I was reading some posts on Gamasutra this morning, like every morning. And I came across this article. So he goes on GameSpy and gets the number of indie games released during the years greenlight went live, and over time the number of indie games on steam rises and the number of successful indie games crashes. So the idea in the article is that there is much less of a chance of being successful in the indie dev game, but I think that this is not actually the case, good games are actually succeeding while the lousy and uncompleted games are getting next to zero sales. The infamous Digital Homicide has a reputation for making “bad” games, in just the current year they have released over 10 games to steam greenlight! I’m sure there are many many other “companies” like Digital Homicide making dozens of games a year and generating little sales from these games, while there are companies like That Game Company and The Behemoth building super games for periods of 1-2 years adding uniqueness into their games and testing the game before releasing to avoid a crash when you select a level. This just seems like its being blown a bit out of proportion. I can plant 1,000 oak trees but not all of them will grow to be healthy because I won’t be able to care for or water each one and give it the attention it needs to grow into a big strong oak.
So what is your opinion on the “Indiepocalypse”. Is it something to worry about? Do you have any experiences with Greenlight and the overwhelming amount of competitors? Please share.
The market isn’t about to crash. There will still be successful indie titles. In fact, I would argue that there will soon be more than there ever have been before. The indie market isn’t going to suddenly shrink, it’s going to be steadily growing over the next decade.
What most people are fretting about at the moment is the recent glut of competition that has flooded into the indie space, and continues to provide significant pressure from below. While this is a very real concern, it simply means that existing indie developers won’t be having a cushy time of it. There will be no resting on laurels, and competitive indies will have to stay on their toes and contend with ambitious start-ups constantly scrapping for a piece of their market-share.
The panic we’re seeing is simply a response to how crowded things seem to suddenly be getting. It’s also a natural reaction to the sudden nature of this change. This shift has been precipitated over the course of two-three years. In that time we’ve seen the number of people actively pursuing indie game publishing skyrocket. Steam is partially to blame for this, by releasing a means for people to publish very early-stage works and charge for access to them. Unity also shares some of the blame for the current situation, by providing a viable plug-and-play approach to game development through their engine, toolset, and Asset Store. (a potent combination for beginning and budget developers)
And more than anything, people are reacting to indie developers being affected by a symptom that the larger-scale industry has known of for a very long time. (and that most experienced indies are well-acquainted with) Repeatable success.
Putting out one game that has financial and/or critical success is one thing. But can you do that more than once? How about three or four times? How do you adjust your development approach and schedule to account for the unpredictable nature of the market? How do these changes affect your creative process, and the ultimate design of your games? The changes in the market are forcing a lot of indie developers to take these questions into account, and re-evaluate their business models.
Produce something worth getting, if it’s worth getting, people will get it.
If someone likes it they’ll be like “Hey try this game” and so on and so on.
Don’t need a million dollars for advertising, well it does help. But not needed.
But anywho, don’t produce crap things or you’re game will be treated as such… - crap.
Most of those gold-digging crapware developers/companies are the ones getting out of business now due to market saturation caused by their own crap and they want to bring everyone else down with them.
No sorry I don’t buy into that.
Times may be hard but I think it’s a bit alarmist to say it’s the indie apocalypse because of more competition*.* Such thing will occur only if demands dies, maybe replaced by demand for something else… like the good’ol VHS, so to speak.
Seems like everyone is agreeing that it’s over hyped and is just raising alarm because of the quantity of games being released but they are ignoring the quality aspect of it. Will articles like these make people more weary of trying to do game development as a hobby or as a living?
mm interesting article with stats. … it seems like there is always going to still be an audience for a certain amount of games and maybe that audience is even increasing… and yet at the same time, there is a growing amount of less-than-good games… sort of like the long-tail is growing longer, but the head is remaining about the same. Probably if you make a reasonable good game and market it well it should hopefully float above the rest of the noise?
It will cull out some of the more opportunistic gold-rushers. But it won’t appreciably decrease the number of people wanting to make games. And frankly, there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to do this as a hobby. Since there’s way less expense involved, almost anyone these days can dapple in developing games as a hobby.
The fact of the matter is that developing games is fascinating, and there are aspects of it that can appeal to an incredibly diverse set of skills. You want to make a game that is almost entirely art? There’s a game to be made there. You want to make a game that is almost entirely writing? There’s a game to be made there. You want to make a game that’s almost entirely code? Yup, you can do that. Performance? Yup. Music? Yup. Rhythm? Yup. If you have a particular skill or talent, it is possible to translate that into a game of one sort or another.
As an amalgamation of different disciplines, game development is really quite keen. And the creative potential they represent is staggering. Some will be deterred when they realize that this is no cake walk. But quite a few are going to develop a taste for this medium. And once you have the hunger, it never goes away.
We’re in a crowded and maturing market now and we have to deal with that. We need to invest in marketing just like every other industry in the world, unlike previously where you had to make a friend in the right place to get your game noticed and published on a store ahead of the rest.
I’d much rather my fate be in my own hands via marketing than in the hands of store curators before even being launched.
Nice article. I may switch to calling myself an amateur now instead of a hobbyist. I’ll have to think on that for a while.
I have a day job. As long as people still want to eat, there will still be demand for my skills. Game dev doesn’t pay my bills. So the market can go do what it likes.
As long as Unity or some equivalent hangs around, I’ll probably still be making games, probably for nothing. They will probably still only get a few hundred plays from my friends and associates. To be honest I don’t really care.
Aren’t they the same thing? The point that he’s making is that if you’re not treating it like a business then you’re not a professional*, and thus shouldn’t expect to pull in a professional level of income, and thus shouldn’t get upset and look for an external cause when you don’t.
That’s the main distinction for me between my professional work and what I call my hobby projects.
“Professional” in this context has nothing to do with skill level, they are a “person who earns their living from a specified activity” (definition from Wikipedia).
But then that gets into cases of Flappy Bird. Didn’t he make the game in 3 days and made a whopping like 60 grand a day in ad revenue and iap’s practically over night? I wish I could make a game in 3 days and make that kinda money lol.
(“I have a dream, I have a dream that one day, that indies stop crap games, I have a dream that getting rich isn’t the sole reason to develop, to one day go on the internet and find my game at #1 in the stores and ratings, I have a dream that one day our kids will wake up and play my game - I have a dream”). lol.
None of that has anything to do with whether he was working professionally or not, though. I don’t know if he was working on his games professionally or not, but there’s nothing to stop someone who isn’t from getting lucky.