Tough period?

[Jack Norton]

This seems to be a tough period for all indie devs.
First Brainblock retiring and while talking with other devs they seems not very optimistic. In the meanwhile Real, Gamehouse and Bigfishgames have monopoly over casual gamers games...
What do you think that are the causes of this "indie recession"? the big portals have a role (positive/negative) on it?

Personally I am happy, after all, to have pursued a different route, the one of exclusive content - self publishing.

Also I think that devs should realize that the most important thing is to release new games :) marketing is ok, but honestly I believe the times when you could survive for years with just ONE game are long gone... ;)

[Bluecat]

Well, it's not technically a monopoly if there are three companies taking over the business. I guess you could call it a tri-opoly. ;)

All industries go through their bad times. Sometimes the bad times are temporary, and other times they reflect a fundamental change in the way business is conducted. The challenge is to adapt to the changes. I see smaller indies being far more agile in this regard than the bigger companies.

I believe that there will always be opportunities for those who are willing to look for them. Just because Real, Gamehouse and Bigfishgames are taking the lions share, does it mean that they always have to be in that position. It's a lot different to a company like EA Games controlling the retail market. The internet means that no company can deny you 'shelf space' because they outbid you.

Your own success or failure rests with you.

[Anthony Flack]

I've often thought so. It's just a matter of figuring out the logistics; no easy thing.

But the ideal would be to create some kind of indie game "one-stop shop" which somehow remained impartial, so that a true "anything goes" mentality can flourish. The big problem with the portals is that they're getting conservative; locking in a certain demographic.

As it stands, sites like GameTunnel come closest to this ideal.

[Coyote]

The games industry is maturing - on both the hardcore market side and the casual side. What we're seeing is, IMO, natural evolution. We can't turn back the clock. Money follows money - now that the secret of the casual games market is out, there's no getting the cat back in the bag, and the big portals are here to stay. In one form or another.

The bad news is they have captured a huge amount of market share that its hard to grab a piece of it without playing by their rules. The GOOD news is that they are really helping to "grow the pie." They are widening the highways for digital distribution of content, a trend that will only increase in popularity even among the hard-core games in the future.

So yeah - I think the days of whipping out a "match-3" puzzle game in six weeks and making plenty of money are long gone. *HOWEVER* I think there's always plenty of opportunity to be found in the market.

For one thing - I see this increasing gulf between the casual gaming market and the hard-core gamer market. You have a ton of "entry-level" casual games out there trying to woo the inexperienced gamer. You have a ton of hard-core games trying to serve the jaded tastes of the gamer who was born with an NES controller in his hand. What you don't see is many games serving that intermediate group.... the games with a level of depth and complexity (and demands upon the player) similar to what MADE the hardcore gamers 10-15 years ago.

Does this market exist? Is there a need? I think so. I'm seeing a lot of frustration on the part of semi-casual players (and the "wage-slave" former hardcore players who have since gotten a life and responsibility, and can't devote 25+ hours / week to playing games). These aren't the kind of games that can be whipped out in six weeks, but neither do they need to be the latest & greatest mind-blowing technological wonders filling 4 CD-ROMs, either.

I think there are plenty of places for an independent gaming company to thrive - none of them EASY, but I think possible.

On top of that, I remember the state of the shareware industry back in 1991-1994. You had to download games from FTP sites --- and I could tell you that the market was incredibly crowded back then, too --- full of EGA / VGA (and sometimes CGA) games for DOS - I think it was virtually impossible for a 'shareware' game to get noticed then, too. But some folks managed to shake things up. Nothing's stopping the same thing from happening now... you just can't rely on graphics technology to be your savior anymore.

[princec]

That's the market I'm going for with my shooters. Not very casual, not very hardcore.

Cas :)

[Chris Evans]

The idea of an Indie portal is mentioned a lot around here. But I've yet to hear any good realistic solutions to make it work. Several issues:

- The Indie portal can't just list every little Indie game under the sun. There has to be some standards, otherwise there will be way too much noise. The games don't have to match a certain demographic, but they should at least meet a certain standard, so the Indie portal is known for quality software. Who determines what games do and do not get listed on the site?

- Whoever runs the Indie portal needs to make money. Not just cover costs, but actually make a profit. A portal is a big undertaking and I doubt anyone is willing to do it long-term without getting paid.

- Whoever runs the portal has to actively market and promote the portal and the games. Otherwise it will just be the same as the thousands of other affiliate sites out there.

- Who handles QA issues? The Indie portal or developer?

Some people here may dislike or resent the big portals such as Real, Gamehouse, and etc, but you can't under-estimate the work that went into making them so huge. Personally I think we're better off cooperating with Indie Gaming News sites. The bigger they get, the more exposure we get. Via reviews, they already have a system in place that rewards quality games. The bad games get low review scores or not reviewed at all. Instead of pouring resources into an Indie portal, I'd rather see it go toward making a truly full-time Indie News site.

[Bluecat]

Instead of pouring resources into an Indie portal, I'd rather see it go toward making a truly full-time Indie News site.

That's what I'm considering doing. A no charge/profit Blues News style website that simply accepts and publishes indie game newsworthy stories and provides links to indie websites.

[Reactor]

Great comments there, Coyote.

I personally ignore the competition. I think it's true that it might be a tough period for those targeting the casual gamer. My solution- don't. The gaming industry and its gamers are big and varied enough that you can simply make a great game, and a market will emerge from out of nowhere by itself.

[Reactor]

That's what I'm considering doing. A no charge/profit Blues News style website that simply accepts and publishes indie game newsworthy stories and provides links to indie websites.

Isn't that what Diygames.com is?

[Chris Evans]

Oh as for the "Indie recession", I don't think it's that bad at all. Outside the casual game sector, I see quite a few Indie games doing pretty well. BraveTree with Think Tanks is doing good. Gish for Chronic logic seems to be a hit. Spiderweb Software shows no signs of slowing either. I'm sure They Came from Hollywood will be a success if it ever gets released.

If you're in the casual game sector, then you might feel a "recession" some. But I only think it's those who aren't willing to adjust and maneuver in an ever-crowding market. Or those who are relying on the portals to sell their games. Though SteveP mentioned a while ago that Dexterity just recently had its best sales month ever. So not all casual games are affected.

But the days where you could just post your game on download.com and get thousands of downloads are over. The days where you could make a "match 3-color" game in 6-8 weeks and sell it to Real and similar portals and make thousands of dollars is becoming extremely rare.

So for hobbyist, I think it's becoming much harder for them to break into the Indie scene and make decent money. The quick and easy ways to make money are starting to disappear. But for those that are going full-time and trying to run a real business, I think the outlook is pretty good if they're willing to devote and put extra effort into their product and marketing. Game creation tools are becoming dirt cheap and everyday more and more attention is given to the downloadable market. But your product has to be at least a little bit unique and have a barrier to entry. There's barely a barrier to entry for a "match 3-color" game. You also have to be willing to devote a lot of time into marketing such as writing press releases, advertising, sponsorships, and etc. If you're not good at those things, find someone who is.

Personally I don't think we're in a recession, we're just at the end of a cycle. A recession would be affecting all Indie devs, but I don't think that's the case. I think the only Indie devs that are currently affected are those who were involved in the casual game boom and those that relied heavily on download sites. The rest are mostly dictating their own success or failures, the market is not dictating it for them.

[cliffski]

Well I'm doing fine, probably better than ever (still not enough to live on...).
I think the trick is not to do "colour-matching puzzle games". These have been done to death, and you cant compete with the big boys on stuff like that.

[Jack Norton]

Ok seems that everyone agree to avoid casual games, unless you can make something quite original :p
I'm doing fine too, but out of 5 games the only really casual is my puzzle game Spin Around... and indeed is the one I sell less :D

[Coyote]

I think there's still plenty of market for casual games... if you extend 'casual' to mean something BEYOND the traditional casual market (card games & action-puzzles). One would think that Mom & Pop Casual might be interested in something else that's fun, easy to get into, and doesn't involve 'weird' stuff like elves and space aliens that they just don't get.

[Gilzu]

There's an example: McDonalds & Burger King. Call it burger monopoly, but then again, everywhere I look, I see small burger stores, both small nets and Indie ones. Why should you go to those? they have things the other cant offer. They are less sophisticated, can't always bet on a sure one to be good, usually small without that "great service" you know youll get on a network chain, but you'll still go there. Why? because they offer somthing different than the same repetative stuff the network chains offer you, because you can always go to the manager when something is wrong, because its cheaper, because it feels special to have somthing everybody hadnt heard of and be the first to tell your friends and i can go on and on.

Look also at Minimarkets, Clothes stores, Electricity stores, Pizza & Fried chicken and even Cola (I can name at least 5 brands if not more).

Saying Indies don't have a place is like saying the Indie minmarket has no place, the local burger/ice-cream/pizza has no place and no-one shall ever go to some unknown band's concert. People want to go out, eat, drink, dress (ect.) and when they find something they like, they will go there. Sure, you have less exposure than Blizzard, but if they will find your game and like it, they will buy it the same way you stop near a cool Indie clock store and see a cool clock that has a ceiling projection on the ceiling and go buy it and tell your friends (It cost me only 12$ on that cool store and got a free t-shirt).

think of it.

-Gil
http://www.gilzu.com/

[Lerc]

- The Indie portal can't just list every little Indie game under the sun. There has to be some standards, otherwise there will be way too much noise. The games don't have to match a certain demographic, but they should at least meet a certain standard, so the Indie portal is known for quality software. Who determines what games do and do not get listed on the site?

- Whoever runs the Indie portal needs to make money. Not just cover costs, but actually make a profit. A portal is a big undertaking and I doubt anyone is willing to do it long-term without getting paid.
These two could run together. If a sales mechanism were used similar to Affiliate royalties, Plus the requirement of an up front payment to be listed for a year. The up front payment could be recovered by any affiliate sales.
Of course this is a significant risk for developers, If such a venture wasn't succesful then their money would just be gone.

- Whoever runs the portal has to actively market and promote the portal and the games. Otherwise it will just be the same as the thousands of other affiliate sites out there.
This is somegthing that, for the level of exposure required to really get off the ground, you would need quite a marketing budget. Money has to come from somewhere.

- Who handles QA issues? The Indie portal or developer?
That would depend on the implementation. Probably the simplest solution would be for the portal to provide initial support ("Install the drivers" etc) and anything more comples and game specific would have to be forwarded to the developer.

When it comes down to it, the nutshell summary would be The portal would be nice to have, but who is prepared to pay for it?

Quick show of hands. (maybe someone can make a poll if they feel like it)
Who here is prepared to pay $100 to a portal per year? How about $500? how about $1000? How about $5000. Each of these level would affect the scale of the portal and the number of Developer members. Each person I suspect would Baulk at a different level.

Instead of pouring resources into an Indie portal, I'd rather see it go toward making a truly full-time Indie News site.
The problem I see with Indie News sites is that I do not know of anyone who visits one who is not actually an Indie Developer.

btw the word is oligopoly

[Dan MacDonald]

I wrote and editorial with my thoughts on starting an indie portal a while ago on DIY games

http://www.diygames.com/index.php?p=413&more=1

Not that it's the last word or anything, it just doesn't make sense to me...

[Chris Evans]

The problem I see with Indie News sites is that I do not know of anyone who visits one who is not actually an Indie Developer.


Well that's because Indie News sites are still in their infancy. The oldest ones have barely been around for a year and a half? It takes time and the current Indie News sites don't have big budgets or a lot of man power.

But once they get a little more polished, they'll be on the verge of a big break. All it takes is for CNN or similar major news outlet to do another article on the "emerging market of downloadble games". If in those articles GameTunnel and DIY are mentioned as good resources for information on downloadble games then I believe those Indie News sites will begin to tap in into the mainstream.

I seriously think the folks at GameTunnel and DIY should e-mail the tech/business editors at every major news outlet and say if they ever need a quote from someone who knows the downloadable market, they're freely available.

[Sean Doherty]

Generally speaking Freelance Games is more of a portal (small portal) then anything else; and I can speak from experience that the majority of the traffic is from the game development community.

I might be interested in morphing Freelance Games into a Independent Portal if I had 3 or 4 equal partners with a viable business case. Independent Gaming sites walk a very fine line between trying to recover their costs and trying not to seem as though they are trying to gouge the development community. However, I don't see how a site can operate at the level of a Big Fish without a solid revenue stream.

These are just random thought... But I people have idea I be glad to hear them; at the moment I a overwhelmed with the amount of work and the poor affiliate programs like RegNow.

[svero]

The portals exist in large part because they had outside financing. You can't expect to start a portal and compete on the same level with Real and shockwave if you're not prepared to put in the same level of money for advertising. A "small" local portal is basically the same thing as any of a dozen affiliate sites.

[Andy]

Guys,

That's a way too simple and was said one thousand of times - unite!

Take a look on Big Fish Games site by year ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030601005704/http://bigfishgames.com/
... and answer me what was the basement of their success? - Your games guys. They take them for free and playing with them by the way as they like.

All you (we) need - just exclude BigFish (Real, etc.) from the process and workout our own portal. That's all. This is obvious that only big and well presented on the market portals will survive in the nearest future. Even big guys from our craud feel this movement right now...

So, up to all of us...

[PoV]

I like Gilzu's comparison of indie's with small restaraunts and such. It's one of those fun little comments that reminds me why the Deterity/IndieGamer community atmosphere has grown on me.

Speaking of recession and shooters, is it just me or is there a lot of 2D shooters out there in indie world (Done and in development)? I get the feeling that too many people are expecting the 2D shooter to be the easy money maker (previously the Match-3 game). But as an ex-hardcore gamer that used to love shooters (2D and 3D), the last thing I want to do is play one.

I don't know how many gamers here are in the same boat, where you have no interest in playing anything that's not unique. After seeing all those shooters, with the exception of Starscape (that finally caught my attention after the advertising annoyed me to the point of checking it out), the only one that sparks any interest is Platypus. I've not actually tried it yet, but there's that "maybe later" sort of feeling whenever I see it (or Anthony Flack posting ;)). Cool art btw. :)

This other *magical* ability of mine is I can play a demo of a game, and know everything I could ever want to know about the game, which sadly kills all interest in me ever actually buying the game (indie or commercial). So far I've only bought one indie game, that being Gish. Being a bit of a game physics nut I wanted to see it, and had there been a demo when I wanted to play, things may have been different. A great example of impulse buying. On the commercial end of things, Painkiller is a prime example where the demo lets you do too much. I probably wouldn't have bought it anyways, but I appreciate the demo. The stake gun and some of the clever use of Havok makes me smile. :).

Alright, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think my question is does anyone else think there are more than enough 2d shooters out there or being made?

Also, I have my doubts about there being much of a market out there for 2D shooters. Platypus being a generally unique attractive looking game and Starscape with its add campaign seem to have something going for them, but I'd imagine they're not doing as glorious as the authors/publishers would hope. Anyone else see what I'm sayin', or have any thought why a so called inbetween hardcore and casual market would exist that wants to play shooters?

[Gmicek]

I seriously think the folks at GameTunnel and DIY should e-mail the tech/business editors at every major news outlet and say if they ever need a quote from someone who knows the downloadable market, they're freely available.

Oh I do, I do, hehe. I've talked to a ton of people representing outlets ranging from CNN (online and TV) to CG Magazine, to a couple book authors. But I think I must not be good at giving good quotes because they haven't mentioned us, hehe. Seems like they usually end up doing some on casual games and get quotes from the Garage Games Big Book o' Quotes :) We keep trying though, because In the end we all win.

[Chris Evans]

Seems like they usually end up doing some on casual games and get quotes from the Garage Games Big Book o' Quotes :) We keep trying though, because In the end we all win.

Haha, so true! I noticed too in every article on casual games, it seems there's always a quote from Garage Games.

[Reactor]

I don't have a problem with any type of game, even if there are too many in the same genre. I just care about fun games- really fun games.

[Jack Norton]

For once I agree with Wildsnake ;)

If we continue to pay 79$ only to get game listed on download.com, if we offer games at ridiculous amount like 15% royalties on big portals, they're always gonna win and have an easy life.
Probably lot of people once finish the game just want some quick cash. Their game maybe for some reason (like bugs, bad period, LUCK) sell bad the first 1-2-3 months and they suddenly start to look for publishers (it happened to me!).
My game USM is an example: there was a well hidden bug (thanks to Blitzdebugger... erhm !) that I didn't figure out. Then when I sold only 4 copies in 2 months I started to panic, I put it on regnow to get more affiliates, asked lot of publishes, but LUCKILY no one accepted it :D
It will be a year in september since I launched it. While isn't really a succesful game, I doubt that I would have got the same money if I put it on a portal with 15% royalties...
Also putting it on my website www.winterwolves.com brought me quite a lot of visitors for searches like "soccer manager", "sports games", etc.
I guess that some of my UBM sales where from people looking for a "sport game" and found UBM beside USM ;)

That said, if a publisher offers me a reasonable royalty, I'm not gonna refuse it :D

[Gmicek]

What about RPG's and strategy titles?

Either way, It's very rare that I purchase a shooter because I can almost always get my shooter fix by just playing the demo. Is it a drag playing the same one or two levels all the time? Yeah, sometimes, but when I have several high quality ones to choose from, all of which give a decent demo experience, the push to purchase isn't as strong.

[Bluecat]

Isn't that what Diygames.com is?Yes, and no.

I was thinking more about the style of the site. Go have a look at Blues www.bluesnews.com (http://www.bluesnews.com/) It is a nice simple site with one main page so there is no navigating around to find things. Lots of links to sites that do reviews and contain other news, make it more of a hub for users to find things.

Blues has been around for what must be ten years now. I used to use it and Gamespot for my daily fix of gaming info. Unfortunately, Gamespot changed a few years ago, became a lot less straight-forward and started charging for premium access (and made lots of stuff into premium content). I hardly go there anymore. I still visit Blues nearly every day.

I reckon the success of the site is hard to ignore. Emulating it (not cloning it) and making the site for gamers and not so much developers might be worth looking at.

[Reactor]

I visit Blues every day as well (it's my number one site for gaming news) but there's not much different between it and DIYGames, other than a extra coat of polish. Also, Blues updates all the time because it covers a whole host of other 'newsworthy' articles related to gaming, while most indie sites don't, because there isn't that much to point out.

Someone else mentioned this earlier- a news site is something developers might like, but does the average casual gamer really care? Going by the few casual gamers I know, they wouldn't at all. Their mentality is...

I have some spare time.
I like old style games.
Oh look! Some of these work on my computer.
*they buy a game*

Going to a news site and reading up on the happenings in the indie world (or gaming, on any level, for that matter) just isn't on their radar.

[Chris Evans]

Someone else mentioned this earlier- a news site is something developers might like, but does the average casual gamer really care? Going by the few casual gamers I know, they wouldn't at all. Their mentality is...


That's assuming all "Indie Games" == "Casual Games".

That certainly is not the case though. If you actually look at all the games GameTunnel and DIY cover, casual games is just a subset not their entire coverage. In fact, if you look at DIY's front page right now, the news articles on casual games make up a very small percentage.

I'm positive there's people out there, not just developers, who would like to read reviews on Indie games. At the very least, it'll save them time from having to download a ton of demos to find something decent. They can easily see what are the popular or recommended Indie games to download.

I can't think of a single industry where consumers don't appreciate product reviews. Maybe for certain casual games that weigh in under 3MB, reading a review isn't such a big deal for those with broadband. But there are still a lot of Indie games that are over 5-10MB and a review could help someone decide whether to download the demo or not.

As I mentioned before, Indie News sites are in their infancy that's why they haven't expanded too much outside the developer community. But the potential is there, especially as Indie games continue to become more diverse.

[Curiosoft]

There's an example: McDonalds & Burger King. Call it burger monopoly, but then again, everywhere I look, I see small burger stores, both small nets and Indie ones. Why should you go to those? they have things the other cant offer. They are less sophisticated, can't always bet on a sure one to be good, usually small without that "great service" you know youll get on a network chain, but you'll still go there. Why? because they offer somthing different than the same repetative stuff the network chains offer you, because you can always go to the manager when something is wrong, because its cheaper, because it feels special to have somthing everybody hadnt heard of and be the first to tell your friends and i can go on and on.

Look also at Minimarkets, Clothes stores, Electricity stores, Pizza & Fried chicken and even Cola (I can name at least 5 brands if not more).

Saying Indies don't have a place is like saying the Indie minmarket has no place, the local burger/ice-cream/pizza has no place and no-one shall ever go to some unknown band's concert. People want to go out, eat, drink, dress (ect.) and when they find something they like, they will go there. Sure, you have less exposure than Blizzard, but if they will find your game and like it, they will buy it the same way you stop near a cool Indie clock store and see a cool clock that has a ceiling projection on the ceiling and go buy it and tell your friends (It cost me only 12$ on that cool store and got a free t-shirt).

think of it.

-Gil
http://www.gilzu.com/

I think your metaphor doesn't take into account the "consumption frequency" for the products you mention. People usually consume 3-5 meals a day. If they eat out for each of those meals, then yeah....a small burger joint has a chance....because the consumer wants variation...and there may not be a McDonalds/Franchise store nearby.

The "consumption frequency" for games is a lot less. Therefore, the mom-n-pop equivalent is quite different. For most folks, they may consume 3 games each year...and so they are happy with going through a portal....because it's not something they have to actively consume each day.
Because the frequency for game consumption is much lower, it makes it more challenging for indie companies to compete...because they are competing for the 3 purchases a consumer makes each year.

When "Consumption Frequency" is very low ... like with cars (a person may buy 1 every four years)....then there are usually only big players in the market...because "Indie car makers" can't survive when they're waiting for a sale every 4 years.

Later,
Curiosoft
(Formerly FinishIWannaBeA on the Dexterity forums)

[Gilzu]

I think your metaphor doesn't take into account the "consumption frequency" for the products you mention. People usually consume 3-5 meals a day. If they eat out for each of those meals, then yeah....a small burger joint has a chance....because the consumer wants variation...and there may not be a McDonalds/Franchise store nearby.

The "consumption frequency" for games is a lot less. Therefore, the mom-n-pop equivalent is quite different. For most folks, they may consume 3 games each year...and so they are happy with going through a portal....because it's not something they have to actively consume each day.
Because the frequency for game consumption is much lower, it makes it more challenging for indie companies to compete...because they are competing for the 3 purchases a consumer makes each year.

That's why I also mentioned electric products shops, Clothes and you can also add to that small Books, Music and Games stores which are all still alive even though there are networks like Virgin Megastores.

[Gilzu]

- The Indie portal can't just list every little Indie game under the sun. There has to be some standards, otherwise there will be way too much noise. The games don't have to match a certain demographic, but they should at least meet a certain standard, so the Indie portal is known for quality software. Who determines what games do and do not get listed on the site?

Speaking of which, I've just recieved a peculiar mail from FileCart. They alwyas pumping up their advertisment services, but this got me left with more question signs then answers. Take a look:


We're also offering clones of filecart for $3000.00... Basically you can have your own extremely advanced download site (just like filecart) for a one time fee. We'll install it, support it, configure it, and even help market it. This would be especially good for software companies since they can plaster their own product all over it. Simply let us know if you're interested and we'll go from there.


:confused:

[Sparky]

I'm sure They Came from Hollywood will be a success if it ever gets released.If? If? WHEN! WHEN!

Yeah, I know. It seems like we're in a very, very slow race against Duke Nukem Forever and Grimoire.

[Curiosoft]

Quick question...

Some folks here mention the need for an indie portal. My question is...how would such a thing be different than terragame.com?

They have decent affiliate rates and have a lot of games spanning many different genres.

Later,
Curiosoft
(Formerly FinishIWannaBeA)