"What Happened?" and various Ramblings.

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There are a lot of people making games. I would guesstimate that with the there are probably 180,000-250,000 game developers in North America, Canada and the UK by this point, if you include every person who can produce a game using Unity, GameMaker or Unreal. Which, you should count them, because they're some of you reading this. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm <-- According to the government, 20 million young Americans are just completely unemployed. Extrapolate that however you see fit and I'm sure you get the idea... lots of people with computers and phones and a lot of free time. Granted, not everybody can make games. Well, then again... Unity, man. You can just publish the demo projects. Anyone who can get a driver's license can publish a game. I'm not bashing anyone, just trying to illustrate in full the situation as it currently stands.

I can process a lot of information, but there are so many games that I literally can not process how many there are. Paper Mario, Ratchet & Clank, Angry Birds... Zoop? I bet Zoop is a game. I can literally just type random things and I bet they are games. Zombie Runway. Tactical Mission. X Zone. Those are games. If they're not, they soon will be. Someone needs to update the rules of the internet to include a rule about there being a game for every random combination of words you can think of. I'm not saying they're all bad, I'm not even evaluating quality here, I'm just talking about sheer quantity.

The majority of games just slip by, unnoticed, like little tweets or facebook comments, immediately lost forever like teardrops in the rain. It's virtually impossible to discern why some games stick, other than to say... they just do, sometimes. And we use confirmation bias and survivor bias to explain why they stick and how it all makes sense, and yet you can always point out 10 examples of people doing something just like that who never gained traction. It is quite the crap shoot.

As I reflect on all the games I've played and seen played and read about, and discussed, etc. I can't help but wonder... what is the point of this? Are people really playing games, or are they just making games with the hopes that they'll harpoon a few whales? What I see is that there's no more room for significant originality. If you want to do retro, go play a retro game, they are still there... they still exist, they haven't changed in 20 years. They're just as good. You can't make them better than they were, if they were perfection. If they weren't perfection, then... why even bother remaking them? And so on. There are so. many. games. You can't play them all. You can't even play 5% of them all. And yet they keep being made.

And I don't even really play games, anymore. That's the kicker. I have reduced my tastes down to small games that only take a small amount of time to play, maybe match-based gameplay or sandbox games I can put down or pause whenever I want. And really, not even that, anymore. I wonder how many people play what number of games and how long they play those games for, compared to how much television they watch and how much time they spend on social media. And what really concerns me is the ratio of time spent creating and designing and talking about games vs. time spent playing them, and I wonder if that ratio is shrinking to be almost even. I wonder if games are part of a culture that exists... existed?... and if there's a reason the average gamer age keeps increasing, if games were just like comic books and they're destined to become a micro niche served by small shops and digital distribution systems.

It makes me think of Scott Pilgrim. I loved it. People my age got it. It was a box office flop. Why? I read an article detailing why. People younger than 30 don't get it... because it was targeted at the Nintendo generation. People older than 30 don't get it... because it deals with cultural issues that are relevant to 20-somethings growing up in the 21st century. To me, that's what games are like. Young people don't get it, old people don't get it. And I'm sitting here, tonight, wondering if 25-35yo people even really 'get it'? I mean, what games are and more importantly what they represent in people's lives? If they have any significance that is universal or in anyway that transcends inherent personal value?

I think it's entirely possible that this flood of games designed to sell as many copies as possible and to make as much money as possible over the product life cycle is evidence that the feelin' is gone, and if it's possible that people are moving on, and that a lot of people don't know why they're making games, if it's just as simple as "I do this. This is what I do." Honestly at this point I'm more interested in relational DBMS and LINQ than I am in The Legend of Zelda. It could be possible that I'm just finally growing up, but I'm also wearing a shirt that says "Growing Older is mandatory, Growing Up is optional" and I'm pretty old... and I can't imagine other people holding on to youthful imaginings as long as I have, so I can't help but wonder if I'm not the only one who's moving/moved on.

I can only imagine that all of the games that are developed and marketed are fired out like shots in the dark, hoping to hit something, hoping to make money. And as the space between each target is increasing (the market is diversifying and broadening, but not necessarily getting "fatter") the only reasonable strategy is just to switch from Buckshot to Birdshot and unleash a spatter of mvp games as fast as possible... which has the unfortunate effect of further alienating the former core gamers and creating a vicious cycle. Nintendo can still create artistic, beautiful games... but even they stick to proven formulas now.

I think to myself... what do gamers want? The answer is simple, really, they have already played it for 200 hours and are desperately searching for something that will even come close to that same feeling.

I don't care what you have to respond with, but I'd like to read people's thoughts upon reading this... I'm curious what effect this wall of text will have on people.

 

Gaming has become mainstream. It has diversified a lot. I don't think we can address it as a whole and say it's X and have any semblance of accuracy. And what gamers want is similar to a question to like "what do movie watchers want?" (answer is: depends?).

And as someone who's gaming time has also shrunk lately, I don't view it as a problem. Actually I don't think I play less games, it's just that I have completely cut down time-sink games (mainly multiplayer stuff) and I really started too appreciate games that have a beginning and an end. It's just that mucking about in Unity has become much more interesting than playing another round of LoL or whatever. I am not exactly sure why it worries you.

Nope. I take issue with this. It could be valid strategy if you want a really, really tiny chance at making it big, but the market is big and diverse enough to support any kind of niche game. You won't be rich by making a niche game, but you can sure make a living with one.

Average gamer age keeps increasing because the generation that grew up with games is getting older...

And I'm not sure what purpose the comparison with comic books serves (and what is the purpose?). And comic books being a micro niche is highly debatable.

 

I'm totally going to make Tactical Zoop Commander: Zombie Zone for my next game.

 

Great post.

Regarding the quote: As a collector of Silver and Bronze age comics, this has been my exact thought the past year or so. I really do wonder if video games are following the same trend that pretty much all things that younger people enjoy have gone over time. Comic books were it, for lots of kids, for decades. Now... they're not. They're a specialty market that only comic book people really care about. It's kind of sad.

AAA games now are like the plastic wrapped, silver marker signed first edition comics of the 90s, all flash and not much substance, and everyone has to have them the minute they come out, only to be left disappointed later that same day. Most indie games are like the independent comics that tried to catch the wave and got caught under water.

The age of the typical average gamer is increasing every year, and less younger kids are playing games that aren't on mobile phones. Once kids no longer latch onto things, they tend to become collectors items for older folks. Is that happening with video games? I think maybe so.

 

There are multiple issues all caused by this modern "gold rush" mentality and all leading to discoverability or rather lack thereof. I don't think there is any real solution to it besides this "gold rush" movement eventually dies out. It is simply a case of unlimited capacity for games to be created combined with a limited capacity of how many can be seen / played at any one time. It is basic common sense really and I have made posts along these lines a couple of times at least now and I think still many people do not see it. As more and more and more and more games are made the problem just becomes worse.

It is fortunate that so far the majority of the game spammers (er developers) seem to be targeting mobile. Consoles will fare better because they require a good initial investment to participate. I think that is the real key to ending all of this madness. If all game markets required a meaningful initial investment it would have made a huge impact. $25 for Android development is not meaningful. The reason I know it is not is because of the huge number of people making Android games. Again just common sense. On the other hand, imagine if all Android developers had to spend $500 or more just for the right to publish their games on the Play Store. And another $500 for the right to publish games on iOS. I imagine these markets would be nowhere near as flooded as they are now. Consoles don't really see this problem because they had the brains to impose a meaningful participation fee all along.

In time this gold rush will pass. Either fees will be increased enough to get the game spam under control or other measures will occur. Right now things are very similar to a time in history 30 years ago. Very little to no quality control. Very little barrier to entry. Gold Rush mentality. We know how that ended up. Many people say it won't happen again. I say it is already happening. Time will tell I guess.

 

Yeah, but it's not only just about the business aspect. I mean, certainly when you look at games you think... they seemed like such a great idea 15 years ago, like something that could change the world. But have they? I saw something the other day that made me sick, it was a game where you kill innocent people. There was no other point. Is this what we envisioned? I know it isn't, but I ask it anyway.
I don't think when I was 12 I looked at games as a way to make money. I don't know what I thought I saw in them, but I don't see it anymore and I'm wondering if I just am not seeing it or if it simply is no longer there to begin with. Saying, "When I grow up I want to make games." seemed like a 'good enough' response to the question which I think nobody knows the answer to at 12, if they ever know the answer to it. So, you believe your own bullshit and you keep on going down the same road never questioning your path until you get to the destination and then you go... "wait, this is it?"
I mean, is this it guys? Clones? IAP's? I don't think this was where anybody wanted to end up. But it's where that path led, and that's just a fact that I think will take people a while to accept. This is where the World of Tomorrow and The Future of Gaming meet... corporatocracy, freemium and other made up words. It's not so much that anything or anyone is to blame, I think it's just going back to "Accept things as they are." This is how they are.
I have been wrestling with if it's possible to make a living off of games... and the answer to that question is... yes, BUT... with the BUT being much more relevant to most people. Yes BUT you need to be lucky AND good AND you need the right timing AND you need a decent sized chunk of time AND you need a budget (bigger the better) AND... even when you are 'making a living' the question remains what kind of living will that be? There's a reason why a lot of devs are also employed full time. Game makerin' is more often than not a COST to most people, rather than something that they gain from.
So for me the question for a game developer in 2015 is, how much do you enjoy pain? Just how much of a masochist are you? If you like hard work for no money, and charity is too fulfilling for your tastes, and you actually enjoy hours of your hard work being shat upon... you might be ready for game development. I say might be, because you still need to develop quite a few skills which will take years to get good at. So, it's a lot like being a monk, except without the spiritual benefits and the respect of a community. So, it's actually a lot like being a hermit. But not a cool hermit who goes where he wants and grows an awesome head of matted dredlocks... no, a hermit who is handcuffed to a computer and forced to live in self-imposed isolation.

Bands that ruled the universe in the 70's and 80's are now playing "residency" at small vegas nightclubs... comic books have been forced to reinvent their characters, making spiderman a multiracial sexual minority, Superman is a dejected teen antihero, now. So what's the point? Everything fades and somehow, the moment that everybody is able to make games it no longer seems to matter if you're better at it than them, none of that matters. It's still cheapened and no longer hip.
So here's a curveball... I have used a lot of apps lately that measure your progress through tasks or course material, and they offer game like feedback for completing steps. And that has me thinking. Yeah, games may not be the same. However, what have we learned from all these games???
Think about how much we've learned about human eye-hand coordination and feedback responses. We're going the wrong direction. Games can be used to inspire people to do things they wouldn't normally want to do, or to do things with more enthusiasm that they would otherwise be bored with. We can make things MORE human with games. Better user interfaces, better entertainment, etc. There's a big world out there beyond merely making games for entertainment. Games for educational purposes seems self-defeating, and for now it probably is... but it doesn't have to be, forever. A future where a pop quiz app can download a database of questions from a university web server and administer testing, focusing on areas where you do poorly... I mean, the future can be so much better.
But Crossy Road and Flappy Bird aren't going to save the human race from self destruction. And some guy making a billion dollars by getting a bunch of people addicted to his game don't seem to make a dent in the grand scheme. The world doesn't need original ideas it just needs good ideas. And the 50th clone of some game with IAP's I'm almost sure that's not a good idea.
What if you gamify a forum and see how it affects discussion? Games to improve people's psychological condition? Games to make people less afraid of other cultures? Games to make racism and sexism seem pointless? It's possible, but not if nobody does it. And not if it's all about how much money you can make doing it.
So that's a road we haven't gone down... just remember that as I'm writing this 100 more violent, murder-centric games were released for free download. In the 2000's I debated the influence that games have in culture... I was wrong. Games are probably the most cerebral, influential medium ever devised by human kind and naturally... we're using them as children's toys.
Go us.

 

Games and game-play in and of itself is all of that and more. Video games are not. We're not using games as toys, we're using video games as toys. That's the distinction I see. The sad reality is that video games seem to be the one medium that is both massively popular and has no true lasting value.

There are songs and musical pieces from 500 years ago that still touch people's souls. They still resonate with people, and they remain relevant today, centuries later. You can turn on a radio and hear them any day of the week. They're not specialty things, they are part of our culture. Not to mention the music from a mere 30 years ago which is still being listened to and enjoyed today, by regular people.

There are films from that earliest days of cinema that we still watch today. They are still considered the top of their form, still relevant. You can turn on a television any day of the week and find old films from the 1930s still playing, and still being enjoyed. Not by enthusiasts, but by regular people. Not to mention the films from a mere 30 years ago which are still being viewed and enjoyed today, by regular people.

There are books from thousands of years ago that people still read today, and that still have a massive impact on society. Books and the written word have shaped the lives of millions. Books are an essential part of society and we revere them. Stories. Written on paper. Impact. Relevance. Ancient. Not to mention the books from a mere 30 years ago which are still being read and enjoyed today, by regular people.

There are video games from 20 years ago that were considered absolute milestones. Great achievements in gaming history that set the bar for the video games to follow. So...

Go ask a regular, average person how much influence 'Half Life' had on their lives. And if they do know of it, if they played it then and they speak of it in glowing terms, ask them when the last time they played it was. Chances are, they haven't played it in ages, and if they did, the glow would dissipate. Half Life defined a new era in video gaming. It changed the field. It was amazing. And now, it just seems kind of... dated. And old. And... who cares? "You had to be there" I think is the proper phrase in this instance.

Books, music, and film do not require a "you had to be there" element to remain relevant. Video games do.

The video games that were huge are now just footnotes. No one really cares about them anymore except for "retro" gamers, or put another way: enthusiasts. Or people who have fond memories of them but haven't played them in 20 years. Not regular people. Not regular society. Regular society couldn't give a damn about the pinnacles of video gaming. Even people like us who grew up with video games, even we don't truly care about what came before. We're always looking for what's coming next.

There is no 'Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' of video games. There is no 'Citizen Kane' of video games. There is no 'Moby Dick" of video games. There is no "Chess" of video games.

Video games are digital dust. Blowing in the wind.

Poof.

 

It's weird to think about.. what are video games, anyway? Simulations? Computer assisted imagination? What are video games except showing off what we can do with digital displays, electronic input devices, etc. It's NOT new or all that cool, anymore. It's like... it's standard. Everything is old hat. 1,000 page printed novels? Done that. 50 hour games? Been there. Hundreds of people online at the same time? Boring. I think going forward the focus has to be on what technology is going to do FOR us. How is it going to make our normal lives more fun, not by asking us to pause our lives and fritter away the time with little farm simulations. How can we use video game principles to design non useless things. Is that possible? The wow factor is gone for everyone but us core enthusiasts, that's for sure. I'm still impressed by my own cleverness with writing complex, real-time algorithms to achieve neat visual effects... but I think it doesn't amount to much in the end except to satisfy the ego. Well, okay... I am pretty sure that I can do anything I imagine or solve any problem I'm presented with, now. So... I mean, what? Make another platformer? Invent a new genre? What's the point? Even the Half Life guys were like... we'd love to make another installment of half life, got any new ideas? And that's why I think Valve made Steam.

Yeah, Ony, true games have no lasting value but at the same time... programmers still have skills that are very, very valuable in the real world. So, consolation prize for wasting your life on games... the entire universe exists in the form of digital media and every person in the world has a couple of computers. Good thing I wasn't obsessed with cartography or something.

 

Video gaming though is a very young media. How old is the average gamer who used to play on their Commodore 64? Or their NES? Go up to someone in their 80s and I think on average you won't find anyone who actually played video games.

We consider modern video games to be impressive, but what will it be like a hundred years from now?

No, those who care about them are "pirates". Because in order to play the old classics you either need hardware, which is likely failing by this point, or you need to download it and emulate the platform. Copyrights, trademarks, etc are allowing companies like Nintendo to make the act of playing the classics effectively illegal as you often cannot obtain them otherwise.

 

Speak for yourself. I still have my Atari 2600, my Commodore 64, my Atari 800xl, and every system I've owned from the NES up to the Wii. I don't have time for games anymore, but if I make time I can still play the crap out of Yar's Revenge. I think the classics hold up well. Of course, I'm old. I'm not sure how far before their time younger gamers would be willing to go. I'd bet they'd rock out to AC/DC before they played Frogs and Flies (another 2600 game I could play the crap out of today)

 

That's great for you. What about someone who is starting to get an appreciation for them and cannot obtain the hardware?

My Commodore 64 hardware is still going strong, but at some point that will change. It is becoming progressively harder to find the equipment and maintaining takes knowledge that is only available on a few online sites or in manuals that are slowly turning into dust.

My floppies are eventually going to wear out and they do not make replacements any longer. At this point I have transferred every game I care about to modern computers (.d64, .t64, etc) as I simply do not trust my old media now.

 

You may have hit the nail on the head in one aspect maybe not your main point but a collateral concept. Back when hardly anyone was making games back when the majority of people could not make them... it seemed to matter a whole lot more if you did make them. The fact that anybody and their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews now can and are making games it kind of seems like it isn't very cool or important at all. Games are a dime a dozen these days. Heck more like a penny a thousand. And that has cheapened them so much it definitely removes at least some of the motivation to make them. I think it is that way with anything though. Once something becomes so easy to do that nearly anyone can and is doing it there is little need for any one specific person to actually do it. It's kind of like a little old lady I knew who used to bake these awesome pies that she sold on the weekends at the Farmer's Market. At one time she was the only one who did it. And she did an awesome job on it. After several years word got around and suddenly there were 2 other ladies all offering pies. Then 4 ladies offering pies, brownies, cakes and so forth. On the one hand it was great because there was more inventory for buyers. And the competition caused the prices to drop. Heck even the original lady dropped her prices. The people making the other pies that truly were not as good sold even more pies simply because they sold "Delicious Home-Baked Pies" cheaper. Finally, as I bought a pie one Fall weekend the lady thanked me for always coming by each year and said she would not be there again. I asked if she was simply retiring from the pie biz and she said "it is just not worth it anymore. I put a lot of time and money into every pie I make. But I sell no more pies than anyone else. Even less in fact. People don't really value quality like they once did and there are so many people doing this now a pie isn't worth very much. Even a delicious pie made with extra care. I may be back one day though. You see I have always been good at crocheting." lol So anyway, I just shared that because that is kind of how the games market.

 

A hundred years from now none of the current video games will even matter, let alone be played. Everything we are right now, the vast majority of our knowledge, our entertainment, our lives, is in digital form. Digital is nothing. It doesn't exist when you turn off the power. Its gone. We are building our current civilization on a foundation of literally nothing. There is nothing tangible about digital technology. Nothing that will be left behind. Nothing you can touch, smell, or hold in your hand. It's dust.

Music can be written down, it can be recorded, it can be played live. Film can be recorded, stored in a tangible format, or even printed out frame by frame into a book. Books are printed. These things exist. Video games, code, the Internet. None of those are real. Tears in the rain, as Misterselmo and Roy Batty have pointed out. We can't even get video games from 20 years ago to play properly on current equipment without jumping through a bunch of hoops to do it.

Go try to play 'Dungeon Keeper', an amazing achievement in gaming, on a current computer without using the patch to make it work. It doesn't work. You need a patch. Fifteen measly years after it came out. Will someone still be making a patch for Dungeon Keeper to keep up with the latest digital tech in twenty years? Fifty? Doubtful.

It's all for naught. Most games aren't even released in physical form anymore. They're just magical bits and bytes, blowing in the wind. We make throw-away toys that can't even be dug out of a box found in an attic 40 years from now.

Poof.

 

I had a crap load of Activision games on my Android. Legal and from Activision. GOG has a whole bunch of old computer games. Namco has a few games out on iOS. Q*Bert (another favorite of mine) and Pacman are both on Steam. I have a game on my Mac called Pangea Arcade, which is pretty much just modern remakes of Missile Command, Centipede, and Asteroids. So I think the younger folks can find both the old games and new games in the spirit of old games pretty easily.

 

That is awesome! I still have my Amiga. Packed up still from when I last moved. I need to make a space to set it up again. I wish I had the ole C64. I do have an NES and Genesis console. In fact, I just bought 5 new games for those consoles yesterday. Actually, the more insane this modern gaming stuff is becoming the more I find myself interested in buying older games and consoles.

 

Hoops that would be largely unnecessary if companies weren't so insistent on protecting their products that have long since ceased being sold in any meaningful quantity. Want to play an older title? It should be as easy as downloading a pre-built package that includes all the necessary software to make it run.

It shouldn't be any different than transferring a book, movie, etc from one storage medium to another.

 

I have my Genesis, and the 32X add on I got for it way back when. I haven't bought any new games for any of those systems in decades though. But way back in the day when the NES was just out and they were still selling Atari games, I asked my mom to get me Q*Bert for Atari for my birthday or whatever occasion it was. I was disappointed when she got me the NES version. I wanted to kick it old school! Or maybe they weren't still selling Atari games and she had no choice. I dunno, that was a long time ago and I was just a whippersnapper.

 

I don't know, Ony, I think you're being a bit overly optimistic about all of this turning to dust. It would be great if Snake Plissken really had pressed a magic button to shut it all down, but I think that will never happen. There's too much power in information. There's more power in information than there is in military weaponry. Nuclear weapons will be retired before we let all of our glorious data go "poof". I don't see the "fiery end" outlook making much sense. We're more Brave New World than we are Mad Max. Video games may well be forgotten. A few, like Pac Man and Space Invaders, we aren't going to forget. Chances are you'll see Super Mario in a museum one day, a little glass case covering an old arcade as the game plays out in demo mode for eternity, like some old time forgotten relic.

But Big Data is here to stay. They'll find a way to store it without power. The problem will always be how to actually sort through it all. It'll be a cold day in hell before they let the lights go out, is what I'm saying.

 

You used Mad Max and Snake Plissken in one post. I think I might have just blushed. All you have to do now is say something about R.J. MacReady and I'll never say anything mean to you again.

 

There is no point. This entire industry is designed to waste peoples time.

Unity goes one step further and lets you waste time while thinking you are doing something useful. Saw a post around here the other day along the lines of "The greatest game made with Unity is Unity itself".

There are some side benefits, people who play games tend to understand computers better. Understanding computers better helps to function in our current society and work place environments.

 

*waves her "the end is nigh" sign...

 

Zoop - Zombie Operative


Retron - gathered all my old cartridges and ordering one of those =)

 

I have one lol.got retron 5 for Christmas

 

I think human consciousness, and society in general, is constantly evolving, and you can see this in various areas like what is 'fashionable' at a given time or what is something `new` which seems exciting and amazing at the time, and then 5 years later is looked back on and seems antiquated and lacking. It seems that way because our perception and awareness has expanded and now the old stuff is `within` the scope of this larger frame of reference.

Back when it was much more difficult to make computer games, e.g. in 8-bit or 16-bit era, those folks seemed like super-cool amazing heroes. Particular publishers/development teams could be counted on a couple of hands. The likes of the Bitmap Brothers, Psygnosis, Core, Team17, Visionary Design, etc... seemed to wow and delight us with their creations and inspire us to want to be like them. Then over time, more and more people did this, and game development got easier (democratized?), and people playing games broadened immensely to new demographics and casual gaming etc, and people who never used to even play games whatsoever suddenly are playing games as well. And then everyone is wanting to make their own and doing so, and then there's mobile, and then there's the likes of Unity, etc. Now there's millions of games out there of all kinds and qualities.

I agree like others there are some games that transcend time somewhat, remain classic, are always good to go back and play. They have longevity, global appeal, that certain something which keeps things fresh and exciting and just `did it right`. If it aint broke you can't fix it? .. Then there's the S***-load of mindless `me too`. And then there's all these games created by people who you would never have penned as being particularly talented at making games, making games, and their state of mind is reflected in the quality of their work. So now joe smith's grandma is making games about teacups and cutlery. So all that hero-worship has dissolved into the giant sea of followers.

I think I'd just be happy enough to enjoy making games and to make enough money to live off, and have that be enough. To even achieve that seems like quite a task nowadays, and to go beyond that takes something extra special to stand out. It's every man for themselves. And it's also partly driven by the whole `american dream` (really the ego dream of independent sovereignty) where everyone wants to be everything, and everyone is publishing themselves everywhere, etc. It's a very different landscape. Plus games are getting to be more socially connected, more a part of how our minds connect to each other. In the more distant future I see the `need` for games as a scaffolding supporting mind connections being much less relevant or necessary. I think we'll eventually mostly outgrow the need for these training wheels.

 

R.J. MacReady is the best chopper pilot of Anartica or this side of Anartica. If you got an alien menace to deal with, call him he is your man.

 

Most of this is the march of technology. What's the likelihood that people are going to watch a movie if the only option is a betamax tape or laserdisk? Hell, a lot of old movies don't even exist any more because they got filed away and no one paid attention to what they were.

At the very least, the better chunk of the classic games have been remade or updated officially or unofficially over the last decade or two. Just look at what the modding community has done for the original System Shock, which is effectively abandonware, in the form of System Shock Portable which bundles a dozen or so mods into it, most importantly being resolution and mouse-look. They turned something that was a fossil into something palatable by modern standards (still rough around the edges but it works).

 

The real issue is what needs to be addressed. I am just not sure how to solve it yet but, like I mentioned before, the mass of content has created the issue or at least made the issue readily apparent but it is not the issue. It is easy to see the all of the games as the issue... and I certainly mention that a lot ... but really all of the mass of content whether websites, videos, games, books, music or whatever is not actually the reason why so many people see few downloads and sales. It IS the reason why each slice of pie is smaller and getting smaller every day. However, the real issue is that technology for effectively managing all of this data has never appeared where it matters.

Think about web search engines and online stores. They deliver the results the same way today as they did when the first search engine appeared. It worked back then because the supply of content was significantly smaller than it is now. Seeing 10 to 20 results at a time and often the same 10 to 20 over and over again is about the least effective way to make content known to users.

I do not know what the answer is yet but I believe the person who solves this issue of discoverability will have a place in history and become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Either from rolling it out or from having it bought to silence them by the big money search/marketplace companies who always want to direct users to the content that generates the most money for them.

With so much damn content to present it is a hell of a challenge. Think of websites for example. Obviously, there are tons of brilliant websites out there on subjects you enjoy. Sites that you have never seen appear in the search engines. Occasionally you may find one via an ad or perhaps someone in a forum mentions it. And you visit and think holy $#!7 how did I never know about this?! Because it was buried on page 3,689 in the search results and most users never go past page 3.

This is the real issue.

 

More like this is the reality. In particular, the reality of every independent artist that has ever walked the earth. Just imagine the plight of the first indie artist who had to lure people deeper into the cave, just so that he could show off his paintings (and thus marketing was born).

Would you rather have the android marketplace or tower records? Neither one really helped discoverability. One of them has no distribution costs while the other has no distribution, so pick your poison.

 

It is a different problem. At least in my view. This is not limited to a lack of marketing but that even with marketing there is a limit. The lone cave artist can easily get the word out it. The modern day equivalent would be the cave person can put up ads on trees and boulders or whatever but they are surrounded by other cave artists all doing the same thing. Some artists scratch over earlier ads and list their own and then have theirs scratched out by another artist doing the same. They can get listed on the giant rock in town but it only has enough space to show 4 ads. The issue is the limited means available to get their message out. If there were only 10 games on the app store they would all be easily found. 100 would all be seen a lot. As more and more appear the limited space available to list the games means more and more games are immediately buried. Just as websites are. Some cave artists may try throwing rocks with their ads on them or putting on a big campfire sing along to attract attention. But then so does everyone else. Many things to market. Limited space to market it. Of course, the more expensive or dangerous tactics will have less competition so some cave artists try to buy up the trees and rocks. Others may have occasional t-rex mud wrestling exhibitions to draw in the crowds. But still all of this is necessary only because eventually people get tired of searching through dozens of rocks or trees to find what they are looking for. An inefficient system for presenting what is available.

 

Sounds to me like we're effed. Like what IH was saying, everybody thinks they can start their own company and become somebody. We are all infected with confirmation bias and survivor bias. And everybody has bought into the notion that everybody is special and that everybody's ideas are worth listening to. And perhaps every person holds the potential to shine. But for many, that potential remains unrealized and they go about spreading bad code snippets and copy-n-pasting 80% of their game's code, using crap art, flooding markets with typos and embarrassingly bad storylines and unprofessional presentations. And you know what? We're stuck with it. Again, I would rather work part time at Starbucks than try to make a living off of games at this stage. At least if I was making coffee (with computer like precision) people would say, "Wow, this tastes great! Best one I've had in a while!" But you spend 80 hours on a simple shooter and people don't even pay attention. It's not that they say bad things, they say nothing... games don't even register. Unless some game takes off for no reason, meteoric rise on social media and people start sharing stories about it, that game may as well not even exist. I played a really neat game, I have the only comment on their Facebook page. It was covered on Indie game sites. It's bad. It's really, really bad out there. Even good games are getting caught in the undercurrent. The math doesn't even add up. What do you need for a game that takes you a year to make? No rocket science needed, you need a year's wages. So, what do you want to make? If you can code at a professional level, you shouldn't be making less than 50k. Plain and simple. If your game is $0.99, are you really selling 70,000-80,000 units per year? The answer is... mostly likely not. These are best case analysis numbers. These are the 1%. The 99%? We can suck eggs.

It just blows me away that I could make more money doing phone sales than selling games. All I would have to do is close one sale and I'll have bested 99% of the aspiring game devs out there. I hate my day job, but it puts indie game development to shame. It just rips it's lungs out. It crushes it. And my job is so comparatively easy... I'm at work right now. And I'm in a serious recession in this town. And still, no comparison.

That's what's making my mind up that the game development boat is sinking. It's still a fantastic hobby. I just have no expectation of money from it, and so it's basically taken the place of the time I used to spend playing games. I am even leery of the idea of getting a job for some Tap-x mobile game developer, because even if I could get in the front door....how long will said company be in business?

In the end, I think there's a cubicle out there... waiting for me, with pictures of some lady's dogs taped it's glorious synthetic fiber walls. With a noisy chair and a keyboard with a loose "e".

Maybe if we all hold hands and pray, we can end this game market invasion... because to me it's Giygas and Cthulhu rolled into one, and for the most part "You cannot understand the true nature of it's attack."

 

That sums it up nicely. You hit the nail on the head. I think this is the part that seems crazy to me. I've stumbled upon games and found others through articles or blog posts that are good games. And the developers were marketing them too. Those are the ones I stumbled upon. On a site and saw an ad. Hmm... clicked over. So, I try to dig and see if I can find out any info on how well they are doing. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for the success of some games.

For every game that is a success people point out all of the things they did right. The marketing they have done. And so on. Yet for every one of those games there are at least a hundred more out there that have the same kind of marketing going on. The twitter accounts. Facebook accounts. YouTube videos. Steam Early Access. The Kickstarter campaigns. Paid advertising. Reviews. And yet they have nowhere near the success of that one other game. I think that is the part I find very strange.

It makes sense to me as a business venture the odds are very high you will fail if you simply make a game and release it. Period. Nothing more. I can get that. But when a person is doing the design right. Putting in the time on quality development. Doing the twitter stuff. Facebook. YouTube. Paid ads and on and on. And still sees a trickle of money coming in. That I do not get. Yet at other times we see people simply making a game (Flappy Bird) and gaining far more success and it appears in at least some of these cases they did NO marketing work at all.

I realize timing is involved. And the game genre can play a part. And the blue moon. And maybe a unicorn of luck. I get that to a degree. Still, like you said it simply doesn't add up. In fact it makes little sense at all. And this I think is due primarily to the huge number of games flooding the market. Sometimes you simply get lucky and somehow for whatever reason your game is seen and heard through all of the fog and noise and it does very well indeed despite you doing very little or maybe even nothing besides simply making the game and releasing it. Other times a person can work their ass off developing a good game, testing it, release it and it is instantly buried beneath the onslaught of games being released every day. All of their marketing efforts result in only a trickle of sales. If they had a job in IT and done all of that work it probably would have been worth $25k, $50k maybe more. And yet they end up making $100 or maybe $1,000... if they are very fortunate and generally they make nickels and dimes. Anyway man, good post and good point!

 

Well, it's work making games. And if I'm going to work, you best believe I wanna get paid. So, how is it I can do the best job I can on a game and barely even be awake at my day job and the pay discrepancy is so huge?

Well, hey... nobody wants to do technical, laborious, dirty work (can't imagine why) and so the supply of people in my trade is lower than, say, people who can and will do customer service at an IT call center. So, supply and demand... I make more than the IT call center tech. Okay, so the number of people willing to make games is actually exponentially higher than the demand. And so, you would say....but wait, wouldn't that mean based on s&d that most game devs would work for $0 or less than $0? As in... most game devs would actually have to PAY out of pocket to be a game developer and make nothing?



So here we have a revolutionary chance to study the laws of supply and demand. They are true no matter what and they are not distributed evenly across the whole of the market. There's a clustering effect that surrounds a handful of products. You might even call this flocking or herding. People will instinctively get behind the product that they think other people are getting behind. As far as I can tell this reaction is completely gut. Unless you have enough money to create the impression that something has caught on in a massive way, the MVP shotgun is your best bet.

Or even better the only way to win is don't play. I think the only chance is if more people than ever realize that the market is overcrowded, they'll leave of their own free will.. And then we'll be back to major corporations shutting out the underdogs, as God intended, rather than all the lobsters trying to pull all the other lobsters back into the pot.

 

Games are like salad dressing. It's not hard to produce salad dressing. There's no strict definition of what a "salad dressing" is except something that goes on salad and comes in a bottle.

This is that aisle in walmart:


Now for something a little trickier, a little pricier and hard to produce:



This is the only nova smoked salmon in this store. Price per ounce? Too much, if you ask me.

Now look at what Hidden Valley ranch has done to stand out from the other dressings:



They've funded a video commercial and (if I know walmart) purchased monitors and equipment to display their commerical on Wal-Mart end caps.

To average people, this goes unnoticed... but other dressing mfgs who can't afford to do the same thing? Chances are people won't be dipping pizza in their ubiquitous salad dressing anytime soon.

Big companies buy the market. It's a tightrope walk to stay profitable, but they shut down the little guys this way.

Gaming is 1000x worse right now, because that aisle spans several big box stores and most of the dressings are free.

You'd buy Hidden Valley, too, if that was how it was... and nobody would buy your dressing.

 

I think with today's digital distribution (e.g. Steam), there have never been a better chance to get your game out to a larger audience. Was more or less impossible for indies to get their games out in stores 10 years ago.

Of cause there is a lot of crap out there, but thats what you get when something becomes popular. I don't really see it as a problem. Of cause you have to be talented enough now a day to make it, but hey i wanted to be a professional football (soccer)player when i was a kid, but i just didn't have the talent compared to all the other millions of footballers - thats just life. But now i am getting paid to program games so thats kinda awesome too. People can't really complain about their games not getting enough attention if they are doing it as a hobby a few hours a week or are being naive and trying to make it big on mobile without a PR budget.

 

Are any of the examples you are thinking about produced for more then two million (approximately the budget/cost in the US of a ten person studio for about a year)? Projects of that size have never had good odd for at least the last twenty years. And yet we are living in a age where most of the good games that came out last year were indie, or at least from a small studio. The actual game buying market is looking at these projects and is making it a more viable sector then it's ever been.

I just get the feeling you and @Misterselmo are looking around the mobile market and finally noticing it's S*** as far as the eye can see.

 

I've got friends who have been thrashing away in their noise band for over a decade and probably made less money than a average crappy mobile game. Once the barrier to entry is low you really need to find a way to stand out, other artistic professions have been dealing with this challenge far longer than the video game industry.

One side benefit is that developing a quality game(s) will really increase your own marketable skills so it is not for nothing. Jesse Freeman has a great article about monetizing html5 games, where the primary thing you end up selling is yourself: http://jessefreeman.com/articles/my-take-on-monetizing-html5-games/

 

30 years ago such games were hurting consumers because you had to pay for them. Right now quality control is lacked on Steam Greenlight (which Valve plans to remove) and Google Play (which are mostly free and contain screen shots, giving consumer a general knowledge about app before buying)

There are many good games and probably some good games are made right now!

There are relatively less games which hurt consumer than before 30 years ago.

So there are chances Game Crash won't happen or won't be same as 30 years ago.

 

My opinion, games are just too new. How many recordings do you listen to from the 20's? Maybe a couple? I guarantee thousands were made, but just were not that great. Games is a compelling, timely medium and every so often a 'classic' will be made. Just needs more time, and more people making them.

 

Now here is where I come in, $500 to post Android? What about people like me, who used Unity Free to create the best they could but got stumped because they couldn't get enough money to pay an initial fee. And couldn't get a crowd-funding going because they couldn't get their game any Popularity. These sort of things hold people like me back from Publishing games that I worked my ass off to Create. Like the steam greenlight fee, $100 for a CHANCE to get your game on Steam. Not even a guarantee. And then if I lack the Fan-Base to get voted in, I'm just casted aside like the game never existed. No matter how good it may be.

But then "Richie Richs" step in, create a half-assed game, post it on a few blogs, get $50,000 in funding and publish a game that probably took them less than $1,000 to make and then find themselves making $500,000/year off that piece of S*** they barely worked on.

 

Well that is exactly the point. When you say these kind of things hold people like you back who could not afford the fee. That is exactly what the purpose of such a fee would be. To limit the amount of game developers shoving out games to only those who are willing to put some money into it. I expect it would mainly just cut way down on all of the games being released by kids who may well be one of the bigger sources of the game spamming thanks to Unity Free and GMS. The same way we do not see games (or at least not often) released for consoles by kids or otherwise being spammed out by other people because of the $3,000 or whatever the current fee is. I suggested a fee much lower than that. And anyone not willing to pay the $500 could still self-publish just not clog up the mainstream markets. Yes it would present a barrier to entry and that is the point. If 5 people teamed up and published under one name splitting the cost now it is only $100 per person. In my mind, if a person cannot or is not willing to spend $100 to $500 on this then they really don't need to be releasing games onto the market anyway. They can still make games and learn and share games with their family and friends.

Your Richie Rich example I think is basically just the dream everyone is chasing. People seem to believe this is what is happening fairly often. Lol More likely is this wealthy person (or maybe they saved their money or borrowed the money) develops a piece of crap game, spends the money, posts it on a few blogs and it just becomes one more bit of clutter out there to help bury other games yet is rarely seen by itself.

 

People are using 10-20K+ on small indie titles (often from own pocket) without any success. What did you really expect?
Games are big business, few things talk: Quality, Money and PR. Money and PR often goes hand in hand but that does not mean that it is impossible to get to a audience without money, you just have to be realistic and aim for you specific niche.

And if people cannot even be bothered to pay 100$ for greenlight then they are not serious. And if your not serious it will never become more than a hobby.

I worked on a game with a couple of friends for 2 years, all students (well not anymore) and we had no money at all. Still we used what we could scrap together for servers, assets, licenses, greenlight etc. In the end we got a publisher deal and did not need greenlight but we still paid for it.

 

This is exactly what I mean. Sounds like your team were not adults when you started working on the game and working to get the money needed. By the time the game was complete you were able and willing to put money into it. I think that is awesome and makes perfect sense. But... like you said if a person cannot or is not willing to pay even $100 they certainly are not serious and don't need to do any more than making games for fun for themselves and friends anyway. I sometimes think a huge portion of the people on these forums are young teens. Like so many of these "companies" and people posting about not spending money or always thinking everyone but them is making junk and getting rich. Lol But who knows really we all have our own views on things.

 

Makes me think of various platforms. E.g. like Ouya, flooded with pretty crap quality ameteur games, mixed in with some better ones and a sprinkling of really good ones. This is because the entry point is quite low. Then there's Steam, and you apparently have to be reasonably popular and good quality to get on there. Similarly with some game portals, like big fish games, or the big consoles... certain requirements for quality before publishing. Often I think it's MAINLY the indie crowd that has this big problem of discoverability and 85% trash output. At least on consoles for example, even the `bad` games are relatively good games with a lot of money behind them. Compare them to many average indie games.

Also while search results and ecommerce stores etc might seem like they are the same as 10 years ago, the technology behind them and how they come up with their results has changed a lot. There ARE things you can do to position yourself better in the rankings and to get more visibility, but it won't work by just slapping a one-page website up and hoping people will come to it. The rules are different.

 

I agree the mass amount of game spam is directly linked to the no to very low barrier to entry. There is no doubt about that.

The search technology may well have improved but it is still confined to delivering a list of matches in a limited format from what is an almost limitless pool of games. No matter how awesome a search engine is imagine you are searching through 100,000 items and then showing the matches 10 to 20 at a time per page. Yes the items that appear at the top of page one will be seen the most. Page 2 is seen fairly well. Page 3 is hardly seen. After that there is little difference whether an item appears or does not.

The problem with the things you can do is that everyone else can do them too. Many will not do anything but create and release but the numbers we are talking about makes it so even if only 1% of games are doing these things that can be done to stand out the first few pages are filled. So it all goes back to limited space. Whether from searches on the markets, videos, press releases, being mentioned on a prominent site and so forth. It is just a limit of the way information is presented. Maybe there is no better way. But the way it is there can never be more than maybe 1000 games getting exposure at any one time. That number is just representive not meant as a concrete real world value. X games can get exposure and 1000 x X games are trying to get the exposure.

 

What? Anything earlier than Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" in 1722 for the most part doesn't use equal temperment tuning and sounds out of tune and/or too weird so 99.999% (maybe a little higher) of people don't listen to anything older than that.

That's only almost 300 years ago. My source: Music theory classes in college.

 

There is something being missed, here... and I'm noticing a pattern. No matter how much it is stated that "indie games are bad business" people still focus on the "survivors", or hype or blog posts or anything that confirms their belief that they will be that 1:100000 that makes it.

Working your butt off to make the best game you can is great, but who asked you to do that? Where was the demand for that? That is being missed.

There's more than enough games to satisfy everybody's tastes. And really, that's all you need to know.

And it's not surprising that these game services aren't doing a lot of work to improve discoverability for YOUR game. To them, the only difference between any two games is how much money it can make for them. Because it's a business and they know how to stay in business. And that same company ISN'T selling their own games. They're selling yours for a cut. Even if you don't make enough to continue, they do.

Now.... can anyone show me where there is high demand in the gaming market? I'm not seeing it.

 

I mean, it's actually simple if you take a step back and analyze things pragmatically.

What determines prices? S&D. O.k. So, where's the demand? It's not there. But the supply is there. But, but... Notch!!! Ok. Really? I mean, intellectual honesty time... reeaalllyy?

You wouldn't open a coffee shop next to Starbucks. You wouldn't open a burger joint next to a Mickie D's. But you'll make a game in 2015?

You must love games.

And not need money.

 

There was a recent thread linking the salary surveys for indie gamedev and it works out to pretty much below minimum wage for small shops. Not sure where you get that everyone thinks it is a big money maker?

 

Ask laymen. Google it. That's the impression. Even smart people believe it. I would rather have more money than chase a dream. That's just me, though.

 

I'll wear that. I've a comfortable day job. I build games in the evening to kill time. This also applies to a lot of teenagers living in their mums basement.

The low entry barrier to mobile games with Unity free means we can pump out crappy games fast enough to drown anything good you might produce. And as we don't care about sound economics or running a decent profit we can price out games for nothing. Race to the bottom anyone?

If this really bothers you, or you need to do things like eat with the profits from your games, then mobile isn't for you. Move to console development, or making games for steam. Something with a high entrance barrier to keep the riffraff out.

Cause believe you me, us riffraff are here to stay.