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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by maximalniq, Aug 22, 2015.

  1. Deleted User

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    The IQ test scenario is a load of rubbish in many cases: http://listverse.com/2013/05/19/8-reasons-the-iq-is-meaningless/

    I'm pretty poor with general knowledge, simply because I don't care to learn it and I'm not sure how questions about palindromes are an effective measure of intelligence? It's something you've learnt or you haven't and has no bearing. You can learn to become good at IQ tests, which kind of defeats the purpose of them..

    I'm good at what I'm good at which is art, logic and mathematics. The biggest sign of intelligence I've found in others is how they approach a problem, how they break it down into it's core components and present an effective solution holistically. Reverse engineering and logical, clear, concise trains of thought show true intelligence.

    When they can do that off the top of their head, that is a clear sign to me. Something a lot of people can't do, some can brain dump for tests but never truly question why and / or understand the concept enough to question it.

    If you can teach what you've learnt (properly not just reading off a whiteboard) you truly understand what you're talking about.

    There's the other thing as well, some people may be very intelligent but lazy.. I know I fall into that category :D, also a lot of dev's I've seen who are successful are suave, very intelligent, good looking people pleasers. Never judge a book by it's cover...
     
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  2. GarBenjamin

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    Everything should be as simple as possible for sure. I think there is more to it than just the IQ scores though. Several years ago for my job I had to take an IQ test. It was rated on WAIS or something like that. I scored very well which does make me question the accuracy of such things. lol ;)

    Anyway, I think there are other factors involved. A lot of people are just stressed out and depressed. Big time. I do not really understand why but still it is the truth. The amount of people (including teens) who take anti-depressants or deal with stress & anger issues just blows my mind away.

    Not sure if it is just our modern fast-paced society where everyone seems to be in such a hurry continually, all of the coddling causing people to have such thin skins barely able to deal with any kind of setbacks or what is causing it. I just know it is a real problem and I wish it wasn't.

    Anyway, I think for many reasons people's problem solving skills are not as good as they could be. I mean even looking at the IQ numbers I don't think they are really accurate because I think most people could score higher. In an environment that helps them to relax, free from any mind numbing drugs and so forth I believe their IQ scores would show a significant increase. Granted, this does mean in their day to day operations they are likely performing much lower than their potential.

    So... I think a lot of people like the simple games just because these games offer an easily accessible escape (or break if you prefer). Such games are fun and they are very easy to get into. I enjoy simple games for the same reason. Normally I am always dealing with technical issues at work, again in my own personal projects and in between generally thinking about this thing or that thing. So for me games are a way to clear my mind. And something as simple as a space invaders game is incredibly effective at that. When it comes to games most of the time I don't want to have to spend time wrapping my head around complex rules and other nonsense. I just want something I can start playing in seconds and have some fun.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2015
  3. delinx32

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    IQ tests don't test general knowledge, they test cognitive ability. "What's the next item in this logical sequence", "What fits the pattern, what doesn't?", things like that. Things that you can't learn to be better at. You can't study for an IQ test, or prepare like you can for SATs.

    Certainly people have strengths and weaknesses, and not everyone has to have a high IQ to succeed in life. That wasn't the intention of my post. I'm just stating that your general audience isn't looking to play the gaming equivalent of "war and peace", they're looking for "50 shades of gray".
     
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  4. Deleted User

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    Oh they do: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...interview-with-psychologist-w-joel-Schneider/

    Look at point 6:

    They have a purpose with general knowledge (supposedly) which you mentioned, of course you can study cognitive reasoning. It's just learning by doing..

    Anyway, not quite as clear cut although I get your point.
     
  5. elmar1028

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    So I need to think like a dumb person to know what dumb people want, right?
     
  6. tedthebug

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    "Be the player"
     
  7. Ryiah

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    Isn't this a job for a family member? :p
     
  8. tedthebug

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    I resemble that remark :(
     
  9. Ony

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    Because we don't live real lives anymore. We live virtual ones, pushed at us through the digital screens we stare at all day. People don't properly interact with each other any more because everyone is addicted to staring at a phone, even if they're with friends or on a date. Our brains are being permanently altered to think differently and not properly retain memories and information, because everything is on the web. Aside from that, the blue light emitted from our devices has been shown in more and more studies to cause sleeplessness, irritation, loss of cognitive skills, and yes, depression. Nothing is real, and our primitive brains know it deep down inside. We've done this to ourselves.

    And... I have to get back to work creating more digital toys for people to be distracted by.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2015
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  10. GarBenjamin

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    Great points!

    Agreed. I just joined Twitter (again) a couple days ago and damn it is distracting. It is so much better now than when I first joined however many years ago. Tons of interesting stuff.

    Then coming on these forums and always finding something interesting to check out. It's probably great over all though. Gives us a chance to stick our necks out so someone can try to chop them off. lol

    Alright back to work for me! And good luck to you!
     
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  11. Deleted User

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    Thanks for that, I've noticed ever since I went "indie" I'm sleepless and irritable plus my cognitive ability has changed over the last couple of years. Not so long ago I wouldn't struggle to do advanced math in my head (or scribble it on a piece of paper) now everything's a little hazy. You can still work on your games away from a computer. I might get out that old err pen and err paper? Is it?

    I used to spend a lot of time reading math / engine and coding books.. Might pick it up again and give myself a re-fresher.. I get the feeling once your heads sorted out it'll help so much in being successful. Only do 8-6 in front of a PC and then get off it.

    Well glad I've taken something positive away from this thread.
     
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  12. goat

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    The IQ test is environmental pattern recognition, so it is valid and scary disabling when pattern recognition is too high. Everything in moderation.
     
  13. angrypenguin

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    On a related note, being "indie" (whether making games or running any other kind of business) definitely comes with its own kind of stress, which can definitely result in sleeplessness. Sleeplessness, in turn, can result in difficulty concentrating or doing challenging mental work.
     
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  14. Deleted User

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    It's a different type of sleeplessness, when I owned a company before it was the heart pounding I could be out on the street tomorrow. With this it's more of a "wired" thing, always on.. Just can't switch off sort of thing.
     
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  15. GarBenjamin

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    That might be due to having this game in your system that you have to get out. Maybe only then will you find peace.
     
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  16. GarBenjamin

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    Thought this ties in with this thread enough to post it.

    Beware the Indiepocalypse

    Basically just a rehash of things most of us have said yet it is still interesting to see some numbers. Common sense really. Everyone may want to spend their days fishing for a living but obviously that won't work out in reality.
     
  17. Deleted User

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    It's not all doom and gloom, plenty of money to be made. Plenty of great games yet to be published, just now more than ever you have to stand above the crowd and there's a lot involved in doing so..
     
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  18. GarBenjamin

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    I agree completely. In my own view the more people into it the better. However, in general it is still good for people to have a reasonable view that no industry will support an unlimited number of people as providers. If they were all just as eager as consumers then yeah it could work.
     
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  19. goat

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    Opinion of an EA big whig in the article is those without games in the top 500 are not going to make a living directly from selling their games and the Unity alone has more than 2,000,000 unique users, difference about 1,999,500.
     
  20. GarBenjamin

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    And there are a lot of people using GMS, Construct 2 and the other game dev kits out there. I often think people don't realize just how many people really are doing this stuff. It is pretty incredible really.

    Ah well as long as the average good games and devs can generate a few thousand dollars or so per year there seems to be plenty of room for more. It's just the making a living off it thing they are talking about. If you want to make an extra few hundred bucks or so doing something you enjoy that is very possible.
     
  21. goat

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    Actually, earn money or not, these game engines, OSes, & HWs are just now getting to where it can be pretty interesting to make games. When the iPhone 1st came out I was only interested because I like drawing.
     
  22. Ony

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    Here be dragons.
     
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  23. GarBenjamin

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    It could be in some ways. Gaming has gone mainstream in a big way. Way more games yet also way more game players. It's an interesting thing for sure. I never thought I'd see games become the sort of disposable thing they have become. That is because I remember waiting weeks and months for a new game to come out. We all did. It was big news. Probably not so much now. ;)
     
  24. Ony

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    As long as we keep encouraging the idea that it's a good thing for more and more developers to get involved, at lower and lower barriers to entry (free game engines anyone?), with more people trying to get in on the cash grab, that is the future we are bringing forth.
     
  25. HemiMG

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    I think anyone who wants to have a go at making games absolutely should get involved. It's a fantastic hobby. But with the vastly lowered barriers to entry and number of people insisting on charging money for every little shoddily put together "game" they create, I think we really need to define the term 'indie' better.

    @GarBenjamin touched on it a bit in the blog post in his sig. There's a difference between an indie developer and an amateur or hobbyist developer. A hobbyist throwing together his hobbled together crap on Steam Greenlight because he thinks it will pay his way through life will call himself an 'indie', but in reality he is still just a hobbyist with the gall to charge money for his unprofessional work. Some hobbyists may put out very professional stuff. I'm not saying that one has to earn a living doing this to be good at it. But indie games get a bad rap from hobbyists who apply that label to themselves. When the term indie was first invented, there was still a barrier to entry, still some semblance of skill required. With that gone, proper indies, IMO, have moved up from the bottom to the middle rung. There's a new bottom now.

    But I'm old, and crotchety. Maybe spending a whole day getting the texture on a baseball bat just right while watching games whose entire levels were built with less care and attention just elicits the typical old man "Get off my lawn!" response. Hopefully, all this hard work and attention to detail pays off and I can support myself for a few more years. If not, ramen noodles aren't so bad. Money is nice. Food, if I remember correctly, is nice. But those things aren't why I do what I do. I wonder how many so-called indies can say the same? My guess is that if the number were very high there'd be a lot more evidence of passion put into the projects that pop up on Green light, or at the very least those projects would be popping up on the free to play sites instead.
     
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  26. GarBenjamin

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    That is true and honestly I go back & forth on that subject myself. I wrestle with it because half of me always wants to help and encourage others to fulfill their dreams. That is just a big part of who I am as a person and something I have always done. At the same time I don't really have anything good to say about tons of people coming into this just to make money. This is a personal view just because it has always been a passion for me. Something I poured hours into just because it was challenging and fun and just "cool" on its own.

    I realize the modern thinking is that it is best to democratize game dev opening it up to every person regardless of age, experience and skill. And I am actually in support of that as far as expressing creativity is concerned. I think that part is very cool. The part that turns me off is how there seems to be very little passion or common sense involved in this stuff any more.

    It seems like 80% of the people doing it and coming into it are doing so for one thing: money. Many I think are even feeling desperate. I have seen posts on these forums where people have come right out and said they need money fast to pay bills and so forth. Some may be living paycheck to paycheck. That is a lot of stress. I get it. I have been there before in my life.

    The problem is this causes people to frantically work and throw their first game, whatever it may be, straight out on the market in hopes it will be the answer to their prayers and make some money. For others, it seems like they are driven only by the dream they will one day hit it big becoming one of the huge success stories we read about making insane amounts of money every day. Still others I am sure are hoping to "just make an extra $500" (or whatever) per month with it basically being a part-time job they can do from the comfort of their home.

    I get that stuff. Money is important and game development is more satisfying than many of the alternatives would be.

    The thing that puts me off is do you see where the focus is in all these cases? Little focus on the game itself. The customers. The industry. Nearly all focus is on the money.

    So don't take it the wrong way @Ony, I do think it was better when a person had to actually have more skills to be able to make games than they do now. For one thing I think it made people appreciate games more in general. I also think the people making games back then had more common sense than they do now. They rarely rushed straight to the market as fast as they possibly could. AAA did due to deadlines but your individuals and small teams mainly were in it because they loved games... at least certain kinds of games.

    I am all for people making the games. I just don't think everyone should so easily be able to sell their games. This is where I think the barriers are needed. I don't think a person should be able to just drop in to this, knock out a simple game in a few days (perhaps using a starter kit) and publish it on a store a day or so later then just leave because they made no money. It cheapens the industry as a whole in my opinion. It allows people to get into it for the wrong reasons. And this kind of behavior just creates more noise for the serious people (the ones who are committed to it who will hang around for the long haul) to have to blast through. More clutter for the gamers to have to dig through to find what they are looking for.

    So yeah... I am of "two minds" as they say. One says awesome you made your first game. I am happy for you. The other says "don't put it on the market". One says hey all of these people getting into games is a great thing it means more connections can be made and the developers can all rise together. The other says I really wish there was some kind of gatekeeper for this stuff. Some kind of barrier to entry. Somewhere along the way. Basically something to keep the "tire kickers" from participating in the same places as the more serious people are. That part just makes no sense to me.

    Whew. What a ramble. Summary here: Yeah I agree. lol
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2015
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  27. Ony

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    Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

    The gatekeepers have left their posts, and the marketplace is being flooded. That is the problem in a nutshell. I'm all for people learning how to make games and someday maybe even being good enough at it to make a living with it. But right now we have storefronts with no one in charge.

    Imagine if Target or Walmart came out one day and said "ok, from now on, anyone can sell anything they want from our locations, and we'll let the market take care of itself." How far would that go? Not far. Why has that happened to the games market?

    Anyone can put anything they want on the Google Play Store. Anyone can put anything they want on Steam (for $100), anyone can put anything they want on itch.io and other game stores. The store managers have left and gone home, leaving the doors open wide to anyone and everything.

    By all means, people should be able to make games as a hobby. But this lack of oversight is destroying the business of games. And when you destroy a business, when you take away the people who put their time and money and years of work into building that business, then good luck. Because you've lost the people who care enough to properly do it. When there's no more money in indie game development then we're in trouble, because all that's left is mass market AAA games that keep getting more similar every year, selling more and more units despite being mostly the same game with different graphics. We're headed that way fast.
     
  28. HemiMG

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    I'm in the desperate camp. But I've still spent 8 weeks on my horror game and I'm still on the first hallway. I'm not rushing anything. Money can wait. There's two reasons for that. One is that my game has to fulfill my creative vision. If it doesn't, then why am I doing this? Pretty much any job pays more than trying to make a living as an indie game developer. It cannot be about the money. The other is that this is my first real PC game. If I'm going to step into the ring with AAA developers, I'm going to put on pads and take the fight to them to the best of my ability. That's just sound business. It goes back to what I said in a previous post about greed vs self-interest. If I'm hiring an artist, greed says I hire the cheapest. Self-interest says I hire the best, and pay them well. In my case, greed says I push out whatever drudge I can as quickly as possible and charge $1 for it. Self-interest says I go hungry a little longer and push out the best quality I can so I can charge $25 or so for it, and build a fan base that will buy my next games instead of running from the hills and trashing me in the process.

    So my problem with these people that just want a quick buck is two-fold. First, get off my lawn! Second, not only should they not be trying to charge money for their crappy games, but they have no business sense. If you aren't good at what you are trying to charge money for, and you have no business sense, then why bother? In his interview with Jim Sterling the guy from Digital Homicide talked about how he has a wife and three kids. Man, I don't have a family. I wish more than anything I did. But if I did, my opinion would change quickly. My responsibility is to them, not to some grand creative vision. For Digital Homicide to not even have a creative vision and sacrifice his family's well being to chase pipe dreams is just mind boggling.

    I feel like I'm the only person making a horror game right now. AAA studios have long since turned great horror franchises like Silent Hill and Resident Evil into mass appeal action-adventure games and "indie" developers just throw every horror trope there is into a game without any understanding of what makes them work. The world needs true indie developers. It would be sad indeed if we were only left with the pipe dreamers and the mass appeal money grubbers.
     
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  29. tedthebug

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    Less pipe dreaming, more pipe smoking!
    (Complete with smoking jacket & cocktail)
     
  30. Mattyy

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    Forgive me for being late to the party but this thread is exceptionally intriguing since it's filled with questions that pops in my mind the whole time.

    Why did Flappy bird succeed?
    I wouldn't call Flappy bird's art exceptional. Instead it's tidy and fits together nicely. Did Flappy bird succeed because of its art? Of course not. The art on other hand was merely not hurting the game.
    I think it succeed because of the following points:
    1- Simplicity. People on phones like simple games. A good example on that is Ketchup. They publish one simple game after the other with each being a hit. Simple games are great and every one can figure out.
    2- Looks damn easy. I remember sitting in physics class and my friend playing that game. He keept losing so I challenged him that I can do better and needless to say, I failed miserably. But what followed that is being challenging.
    3- Challenging. The fact that the game is simple got me into trying it, but now what made me stick to it? The challenge. It's surprisingly difficult. It looks easy. How can I lose? That's insane. I have to try again and again.
    5- Size. The game is so small that every one will feel encourage downloading it even though the graphics aren't that appealing, yet again I have to say, the art didn't hurt the game since it was tidy and clean.
    4- Trend. Put the last points together and you get a trend. The guy who tried the game kept trying to beat his friend but then his other friends also thought the game is easy and they also were pulled in the circle. The numbers increased and finally it became a joke of how difficult and S***ty a game can be.
     
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  31. goat

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    Uh, prevent businesses from making money by not allowing their game sales portal members to publish because of arbitrary quality guidelines doesn't make sense with so much of the content gory and violent that I think that the ideal that they are going to filter what they allow in their stores out of the altruistic sweetness of their hearts is silly. I'm thinking all this violence and gore deserves to fail so let them publish and fail. Good riddance.

    LMAO, create a game publishing portal that forbids violence and forbids sex and maybe we will have a natural barrier to entry for aspiring game creators.
     
  32. Deleted User

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    I don't believe it's anything to do with content, there's just a hell of a lot of bad games made.. Millions of them. So it kind of takes focus away from the good ones..
     
  33. maximalniq

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    REST OF THE STORY ON FIRST PAGE


    ***Update - 07.07.2017***

    For every success story, there are thousand failures.

    Soo... Here we are in 2017 update. An idea clicked when i heard that this year is the Starcraft anniversary. Also I learned that Google have an easter egg game hidden about Starcraft called Zerg Rush and I knew that this was going to be the name. I am aiming for the first page of google when someone plays the hidden game. So far so good, I like the reviews a lot in fact I am writing this because one very nice review came from this forum, and I thought maybe the forum is still alive? I don't know.

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MartinSMarinov.ZergRush&hl=bg
    #4 Zerg Rush



     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2017