So what's left of the indie mentality?

[Sakura Games]

Ok I wasn't sure if to make this post but... here it goes. I've been a long time lurker before I started to make a few modest games on my site.
But I remember the Dexterity forums times, and even those who are new can still access the forums archives to understand better what I'm going to say now: what is left of the TRUE indie mentality??
If you read those forums, people weren't talking AT ALL about portals, the only one mentioned was realarcade, but people were more concerned about doing market research, polishing his creations, user feedback and in general, PROMOTING HIS OWN WEBSITE.

Now after only 4 years, what happened?? everyone gave up ? what I see now, is just a bunch of small east-european studios trying to enter this business by enslaving themselves into the big portals... teams working months if not years for a ridiculous sum, or even selling completely their own IP, and what's WORSE, being HAPPY about that!?

Now there is really zero difference with online and offline publishers... and people/teams living on their own sales/effort are becoming very rare.

I guess it is correct to say that the "indie" era ended last year, with more and more good titles published in exclusive from big portals, and very few people trying (without success) to promote some more niche games, with earnings from direct sales that are really ridiculous compared to those of Dexterity times.

Now please don't talk about cliffski because as I said, there are a FEW, but making 1-2 names among the thousand of online developers is just reinforcing what I am currently saying...

This seems to me quite a regression and honestly, I'm not really interested anymore in this world and I find hard to believe that new people are eager to enter this business... what for? not the money for sure, and neither the freedom! :mad:

[svero]

The market changed. That's all there is to it. When I started doing this is was quite easy, with a decent product, to raise a lot of traffic on your own using gorilla methods. It's a lot more difficult these days than it was. People aren't doing as much direct marketing as they use to because often it just doesn't make financial sense. But for me being an indie never had much to do with how I sold the games. It was always more to do with how I made the games. Once the game is done, if I sell it through a publisher or direct is of less interest to me. I'm not terribly keen on the whole marketing and business side of the "business" anyway. If its possible to fop all that off on someone else and get back to the creative work that I enjoy then that's not such a bad thing so long as I'm fairly compensated.

[princec]

Funny thing is I'm less interested in making the games now than I am selling them... probably something to do with it being my only (very meagre) source of income for the last year.

Still the #1 problem in the indie game industry is being able to produce enough good games in a short enough time. Writing one title a year or even two you're just going to be languishing failing to reach critical mass forever, as we are doing :(

Cas :)

[TimS]

I would argue that the 'indie spirit' is alive and well, and that perhaps it is the entrepreneurial spirit that has been handed a few blows lately by the changing world of small-game development and sales.

A stroll through the last handful of pages of TIGSource, for instance, will show plenty of developers out there making games that are full of 'indie spirit'. 8 or 9 out of 10 of these developers are hobbyists and have no real plan (and in many cases no intent) to make enough money off of their creations to make it their primary job. Fairly frequently developers of this type will spend years working on the same game for no pay, and increasingly the best of these projects end up making money later by gaining some attention and moving onto consoles, handhelds or wide PC distribution. Odds are good that many of these developers don't earn 'enough' to back-pay themselves decent wages for three or four years of labor (especially if they have a team), but rarely do they seem to mind.

The business end of starting up an independent game studio with the goal of making a profit is getting more complex and difficult these days, sure. In the days of Dweep you really didn't even need to be capable of reading and negotiating a distribution agreement -- because you'd likely never see one.

People find niche and new ways to make money on the internet at different times, and most of those involved with making 'indie' games today missed the oft-cited 'golden days'. Our challenge is to find the characteristics of today's market for games that will cause the people of the next generation to claim that WE had it easy. :D

I'm optimistic -- but then, I'm probably naive. :o

-Tim

[Grey Alien]

I agree that the market has changed. Markets always change and online markets seem to be changing very quickly at the moment. For example the whole "Internet Marketing" and "affiliate sales" thing (I mean all that get rich quick stuff) is rapidly changing and the only ones that make money are those who roll with the changes (and who write the ebooks about it).

I started as an Indie (although I got a publisher for my first 2 games because I didn't have a clue how to do it). But I'm finding the work-for-hire route pays my bills properly which is what I need at the moment for my family's security - plus it's really good fun and a great way to learn more skills. If I was single and without kids (i.e. less financially burdoned), I might have been temped to carry on the purely Indie route though because it's great to see some people who have built up a nice customer base and keep on making new games. Good on them I say.

[RinkuHero]

I second the mention of the TIGSource forums, and also see this blog: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/

I think it's not that the indie spirit of the Dexterity forums was lost so much as it was split into two.

[TimS]

I second the mention of the TIGSource forums,

Just to clarify -- I only recommended the site, not the forums... :D

Those forums are full of crazies!

Actually there's a heck of a lot of fun people floating around over there, but I left the forums out of the mention because it's definitely not too similar to the original Dexterity forums, which seemed to be what Sakura was missing these days.

** goes back to waiting for brilliant people's VGNG entries **

[Emmanuel]

In general, it takes much more money now to create a competitive game than it did three years ago, and we are definitely sliding towards a retail model where developers get a publisher to fund the game and keep up with the rising production values. That was one of our reasons for selling funpause to BFG.

This said, as this is a try-before-you-buy model, customers can sample the game; and they buy gameplay, not production values, even if production values help set games apart. As a result, you see titles like Alice Greenfingers or Build-a-lot, that were self-produced by small teams and are among the top 5 sellers of 2007.

There's also people doing great in well-defined niches, like Cliff or Jack Norton. They don't make glamourous casual games, but at the end of the day, they may net more per hour than someone with a publishing deal. They have multiple games for sale and they have been working for years.

When we started as indies in 2005, we were told repeatedly that it was too late and that the good old days of download.com were gone and whatnot. It's always time to get started. All options are still open in 2008, depending on what you want to do, work for hire or making a game in a well defined genre that pays the bills and teaches you to be a better designer, or a more risky strategy of building up your long-term business and customer base.

To get started in 2008, new developers should also stop admiring what sold in 2004-2005 and start looking at making games that will sell this year. Fairies wouldn't do well today. I don't think Zuma would either (not that I'm putting both games at the same level). Games with a repetitive mechanic that you get tired of at level 3, and no meta-structure or proper story to keep you going, don't hit the market well anymore. (and I don't mean a story slapped on a match three where you get to save the universe by doing combos and going from dot 1 to dot 50 on the map.)

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Jack Norton]

I just want to add:
- single teams with good ideas (see Emmanuel's example) can still make quite lot of money even with portals
- for single developers, if you want to target niche market, use affiliates!! I think this point is essential. Since I make very "hardcore" games, everytime I tried to sell my games on portals did very poor. On the opposite, I made some affiliate deals that granted me almost 50-60 extra sales a month, just picking people with similar game niches (sports, rpg, strategy games) and offering them my games.

Of course if you think to make 1 game and then live 1 year with its earnings, forget about it, unless you live in a country with $100/month of average salary :D

[GeneralGrant]

I think SteveZ’s result (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpost.php?p=139240&postcount=33) from Cactus Bruce says it all. He tried the indie route first and then the portal route and there were more money going the portal route so it makes perfect sense. People didn't give up; they just followed the money when the market changed. Even cliffski says that portals can be a good move, later in the same thread. :)

[princec]

In general, it takes much more money now to create a competitive game than it did three years ago

I think this is actually a myth. It doesn't cost us any more to make a game now than it did in 2002 when we started - even if you look at it time-wise, or money-wise, or both.

The real expense now is distribution. It now costs money, one way or the other, to get your titles distributed in large enough numbers to pay for the development. Advertising, affiliate royalties, portals creaming 70%, etc.

Cas :)

[Emmanuel]

I think this is actually a myth. It doesn't cost us any more to make a game now than it did in 2002 when we started - even if you look at it time-wise, or money-wise, or both.

To make casual games that are competitive on portals, generally, it does. The genres that sell now have much steeper art requirements than before. It used to be a game screen and a few map and UI screens, now, variational gameplay, meta-game screens, and a lot of hand-crafted content are important factors in selling, and those mean higher art requirements. The upcoming wave of point and click adventure games will play into that even further. Basically, for those genres, the production time vs. play time has exploded, and that's also why you see games that only have 2-3 hours of actual play (hopefully there won't be many more, or casual gamers will start looking twice before purchasing).

Again, this is a general trend for casual games, and since customers can sample the game, there is room for a lot of exceptions. I mentioned Alice and Build-A-Lot. Of course, for the kind of games that you, Cliff or Jack Norton make, the production expenses haven't changed. In terms of programming, it's probably even a bit easier now, with a lot of tools and libraries available.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Grey Alien]

I agree that production values (and thus costs) for a large proportion of games have risen over the last couple of years. That much is obvious just looking at my own games let alone all the developers I was talking to at Casuality 2008 who were all talking about their current game being the biggest spend yet.

[Jack Norton]

I think SteveZ’s result (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpost.php?p=139240&postcount=33) from Cactus Bruce says it all. He tried the indie route first and then the portal route and there were more money going the portal route so it makes perfect sense. People didn't give up; they just followed the money when the market changed. Even cliffski says that portals can be a good move, later in the same thread. :)

What worked for him or cliffski, doesn't mean will work for anyone else. As I said I tried several times portal route and results were, to say the least, terrible! so I figured out that unless I want to replace the blood-stained boxers faces of my sport simulations with smiling pink ponies jumping on flowers fields, I have to continue pushing my direct sales :D

Also, for 1-2 people that makes tons of money with portals, there are 99.999 others that makes almost $0 (and with standard casual games, not with games like mine), but this is rarely mentioned in these forums.

[zoombapup]

I dont think the indie spirit is dead at all.

Its just not hanging around these forums anymore.

I still hang around, although a huge amount of the discussion washes over me now. Mainly because of the thinking of other developers.

There are plenty of indie companies out there, many of them do work for hire to pay for development, many of them are prototyping like crazy and throwing away work at an alarming rate too :)

Dont think of it as though dexterity was an amazing thing that is never to be repeated, I dont think thats true. Its just the nature of things that as something becomes a focus, it attracts an ever changing audience. The audience changes and the nature of the discussion changes with it.

Fact is, I'm MORE independantly minded now than I was when I was reading the dex forums etc. Because I've polarised in my approach to development (before I was prototyping all the time looking for that "hit" idea), these days I do it for myself and I enjoy the process wether it succeeds or fails.

[simonh]

I don't think there's ever been a better time to be an indie game developer. With Xbox Community Games, and the IPhone SDK, you can now target your games at more people than ever. Only problem is, finding a way to deploy to all of these platforms at once - working on it...

[Jack Norton]

I don't think so, both Xbox and Iphone requires publisher (Microsoft / Apple) approval (as far as I know) so nothing to be excited about for now (unless things change).

[GeneralGrant]

I think you are more the exception than the rule, Jack Norton. Back in the Dexterity days a lot of people where, allegedly, interested in selling from their own website and few were going the portal route. Nowadays, a lot of games are pushed out onto portals but I don’t think it’s because people "gave up." I have a hard time believing that someone with enough entrepreneur spirit to set out and build their own game would then simply dump it onto portals because they can’t be bothered to try to sell it themselves. Either they had experiences similar to SteveZ or they believe that the audience is best reached through the portals and it’s a better use of their time to sell through them. That was my point in posting SteveZ’s result.

Also, for 1-2 people that makes tons of money with portals, there are 99.999 others that makes almost $0 (and with standard casual games, not with games like mine), but this is rarely mentioned in these forums.
Of course there are a lot of developers who don’t make that much money of portals. It’s the nature of the business. But what are the chances of these casual games making significant more money if sold primary through the developer’s website? If there isn’t an audience mismatch, chances are that they would have sold equally poorly but required a lot more of the developer’s time and money for marketing making portals the best choice still. If I were making a cookie cutter match-3 game I would certainly go through portals.

[simonh]

I don't think so, both Xbox and Iphone requires publisher (Microsoft / Apple) approval (as far as I know) so nothing to be excited about for now (unless things change).
You're wrong. Get excited :D

[lakibuk]

I dont think the indie spirit is dead at all.

Its just not hanging around these forums anymore.
I think that's right.
-> http://www.2dboy.com/
-> http://www.caravelgames.com/
-> http://www.bit-blot.com/
....

The old indie spirit - make a game, receive $10.000 checks every month - this turned out to be an illusion.

[Jack Norton]

You're wrong. Get excited :D

Ah :p well if they'll allow "free market" then it's really a cool thing and I'll be interested in porting my games on those platforms too :)

[jcottier]

Also, for 1-2 people that makes tons of money with portals, there are 99.999 others that makes almost $0 (and with standard casual games, not with games like mine), but this is rarely mentioned in these forums.

May be it is not mention because it is not true.

JC

[Jack Norton]

So you say everyone that has ANY game on ANY portal makes at least $500-600 a month? (less than that, wouldn't be worth the effort to spend even only 6 months on a game IMHO)

[jcottier]

So you say everyone that has ANY game on ANY portal makes at least $500-600 a month? (less than that, wouldn't be worth the effort to spend even only 6 months on a game IMHO)

You said 99% of people doing casual game for portal are making close from zero.
I said, that's not true.

JC

[Jack Norton]

Well probably not 99% but more like 70-80%... still the problem is that now is a hit or miss market (and I am not the one saying that, but respectable casual game devs like Emmanuel and others), so you can effectively work for months to get very low amount (ok not 0$ but a ridiculous sum).

Anyway this discussion is a bit OT I think, so I'll stop here ;)

[papillon]

I expect it depends on the game, but even games that never touch the top ten can get a decent (by my standards) amount of money back from the big portals.

I feel like I have a foot firmly in both worlds - I like casual games, I play them, I'm willing to learn various things from them and adapt my designs to use those concepts. At the same time, I am clearly a weird indie one-girl-gang, designing strange games that don't match the usual portal trends, with generally lower production values, and sometimes having to argue a bit to get my games out there. I sell both on my own website and off. I am not good at marketing and happy to let someone else do that for me, but I don't want to be bought and have someone tell me what games to make.

... On the other hand, if a Canada (preferably Vancouver) based company wants to hire me, handle my immigration paperwork, and pay me vast sums to keep doing exactly what I'm already doing... that would be different. :)

[KNau]

It seems to me that Indiegamer quickly became a gold rush "boomtown" with the focus on shooting for a rapid, short term jackpot. The community shifts constantly to whatever the new "hot" platform is that has developers allegedly making quick money in the hopes of quitting their day jobs to live like kings.

Unfortunately, the tried and true business model can't promise you "fast money beyond your wildest dreams". You have to work for it. And like the kiddies that pop in for advice on making their MMO dreams happen on no budget and with no skills, they don't want to hear that their dream requires hard work and talent. Somehow the indie mindset became par with buying scratch lotto tickets.

Note how one of the least used and least interesting areas of indiegamer is the Game Design category. It's basically atrophied and fallen off because there are no designers any more. Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.

[papillon]

I think it's more that people have mixed feelings about sharing their designs with people who aren't part of their specific team.

People are always nervous that their cool design idea will be ripped off, whether this is a valid fear or not.

People tend to think that they are brilliant and their design is perfect and doesn't need any contribution - at least until they get into actually having built the thing and finding the flaws in it.

People tend to get more feedback on their designs when they've implemented a prototype to explain more clearly what they meant. And prototypes are often shared in less public circumstances (see 'fear of being ripped off').

Designing for a portal doesn't make you not a designer, it may make you a more picky designer, paying attention to more details. But it may also bring in less feeling of caring and sharing. :)

[ChiefRedThunder]

Note how one of the least used and least interesting areas of indiegamer is the Game Design category. It's basically atrophied and fallen off because there are no designers any more. Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.

I rather show my creation then take the notes from the feed back. Also going out and saying here is my dope idea isn't something I like to do. I have a team behind me that I talk to about my dope ideas... then we build on it... less chance of the hotness being stolen too since they sign NDAs!

[Sybixsus]

Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.
I've pondered this a few times before. I'd always assumed the same thing as you, but it's good to know I'm not the only seeing it in quite such stark terms.

[RinkuHero]

I think there can be a balance between making the games you want to play and making the games that there's a market for, but I think there has to be more of the first than the second if you want to feel enjoyment in what you're doing.

The game I'm making right now probably will not have a very significant market. It's a lot like Seiklus or Knytt (if any of you have played those), but a bigger world, a more detailed story, and more complex gameplay. But it's utterly nonviolent, which cuts out most of the hardcore market. It's also fairly complex and "challenging" and is a single player adventure that will require 20 hours or so to complete, so that cuts off a lot of the casual market. But it's a game I really want to make -- because I wonder if I could make a Zelda-style game with a huge world without killing monsters.

But at the same time I'm making sure it'd at least be somewhat palatable to people by having fairly high production values (I've a team of 6 right now, whereas my last game only had 4). So I think that people who enjoyed games like Aquaria and who don't mind the idea of a game that doesn't involve combat might like it. So it's not financial suicide, hopefully.

[jcottier]

Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.

I find this rather insulting. What make you think that you are better than us? How on earth do you know if we enjoy or not what we are doing?

I have work for ten years in the AAA retail industry. I had a lot of great fun and work on amazing games that sold millions (on the PC).

Now I am working on portals friendly casual games and I honestly don't see the difference. I am creating games, I am still having a blast, end of the story.

JC

[RinkuHero]

I didn't read that as one way being better than the other. Is it really more noble to value the pleasure of making games you enjoy over the pleasure of the things that you can buy with money? They're just different forms of pleasure.

The only difference I can see is that one is more of a "enjoy the means" and the other is "enjoy the ends".

But I think it's pretty inarguable that those who make games that they would not play for fun themselves and instead make games in the genres and styles that sell the best are focused more on money-pleasure than on creation-pleasure.

In your case I would find it very strange if you really did enjoy playing games about little girls' fashions.

[TimS]

I think it's worth remembering a few extra bits:

1) - some people enjoy playing casual games (even 'girly', 'soccer mom', or 'gem-enthusiast oriented' ones), and some of THOSE people are developers of casual games... so a dev could be really passionate about the game they are working on Super Dress Up Slumber Party Ponies Deluxe, just like any dev could be excited about any other game.

2) - some people enjoy designing and developing games that they wouldn't play. Some enjoy the challenge of designing for people that aren't themselves (exercise in psychology and design). Others enjoy the challenge of development and are into programming -- the style or genre of game barely alters their enjoyment of the work one way or another (the codeheads).

3) - Any of the above people can be full of 'indie spirit' and should be classified as an 'indie game developer' (pending independence). Just because you are passionate about making your own games for a living doesn't mean you have to be passionate about design, passionate about code architecture, or passionate about playing your own games when you finish developing them.

Just a few thoughts to perhaps help calm any old arguments that might spring up.

-T

[papillon]

Super Dress Up Slumber Party Ponies Deluxe


*bounces up and down*

This is my Baby Moondancer! I am dressing her up so she can visit with your Baby Glory and spend the night!

(Oh yeah, you forgot 'baby' in the title. And I'll be somewhat surprised if anyone else understood what I just said without looking it up.)

[RinkuHero]

It's true that people can enjoy making games they don't enjoy playing, but I'm suspicious of how good they'd be at making games that don't appeal to their tastes. Making a game fun is hard enough when you yourself find that type of game fun, I can't imagine how challenging it'd be to make a game fun for others if you don't find it fun yourself.

[Grey Alien]

Now I am working on portals friendly casual games and I honestly don't see the difference. I am creating games, I am still having a blast, end of the story.Same here. I enjoy playing many casual games and hardcore games. (For example I just blasted through the one hour demo of Magic Farm and thought it was great, and last night I was playing Devil May Cry 3). I love programming games - I have a really good time solving all the little design issues that crop up, I love polishing stuff, and I love seeing it all come together. It doesn't matter to me that I'm making a casual game at all.

The only difference I can see is that one is more of a "enjoy the means" and the other is "enjoy the ends"For me I enjoy BOTH. That's the key thing. I have fun doing my job and I like making and spending money. That's the best of both worlds, why not have both? Who says you have to settle for just one?

I think TimS has done a good analysis of different programmer types, but the reality is everyone is different and we all have different motivations - it's not black and white e.g. you program casual games that you would never play yourself just for the money OR you program cool action games that you love because you don't care about the money. Also whether you use portals or not to market your game entirely depends on your chosen strategy which should be based on your game type and your long term goals (oh and if you like or hate self-publishing).

[Andy]

It's basically atrophied and fallen off because there are no designers any more. Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.

Fun reading as always Kyle. :)
I just disagree with the point above. We suppose ourselves by dumn well game desingers here. And we design and publish a lot of pretty fun games.

And... we are indie and free btw... :p

[Jesse Hopkins]

I still see people making games that they like, but usually they don't get noticed very much. It can be hard to put a lot of money into a game that is mainly made for personal gratification. I wish there were more risk takers. People who would put money behind their dream project. That's easy for me to say, though, but the same applies to music. I bought most of my music gear to make music that was non commercial, and then decided to get into commercial composing because I love composing. So I sank bucks into my personal dreams without a plan to make money from it. May not be very responsible, but its better than going half way.

[TimS]

I'm suspicious of how good they'd be at making games that don't appeal to their tastes.

Don't get me wrong... I'm suspicious of how good they'd be at it too. Hell I've done it, and I know darn well that I'm not very good at designing games outside the genres I would typically play.

I wish there were more risk takers. People who would put money behind their dream project.

Wish I could win some kind of mega lottery to give you a good example of what a 25 million dollar indie game would look like... :( Sadly I don't have any dream projects that are truly within my budget, so I'm stuck in the land of making games that are just 'fun enough'.

I'm working on it though.

but the reality is everyone is different and we all have different motivations

Amen. I didn't mean to make it seem like you had to only be one of some random categories. Fact is we're all extremely complex people with varied economic situations, skillsets, helpful friends, motivations, industry connections, ambitions, preferred genres, preferred platforms, experience, and sizes of interstellar warship.

** end of note specifically toward Grey Alien **

It's historically part of the 'indie spirit' to dislike those things that are connected to 'the man'... The Government, publishers, whoever. We're all (historically) quick to poke a finger in the eye of anyone who 'sells out' and loses any shred of independence in favor of hard cash -- and that's ok too in my opinion. Then again, I also think it's ok for those who are just so anti-establishment to up and sell when the handful-of-zeroes figure slides across the desktop, so I may not be the best judge.

One thing I do like to point out is that all of us... the freeware indie dev all the way up to the monolithic EA -- we make games. We should try our best to keep that in perspective and not take ourselves or our careers so seriously that we forget it's all for playing.

Enough ranting outta me.

-T

[Jack Norton]

There are lot of devs that make good games that would never play. Most of them are (please notice I didn't say ALL, but MOST), in all effects, subcontractors, and they just follow advice/orders from publisher itself.
They have a prototype, send to publisher that gets interested and funds them - BUT then they have full decisional powers on what/which things to change in the game. (I think is normal since they pay for the development).

I've talked with soo many devs privately and they were all complaining with phrases like "they're nuts to remove feature XYZ?" or "I told them lot of times that was better to keep XYZ, but no, they said that wasn't ok with their audience!". They were all about quite pissed about it...

BTW some of those changes could figure well in a book of jokes about gamedesign :D

If this is what it takes to be a successful indie dev, then I prefer to continue starving making games I like without anyone telling me what to modify/remove... :rolleyes:

[lakibuk]

I still see people making games that they like, but usually they don't get noticed very much.
Sure? Counter-examples:
Aquaria created a lot of buzz and got featured on popular gaming sites like Gamespot.
Same thing happening to the upcoming World of Goo. It got featured on Penny Arcade and it's not even out.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/02/29/#22403

[Escapee]

My "Indie spirit" has downsized considerably to simple flash games like the following


Princess of Atlantis (http://www.degirlgames.com/poa.swf)


Japanese Anime girl (http://www.degirlgames.com/jag.swf)

( Note : Not sure if i will ever recover the cost ( Art & softwares ) of making the above Indie flash games :D :D )

[Sillysoft]

I classify myself as a "classic indie" and am still going strong. I've been hanging out in these forums here way less then I used to though. It just became less useful to me as the same issues came up all the time, and yea as more devs started focusing on the portals.

I think there are many more real indies out there then you know about. It's just hard to spot them. If it's your vision, then go for it by all means (just remember to support Macs ;) ).

[zoombapup]

*bounces up and down*

This is my Baby Moondancer! I am dressing her up so she can visit with your Baby Glory and spend the night!

(Oh yeah, you forgot 'baby' in the title. And I'll be somewhat surprised if anyone else understood what I just said without looking it up.)

It scares me a lot, but I actually understood what you were talking about. I think its seeing too many ads or something.

[defanual]

Anyone who tells you they're developing an (insert popular portal / platform genre) game out of "passion for gaming" is lying either to you or to themselves. Probably both.I've pondered this a few times before. I've always assumed the same thing as you, but it's good to know I'm not the only seeing it in quite such stark terms.

I've also had the same impression (no, not everybody, nothing is everybody), especially with the volume of same genre games pumped out with different skins and/or storyline. My dealings with portal folk in the past helped this impression (and temptation) at the time too. A lot of us are possibly compromising years of knowledge of what most of us came from which is arcade/core games from varied systems such atari, nes, gboy, mega drive, ps1/2, xbox etc).

I was pretty much told at one point by portal green-lighters that if I wanted to get a game listed with them I would be wise to make a "hidden-object game because their great right now" or "I really like your game, but I think it would be too complicated for our audience, right now time management and hidden object games are our top sellers **hint, hint**."

Then you seen those charts and various numbers and then you think about bills that need paying and before you know it, your making somewhat alien/passive (not all casual games of course) casual games that aren't really playing to your main strengths, it's like re-learning a new type of gaming without really taking advantage of the 10-20+ years of arcade/core gaming you've be un-subconsciously learning for most your life. **I know, this isn't the case for everyone, but I do believe it's a high percentage, regardless of whether they're selling well or not:)

[Spore Man]

I found the original Sakura post rather trollish. In any business, it's adapt or die.

There was a time when even if promoting via ones own website, everyone was scrambling to be featured on HappyPuppy, or similar shareware-centric high traffic site. Now those sites have died off and been replaced by "Portals". So what?

[cliffski]

I was pretty much told at one point by portal green-lighters that if I wanted to get a game listed with them I would be wise to make a "hidden-object game because their great right now" or "I really like your game, but I think it would be too complicated for our audience, right now time management and hidden object games are our top sellers **hint, hint**."


Thats a bit depressing. it would be good to think there was one or two portals happy to take a chance on something new. Surely their customers get bored after a while with exactly the same game mechanic?
If a game doesn't sell, they can always take it off the front page a day or two later surely?

[Sakura Games]

I found the original Sakura post rather trollish. In any business, it's adapt or die.

There was a time when even if promoting via ones own website, everyone was scrambling to be featured on HappyPuppy, or similar shareware-centric high traffic site. Now those sites have died off and been replaced by "Portals". So what?

Just look at some of the replies in this thread, they say it all.
Before an indie was FREE to decide which game to make. He could hit or miss, but was his fault and not because "someone" decided what is right, and what is not.

Before you wanted to get on that particular popular shareware site, but was just to get exposure, now if you want exposure you must follow the rules, otherwise ... you get nothing.

I can't possibly see how some people says nothing has changed. It has changed, and for worse, at least from the open-minded passionate developer. Big studios are moving to Russia/China to outsource, with clear intention of mass-producing all identic/similar games.
Wow, how creative - the shareware scene has become like the AAA industry, with nothing left to imagination... :(

[papillon]

Before an indie was FREE to decide which game to make. He could hit or miss, but was his fault and not because "someone" decided what is right, and what is not.

Before you wanted to get on that particular popular shareware site, but was just to get exposure, now if you want exposure you must follow the rules, otherwise ... you get nothing.


Before, you were trying to get on download.com. And you still can!

Before, plenty of games sank without a trace. They still do!

Before, indies were free to decide which game to make. They still are!

Before, there were some 'indies' who really just wanted to be hired by a bigger company. There still are.

Of course things have changed, but not nearly so hugely as you claim. Some people are more interested in chasing money than making their dream game, and there have always been such people - although there didn't used to be so MANY of them in the downloadable market, but that's understandable, the market has gotten bigger. Many people want to do a little of both, and this has always been so.

[lennard]

Yeah, I'm a little concerned in the short term about the economy but long term things are still pretty great - especially if you aren't waiting/hoping for the portals to do everything for you and you are willing to walk away from bad deals.

Make something truly compelling and unique and you can sell it to the whole world from the comfort of your own home/garage/studio. A lot better than our options were 10 years ago when trying to reach the mass market meant you had to get a publishing deal.

[defanual]

If a game doesn't sell, they can always take it off the front page a day or two later surely?My thoughts exactly, on the other hand if they have loads of guys and gals making similar games (that are current top sellers) with the now considered essential ingredients (high production and story), then why should they bother? They have no reason or motivation to take the risk or lose the digital shelf space so to speak.

They're kinda like the indie/digital equivalent of AAA publishers, like them, their risk averse, have few non-sequels (in name or nature) and even fewer new genres/ip's

It's a democracy, just not as we know (or knew) it :(

PS: I'm not trying to say you can't make money without portals or blaming them for any downturn indies may have experienced, nor am I saying you shouldn't use them. I'm just giving my impression on the portals. In my opinion they're the digital equivalent of AAA publishers, with pretty much the same weaknesses and strengths (Love em' or Hate em').

[Grey Alien]

not because "someone" decided what is right, and what is notActually that "someone" is the paying customer and the portals just tell you what the charts reflect. The paying customer spends money on certain types of games with a certain look and feel and so if you make those games you stay in business. It's pretty simple really: supply+demand. The trick is to enjoy programming the game and put your own creativity/vibe into it so it stands out. If you make games aimed at teenagers or retro-geeks (my type) then that market is a lot smaller because they either pirate games or spend money on mainstream AAA and console games, and you are competing with a lot of excellent free games.

[Sybixsus]

Actually that "someone" is the paying customer and the portals just tell you what the charts reflect.
And if what Defanual says is true ( and I know first hand that it is because I've had the same conversations that he's had ) then the portals are often telling you something they cannot possibly know. Their charts can only reflect games they sell. If you, or I, or Defanual, or whoever, are offering them a game they've never sold, they don't know if it sells or not.

Cases in point, Papillon and Amaranth. They had some major portal success with games which just weren't being sold on portals. Now I'd bet dollars to donuts that the same portals were offered similar games before ( and I wouldn't be surprised if some other portals rejected those self same games by those self same people ) and rejected them because their customers wouldn't buy. They didn't know this to be true, they just didn't want to take a risk. I don't blame them. In their place, neither would I. But that doesn't mean that their customers told them anything.

Now I don't personally buy into the theory that there's anything wrong or surprising about a business taking as few risks as possible. The simple truth is the portals are making money hand over fist, they're pretty sure that the bubble will burst for some of them before long, and they intend to milk it as much as possible before that happens. Again, good for them, and so would I.

But I don't see any way in which the customer is driving this business. The portals are completely in charge of the casual game industry, and indeed that should be their aim. Any time the customer is setting the agenda for an industry, the businesses are at a disadvantage, and does anyone really think the big portals are in trouble right now? I'm sure plenty of people might be forecasting the day the bubble bursts, but aside from some consolidation ( read: buyouts) it's not happening yet, is it?

[Grey Alien]

Well I think different portals have different markets anyway e.g. Big Fish and Reflexive. A game that does well on one may not do as well on another. I watch BFG every day and some games I see I just think "that won't even get a hot icon" and I'm right. It's pretty obvious which sort of games their customers buy. On Reflexive it's a different matter as some of the action titles do well. But often anything with a "new" idea on either portal bombs either because it's TOO different from existing games and customers don't know what to think of it, or it's simply different but not good.

Any time the customer is setting the agenda for an industry, the businesses are at a disadvantageThe most successful business sell the customers what they want, they don't say OK I've got X and I'm going to make customers buy it - that's a sure-fire formula for a failure. You have to listen to the customers and deliver what they want but on your terms. I did this for 9 years with business software and it worked very well. Early on any time we guessed what a business might want in the software we were either wrong or got its level of importance wrong. When we asked the customers we found out stuff we would have never thought of that was very important to them. BFG has these big beta/focus groups that they test different ideas out on to see what people like and hate the most via a questionnaire. So I maintain that the portals ARE delivering what the customer wants. Well, they are delivering what their type of customer wants because they have a specific slice of all possible gamers. The are also always trying to expand their customer base of a) more of the same type of customers and b) new "different" types of customers and they have various strategies in place for that. At casuality 2008, there was a lot of talk about micro-transactions (attracts teenagers who don't spend big and other types) and about core-casual crossover (which I probably fit into). We'll no doubt see more of this in the future and maybe some different sorts of games on the portals.

I also agree that the portals are not in trouble right now, they are expanding and making BIG money. Also they are constantly keeping an eye on the market for change which is pretty sensible in the fast moving world of the Internet. This is what Indies should be doing too instead of harping back to the good old days...

[zoombapup]

The most successful business sell the customers what they want, they don't say OK I've got X and I'm going to make customers buy it - that's a sure-fire formula for a failure. You have to listen to the customers and deliver what they want but on your terms. I did this for 9 years with business software and it worked very well. Early on any time we guessed what a business might want in the software we were either wrong or got its level of importance wrong. When we asked the customers we found out stuff we would have never thought of that was very important to them. BFG has these big beta/focus groups that they test different ideas out on to see what people like and hate the most via a questionnaire. So I maintain that the portals ARE delivering what the customer wants. Well, they are delivering what their type of customer wants because they have a specific slice of all possible gamers. The are also always trying to expand their customer base of a) more of the same type of customers and b) new "different" types of customers and they have various strategies in place for that. At casuality 2008, there was a lot of talk about micro-transactions (attracts teenagers who don't spend big and other types) and about core-casual crossover (which I probably fit into). We'll no doubt see more of this in the future and maybe some different sorts of games on the portals.

I've raised this point before, but it deserves saying again, the problem with "giving customers what they want" is that they never learn anything new. Eventually you reach a state where everything is homogenized and atrophied and then your customers leave to go to the NEW thing. Because by our nature we want to be interested in something, if you iterate just one thing for long enough eventually you get a landslide away. Think of politics for example, sooner or later even a competent party eventually loses interest for voters and gets kicked out.

The portals are playing a very tricky game if they reduce thier portfolio to a very narrow choice of games. Even if it sells well in the short term, long term they might well be harming themselves. The real test is wether they can attract the type of visitor who is then tired of thier offerings back again when the landslide begins to happen. I suspect what many portals will see is a falling off of customer numbers, they'll probably decide that its the business model that is wrong and want to introduce new business models (ad revenues, microtransactions) rather than get to the core issue (products not very interesting, too much of one thing etc).

But fundamentally, we are still in an open marketplace, so it just boils down to your ability to reach your own audience. I think that is a majorly interesting problem.

[Andy]

Actually that "someone" is the paying customer and the portals just tell you what the charts reflect.

Yeah. Actually portal managers would say amount of weird and strange things to you. But I love this their mistake above more than any other.

Everyone knows how such charts are built? They look how are doing their current games ( the games they were pushing based upon their previous charts ) and say you that nothing else sells except of their current top ten. :D This is where BigFish would be always saying to you that only that their hidden object games would sell - look at their newsletter in the latest year. Does anyone here believe that all peoples around the globe want to play only hidden object games? ;)

PS Sorry guys and ladies. I really should keep silence on this. But some times this just becomes annoying to hear the same BS again and again.

[jcottier]

If you are looking closely at their top ten, you will notice than HO games (bad or good) will enter almost immediately their top 10. So, this might not be complete BS. They had a massive amount of HO fans like it or not. They have build a massive franchise with their MCF series, and this is reflected with their audience. Now, you can't blame them on wanting to keep their main fan happy. No-one is forcing anyone to create Match3/HO/TimeManagement games. If you don't want to create a casual game, just don't. But stop making false claims like the portals are responsible for all your problems, that's pathetic. Do you really believe that the people who use to buy indie games (did they ever really sell?) have been turned into HO lovers? Of course not, they are probably playing WOW or XBOXLIVE arcades games. So, the portals have been building their own audience, if you don't want to use it, that is your right, but don't blame the portals for that, it absolutely doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, if you are all so much clever than the portals manager, how do you explain that you haven't created an audience of millions of people yet? If these so called "stupid idiots portals manager than know nothing" can do it, how do you explain that you haven't done it yet?

JC

[Jack Norton]

I
Anyway, if you are all so much clever than the portals manager, how do you explain that you haven't created an audience of millions of people yet? If these so called "stupid idiots portals manager than know nothing" can do it, how do you explain that you haven't done it yet?


Lool "millions"... people, come on... you really believe they have MILLIONS of different customers ??? :eek: by own portals admission they have most recurring customers that buy 11 games a year on average (almost 1 a month).
1 million of sales / 11 = about 90k customers/subscribers, surely good, but quite far from the word "million"...

[RinkuHero]

One's audience doesn't only include who one sells to, though -- I think you can also count 'anyone who downloads and plays your demo' as your audience or potential audience, not just everyone who buys the game. This is particularly true of freeware games. One of my freeware games had 130,000 downloads so that's about 1/10th of the way to a million.

[Andy]

If you are looking closely at their top ten, you will notice than HO games (bad or good) will enter almost immediately their top 10. So, this might not be complete BS. They had a massive amount of HO fans like it or not. They have build a massive franchise with their MCF series, and this is reflected with their audience. JC

I'm 100% agree with you JC.
But you should check the post I was answering.

That post was claiming that their charts show something objective. Actually they do show nothing except of the fact that Big Fish ( for example ) focuses on hidden object games. Correct?..

This doesn't mean that another genres don't sell as Big Fish representatives are trying to say to you every time any such topic appears here.

The last one and I shut up forever: Guys and ladies! Please keep in mind pretty simple point. If you are a developer you have opposite interests with portlas in one very important part: you should find the ways to make your games faster and spend as less as possible on them, and they want you to spend all your blood on them.

[barrygamer]

like JC said, I'm thinking that HO games are such a big genre that people will grab any new HO game just to play it for 60 mins. A bit like getting a new chapter of the *same* game... Then, they all hit the BGF Top 10 Download chart, and continue to get promotion. It really is a runaway train genre effect. I would've never predicted it in a million years, but it kind of makes sense now. The combination of artistic graphics, simple point-and-click gameplay, some story / emotional connection. I can't quite get my head around why traditional puzzle games got left behind, they would seem to appeal more to the 'I'll have a quick game of that' casual game style.

I too am a bit worried from reading this thread :( !

[Grey Alien]

Hidden Object genre is mutating now into adventure games with hidden object mini-games (and room escape puzzles) and mini-games.

Regarding millions, yeah some of my games have had over 1,000,000 downloads according to the royalty reports. Sure, not 1 million sales but I know that some big games HAVE had that many sales (and more) so the portals DO have a huge paying customer base and an even bigger potential customer base when you count all the downloaders. So think BIG people!

Anyway, I gotta bow out of this thread now as I've got a game to make! (and it's not hidden object)

[Escapee]

A little site like mine has around 170 ~ 220K downloads per month, the big guys like BFG, Pogo or Arcadetown can easily exceed that by more than 500 times . That total up to at least 100 million downloads per month and errr 1200 million (1.2 bil ) downloads per year. A 0.5 % conversion will give err... at least 6 million sales per year. Divide that by 10 = errrr.. at least 600 K unique customers per year . ..

The above is just my wild but conservative estimate, do not take it too serious..

[RinkuHero]

A little site like mine has around 170 ~ 220K downloads per month, the big guys like BFG, Pogo or Arcadetown can easily exceed that by more than 500 times . That total up to at least 100 million downloads per month and errr 1200 million (1.2 bil ) downloads per year. A 0.5 % conversion will give err... at least 6 million sales per year. Divide that by 10 = errrr.. at least 600 K unique customers per year . ..

The above is just my wild but conservative estimate, do not take it too serious..

Judging by Alexa rankings of your site vs big fish games, they have 50x your traffic, not 500x.

[Escapee]

Yeah , you're right .. add another 50 times with their successful viral affiliate marketing. That will bring in 120 K unique customers ( 1.2 million sales ). This is pretty close to Jack's estimation. :cool:

[lakibuk]

200.000 downloads? That's quite a lot. Even with a conversion rate of 0.1% that would be 200 sales.

[RinkuHero]

Check his site -- it's an affiliate site with tons of games, it's not a site with one game on it. The 200,000 is probably all of them combined.

Individual games rarely get 200,000 downloads a month. My game has been out for about 8 months and has only had about 60,000 downloads.

[lakibuk]

Yeah,i know. CRs for affiliate sales are a lot lower than for individual game pages but think about this: 200.000 downloads, assume a CR of 0.2%.
= 400 sales. Get 25% affiliate commission, so that's like 100 real sales.
Try selling 100 copies / month of your own game.

[lakibuk]

Ok. Re-reading my post i find it pretty speculative. Don't even know if 0.2% is a high or low CR for an affiliate site.

[RinkuHero]

Yeah, but selling games as an affiliate or a portal is still a pretty different business model than making and selling games. On the one hand it's less risky, because a bad game won't destroy you, but on the other hand it's pretty hard to build up traffic for sites like that and probably takes a lot of marketing time. I could affiliate every game I see and put them all on a site too, but I doubt I could build up to 200,000 downloads a month unless I worked hard at it for years.

[Escapee]

Yea it's different model, I also think that ( based on my small numbers on individual games ) the upside of earning for hit game is so so much higher ( almost "astronomical" as described by someone here ) than a typical affiliate site like mine should the game remains on the front page of all major portals ( Yahoo, MSN, BFG, reflexive and etc ) for some time. You wonder why so many developers/companies are making "just another" highly polished HOG/Restaurant/casual arcade games for the portals now.

[Spore Man]

I just had an interesting thought after reading some of the debate regarding portals "shaping" what succeeds. Let me recap:

* Someone said the portals would know best what sells, since it's dictated by the customer.

* Someone else said, they couldn't actually know without offering a variety first and seeing how they perform.

It's a little bit of a cyclic situation, but I got to thinking... what if some genres don't do well simply because someone hasn't hit on that right "magic"? That certain balance in gameplay, polish, sounds, etc?

Take for example Peggle. Who'd have thought that bouncing a ball around in some weird zuma+pachinko+breakout hybrid could be so fun (for a casual game) ??? But this concept could have turned out so differently if handled by a different company, and possibly not do well at all.

Maybe there's hope yet for space shooters. ;-)

[Sammgus]

Take for example Peggle. Who'd have thought that bouncing a ball around in some weird zuma+pachinko+breakout hybrid could be so fun (for a casual game) ???
Pinball was quite popular.

[cliffski]

Every time I think that people are finally going to be sick of the same gameplay mechanic, style, art and design that is in the last 10 hit games, people come along and make another 'dash' game and it sells just as well. I just don't understand it.
I'm sure it *will* end. And whoever has a new game polished and ready to sell in that month will do really well. I don't see many match 3 games doing so well right now.

[Jack Norton]

I think will end when there's market saturation. Talking with numbers, when for each new single potential player that is born, he has so many clones of gameplay X (example match3) that he can just have fun playing all the demos for 1 months until eventually he gets bored of the genre.

Last week my mother came visit me and I showed her a random match3 game, and she was enthusiast - so for people that are completely unaware of the match3 mechanic, still it looks good and they COULD buy, until they realize that there are so many now (even freeware flash ones) that there's really no reason to pay money for it :)

[Grey Alien]

Don't even know if 0.2% is a high or low CR for an affiliate site.It's the very low end of my average for affiliate sales which has a reasonably varied range. Luckily all my own games convert way higher. 200,000 downloads on an affiliate site must be GREAT! I've just hit 250,00 on mine over a 2 year lifetime haha. But I don't market it, it just sits there making a bit of passive income which is OK.

Saw an interesting talk on Peggle at Casuality and it didn't do great (it is a great game though) until they released it on Steam with some marketing (made a demo with changed graphics and shipped it with The Orange Box) and then sales went through the roof. Seemed it was appreciated by the core gamers once the theme was changed to hook them in, but then they all bought the cutesy original.

[Escapee]

Yeah I agree that it's matter of time a particular genre implodes due to over-saturation of the same thing, match 3 game is such great example. I guess HOD will suffer the same fate if it doesn't evolve into something more complex or unique or interesting to the existing customers. I 'm already seeing very low CR for many of the HOGs on my site. So enjoy it while it lasts and plan for "HOG exit strategy"

The model/games of Cliffski is a shining example that you "don't need to follow the crowd to make a good income. " ( well, the big big big winners don't usually follow the crowd :D )

[Jack Norton]

I am sure that HOG will soon evolve into the more traditional adventure games, I bet there's a big unserved market of potential adventure games players :)

[ChrisP]

And I for one will welcome the revival of the adventure game. :)

[defanual]

And I for one will welcome the revival of the adventure game. :)Me too, love those games :)

[Grey Alien]

Yeah me to. Adventure games with a top casual polish and easy learning curve and nice auto-saving should be very good fun.

[PoV]

I dont think the indie spirit is dead at all.

Its just not hanging around these forums anymore.
I'm so indie, I stopped talking to people. :D