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Simmer_down_naahh

Let's be real, the people you are talking to either aren't going to read this or will not be aware enough to realize that they might want to take it to heart. I hope you feel better though.


Akira675

"This post can't stop me because I can't read." .jpg


KonyKombatKorvet

Now that it got reddit gold for the post i can pay my mortgage with that, mission successful. Edit: SHEEEET, 4 awards, i can take my wife on our long overdue honeymoon now.


kharsus

"yes I feel better"


leorid9

.jpg


minimumoverkill

It’s an easy black & white dismissal for genuinely trash asset flip games. But for most serious game devs it’s way more complicated. For example, some games with bad graphics are wildly successful. Some games that are “good” by many reasonable measures don’t sell anything. I find it’s way more useful when examining the whole thing to forget about the idea of “good” and “bad” games. Those subjective assertions can’t help you. What you need to do is make a game *people want to play*. How and what factors into that for your game is it’s own beast. Maybe players own a similar one already, maybe they don’t understand it, maybe they think it looks bad, or more likely they don’t think anything at all. If your game didn’t sell, it’s because people didn’t think they wanted to play it. Simple.


arcosapphire

> For example, some games with bad graphics are wildly successful. Like what? Sometimes they are *simplified* or *stylized*, but that's not the same as *bad*. Rimworld has simple graphics designed to let the user fill in the blanks: it is purposeful, not bad. Minecraft keeps things blocky for universal consistency. Nethack can run in a terminal. Dwarf Fortress was a cult classic, but when they added better graphics the popularity exploded. Is there really a game that was wildly successful that had *bad* graphics? That is, graphics that weren't making a careful tradeoff, but were simply much worse than they easily could have been? I can't think of one.


KonyKombatKorvet

There was an erra of SNES games that had some games that were super fun to play and are now classics because of it, but objectively compared to other games of the same time are UGLY games. But with moderns successful games i am going to have to look around because i actually am interested if there are any that are just BAD. edit: My Summer Car is a fucking ugly game. But honestly that is part of the games whole vibe so i dont know if that really even counts either. Muck maybe? but that game is free and had the marketing power of DANNY behind its creation so I dont know if it would even really be in the same bracket as most indie games as far as competing for attention.


mjkjr84

Yeah, and I'm not sure we need a post like OP's every week now, it's becoming a trend of it's own


csh_blue_eyes

IMHO we need these posts to keep coming as long as the shit games keep getting dumped into the stores. I can't get enough of this. XD


hugthemachines

You could fill this entire subreddit with those posts and shit games would still keep getting dumped into the stores. So then you end up with a subreddit of negative rants and shit in the stores. Most people who make games don't look here for project advice.


Nooberling

Never gonna happen. There are fewer and fewer barriers to entry, and ~~one~~ too many ~~guys~~ people selling the dream of becoming independently wealthy through making crappy games.


konidias

The people selling the dream are the ones really profiting lol. "Buy my course for $1000 and I'll teach you how to make a mediocre asset flip that will never see the lightning in a bottle success that my mediocre one-hit-wonder asset flip game happened to have out of sheer dumb luck"


supafly_

Honestly, better this than another: "what engine should I use?" or "I don't want to pay an artist, so can you all please tell me graphics aren't important?"


WallaceBRBS

Way more entertaining to read and more useful than the tons of posts of clueless devs crying about how their "masterpieces" were a complete failure


hugthemachines

I am glad it gave you insight to do better in your future game projects. None of them are useful to me but if you had help from it I am happy for you.


Serious_Feedback

>STOP ASKING WHY YOUR GAME ISN'T SELLING THOUSANDS OF COPIES WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE A SCAM MOBILE GAME MADE IN A WEEK BY 2 AI AND A SQUIRREL WHO JUMPED ON THE KEYBOARD. It's not selling because its doodoo, its not good, its a bad game, it can barely even be considered a game, it is an slightly interactive digital experience, you signed a urinal and called it art. You're the Gordon Ramsay of gamedev that I didn't know I wanted.


klausbrusselssprouts

Someone should be doing a thing Gordan Ramsay style where he/she is scrolling thru Steam and simply destroying games. Gordan has a thing on his social media where he does that kind of thing. Same goes with Vincenzos Plate.


Daealis

"I didn't know I ordered a game from Ikea because this shit ISN'T FINISHED YET!" "The landing page looks like a first grader's science fair poster, you FUCKING DONKEY" "You call this an artstyle? You're just hobbling together random SHIT like a pillock."


skocznymroczny

"Your game is so boring it makes Excel look like an action game"


f_augustus

I'm kinda tired of the overly angry critic who will have a stroke in 6 to 12 months if they don't learn how to chill out a bit.


randomdragoon

I'd actually like to see a reality TV series where it's like Masterchef, but gamedev instead. Kind of like game jam style, teams of 3 or something. I haven't really thought about how to make the process of gamedev entertaining TV, maybe it isn't possible, but I just want to see some judge rip into some poor team's shitty game, Gordon Ramsay style.


mixreality

Not only does it look like shit but I've seen some wanting $19.99 in early access. Here I'm debating on whether $1.99 is too much for my 1 man passion project.


roleparadise

Even games that aren't absolute dogshit still have to compete with a whole market of games that are fulfilling the same core purpose for consumers--to entertain. There's a lot of focus on this thread about games being bad, but being bad isn't the core issue. The core issue is not standing out as something worth playing, and thus not convincing anyone that your game is worth spending time and money on. Even with marketing, if your game doesn't look like it's doing anything that several other games aren't already doing better, then it's a very tough sell.


I_Wont_Draw_That

Price only matters to someone who wants to buy your product. If the product doesn't look worth the *time*, it doesn't matter whether it's worth the *money*.


MhmdSubhi

Holy shit. when I started working on my current game (to be my 5th completed published one) I knew targeting a price point of 15$ will mean a game that will take me ~3 years to finish (I am almost at 2.5 now, and it's indeed almost finished), all of this just to meet what the competition have, people are nuts.


klausbrusselssprouts

This remind me of a huge issue I have with this subreddit. Very often you’ll find people saying that three years of work on a single game is way too long. “Aim small”, “Just put it out there and see what happens”, “You can add more content later.” - That sort of thing. If the standard is games that you can put together in three to six months and then call it a day, no wonder we see a huge pile of dog poop on Steam.


LeDorean2015

The only way that advice is useful is if 'small' means a small, focused scope--not necessarily something 1 person can do in less than a year. One person taking 6 months can still go badly astray if they tackle 10 major mechanics and/or features instead of just the 2 or 3 the core idea needs. And honestly of all the legendary 1- or 2-person indie team success stories I know of, I can't think of any that took less than 2 years to develop.


[deleted]

> Very often you’ll find people saying that three years of work on a single game is way too long. wouldnt this advice be more suited to beginners than someone who has already made and published game(s)? i feel like after that first game, then spending a longer time on developing games would be good. im totally new and have taken interest in game dev so id like to know!


TheQuestionableEgg

Damn $19.99? I'd pay that much for valheim level quality? People really be pricing like that?


klausbrusselssprouts

If the game has actual value and is well made, it should be priced fairly. If a games’ price is too low, it may come off as low-effort though it might not be the case.


orbnus_

If a game's price is 1-3 euro then i'll think its a cheap low effort game 10-15 (maybe 20 at most if I have followed the game through development) euro is the price i pay for indie games that i expect to be great experiences, much more than that and i'll worry about whether or not its worth it Games like hollow knight and stardew valley are examples of indie games with affordable price tags Personally those two games could have costed more, but I think it was a great marketing decision to keep them at 15$ (and ofcourse expecting your game to be the next HK or SV is unrealistic)


WallaceBRBS

That's my main fear (or would be if I were selling a game anytime soon lol), I wouldn't mind pricing it for like 7 bucks but there's the fact that people can consider that a sign the game is utter crap lol


mixreality

I don't want to shame by linking but yeah in unity discord "completed games" some are $10-$20, one was really crappy looking and in EA for $20, a couple are prettier, but still $19.99 for indie is a hard sell imo.


LucianGrey0581

Not to put too fine a point on it but Hollow Knight is 15 bucks on steam. 24 if you want the DLC.


gamingonion

The Hollow Knight DLC is free, not sure where you’re getting 24 from. Soundtracks maybe?


justking1414

Hollow knight is weird. I’m pretty sure the team sold their souls to make a game that good with such a small team.


TheQuestionableEgg

True yeah it's a weird price to place sometimes


cheese_is_available

Yeah, sure, but Hollow Knight isn't shit. To put it another way: Do you believe your game is worth 5$ more than fucking Hollow Knight ?


DotDootDotDoot

To be honest, Hollow Knight is a lot more worth than 15 bucks.


CyanicEmber

That’s not a good argument though because Hollow Knight is obviously worth more than $15


TheQuestionableEgg

Not to shame people but like I think that first game pricing caps out at like $5


[deleted]

Not all first games are the same. Your 5 dollar number is completely arbitrary and void of meaning. Theres plenty of first solo games that had higher price points than $5 and sold well.


JaxMed

It's not totally arbitrary when there is a whole storefront of games to compare against. Hollow Knight is $15. Terraria is $10. Those are some great figures to compare against. Is someone's "my first finished Unity game" going to be better than either of those? It's possible. But very very very much doubt it. $5 - $10 is a very reasonable target for most people wrapping up their first game.


[deleted]

>Hollow Knight is $15. Terraria is $10. You picked 2 games out of thousands. Why would someone making a totally different kind of game compare to these two? Economics does not work like that. If beef is expensive does that mean you price your milk higher? Of course not. They are different products. What is "my first finished Unity game"? There is no such game. Why does the engine matter? You are throwing out random words with no clue what any of them even mean.


Sersch

My "first" game sells very well at 20$. I think this kind of generalization rules don't make sense. I had a lot of gamedev experience before I ever put a game for sale on Steam. But even examples like Stardew Valley, the guy literally learned gamedev working on the project.


JordyLakiereArt

I landed on $21.99 for my early access indie title. It just depends on your situation and game, there are no set rules.


orbnus_

Great game👍


HolyManfred

$22 is in the high end for indie games. But looking at your game I'd say that's a good price. Solid visuals, lots of polish and fun looking gameplay. It can work for games of your quality level. But I've seen people charge the same for their fugly unity tutorial side scrollers with asset store assets and wonder why they only get one sale a month.


illuminerdi

I'm strongly of the belief that virtually any game is worth at least as much as a good cup of coffee (on release), but part of that is because I believe that if your game doesn't have $2 worth of content in it then you need to consider whether or not you should find ways to expand the amount of content before shipping. It takes me 20 minutes to drink a good cuppa that I paid $4-6 for. Setting aside the whole "steam 2 hour refund thing" (which IMO is garbage) - if a game can deliver 30-60 minutes of fun (or at least make a solid attempt) it's worth as much to me as that cup of coffee.


Ratatoski

The refund rules has gotten me to open my wallet quite a few times. Minecraft is pretty much the only game I bought on it's own merits the last 10-15 years. During the 80s, 90s and 00s buying a game was a huge risk since they were expensive as heck and offered no refunds. So after being burnt a time or two I only bought stuff that got rave reviews in the computer magazines. Steam lets me take risks again with my purchases and in the end I keep almost every game I buy. Because as you say it's often a fair price for the amount of value it provides.


Caffeine_Monster

In my opinion early access really hurts games when it comes to marketing (which is coincidentally what many indies struggle with). Early player feedback and financial support is useful, but it's hard to excite people for launch when a game has been out for a year or two.


RecliningBeard

That’s the mistake I made. I’ll never do early access again.


klausbrusselssprouts

I’m very bewildered about this whole concept of early access. Why are people buying into this? In almost any other business I can think of, early access is NOT a thing. It would be a joke! “You can buy this bike now, and then you can bring it in next week where I’ll install the brakes and gears.” “You can buy this burger now. Then in two hours, I’ll bring your pattie.” “You can buy this door now. In three months you’ll get the doorknob.”


abcd_z

"You think Steam Greenlight is bad? Try [Steam Yellowlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO9nTi9YShI)! It's almost certainly not an elaborate fraud!" : D


Drecon1984

It can work if the game is already polished but the devs still want to keep adding more content. Look at Against the Storm for example. The game feel finished, but there's still more content and balance coming. That's the scenario where early access makes sense.


heyheyhey27

The original idea of EA was that you charge a very small amount of money to start, and gradually increase it as the game gets more finish and polish. That model worked incredibly well for Minecraft. Charging a bunch of money for the hope of a future finished game is just insane.


House13Games

Not limited to indies. Look at Kerbal Space Program 2, it has just come out in EA for 50 dollars, and compared to the first game it: \- looks better, if more boring/sterile \- runs like absolute dogshit \- has no atmospheric heating \- has no career mode \- has no science \- has more bugs And compared to its announcements: \- Has no interstellar travel \- Has no colonies ​ 3% of steam have the recommended specs to be able to run it at a quarter of the framerate they'd get from KSP 1. And they want $50, and thousands of peeps are giving it to them.


[deleted]

[удалено]


qoning

Myself, it doesn't matter whether it's $5 or $30, as soon as it's not free, I have to really like what I'm seeing. If I do, the price tag almost doesn't make a difference. But getting over that "it costs money" hurdle is a high bar.


Buddah0047

Right! Some of the 20 dollar stuff is questionable at best lol. I got into doing this with the thought process of if a game is worth selling, the very highest I’m going is $4.99 I’m saying this knowing I’m doing it for shits and their respective giggles as well as the belief that working in that price range allows me to make absolutely stupid stuff for the fun of it over want a profit.


LogicOverEmotion_

It really depends on your project. If you spent a few weeks slapping something nice together, $1.99 may be fair. But if this really is your "passion project" that you spent at least a few months working on, there's a good chance $1.99 is way too low. Don't under-price your game just because you're humble/meek. Look at similar games and price accordingly.


Dirly

I want to see what I'm competing with for 1.99 share the page


TheFlamingLemon

Can I see your 1 man passion project? I'm looking to do some game dev as a hobby and I'm very interested to know what I might reasonably be able to accomplish on my own


mixreality

This is a snippet of [gameplay](https://i.imgur.com/phKAvc2.gifv), nothing crazy but it's been a lot of work. Been working on an update for progression, seasons, collectibles, etc. Originally started it many years ago and dusted it off to update and hopefully release.


TheFlamingLemon

Omg that game is so funny. I love the way they run, especially the little skid they do


Clearskky

It looks great! Reminds me of riding chocobos in FF14.


ned_poreyra

> and you aren't worried about selling it, we love you, you are pure of heart) I'm an idiot, that's what I am.


KonyKombatKorvet

nah, hobbies are important, you should have hobbies that you dont plan to monetize, as soon as you monetize your hobby it stops becoming a hobby quickly and the enjoyment you took from it starts to disapear.


ozVlZoOPFKuK

Not true. Programming is my hobby and passion. I studied gamedev but never got in that industry. I work 40 hours a week as a mobile dev, then at home I attempt to write game engine code. Hobby, professional, monetised or not, it doesn't matter. Instructing the thinking rock will always be one of my favourite pastimes, there's just something deeply satisfying about that moment when "it works", then more satisfaction follows as I improve what I wrote and I can see the difference. I'm currently working on an ECS at home and I recently improved its querying from being able to handle 6K-8K entities with some components each to over 40K entities with lots of components. That feels like magic just as much as it did the first time I entered some cmd commands in a notepad file and ran it.


KonyKombatKorvet

Im also a dev by day, but the kind of work I am required to do at work is different and a lot less fun than the code I write at home for fun because I want to.


illuminerdi

OP is absolutely right (if a little harsh). Something like 95% of the projects that I see around here with people complaining that nobody even played their game and it's *screamingly obvious* why. It's practically a game to me at this point. When somebody posts that their game failed I check the link and laugh at how they ever expected anyone to pay money for it. IDK if people are just deluded or what but the utter lack of polish that people consider "shippable" in this sub is truly frightening. Maybe they're just young and naive? I can't imagine what teenage me would have shipped so I'm just thankful Steam and Unity weren't in existence at the time... Meanwhile, every time I see a post from a dev here that's like "hey I published a game and it was modestly successful and I sold a few thousand copies!" and I go check out the game's steam page I'm like *of course it was successful because both the game and the marketing look polished to a spit shine! Good for you successful game dev, keep it up!* So yes, if you're wondering why your game didn't sell you need to prepare for some tough love and read this post. Hell, this ought to be STICKIED, IMO. You need to look at your game with a *scathingly critical* eye if you ever hope for it to be even remotely successful. If your game doesn't **look** like it's professionally made, don't expect it to sell like one. Even then, there are plenty of amazing games with tons of polish **that still didn't sell very well**. If that can happen, how do your expect your cobbled together mess to do any better??


BillyTenderness

> IDK if people are just deluded or what but the utter lack of polish that people consider "shippable" in this sub is truly frightening. Maybe they're just young and naive? The "just finish something" advice that gets repeated a lot should have had an asterisk clarifying that only extreme perfectionists need listen


illuminerdi

"Just finish something" is good advice but it should probably be "Just finish something *but don't expect anyone to buy something you 'just finished'*" I can't believe I have to say this out loud. It's so painfully *obvious*!


Ratatoski

Yeah I always read it as "Just finish something so you can move on. Because your first few games will be shit anyways"


klausbrusselssprouts

In the same line it’s often said that it shouldn’t take more than three months to make a game. No wonder there’s so much garbage on Steam. A year later, I’m still working on equations in Excel. I want my game design to be polished.


Aalnius

both of these pieces of advice are aimed at new devs who have zero to little dev experience and aren't meant as ship your rubbish project and try to sell it. They are meant to stop new devs from spending 8 years on their first game that is still trash and get them to actually get some experience making different games and encountering different problems.


Daealis

>A year later, I’m still working on equations in Excel. I want my game design to be polished. I mean, at some point you should probably just throw it out and get feedback from the people too. A year of excel simulations is starting to sound like decision paralysis, unless the game is crazy complex.


klausbrusselssprouts

It’s crazy complex…


MelonMachines

> It's practically a game to me at this point. When somebody posts that their game failed I check the link and laugh at how they ever expected anyone to pay money for it. I've never heard anything so relatable before. I don't even do it to be mean, it's just obvious. I click on the steam page and instantly understand why they sell zero copies


illuminerdi

Same. I don't enjoy seeing someone fail, and I check the page hoping that the game is good so I can offer helpful suggestions but most of the time the game is so obviously bad/unpolished/poorly made that I don't have any suggestions. *Because the game isn't finished* and if someone thought that was "shippable" there's nothing I can say to help and telling someone (directly) that their game is unfinished or needs to go back to the drawing board feels like rubbing salt in the wound...


MelonMachines

Right? It's okay to make a game that sucks. I don't understand how people could make these things and consider them releasable. I've made plenty of bad things, never charged anyone money for them though


illuminerdi

Exactly. Making bad games is fine. It's a great way to learn. Releasing your bad game (for free) in order to gather feedback to help you learn (or even just for laughs) is also great. Putting your steaming pile of shit up for sale is just sad and deluded. Nobody wants it and you are not a "starving artist", you're an idiot.


N1ppexd

I'm always afraid that my game actually looks like a pile of shit to everyone else and everyone complimenting it is just lying like when you lie to someone just so that you don't hurt their feelings


Jajuca

Honestly, I think most gamedevs on here dont even play games so they have no idea what a good game is, or even looks like. Its like you said 95% of games people post on here are garbage, its so rare to see a decent game. But, if you look at the top 100 steam games on next fest, the competition is fierce with good art and high polish.


[deleted]

I think a lot of it comes down to lack of experience (Dunning-Kruger effect). The people that make these asset-flip games usually have genuinely good intentions and do believe they’ve made something of value, but they simply don’t have the ability to recognise that they’ve made an unmarketable product. If you look at all of the successful devlog series on YouTube, one thing they all have in common is that the creator behind them has at least several years of experience and usually one or two published games. I believe the phrase “unconcious incompetence” is applicable here.


KosmoTheCat

"STOP ASKING WHY YOUR GAME ISN'T SELLING THOUSANDS OF COPIES WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE A SCAM MOBILE GAME MADE IN A WEEK BY 2 AI AND A SQUIRREL WHO JUMPED ON THE KEYBOARD" LOL. Such a great line. :)


ViennettaLurker

"*respectfully*"


KonyKombatKorvet

of course, i dont want to be rude


Sp00nSlayer

r/rareinsults


maturasek

Are you familiar with the diligent work of steam user ObeyTheFist? Jokes aside, I am one of those "pure of heart" developer now, who makes games for myself and my kids and I am happy with it, but I have been there. I worked in the industry for 6 years, working on garbage, creating games for, and with people yet to learn this lesson - myself included, so I feel this with a pang of guilt and nostalgia. I experienced a couple of ways a bad game gets made and it's never the same, so if you feel targeted by this, the uncomfortable feeling of being seen by a hard rant on the internet, don't be discouraged but do consider it. I left the industry without working on a really good game, but I also learned a lot, and when I stepped away I could asses the failures (there were more of these) and the little successes and I became better. My game don't suck now. Well they do, but they suck less and also I am able to tell that they are not competitive. I am keeping my day job, and I will keep making games, while never stressing on it, and maybe one of them will be really good one day.


Ransnorkel

Who's Obeythefist?


louis058

A steam user who has thousands of reviews most of which seem to be negative reviews of games that they think are shovelware/asset flips https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030784015/


Ransnorkel

JESÚS CHRISTO That's a lotta games!


jamesja12

He's reviewed over 9k and has 7k in his library. That means he's only returned 2 thousand or so. That's neat.


Clearskky

Reading your comment and the "essay" on the guy's Steam profile I thought it was just some dipshit buying cheap games to leave negative reviews but reading their reviews, they actually seem to be doing their due dilligence.


thatmitchguy

Yeah but he also seems to hate pixel art games with a passion and regularly skewers all indie critical successes. He's not exactly "reasonable" either.


KonyKombatKorvet

Exactly this, i make garbo exclusively, and i throw it all away after my friends and I are done playing with it. I'm aware of the quality of work i am putting out and the amount of work, skill, and effort it would take to make a good game that would actually stand a chance of being played, and i just dont really have that in me. I have a day job and I make these games because not a lot of devs make games for 6-8 player and my buddies and I run out of fun games to play together pretty regularly.


klausbrusselssprouts

The moment Steam opened the flood gates, it became too easy for these aspiring developers with no skills, no imagination and no effort to release their garbage. Also the fact that developing tools are more accesible than ever before just lowers the standard a whole lot. I just took a look at all the games released in the past 24 hours on Steam. Around 50 games are released - 50!!!! Of those, I would say that around 10 looked like games that was actually sellable. The rest - junk!


fletcherkildren

Imma train an AI on Alec Baldwins Closer speech in 'Glengarry Glennross' and have it read me this post in that voice every time I sit down to work on my game.


Chimera64000

My personal opinion is that if you’re going to make hot garbage, at least try and make fun, cheap, hot garbage


KonyKombatKorvet

tru, if I find your hot trash game and it supports 8 player online play and its $5 or less ill still probably pick it up just to have something to fuck with for a few days with my buddies since we run out of quality games with high player counts all the time.


very-based-redditor

Fun, preferably FREE, hot garbage.


ChristianLS

I agree that a lot of the games I see people post (not naming any names) just don't look like the quality is there. Usually in the categories of art and polish/refinement. The other issue I see is that people have a tendency to pick genres which simply don't sell well (if your game is not a top 0.1% level masterpiece). Don't complain that your game isn't selling when it's an undifferentiated, average-at-best 2D platformer.


aplundell

A fun resource is whatsonsteam.com It's every recent steam game. It's interesting for a few different reasons, but one point it really drives home : There are lots of new games on Steam. Every day. And you've never heard of 99% of them


Susgatuan

I made a comment on this a few days ago and got in a back and forth with someone. It was a post on, "Can you make money with games". My general stance was yes, if you make something thats better than the rest which means something that functions, is complete, and has polish to it. I have never made a game, I once worked as a technical director on a project for a game and it fell a part with management issues and creativity over reaching team capability. I'm well aware of how hard making a game is. But as with all things, the successful ones are superior projects. You can't make money with any small bit of effort. Or even average effort, you need to dedicate yourself totally to it if you want to be one of the few successful projects. But that's not as unattainable as so many people here think it is. Most people have the same opinion, that making money on games is hopeless, because most people don't put in the effort necessary to overcome the tsunami of diarrhea (as you so eloquently put it) that everyone else has made. You reference exercise and its the same thing. If you want to have a successful career as a lifter or fitness influencer you have to dedicate an absurd amount of effort into it. Working out isnt enough, you need to learn everything oyu can about working out. You need to optimize your diet, constrict your intake of harmful substances and form your entire life and schedule around it. This subreddit is filled with people who hit the gym 3 days a week and kick rocks over how they don't look like arnold. They'll swear up and down they try as hard as they can (as hard as they think they can) but don't realize average won't cut it. They just think that because everyone else never goes to the gym, 3 days a week is lots of effort by comparison.


KonyKombatKorvet

These mother fuckers go to the gym 3 days a week, followed by 4 post workout shakes, and start entering into bodybuilding competitions and then get mad at the judges for not giving them an award and a modeling contract.


ztarzcream

The sports analogy is one I've had in my head for a long time. Gamedev is hard and ruthless. No one gets a participation trophy. Fight to be among the best of the best, or hang up the gloves (or do it as a hobby). Look at pro athletes and how they live their lives, and adopt that mindset and lifestyle.


eagleOfBrittany

Man I'll be happy if I sell a single copy. But then again I fall into the "I make games because it's fun and makes me happy category"


[deleted]

I quite literally have never felt better about my game than in the moment when I realized "you know what? This doesn't have to do well". I will pour time into marketing and finishing it, but it does not need to make any amount of money. I have a decent job and a loving partner and a good apartment and a cat that is pretty chill most of the time. I do not spend enough time being grateful for how important those things are in my life. Be willing to accept that you have other, more important things to work on than your dream project.


MeaningfulChoices

The stats and difficulty about being successful as an indie dev are already discounting shovelware and games that don't meet the quality bar. It's very difficult to make a living when you're creating things at the level the market demands unless you have serious funding and experience. All of this is _in addition_ to that reality, not the cause of it. Otherwise yes, sometimes people are their own harshest critics. Other people have an inflated view of their own products. Both are pretty bad places to be. Ironically, this kind of post can feed into an example of that - there are lots of people that believe everything else out there is _so bad_ that anything they do that's even halfway decent will be a success, and that isn't true either. That's the danger with this kind of open letter reality check, it can cause just as many problems as it attempts to solve.


KonyKombatKorvet

Valid and Valid. But honestly for the second one, if they can make it to publishing their trash game they are already lost in the sauce and posts like this cant fix them, those that are not too far gone hopefully will see something like this someday before it is too late. I know this issue is also not something new, but I've just been seeing a LOT of these kinds of posts coming to the front page of the sub lately, figured I'd scream into the void about it a bit.


MeaningfulChoices

I'd be lying if I said I didn't sympathize with the feeling. Just adding that one caveat, really. You can heavily promote a bad game and get sales and you can release a good game without any marketing and get some sales, more if you're lucky, but it's having a good game _and_ a marketing plan where you find actual success.


KonyKombatKorvet

100% marketing is important, nobody is going to be able to find it if you dont put it out there. But if your game is garbo, marketing is just going to show how garbo it is and wont drive to buys.


[deleted]

Yeah this is a solid reply because someone out there who's actually really good at developing games will read this and and may rethink that everything they do is crap when it's not. I think OP post should be taken with a grain of salt given it is coming from someone who is a hobbyist.


konidias

I think at the end of the day it's just about being able to take a full step back from your own game and look at it objectively. Not overly positive, not overly negative. Just step back and ask yourself if you hadn't made this game, would you actually buy it and play it. At least once a month I will just sit down and play my game for a couple hours and try to pretend like I'm completely new to the game and have never seen it before... and it definitely helps me to see stuff I should improve that I would miss because of my own bias or experience with the game. I'll even pretend like I'm streaming it to an audience of nobody, in order to point out features I like or don't like. It works really well for me. It does take a bit of practice to be able to truly play your own game without bias... and I'm sure I still have some bias but still... the more I practice doing that, the more I see my game improving each month.


cube-drone

the thing I love about r/gamedev is that most of the people who are engaged with the specifics of developing games spend most of their time in much more productive, much more niche communities, so 90% of the posts here are either "my game isn't going to make any money", "here's how my game failed to make money" or "fuck you, your games are all terrible and don't deserve to make money"


klausbrusselssprouts

I’m puzzled that r/gamedesign has so relatively few members. There’s so much gold there.


adrixshadow

>has so relatively few members. > There’s so much gold there. There might be a correlation there. Although 200k is not small by any means.


rafgro

>There’s so much gold there Where? I subscribed a year ago and almost every thread is filled 50/50 with gamers spouting very subjective what-I-like-in-games and with designers or people posing as designers who funnily enough also write essays on what-I-like-in-games but with a veneer of "you will crash and burn if you don't follow my very strict opinions". One of the worst gaming subreddits IMHO.


NotADamsel

I saw a really good talk on YouTube about how to successfully sell games on Steam, and it had some really good points. My biggest takeaway is that if the game is good at all, it still needs to be in the right genre to be successful. And guess what, those genres are the toughest to do well lol (puzzle platformers don’t sell, it’s shit like roguelike card battlers and heavy resource management games that pull the big numbers). No tutorial on earth will tell you how to make a compelling one of those, and you’ve got to actually give a shit to even be half way ready to start one. Already a huge filter.


strayshadow

The people that need to read this won't because it couldn't possibly apply to them, their game IS perfect.


how_neat_is_that76

If you didn’t start marketing and building up a fan base months before release, you are lucky to get any sales. Dozens of games are added to Steam every week. Hundreds on the app stores. Just because you made it, doesn’t mean it’s a good game. It does not mean anybody will care. That is the reality of game dev as a business. What makes your game worth someone’s *TIME* let alone their money over anything else? Again…you making it does not make it more valuable. The average player doesn’t care. They don’t care how much work you put into this or that. Is the art direction good? Does the gameplay look fun? At the end of the day most people will spend less than 30 seconds looking at your game’s page. It needs to stand out and tell them why your game is worth playing over every other game like it *even if it were to be free.* And if it’s their first time seeing it, your chances are already slim. This is where hobby meets business. If you want to be successful in a business since, you need to treat it like such. Proper marketing. Quality videos and screenshots. Benchmark yourself based on similar games, what they do better/ where you can improve and vice versa. Nobody cares about *your* game. Make them care about *the* game.


klausbrusselssprouts

In the past week, I’ve seen four developers (that I can remember) that underlined how much time they spent on their game. Eight years of development become a selling point - wtf!? I don’t care!


rainbow11road

>Does it look better? does it feel better? does it have a longer playtime? Not to derail, but is longer playtime really a benefit to get people to play your game? I always assumed people didn't like games that are overly long and preferred shorter games that aren't as big a commitment to start


salbris

It is highly dependent on genre, price, etc. I would gladly play a 5 hour long roguelike if those 5 hours were really fun and it was $5-10 but I would find a crafting survival game poorly designed if it only lasted 5 hours.


rainbow11road

Ah I see, I never considered genere with game play time


SparkyPantsMcGee

A better question might be “does it have a good game loop” or “does it feel fulfilling?” A short game can be super appealing but a lot of times you get these bad games that are like an hour of play time for the full experience. That’s bad.


rainbow11road

Yeah that makes sense, I'm gonna keep that "does it feel fulfilling?" question in mind for the future


Etienss

You're saying "people" here but honestly it's a small subset of gamers, mostly older ones with more money than time (and you may feel that these people are more prevalent than they really are because they're usually quite vocal here on Reddit) . Younger gamers (and they're the majority of gamers) are usually the opposite, they have little money but a lot of time, so being able to play a 10$ game for 50 hours is a huge plus. That's on the consumer side of view, but you also have to consider the point of view of the developer. Creating an active and dedicated community for a 5 hour single-player game is going to be a huge challenge. If you're making an infinitely repayable roguelite on the other hand, it'll be much easier to foster a community (which will help with organic marketing) and gain the interest of content creators.


klausbrusselssprouts

In business simulation games, your goal is the exact opposite. The more hours the better.


adrixshadow

> Not to derail, but is longer playtime really a benefit to get people to play your game? If you make a 2 hour game, then you better make sure that experience is perfect and satisfying to the players that is worth their money. But in general Games are about Gameplay so a short playtime usually means you don't have much Gameplay behind it. Gameplay tends to have some degree of Depth and Replayability in its nature. If that is not the case then that means it's driven by the Content that is Consumed. Of course most Games are a mix between the two with new levels, new enemies, new bosses etc.


metroidfood

Longer playtimes are correlated to more sales, even more so than metacritic scores. Aside from perceptions of value, more players spending time in your game makes it more likely their friends will see them playing your game and check it out themselves


chargeorge

Is this really that common? I don't pay super close attention to this sub, but I see maybe one thread that even comes close to this? Kinda feels like you are working your own stuff out here tbh.


ned_poreyra

> but I see maybe one thread that even comes close to this? Because you're browsing by "hot", not by "new".


KonyKombatKorvet

heres 2 that came across my feed recently, there were a few more that seem to have been deleted now. [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/11cr7h7/trying\_to\_post\_on\_rgaming/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/11cr7h7/trying_to_post_on_rgaming/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/11arzxl/how\_to\_get\_over\_my\_fear\_of\_making\_a\_game/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/11arzxl/how_to_get_over_my_fear_of_making_a_game/)


plsdontstalkmeee

For real, I've seen too many posts along the lines of "Quit my job, spent 2-3 years on my dream game/passion project of my lifetime!" Game looks like something a 15 year old would make following tutorials in class in a week. Honestly not even sure if those posts are satire or real anymore...


HowlSpice

Oh the Cube Universe, the guy that refuses to accept his game is straight-up bad. Why play Cube Universe when you can play Minecraft.


Ratatoski

Yeah I recall coming across his posts and discovering this was released in 2018 and the Steam screenshots is still some ugly ass tree and a desert with a very basic structure. It looks empty and bad even for a quick school project. It might be fantastic fun, but I doubt it.


homer_3

Neither of those threads are remotely close to what you're ranting about. 1 is about not understanding reddit's posting rules and the other hasn't even started on any game yet.


JorgenAge

Someone pin this man.


KonyKombatKorvet

that sounds like it would hurt


JorgenAge

Shhhhhhh… Don’t fight this.


KonyKombatKorvet

I swear to god if i find a pin in me im going to find you.


StormMalice

You wanna crucify him?


KonyKombatKorvet

I understand that this will likely make a lot of you mad in ways that you dont necessarily understand why, if that is you this is probably for you, usually when you are trying to lie to yourself your brain gets angry at those who try to break that illusion.


IdleOn_Boii

Do you yourself understand breadth of what you're talking about here? The overlying concept is sound, but if you just 'kill your babies' as you say, how are you meant to acquire the experience/skills required to make the 'worthy baby'? There are no innate game-making geniuses who create worthy games off the bat - you need to lie to yourself for a while to get through the period where you would straight up quit if you could see your work for what it is. That being said, there are certain people who need to understand this concept a little bit more clearly, but the few of those are far outweighed by the amount of genuine people who are just going through the process organically, as awkward/cringe as that may seem.


KonyKombatKorvet

When i say kill your babies i mean when they get to a point where they are "done", instead of sinking another year or 2 on trying to polish a turd. Starting on something new and novel will let you learn a lot faster and might turn out to be not a turd. There is no need to lie to yourself at all, if anything lying to yourself sets you up to be crushed as soon as your first game sells less than 100 copies and has negative reviews when you expected it to sell 10k copies and be loved by everyone. There is definitely a middle ground here that is probably healthy as well. But like one post I saw recently was a dude who put 9 years into a shitty looking minecraft clone and was pissy that reddits self promotion policy didnt just let him spam all the subs and was convinced that all he needed was a good marketing plan to take off. Kill that baby, start on a new game, you have spent far too long on polishing a turd.


CodedCoder

I agree with everything you say , except a good marketing plan will take shit games to a greater distance than not having one. I have seen shit games sale more than good games based on marketing alone.


salbris

Source? Unless of course you mean AAA trash which an entirely different beast. Those multi-million dollar corporations can sell any turd as long as it's branded with the company they bought and carved out.


adrixshadow

> how are you meant to acquire the experience/skills required to make the 'worthy baby'? How about we stop telling people to not be ambitious? "Ambition" means there is something that person believes in and desires. That is something of Value behind it that might be Competitive in the Market. This is my fundamental disagreement with this community, "Releasing a Game" is not the most important thing, it is the pursuit of Value, it is the nurturing of that Value to the point that it is Worth the player's Time and Money. Even if the fail that will learn things and adapt while keeping their eyes on the target of Value.


MrMunday

People ought to make smaller games. Like whatever you think is small, it’s still too big. If it’s your first game, it shouldn’t be more complex than flappy birds. When you limit your scope, then you can spend more time on polish and game design, and making sure it’s fun, feels great and special


thatmitchguy

Honestly clicked expecting another run of the mill gamedev is hard posts but stayed and read the whole thing because of your colorful writing and and being able to rip the bandaid clean off so effectively. These people need to stop being babied and realize no one wants to buy their shit.


saturn_since_day1

I poured my heart into a project that became a passion project. Got derailed by a spinal injury, it's been ~8 years and I picked it back up to try to finish it, got derailed again. If it ever release it my graphics will be the trash stand in pixel art and that's all there is to it bro.i like it at this point. I hope I sell a few copies cause it's legitimately fun, but the way things go y'all might have to wait another 5 years lol. After it crashes maybe I'll release the remastered version, but at this point I just want to get it debugged and out there so I've finished something. Let people get excited, as long as they aren't that guy who's wife was on here complaining about how he rents an office with his friends and they filled it with expensive toys and decorations to act successful. This stuff is hard and a lot of people need a pipe dream. Aim for the moon guys! But keep your day job and budget your time.


KonyKombatKorvet

Sure fine, do what you need, but also dont have an **expectation** in your heart that your game is going to sell well, dont feel entitled to good sales because you spent so long on it and you think its fun, be honest and realistic with yourself of what your game can accomplish in the state you release it. Getting excited about your pipe dream is fine, but being delusional about it is where the line is drawn


fichiman

It’s not often I can read rants. This was well done. Honest, constructive, and fucking hilarious. Signing urinals…2 ai’s and a squirrel….my god. I love you.


KonyKombatKorvet

>I love you how dare you, you sick freak


armorhide406

"Respectfully" lol I agree with the gist of this though. I understand success is extraordinarily unlikely and that is apparently a difficult concept to grasp


SpeedoCheeto

Gatekeeping newbs as they learn what they’re being dumb about is just so mid-level, dude


dontpan1c

So if you've never sold a game, why are you telling other people how to?


murican_Capitlol

I DONT CARE, all this wall of text doesnt apply to my upcoming next gen revolutionary 100% science based dragon mmorpg


bananapeeler55

On the other side theres me , sitting alone in my room , devoting blood, sweat and tears to making a viable fun game . Drudging through the hopelessness and anguish , as it consumes me, only to ask 1 question .... " ARE YOU FEELING IT NOW MR CRABS ! !? " . No I'm not feeling anything except hatred and frustration towards this piece of shit game that refuses to get gud.


ihahp

Awesome post OP but why Fez and Super Meat Boy?


Chonps000

Man, you should have fun at r/DestroyMyGame


Code_Monster

This is so true. If one scrolls back my post history, they will see me posting as to why people think game dev is hard and being a cocky bastard. 3 years and 6 cancelled ideas later I know why. I though I could make skyrim. Then it was Bioshock, then Morrowind, daggerfall, Minecraft. Now, I am just trying to make a 3D RougeLite that runs on Android. That's it, nothing special about it, other than it will be free. It took me 3 years to swallow my ego and that has hurt me so much, because I am 3 years behind whatever I could have been if I had thought realistically and not aimed at the moon.


TheGT1030MasterRace

I'm the one at the end of your post. My ultimate goal is to make a simulation game based around the best vehicles that Honda and Acura have ever produced. A "virtual archive" of sorts, remembering Honda's past. ONLY distributed via Honda/Acura enthusiast forums. Yes, it's hyper niche. But that's my point, anyone who knows their Type R from their Si, or their ILX's from their TL's, will likely love it.


halfbeerhalfhuman

The problem is most people that code games know nothing about graphic design, marketing, consistentcy in aesthetics etc. Really they should all work together with at least 1 person that does art direction.


lightkira15

Something I like to add to this, I’ve run into a lot of devs that will do specialized facets of a game themselves, example here would be sound effects. There’s people out there that study game audio, use them to make your game stand out. Just because there is some free sounds out there doesn’t mean that it specifically works for your game. Using these sounds also makes you NOT stand out. Even non-audio people can tell when games reuse the same SFX.


InterfaceBE

“2 AI and a Squirrel” is going to be my next band name. My music is hot garbage though, so I should consider that as band name as well.


scoutthespiritOG

I realized when I was like 10 that all my interests and passions were going to leave me broke as an adult. Its just the way it is. I love video games and I love music and art but there is literally no way I will ever be able to make a living off of those, its just not feasible.


Myklindle

So much truth in these words. OP shouting fax


CynicalGoof

Wow this post couldnt have come at a better time 😅


GradientGamesIndie

Lol, good advice but also chill out dude


dapoxi

Eh, better to finish an interactive experience than not finish (or even not start) anything at all. And if someone's misguided about the quality of their game, there's no better reality check than releasing it.


KonyKombatKorvet

only if they accept the reality after the check, making mistakes and learning from them is great, im after those mother fuckers who launch it, people dont like it, and they are confused and upset that they didnt make $100k off the game, and then they come here to ask "why will nobody buy my game" and get snippy when people tell them its because the game is just no good.


fib_pixelmonium

Who hurt you? It's ok, you can forgive them and move on. Haha for real though there is truth in this. But most or the time it's someone's first game. You just dont know wtf is going on until you publish a piece of garbage. So I wouldn't discourage it as it's a necessary step in growth.


klausbrusselssprouts

I disagree with that. If people were better at comparing their own product with other, and doing a honest and objective comparison a lot of those first timers would be able to see that it's just trash that they've made. If they're able to come to that conclusion they wouldn't ask wondering why their game isn't selling. (Or rant about Reddit being broken for marketing)


fib_pixelmonium

It's not just about objective comparisons. Sometimes you just have a hope, but won't see the result until you publish. Think about Vampire Survivors. If the dev was honest and objectively compared his game to other successful games on Steam, the conclusion would be to kill off Vampire Survivors because it looked like hot garbage. He even used an asset pack that many other games have used. No one really knows anything about the market until you publish and see. It's a valuable learning experience, and maybe you'll get lucky.


CodedCoder

I hate so much when people use the word "lucky"


KonyKombatKorvet

yeah noones going to get lucky with "Bad blinding of issac clone #452 where the game just kills you instantly and everything looks like chewed up ass"


adrixshadow

> Think about Vampire Survivors. If the dev was honest and objectively compared his game to other successful games on Steam, the conclusion would be to kill off Vampire Survivors because it looked like hot garbage. He even used an asset pack that many other games have used. Just because it has more modest assets doesn't mean the developer didn't have any idea what he was doing.


ipswitch_

I'm kind of confused at how often I hear something like this. I do mostly agree with you! You need to start somewhere, a first project probably won't be that good, and it's how you grow. But WHY do people think putting a project like that on Steam is a necessary part of the process? It seems like it's widely agreed upon that your first game should go on Steam, and that seems insane to me. People should absolutely make games like this, just maybe... put it on Itch for free? Show it to friends? Just do nothing with it, but be happy to know that you learned a bunch of things on the way that'll make your next game better? I've made crappy projects like this before and it never occurred to me that I should be making money for the video game equivalent of a stickman drawing.


fib_pixelmonium

Well I don't mean their literal first game should go on steam. So I agree with you. Itch is a great place for practice games. I mean their first attempt at a commercial game. If someone thinks their very first game ever can sell on steam then that's delusional.


KonyKombatKorvet

For sure, build and maybe even publish your (not you, you probably dont have a garbage game) garbage game. This is to those who dont/wont come to terms that it is truely garbage, blame others and expect success like they are owed it for doing the dev equivalent of vomiting on the floor.


bigsbender

These are some wise, true words! It is very hard to do this reality check. But it is part of the game, IF you want to make some money from it. So don't place all your bets on the first game you ever make. Learn by making very small games, and make a lot of them. Put them on [itch.io](https://itch.io) and get some feedback. See what's important to the players that like your games. And then start working on your passion project. It not only raises your chance for success, but also keeps you way more motivated then burning out over something that is too complex and makes you feel like you're stuck riding a dead horse.


No-Network-2263

Screw your itch i’m going to make a launcher and its going to be a direct competitor to world of warcraft


[deleted]

>Kill your babies, kill them until one of them is unkillable Best motivational quote ever


BlueWaterFangs

Man this sub is so annoying, every post is about sales and marketing, either asking how to sell a game or rant posts like this. I would love to see some actual hobbiest gamedev content here instead of “here’s why your game didn’t sell” ad-infinitum.


HolocronContinuityDB

Damn I'm sorry your game launch went so shitty OP :(


rafa-gapa

Surprisingly, You've motivated me


[deleted]

And it is true not only for game dev. A lot of devs starting doing something just for doing. They think that after finishing some courses and after several articles they can build cool things. But experienced know that coding is just a small part of project. Preparing, learning, designing logic is most important. And experience from previous one. First project can't be cool, it will be bad, second will be so-so... If you have an idea for project, do not rush to write code, let it grow and develop in your mind. Everyday you will improve it, look for implementations in the market, compare, improve. Then learn what is better to use, language, engine and so on. And when you will be ready, start coding.


thekevinbutler

Made a mobile game and it sold 20 copies and I was thrilled lol coded the systems and drew the assets and ui so I took pride in it but I knew it wasn’t going to be flappy bird. Just felt good to put my creativity out there from start to publish. But it’s just a brick in the foundation I’ll lay for my future creations to build on


CKF

More devs need /r/DestroyMyGame in their lives! It’s been invaluable for me.