Totally unsatisfied niche...

[cliffski]

Serious(ish) Tycoon games.
Yeah, I know "theres tons of tycoon games already", But they suffer in 2 areas that I can see:
1) They are very very poor
2) They treat the players like idiots.
People are trying to make 'popcap' style Tycoon games, whereas most of the gamers who originally played games like SimCity etc, are crying out for something a little bit more involved.
There is so much scope for doing a 'serious' management game, and nobody is doing them. You look at the amount of psychology, money-management, marketing, book-balancing and so on thats involved even in running a little 1 man game dev company, and there is a lot of scope for gameplay there.
If most companies did 'sim game dev' it would have a single large colorful screen with animated cartoon game devs, and a single slider bar that read "Features / Polish" on it.
I'm suggesting someone take an existing 'cartoony' sim game (like lemonade tycoon / coffee tycoon) and do it *seriously*.
I'm still tweaking www.democracygame.com (http://www.democracygame.com) , otherwise I'd be doing it right now.

[Jack Norton]

There is so much scope for doing a 'serious' management game, and nobody is doing them.
Well, UBM (http://www.universalboxingmanager.com) can be considered a sport game, but does have quite some management in it... :cool:
I'd like to do more simulation games in future, but not enough time now...

[electronicStar]

Well it's not the easiest type of game to code, that explains why there are not many of them to start with:o

[papillon]

If we understood how to write a serious simulation of a successful business, we'd be running a successful business? :)

[Spaceman Spiff]

Cliffski,

I think what you are seeing is a class of games that is falling through the cracks right now, leaving a void with the fans of those games. Look at these groups of developers:

Console Game development shops: These graphics and mechanics of these games (simX/tycoons) don't port well to consoles, seen as too nitchy and incompatible for what that market wants.

Most Established PC (& Mac) development shops: Don't see these games as having the potential for mega-sales to attract interest the bigger / AAA developers. The publishers have the same concerns, so the smaller dev houses have a hard time pitching these projects to them.

Casual / Indie developers: The complexity of developing such a game and play-balancing it can be relatively high compared to other casual games. Not many indies want to attempt such (for various reasons).

I see these games (and some others) as a victims of rising production costs and standards. As costs and dev times have gone up, fewer attempts at games like these are being made by established devs (and those they are doing are done with more of an eye towards having a big hit).

That means the baton to make these games is being passed to the little guys (like it has been in hard-core turn-based wargames). Although I so think some of the east European and other bigger devs in ultra-low cost areas may also attempt to fill this void.


Well, it's all a theory anyway, and everything works in theory....

[PoV]

Hehe, the idea of "Sim Game Studio" amuses me to no end. Talk about a massive research project, at least given to the kind of stuff we've been looking in to: cost of living, govenment tax breaks/grants/credits, outsourcing, local and remote contractors, hiring students, etc... Wow. To do this right, oh my.

[Applewood]

I'm with Cliffski.

These games are actually pretty damned easy to write, they just take some time as there's actually quite a lot of writing. You'll need a decent amount of art too.

However, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? I honestly can't understand why people piss their time away writing yet another breakout and aiming to sell one a month or maybe 3 a month if it's really good.

If doing that is your hobby, then that's great - I'm not trying to piss on your fireworks and you get my support.

However, If you're trying to do proper independent development, do some proper independent development. Get some artists and write a proper game. I really don't understand this "we've not got the time" argument. How much do you need ? If you're independent theres at least 50 hours a week there.

Some friends of mine made 60,000 sales of "that" JFK game. Stop worrying about page-ranks for tiny "I don't really mean it" games and make some big ones that people will talk about and spread the word. It works.

[PoV]

Some friends of mine made 60,000 sales of "that" JFK game. Stop worrying about page-ranks for tiny "I don't really mean it" games and make some big ones that people will talk about and spread the word. It works.
Nice, I always wondered what happened with that. I also imagine Kumawar had similar success for it's radical'ness (I'm pretty sure they charged money for it back then).

[Jim Buck]

Another sample of the idea that "there's no such thing as bad publicity". :)

[HairyTroll]

Another possible underserved niche: Is anyone making Lemmings-type games nowdays?

-Luke

[PoV]

Didn't Psygnosis do enough of them? 'cmon. :(

[z3lda]

"Sim Game Studio"

I acutally have short design treatment for a sim game dealing with game industry. Not sure if I will ever put any time into it but it's an excellent idea :) .

Imagine starting a studio as an independent, work up to retail PC/Mac, then up to single A, AA, AAA PC, and make the big jump onto console.

[ManuelFLara]

I've also thought about the Sim Game Studio but couldn't come with an interesting method of "making games" that was "easy" to implement, fun and let's say there was some kind of "creativity" in doing it (not just moving sliders around).

Any ideas?

[Jim Buck]

Maybe model it after "The Movie" - they have the same issues.

[arcadetown]

Just get a back scratcher. Oh my bad, you said niche not itch. Ok so it's Sat night and Brian bad joke meter = 1000.

[svero]

2) They treat the players like idiots.[/B]
People are trying to make 'popcap' style Tycoon games, whereas most of the gamers who originally played games like SimCity etc, are crying out for something a little bit more involved.


You know... I'm really not convinced these things are mutually exclusive. To me it's a bit like chess. Chess is an easy game to learn. The rules are very simple, your interface to the world of chess is simple, but chess itself is a very deep and involved game. It can be played at many levels. I think that it's possible to have a game which is accessible to casual audiences, but which also has a lot of depth for people that want it. To me that's the holy grail of sim/strategy/tycoon games.

Also I would point out that a lot of the most popular games (like civilization for instance) really aren't that complex or involved at the interface level. The complexity comes from how all the pieces are all put together. IMHO a lot of what passes for depth or complexity is inept game design and poor interface decisions. It's like a chess board where you have to do 3 uneccesary things before moving a piece. Each move is more involved but the essence of the game is exactly the same.

[Bmc]

1) "Popcap style" done right doesn't equal stupid.

2) There are plenty of serious tycoon games on the PC.

3) The real unsastified niche is tycoon games for the casual market. There have been poor attempts (Coffee Tycoon - awful, awful game) and there have been succesfull tycoon games brought over from retail (Rollecoaster Tycoon). The only tycoon games currently in the market that are truly casual (as per the most common definition) are the Lemonade Tycoon ones. Lots of room for more.

4) People play games for fun and entertainment. The majority of people won't enjoy playing something where they have to keep track of 50 things at once. Unless of course they are trying to learn something (the Business 101 game for example)

[walkal]

There is so much scope for doing a 'serious' management game, and nobody is doing them.

Maybe anyone who might be interested in playing such a game would be working in some kind of management role, and hence wouldn't be much attracted to playing a game with the same sort of issues they face during the day.

The game would need to have something about it that gave it an escapist appeal.

[PoV]

4) People play games for fun and entertainment. The majority of people won't enjoy playing something where they have to keep track of 50 things at once. Unless of course they are trying to learn something (the Business 101 game for example)
Actually that's an interesting point... but probably not what you're thinking. Such a simulation game can be thought of as edutanment. I can't think of any practical small scale games to fit this catagory, but regarding businesses, it might be possible to create a sort of foundation of the business part, and do a series of business simulations. A sort of step up from the lemonade stand.

[arcadetown]

A few do nicely with our male casual users. For example World Domination, Outpost Kaloki, & Lemonade Tycoon. Really something to be said about nice simple casual strategy games with some depth. It's an underserved audience that's feel is waiting to explode. These users buy units! All the AAA RTS games are incredibly complex and people are itching for simple live action strategy games.

[Anthony Flack]

Anyone thinking along these lines might possibly want to give Rockstar Ate My Hamster a look in. You'll need an emulator though. Amiga is probably best. And you could check out Nuclear War while you're at it. Although I think NW has already been cloned, actually.

[Kai Backman]

.. And you could check out Nuclear War while you're at it. Although I think NW has already been cloned, actually.

MAD: Global Thermonuclear Warfare (http://www.smallrockets.com/pc/mad/) is pretty similar to NW.

On the topic, I agree with Svero. ShortHike (and SSM before that) have a very simple interface for a space station simulator: Add module, move module, remove module or rotate module. Kids pick it up in a matter of seconds and the simulation can still hold a lot of depth. As a matter of fact, the whole design process of ShortHike has been focused on creating more depth with an even more accessible interface. There is a lot that can be improved here, but even these simple examples should show it's doable.

On the other hand I agree with Walkal about escapism. Entertainment isn't supposed to be like balancing your check books. As a practical design example I'm implementing a single currency for ShortHike ("credits"). In the real world an orbital economy would probably have 5-6 dominant currencies and a major part of running a space station would be managing currency risks. But this is either over the head for most people (including me) or then just hard work to those who actually understand the issue .. Depth and complexity aren't the same thing. You can have an incredibly complex pool of mud with tons of things floating around, but you still can't see very deep. Depth is the real goal, and it's much more difficult to achieve than complexity.

[cliffski]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying make games complex for the hell of it. What I'm saying is that most of the new tycoon games have neither depth or complexity (and in my opinion not much fun either, except lemonade tycoon), and are generally done badly.
If you look at both Cruise Ship Tycoon and Coffee Tycoon, and compare them in terms of design and playability with similar budget games in other genres, I think you would be surprised at the low quality. That makes it a perfect target niche for an indie, whether that indie goes the complex route (like me) or the more accessible one (like lemonade tycoon).
I guess what I'm saying is that I'd rather my competition was Coffee Tycoon than it was Wik or Gish.
I think a reason for all this, is that only people who really like this style of game can make or indeed, review them. People whose view of tycoon games is that they are 'like balancing your checkbook' could never write a decent tycoon game however much they wanted, because they just don't 'get it'. And likwise, If I tried to write a puzzle game (i did) or an RPG or beat em up, it would be truly dire.

[Savant]

Of the tycoon games that we offer (http://www.gamesavant.com/_games/show.php?page=1&ssvol=-1&sort=-1&cat=13) on our site, I'd say Age of Castles is the one that appeals most to me. It's abstract enough that you don't get mired down in the details but it gives you enough control that you can effect changes.

I don't know how much deeper into the details you want to go, to be honest. At some point you cross the line into work...

[arcadetown]

Just checked out Age of Castles and pretty interesting. My only issue is the actual battle part is pretty weak and somewhat of a side deal. Yes I agree users want simple fun and very little number crunching which AoC does well.

What I think users are really dying for is the reverse, a game built around battling with the strategy of building something as a side project. Sinjid Shadow Warrior (http://www.heavygames.com/sinjidshadowwarrior/playgame.asp) is super popular freeware game and it's basically about going to battle with the strategy/depth of building a character so can face off against even bigger enemies later on.

[Omega]

4) People play games for fun and entertainment. The majority of people won't enjoy playing something where they have to keep track of 50 things at once. Unless of course they are trying to learn something (the Business 101 game for example)

What is your experience in this area? Haven't you ever played the Memory card game? Flip a deck upside down, try to match two cards? :)

Also, the first line People play games for fun and entertainment contradicts the third line ...they are trying to learn something .

[cliffski]

"Yes I agree users want simple fun and very little number crunching"

some users do. The other users are totally uncatered for now.

[Omega]

I think you would be surprised at the low quality. That makes it a perfect target niche for an indie

Does the idea that you've seen a lot of low quality games in this genre mean that: 1) there is a niche (need) to fill in the first place, 2) people hate bad graphics in this genre, 3) there is a market to buy that type of a game? I don't think it implies any of those 3 things at all. Looking at the stats of how strong the players are on the worst teams (Miami and 49ers) in the NFL does not imply anything about the sport of football, or the state or status of the NFL in general. Ticket sales would, and the numbers of viewers the games draw.

I don't think your logic is valid, but I think what you should do is what you want to do--make a tycoon game! Go for it! Your enthusiasm will matter more than whether there is a market for it, in the long run and your happiness. If what you say is true, you wouldn't have to innovate on gameplay, but just create a polished tycoon game that would be the standard for indie tycoon games. If what you say turns out to be false, you can always give up and get a job and work for somebody else in the worst case scenario. Nothing wrong with trying. If you fail, there is nothing to really fail. GL! You know what, accept that the game will completely fail, and create it knowing that. This will save you 2 hours of worrying every day. What if this? What if that? Who cares. The game will fail anyway. Nobody will buy it. It means you can do whatever the heck you want with it, as long as it's polished. :) Now an admin needs to lock this thread to give cliffski the go-ahead. He would be done with the game by now had he been writing it instead of dreaming it every month.

[Applewood]

Using your analogy, the thing here (speaking for myself, not neccessarily cliffski) is that the NFL is still a professional, well presented body that has money spent where money needs spending.

A mediocre game with crap graphics won't get played. It certainly won't get talked about which means it won't sell.

People moaning about poor sales need to get a grip and make a professional product. This is hardly keen marketing insight. If you genuinely think you cant make money from doing a game properly, you sure as shit aren't gonna make any at all by doing it badly.

I'm not sure if its apathy, lack of talent, lack of commitment or a genuine cynism toward the customer, but most of the indie games I've looked at shouldn't be on sale. If we're to be taken seriously, we need to shed the default feeling that indie games are gonna be crap because actually, most of them are.

If you don't think spending a few thousand quid on marketing is a good investment, don't make the game.

Even Lux (sorry, just picking one out of thin air) should be far better than it is and that seems to get a few comments on how to do things right. I downloaded the demo of this and was quite impressed with the gameplay - looks like it had quite a bit of work put into it. So why then does the box with the list of armies in it not expand by two more pixels to stop the scroll bar appearing. It's this sort of thing that drives me mad and was why I didn't pay for it to continue playing. And why is it a floating win32 window at all, it should've been integrated onto the bottom of the display using a nice font etc. (imo)

There are too many games out there that are functional but too rough and ready to appeal to potential punters. Most of these things could be put right easily so when they're not, it leads me to think how little else there might be under the hood. I want AAA attention to detail even if I don't expect AAA asset lists. We covered this in a thread about polish but I can't believe that one was even needed.

IMO, the single, only, this is it, factor why downloadable non-casual games isn't happening is that punters know the games on the shelves in game or HMV will have passed through the QA deparment a lot of cycles and knowing this the programmers try to get it good first time around. They may not consciously think this, but they correctly take it for granted. They for damned sure know that last years RTS in the bargain bin is gonna be of a better overall quality than anything new they download from an indie studio. Especially when they've never even seen a web ad for said "studio".

For "proper" ie non-casual games to start selling, you need to get in peoples faces. Not so much to advertise on the "Buy my product now" angle, but the "look, we can afford advertising so we're pukka and our games haven't been rushed out unfinished" angle.

As Indies, we need to be making AAA games that just don't need AAA content. Find something that doesn't need 43 million high-detail 3D levels, then do it properly as if a publisher was paying for it. Spend money on promoting it once it's finished. Get magazines to your studio, take em out for the evening. Basically, shed this "I'm an indie, I can't afford it" shit and make people think you've got something worthwhile to sell and they'll believe you and buy it. Borrow the money if you need to. Not prepared for that heavy a commitment ? Then why are you spending a year of your life doing the programming ?!?

Sorry for the venting. I've been meaning to get that off my chest for a while. I appreciate most people will disagree with my sentiments, but I'm pretty sure that's because they like the idea of being an Indie more than the reality of it.

If you want to get a business going, you need business class income from business quality output. The punters will come if you've got something for them, of that I have no doubt.

There is nothing under that scale threshold unless you are *very* lucky. If you write an RTS, it needs to be at least as good as Red Alert 2 (without those stupid movies). If it isn't, you won't sell hardly anything and will lose money. If you do it quicker, you'll sell even less and lose even more. If you make an RTS game thats better than Red Alert 2, and get the public to notice it, you'll sell a shitload. There is no middle ground.

[cliffski]

Nice post. and its good to hear someone else talk positively about advertising. I have good experience with advertising, and just got my new banner ad for democracy finished today. For a long time people have clung to a holy commandment that 'advertising doesnt work for indies' based partly on the fact that Steve Pavlina didn't advertise.
And for the earlier post, I DID write a tycoon game (Starship Tycoon (http://www.starshiptycoon.com) ). It's not ground breaking, but its popular enough to pay for a new car, laptop etc.

[Applewood]

Excellent :)

I'm glad you're having some success at this as you're one of the few people around here that seem to be doing it at the right scale, imo. Good luck with Democracy - sounds great.

I really really really wanted to write a vegas tycoon game but the one from big red would take some beating and I think my current project has more scope for sales. It *is* the game I *want* to do though so it may happen one day.

[Omega]

Using your analogy, the thing here (speaking for myself, not neccessarily cliffski) is that the NFL is still a professional, well presented body that has money spent where money needs spending.


I don't think you're disagreeing with my on anything, and you probably also realize the NFL has nothing to do with indie games, but just want to tie your moderately-offtopic rant about professionalism into the thread a bit better to make it seem on topic, right? ;) I hate being used like that :(

And for the earlier post, I DID write a tycoon game (Starship Tycoon ). It's not ground breaking, but its popular enough to pay for a new car, laptop etc.

Once again, I don't know what that has to do with what I said, either. You said you wanted to write a tycoon game, and I encouraged you to do it. Or, maybe I missed the point of this thread. Maybe you want us to write a tycoon clone because you did? Or, were you trying to say, "I did it very easily, I suggest you guys look into it?" It's kind of hard to understand if you're saying that you discovered a good niche, or want to know if it's a good niche. :) My answer now is still to just go for it. Who cares if you've written a tycoon game already, I thought you were asking if you should write another one. You always write questions about 'the feasability of tycoon games' every month. You are the one who actually wrote a tycoon game! That's like coming to a forum and saying, "Should I work as a janitor? I don't like it and it is boring." And we would say, "no, you should definitely quit if you don't like it." But if the janitor was the son of the CEO and made $500,000 for that boring easy job, then we would then advise that he should definitely stay. So, ask for advice on your situation without telling us your situation, and don't be surprised about what answers you get :)

It's really hard to tell if you are coming here to say:

I discovered a great niche! Tycoon-style games! I already have a game! And it's working great!

versus

I am wondering if I should make a tycoon game. I see that the screen shots of the current games have bad graphics. I think this means I will be able to get a lot of sales if I make a game in this genre.

versus

I read that Lemonade Tycoon sold XXX copies. I'm thinking that there could be a niche there.

versus

What have you guys heard on Tycoon games?

It's unclear in which category you fell when you asked the questions, and the thread title didn't help either.

[Applewood]

It wasn't a rant, it was business advice from someone who knows what the punters want, who also owns an actual real office building doing game dev, and have 100 years of experience between them.

We've not made a single release yet as an Indie, and I'm not sure we even qualify for the title as my studio pays for our self-funded development by doing porting jobs for mainstream publishers. Does that make me unqualified to give advice on indie development ? Not at all - from your punters point of view there is no such thing as Indie. Indies do game development, exactly the same as EA, Sony, THQ, etc.. and guess how much your punter cares who wrote it ?

I may come across as a bit of twat on here, but that's because I tell it like it is and it's often not what people want to hear. I'm not trying to stir up trouble because I like my own voice, I'm just trying to give people a wake-up call. You will not make money in any endeavour by doing it with half a heart and a limp wrist.

What I did wrong was threadjack this and not start a new one, for which I apologise. However, it did lead in rather nicely given someones comment about basically "we can't make decent games with no money/effort/time"

[Bmc]

What is your experience in this area? Haven't you ever played the Memory card game? Flip a deck upside down, try to match two cards? :)

I've been involved with many games that have actually made money.
Yes I have played the Memory Card games.


Also, the first line People play games for fun and entertainment contradicts the third line ...they are trying to learn something .


You didn't notice the UNLESS jammed in between there? ;)

What I was basically saying is that if too much information is needed to play they it might kill the fun of the game.... but this might not happen if the primary reason you are playing the game is to learn.

I used Business 101 as an example but it's actually called Cash Flow 101, it's put out by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy.

[Kai Backman]

I'm actually happy Paul jumped in with a small threadjack, and I'm definitely going to continue on the same routine. :)

First I totally, totally, totally agree with Paul on the AAA quality. You must cut quantity if you are ever going to get that AAA quality, but you already knew that. I'll talk about Space Station Manager (the ealier incarnation of ShortHike) as I know it best. In addition to heaps of luck the only reason the product is doing well is the fact that is has half decent production values.

Now, luckily the Dexterity archives are broken, but if you could read the original request for feedback you would notice that I haven't implemented most of the points in it. And if you download the demo you'll notice tons of small things that could be easily fixed, in just a few hours. What's the problem with me? Why haven't I been fixing them? Well, I've been busy fixing all those other problems that were more important. Even if I thought I picked a narrow enough focus it has still been too wide to completely polish yet. And I'm working full time ..

When I'm looking at your products Paul, I think you have one advantage over the rest of us. You have hard performance boundaries on the platform. It reminds me of the situation when I was writing demos for the Amiga in the early nineties. The PC had a magnitude more CPU power and it increased every year where the Amiga was technologically dead. However, the Amiga demos still looked much much better, both in the eyes of professionals and laymen. Somehow those hard limits fueled creativity and visual thinking, resulting in products with much more polish. Even if you look around this board, those with hugely polished titles are usually working in 2D or on constrained platforms.

So what's the message? Maybe polish is like fire, you need to place the wood far enough for air to flow and near enough for the heat to build up. ;)

[GBGames]

For a long time people have clung to a holy commandment that 'advertising doesnt work for indies' based partly on the fact that Steve Pavlina didn't advertise.


What I've read and heard is that "advertising doesn't work" for anyone. I'm sure that advertising does indeed work, but I think what is meant by the statement is that you could put your money to work in better ways.

If you spend $100/month on an ad, and it pulls in 5 sales, that may be fine...until you find that the same $100/month spent on better art or better website design might pull in more.

Steve Pavlina read a lot of books by very successful people. If he did or avoided something, it was probably because someone successful was there first. Specifically, Jay Abraham might be the one who talks about advertising in this way, but I can't remember offhand.

[Applewood]

If you spend $100/month on an ad, and it pulls in 5 sales, that may be fine...until you find that the same $100/month spent on better art or better website design might pull in more. That's probably a fair statement, but the art, the game, the website etc should already be 'da business' with no improvement (objectively) possible. There's a funny but accurate phrase "No matter how hard you try, you can't polish a turd". Another angle on that is "No matter how hard you try, you can't sell a turd".

Advertising quality products does work. Why do you think everyone does it ? I think the main problem here is that a $100 dollar web ab probably really is a waste of money. A £5,000 ad in PC Gamer will probably get you 1000 extra sales. 600 directly and 400 word of mouth. A review in several of these magazine will do similar. If your game aint good enough for a mainstream mag to want to review it, stop working on it.

I'm actually not that good at marketing and the above is more feeling than fact. I'll be getting a marketing company involved when I get closer to the vinegar stroke so I don't do anything silly and waste money.

When I'm looking at your products Paul, I think you have one advantage over the rest of us... An understandable mistake, but that site is so dead - Applewood doesn't even trade anymore and PPC is finished as a moneymaker. Even Applewood's last four titles didnt make the site. It is true what you say though, and even moreso for the phone dev I do a lot of these days. However, my 'proper' company's self-funded project is for PC, fully networked with dedicated scaleable servers, full 3D gameplay with all the bells and whistles and the other 8 yards to boot. It's taking a very long time but we're in no rush as we're getting paid by doing commercial work alongside. That's another thing I've always recommended - it ain't selling out to get yourself into a position where you can develop what you want AND pay the mortgage.

One more nugget. Stop trying to be Steve Pavlina. I see his name come up a lot and I've no clue who he is. I gather he's had success so that's great, especially (only?) for him. Me ? I'm happy to be me, but if I want my success to mimick anyones, it's John Carmack. Think bigger!

[terin]

"No matter how hard you try, you can't sell a turd".

Its ironic how much my wife spends on fertilizer... ;-)

You can certainly sell turds... you just can't polish them... or maybe you can... I suppose if you dipped it in bronze you could...

:-)

Oh, what's this thread about? Let's see here:

Point #1: If you aren't making a game that can get into PC Gamer stop.
Plenty of games I have seen haven't made it to PC gamer but supply an ok amount of cash. Not incredible, nobody's gonna retire from it, but it could have a high enough ROI for a "growing" developer.

Point #2: Ads work. Not always, it has to be a good enough product and it can't be approached from the standpoint of you have to spend x dollars and expect to get X*1.2 dollars back in direct sales. There's a lot to be said about word of mouth, the life-line of a customer (sales per customer), and what ads can do for your reputation. It is untrue that you need a full page ad in PC Gamer to make a return, it is just easier to SEE the results when you drop 10-20 grand in ads. If you can spend 100/month every month you'll see the same results (if it is well spent), it will just take longer. But you can't spend money you dont have (without paying 22% APR)

Point #3: Stop trying to be other people. Yeah, I like that too :-) I get tired of hearing about Steve P, John C, and Sid M. Most of what they preach is common sense and using your brain to pick out situations you can profit from.

Point #4: I think the last theme I caught was, make better games. Yeah, absolutely :-) Sometimes you see products that were either too ambitious or should have been more ambitious... sorta sad.

There, I added something to this thread... maybe it was gasoline, but you won't be the first persons to call ME flame retardent.

(I have seriously got to stop posting stuff in the middle of the night)
-Joe

[svero]

For a long time people have clung to a holy commandment that 'advertising doesnt work for indies' based partly on the fact that Steve Pavlina didn't advertise.

I think the main problem with indies advertising is finding ads that work for us. I've had some work, and many that I eneded up losing on. Because many of us are running small companies with limited resources we don't typically get the best deals when we run ads. A big company in comparison can take out a year's worth of ads on a popular site and get a huge discount by guaranteeing to advertise for the full year. A bulk discount as it were. So what's cost effective advertising for a larger company isn't always cost effective for us.

[terin]

Sometimes that is true Steve, but I have counter-arguments that the "im the little guy" can get you BETTER rates than bulk discounts.

I had one that was as low as 75% off. I had a potential full page ad in Computer Games for 50% off... Another on the largest flight sim for 50% off... you don't get that when you are Ubisoft, they know you can pay if you are big :-)

The problem is more finding good target markets than negotiation... fact is Computer Games magazine is not a good place for you to sell your games.

-Joe

[svero]

Well.. I've gotten good discounts in a few cases and I have had a few ads that work, but IMHO money talks more than begging for a break.

[rhm]

For all those who plan to make a SimGameStudio game:
http://www.gametycoon.de/

[HairyTroll]

For all those who plan to make a SimGameStudio game:
http://www.gametycoon.de/

What's the deal with the girl on the couch in the screenshots section? Won't get much coding done that way.

-Luke

[ErikH2000]

What's the deal with the girl on the couch in the screenshots section? Won't get much coding done that way.
When you are a game designer this is a constant problem. Hot naked women laying around the house when you are just trying to have a productive day.

-Erik

[papillon]

Install air conditioning.

[electronicStar]

When you are a game designer this is a constant problem. Hot naked women laying around the house when you are just trying to have a productive day.

-Erik
Thanks to HairyTroll's question, you had me visit your page today :p :D

[GBGames]

I should have read the rest of the posts before checking it out. I thought it was just some girl sitting on a couch, and I'm at work! B-\

[Pyabo]

Install air conditioning.

LOL! :D

We're so far off topic now... but damn that cracked me up good.

[stay]

Rats, I'm sorry I missed the start of this thread! So, on the original topic:

Cliffski: Do you think Outpost Kaloki (http://www.ninjabee.com/outpostkaloki.html) was poorly made? Does it treat the player like an idiot? I would very much like to hear your opinion. I'm guessing you think it should be more complex.

Thanks.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Some good material for thought here.

One thing I'd like to add from my own experience is that many new/indie developers (programmers and designers usually), totally have no idea how to code/design a non trivial sim-style or RTS game. I've talked to many a person who has had a ridiculously naive idea (and a couple who haven't) of what the codebase or data of a retail strategy games looks like. It's not any different really than the people, who for their very first project, decide to write a MMO or an RPG that'll show Bioware how it is supposed to be done. I just chalk it up to a lack of "real-game" experience. :-)

How this relates to indies making games for a somewhat more hard-core audience is that as the game design gets more sophisticated / complex, the design of the code (and databases) can quickly get to the point where it has to be totally redesigned to allow for that additional feature or interaction.

I'm definatly not saying "don't do it (it's a cookbook)", but to make a quality strategy game with greater depth and sophistication will be an educational experience at times (even to the experienced).

Regarding Quality, I'll echo Applewood's sentiments when he said "I want AAA attention to detail even if I don't expect AAA asset lists." For Strategy games, that means in addition to the usuall polish items, you typically need A LOT of playtesting by people with a critical, understanding eye who can give you feedback on everything from how the player interacts with the interface (it can be great visually, but cumbersome to do common taks for example) to the game's strategic balance.

A thing that can kill a strategy game is when there is "One True Path to Victory"(tm), i.e. when one strategy, such as building nothing but a certain unit in a RTS game, can dominate all others. At that point, all the myriad of options fall away and the game is reduced to who can execute that strategy first/fastest/etc. Sure for multi-player, but is that bad for single player games? Maybe not, but if there is one sure-way approach to always win, why even bother coding and making assets for the remaining 90% of the game the player will never use? :-)

Ok, enough ranting, I'm way up past my bedtime....

[DrWilloughby]

For those interested in Tycoon games, Pocketwatch Games is developing one of the more innovative tycoon games yet: Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa!

Check out our website at www.wildlifetycoon.com and register (http://www.wildlifetycoon.com/forums/profile.php?mode=register&sid=0c58a7de04c064be5d832fc41b129415) on the forums to be a part of the upcoming beta.

Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa combines the best features some of the most popular Puzzle and Tycoon games. Players collect flowers and win Combo Jewels to build unique ecosystems with 11 different animals of the African Serengeti.

Players can also “Be the Animal”. Take control over a zebra and feed it to a pack of lions, lead a great wildebeest migration across crocodile-filled rivers, or circle above a starving elephant as a devious vulture.

I posted more information (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?p=42584#post42584) in the Announcements forum for those who are interested...

_____________________
Andy Schatz
Pocketwatch Games (http://www.pocketwatchgames.com)
Register (http://http://www.wildlifetycoon.com/forums/profile.php?mode=register&sid=b74b340af478b6c81e7cdf2a9f6f3b18) for the beta of Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa