Edit: Did not mean to make this so divisive. In hindsight, this is a sensitive subject and had I actually ever published anything, chances are there would have been something that didn’t turn out like I planned and I wouldn’t want to talk about it, either, in such a flippant manner. Apologies.
I once argued that games are not art, and I lost that argument. Now, I have been observing some games put up here on the community for feedback and review and also poking around Kongregate, revisiting old games, etc. I see so many games that just don’t inspire much hoorah. Then I see others with 2 million plays and 4.5 star ratings. Naturally, my analytical mind will not stop trying to understand this phenomenon. Spurious correlations abound. So I googled today “Why Indies Fail” and this article popped up.
Took me a moment to figure out that it was about musicians. I skip all the images and fluff and usually go straight for the main body of text. If you read the whole thing, it’s amazing the parallels between indie musicians and indie game developers. Nobody knows what it is you really do, they don’t care how hard it is but they judge your works against mainstream professional artists… so I thought I’d post it for broader consideration.
Here’s my question: if an Indie developer is an artist, why do so many conduct themselves like non-artists?
For example, artists are obsessed with their art… but from what I can tell, most game developers spend hours a day playing games. Musicians play music. Artists draw, paint and animate. Game devs play Hearthstone.
Here’s the second part of the question: If a musician tried to go on stage dressed in his pajamas, or didn’t bother to learn guitar chords because he didn’t think listeners were smart enough to know what they were hearing, or just bought a generic drum machine instead of hiring a drummer, would that musician become a success or a failure?
Indies fail because their games are often crappy looking and not much fun with zero marketing. I don’t think that a game being arty has anything to do with success or not.
Some indies try way too hard to be pretentious and arty, and it’ll fall flat soon with yet even more emo poetry teen angst text overlaid on a turd.
People should just focus on giving the player a really fun time.
So, is your main argument “why do game devs play games and not make them?” Ignoring the wide brush, I’ll retort with whether authors don’t read other novels and do directors not watch other movies?
The straightforward answer is development isn’t about mechanical mastery, where practice makes perfect. It’s a cerebral exercise that happens over the course of years, and your understanding of design is going to have more impact to the end product than just how many lines of code you’ve written in your life.
If that’s your take away, I’m not asking this right.
If making games is an art form, why is the medium often treated with the same level of attention to detail as re-caulking the shower? As long as it works, devs seem to be happy. UI perfection, sound effect volume levels, timing, all those little things you could spend a hours on until they’re perfect… go on ignored completely or neglected, in so many cases.
It’s not about being artsy, any more than generic pop is artsy. But it has to be technically sound, user friendly and appealing and developers need to sell themselves.
Yet all I see is “how to program this”, “how do I get this visual effect/framerate” and then the inevitable “gaming is dead because nobody downloaded my game.”
Maybe you think those things are being neglected. In reality they may have been worked on over and over again to get to the state they are in the released game.
My Christmas game is probably a good example. I made it the same way I always make games. Iterations over and over again continually improving things a bit. Each time I added the next piece moving forward toward completion I refined some existing element a bit here and there.
I redid the background of the game probably a dozen times. Many of those iterations are documented in the Christmas game thread. It looks like it does not because I put no effort into it or didn’t give a crap about it… but because that is my limit as an artist (who is not one). Lol
But just because I will never make a game that causes artists to say “wow it looks beautiful” and maybe never get past them saying “it looks okay”… that doesn’t mean I am not going to make games. Instead I will spend time on the things I can do well.
That applies to all people, in all professions. Some people put more effort into details than others. Some of them obsess over stuff, some don’t, which applies to artists, musicians, etc. No idea why you think game devs are special.
@RJ-MacReady - Where are your products? Since you registered in June of 2013, you’ve posted 1400 times and I see zero products in your sig. Between 0 and 1400, you may find answers to your questions.
Never mind the fact that most real perfectionists would say their stuff just looks alright, while anyone else would say it’s spectacular.
At the end of the day, shipping is a feature. A very important one that every project needs. Sometimes it’s far more important to ship than to try to improve aspects that you could do until you die of poverty.
I have produced zero products, been learning, observing for about 6-8 months now, only recently have I been able to learn C# enough to be effective with it. I’ve had some serious issues with understanding the software development process which GarBenjamin has helped me to overcome. Mostly, just been soaking up everything I can about how this “game” works. I don’t feel any further need to justify myself, although I’m curious why you feel I need to?
Am I misunderstanding something about how all of this works?
A game requires many different skills - coding, art, audio, actual game design, etc. Few individuals are good at all these things. Even a small group may lack expertise in some important area. Most other artists focus on what they’re good at.
It requires coordination of multiple disciplines. It’s not a one man show. A guitarist wants to play guitar, or he wants to be a one man show. Everybody can’t be a one man show. So is it ego??
I don’t think the parallels you are drawing here really work. The question you should be looking for is “Why small and startup businesses fail”. If you’re an indie dev, especially if you’re solo, you need to be a businessperson. Lacking that skill will result in failure.
I don’t think you need a published title in your portfolio to have valuable input to some conversation but it does add a lot of weight and credibility to your comments. On the other hand the people that sit around reading articles and debating on forums about game dev will never stack up to a published title worth of credibility.
Well to be fair, how much do I sit around telling you about my experiences selling games? How much advice do I dispense about what to do vs. How many questions I pose and ask? And how often when you tell me I’ve got it wrong do I correct myself? Kind of weird, seems petty to say, “you’re not part of the club”.
Which is fine, if that’s how you all feel. Kind of a joke, though.
I think the fact that everything I’ve ever done has either been deleted or was only for my personal enjoyment puts me in the latter group, at least for the time being. You tell me whose taking stabs at who. Then tell me what’s motivating them to do so.
I’ve enjoyed watching you learn and hopefully, by now, you’ve got some basics. Pick something REALLY TINY, like Christmas Crush or one of those lumberjack games. A single menu popup with ‘start’ and ‘rate’, a basic 2D environment with no changes of scene, and some simple player interaction (left/right, tap fast, etc). Create simple 2D clip art in Inkscape and add some juice! I look forward to it.
You cannot fail if you do not try. Since the best lessons come from failures, I hope you fail soon.
