Is Indie Game SUCCESS all about LUCK?
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- čas přidán 8. 01. 2023
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💬 This post went viral on Twitter and Reddit where a game dev was disappointed with the results of their Indie Game and came to the conclusion that it's all about Luck.
It that true? Let me give you my thoughts as someone with 8 published games on Steam and over 10 years of experience.
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I can only agree with all this.
I have more than 10 games on Steam and some I thought weren't really that good. But one of my simplest 2D games made me a lot of money.
I think as a small developer especially if you are alone you should keep your games small and finish them.
If sales are high and the game is popular you can always add DLC or make a part 2.
Need to define success. If you think you are going to retire or do it full-time without having a regular 9-5. It is nearly impossible unless you have someone else funding the bills. If you want to release a game and make $500. To me, that is a success. The competition in games is extraordinary. If you hit with something, it's like hitting the lottery. E.g., Flappy Bird.
Depends on how long it toke you to develop the game. If you made it in 1 or 2 weeks, sure, $500 sounds reasonable. But if it toke you like 6 months, 1year, 2 years, etc, $500 will be extremely low.
@Creative See, that's exactly the wrong attitude, and I hope CM addresses this in his next vid. There's a huge spectrum of commercial indie dev all the way from $5 (only your mom/dad/bff bought your game) all the way to AAA contractor firms who may make millions, but keep the lights on from their work on other company's games. It's not realistic to think that it's all-or-nothing, that you should eat ramen for years and live off your parents/spouse/friends until you hit on the Next Big Thing. That's just not how a healthy business works, and it's not how 99.9% of game studios/developers work.
Hobby literally means just that - it's a hobby, exclusively for fun and keeping mentally/physically occupied, not for commercial purposes, like if you make knit caps, or Gundam model kits LOL If you're putting it out for sale, or expect/need any return-on-investment (of your time/labor, at the least), then it's not a hobby.
@@cynth4941 Even if it were 2wks - how much is your labor worth? Many folks have walked through the numbers, but basically it's a question of labor & opportunity cost. If you spent 8hrs/day working on a game, but you *could* have been doing a conventional job during that time, then you have to figure the break-even point as however much money you would've been making. Most indies never see that sort of money - even a minimum-wage job [US] makes more than a whole swatch of Steam.
In my case, as a nights+weekend dev with a day-job, I have to figure the worth of other things I could do with my leisure time - being with friends/family, watching TV, reading manga LOL - and so my game doesn't need to match my normal income, but it does need to make enough to match (or exceed) the "worth" of those experiences.
Well done on this response Hugo, I think the community definitely needs to hear more of this perspective. It would also be good if you can match these videos with the actions people can take to bounce back, just as sort of a positive response so that people dont take your advice too negatively.
I've been working on a video on how to set clear goals to help make a game in 2023, should be a fun positive video!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Can't wait to watch it!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Maybe include some tips for people balancing a day-job and game-dev? I encounter way too many folks who are convinced you have to do indie-dev as 100% of your income, or else you're a failure, not a "real" dev, etc. It's BS/imposter syndrome, but seems to be widespread & persistent.
If success is having yachts and mansions, then it comes down to much more than luck.
If the simple fact that you make a thing that other people enjoy is succes to you, then there is zero luck needed.
How to win using philosophy ^
Also there is another option. Being able to make a game that finance your next game keep you and your family alive in the meantime if you live modest. I think that is proper meaning of successful game
@@EnderElohim right, and I'd say that' probably most people's definition. In which case, I'd say it requires a low-to-medium amount of luck (timing of releases vs. big AAA releases, etc.), But mainly lots and lots of hard and smart work should get you there without being way more difficult than starting any other small buisness, maybe better since startup costs are very small compared to most traditional buisness required initial investment
I have a feeling this dev will make another game after this and will be a lot more successful. 👍
I'm currently working on my first game as well, wish me luck. It will be free, lol. I need luck to complete it, not to sell it. 🤑
good luck on your first game! I am attempting to make my first game as well
We can do it Brownie! 😆
Yup a lot of devs really underestimate the power of experience and just how much you improve from Game 1 to Game 2 and beyond.
Most successful devs are on their 5+ game and yet most beginner devs give up on 1 or 2
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Totally agree. How many paintings do you need to paint until you are a professional painter? How many songs until you are a professional composer? GameDev is no different.
I am currently in my 2nd game that I plan finish, 4th game project and I can say, it is more about about not giving up. I think this one will be good enough, not to sell, but to be a more or less enjoyable game, showing I can do it and do it well, this is my strongest motivation and hope you find this notivation too.
I could wish you luck, but I'd rather say that the first steps are the harder, but once you know what problems are you facing, you can understand the many ways to approach the solution.
Haha, your timing for video topics is scarily accurate today! Just what I needed! Cheers!
I like how you take the time to explain realistic expectations, given stats you have collected. Any game I have developed started as a passion project solely for the fun making it. Monetization for me has always been an after thought. I'm following your development progress closely to better understand what I should be doing compared to what I already do. Thank you for this video and keep up the great work.
Thank you Code Monkey. It realy helps me to hear you talk about the numbers and reality of running an indie company. it is hard to see how things will do when your deep in the game devolpment trenches.
I really appreciate this kind of video from you too. With your experience and PoV, I did learn a lot, and if I were the dev, I would thank you for that analysis tbh.
Keep it up ! :)
Thank you, we need more videos like this, because most people have a naive perspective about success in Games Industry... and some others have a very pessimistic one. None is right, because every single case is unique, it depends on several factors related to the time those Games & Developers are coming to the public to try and sell their Published games: economics, war, pandemic, Tech Trends, (etc)... (besides any marketing effort and investment) are always influencing in positive and negative ways the rise and fall of every Startup / Company.
So I would just say: study your current situation, improve your game, prepare your marketing campaign... and go for it with no expectations, with an open mind because anything could happen.
There's a cottage industry in feeding people's naïveté about game-dev, akin to the broader trend in selling "how to become a millionaire from your side hustle". On the one hand, I'm excited that so many folks can take hold of tools that shouldn't be restricted to the lucky few. But on the other, I think there's a responsibility that comes with speaking to beginners in any field - you want to give them a clear-eyed view of things, so they are well-prepared.
Telling folks they can build anything with Unity/Unreal, Construct, Gamemaker, RPG Maker, Godot, etc is great, but convincing kids to major in game design [oversaturated, with too-few jobs], or telling folks that there's plenty of "gold" in the Steam indie market [PC gaming is a small, crowded slice of the market - IMO devs should aim to be as cross-platform as they can manage], is kind of irresponsible.
@@mandisaw I agree. 👍🏻
Teaching GameDev as a Business or preparing Developers for entering the Games Industry is a delicate task, that should not be taken lightly... (it should be taken as seriously as teaching Computer Science & Entrepreneurship in College, because if you go Solo / Indie there's a risk... but also under certain circumstances there's an opportunity for success. And both Extremes are always probable, depending on your decisions).
Nevertheless, I have been following CodeMonkey's Tutorials and I have taken his last course, and I see he's a very good teacher, and also very mature and pertinent in his Perspective about Game Dev & also about Entrepreneurship (I.e.: Indie Game Develpment, publishing on Steam, the statistics, etc). Thanks to him I've got a very clear perspective, that if you try and Publish your first 3 or 4 games on Steam, you'd normally wouldn't make a Living out of that yet (it's an endurance Battle, success in thus area comes with time and sustained effort coupled with great Marketing knowledge & a good team).
@@alec_almartson Yeah, CM's one of the good ones 😁
That kind of real talk is very useful! I'd add that you create your own luck. There is always something to screw up and there is always something to learn and improve.
This is a really good video. I agree with all the points. Especially when you're involved, it's hard to look at your own game and what you're doing objectively. Also, nowadays marketing is a very important point. I really like your definition of success, if you can live full time from your hobby then that's already a huge success in my eyes. What do I need 10 million for, if I can already do all day what gives me joy. 10 million is nice to have, but doing your hobby as a full time job is the real goal.
Very insightful.
Just going enjoy the journey.
To build something substantial and it ends up a stinker... I can't wait for that experience :D
The trick to prevent those flops from happening (or stop a project before it's too late) is absolutely to show your product to other persons, as early and as often as possible. Exactly as you said, players do not care a bit about the amount of time that you spent on a project: if it doesn't look like something they would want to play, then it's gone. A glance by outsiders at this project in this video could have served as a warning very early: the game, no matter how good it actually is, does not look professional or polished. The 3d models are simplistic, but not especially cute or notable, the lighting is really basic, the environments are uninteresting, the presentation is quite bland... Overall, it indeed seems to be another overblown presented 3d project that had little focus on the art or the presentation. I don't say this to be mean to the devs; rather, because I am convinced this is the reaction that most people would have had, especially non-devs. There are so many great games outside, that if yours looks really rough around the edges, it will not catch much attention at all.
Today, with very open platforms like Reddit, getting such feedback is quite easy. If you post your game near release to r/gamedev (which has thousands of active users each time), and it has at most a couple dozen upvotes, that's a very big smell. Again, one could blame this on luck. But if you retry a couple times, on different subreddits and maybe after having tweaked your presentation a bit, and it still doesn't get engagement, then you need to reconsider your presentation a lot. Why would people not even bother to click the upvote arrow on Reddit to show that they are interested in it, but decide to invest a couple of bucks and hours to play it ? Answer: they probably won't.
Yeah feedback is extremely important, especially non-biased feedback which is tough to get from friends and family.
I know that I've suffered from the exact same thing. I thought my game Survivor Squad looked pretty good when I was making it. But now looking back with different eyes I can definitely see just how amateurish it looks.
I have read already you are from Portugal.
But doesn't know for sure.
That's amazing, not only a success game dev but also a great CZcamsr.
Really insightful video! I'm glad that I watch this kind of content from time to time when I'm not working on my game - it prevents me from having unrealistic expectations.
Anyway; about ten million copies should be a cakewalk. (:
Very insightful and informative, thank you for sharing your story and experience.
Thx for the pro advice. This is encouraging.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Love this type of video and the new style you started recreating game mecanic (this is not a lot off people making this type of videos) 🤞👍👍👍
Wow you explain these better then I had in my tweet. I saw a lot of videos of people telling about how much there game was making and some complain why it didn't sell enough copy's.
For me I happy that I can make games. like people 30-40 years ago didn't had the luxury or time to make something becuase you had to build a engine. or markting without internet.
Now we have these tools and we don't use them efficiently.
Thank you for your great videos Code Monkey. These insights are really valuable.
Good to see you, I hope you go back to uploading as soon as you have time.
@@Entikai Good to see you too. My thesis is due at the end of August, so I won't be till then that I can get back to working on games. I miss it a lot though, got many ideas. I see you're uploading now. The videos are great. I love the anime style of the models. Keep it up!
@@wakajak8634 Thanks a lot! Yeah, I'm trying to get into uploading as well. 🤣See you around and I'll be waiting for your new vids.
Thank you, need more videos like these
Thank you for the insight code monkey. I've been working on my dungeon card game for 2 months now and have been marketing it on my page.
Very well said CodeMonkey!
Hello, I like your tutorials very much.
Love the format!
Thanks for the feedback!
Sir, your channel is a gem, thanks a lot for this video, I enjoyed it as much as I was informed!
I'm glad you liked the video, thanks!
Great video!
Very good video, also this insane competition is why I shifted my game to mobile, and if that makes some money, then I will focus on a longer time to develop my real PC game.
Good talk and something that needs to be repeated so less people will fall for the same mistake. Its really unfortunate how many people come into releasing their first game with such grandiose and lofty ambitions because of survivorship bias. We really need to temper expectations and look at reality that we're most likely not gonna be the next Vampire Survivors and be able to accept that fact. It's tough to be critical and harsh on your game, but its the only we can find joy in the smaller successes we do get.
Awesome video and very nice and polite way to go through it. I particularly didn't enjoyed the original thread since the developer did nothing other than blame others for their own mistakes and being arrogant about their personal taste for their game based on a very small amount of people that said it was so.
I like this format @CodeMonkeyUnity but I think it'll be great to cut occasionally to a 'talking head' type of shot where you explain your content to camera. Some of the stock footage is a bit cheese but overall I really like hearing your opinion on these topics! Excited to see the next one!
That's fair. I usually listen to these types of videos as I would a podcast, not looking at the visuals regardless.
Or not just a clip of talking, but just the old way he made his videos, just a image of the steam stats or something and talking over that
Yeah adding some actual face cam footage would probably make the video more interesting but I'm still very much not comfortable talking to a camera. Maybe one day when I improve my presentation skills!
It's also about being different or finding a sector of the market that we are missing and trying to capitalise it
Thanks!
I see that you replied to almost all our comments. I'm just here to say thank you 💖
I just want to add that "luck" does play a role to achieve a success, though in most cases it only plays a very minor role. In very rare cases, like _Flappy Bird_ or _Among Us_ , "luck" can help launch the game to a broader market, causing a massive success. However, "luck" also helps a bit in ordinary cases, and people don't often notice it because it seems so natural. Maybe a not-so popular streamer happens to play your game, driving a hundred of people to buy your game. It's not much, but that's "luck" doing his thing.
In the end, this word "luck" only means the variables we failed to predict, there's nothing magical about it. Focusing on working hard and smart, remaining humble, and helping other devs is a better path to success than worshiping the god of "luck" 😆
Thanks for the video 👋
Can't wait to play your new game
Heh yup I still go through all the comments every day. Thanks!
Yup luck is always a factor in anything, it's a part of life. When it comes to game dev I believe that if you do the right things you can minimize luck to the point where it's mostly a non-factor.
It would be awesome if when I launch Total World Liberation some big streamer plays the game and thousands of people find it, but if that happens that will be a nice bonus. In order to hit my goals I'm not relying on something like that happening.
Didn't the creator of Flappy Bird admit that he used all kinds of spoof accounts to get his game to number 1 on the app list, artificially? Or was that just a rumor?
ROFL what a MOTIVATIONAL video that ends with
'I am SURE you will find the sucess you are after.'
A few years go by, WHERE is my 100 million dollar game.
Seriously I wasn't looking forward to this video, as I KNEW it was going to be NO luck is involved. I wouldn't call it luck, but bad things happen to good people. The best doesn't always win.
On your other point I tend to call it the 'Kids' who make Raft in a weekend and it blows me away. I keep plodding away knowing I'll prob never do that at 45. (BUT that is one recipe they say, make TONS of games.)
HOWEVER, I am keen to follow in your footsteps a bit, and KNOW I am not looking for success as they are, and hoping for that $1,000 a month or, WELL to make something from my effort and hard work. SO yes eventually some thousand years from now I will be successful. ERR I hope!
I THINK another area of 'success' for me is a complete, start to finish FULL game, even if it has only a few mechanics. NOTHING someone would be interested in, but something I'm keen to 'solve'. Even with my Steam release I don't feel I accomplished that goal.
I like this format
The editing on this video is literally fire
Thanks for the feedback! I'm trying out a different style
@@CodeMonkeyUnity it was indeed very visible. First noticed it when you put a UE5 clip in the TV of another stock clip. Some neat work right yhere
I like the new video format but I think there's a little too much stock footage but then again CZcams wants everyone to over-edit their videos to please the algorithm
About to setup my steam page this weekend and I’m super nervous. I’m by no means expecting to make a killing, but the idea of my first launch is both exciting and nerve wracking.
I’m sure this guy was crushed. Putting all of that work in just for no one to really play your game has to hurt. After making a game to near completion, it’s a real eye opener that even “bad games” are a ton of work to make.
My game isn’t huge by any means but I haven’t really don’t anything else while working on it. I haven’t played a new game since working on mine. So I’m sure putting forth all that work and sacrificing so much time without getting big results must hurt
The first launch is indeed quite stressful but the amount of learning you gain is massive, even if the game doesn't sell much. Best of luck!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity thanks! A personal goal of mine is to end up in one of your best games made with unity videos haha. Guess we will see next spring!
Regarding the experimental topic - I personally would rather find technical tutorials somewhere else (there are so many people making those) and watch you for some deep insights into sales, marketing and indie game industry in general. These are very interesting topics for me and there are not many people sharing their perspectives.
Interessante esse novo formato que você usou combinando vários vídeos "aleatórios" para dar corpo. Eu acho que vi um site uma vez que vende assinatura para ter acesso a pequenos vídeos genéricos assim que você pode usar.
Heh yup o edit é diferente. Para este video eu experimentei contratar um Video Editor.
Estou bastante contente com o resultado, acho que para este estilo de "talking videos" este formato e tipo de edit funciona.
New editing style :o
I kinda like it ngl
Heh yup experimenting with something different, I'm glad you like it! Thanks!
Tbh it could be toned back a bit, I think a good mix of this kind of style and the previous style would be the killer
Thank you for your opinion.
I would like to see more videos of this format.
The thing is luck is an important factor in life, the way you control it is actually time. In your life you will get luck, gold opportunities etc, the skill is in recognizing the luck and take an advantage of it. The problem is people expect the stars will align when you need it, that's not how life works. All this is the same when you market a game
Luck does play a big part. Especially in the hyper saturated market of today, when you release a game on Steam or one of the countless console marketplaces, you need some luck to be seen. Even if you make the best game of the world, that does little if noone finds it. There's the saying of a "Hidden Gem" for a reason, games that were phenomenal but simply didn't get noticed in their day.
Of course there are ways to influence that with marketing and such, but marketing costs money and not every indie studio has enough money for a big marketing campaign. So often enough, you have to rely on word of mouth, and that requires luck, that people who are influential enough spread the word to enough people to make a difference.
So of course you have to make a good game first, but that alone isn't enough to grant you success. At the end of the day, selling video games is a business, and luck is a required part of becoming successfull in any business.
Yeah if you get into game dev with the hope of achieving Vampire Survivor type sales, your expectations are way, way, wayyyy overblown.
Of course there's an element of luck to anything in life, but the most important thing is not the amount of effort you put into your game, it's where you put those efforts, and as you said CM, marketing needs a lot of effort to work. Some people even create their own youtube channel with the hope to get an audience here that would then be more inclined to buy their game (for example, the youtuber Shadiversity said that one of the reasons why he started his youtube channel was to eventually promote his books, which worked quite well because his book sold pretty nicely. The same idea can apply to video games).
My Game "Escape from the Marble Monster" is only 150 Wishlist after one year developing (very sad), and even I tried to marketing by twitter, CZcams and others social networks, I saw very low impact, so I'm about to release the version beta 1.0 and then I'll try to do an aggressive marketing campaign just before release on steam, and then pray people like my game.
Best of luck with the launch! Even if you don't find sales success I'm sure it has been an excellent learning journey!
Can you make a tutorial to explain how the background animation in duet games is made?
Not sure what you mean by that, like Trombone Champ? I haven't played it but it looks like just a simple video, you can play that using Unity Video Player docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-VideoPlayer.html
Thanks
wouldn't mind seeing yourself as a person on screen as part of making it a more casual dialogue, but this is in no way telling you how or what to make :) The human connection aspect may be nice for opinion pieces vs stock stuff
Heh yeah I know for these kinds of talking videos having a camera would probably make the video more interesting, having a real human is indeed better than random stock footage.
But I'm really not comfortable in front of a camera, it's really not natural to me, so I'm still very far from being able to present a script a camera but maybe one day!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity I'm actually on the opposite end of the spectrum and I'm totally cool with you not showing yourself on camera. Jim Stephanie Sterling has done their show for nearly a decade and it's mostly funny stock footage or images and it never detracts from the message.
So I'm all for you doing whatever you are most comfortable with. In front or behind the camera.
I haven't even finished a single game yet and I still wonder why I haven't succeeded
Thank you so much for sharing this! How long on average does it usually take for you to finish a game?
About one year. Shortest was about 4 months (Game Corp DX) longest was about 18 months (Battle Royale Tycoon)
@@CodeMonkeyUnity thanks!
*7:06** a person of culture.* 😅
I would like to hear what was different (in the game, or marketing, or anything else) about Survivor Squad: Guantlets and Game Corp DX that led to different outcomes. Because (without having played either), those two games seem to be the best argument that it's mostly about luck!
That being said - I agree with your main point, I think.
I would say: make your own luck
Indie game success is a very fast changing thing so I'm not sure lessons from that long ago would be applicable today. Back then wishlists had pretty much no impact.
The main reason for why one failed and one succeeded would be a clear hook like I mentioned in this video. I think Gauntlets is a great game but it's definitely much more niche compared to Game Corp DX which is a standard management game.
Also for success visuals are extremely important and Game Corp DX looks much better.
Related to visuals is the pricing, Gauntlets was $10, Game Corp DX was $3 which puts it on the "impulse purchase" range. People bought it, liked it for the price, left a positive review which gave it more and more visibility.
Gauntlets was an 18 month dev cycle making it much harder to find success whereas Game Corp DX was made in 3 months.
So I would not say those were luck based at all. The only "luck" was how I "lucked" out in doing better decisions for Game Corp DX by chance. Back then I didn't know what I know now so I didn't intentionally make something that looks good, has an interesting hook and a cheap price.
It's both. There are many games that were cancelled because they were ahead of their time.
Yet, sometimes you can create a random game without advertising it for fun like flappy bird and blow up because it fit the mobile market at the time.
It's persistence... and marketing lol
I do think that outside events/probability play a huge part in success or lack thereof.
With hard work you can tip the scales somewhat, but the fact remains that if you go on say Twitter and go on an Indiegames thread , you are being swamped and no matter how great a game might be, I think most will be forgotten 10 minutes later ... especially since everyone is making clones of better games from bigger teams with more skills in every department.
So the probability of you making money with a game if you are a solodev or a small team is very low , simply because you have less resources than the competition has.
I mean just looking at myself , I am doing everything (3D, programming, marketing etc) ... if you have one person for each of these tasks focusing on a single task , the output will be higher.
Limiting this to say marketing, I can do maybe one or two posts a week ... if you have dedicated marketing ...they can post 2-5 times a day , essentially tipping the scales of probability against your favour.
So I simply decided to make a game I like at a pace I can realistically maintain and hope for the best
With regards to luck in marketing, the best thing you can do to not rely on luck is picking a good marketable game idea. If you're working on year another generic 2D pixel platformer then no amount of lucky breaks will save you.
On the other hand, if you have a good marketable idea, like for example SUPERHOT then the marketing becomes so much easier and so much less reliant on luck.
That's why I spent a long time deciding upon the idea for my next Steam game, I know how important having a good idea is.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity yeah but "superhot"game idea is all very relative...I remember a few years back a game called flappy bird ... it looked like shit and the gameplay was grueling. and like a year ago you had this word game ...which basically is what we call Lingo here where I live ...and then you sometimes see a Zelda like game in quality and gameplay , but it gets lost in obscurity ... hence my remarks regarding probability and outside influences ... so then just make something you enjoy working on over something that appears to be successful or revolving around something that is popular and hope for the best
Oh, u live in Portugal? Espero que tenha gostado do pais! :)
Price is extremely important when selling any product. The best way to decide a price is to compare your product directly with another product of similar quality and popularity.
Hi Code Monkey, could you expand on why it is important to get a large wishlist prior to launch? Even if launching in Early Access? This isn't clear to me. Does Steam treat your game differently, depending on how many have it wishlisted on launch? Or does it start burying your game a few months after launch, if it wasn't successful right off the bat? Thanks.
Number of wishlists equals number of people who will see your game at launch. If your game has lots of wishlists, lots of people will see the game, lots of people buy the game, the Steam algorithm promotes the game which in turn leads to more sales, more promotion, etc.
If you don't have wishlists then you won't sell much at launch and it's near impossible to get back from a bad launch.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Damn OK. I thought if you call it Early Access, it would still treat the 'real' release date different, i.e. if you have a lot of sales (from other marketing) after Early Access release, through to full release, that the algo would 'treat you good' but it seems that is not the case! Very valuable info, thanks! Might have to start the ole dev log, as suggested!
@@023achilles Technically you will get a small bump when the game transitions from Early Access to full release, but unless the game sold a ton during Early Access then that bump won't really be significant. For the most part you just have one launch which is when the game is first available to buy in any form.
Hi, please send the link of the post your reaction video is about
All the links are in the description
If someone wants to make commercial games, is it STILL advisable to keep the projects small? Also, how long did "Game Corp" take to develop? Actually how long on average do your games take to develop?
Yeah, keep it small. Even on midsize game studios keep things small (never worked on AAA to say how things are there). "Keep it small " is to ensure you can make it done. Its super common to overlook a feature and say like "can be done in 1 day" and take a week. One a project it will make you 1 year project make into a 3-5 year one. The small, the easier is to you avoid that
Project management calls it the constraint triangle - scope, time, and budget - but it basically boils down to "Cheap, Fast, or Good - choose 2 [or 1]". So if a game is your "project", then the size/scope has to be constrained by time & budget. If you don't have endless money, and you need to see a return on your time/labor investment in a timely fashion, then yeah, you need to keep the actual game small.
There's also a benefit to the fast-out-the-door approach. The idea there is that any product where you don't know for-sure how the market will take to it benefits from getting it into customer's hands ASAP. Even if it's a soft launch/early access situation, at least you will have some idea at that point if you have something worthwhile, or if it's a dud, and you need to stop sinking more resources into it.
For myself, I ascribe to both approaches, however for the current game I'm working on, the timeline is much longer to accommodate a larger scope (Tactical RPG, cross-platform). I'm still keeping a tight grip on the budget, though, and using part of the dev time to do preliminary marketing - testing my ideas against potential customers, doing professional networking, and studying all the applicable market research I can get my hands on. So even to make a game that's just a little bigger than "small", it's a lot of work, and a lot more risk, since the market may shift before I can get the game into player's hands.
Keep in mind, I have a good day-job, few family expenses, and this isn't my first commercial game (been making commercial games/apps solo since 2012 & been a pro software dev for 20+ years). I can afford to take a bigger, measured risk. For newcomers, the advice to start small is still very sound.
Game Corp is actually a great example, yes the game is very small, it has a very cheap price and it has done incredibly well.
Basically the scale should be related to your skill level. If you're just getting started don't embark on a multi-year project.
If you already have a good amount of skills, then you can gamble a bit on a larger project.
You learn much much more from publishing multiple games than from a single big one.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Great stuff, thanks!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity All true! My only issue with the "many small games" approach is growing support/maintenance issues. Each game in active release is an added draw on your time, unless you're cycling old games out as new ones are released.
Still good for folks to start with the smallest game that's fun & that they can complete though. Just getting the full idea to release pipeline under your belt is a massive/critical amount of experience.
20k year is huge success for me
Wait... Are from Portugal or just live in Portugal? I'm only asking because I'm Portuguese and love your contents!
Olá! Yup I am Portuguese, the low cost of living is one of the main ways I've been able to do game dev for a living
Like everything, is about talent, work and luck. If you have 2 of them, it starts to be possible and if you have 3, it's where the magic happens
Yup if you have all three that's where you get the massive mega hits.
Personally I'm very content with just having basic successful games, and for that level I really just need the first two.
Tweet : "Stop pretending that luck isn't a gigantic factor..."
CM : "Is SUCCESS all about LUCK?!?! NOOOOOOO!!!
(CZcams didn't post my previous comment; I guess it's because I included the link to what I think is the original Twitter post)
I've perused the original Twit (I think). I think you're right, but CM also pointed out that their measure of product quality isn't sound.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Code monkey is by far the best tutorial channel.
Thanks for the kind words!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity no problem you have inspired me I'm trying my best I've bought alot of synty assets and I work on creating my own stuff too I started learning 2 years ago and I started putting stuff on my channel but it's very basic at this point.
Thank you for the video. Maybe I would be rude, but... is there really a lot of examples of really good games that really flop ? Luck is maybe more in which game, when and how. And some people seems to have better feelings (or have more luck :-D).
Almost Forgot games have multiple Elements, Sound, Voice overs, Art, here is a Tip why not hold a contest for songs that fit the game to feature it, I could go on for days on marketing
some dev: Write a white paper about how capitalism is unfair
codeMonkey: "Skill issue???"
Wait, survivor squad flopped?
It's the only one of your games I bought and played organically. That's interesting.🤔
The first one actually did pretty well, what flopped was the sequel Survivor Squad: Gauntlets
I worked on it for longer, about 18 months, I feel it is better in every way, but only sold about 1/10th of the copies. So yeah that was pretty painful at the time.
I love the format.
I hate it when experienced gamedev assumed that publishing game works like lottery, I hate that instead of working smarter and improve on things outside of just making games, they work on quantity and assuming that it is impossible for indie to sustain their life as game developer.
If it's possible I would like to hear more about how you make a living with just making games related stuff, I don't want to hear market, market earlier and luck, I would like to know how it is actually need for the success to be not depends on luck, even includes whether we should make discord, where we can prepare for marketing before launch, and how to make sure a game can hit a "small" success, what in the meantime we should do to sustain the living like being a CZcamsr, selling course, making webgame, selling assets etc..
The biggest factor is how much do you need to define success? I live in Portugal which is a pretty low cost of living country where minimum wage is €400, when I first moved out of my parents house I was living on €700 which is definitely an achievable goal especially considering by then I had already made 40 Flash games and 1 Steam game.
Nowadays there are indeed those options you mentioned, CZcams, selling assets, courses, etc. Those didn't exist when I got started so nowadays there are more options, which one works best really depends on the person.
I launched my first game on June 2022. Sold 142 copies. Earn 100 dollar( after steam cut and taxes). Not happy with that but good start. Need luck + skills to stand out. Good game need good marketing. So first step is create good game and then market it good.
"no game dev isn't luck, your game just sucks. buy my game."
What?
"Luck" is a factor, but it's not a one-dice-roll that decides everything.
I'm the game of getting peoples attention it's more like continuous attempts and when you get the attention by chance, it's useful to have something good and memorable to catch it and leave an impression.
Push your limits
The world isn't as simple as good v bad. They need to learn about dialectical relationships and study the market or it will seem random.
There's a temptation to not look inward or value failure as a learning experience but it's a vitally important life skill. I think that's what's happening here as well.
The market is hardly fair and can be about factors beyond your comprehension. It's not entirely unfair and impenetrable either. Esp indie, which has far less corrupting influences than big business. It is brutal. It's more indifferent cosmic horror elder god than slot machine
A good game is a baseline. A good strategy like living in Portugal or knowing marketers is vital. But the flip side is someone in Portugal could more easily survive as a scammer. There are no easy answers here.
Just a small thing, please use the dark mode for twitter :D
Sorry, dark mode burns my eyes
Nice video many good points, you never mentioned the importance of picking the right genre, my understanding is that indies in the roguelike genre do considerably better than platformers for instance, maybe something for a future video?
I would say luck plays a bigger factor then you say it does, for instance among us was very lucky to achieve their success. That said, the reason why this game "failed" was not because of bad luck. In fact I would not even call it a failure. Generated quite a bit of money for a game that is not really unique and looks, well the way it does. It could have the best mechanics in the world and I probably would not have taken the time to download it for free, all due to the graphics.
Yeah that is extremely important, I include that in the "good marketing" portion. I spoke about that at length in both the Marketing video and my game announcement video
unitycodemonkey.com/video.php?v=E6-FQwCECes
unitycodemonkey.com/video.php?v=6DGDWfPdn3w
Among Us is another example of monumental success, to achieve that level yes you do need luck but like I said no one needs $100mil to consider a game a success.
I've seen games on steam that made next to zero money and playing same game some youtuber gained over half million views. Let that sink into your mind
👍👍
Success has nothing to do with luck or merit. What really sells is always advertising. If they know you, even if you make a trashy game, you will sell a little, at least at first. And vice versa, even if you do a GOTY, if they don't know you, you don't sell....
And advertising can be paid for, so in the end, it's not luck, it's not merit, it's not advertising, it's having money...
He should feel lucky to have sold a few hundred copies of such a game with this price tag. If he would be more informed about the market, he could have sold thousands with a more reasonable price.
Also Marketing Is A Skill almost forgot, this happens to often where if you can't add to the game development you have no skills, the. It's released no one knows it exists No Marketing Skills
They're luck the same way CZcams videos are luck, the discovery may be luck, but if the underlying content is not great, then the luck has been wasted. So not only do you need to be lucky, you need to deserve to benefit from luck, usually with hard work and talent.
Success to me, is making something that others will find enjoyable to play.
That's a great definition!
Luck is series of events you do not completely understand ... just like magic -> when you understand it its called a trick ;)
Being a succesfull game is half about reaching people interest and apearing in their feed/media and half about making the game good.
BTW Im getting 3 min ads of your channel while watching your videos. Whats up with that?
My ads on my videos? That's odd, it shouldn't be playing here. I recently restarted the ads just to see how they would do but they shouldn't be playing in this channel, thanks for letting me know!
This new format is very cool, but too much random b-roll, less is more. I want to see more of this.
Having said that, how many of your viewers actually managed to publish and profit from game development? A quick survey?
That would be a fun poll, I'll have to ask that, thanks!
Success in any field is partially about luck
I am check up his game and to be honest graphics are not for 90% people who buying games, many of people luck at graphics first and if they are good then they start discovering mechanics of the game and other elements and for me as well is a big minus factor and then is the price 16€ for a game which look like i could finish in 2 hours or play on my phone, my game is not something you fall on your ass but self-judgment like would i pay for another game with similar graphics and style, for many European countries is 16€ a lot of money at least that's how i am looking at it, its not one coffee is like price of 4 coffees for again product i don't now from trailer what is even about...
With my game Trucker Joe I had a big hit, and did nothing about marketing. I think it was massive luck, and I never will get that again. I got more then 1.000.000 downloads on android in one month, as I said, without marketing. Now over 10.000.000 downloads...
I wish every indy dev the best, and good luck!
That's a huge hit, congrats!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity thank you! Keep up your good work!
I like this format. Furthermore I would like to state that making mobile game is also a great option.
Making a PC game is harder because standards are higher. But downside of mobile games are that you should carefully consider monetization and double your efforts on marketing
It's tricky, on mobile you can definitely launch a much smaller game, people are happy with just a few minutes of gameplay, however Mobile is even more crowded than Steam.
On Steam there's a dozen new games per day, on Mobile there's hundreds. So yeah for mobile you need even more marketing and a clear user acquisition plan
But for beginners who just want to experiment with launching a complete game it is definitely an excellent option because of the lower amount of content required.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity Yes, that's exactly what I am doing right now, creating my second mobile game.
Maybe some day I will launch a successful game with a great atmosphere like Darkwood. It was successfully funded on kickstarter.
Btw, will you make a video about crowdfunding in this talking format? Would love to hear your opinion on this`
@@lime_68 Crowdfunding is something I've never done so I wouldn't be the right person to really talk about that. What I can say is that from everything that I've heard it's extremely difficult. You need to put in as much effort into your campaign as you do in making the game.
There's tons of games looking for funding, all of them look excellent, the days of just putting something on Kickstarter and getting funding in 24hours are long gone.
So if you go that route be very aware of the workload required to have a successful campaign.
Making games and money from it is not hard, anyone can do it, a lot of dev simply don’t know how to market their stuff
Я наприклад роблю свою першу гру і паралельно працюю. Для мене успіх, якщо я отримаю 1 позитивний відгук. Ігор так багато, що можливо я взагалі нікого не закавлю, тому для мене перша гра про розуміння ринку і того, що я можу запропонувати ринку
8% make more than 100k... That's all i need to know. Keep in mind that in any business, only 10% suceed
luck comes by more often to people who work hard. Imagine a chance where someone with influence scrolls down and saw your game but your game didnt have anything good in it, that lucky moment will just be wasted.
Yup, one excellent phrase is "I believe in luck and the harder I work the luckier I get"
Sometimes, yes, it's all luck or involves a ton of luck. But with games like Hollow Knight, it's just a masterpiece that spawned a massive cult-following.
It's never really all-luck, but it's also not down to being a masterpiece. If Hollow Knight had come out with crappy marketing, or if they had been later in the Metroidvania wave, then they might've been drowned out in the competition. Business is a mix of skill and luck, especially when it comes to timing, and the particular tastes of the market.
@@mandisaw HK did have crappy marketing. They had almost no marketing budget and no marketing. The Kickstarter only raised $39k USD. In contrast, Crowsworn raised $939k USD, 900 grand more. Crowsworn came later in the wave. What competition, Ori is great but it's no HK. Yes, it's a mix of both usually, but some games just get lucky. Mostly luck with some games would be a better way to say than "all luck".
@@jon4574 I didn't follow it, but I think their Kickstarter was also fairly early in the "kick start your indie game" boom as well. Getting any money in crowdfunding means your marketing was good. Any case, it's down to a mix - good game, good business-sense & mktg, good timing, matching the right audience.