There are more game genres and styles than ever, and if you were starting a band, writing a book or doing art generally you would find yourself drawn to a style or Niche.
Maybe you would break the mould and create a new form or style or mix two pre-existing styles but in a lot of other artistic fields you would probably end up creating a new style.
If you look at the game industry from a style or niche perspective are there trends in peoples careers. Do mainstream artists and developers get pigeon holed into a style or niche.
Johnathan Blow - could be classed as a Puzzle focused developer with Braid and Witness.
Markus Alexej Persson (Notch) - Sandbox Cubism in Minecraft.
Cliff Bleszinski - FPS Gears of War.
Do the best developers tend to focus on one type of game or get drawn to a style that works for them and are their games better for it?
So should aspiring game developers be thinking more like other artists and focusing their talent on a style of game that they love?
Even the really games have some kind of niche to them, otherwise absolutely everyone would play them unconditionally. Niche just really means it focuses in some way to narrow down the form or format or design. Without niches there wouldn’t be multiple games, they’d all be identical. Niche doesn’t mean small, like long-tail, either. It just means focused on a certain audience or group at some level. I guess it depends how you juggle it, because usually as you go longer-tail and more super-niche, the audience tends to be smaller but also tends to be much more loyal and “converts” better because the content is more relevant to what they like. Usually broader niches have bigger audiences but are more generic and conversions rates often are lower. Just generalizing because there’s quite a lot of differences.
I guess if you’re working on stuff you’re “best” at then that wouldn’t be a bad approach, because as well as trying to be relevant to your audience you’re also being relevant to yourself, and then there is less distance between you and your creation, thus you and your audience. Maybe if you want to express intimacy, more niche would be the way to go, coupled with doing something close to your heart?
I absolutely think a niche is the best thing for an Indie or any business for that matter.
There are definite benefits. Working on games you enjoy and getting faster and faster at making such games due to repetition combined with a growing library of code to draw from. As @imaginaryhuman_1 mentioned you also will know that market better and that’s a big deal.
It’s why even being a hobbyist and despite some folks grumbling around here about the kind of games I make and like… well that’s why I do it. Wouldn’t make sense for me to spend my time building modern COD military shooters if I never play them. Nor little puzzle / abstract mobile games… again I never play them so why build them?
There is a market for everything. Basically if you like something… some certain kind of game… there are others who do too. Sure the size of the market varies greatly but so does the amount of competition. Although competition doesn’t matter a whole lot if a person slowly builds up a community / a following.
I think a person could build an Indie business around anything even making Pac-Man inspired games (platformers, 3D horror and fps style, maybe even 2d and 3d rpg style… not saying literally make Pac-Man single screen level games over and over) if they wanted to. Wouldn’t be something I would enjoy for the long haul but that doesn’t mean it is a bad idea.
Any person who is a Pac-Man fanatic (and they are still around and new ones still come in from time to time) would feel like they stumbled into a room filled with vast treasures finding the website of such a developer.
Of course, a person could also build an Indie business around making COD inspired military shooters in the same way. You just can’t expect to make one game (no matter how good it is) and instantly reach a large number of people. It can happen of course (especially with a good publisher) but don’t count on it. This is why it makes sense to start out small scale and ramp up over time. Let your customer base fan base grow over time along with the scale and quantity of your games.
Gamers tend to want to play best in class. So if you are building an FPS it better outdo Halo or COD. If you are building a space sim it better outdo Kerball. If you are doing a 4X game you have to beat Civ. A casual mobile match 3 has to outdo Candy Crush. On the other hand if you are doing a network based RTS, you only have to outdo Creeper World.
Targeting the same audience as an AAA game means you have to outperform the high budget competitors. Targeting a small underserved niche means you only have to outdo other small scale indies. And sometimes it means there is no one at all you have to out perform.
Edit: And despite the number of forum thread on single devs doing AAA, the number of examples of small budget studios beating large budget ones is low. It’s not impossible, but it’s rare. It normally relies on the big studio making a significant misstep.
To some extent sure, but not all the way. My first (only completed) novel was a present-day action story (which melds three different characters and types of stories). My next is a sci-fi action story. My next is a medieval political type thing.
And I have electronica music, average “rock” style music, piano ballads, punk stuff…
So I don’t feel tied down by genres or any particular niche. My main goal is to tell stories, and stories aren’t bound by niche.
Interestingly, I recall a semi-recent article from PCGamer I believe, arguing for the return of cyberpunk–and claiming that cyberpunk was less a setting of mechanical futurism and more a thematic approach of global corporations and dystopias. It’s possible I simply don’t understand the definition, but I don’t believe a setting automatically has to have certain themes.
I don’t think you have to be the best of the best and that people only play the best… what do they play when they get done playing the best best, do they just not play anything else? No they go looking for more. There’s a long-tail to it.
Yeah at least a few people here seem to honestly believe that people only play the latest AAA games or Indie games that are striving to be like those games. While that would be true for a lot of gamers it certainly isn’t true period. Otherwise there would be no Indie sector. By that I mean filling in all of the spaces the AAA and AAA wannabe devs are not catering to.
It’s like people who see ultra low res pixel art games and bash them. Well clearly there are a lot of gamers who love such games. Does it mean a person can just make anything and throw it out and people will love it? Of course not.
But they also certainly don’t need to be the best of the best (as defined by modern AAA games or even the best of the best in a given category such as low res pixel art) or anywhere close to it. Best of the best implies there are other games in the “top”… say top 10… but they were not as good as the game in the #1 spot. And that implies there are other games that are not as good as any in the top 10, etc. It doesn’t mean people ONLY ever want the “best of the best” or only ever want top 10 games. Especially when from a gamers perspective they often will see other games in that top 10 or even games not in the top 10 as being the “best of the best” for various reasons.
I don’t believe that’s always true, from my perspective I’m trying to maximise engagment via atmosphere and studying how to achieve a cohesive experience. It’s ultimatley modelled on AAA when they weren’t quite AAA, I understand that’s an oxymoron but it changes like the sands of time…
Some of my all time favourite games include FF7, Dragon age origins, Mass effect, Witcher 3, Baldurs gate, Planescape etc…
The combat systems / AI / Sound / art for most part were relatively interesting / done well enough (in other words they didn’t make things dull) but were nothing special, again graphics were all decent enough (besides FF7 that didn’t age well) but nothing special… The common thing for me that makes them memorable is they were interesting, non-linear, well written and involving.
It’s like like pillars of eternity, in todays market it ain’t the best looking, it’s by far not the best technically executed and it’s somewhat retro but still remains to be one of the best games I’ve played recently… Again due to that interesting atmosphere / story that invoked me to wanna know more.
As with all entertainment mediums it’s about relaying a message and I want to provide surroundings that sufficiently carry the point across. Anything less just makes it a half baked shadow of the game it’s supposed to be and I’d be far happier to fail than release something just because I could.
That sounds like it is not in disagreement. You’re saying you realize there are plenty of people who appreciate PoE (that is confusing Path of Exile) just as there are still plenty of people who love playing Diablo 2 (of course part of thst is due to Blizzard actually releasing patches every 5 years or so to keep it working on modern OS).
Yes, but I’m sure with my many entries in graphics and AAA threads I may appear as “one of those AAA seeking lunatics”… At it’s core it’s not really about that, a lot of these games set the precedence and it appears games like pillars are still a decent medium to strive towards.
But as ever things change and dressing a game up in a modern(ish) frock is somewhat expected… It is of course obvious that things will become eventually end of life… How many people still use a Nokia 3310? (even though they have had a nostalgia re-relase )… But I don’t believe the core process of an awesome game has changed…
Sounds like your rpg sort of Pillars style is exactly what you need to make. I guess I just look at it like you (or anyone else for that matter) don’t need to strive to reach the end all be all vision of that game first thing. Pillars is a perfect example. I just watched a video of the first one and then a video of the second one (I think still in development but not sure about that).
First game they got a solid engine in place, workflows down, some good art and so forth. Made a solid game that seems to have been very well received. Now with all of that stuff in place they are ramping everything up on the second game. And you know a person could get there over the course of 2 games or the course of 20 games. Really just depends on the resources they have available.
I guess I said all of that just to say maybe you could make a sort of mini rpg. Throw in some controlled randomness etc to increase replay value and knock yourself out on graphics and story and core gameplay. The main point being you end up with that first game done. It gets some fans. Second game is easier because base exists that can be built on for game 2 and you already have some fans who will likely provide feedback for exactly how to make the second game better so they can give you their money again as well as getting more fans.
See I am always thinking you are targeting like making Witcher 3 singlehandedly. lol
Anyway you know all of this stuff.
I’m just doing “game dev chat over a beer or three”. lol
Targeting Pillars single handed is not quite as insane as tackling Skyrim or Witcher 3. But it’s still bordering insanity. The POE team has about 30 people on it.
)… But I don’t believe the core process of an awesome game has changed…