What game is most trendy currently?

There is striving western dating sims market, however small the cap is. I think they take very seriously for what I have seen, and some author became famous because of them (see Christine Love, famous for Analogue: a hate story).

 

I'm aware of a very small number of (western) games that approach "okay" quality for a visual novel. Those would be sunrider series and some of the creations of Hanako Games. I also heard that "Cinders" isn't that bad.

The situation is slowly improving, but usually by default when it is a "VN" or a "Dating sim" developed by a western dev, I would expect a low quality artwork (deviant art level or below), short story, and if there's voice acting it will be atrocious. All the quality stuff on steam is usually of chinese/japanese origin.

In general, it looks like asian dev usually would spend loads of time meticulously making sure that every pixel and line stroke looks right, while a western dev would make a sketch, glance over it few times, stick it into the game and forget about it. I'm not sure why this happens though.

 

You forget solstice

http://store.steampowered.com/app/317280

There is decent western dev, there is also an amateur circle, it's like comparing the Japanese VN studio to doujinshi sold at comicket.

 

I didn't say your mindset is wrong.
My point was simply, that you don't need a fully voiced and animated game to make a worthwhile VN/DatingSim.

I agree with your point tho, that making such game, or any game for that matter, just for the purpose to make a quick buck, is a bad idea and won't work in most cases.

 

I'd like to point out that anime in general is very good at cutting corners at every opportunity it gets. Animation usually runs at half framerate (meaning something like 12 fps), and reuses frames often ("animate something in 3 frames and pan it slowly" is a very common trick). But either way making this kind of clip would be expensive.

In general, it appears that there's a strong scene associated with music and video production in japan/asia, that's why even the worst VN would usually have an intro song performed by a human singer.

Those are the guys who made cinders, which I mentioned.

 

I'd be careful with that comparison, because there are a lot games and manga sold at Comiket, that have better quality than their professional counterparts
Because a lot of these hobbyists are not less talented, but they usually have a lot more time to polish their work, unlike a professional Mangaka with a tight weekly/monthly deadline.

True.

 

I know for comicket, it's also true for any amateur circle, you can always count on having an unhealthy mix of hi quality stuff, amazing stuff that would need polish because made by an emerging talents that didn't know better, crazy stuff you are still processing if its good or bad, and lot of derivative talentless crap made by beginner or the local Ken Penders that don't know how to evolve after years of career (replace by early Rob Leifield if you don't know who Ken is).

 

If we can tell you, you are already to late!


Really. If somebody has made something trendy, you might as well just skip the trend. Chances are you will be one of a myriad "clone games" coming out, and will NOT make any more sales with that than with doing ANY other kind of game, because that market is becoming quickly crowded by other devs following the trends. If you are not the trendsetter, or happened to come in so early you must have worked on something similar before it became a trend, you are better of doing your own thing.


Set your own trends, or "die tryin'..." ... or to put it in other words, don't worry about whats trendy. Instead, try to go AGAINST the trend, if anything. If nobody is building an RTS because its not trendy anymore... you might be surprised how much success you can have by building the same old, tired formula with a modern engine. Just because there actually ARE people out there eagerly awaiting a new RTS game. Just nobody tried to cater to them for some years, so the "trend" hasn't been discovered yet.

 

Yeah in mobile, these publishers want to flip entire polished games in 3-4 months max. It's a bit crazy, but most of the art specs and the scope of the code makes this doable.

 

My input on current trends: Obviously anything AR/VR right now, educational kids games (Minecraft morphed into this), sandbox physics games like Roblox or other physics type games like Totally Realistic Battle Simulator (think Gang Beasts), any kind of world building game like Cities Skylines, Civilization, etc. Survival horror games seem to be completely saturating the market as well, everyone trying to find a unique or fresh take on the genre (I guess if done well it has potential due to the market overexposure). The real question is: What is the next thing that will be cool or awesome after Jan. 2017 or better yet, by Nov. 2016 (so you can hit those holiday sales numbers). Not so much a prediction because it exists, but more like a "cant go wrong" is/are physics based sandbox games with persistent worlds. If done well, how could you lose?

 

Well my wife comment is always same, every time I share with her my next brilliant idea .. multiply that by 2 or 3 and probably you will be in middle of that project.

It’s evolved to the point that instead of time in months I look at this problem and ask myself how many games of this type I’ll be able to finish before I rest one day and it’s not much really

 

Like it was said Pokemon Go is pretty much an impossible task for small devs. Even if the client part is easy you would have to have a massive server farm in case you want shared social experience. They also have 2-4 years worth of landmark data and high density "traffic" areas collected with Ingress and on top of it they are partners with Google and were originally part of them meaning they probably have highly customized map system in their hands.

 

A few things on this. AR/VR is the current wisdom, yes. But I think some caution is in order to not blindly follow the herd and end up in a niche...

VR will certainly gain momentum at some point, we still don't know how long this is going to take.
With the current fairly limited VR Hardware, and the high requirements for the PC driving all this, we certainly have not that high mass appeal yet. Also, up until now we are still waiting for Killer Apps. Chances are if there is none by the time the public moves on to the next big thing, VR will stay niche.

Well, maybe Sony manages to get Hardware AND Software out at the same time.

AR is being "used" by big hits like Pokemon Go, but then, if that really does qualify as AR, IDK. There certainly is a lot more you can do in this space, so I would say at least AR currently is a safe bet.


As to "but more like a "cant go wrong" is/are physics based sandbox games with persistent worlds".... if you are Ubisoft or EA... and have currently the leisure to waste A LOT of dough on a project, yes, go for it.

It seems to be trendy, but its also completly saturated if you ask me. And it doesn't seem to get any better with more an more AAA games feeling the need to add "openworld" and "physics based gameplay" to their games.

You CAN do Sandbox games and persistent worlds on the cheap, true. But is a cheap version of GTA or similar AAA games really in such high demand? I would question that.
Again, instead of concentrating on following the big buzzwords, you probably should rather go with a smaller, but more polished expierience IMO. No Indie game that hit it big in the last few years did so because they followed a checklist of buzwords and made sure they were all in.

Yes, there is DayZ. But was DayZ that big a hit because it is an openworld sandbox game? Or because it was one of the first that did take the survival aspect all the way until you couldn't even trust your fellow players anymore? I suspect if DayZ was just another sandbox openworld game without anything special differentiating the game from other openworld games besides ZOMBIES (yes, that is unique </sarcasm>), the game would have bombed

Spend your time to make your game unique, and don't waste it doing pointless market research which ends up just copying others.

 

Yes so I sense that when seeing the hit game's history, every remarkable game that hit can give original and fresh new experience to gamers when it initially released. It was mostly not like any other games out there at that time, or even if it combined other existed game's feature, still it can provide refined experience.

So what is the next big thing that whole gamer's brains, collective intelligence can be satisfied?
It is undiscovered now, so nobody knows.

So game developers or game designer need to be prophet, mystic to see the future?

It seems extremely hard problem. Require divine intuition.

 

I think it comes down to three things: creativity, expierience, and luck.


You need creativity to come up with something new, or re-invent an old formula.

You need expierience to read the market right, see where there is a niche you could fill, and where the market is saturated.

You need plain luck that you small success becomes a big one.


That last thing is pretty much the bane of the game industry. Barring a big name, its all up to luck if your game is a hit. You can prevent it from totally bombing by avoiding oversaturated markets, and creating a quality game that doesn't suck.
This all will not guarantee your game is the next minecraft. Hell, minecraft was kinda original and all, it was not that unique though. To some extent, it was at the right place at the right time, and the devs behind grew the game and the community in a very clever way (and knew when to sell to MS to score the big payout)... but a ton of luck was also involved.


Also, another thing to keep in mind is "survivor bias"... look it up online, its an interesting read. The key takeaway point is that you cannot really learn from success, or replicate it.
What you do can though is learn from failure, to prevent doing the same mistakes. Thus concentrate on NOT doing the same mistakes as others, instead of trying to emulate the success of others.

You cannot not guarantee that the best game becomes a hit. But you can guarantee that some stupid mistakes can make the best game a failure.

 

@gian-reto-alig I agree to most of your opinion.

But minecraft's success is not luck. Its real force of the game itself. When users play it, they feel infinite possibilities, that sort of senses which gamers never felt from any other games so far from major game industry's AAA players like Blizz or Nintendo, Ubi, EA, nowhere.

So that is reason of success and real competitive point that can beat major player's other factors like AAA graphics or physics or story, modeling, animations.

Pocketmon Go is similar maybe. Gamers want new experiences, pocket go successfully stab that needs and become origin of that experience.

 

It was luck, actually. At the time minecraft was released, there were several competing games in development, some of which had rigidbody physics.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Barth#Infiniminer

Minecraft itself is a dumbed down dwarf fortress with 3d graphics slapped on top of it.

And speaking of "infinite possibilities", Minecraft is one of the few games in existence that cause motion sickness for me.

 

At some point they introduced FOV changes based on location of the player. Underground had a different FOV than being topside. You could look for a mod that removes that and see if it helps.

 

I think if you're asking about popularity you're asking the wrong question. Sure it'd be nice to also be popular, but I think you need to ask more WHY its popular. What is the demographic - understand your audience. But also if you're trying to do whatever everyone else has been doing already, there's only so far you can be popular with that, especially since everyone else is asking the same question and copying you. When games fly to the top of the mobile charts its *usually* that they show something that has never been seen before, at least not by the masses... so the likes of flappy bird, the likes of crossy road, the likes of angry birds, etc.... something different, unexpected, unusual. If you are 'the same' as others the brain will filter you out. The brain is more stimulated by something that it cannot anticipate or has never encountered. Be more original.

Also go do some demographics research into what types of people are playing what types of games. Then you can at least avoid the mistake of making something for an audience that does not exist.

 

Where is data sheet or graph? I tried to google but subject is too large scope to find.

 

I think @neginfinity summed it up well enough. Actually many people looking at minecraft, or minecraft players have no idea of its humble beginnings.
Yes, there might be a lot of good things in minecraft, some innovative ideas, and good execution. But the same could be said about a ton of other similar games that came out around the same time, either failed in the market and were forgotten, or just never where as successfull for no real reason other than luck.

Yes, a game that tries to reach such lofty levels of success has to be good. But that alone is never enough. Quality without luck will end in modest success or even failure.


Pokemon GO marries a somewhat interesting AR Gameplay with a Brand that is bound to be success. IDK if the game is any good really, haven't played it myself, no interest in Pokemon games really.
But given the craze ALL pokemon games will instill in players, a pokemon game needs to be pretty BAD to actually fail in the market.
So make a halfway decent game, add some new spin on the traditional gameplay (by making it an AR expierience for example), make it free-to-play, and add that Pokemon brand to it.... there really is hardly a way for this to fail.
90% of that is up to the brand name, though.


Which happens to be the ONLY thing that can minimize the luck factor: if you got a big Brand, you no longer need to rely on luck as much as the guy who just starts up with a new studio and a new IP.

 

Sharpen your google skills. Think about it. There are lots of charts out there. What genres different genders play. Most popular game genres. Games women like. Games men like. Average age of game player. Most popular ios game genres. Game demographics. etc.... you'll find generally, for example, that women hold a majority interest (up to 80%) in puzzle, casino and simulation games. Or that men are up to 80% the players of tower defense games. Or that endless runners are gender neutral. There's various insights you can find. But you really need to understand who you are making your game for otherwise you're just going to throw something out there hoping someone likes it and then fail (or experience luck). Here's some I found when I was researching what games women might like or how women differ from men. Women function quite differently to men in a number of ways. Also beware of the lure of trying to please everyone - it can be a huge trap unless you have a really broad-appealing game. You're better off finding a niche that you understand well.


http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/1186642/file-4148045896-png/blog-files/demographics.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FULuAViL3AU/VhrVnFW_nrI/AAAAAAAAALY/4U3jW4535Sk/s1600/Demo-Graph-1.png
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/50869cfaeab8ea693000000b/image.jpg
http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/w...n-app-purchases-monetization-data-chart-1.png
http://i1.wp.com/www.consulgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Favorite-Mobile-Game-Genre.gif
https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/mobile-game-genres-930x596.jpg
http://i0.wp.com/www.consulgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/genre-2.jpg
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/coms...pp01/95/comscore-mobile-games-forum-9-728.jpg
http://img3.mmo.mmo4arab.com/news/2015/11/13/eedarreason640.jpg
http://i1.wp.com/usabilitynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/videogames_2.png
http://i2.wp.com/usabilitynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/videogames_3.png

 

@gian-reto-alig We should see the gamer's point of view from an extremely cold position. If gamers do not accept (recognize) the game is innovative or good execution or has fun experiences, then its not at all. Regardless of maker's think or critic's review. Other indie games simply do not have some factor that can compete with AAA games. So because other indie games do not have real forces to attract, thats why they do not achieved big success. For gamers, if gamer can get same or similar experience, there is no need to play indie game at all. So there is no indie for gamers at all. There are just bunch of games and all the games compete with each others.

@imaginaryhuman Thanks for much graphs!!

 

Wait, 67% female in "simulation"? We aren't talking about flight sims here, are we?

 

Nice charts @imaginaryhuman, gave me some idea, have you more grouping players by age ?

edit:
Seen some on google but can't nail one showing age vs genre.

 

True, but what is your point here really? Do you challenge the assumption that a games success is up to luck to a large degree?
Are you talking about established Brands vs. upstart Indie games?

The Sims?

Given that flight simulators, and any other kind of simulators have become pretty niche, I'd say the Sims could make up a big chunk of the total... IF the Sims qualify as "Simulator" (which the name and genre (life simulation) kinda suggest)

 

Twenty year cycle.

 

Pretty much....

Look at what was hot about 20 years ago, create a nostalgia driven Indie title that harkens back to those times, and cash in from the guys that played their first few games during those years and now at 30-ish have a ton of disposable income to spend on something that takes them back to their youth.

Its no coincidence that after the 16-bit craze of Indie games in the last few years, we are slowly seeing "eyesore inducing Polygon graphics" aka early PS1 era polygon graphics styled Indie games become trendy.
I mean, its inevitable, but I wished we could skip that... just started playing through some old PS1 games again, and that jaggies, blurry textures and artefacts really are something I cannot feel nostalgic about.

 

20 years? man you guys are way out of touch, its <15year cycle now, by 2020 it will be a <10 year recycle cycle

I see Sega remaking Sonic back to capture the 16bit origins.. and I'm like bit fcking late.

I see Doom and Quake champions.. and I'm like bit F/CKING LATE.

Onto remakes of the remakes now, at least making those better. Going back to old classics to remake is just stupid its like missing all the stuff inbetween that others had introduced in gameplay mechanics when remaking those classics.

 

Quake release date: 1996.
Doom I release date: 1993.
First sonic game: 1991.
Current year: 2016.

 

Your point?

Because my point is that was that they remaking games from 20+years ago that no one really gives a S*** about now, the ship has sailed. .they should be remaking later games like Quake2 and basing from later game releases in gameplay, style etc.

ie <15 not 20+

 

Or.. wait for it.. NEW FRANCHISES

 

Proof? You would have a point if that was games from "200 years ago". People from 20 years ago are still around, alive and kicking.

 

The point is you are supposed to invent the cool thing. If you are just making someone elses cool game, you are already too late.

 

This is key. I've had an idea (or more) which uses the VN formula, but instead of dating, it can be.. well, hell, any other f**kin' topic in existence. What I mean by that is, bring back the "choose-your-own-adventure" storytelling mechanic with the VN technology. Tell a story. Add a branching plot or two. It's essentially "adventure game lite" (i.e. Her Story). The amount/level/quality of content is at the discretion of the artist. Don't let existing VNs dictate what a VN should be. Anyway, it's not big yet, but that's opportunity. You read it here first. You're welcome.

 

Mobile today is worse than PC ever was. With the gap between 'fast' and 'slow' devices being larger than we've ever really had to deal with on PC. The Unity side of things is fine... then you have to start dealing with platform-specific stuff, plugins of very variable quality, ever-changing mobile OS's, and it all gets rather nasty. You spend all your time staring at progress bars waiting for Unity to do another build so you can test that one-line script change that can't be tested in the editor...

And then there's the F2P factor. If you're going F2P, which is pretty much compulsory these days, expect to spend at least 50% of your development time on monetization/retention features...

 

Ha ha ha, all of this is highly accurate, and in particular, I can attest to the accuracy of that number. The game pretty much was playable within my target window, it was the monetization that has eaten so much time, especially anything relating to google and their broke ass plugins.

By comparison, with PC it takes me 10 seconds to test any code changes, and theres no downloading ridiculous broken plugins or making 37 accounts with google just to do IAP, then another 24 just to do ads, then like 3 just to publish, and then another one just because.

 

Well, lets see.

Most gamers have their first contact with games during their teen years... or at least its the period where they spend the most time gaming.

Nostalgia kicks in at about 30... before that, you are still waiting for that awesome life as an adult that you were promised by popular media and your parents... you know, which just starts after finishing college. Then, maybe after you got settled into your first job... then maybe after you ditched your first S***ty job for a better one. Then maybe after you have married and kids.
For most, around about thirty the stress of their career, having a family, as well as the quarter life crisis means that people start looking back for the first time in their life. Most look back to their teens, when they had all the time in their life (except school, but you tend to forget the bad stuff), and everything seemed fresh and new.

Add to that that by hitting thirty, money starts piling up. You have paid off your school debts by now, you are moving up the ladder in your career, your savings account starts to fill. For the first time in your life you have money to waste.


20 Years do sound about right...


As to "nobody gives a sh*t about"... I do. It seems many other do too. Otherwise I wouldn't have to pay outrageous prices for cartridges of old SNES classic RPGs I didn't buy back in the days (truth be told, if the price is over the price of a new game, I just pass). Otherwise the whole 16-bit craze of the last few years wouldn't have been such a thing.

You don't care about them, that is fine. But believe me, if you are extrapolating your own view here to everyone elses, you are missing out on a good portion of your potential audience.
Many are looking back on these old games with nostalgia, and for a good reason. Some of those games have a timeless quality you can still appreciate today... some just were landmarks in the progression of games (like Star Fox / Star Wing on the SNES... hard to endure that polygon graphics today, but damn, was that thing the shizzle back in '94! 3D Graphics! On a console! Woooh!)


As to "new IPs instead of remakes"... yes, we all would like that. Start by putting those long running series like CoD into the land fill first. But its not gonna happen, not with AAA games anyway. Stakes are just too high nowadays, every new IP you bring to market is a huge risk. Most of the talk about Destiny back when it was still in development included at least one paragraph about the risk they were taking with a new IP.
Same happened with Overwatch...

Only reason we see so many new IPs being brought to market in the AAA space currently most probably has to do with long running series having been milked to death. Last I checked CoD was slowly spiralling downwards even though the last entry in the series seemed to be mildly different to the usual fare. Next CoD seems to be ill fated before even coming to light.


Now, "the ship has sailed"... no. Just no. If a game had fanbase large enough ONCE, it takes a considerable amount of S***ty sequels to destroy this fanbase. And given there are no sequels, the fanbase will most probably still be as large even after 20 years.

Example: Breath of Fire was once one of the best and mostplayed JRPGs back in the 90's. The last Breath of Fire game, BoF V on the PS2, has done a lot to damage the fanbase. New, kinda weird combat system, switch away from sprites to polygon characters (and not the best examples of them, while the sprites in BoF 3 and 4 were among the best on the PS1), and a extremly annoying mechanic that forced you to replay parts of the game every so often after you ran out of a non-renewable resource (which is what killed the game for me).
Yet still today, a lot of people whine about capcom releasing a S***ty mobile BoF game that has literally nothing to do with BoF, and everything to do with a cheaply produced mobile cash grab. 12 years after a game that killed the series on the PS2, people still do care. Because the games before BoF 5 were actually quite good, with memorable characters and nice graphics for their time.
Because even when they see how deep Capcom has sunken from their glory days, releasing mobile pay to win crap instead of working on new console games, and worst of all, abusing one of their main console game series names for that utter BS, they still deep down hope that Capcom sees the errors of their ways, stops their mobile cash grab for long enough to develop a real BoF game again for a console, and gives the BoF fans another installment after 15+ years of waiting for a sequel.

I fear Capcom will go broke before that happens, but lets just hope SF 5 brings them enough cash to both survive and see that there still is a market outside of mobile.

 

VN is not necessarily associated with dating, although the dating version is the most common. Then again, there's this significant difference that western dating games are usually stat-based, while VN are usually similar to "choose your own adventure" games.

For example, VN+TRPG/VN+ARPG/VN+JRPG exists. "VN" is less of a genre and more of gameplay mechanic.

This is a visual novel too:


If you wanted to "tell a story", then there are kinetic visual novels (IIRC End World Economica is one of those).

 

Honestly, this is the last place I expected to see Sakura Wars referenced.

 

Right the "common" part is what I mean. There is business opportunity there.

 

There's always a business opportunity, but if you're expecting to invent something entirely new, then it was probably done before.

 

Point and click is trending right now, for me at least.

 

Yeah, I have no doubt it's been done before, but not well enough to be generally known. I just wanted to share my thoughts, and bring it to the surface for anyone, like the OP, that may want to to take an initiative on this.

 

I don't know about trending but they're definitely getting remasters. They've already done it to Monkey Island I & II, Grim Fandango, and Day of the Tentacle. Last I heard Full Throttle was next line.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/12/5/9854420/full-throttle-remastered-ps4-vita

Additionally while searching I dug up this weird thing.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...t-30-year-old-mmo-is-now-preserved-on-github/

Let's not forget "cloning the latest successful games despite not at all understanding why people liked them".

 

Every time I read this I feel like "luck" should be swapped with the word "timing".

 

Yes and no.... timing is pretty important, but is mostly up to luck IMO. Unless you have a big budget for market research, and even then the result might be way off the mark.

Even with the seemingly perfect timing:
1) someone else can have an even better timing, because he releases 2 days before you and gets most of the attention because of that.
2) You can come up with the perfect timing for your release, and even without competition hitting an even better timing. Maybe a big AAA game that you weren't aware of steals your thunder because your game missed its few hours on the front page because of that? Maybe players are just not buying as much games due to outside factors when your game gets into stores? Maybe your timing WAS perfect, but you now have a PR disaster at your hands because of bugs in the released game or other things that are driving away potential customers... will you be able to repair the damage?


I fear that whatever you do, you can only increase the odds a bit. Luck still is the most important factor if you want to achieve more than just moderate success (which CAN be attained without relying on luck given hard work, perfect timing and a very polished game IMO)

 

Well I guess this veers off into the philosophy of it. I don't believe anything like "luck" exists. In your response, it sounds like you are saying timing is something fixed, something we can know. In a few cases, yes, but in the vast majority probably not. What I am conveying is, timing = luck. They are one in the same because timing is unknown when there are too many factors to incorporate into a scenario. In the case of selling an entertainment product like a game, it's success is probably linked to cultural shifts, market perception of a genre, pop culture, previous successes of similar genres, geographic social stability, generational shifts, geographic economical factors, government oversight, demographics, and holy S*** the list goes on an on. There is nothing you can fix in the timing of this, with the exception of statistical data showing things like sales being higher over the holidays, etc.

I think the best example of this (in my opinion) is the story of Minecraft. The original creator of Infiniminer didn't find commercial success at the time he released it. Notch took the source, remade some things and released in his own time and found massive commercial success. In my mind this was not luck at all, this was a matter of timing.

 

It wasn't entirely timing though. Infiniminer was released as a game where you competitively mined resources not with the goal of building structures but with the goal of receiving points for them. Players though were ignoring the scoring aspect in favor of building.

Notch's blog mentions he had previously developed a prototype that was inspired by Dwarf Fortress but the project had never made it beyond that stage. Eventually he stumbled upon Infiniminer, played and enjoyed it, but decided the game was too limiting in terms of building and decided to try making his own game.

There's definitely some timing aspects but I feel like this was largely about delivering a game the audience wanted.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/227922045/the-origins-of-minecraft