***UPDATED AFTER 2 YEARS !!!*** The sad story of my start as Android/iOS game developer

Looks very good mate, 21 downloads? Im guessing more than half are form Family and Friends.

Somethings very wrong with you advertising. (if you did any)
.

 

Make a game like those old hand held tilting pin-ball games in Cracker Jack. Well, if you are as old as I am you'll have played those, not new Cracker Jacks where you just get a cheap piece of paper with some factoid.

 

Most definitely with 21 downloads he didn't tell anyone and if he advertised what a proof of a waste of money that was. I'd bet a third of them are these pirating sites that create 'jail-broke' stores from these apps.

 

im 27, i played that water filled one where you have to put rings on a rode, addictive and frustrating until the water leaked out.

 

I think you are barely old enough then. It's a fun game.

 

I am a currency trader btw and into game development because its something i wanna do and i have a very unique idea for a gameplay, i am trying to learn scripting and at this age its very difficult. I may not even go through with the whole thing as not motivated enough cause i already have a profession that i enjoy and pays very well.

Its been a few weeks into the whole thing and few hours looking through the forums.

Its disappointing to see how people are approaching the game development.

I thought i would see some really creative people here trying to learn and build the best damn game in the world. But i dont see any difference between the currency trading forums where everyone is looking to make a quick buck.

It does not even make sense that can people have such a mentality towards something so many others and themselves have a deep connection with (VIDEO GAMES!!!)

First of all everyone is making space shooters (maybe they found it easier cause of the Unity space shooter tut). Other than that they are cloning.

How much more can a spaceshooter offer? what more can you do to make it interesting?

there is't very much!

I dont wanna come across harsh to anyone but i have been seeing this behavior for 7-8 years and i dont know anyone who did or made anything worthwhile that was doing it for the money.

Even worst effect this having is on people who really want to make good and different games but end up getting de-motivated by seeing this.

If you want to make games than CREATE games! If you wanna make money, get a job.

 

I'm sure most in these forums have jobs or are attending secondary or university. Most people here are learning so they will learn using the most readily available genres and game play styles naturally. They well not come here to solve the Riemann Hypothesis. So their behavior isn't so disappointing as the big media companies that keep shoveling the same thing out at us when they have money to do so much better.

Maybe it will take a while for the new learners to get proficient enough at game programming and art work to feel comfortable creating their own original games but I'm sure they will. Will those games necessarily be big financial successes? No, because we all still have the problem of big financial businesses monopolizing all the ad views with ad buys thus perpetuating the myth that what they are giving is what we demand. No, those ads are the only thing most people see most of the time. That's not demand, that's morally and effectively a monopoly.

 

There's a lot of advice being given in this thread concerning how to have success with mobile games.

Question: Is there anyone here who has actually had success in the mobile market? Anyone in the thread who can even say "yup, mobile games are working out well for me"?

Beyond that, is there anyone even in this entire forum (who is not working for a large studio with money to burn) who has been (and remains) truly successful making and releasing mobile games?

 

Short or long answer? The long answer is that there's a huge mix on these forums, from professionals at AAA, to researchers, to hobby-ests, and beyond. Some can't speak (NDA), some don't, and some do. And yes, several of our community earn their living this way. Where each person fits is for them to say, though the word, "Success" applies often enough. The short answer is yes.

Gigi

 

@nasir.k - It's a journey with many different paths. Some seek art, some seek science, and some seek business. Please be careful to avoid insulting others who are on a different path than your own. Welcome aboard.

Gigi

 

Will they?

If the main motivation factor is Money and not getting better at it or just having fun?

How many will stay if you tell them they wont make any substantial amounts before 3-5 years + no guarantee afterwards anyway?

I am also there will be a good crop out of this but in a very small percentage.

 

Im sorry if anyone felt Insulted.

Other than the people who are copy pasting into the Appstores and making it hard (by pilling up crap) for people who have better idea's and work hard.
.

 

Good question! I give 100% couch potato advice. I just procrastinate here when I feel a little burned.

Of course it's not ill-intentioned, we just try to motivate and provide theoretical advice. But yes, it should probably be a rule of thumb take anything said here with a grain of salt.

In addition, even if you get advice from a developer who succeeded.. it may be outdated by now: not apply to your situation: or it can be harmless advice that doesn't compromise their currently ongoing economic success.

 

Yup, like I said I'm specifically talking about single person or very small teams here, making games for themselves (not for a company), so that rules out anyone at an AAA studio (money to spend on advertising, etc.) and anyone required to sign an NDA (working for someone else). And yes, success means different things to different people, but I'm not talking here about getting 20 downloads and being happy it's more than zero (personal success), I'm talking about what people would generally accept as financial success.

To clarify: Independent developers, making games for mobile, who don't have another job, and are able to support themselves (and possibly family) financially solely through developing and selling mobile games.

I'm not in the mobile market, so I can sit here all day and give advice about that market and honestly no one should listen to me because what use is advice from someone who isn't even in the market they're giving advice about? Conversely, what good is advice from people who are telling you how to succeed yet they haven't reached success on their own?

The game market is getting flooded because what people seem to think is the key to success in the mobile game industry is:

• Make a game.

It's my belief (purely on watching the market) that in order to truly make it in the mobile game world, making a good game is a given. That's just the beginning, and so many people can't even do that. What you REALLY need is one or more of the following:

• Get super lucky (Flappy Bird).
• Have a ton of marketing power (Game of War).
• Have the ability to design addictive game play or hire psychological researchers to do so (1,2,3,4).
  
• Have a huge network of people interested in your game and a successful online presence (Fallout Shelter)

This forum is jam packed with single-person or very small team developers who are trying to make it in the mobile game industry. I think a lot of them are hoping for point one of my second list there (get lucky), sort of like playing the lottery. I just wonder how many of the people giving advice in threads like this are speaking from successful experience or not.

 

#end...?

 

Thanks for the reply guys !

Now to answer a few questions about marketing I have not done any except some announcements on gamedev forums like this one. I have not told my friends to install the game and rate it or things like that .

I only tried an Admob campain (14$ TOTAL) and I got a cost of 1$ for conversion so that would be 14 virtual installs. The funny thing is even though those conversions(installs) appeared in the admob conversion table I did not also see them in the Developer Console so I actually have not got that number of conversions; so, in the Dev Console I only got 4 installs form admob so that's kind of weird. Admob was a total loss of money , better have spent that at McDonald's or something.

As for making this game for money, I did not do it for money; I just answered OPs question which also touched the revenues part. I just wished a had a lot more downloads , that could do a lot to your developer self-esteem. Even though you make no money it's a lot easier to start your next project knowing gamers appreciated your past projects.

PS : Sorry for the broken English , I'm from Romania. !

 

My wife calls this a man apology. I counter that it's more a politician apology. Neither label is flattering.
Gigi

 

@Ony - I make money in the mobile space, though it's not the core of my game income. And, I think your point is well taken. These days, there are few, even in this community, who are solo (two or three) person Indies who are making MOST of their income via the mobile space. In past years, this was more common. Lately, Unity indie's are having more success in the PC market.

For my part, I feel this pain quite literally. Which is why I'm smack in the middle of porting my first title to Steam. It's a large community, that F2P has not completely overtaken. Plus, it's on my bucket list.

Gigi

 

Well even the PC market has negative connotations, imagine spending a year or two on a PC game for it to fall flat on it's face? From reviewing Steam analytics / post reviews, some have failed miserably and in a lot of cases it's deserved but in others maybe not so much..

For all the cool little indie games people might try on a whim, you're essentially encroaching on AAA territory. Even AAA of a decade plus old (type of games like pillars of Eternity which is along the lines of Baldurs gate) is a very difficult task to achieve, although there's plenty of little niche's.

The payoff might be greater, but the stakes are much higher and PC gamers expect much more. You're essentially trading one problem for another..

 

So true. Plus, you've got to get through greenlight. So many questions!

My premise is that at this time, there is less noise on Steam than there is on Mobile. Which argues that a product that applies the core science of what makes games work will have a better chance to succeed, on pure merit (as opposed to massive budgets). And, at the same time, this is a completely untested idea, until I go through it first hand. So, I've hired an artist to update the art, I'll port the sucker, and then, I'll see what happens. It'll be fun.

Try; Improve; Repeat.

Gigi

 

Well essentially you're making a PC game and whatever follows with that, I've seen people do mobile ports and in some cases the Mobile games (like some RPG's) were better on mobile than some games are on PC. So cool, winner..

But 99.5% of the time, anyone who tried a mobile port went down like a led balloon. Of course not trying to put you off, but it's a different market and completely different set of requirements with reputation being a fickle thing in this segment.

You'll not get away with the same "casual" small games, there's also no try, improve, repeat either.. Once you're tagged that's it. It's not like the free to play section where you can keep releasing random stuff until something sticks.

Whilst the team I'm working with now hasn't released a game, I have been a part of teams who have. So this is my take on things..

I wish you the best of luck, let us know how you get on.

P.S If your game is small (less than an hour gameplay), they'll just refund it unless there's something to keep the players going for extended periods of time. It's not a market to be taken lightly..

 

I suspect the refund policy has had really dramatic impact on mobile ported games.

I myself refunded two of the two I bought (Plague Inc. and something else I forget). They were two of the real break away mobile successes.

 

To make it even trickier, this first one isn't even a game! It'll be tagged under 'Software'. No one can predict what will happen, least of all, me.

When Luke was in training, Master Yoda said, "Do or Do Not, There Is No Try!" And for the rest of us, this is not true. Vlambeer, Rovio, and Unity all had starting points - that were not so great. The first time I saw Unity at GDC, they were in a small cube, with 3 guys, and 2 macs, way out on the periphery, by the popcorn vendor.

We try; improve; and repeat - it's how we get better in mobile, on Steam, and in all that we do. When I started out, I was afraid that if I released a bad product, the spectre of 'reputation' would shadow me forever. And, the reality is that no one cares. Good or bad, the harder challenge is getting people's attention in this crazy sea of noise!

Gigi

 

Pretty much this.

 

So true. I wrote something along those lines recently too regarding my own life. People sometimes notice the failures but only until you reach success. When the success happens for some odd reason people forget about the failures and think and talk only about your success. They even tend to think you must be very lucky and often even see it as an overnight success. Humans are very strange creatures.

 

Y'know I wish it was true, due to the way things have been going over the last couple of years (Asset flipping, AAA tactics) this that and the other. Everything is under immense scrutiny, it's not like it was before for better or worse..

That sea of noise is like a secure veil, which if you screw up the chances of anyone noticing or caring is infinitesimal. On top of that most are free with IAP so people generally tend not to care.. As soon as you ask for money on PC ohhh my doesn't things change.

In the end it might only be a vocal minority, but it's loud never the less.. You really need skin of steel. It really puts me off the thought of releasing something sometimes, I know how it's just the will that's sometimes lacking..

Although if your game is the best it can be, then you'll still get flak I'm sure of it (AAA games do). But in the grand scheme of things nothing to worry about.

I'm not sure what happened?

 

I think the bottom line is that if you finish your game, do the bare minimum to upload to the App Store (including Google Play) and wait for the bucks to roll in, you'll be waiting a long time.

Understand that the internet has enough tutorials to teach everyone on earth how to make simple games for mobile. I haven't actually counted, but I bet there are thousands of Flappy Bird clone tutorials alone. I even have one I whipped up in an hour last year with Swift and SpriteKit for another forum rofl. This is the bulk of your competition and frankly your games need fit, finish and a good idea to overcome that reality.

The main problem is most likely that nobody even sees your game, literally. Do an experiment, go find some games to download. What do you pick? Why did you pick it? How many games did you look through for your search terms before finding something or getting bored? What games turned you off? What just looks fun? What looks tryhard?

The more generic your game is the harder it will be to rank in any reasonable way. SEO/ASO and spending yourself into a hole will not make another simple bird game clone into a cash machine. That isn't to say Birds are off limits, but it better be new and different if you want any traffic.

Half your business as a Mobile Game Dev is to try to have some understanding of how the stores work so you can place a game that people will actually find, some will download, and a few will review. This is the "core loop" of the free to play world of mobile games. More downloads and good reviews gets more downloads and reviews. Flappy Bird didn't make $50k a day because it is stunning. It made that because it was getting in excess of 500k downloads and thousands of reviews per day; most of which were for the "me too lol" factor. Hopefully I have made that point well enough.

If you have a decent and original game, you might even consider a mobile publisher. These guys are going to take a cut of your profits, but it can mean a lot more profit for you in the end if you don't want to take on the additional hat of becoming an ASO expert. These guys won't deal with clones and knockoffs though.

As for graphics, take a look at some of the things Ketchapp has published (most are games submitted by others). Some are really simple graphics, what one could call "Dev Art", but the game play is fun and the idea is unique.

Mobile is a goofy market. You have multi million dollar games with AAA muscle on the charts with games some dude(ette) made in their spare time with Unity3D, Cocos2d and amateur art made in Gimp. Mobile is not a single audience. The people making big bucks on flashy bejeweled clones know exactly who their target audience is. So who will want this game? When will they get out their phone and play it? Why do they want to play it? You get the idea.

Good luck!

 

Having read many threads like this one, I am always left with this impression: Making games is hard, really hard. It takes lots of time and thought and effort and most people barely make a dime doing it. But tons of people try anyway. And the only ones doing well are the top 20%...the luckiest, most connected or richest people.

I have never seen articulated any actual method to the madness... a way you can proceed that will at least guarantee you will do o.k. It seems like raw, unfiltered chaos rules the indie gaming marketplace. And the message from those who have made it to a point of decent cashflow is... they made it to that point because they're just so awesome. That was ultimately the key. Success is only the outward manifestation of this truth... which is circular reasoning on a good day, because the thing that makes them so awesome is that very success.

So we see survivor bias feeding into confirmation bias and the dunning kruger effect having a field day with people's expectations... which are somehow never altered by reality, because regardless of actual results the belief persists that "thars gold in them thar hills!"

That concludes my thorough analysis. Enjoy your flight.

 

And qualify that generality, because we know Redford & Sundance ain't a bunch of indies, not really, with "In mobile in the year 2015 with Unity Free or Unity Pro and ad outlay of $1000 (lol, and that's way more that I can afford) or less for your game has anyone been a big success which let's arbitrarily define as earning $100K in calendar year 2015 solely from one game made with Unity or UE4. That way we know you're on the same playing field. If so please tell us the name of the game because that must be an interesting game.

Come on, you know how easy it would be for these Apps stores with the data you have to submit to them to open a developer account to create a 'Sundance New App' category for developers that have earned less than $1000, $10000, and the final cutoff $100000? These places give lip service to the indie concept but their behavior tells you they are using indie to mislead the buying public more than as a concept they support or admire. I'd actually browse those app categories because you might actually find something quirky and fun. And, if not, at the very least, you know that minus that what would be on offer in such app store categories wouldn't suffer too much in comparison with the big businesses offerings especially with Unity 5, the Unity Asset Store and so much more now available as assets to be used on hardware that's almost caught up to being able to handle it. It's really disingenuous of those that are big successes with well funded efforts and even better funded advertising to be calling themselves indies.

Here is something more truthful along indie lines and you don't even have to pretend you app didn't get noticed because of this single app I released in 6 years of dorking around with Unity:
I have 4 current installs from GooglePlay (2 of the devices are my test devices and I think there have been 10 total installs on GooglePlay most of which were app warez distributors I think) and 12 Amazon Apps Store Android installs and 23 Amazon PC installs. I don't know how many of the Amazon installs are still there though as I have no metrics, no advertising, but simply released a decently OK game for free on Christmas.

As my extremely expensive ASUS EP121 screen melted I haven't even messed with Unity since June. I just ordered a HP Elitebook 8460p with a 3rd gen i5 & Intel Graphics 3000 for $130 on eBay so when I get this I will feel like I am living in luxury and will be as far as what I will be able to do with Unity 5 compared to that Asus EP121. Anyway, I'm running my mouth too much.

 

The ones in it for money almost surely won't make money. That's not enough motive. You have to enjoy your work. Besides you are a trader you should be good at discerning windbags from those just learning from those just idly chatting.

The smart ones after money from games are using their real talents in the Asset Store and I am thankful for their contributions and they have made good money from me and I'm willing to bet the best ones will become millionaires in the asset store. They have plenty of talent but I will not kid you the talent won't do anything to make them a success in the game / app market as that's now saturated with ad dollars and big business. That's not to say they couldn't make fun games that go unrecognized (I watched the video of a game the couple that makes all the asset frameworks I use and the game was truly original and fun - both are truly talented and motivated and conscientious - they will be successful - they are successful).

And if some might assume I am complaining about my only game going unrecognized I am not. I released that game to see what a completely unadvertised free game that was appropriate for the holiday season and Everyone rated and reasonably competent would do in the asset store and the lengths I'd have to go to actually find it using keywords and paging through pages of apps after the keyword search. It was very eye opening how much in this case search was the antithesis of what true search connotes. There was at least 75% of returned results that had no association with the keywords I submitted in my searches, not even remotely. Clearly advertising and bias for big businesses rendered the results of the search useless because it turned my simple search into let's see if this person believes these results are returned for relevance and not because ad dollars were paid to the owner of the search engine business.

It's like the urbandictionary.com junk site. Most of the definitions on that site are ridiculous lies created specifically for inclusion on urbandictionary.com SEO style. I've tried to delete that site from the returned list of sites that google gives because it's often in 1st or the top 1/2 of the page because the results are insulting and irrelevant, and as I said newly fictional in the SEO sense, but google got rid of that feature. I do know anybody with a lick of sense knows that site is worthless for true slang so it's a mystery why google keeps returning it so high in the rankings.

 

Oh, I knew he wasn't insulting anyone and I wasn't insulted by it but I felt the need to remind him most of the activity in these forums isn't directed seriously at making a good game but there is a lot of those that are serious want to learn to make a good game but they tend not to be in the Gossip section so his appeal is wasted.

 

This isn't so much off topic as parallel I suppose, but this talk by the dev of AntiChamber going over what he went through over 7yrs to release what was later called his overnight success or his lucky break shows just what people really passionate about their game go through to get it out. It is eye opening just how much personal stress & stuff he went through. Makes me wonder if to be successful you have to be willing to go through something similar yourself.

 

This is survivor bias. You don't see the guys that did this for 7 years who never made it... because they haven't made it. So you reason that perhaps this brings success. This confirms what you want to believe, that anyone can make it, so you're biased to believe it and run with it. We all do this, all the time.

 

That's right, Rome wasn't build in a day either and were the man faster it wouldn't have taken him seven years. The success is his product so don't mistake that success for how he got there, which may or may not have been, likely not, the optimal solution. You'd be in danger of mistaking suffering and arriving at the wrong solutions many times as necessary for success or as good work ethic or character when evolution and common sense tells you no, they is one correct solution and we'd all love to avoid as much suffering and failure in our lives as possible. His character is not allowing his disappointment with his failures to be taken out on others, not in his eventual success with his product.

 

Really, you're going to dismiss him just like that? Please show me the story of someone who's dedicated seven years of their life towards a game and hasn't made it. I just am really not buying the consensus here that it takes luck or a connection or loads of money to make any old game into a success; maybe I'll have to see for myself to learn this though, but I just really can't fathom that this is the answer…

 

This is...

Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false.

Your reasoning is that an absence of evidence that people are trying like crazy to make it is evidence that these people don't exist. When in reality, thousands of apps and games are released every day... these are not being released by nobody.

All it proves is that we have not heard everyone's story. Which could be because of a million different reasons, but an easy one would be that people don't like to broadcast their failures, but prefer to magnify their successes. Another (even more likely) explanation for this lack of failure stories is that indie gaming media doesn't want them because they're likely to alienate their primary audience, Indie developers.

 

Yes, I've been on and off.. In the industry and out of it, decided to go "indie" over the last couple of years. Gained contacts, prototyped 10 different games, tried to release a couple of games many years ago. Which without a marketing budget and no contacts doesn't go well, also perfectionism doesn't help with the whole "scrapping" thing.

It seems like the relative standard Journey to me.

@anselmo.fresquez

Whilst what you say is correct, I'm sure there are many dev's who's been at it for many years and still not successful. What's your story? You can't really understand the adventure until you've tried it..

 

Googling (or whatever your preferred engine is personally I never use Google) failed indie will give you the other side. Certainly not a lot of them because most never hit the radar at all. Of course there are only a small percentage of game developers reaching success. There simply are too many of them to do otherwise.

I know a couple people who make mobile games and quite simply the amount of games being made is the main thing that has changed. The games they made a few years ago got 100,000 downloads. The games they made last year and this year get 1,000 generally and 5,000 downloads at best. Yet they are doing more marketing, are better game developers more experienced all around but it simply doesn't outweigh the huge HUGE amount of games being dumped out there.

I think for whatever reason people just cannot wrap their heads around the simple fact there are so many games being made who can even play them all? Who can find what they are looking for? What consumer can tell the difference between this game and the dozen or hundreds of other games that seem similar? And which review sites consumers turn to has time to cover more than a dozen or so games per week at max?

The numbers are simply astronomical these days as everyone wants to make money from making games.

 

"You can't really understand the adventure until you've tried it..

Is the same as saying, "You can't really understand space until you've been to space."

Which is bad news for NASA engineers, btw...

anyway...

If you want to use anecdotal evidence as a basis for reasoning, your reasoning is always going to be flawed and widely inapplicable.

Here's an example: I've never been in a car wreck, therefore... I don't get in car wrecks. And I always listen to rock music. Therefore, rock music reduces your risk of getting in a car wreck. I can even speculate that people who listen to rock music are more pumped up and so have better reactions... but the reality is, I've just been lucky.

And so on. I have been studying this marketplace for a while, and there's no discernable, pure meritocracy. Even pure marketing power isn't a silver bullet.

But if you want to state "people who haven't had success can't succeed because they don't understand how to succeed" I think we've returned full circle to circular reasoning in my first post presenting my analysis.

This is the phenomenon by which ordinary guys become legends, simply by being at the right place with the right product at the right time. Some people are in a better place, or they're there with a better product, or they're there at the most correct time or all three at once... but in the end, even geniuses struggle to make it. Some die in obscurity, literally only to be discovered after their demise.

And let's not forget that not all developers who succeed can do it more than once... that should be educational to any person who values rational thinking.

We all want a lucky rabbits foot or a four leaf clover or a secret weapon, or sage advice. But I dont think any such thing exists. At least, not in this case. It's starting to remind me of las vegas gambling, but that's another analysis entirely.

 

At @macdude2, I'm afraid that @anselmo.fresquez has a valid point. Here is the answer to 'Please show me the story of someone who's dedicated seven years of their life towards a game and hasn't made it."

7, no, 10, no 13 ... or maybe 15 years by the end!
Gigi

 

Another way to look at it is why do people think it is easy and so possible for everyone to make games and succeed at making money?

I mean why video games? There are clearly a ton of great artists around here who enjoy making art. Why not make a website and sell your art? Or write a book on creating art for games and sell it? Or make a video series teaching how to make art? These things certainly have no less chance of being successful than making games..In fact, I would say they are a much better way to build a business for an artist. Because it is their area of expertise. They have skills and knowledge that is worth money. A business can be built around that.

Yet, for whatever reason, most people will probably disagree. Certainly most people around here seem to think making games is the easier way to make money.

So... why is that?

 

They know too little about games to know how little they know about games.

But they are genuinely passionate about them.

So, they figure it will be easy to learn as they go because they will be working on something they love.

Because they know too little about it to know that it's really, really hard.

So they make an assumption: If I can make a game I'll make money, probably the reason nobody makes money is because they don't make games...

except they do make games...

And seeing this they say, well they don't make GOOD games... that's the key!

So they post all these threads and make their magnum opus and convince everyone else of what they think, then they release their game, it disappoints and they quit and vanish forever.

But they rarely come back and say... ok.... community, it didn't work out. I guess I was wrong.

Therefore the impression of "thars gold in them thar hills" persists even after those devs have gone.

That's my crack at it.

Also, they see the successful devs and without question believe that they will be just as successful, because they're "not like everyone else". They say things like "I will never give up!" or "No matter what" and so forth.

Also see here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

 

There are too many games and not enough players. Simple economics, supply and demand. Free development tools, free middleware engines, ease of distribution, "success" bias: These are the instruments of our demise.

 

Edit:

Too ranty and long, in short the indie market is at a saturation point where it's collapsed in on itself. It's harder to make money, you can earn much more in tons of other industries etc. etc.

Logic dictates experience is necessary, like a lighthouse passing signals in the night whilst you're trying to navigate the craggy rocks.

Takes lot's of money, so on and so forth.. If you want to know more there's plenty of examples, @Gigiwoo was gracious enough to be clean and forthright with us. Kudos to the man for being generous enough..

 

Because the Internet is a race to the bottom for all things creative. Along with global connection and ease of use has come digital distribution. And from that has come the idea that everything can (and should) be less expensive or free. Art, music, games, film, television, books...

Name something creative that people put their time and talent and money into making, and within thirty seconds of a quick Google search I believe you will find that thing online for free (pirated or given away) and large groups of people who make it clear that they want it to be free.

Creative endeavors no longer have much "value". A side effect of our digital world but one that is very much a large part of the blame for this very discussion we're having.

 

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

 

Quote it as much as you like, you know nothing John Snow.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Chrysler-Hemi-Engine-Manual/dp/1878772015

That's how I would rebuild an engine.

I have fixed many things having never worked on them before, simply by identifying what I was working on, consulting schematics and exploded diagrams and sourcing the materials and knowing how to use tools.

By pure logic, experience cannot be a prerequisite for knowledge.

 

That's a good thing, I was only asking because there is a hell of a lot involved from getting A - B in games. I owned a company developing telecoms software and game dev is SO MUCH more difficult.

Even if you are technically great at making games, have money and marketing skills you've increased your chances sure but there's still a percentage of failure if the process isn't done right.

I'm not asking to be a pain in the ass, I'm asking to understand people's positions.

 

If I was reading a manual for rebuilding a water pump and one part of the manual says, "It won't work unless you do it right. You need to have experience for this part." And that's the instructions... that's the big take away, I have no choice but to assume that this instruction manual was written by someone who has no idea what they're talking about.

I feel like we're talking about the holy grail at times.