
The Indie Bubble Revisited (Are We All Totally-Doomed, or Just Regular-Doomed?) - ivank
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-indie-bubble-revisited-or-are-we.html
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rasz_pl
Its not the indie part, its the games themselves. They are mostly either BAD,
or very niche. It blows my mind that some people think there is a vast market
for 1990 style platformers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F-zdpFb9I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F-zdpFb9I)

~~~
thenomad
What genre would you suggest an indie developer would be best advised to work
in, out of interest?

~~~
babuskov
I though it might be hard puzzle games, so I built this:

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/363670](http://store.steampowered.com/app/363670)

But it does not sell very well. So puzzles are off too. As an indie, you
cannot really compete with FPS or MOBA genre. Someone might suggest RTS, but
RTS is replaced with MOBAs.

The only genre I see lacking and what would be easier to sell on Steam are
RPGs. But those take a lot of time and effort to build. If you work alone,
it's hard to justify 2-3 years of development before making any money.

I'm currently considering what will be my next game. Perhaps a 4x game that
would have a vast and complex world that lives on its own.

~~~
wolfgke
> I though it might be hard puzzle games, so I built this: > >
> [http://store.steampowered.com/app/363670](http://store.steampowered.com/app/363670)

From the trailers, I can't really see this as a puzzle game. For me, examples
of puzzle games are rather

    
    
      * most games of Zachtronics (but in particular Ironclad Tactics is not)
       http://www.zachtronics.com/
      * the Hexcells series
      * Antichamber
      * The Bridge
      * Sigils of Elohim (but even "The Talos Principle" only in small parts (which does not mean that it's a bad game))
      etc.
    

For me, a puzzle game is really about solving difficult problems in a rather
relaxing way. In other words: Whether you are able to solve a level will only
depend on your capability of puzzle solving (i.e. intellect) and not your
reaction times.

Most puzzle platformers do not satisfy this criterion, so I mostly can't
consider them as puzzle games (which does not mean they are bad _games_ , but
often bad _puzzle_ games).

~~~
babuskov
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, there are some puzzles where timing is
important, maybe 25% of all puzzles in the game. The game that inspired me to
create Seeders was Braid. So you can expect similar mix of thinking and
platforming.

Since the game is not selling well, I guess there are many other players that
share your opinion. I'm considering to remove such puzzles completely. The
game will be 25% shorter, but it still is very long (all players that
completed it clock over 10 hours of play), so I don't think it will be a
problem.

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ap22213
I used to be a frequent buyer of indie games on steam. But, my buying habits
have changed significantly recently. A while ago, interestingly around the
same time that the chart's lines started to plummet, I stopped buying indie
games. Why? Because too many of them were uninteresting. And, because I'd been
burned by buying highly rated or highly popular titles, only to be
disappointed.

I think part of the problem is that the review system is all screwed up. I'm
sure that there are a lot of games that I'd love to play. I just don't know
how to find them.

In the good old days, there were respectable publications where reviews were
detailed and relatively accurate. I don't know what the replacement is.

~~~
sdenton4
The replacement?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AVJD_GzID0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AVJD_GzID0)

~~~
generic_user
You can find a good list of game news websites that have been vetted by gamers
and a list of who the rotten apples are at Deep Freeze.

[http://www.deepfreeze.it/](http://www.deepfreeze.it/)

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NDizzle
I blame the trend of early access releases. I got burned by a few kickstarters
early on. I'm never giving anyone money for a game that I can't play until the
future. This means pre-ordering AAA titles as well. What's the point in pre-
ordering if I don't buy a physical copy? The pre-order bonus stuff is way out
of control.

Now, there may be some good indie games on Steam, somewhere, but to me it's
buried under the pile of of greenlit / alpha / early access crapware.

~~~
hartror
I've abandoned greenlight/preorder as well. Especially frustrating with
greenlight is when friends play to death an unfinished game (normally some
sandbox style thing) and get bored of it well before it is done. Then once it
is done no one interested in it anymore having moved on to the next unfinished
game.

Terraria, Space Engineers, Star Forge, Rust and other have all burnt me in
this manner.

Rock Paper Shotgun agree on the pre-order front.
[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/18/editorial-lets-
no...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/18/editorial-lets-not-pre-
order-games-any-more-eh/)

~~~
kazagistar
My current strategy is to buy the games I am interested in, but not play them
til they are 1.0, and I encourage my friends to wait to play as well. I have
been waiting for Starbound to be released, for example, but I haven't touched
it yet.

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fallingfrog
Well, that sucks.. I guess I'll wait a couple years and see if things thin out
a bit before trying to make a game. There are some real quality titles out
there anyway. Maybe I'll just play one instead.

~~~
thirdtruck
That's the classic mistake! Make the game now, but at a sustainable pace, and
then release it after things improve. If you wait until things look good
again, then you've already missed the chance to get in on the new ground
floor.

~~~
hartator
I think he was sacarstic.

~~~
mettamage
I think so too. Nevertheless, the comment inspired me and cheered me up :)

~~~
thirdtruck
Thanks! I'm being sincere, at least.

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tunesmith
A lot of this parallels indie musicians, too, except I'm not sure there ever
was that spike where an indie musician could release an average album online
and make a bunch of money.

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zinxq
This is a commoditization problem.

Games became very easy to write. Go-to market became very easy to do with game
selling platforms (i.e. appstore, steam).

Match that with most "game players" would love to be "game developers" \- and
you get a flood of games of varying quality.

Now it's (sadly) less about making a great game and far more about screaming
above the noise.

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Kiro
As usual the definition of success is blurry. If I can make a single dollar on
my game I consider it a success but I'm not in it for the money.

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generic_user
This situation is entirely the fault of "Game Journalism" which spent a good
two or three years showering praise on the magical "Indy Developers" who are
in large part a narrative invention to fill page real estate and promote there
friends crappy projects.

There was a string of highly celebrated indy games that were truly garbage and
people quickly came to the conclusion that there was collusion between the
"Game Journalists" and the "Indy Developers". Once people started to research
these connections in many cases it turned out that the developers were close
friends of the journalists or even involved in relationships.

GamerGate was the start of the process of publicly connecting the dots and
showing the collusion between these shady characters. The response was a
massive coordinated attack and smear campaign on "Gamers" by the very people
who were being outed. The war rages on to this day and probably will for years
to come.

There never was a large number of high quality Indy Games. Game journalists
did a huge amount of damage by promoting garbage and then attacking the very
consumers who they were claiming to be catering to. To most gamers these
Journalists have lost all credibility.

you can find out more about who these "Game Journalist" are at Deep Freeze.

[http://www.deepfreeze.it/](http://www.deepfreeze.it/)

