity both played big parts in creating the indie dev marketspace, and also in making sure it's completely overcrowded and financially unviable now.

Absolutely! And some just will buy keys on G2A and other shady greymarket sites, where they're basically on permanent sale.

Not only that, most games are also a lot less buggy 1-2 years after release, and gamers are more likely to have acquired the hardware to crank every setting to ultra by then. For singleplayer games it's more or less objectively better to wait for sales, so people wait for sales, unless they are so impatient, that they can't wait.


I think for those indies with strong enough products to be able to set their own terms, the way to go will be to "promise" never to participate in sales or bundles. I think Rimworld is one of those games, also massively successful. I might confuse it with factorio, but I remember a graph showing that you can basically get the same sales spike that sales generate, by announcing an upcoming price increase. So when over time the price gets higher and higher, it changes the rules of the game-acquisition meta-game. Being early adopter now has a benefit all of a sudden. The problems are a) you're still in competition with other games that cost a fraction of yours, while offering content that came out of multi-million dollar productions, and b) you need to have enough people listening to your announcements, or else none of your strategy can work. That one isn't only about getting eyes on your game, it's about communicating to people that the meta-game of buying your game is different from 99%+ of the market. For people to be interested enough to read that far into description texts, announcements, etc., you need to have a hell of a great product first.

 

It sounds like you guys are saying you believe the whole race to the bottom thing is a myth and setting prices extremely low does no harm. I just have a hard time seeing it as such because I've seen it happen many times various places. One of the biggest I saw was in IT freelance development where at one time a person could actually made a great living finding work online and then sites such as Guru.com and others filled with people making crazy low bids that made it impossible to do. I mean sure one could still do the work and quote a $5 per hour rate if they wanted to go bankrupt but that seems rather foolish.

Just several years ago people had little trouble selling games for $5 or even more on mobile. I am not very familiar with mobile but from what I understand that is extremely difficult today because people kept lowering prices $4, $3, $2, $1 and then free with ads free with IAP.

It isn't the customers doing these things. I fully understand the customers preferring to spend $1 instead of $5 and $10 instead of $60. The point is they wouldn't be doing that or even thinking of it seriously if it weren't for many game devs lowering the prices to those points to begin with.

Like I said it is just different views. In the end I have a great job and make a very good living so I can throw out a game for $1 or even free and it does no damage to me. I'm looking at it as how it impacts it all as a whole.

 

@Martin_H what you mentioned about those certain game devs is something I was thinking of doing. Maybe I would start out at $1 price and each week increase it. $1... $2... $3... etc. I think that makes more sense to reward the early supporters instead of in a sense punishing them for buying early at say $5 and then later charging only $1.

Could also do it by sales... 500 sales increase price... 1,000 sales increase price, etc. Of course, all of it is pointless without having a game out there but I think first doing an assessment of is it even worth doing is reasonable as is doing some planning how to approach it.

Right now I still am deciding is it even worth it? I enjoy my free time greatly especially being active and outside. So if I am going to work on the computer again after working on it all day it has to be worth it. Beyond just doing it here and there for pure enjoyment I mean.

 

Why dont you try it

 

Afaik you can't just do that, because price changes have to be authorized by valve. They probably want to avoid having people changing them often to "make their own sales" or stuff like that.
And price increases always have to correlate with substantial content updates or gamers will throw a fit. Raising prices is a very tricky thing. Ark and We Happy Few have gotten a lot of hate for raising their digital download prices in sync with the AAA priced retail releases.

I was thinking more of games like Minecraft, Factorio, or Rimworld. Those are massively complex games that grew over time both in content and in price. Basically what "early access" ideally should be like.

 

Ambition. Desire. Or lack of it anyway. I'm trying to talk myself into seeing it as reasonable and not a waste of effort and time. Ah maybe in the winter when I spend much more time inside.

I did find the ambition last night to do a couple palette tests and made a new avatar using one of the 8 color palettes. So that was something. And I sat with a notebook for 15 minutes writing down the names of random objects as they came to mind. So that was another something. I already have 30 minutes of something done. So am at -$25 at this point.

 

I stopped tracking how long I take for things because I found that kind of thinking to be very depressing, both in freelance work and gamedev.

 

How can you know if it is worth doing or not (especially in freelance) if you don't have any idea of how much you are making per hour spent?

I mean how can you decide between project types or employers etc if you cannot compare I typically make loweramount doing this and I typically make higheramount doing that or on average I make x per hour working for this person and on average I make y per hour working for that person?

Or do you not care as long as you make something... anything or have other criteria such as how much enjoyment you get from the work (which of course doesn't translate into efficiently paying the bills and living because it is different criteria)?

I guess I don't see why you wouldn't measure earnings per unit of time unless it is just something mainly for fun and not really business-focused.

 

Not tracking it down to the hour doesn't mean I have no idea if a job was in the lower or higher paying end compared to my other jobs. It's painfully clear to me if a job lands in the really bad $/h ratio. And I always strive to get faster and more efficient, while delivering the same quality.

I've tracked it very accurately for over a year in the past, and felt I get no benefit from it. Most of my time estimates where ok and I usually get paid a reasonable hourly rate, but when a job went terrible and I would have preferred to not have taken it on in hindsight, then carrying that one over the finish line gets so much harder when you have spelled out to the dollar how bad your hourly wage is getting. And with fixed price projects and increasing hours, this number just goes down and down and down. If I was in a situation where I could just cut my losses on such jobs the tracking would make sense financially, but I can't for various reasons.

 

Why dont you charge per hour

 

Well that's the main thing... you said most of your time estimates were correct and you got paid a reasonable hourly rate. That's all I was getting at. Such tracking is very valuable when estimating. Most people spend way more time than they think they do and end up estimating and quoting way too low.

And I've seen people very happy just because they got a project that paid a few thousand dollars even if they had to work 80 hours per week to complete it. And that was actually me at one point long ago. Lol I do get that sometimes when you have bills to pay you just need to take something anything quick and for those the tracking doesn't have much value because money was needed period asap no matter how good or bad of a deal it is.

 

I'd guess because same reason I didn't when I had my own business or even just did part-time freelance work. Nobody wants to pay you per hour. They want a quote of how much it will cost for the project so they can budget for it get it approved by whoever is in charge of such things. So you need to break it down, estimate the hours needed and then multiply that by your hourly rate to give the quote. Most people estimate way low from what I have seen.

 

@Martin_H I finally took the time to watch that video of the guy griping about Diablo 3.

Well my thoughts are yeah I get what he is saying about the atmosphere and unfolding of the story / character introduction in the first ones compared to the third.

The other things not so much because much like D2 I enjoy spending time trying different skill combos and gear combos. Unlike a lot of people seem to do I don't search for builds online and nonsense like that. My monk I built on my own through trial and error learning how the game works. So I got a lot of enjoyment from the game. Approaching it this way it has a lot of depth to play around with and experiment.

On the over the top cinematic crap I don't really understand why he is directing that complaint at D3. I mean I agree with him I'm not a fan of that stuff but it is just the way games are these days and from discussions here it seems like most like that stuff "oh wow look at that cool scene!!" etc.

I actually watched the movies one time... made myself and I thought they were well done but add nothing to the game. Same as the cinematic sequences in the other modern AAA games add nothing to the game that couldn't be done in a different way that was more immersive.

For the most part this is just the difference between how games were made a couple decades or so ago and how they are made today. The one way is more subtle and requires a player to use their imagination more and the other way makes the player more of a brain-dead spectator. But again based on some of the heated discussions on the subject around here it seems like that is what most people want.

 

I agree. I liked it back in the old days when we would figure it out on our own. I remember when games often did not even tell you which buttons to press and you learned it yourself through play. Now it seems like a lot of gamers want games to not only tell them what buttons do what, but also explain when to hit the buttons and why. Could you imagine if the original Mortal Kombat had automatically paused itself and popped up a small tutorial telling you how to do each combo and each fatality? Figuring out which button sequences did what was part of the play back then.

 

Because of this:

And also because I like having an incentive to get faster and more efficient.

I might be misunderstanding, but I don't think that's quite the case. People wanting high visual fidelity does not equate to people wanting the experience to be less interactive or challenging. And I have yet to see someone say "if only this game had more cutscenes" about any AAA game. Gamers want progress in graphics and gameplay, I think.

Jim Sterling sort of makes the point that people like the multi million dollar production values, but actually dislike "AAA culture", which largely is brought into the games by the publishers, not the devs:

 

I was just saying many people seem to love the non-interactive cinematic sections in games. Definitely others hate those. I probably shouldn't say most but it is a subject that many people seem to feel strongly about. Going on about how it adds to the game unfolding the story presenting such and such and so forth.

As long I can click to skip them I don't mind them being there. Although for a solo or tiny Indie team I would view it as waste and think why didn't you spend that time making the game better as in gameplay, refinement, more to do, more area to explore, more to find?

Some people would probably look at it differently as an impressive thing if a lone Indie or tiny team had such stuff. All depends on what's important to a person. The old D1 style I think would be great which is basically very much like the old NES cinematic sequences that I also think are an efficient way of presenting such things.

 

Here is something that often annoys me. As many people know I don't need fancy presentation just an interesting solid game. But one thing that really turns off folks like me (yes there actually are others with my views) is seeing a game seeming to focus on gameplay over showy stuff and then reading a description like this...

Cat Tanks
Tanks game - which will make you remember the past and help test new feelings. To all fans of classical tanks - dedicated. Protect your headquarters from a variety of enemies. Manage the cat on the bike, shoot at all enemies, bypassing obstacles, smash and collect bonuses. Many levels, many enemies and many bonuses - it's all waiting for you in Cats Tanks

The actual description of the game sounds interesting enough and the video makes it seem worth checking out when released.

However, this is how I read that lead-in... Hey I hear there are people who sit around dreaming about their childhood... what's it called nostalgia or something? I mean I don't really understand the culture and why anyone would play such a thing and I don't play such games myself but I figured I could make some money if I made such a game and mentioned about you having some nostalgic moments!

Yeah... well I will pass but good luck on your quest to milk the elusive nostalgia cash cow.

And another one...

Life On Mars Remake

This one doesn't look as interesting but just including it for example purposes.

Inspired in the 80’s and 90’s sci-fi horror movies, Life on Mars is an old-school game with old school graphics and very addictive playability which will make you feel again the things you only felt 2 or 3 decades ago.

LMAO! Ah man... what a disconnect. This is why a growing number of actual retro gamers are more interested in buying only from people who are actually in the community. People who really do actually appreciate the damn games they are trying to sell.

It's pretty obvious that many game devs miss this point. People buy games especially AAA games because of the game alone in isolation sometimes yes. And more often they buy games because of the connection they have with that community of gamers including playing with their family and friends.

At the least we all tend to support people who we view as being "like us". And when someone attempts to fake that to make money it is one of the most despicable things there is... to some of us. And this is the real value in being Indie... to be a person connecting with others who share your interests and making games you all enjoy. Something a corporate AAA company just doesn't have that level of personal connection although they try hard with community managers.

And I will leave it at that.

 

Gar - the most enjoyable game I've played from you was the treasure hunting game. Whatever resolution that game was created at - I think that is a good resolution for you to keep building games. Nothing lower than that - and higher if you want, but as a graphic guy with an appreciation to lower resolution games - I liked the presentation to your treasure hunting game. And I will point out here - you spent extra time on creating simple animations for the treasures and other elements in the game !!! And that was not wasted time.

I think this is intentional, if the image is appealing but does not give enough information - the developer is hoping the gamer will click thru - to check out more of the informational/content/trailer.
One click closer to a purchase. I'm only guessing though, I have no real knowledge on the topic.
Sometimes less information is 'on purpose' to perk the interest of those who would not normally be interested in a specific genre/type of game.


Regarding using flappy bird as an example of scope and ROI.
Generally I don't think flappy bird is a good example to use for anything. It is a unrepeatable anomaly. It was an unknown / unregistered meteor that hit the earth one day when everyone was expecting a pleasant fall afternoon.
One of the simplest - most successful games - which does not have any equals regarding simplicity, scope and ROI.
It is better to use more relate-able examples of games that are of the size/quality/scope we are aiming for that sell 10k-50k+ copies, or if for mobile are downloaded 100k-250k times per month if created to derive revenue from (blegh!) ads.


I also agree with most sentiments regarding mobile but since I have chosen to go down that development route ([personal opinion] because it appears easier to meet expectations) I slowly began testing out mobile games in similar genres to the designs I have planned for development.
I really enjoy the metroidvania type games but I pretty much dislike them on mobile because the virtual controls just don't work well in most cases.
One mobile platformer that has stood out to me and I continue to play and enjoy playing is Sword of Xolan.

For some reason the controls the developer created for this game - JUST work.
After playing over 2-3 dozen platformer type adventure, metroidvania games and not feeling good about some of the designs I want to create because they are very much platformer games, I came upon this title and for the first time was inspired to progress on the concepts I have in mind for creating a mobile platformer.
For research purposes - I encourage @GarBenjamin @Martin_H and others to play this game - to see how the controls feel to you, and realize maybe - like I did that better games can be created on mobile devices if the controls are well done. At least this is the impression I got from playing this game. I'd be interested in your assessments of the controls for this game.

 

@theANMATOR2b Thanks and I hear you. Lol We always have a disconnect on this topic I think due to the way I write.

Paying attention to details is not a waste of time. And actually someone else helped with the graphics just because he wanted to. Still the same kind of thing as I prototyped and not sure if they redid everything or not but a lot of it they did.

Anyway... the reason that works is because the game is a cohesive as a whole. IMO. But I'd see no sense in laboring on the presentation much more than it has because it is not needed but that time / money could be channeled into the game itself adding more stuff secret walls, enemy types, maybe even multiple player characters etc.

I think that was at 256x144 not sure. Currently am targeting 160x90 for future games. So it is a decrease in resolution but I can use the time savings to do more attention to detail visual stuff as well as game scale and so forth.

I think we more or less agree just have different preferences to some degree. I think the best way I can explain it is I want a game to be at least as deep / complex / as much to it (OR more than) / play as well as or better than it looks. In most games IMO the issue is not so much with how they look but in the stuff beyond the surface... how they play. Boring. Tedious. Too limited. Too broad. Poor feedback. Etc.

I'd push the game forward first at a higher priority and then push the presentation later if I had desire / time to do it at a lower priority. I am not saying YOU do this but I just am not crazy about games that look way better than they are. Looks one way. Game experience is another way.

I guess for some (perhaps many) people if that game was ultra HD maybe had like super realistic dungeon and characters and such it would make it better. But if I saw that I'd think it is a shame they didn't add more to the game.

I remember seeing that mobile game seems like there was a free / demo version available at one point I tried that actually was good! You're right.

 

That game looks good but it only sells for $1 on mobile. He should have sold it on steam for like $5/10 Though I guess I would prefered someething more HD

 

It's interesting how different things appeal to different people. I find the art in Owlboy higher quality as far as detail and such goes. I definitely can appreciate the high detail in the backgrounds & sprites but I find some of the other lower res games in the video to be more visually interesting. Choice of colors or the forms or something.

And wow 9 years for 5 people. I'm guessing they were part-time but still that seems like a pretty massive development cost. Maybe 50,000 hours?

 

that cat tanks game does not look appealing to me but it seems to work according to steamspy so maybe gar is right we should adopt a more business oriented approach. According to steamspy these things are selling like hotcakes
http://steamspy.com/dev/oblomysh

 

LOL! Well I never said they will sell a huge amount (like Stardew Valley or even Owlboy level) I just meant if I do the Indie thing I'd want to actually make a worthwhile amount of money for the time I invested. And from what I have seen much smaller projects have a better ROI.

The tank game doesn't look great to me either as far as literally "looks" graphically speaking goes. But it "looked" good as in interesting enough to check out. I notice the tiling but it doesn't make any difference to me because I figure it will still play the same either way.