I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who put themselves out there and pursue something risky. The problem is… the work you put into a product or service does not determine the value… the market does.
This title was EA right? So you don’t get first impressions twice and posts like these:
Saltificus1 pt2 hr
This game looks like my jam, I had no idea it existed. So I guess your point there is valid.
I’d never heard of this game either. He kind of blames the reviewers for that but there’s got to be other ways to spread the word. He doesn’t even talk about Social Media really.
If I made a Mech or Space game, I believe all I need to do is to tell Mr @BrianRubin.
But seriously, making some banners and spending some cash on advertising on FB or Google. Or even spending some effort at SEO and popping into forums etc. as Nesrie had pointed out. I mean doing zero marketing and then complaining about having zero mind share in any market is just plain nonsensical. Tell me which other product in the world is such a worldview in place?
Dont want to sound harsh here but I think they dont understand market basics.
Edit: The part about the SEO especially. Looking at the rate the Harebrain Scheme’s Battletech/Mechwarrior is proceeding. I would say this is the perfect time to SEO your mech game into people’s mindshare!
FWIW the post appears to be a year old. It popped up on reddit because they were just in the Humble Monthly bundle and they just put out a free new edition, which is another good way to get your game in the news.
The starving artist is nothing new. Maybe there should be a public works project for video games, like there was for art during the US Depression? I would stand behind that as long as there was someone to make sure the games are good.
One thing I do agree with here: Do NOT remortgage your house or any nonsense like that in the hopes of striking it rich with a game. With the market the way it is, it’s financial suicide, pure and simple. Simple sensible budgets, a good game with as small a team as possible, and decent marketing will give the best shot IMHO, however small it may be.
I would underline Cliffski’s point about him being a very well known and successful dev and yet his last game getting little attention or free press lift, those days are gone. What he doesn’t add is the Steam launch lift is also now vastly reduced.
Its never been easier to make and release a game, its great. But we are essentially now at the point where you also have to provide your own eyeballs. The press and Steam are not going to help you. You need to have a professional marketing campaign AND media spend at launch to maximize your chances of commercial success.
Or to put it another way. If at least a quarter of your entire game budget is not launch UA then you are most likely going to just fail. And that number maybe too low.
As with acting, music, or some such similar career…everyone wants to win the lottery. They never think about making a living first.
Cliff’s actually done a very good job of making a living and I don’t believe he has ever won the lottery. Sure he has had some good hits, but all the way I see a lot of really smart decisions and hard work. It has been fascinating to watch him grow over time.
I can imagine some of his lack of press attention (just guessing at least) is that his games don’t tend to be “sexy”; they’re (mostly) strategy type numbers stuff, which don’t gather as much in the way of coverage these days, IME. At the same time, some of the games that do get attention pale next to the pretty consistent quality of his stuff. It’s a weird world for indies nowadays.
Our goal with the game was to make something that respected players’ time and gave them a large variety of ways to play the game, and I think we did that. But it turns out it’s much harder to get reviewers to look at your game if there’s any kind of barrier to entry-- which in our case was tank controls and challenging gameplay.
No, you were not respecting player’s time if you do a super hard ‘challenging gameplay’. I tried the game, and I had problems finishing the tutorial missions.
And I’m a hardcore player with several hundreds games played and more than 20 years of experience.
Difficulty level has nothing to do with “respecting players’ time” - there are entire genres based around incredibly minimal and easy gameplay, but that specifically intend to waste as much of the player’s time as possible.
