Its such a common piece of advice: “Start small, work your way to something of larger scope”
Another: “You shouldn’t do this expecting to make bank. Its too saturated/unprofitable/etc.”
Making that MMO is a pretty common joke.
Meanwhile SpatialOS is a thing, some devs make bank, and larger scopes really are the only way you’re gonna do that. Next to nobody wants to play let alone pay money for Cookie Clicker 7.0 or endless runner iteration 7496.
Because most of us are experienced enough to know how these things go when you’re doing a first-time project and we’re also aware of the economic realities of game dev and we all recognize that we have to eat to live.
Because at the point you’re ready to make an MMO, you’re probably not going to be asking a general forum whether it’s a good idea or how to get started.
Even a simple core game has a lot of work involved to achieve a professional quality app. And actually making that app is the best way to understand the process. Making an unreleased one for your personal use doesn’t count - it’s a good first step, though.
Creating a small game and getting it released is more valuable than creating a large game and never releasing it. Scope creep is a very easy to kill a project. Plus it let’s you finish a project before you’ve grown bored of it and staying motivated becomes easier when you see you can reach the end with a project.
You know “realism” is neutral ground. I can easily say optimism is a realistic viewpoint too. Say what you will regarding economics but I do believe that modern economies in the states’ are the most positive harnessing of natural human behavior that has ever existed. What-else-can positively harness people’s self-interest for the greater good? Not much else really can.
Being a system which makes use of natural human qualities and the properties of mathematics and the exchange of things tangible and intangible for money, it is quite realistic (it works!) it is both realistic and has a netpositive effect on society.
Lastly I’d just like to say that when you say things like what’s quoted above you’re failing to deny the antecedent…
I mean no disrespect Murgilod I just don’t think you’re right.
I’m not sure the umpteenth version of an endless runner or clicker game will net anyone a significant income… it is quite possible to produce something of large scope given a smart, focused and shortest possible development.
My own projects have been put aside for long periods of time due to other priorities. Definitely not focused or of a decent scope.
The recommendation has nothing to do with income except from the standpoint that you can’t make an income if you never reach the point of release.
By who though? I literally can’t think of a single game of large scope that was made by someone as their first project. Keep in mind the advice you’re asking about in the original post is advice only passed on to beginners. An experienced user won’t get this advice but then they won’t be asking questions that lead to it either.
Ah, that makes good sense. Even if you never reach the release point I think you’ll have something of value regardless. A resume piece, things learned, and maybe some workable code to sell.
And since we’re discussing scope, I just want to define my own terms in examples.
I think of a small game as something every newbie tries for. Like clicker games or endless runners. If everyone’s doing it there’s no competitive advantage and not much potential for income.
Medium range I’d estimate some game of one’s own design…
As for large? Potentially on the scale and nature of NMS.
Are we forgetting massive successes such as Fez? I really don’t think much has changed since then apart from competition…
There is only one reason I can think of that I would consider including an unfinished game on a resume and that is if the game is the only thing I have that is relevant to the job, or if it is unfinished for reasons that were outside of my control. A resume is about why you are valuable and “unfinished because I couldn’t be bothered to finish it” isn’t very valuable.
I’m currently working on a game of pretty large scope. It’s taken years for a team to develop. The reason we’re able to make such a game is because we all came on board with considerable experience. We’d finished stuff before, knew the pipelines, the snags, what works well and what doesn’t, how to solve problems for ourselves with confidence.
I give the advice for people to start small becuase they don’t have that experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, everyone starts somewhere. A bunch of advantages to small projects:
The stuff you learn from finishing a small thing can save more time than it costs when applied to a larger project.
There’s a lot of stuff you can’t learn until you finish something, and you’ll learn the same thing whether it took you 4 weeks or 4 years to get there.
Longer projects are less likely to get finished. So if you want to work in this industry then shorter projects will bulk up your portfolio more quickly, thus helping achieve that.
Bigger projects are harder. Strategies that work on small projects may not work on large ones. So learn the basics on small projects where that stuff doesn’t matter and won’t get in your way, then move onto bigger projects when your learning can focus on scale rather than the basics.
You can get a broader experience base by working on different, small projects compared to working longer on one larger one.
It’s easier to build a team if you can show prior, finished work.
It helps you develop important perspective. This applies in many ways, but an important one is “good enough” vs. “perfect”, and when you should aim for which of those.
When you start you’re not good/experienced yet, and you’ll be making decisions that you’ll have to live with for the rest of your project based on that inexperience. Small projects mean you don’t need to carry those decisions for as long, and can see the results of trying different approaches more quickly.
I’ll stop there, but could go on.
So what? If I start learning guitar tomorrow no rock band is going to pay me to share their stage next week. You need to get competitively good at something before your work is worth money, and that takes time and practice.
If you’re starting to learn game dev with the specific intent of making money quickly then my suggestion is to look elsewhere. You can make money by doing this, yes. But for the reality of that pick a random day about a year ago, look up all of the games released on Steam on that day alone (it’ll be dozens), then find out how many sales / reviews each one achieved and do some projections.
Note that there was a stickied thread about exactly this for quite some time, started by @Gigiwoo . Probably worth looking up and having a read.
What iteration is Call of Duty up to, now? And aren’t there plenty of clickers and endless runners among the top games on platforms where they’re played?
Small scope games don’t typically fail because of their small scope. They fail because they’re not competitive in their field. If you can’t make a small game competitive then what chances do you think you’ve got of making a big one competitive?
You really look at the matter with very narrow view. There is indeed huge difference between being pessimistic and realistic.
Remember, most of beginner posters are people, which never made game. Often just school girl/boy with very narrow knowledge in many areas, which game dev requires, yet with massive inspirations to make super huge new massive game. Not knowing really what it takes. Then we got hobbyists, which are limited by day time, of how much they can spent on dev. Work, family, spare time. Probably second group has more chance to release something however., as more likely able to scope small.
Even yourself, if you don’t play games anymore, you miss range of technical solutions and challenges. Playing games give you feeling on gameplay. Recognising good and bad things. If you don’t play, you won’t know it.
How long your are with us? How far did you go with game dev? Look at yourself how realistic goals and time frame you set, and where you are after years. Then ask yourself question, why you didn’t progress as you would like?
Now consider this. Most of people will come and try things. Some will enjoy, other won’t. From that group, only some will be able put at least few hours per week for coming months/years, to be able pursue their goals. And that assume they won’t get bored of challenges along the line.
Even fewer will be able to release anything. But that anything, is not MMO. Not even close.
Fraction of that, are people with years of expertise in various fields, allowing focus on something bigger. But these are not beginners by all means either. So they wont be asking questions, how to even start. But most likely, they will know what it takes. Hence advising starting small. Not being pessimistic.
Now again consider difference between being pessimistic and realistic. Look again at yourself, because you are good example, that showing game dev things, are not as simple, as it seems.
Aiming for the sky not only takes skill but budget and capacity. Know your limits and either work within them or figure out how to overcome them. Either works, as long as you know your limits.
The advice is to build lots of small things to get experience needed to build bigger things. Don’t focus on the money making aspect of small projects. Use those small projects to hone your own skills.
Remember, there is no such thing as an overnight success. Every developer who successfully released a large project is actually a much longer story about a developer who built lots of small projects first. Completing lots of small projects is how developers learn the skills they need to actually break down a large project into manageable action items.
Using NMS as an example, that is not the first game that the developer made.
NMS was the 4th game released by Hello Games. And each person at that company made various game project prior to forming that team. Nobody successfully builds something like NMS on their first try.
Because you aren’t electronic arts aren’t rockstar and a LOT of people were burned aiming too high.
Also while some devs make bank, most do not. People believe that they, too, are the “special ones” that are going to win, while in reality they’re the ones that are going to fail.
Statements like that require proof which you did not provide.
Murigold is absolutely right, though.
Optimism results in crushed dreams and depression. Because you expect something good, and think that “i’m going to win”, then thing do not go your way.
In my opinion, if you’re being optimistic, then you’re relying on luck, and in doing so set yourself up for a massive failure. Because the dice will not roll your way. With more realistic expectations, you can apply murphy’s law, see at all the points where you can and probably will fail, and then prepare for situation when that happens and would be able to try again. Basically, make it so luck is no longer a factor.
You need to realise that most of the people posting the ‘awesome game idea’ posts are absolute beginners. Many of them literally never even start their game, and 99% don’t get beyond filling in a GDD template and slapping together some assets before giving up.
For these people the most practical piece of advice is to try and release something basic. This builds some of the necessary skills in a more gentle setting and also gives some idea of what is involved in the end-to-end process of releasing something.
People can get a bit snide in their replies, but for the most part its useful advice.
For an alternative go to the the WIP section: the people posting generally have some related experience but not always, but more importantly they have actually created something. Often they haven’t progressed that far, but you will find that just this little modicum of actual effort is generally rewarded with positive responses and encouragement.
SpatialOS is a tech start-up not a game, so I don’t think its particularly relevant, but there are plenty of examples of massively successful indie games, even some that are peoples first game, a few even that are first games from people with no experience. What you need to remember is that there are literally millions of people trying to make games. These are the outliers and not the norms.
In some ways its analogous to pointing to a lottery winner as proof that playing the lottery is a good way to be financially successful.
A better analogy might be some kid seriously thinking they can make the NBA because they hit some three pointers in a pick-up game. You don’t tell them to stop playing basketball but you suggest maybe the first step is to join the high-school team.
Wow. I came here already to pipe in on this… and found that every comment I was going is covered (and better) by several of the posts above.
When learning something new, it almost never effective to learn entirely from guess and check. There are tons of folks who have been through this. Many times. As you can see from above, experienced people agreeing on various things is a useful shortcut. Moreover, you will almost always find that similar advice. Is your goal to make games? If so, you should take advantage of useful advice and common knowledge.
Quite often people what to discuss what is or may be possible. Suggest the way things could be, (or worse) should be. But never from a “have done” perspective. In other words, if you believe that making your first game a large scoped MMO, and doing successfully works… do it. Seriously, do it. People saying to start smaller are doing so from experience. If you don’t have the experience to show the opposite, what is the point? Making games > talking about making games.
Me? I know exactly why I never finished my projects. I lead on about it here in my last post but it can be summed up to: 1. lack of planning, 2. other time commitments got in the way. To be fair once I started using the physics engine and proper OOP best practices I achieved much the same and better results in two weeks versus the previous two years at that point. I stand by that. I knew what I’d already made and knowing that was able to formulate solutions rapidly. Part of it was having solved them before, other parts of it I owe to my advanced math education and new techniques learned in college, which let me do this both faster better and more efficiently with best results. A big part of it was knowing what I had already wanted done (we’ll call this post-planning :p).
Lastly but certainly not least I had a lot going on in my life at the time.
As for playing games? I’ve been playing a bunch of Halo Reach on the MCC on PC over winter break, in addition to BF4.
I’ve been focusing intensely on school and work. Went a solid 5 weeks without playing any games this last fall. Impending student debt repayment and accomplishments in life have a funny way of making you organize yourself, haha. Also got my health under control.
Anyways. Its not crystal clear to me how playing games helps design them. You can find choice mechanics and such that could be improved upon but I’ve got some secret weapons in that regard, haha!
Honestly regarding the economics thing @neginfinity I don’t need to. Its self evident and unless you want to debate… people in a great many nations today are orders of magnitude richer and more well off than their ancestors.
Fixed that for you. And that depends on your attitude too. Roll with life’s punches instead of taking them square on the chin.
Just FYI: I love you guys & gals and your inputs, you’re always keen to give your opinions without bashfulness and its super helpful even if we don’t agree!
And that depends on your attitude too. Roll with life’s punches instead of taking them square on the chin.