The Truth About Devlogs
Vložit
- čas přidán 28. 04. 2024
- Are devlogs useful when trying to market your game? When should you start creating a devlog? What should you show in a devlog? What the heck is a vertical slice?
Also, what equipment do I use for videos...
Will be doing more of these QA videos and would love to hear from you! If you have a question about game development, solo development, Godot, life, anything...drop it down below in the comments to have it included in a future video.
🔥 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL ►► / stayathomedev_
Thanks for watching everyone!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STAYATHOMEDEV ►► stayathomedev.com
TWITTER ►► / stayathomedev
GODOT ASSET MARKETPLACE ►► godotxc.com/
#gamedev #gamedevelopment #godot - Hry
Have a question or topic you want talked about? Ask in the comments! Can be about gamedev or even non-gamedev stuff.
Is it a good idea to make your own game engine and 3d modeling software that is written in ASM and C?
Hi just wanted to thank you for the effort you are putting to answering all these questions.
Hey @stayathomedev, two things
1.) Love the channel, you have showed so many great Godot games and tools I don't think I would have discovered on my own. I think you're doing great stuff and I appreciate your efforts man!
2.) I have a question about mistakes. What sorts of mistakes do you think game developers (heck even yourself) make that doesn't get enough attention and/or doesn't get talk about enough. I'm not asking for intentionally inflammatory comment anything like, more so what do you think we should all probably be more aware of as game developers? Anything you see as an under-discussed common pitfall big or small?
lifestyle, balance, food, self caring. It's essential for hardworkers like us to know how to live in a healthy manner. I didn't know when I started and only adjusted to better direction recently after years of experimentation and tremendous researchs.
For your next Q&A: When coming up with the concept and plan for your game, how can you figure out the scope of the project? I have trouble guessing how much work and time a feature is going to take, and I was wondering if there's a more reliable way to plan your game (so that it's a manageable scope and you can actually finish it).
My opinion is you should start market when you have something to market. Nobody except other devs really cares about your underlying framework. They care about gameplay and content.
That can start as early as when you have a good character movement or good controls even if your world is still mostly empty or non existent
Yes and no. Depends on what you want to achieve. It can be very good to get other devs opinions on your game.
Well said! We're in that boat - our Devlog #0 was 2 years after we started.
Yo! I saw I've watched your Devlog #0 in the past already and now you already have 17 Devlogs!!! Super cool to see, I checked some other vids out and subbed 💪😎 (maybe I'm ur 10000st subscriber hahah)
@@Smabverse Rock on, thank you kindly! Yeah, we just hit 10K subs today!
@@OandCoGames Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉
Your devlogs are on 🔥, looking forward to the release
Was kinda surprised to see you here when I scrolled down :) but yeah, that's what I was thinking
Momentum and timing are crucial, early announcements get forgotten or set too high of expectations that might linger. wait until the vertical slice is good and roll the wave with that until release.
I feel like we often forget the value of learning when having these conversations. I've been doing videos/devlogs/tutorials for a couple of years, and I'm only now starting to understand what I'm doing on CZcams, or even Reddit. I've been told that I shouldn't share anything until the game is 3-6 months away from release so I don't lose momentum. But it seems naive to assume that I'll know how to make a splash when the time comes if I haven't tried and failed already. Marketing is a skill, like programming and art, and I feel like we need to be more willing to build the muscle early and often.
I've started a yt devlog relatively early on - it's more about sharing my development experience and Godot tips than marketing at this point. I'm happy to have found a few subscribers and get some nice comments helping keep my motivation up. It's also a series of checkpoints for myself - summarizing what I've been doing and the direction things are going to take. And there's a lot to learn about making videos. Heck, just speaking into a mic clearly for 5 minutes is a skill. 10 more videos and I'll halfway know what I'm doing. When the game is ready, I will be, too :)
Bless you for bringing up the term "Vertical slice", that is exactly what indie devs have to focus on. It's an attainable goal and still has a really good chance to pique people's interest before you go on to work on the rest of the game. I think Pizza Tower started out in a similar fashion: The dev had an idea what he wanted to do and threw a vertical slice together that was very close to existing Wario games, featuring a lot of mechanics that didn't make it into the final product - but it was exactly what was necessary to get people's attention and keep working on it. And it certainly paid off.
Good video, I hope many people watch it!
Dude... I know I've arrived when I see my thumbnail on your thumbnail. That was awesome. Love your take and your honest perspective. I clicked this wanting to disagree with you but then agreed with everything you said :P Well done.
Haha then the title worked. Hey great work on your game and devlogs!
@@stayathomedev Lol it honestly is a great title. Thanks for the kind words. Love your work, dude.
Really down to earth comments, this is why I love your channel and will stick with it for ever.
😎👊
Thank you so much for answering my question :D.
I will get to work on a small prototype to share...
I appreciate this advice. Just now I am thinking about starting a game development devlog. I am willing to make an educational game and document the process while explaining the concepts for both the development of the game and the educational topics that I want to teach.
I am very happy you mentioned that a vertical slice can be 5min experience.. I can't stress how much pressure releasing a demo is. And having it in a bite size where you can manage it early on will improve all the subsequent work moving forward (finding game breaking bugs, UIX, adjusting mechanics... etc)
Taking this approach with my next project - once I have something to present, I'll be presenting it as devlogs. Will be starting early!
I'm sort of going to take a different tack. So I'm not going to focus so much on the selling of the game, but rather the development of it. Kind of takes pressure off of trying to see if I can make a game that sells. I'm even thinking to go as far as giving it away for free when I"m done. I'm also still deciding whether I will try to keep it spoiler free, or just spill on everything. Leaning to the spill on everything so people can see what goes into the game from start to finish. Saw DoubleFine Adventure "documentary" and it didn't show you hardly anything. There's a small issue of it being maybe boring at first, because I'm going to start with a text adventure version, and gradually add images, animation, more full interactions. But I'm going to explore ways of making my devlog not seem so boring.
Cool video, keep em coming
Make a prototype and showcase it
Accept all feeds make a playable beta, release it for free or paid (Free beta? More players!)
Gather feedback from players, Improve your game & bugs and set a release date.
This is what I learnt.
Oh yes, i just wait to have something to show before dropping devlog.
Road to vostok style :D
Amazing video 💪😎
Just because a person uses a Mac does not mean we all use iMovie. I use Da Vinci Resolve after the Maid tutor at the college I used to work at showed me its capabilities.
I'd love to have an Open Source version of After Effects though - that would be SO COOOL
Good thoughts. Game dev slows waaaaaay down as you move along and you don't have as much in the way of "cool new content" for a video.
I fixed an annoying bug. I rewrote a bunch of code so it's more efficient.
I procrastinated.
But I like your thought about a vertical slice.
nice advice
I think it's wrong to talk about a game as early as possible. You should do it as late as possible like 2 month before release. And you should generate momentum that you release when you announce. The reason is you want to get onto the steam frontpage (new and trending). But Steam doesn't count wishlists that are 2 years old. They only count whishlists that are younger then 2 month. So you want to get 50k wishlists (or at least 7,5k), but you want to get them in the 2 month before you release. This means you could create a channel on youtube and create a community and you use the reach of the channel for promotion 2 month before release, but don't adverdise it on the channel for years. You won'T get momentum when it comes to the release date. Another thing that might work is if you know another gamedev that already onws a channel and advertises your game for you.
Interesting, gotta save this.
Let's be honest - most game dev vlogs are about making money off youtube not about making an actual game. One could even argue that making vids about working on a game instead of finishing it is a much better financial decision.
I have read and watched a lot from Chris Zukowski's and he specifically has said Wishlist's don't go "stale" and I have never heard him say anything about a 2 month period on wishlists counting, he has mentioned things about wishlist velocity that you could interpret as it being better to get those 50K wishlists within the 2 months ahead of release but that's probably unlikely based on said history of slow drips...
We need a source for that statement. I'm quite certain you've misunderstood something.
@@feydk Maybe I have.
I also can not link every source about this. I can only advice you to do your home work before you create a channel. Because for example if you go for early access you can never be on upcomming and trending, so my advice would be wrong for this case. So there is a lot more to learn.
But if you want a source, I can at least link one. Or enable you to find a specific one. Go to youtube search for "I Had 100,000 Wish-lists for my game..." and then THIS Happened...". The video was release from a creator called Thomas Brush. Watch the whole video and tell me if I did get it wrong.
If I got it right the guy had 100k whishlist, if I remember right he did get two prices at some games convention or something. And then he didn'T make it to the frontpage of steam and he reached out to them. They answered that momentum matters. He did get his 100k whishlists in 2 years. Mean you are not trending if your whishlists are 2 years old. I mena watch the video, he goes into detail. There is also some other resources out there that describe how upcomming and trendiong works exactly.
My devlog #0 was published 12 years after I started game development and 9 years after I started to make the game I showed in the devlog ;)
I tend to agree with the well known game marketing expert Chris Zukowski's that you should get your steam page up as soon as you have the ART STYLE LOCKED IN to test the waters.
The last part is significant as game development has an EXPERIMENTAL stage where you try to find the fun that ends with a VERTICAL SLICE and a EXPANSION stage where you add assets and levels to the vertical slice. In the experimental stage the art style MIGHT CHANGE to support the game better.
If you are an artist that primary creates the game according to your OWN VISION that will rarely happen, so testing early would be better especially If you have multiple game ideas to test out.
Waiting with marketing until you have a vertical slice does have the added benefit that you can better estimate the rest of the production as the expansion stage is more of the same. The different states of a like jam game, vertical slice and playable demo should probably close to each other as you want players to test early and gather interest sooner then later.
The first thing that came into my mind after watching rhis video was that undertale saving screen.
*Your game is saved, you feel determinated to film a devlog*
What you think about Kadinelive
What you want that I filming?
Unless you already have a subscriber base, I wouldn't consider a devlog marketing. It should be more about making yourself accountable to progressing your project. If you commit making a devlog once a week or once a month, then you have to do something and be able to explain what you have been doing, have you actually done something? or just "researched" art styles for the last week.
After closely observing the idea of game marketing, I reached the conclusion that how you do marketing tells more about you than the audiences. How would you want people to see? Is it to see your game through developer's lens? Is it to narrating your development journey to gain brownie points? Or is it to offer something to people? Personally I won't do devlog videos, because my game is too small to even make a proper devlog. It'd be a ranting or venting videos if I have to really put something out there, which I wouldn't want that. Sometimes you can't just aim for the big hit. Rather I personally believe that there is no such thing as big hit. Everything is gradual process. All those virals, there are so many momentums that had been built before it's spurged out into viral. Once I understood these...I'll just do whatever the hell I want to tell people. Marketing is more about messages than promotions. What are you offering? Think carefully before decide what you want to do. I'd been in gamedev circle for 10 years, so it's not the conclusion that I just came up with but the accumulation of continually observation and personal experiences. Also if you're watching people's devlog, just like the guy said they're showing something that could be shown. So your game might be 5 years old without anything to show because you struggling in developing systems and trying to build the game foundation. By starting new projects over and over again because you're stuck, it's to emphasize on what you'd been building so far and not making something completely new. So you have better version of your game systems. But some dude said "I'd been working on this for a week" then you see an impressive footage that you never ever imagine yourself making in a week because you made your game for 5 years and it's not getting near that level. Well maybe you guys are working too much on the system side and never trying to make something visual. I mean it's possible to make something impressive in a week if you already have all the systems and assets. Not to mention it's possible to make something much faster if you knew how to make them, so once you're already at that level it's possible to make everything from nothing into an impressive version. But are you even close to that level of proficiency? The accumulation you have so far is a lot but is it as much as the person that could make impressive game within a week? Probably not right? ME TOO! Don't get discouraged just because you're not experienced as others.
You can very well include early builds of the gane in your devlog, but if that's all you have to show, then the average person won't care.
Use early footage as b-roll or as a reference point for where your game is now, and do it in a way that's entertaining to the average viewer.
I think Dani had a close to perfect formula for this. You didn't need to understand game development to enjoy his videos.
Your fucking right, most part it's emotions
Also if this be give me good money for living future games can be not commercial idk
I think need to do , you love. Truth never been on one side. Comments from me video, me vry motivated, every morning i feel inspiring comments.
Also how you AD you game if you can't editing, this also need little skill
my devlog 0 got like 24 views. execution is hard bruh
CZcams is about showmanship.
If you aim to devlog, you need to have personality and humor, otherwise do NOT expect people to enjoy it outside of the most niche game devs themselves.
It's its own job, if you go this route. And if you have nothing good to show, you'll get nothing in return for it.
I'd only recommend it for people who where planning to CZcams outside of devlogs anyway, and can mix and match the content into something dynamic, interesting and not solely about the game.
People will buy any game Pewdiepie or Markiplier makes, cause they love those guys. Get the audience to love you, and you can sell them something. You get one shot, burn that trust and it's over. But, on CZcams, the parasocial aspect does more marketing for you than just plain exposure to information. As sad as that may be. That's the truth of it a lot of the time.
Step 1: Don’t make a scrolling shooter
Great learning material for devs, boring for actual gamers
I'm the second comet
I like dev logs. I enjoy hearing about different mechanics and the development cycle of them. I hate, despise even, the format used in the videos. They talk over top stock photos and video clips of unrelated content. Or clips of other games showing similar mechanics. I will instantly click the dislike and close the video when I see that format being used.
have anyone told you before that you look like @peter_draws
I use Blender VSE and it is enough...