A Call for Revolution

Commie?? seriously? you think Capitalism means manipulating the market??? that is called manipulation not Capitalism. anyway show me your successful app on the store.

 

How about instead you show us your failed apps that absolutely failed because of this problem and definitely not anything else. This is your idea, YOU provide the proof.

 

if you need a proof then you are not following the market closely, anyway as long as people are happy with the little they get and surrendered for the big companies my idea won't work.

I only wanted to have fair chance for everyone to show their game, and then let the best be the richest, with the current market it doesn't matter if your game is the best it only matters if you have connection with the market editors.

 

Oh for...

All your app idea does is attempt to change who the market actors are in a way that is, ｏｎｃｅ　ａｇａｉｎ, ridiculously exploitable.

 

It is a part of capitalism and it happens routinely.
The market is netiehr a noble place that values "merit" nor a magical fairy tale where "everybody gets an equal chance".

That would require a different universe. While the desire is understandable, life simply does not work this way.

 

I guess I was wrong, you guys don't need a revolution you need a miracle.
anyway since everyone has spoken against the idea, then forget about it.
cheers.

 

Well you did start off with a call for a revolution. Its one of the hall marks of cold war era communism. So it shouldn't surprise you that people make the jump. If you are going to use communist rhetoric, expect to be labelled as such. Even if your idea doesn't bear much resemblance to communism.

You keep saying this, but its entirely irrelevant to your argument. Its an ad hominem attack. You are trying to discredit the person sharing the message, without commenting on the message itself.

So go and build it. If you really are right, and this app will solve the discoverability problem, then you'll have thousands of devs flocking to your door.

You know, none of the great revolutionaries ever gave up just because the first handful of people they spoke to said it was a bad idea.

 

I doubt the french were commies when they started their revolution, and I used it as a metaphor but maybe i should have been more clear in my post in what i was really trying to achieve.

building the app is the easy part the problem building such app without the support of the developer community will make no sense because it will be again the discoverability problem and this post has been viewed 500+ and only those who opposed it commented on it.

and I wasn't trying to discredit the person who claimed the market is good I was trying to tell him if the market is good then why you are not successful yet. I am one of you not your enemy.

 

You are starting to sound like an idea guy...perhaps you should go and make it and if it is good and it miraculously solves the problem many developers will come in droves...right now just sounds like another market where there are dozens out there already.

 

The market will correct itself. Many big shots in the gaming industry have fallen due to not servicing their customers. I don't usually do apps. I do simulations, VR, live interactive procedural visualizations, create tools for other developers and consult to other industries on how to effectively integrate various realtime interactive technologies. I found a niche in the market and ain't whining about not getting a trophy in gaming. Regardless. show me your app is not an argument.

 

That same philosophical group's descendants took over Russia and as the USSR murdered 70 million+ people. That initial entrenchment of subversive forces led to what is happening today in Paris where it is getting burned to the ground. Regardless of that, the way to deal with entrenched market forces is to develop a niche or overwhelm them with brilliance and creativity. Whining that yet another FPS or endless runner is not getting featured over the big boyz is denying the reality of the marketplace. Thee is another capitalist idiom that says you gotta spend money to mske money. Capitalism is not a miraculous process. It takes capital (stored work as money or actual work using brain, hands and tools to produce) and attempts to create value through merit.

 

I think if you really want to achieve what you are after the answer is simple in concept and near impossible in practice.

You just have to figure out how to convince a large percentage of Indies (actually not really even Indies just people in general... most newbies seem to come in dabble in game dev, make a "game"... any game of any quality and then throw it out on mobile) to stop making games or at least stop submitting their games to the markets. This is the only real solution to achieve your end goal.

If only one game was released per day think of what a difference that would make. 1 game released per week? 1 per month?

To give everyone more exposure the only solution is to decrease the number of people in everyone.

Basically... supply and demand. Right now there is far more supply than there is demand. If this was flipped around like it once was a decade or so ago there would be a huge difference. In that scenario these markets need more games and they need them bad. As it is now they don't need anything really. An occasional new game to throw up just to show there is some activity going on. And with all of the content they already have I think they could actually just select games already in their market and have "new" content to feature for years to come.

Anyway, the real issue is you are participating in an industry... in markets where the supply is absolutely massive because of this huge movement the past many years to make it so anyone can make a game. And they definitely are making them and throwing them out on the mobile market by the thousands. And this is why sometimes a game that doesn't seem "worthy" to many ends up getting coverage and doing very well while truly better games remain hidden. Just the way it is.

 

I got featured in 2 countries by sending an email to apple, letting them know that I understood the risks at stake for them when they feature solo devs. I told them that I'd bend over backwards to support customers and I'd be available at all times if the editorial team needed to contact me. They replied to the e-mail!

I'm not saying it's big, but for me, it's a step towards my goals and it somewhat proved to me that solo devs could make it. Sure it's not at the desired scale yet, but it got me believing.

Call me naive, but I don't think there's this big conspiracy. I believe that most people who get featured worked really hard for it, and obviously there's a limit to how much content they can feature, so not everyone's going to make the cut.

I've read that once you get the ball rolling, they assign you a contact. At this point, you're basically responsible for letting your contact know what you're working on, rather than building up sales pitches.

I'm sure a motivated individual could make the right contacts at WWDC and be featured afterwards. This is one way of doing things and I'm sure there are so many more for creative individuals. You just need to want it bad enough.

 

You won't get any support from anyone until you build that app of yours.

Build your app, market your idea, if idea is good it will work. If it is not good, then it won't work.

There will be no support until you have something to show.

Also, trying to taunt people does not work as an argument.

 

Everyone knows you need to be a lvl 14 warrior for it to work!

 

The transition from an authoritarian monachy to a constitutional democracy is important stage in communist thought. So while the French Revolution wasn't explicitly communist, it did move the country towards communism.

If you want to talk Marx, it's important to put him in context. He was born just after the end of the French Revolution and the resulting Napoleanic wars. To him democracy was the first stage of communism. And many communist ideals are borrowed from the ideas of the French and American revolutions. The ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fratenrity are very much tied up in the communist ideal. And some of the theories on how communism would work were based directly on things we're operated in France immediately after the revolution.

Like it or not, when ever you suggest throwing off the corrupt and self serving capitalist structures (the bourgeoisie) you are echoing communist ideas. When you suggest replacing it with a system that is owned by the average developer (the proletariat), that's communism. Any time you are calling to take power and wealth (the means of production) out of the hands of a few people and put it in the hands of the many, you are calling for a communist revolution.

 

@BoredMormon When I opened this thread for the first time today, I didn't expect to read history by page 2. Bravo!

@ekhader Here's what I think, if you care.

I'm having a bit of trouble identifying which games you've made. I see you shared Troubles Land on the forums here. If you're still affiliated with EnkSoft, then you may have had a part in Grimbo and Qais Quest as well. (If you did have any part in Grimbo, I'd like to talk about your main character and who he seems to be shamelessly ripped off of). (Additionally, claiming a game is "Award Winning" without mentioning what award it is... well...)

These games all seem like decent mobile platforming games. But not remarkable in any way, wouldn't you agree? Regardless, the numbers I can see are pretty good, and I imagine you/your company have had a fair bit of success with them.

You're upset that you haven't had a breakout hit. You dreamed that if you poured your heart into a game, people would all love it as much as you do. But when you got to release, you only then started to think about how to compete against the major studios that have enormous budgets for their games and take up the entire spotlight. This seemed unfair to you, because you feel that your game deserves a fair chance to be noticed so you can get your proportional slice of the pie.

To get this out of the way first, in case no one's told you yet: Life isn't fair. There will always be people with more resources than you, with more talent than you, with better luck than you. You shouldn't concern yourself with that, and instead focus on doing the best with what you have. If you do well enough to move out from your current bracket and into the next league, and you're still not satisfied, then you can take on that next group and start all over again.

Pull My Tongue was a game created by a single person (our forum's very own @Zilk) and published by the small-to-middling sized Noodlecake Studios. Through the efforts of the publisher (I imagine) and more importantly, the game's own merits, it quickly joined the Top Paid list in the App Store and was featured on the home page under Best New Games. This wasn't due to some corporate masterminds pulling strings and glad-handing CEOs in 50th floor board rooms. A developer made a great game, and it got noticed. This doesn't always happen, but it does happen.

You wish there was an easy, more consistent, and guaranteed way to get to that point. But the idea you've proposed is not how that happens. Like others have said here, at best what you have is another marketplace that will suffer the same problems you perceive in the current market. And at worst, you have a colossal mess that both consumers and developers can't be bothered with.

Is discoverability a problem for small developers? Sure. But a new marketplace isn't the answer. If you really want to find solutions for the problem, don't concern yourself with the current market practices, and instead look at what people are doing outside the market and see if you can find a way to use that. Promoting a product in a creative way is more likely to find success than trying to drag customers and sellers from where they've had their shops set up for a decade.

 

I don't want to go down to your level, I really don't. we are on a different league I wasn't talking to shovelware developers I was talking to serious developers.

 

Code (CSharp):

1. void OnPost () {
2.     credibility--;
3. }

 

Are you not the fellow who tried to deep six my argument by speaking to app sales of mine. Perhaps to elucidate the second part of your screed you can explain the difference between a shovelware developer and a serious developer. Is it their sense of humor level or perhaps their ownership of an implement for digging earth up? If it is about what they develop and if using others ideas is considered shovelware then what is your work considered? If you are a serious developer then what is it that differentiates you from a shovelware developer? I do know that certain ideologies are quite excellent at projection without understanding or acknowledging such. I await your argument and proofs.

 

You forgot to declare the variable prior to using it in scope

 

Thought it'd be for the best

 

Yes you caught me I am Soviet Union spy sent to the future to disrupt your ideal Capitalist society,

 

Being a hobbyist developer does not make someone a shovelware developer. Neither does being a serious developer somehow exclude them from being a shovelware developer. If anything I would argue that shovelware developers are very serious about game development and trying to make as much money with as little investment as possible.

With every post you're continuing to show just how incapable you are of making and managing the service you're suggesting we should all get behind. Which is quite an impressive feat I might add. None of the others who showed up with a similar suggestion shot themselves in the foot quite as spectacularly as you.

 

That's not the kind of argument people take seriously.

 

That is not an argument. If you cannot define shovelware versus "seriousware" then how can you possibly run your service as intended?

 

Actually I found credibility to be a part of the API (Answer Posting Interface)_ for this thread so..the compiler does not throw an exception as long as you import the adHominem class and declare the args = null.

 

The big problem with indie developers is they try and take on all the work themselves. If you have a dedicated team outside of just coding and modeling you can get a audience. Finding someone with business experience is key, and that is a reason a lot of indie companies are falling. Plus it doesn't help anyone's cause if you are building a exact replica of a game and expect people to play it. Think outside the box and build a game that is going to change the gaming market. ( Obviously this is going to be very hard otherwise everyone would be rich ).


It call comes out to marketing though, if you dont have the money to budget for it. Then contact angel investors or start a campaign and if you dont know where to start, then it is the more reason to hire someone that has business experience and would know how to get these negotiations. It takes more than a good game to get a audience, because if you are not seen you will not make it. ( which is a little bit of what you were saying)

 

I'm confused. Am I the shovelware dev? Me, with my one finished game that costs nothing, has no ads, and no way of making me any money at all?

Or were you referring to Pull My Tongue, a fantastic puzzle game with outstanding production values that has, from what I can tell, fared very well on the Asset Store?

Or are you just refuting my post entirely because you're not seeing the support you expected in this thread, and you're just... pouting about it now?

I try to never criticize an idea without providing something constructive, which is what the last part of my post was about. I wasn't attacking you on a personal level. I (and everyone in this thread, if you've noticed) was just disagreeing with your viewpoint and joining in the conversation that you invited by starting the thread.

 

@Schneider21 @ippdev @Ryiah @steelersfan252 and all the others here:
I naively envisioned a community of developers working all together to solve a problem we all face, we are developers and solving problems is our area of expertise, I thought I will through out my idea and people could start adding and removing from it to make a viable solution. I don't care if we change the whole idea to something completely different. it's just we need to get to the bottom of this problem that keep standing in our way.

My idea was simply to create a discovery app that we all promote; And this app will not host any app package but rather link to our apps in the store.

But since you all hated my idea then lets forget about it, and if you have any other suggestions please let us know.

 

This just sounds like you made a game, put all your effort into production, and ignored business and marketing side of it and are salty it got no exposure. Thinking about how your going to sell or market a product is just as important as its development.

 

that is true, but we all face the same problem, can't we all put our efforts together to create a better consistent solution for discovery?

 

But we don't, developers that invest effort or money in marketing, or hire a product manager to handle that do not have that issue.

there is a lot of making games that is not writing code or making art, if you want to be successful you have to do that work

 

That's a step in the right direction!

Here's where I'll offer a topic for consideration: While I agree that being discovered is a challenge, I don't know that I'd necessarily say it's a problem that needs solving.

While there's no formula guaranteed to get you discovered, there are certainly things you can do to increase your chances, right? Making a game that is fun to play is obviously number one. Bringing something new to the table tends to get a lot of attention. Having an interesting aesthetic certainly helps. Some find success in addressing social issues that big studios are afraid to touch.

The problem with the idea of a platform for increasing visibility is that if it's popular, it really doesn't increase visibility at all, as you're just competing for attention in a different space. And if it's not popular, then you're not achieving anything anyway. This is why I don't think you can pursue this from a platform/application perspective. It doesn't work at an industry-wide level.

Instead, I think ingenuity is going to happen at an individual level. If I'm making a game about pirates, why not seek out a local pirate enthusiast group (if such a thing exists) and market the game to them. Maybe they'll share it with their other chapters and my fan base is built in that manner.

I don't think there's a way around the hard work grind. But if everyone else is trying to bash their way through the front doors, you may be able to get in by climbing a tree and swinging onto the porch roof, climbing the downspout, and jimmying a window. It's still work, but you made it in while others didn't.

 

I know a few. Throw a big enough group of people together, and special interest groups form around every topic.

This thread is full of surprises. I find myself finding common ideological ground with ippdev. Perhaps that miracle the OP called for is happening.

I think you are misunderstanding our point here. Communism isn't inherently bad, nor is Capitlism inherently good. They both have all sorts of strengths and issues. And where you fall on the spectrum tends to be a result of various political factors.

But on the issue of market efficiency, pretty much everyone outside of North Korea agrees that the capitalist principles are the way to go. The free market tends to be brutally efficient at providing people with the goods and services they need, when they need it.

Whenever someone calls for regulation on the free market, they are looking for an aim other then market efficiency. Regulation is meant to curb the market from becoming too efficient. It's meant to protect people, the environment, stability, or a particular institution.

Which in a roundabout way, explains the confusion and general opposition to your idea. You are advocating for a more regulated market, which will also be more efficient. Anyone who has paid any attention to twentieth century history should have a problem with this idea.

 

I'm still not sure which has more relevancy to this thread out of Freud or Marx.

In any case, the problem with this thread is that apart from a not-so-solid argument from solid snake, the problem hasn't really been sketched out at all. If you say there's a problem, you have to show what you've tried, what results you've gotten and why you think your solution would help in those circumstances. Until then, everyone is just going to turn this into a soviet drama.