Traditional games (that fit rather well within an average genre) versus more novelty based types.

I just sort of got this idea and am wondering if there is any truth to it.

Today you see a lot of indie games that are seemingly arbitrary or random in nature. For example a game about a monkey trying to escape a black hole sucking Earth up, or a game where you have to fly from city to city saving cows, or one where random things rain from the sky, some of which are harmful others of which should be used to survive. These games do not actually exist to my knowledge (woo free game ideas), but their parallels do (a cat flying through space leaving a rainbow trail for instance).

Looking at many indie devs, they go for this novelty based approach. But to me, it's a gamble. Yes, you may make the next Nyan Cat or Flappy Bird then become a millionaire/billionaire but thousands of others are also trying. Realistically, our chances are slim and I feel this is always how the world works (hence why hugely successful or lucky people are far less than the rest of the masses).

Whereas if you made something average like a dungeon crawler that was traditional but very solid, or revived an old genre that has ceased to exist but did as good a job of it as you can, working hard on mechanics and so on, this more likely guarantees some success because there will always be demand for that sort of game to an extent. But, whatever success it does have will be average. You will not be the next Rovio games doing this, you will just be a guy who made a good product and sold it to whatever interested parties exist, like an average merchant or something. You would not have changed the face of gaming or pushed any bars, but if your game was made with love and care to the details (because you really care about that genre), I think you can still profit doing a thing in life that you love.

I'd like to hear you guy's thoughts on this idea and whether or not you agree. Thanks.

 

Sounds about right to me.

 

Depends on your goals and how well you design games. Honestly, there a ton of traditional dungeon games. They are hidden among all the other traditional dungeon games. You might get lucky and be noticed but my guess is many of the traditional dungeon games are never noticed. The ones that are probably have some unique slant.

It takes one good unique game to do well, as many of the successful indie games out there can tell you. It may take dozens of traditional games that are like the majority of other traditional games out there to make a dent.

Regardless, every game developer should decide based on his/her skill at making games and their goals. If you want to finish your first game, go traditional. It is safer but do not expect a rush of players unless you market in a creative way.

 

I mostly agree with you on the novelty aspect, I don't find it that interesting on the business end, I think in most cases a limited market is inherent in that strategy. Until it isn't, and you hit on something that really connects and takes off.

But I don't think solid is good enough for a small team. That's exactly what big studios do. They are mostly risk averse and just keeping making more solid games with increment feature additions.

Every team has different strengths to play to and different genre's can offer completely different sets of possible angles. So trying to say what the best approach is, is I think extremely context specific. I could give you a lot of specifics for the game our team is working on. I wouldn't even attempt to say what the best approach is generally. Because there are so many games that had success using angles I never even thought of.

 

Random mash up is hardly novelty, it's a tradition, and it has the appeal of randomness, ie it's a joke between you and your pals.

Rovio is hardly random either, they use a well "structured" plot and (sound) cues from old animation, with defined character archetype, and they recycled the gameplay of another game (crush the castle). They also had the right context.

Nyan cat had the benefit of coasting an early meme era inside the TIGHT community of LOL comics, were the creator had amass a large following.

Flappy bird is the most random of the few, but it was also early mobile games adoption, when genre and formula where still floating around and scrappy indie made money just by releasing games.

So context matter too, I expect a flappy bird phenomenon kicking VR to high gear before large mainstream adoption, to the dismay of people who are grinding along the dev of VR. My guess is it will be a simple social experience, something shareable, that is the opposite of the full immersive VR title.

 

For small indies the main hurdle is exposure. So novelty is king.
For big studios not selling enough copies is the major hurdle so anything already proven is king.

Not to say that one can´t break out of this molde but this seems like the typical result.

I would add though that I wouldn´t call "lol so random" being novel.
If you are the first to make goat simulator you may be novel - if you are the tenth person you definitly ain´t.

 

Devil's advocate position I don't necessarily believe....

If you were to create an "average" game for the genre, why would players take a chance on your game rather than choose a more well known genre staple, which your game more or less just replicates?

 

Indies flat out can't compete if they go head to head with bigger studios. The average game can be done better by the big guys. Given a choice between playing a mediocre indie version and a polished AAA version, most players will take the polished AAA version.

Which leaves indies doing better off playing the odd angles that haven't been targeted by AAA studios yet.

 

There are many untapped ideas in game dev still to be found, but I think indies, like many modern artists, have a tendency to believe that there is some value in simply inverting some perfectly functional symbolism, or merging two or more completely disconnected themes (perhaps to create a sense of soul-stirring confusion and befuddlement?)

Like in mathematics or biology, out of the range of all possible formulas, there are relatively very few meaningful ones and many utterly meaningless ones. So it is with game dev. If you put X and Y together, chances are they will never add up to more than their sum (and often much less).

Game ideas, like shared life experiences, usually have a consistent kind of structure that people can relate to and are intrigued by. These are probably related to tasks and behaviors that we have some kind of instinctive aptitude for. In my opinion, it's useful to take one of these behaviors and modify it, finding a direction that you can take it where it feels expanded rather than muddled.

 

Don't make a game if you aren't sure there is an audience waiting for it.

 

Unless you are the audience and it's not business (ie manage your expectation).

 

I have a major hunch that nobody making the monkey into a black hole game had any idea that’s what they were making when they were making it.

Most of those unique games that really take off are because their mechanic is unique and more importantly fun. For the majority of the development of the actual idea they were probably just circles moving around other circles. Once they had a fun mechanic and a few fun challenges they tried to think of a silly skin to slap on.