Personally, I'd like to think that the good games will still rise to the top. Monument Valley wasn't a fluke; it's a game based entirely about the art and the content, rather than stale one-off game mechanics that could be cloned in an afternoon. It got noticed because it was deep and unique. (Did they even do any marketing?) I've rarely found a game with that same level of quality that got no attention[1].
Most of the time, whenever somebody complains about their games getting no sales and I look at the stuff they've made, I see games that are fun and clever, but very one-note. Like, you can already see how the rest of the game is going to go just by looking at a screenshot. That's not a bad thing, but I don't think it's the kind of stuff that sells anymore. (With obvious viral exceptions that occur unpredictably every so often.) Whereas with a game like Monument Valley, you want to get in and explore it because every single level is unique.
Several years back, the developers of Sword and Sworcery talked about how their business model was entirely about chasing the long tail rather than aiming for the mass market. It paid off wonderfully for them, and I think — I hope! — it still makes sense.
[1]: Hey! If you liked Monument Valley, you should totally check out Windowsill. Short but gorgeous. Listed as an inspiration by MV's developers. Demo in browser: http://windosill.com
Monument Valley is visually gorgeous, and I like a lot about it. However it has zero depth as a game- you can easily move through it by tapping randomly on the screen.
Also it's built by ustwo, and while they're lovely people, they're far from a small one man shop (they have hundreds of employees in several offices worldwide and know what they're doing when it comes to marketing). I don't think Monument Valley is a strong case for your argument (Sword and Sorcery is a better one, but they rode on the original iPad announcement, which is a strategy you can only use once a decade)
It's a puzzle-box/adventure-game-type experience — mostly a beautiful and interesting toy to fiddle with in your hands. Some people enjoy that, others don't. I personally love it, and I can see that a lot of App Store gamers do too. In that particular genre, it's a gem!
From what I've read in interviews, the team was comprised of about 6 people, and they didn't do any marketing or advertising.
Another recent example of a pay-up-front game hitting it "big" is Wayward Souls by Rocketcat Games (almost $10!!), though they have more of a pedigree.
Were you on Twitter in the weeks before the game released? They did tons of promotion. It's not billboards on 280, but that's not how advertising is in the App Store world.
As far as the game experience, it's far from being in the best of its genre (and I know many game designers who agree on that point). People like it because it's artsy and lends itself nicely to casual play, which is fine. But whatever, that's besides the point- which is that it's far from a one man indie success.
If you're specifically looking for something that fits this thread's constraint of visually stunning, one-man indie dev Escher-style puzzle game, I feel an obligation to point you at Antichamber [0].
It's got some of Echochrome's starkness to it, but with some very nice writing/dialog(?) bits that play off the game's puzzles well. Most people will find something delightful about it, though be ready for a slower paced, introspective game. It knows you know it's a puzzle game, and will punish you for it :)
(I should note that Antichamber seems to have been in development before Echochrome or Fez, and as such likely deserves the originality that has been showered on it.)
I was super excited about Fez because I loved the art style. But after twenty minutes of playing, I gave up, totally disoriented. I have a terrible sense of direction in general and that game was just me wandering around lost and miserable. :(
For me it was the first puzzle. The mechanics weren't clear and I had several glitches. The rest of the game was alright, but quite overhyped. I liked The Floor is Jelly a lot more, but it didn't get as much attention. Sometimes it pays to be a drama queen.
You can't reasonably make the claim that Fez became popular because Fish was a drama queen! It got excellent reviews and won many awards and contests. Personally, I think the attention was warranted.
I was probably not completely fair. But I really don't think Fez would've gotten the attention it got without Fish, and a bug ridden game like Fez makes me question the reviews. The gap between press reviews and user reviews on Metacritic seems to confirm my point.
Well, as a long-time gamer who loves these sorts of toy-box games, I'd say it's one of the very best. So THERE! :)
For more modest success by an actual one-man developer, you can look at Michael Brough's games. I think he makes a living off of them now, even though they're very niche.
"you can easily move through it by tapping randomly on the screen"
This is technically true, but if you want to finish the game, you'll need to solve some puzzles.
(And for the record, you can easily play a game like Super Smash Brothers by hitting random buttons, but that game has depth for miles. "Tapping randomly" isn't an indicator of a game's depth, merely its accessibility.)
One note about Monument Valley though: When they added new levels and charged for it, there was a big backlash at first. Luckily there was a counter backlash but it still shows the expectations of most gamers in the apps store. Especially on Android.
There's a huge sense of entitlement with respect to iOS and Android apps. People want the world for free, and $1 means they OWN you.
The race to the bottom with free being the default has spawned this attitude. And the economics work out so that an indie developer can't really break even on free; you need 10s of millions of users to produce a reasonable income from ads. You can be a critically acclaimed indie game and only have a few million users.
Sure you can create a "fremium" game that sucks either time or money from users (where you basically charge people so that they can play the game less; addiction is a terrible thing). But if you don't want to be making freemium games (there's a formula you typically need to follow for them to be successful), you're stuck charging.
Here's the worst part: If you decide to make a "demo" for your game so that people can try before they buy, then when they reach the end of the demo, MANY people will end up leaving a 1-star review "SUX costs money!!!!!". Ratings are life in the app store: If someone sees an app with less than 3 stars, they're far less likely to grab it.
So because of poor user behavior, now you're stuck NOT offering a demo for people to play -- or you have to release your game as "fremium" even if it's not designed to suck people's wallets dry, which (as I've experienced firsthand) is a recipe for failure. At least my game has 4+ stars; not that it helps.
> There's a huge sense of entitlement with respect to iOS and Android apps. People want the world for free...
Available substitutes affect the price of goods, and the internet has brought us endless hours of free distraction. (Also, prices can trend towards the marginal cost of production over time.)
Supply and demand determine pricing, not the amount of labor that goes into production.
The labor theory of value is tempting, but flawed. Suppose I pedal a bicycle all day to generate electricity. Then say I demand you buy my day's single kilowatt at a price that provides me a living wage. Keep in mind that I live in California, a mecca for startup bicyclists, and support a family of four. So I'll be asking $177 per kilowatt. You decline, noting that you can usually buy a kilowatt for around 16 cents. Is it fair for me to call you "entitled" because you expect energy at market prices?
If game developers demand that consumers pretend other ways to spend time don't exist, or claim immunity to fundamental laws of economics, then they're the ones acting entitled, not their users.
Pedantry Corner: The labour theory of value[0] does not claim anything of the sort. It is not about the amount of labour time actually invested, in reality, in creating a commodity ("concrete labour") but the amount of labour necessary to expend, given the level of technical development in the given society, to create that commodity ("socially necessary labour time", "abstract labour").
Price, of course, is a different thing from value, but that's another matter entirely with a vast literature, pro- and anti-LTV.
The LTV is a reasonably good predictor of the behaviour of markets in commodity goods, with some exceptions (the rent-economy around oil is a good example). My feeling is that with indie games, niche music and so on, there's a problem in that some people will make them for the sheer joy of it, which means wider movement in these small sub-economies do not track things so closely.
[0] Using Marx's version here, not so well read on Smith, Ricardo and so forth.
Depends on the meaning of "should" there - if you mean according to the laws of capitalist society, then no, they shouldn't: they should be paid what it costs to feed and clothe them in all cases, and the rest (surplus value) should be used to expand production through capital investment (including productivity-enhancing machinery etc) or hiring on more people. (Skills and so on complicate the picture.)
If "should" means "in an ideal world", however, Marx and his followers would argue that the whole point is to enable people not to work so bloody hard anyway, so the question does not arise.
You're putting up a strawman; I'm not claiming I'm "owed" their money, nor am I asking for users to spend money on something that they don't consider to be worth it.
What I'm saying is that people should rate an app based on its quality, and not give 1 star as a result of their anger that they aren't getting tons more for free. Ratings should be about the quality of the game or app, not the price. If they hated the app, then fine, slam it in the ratings. But if they LOVED it and are just pissed they can't play more? Then they're jerks if they put a 1 star review up out of spite.
Just as the person asking $177 per kilowatt is delusional, so is the person who is demanding that I create games for them for free. I'm not acting entitled, I'm just trying to make games that people like enough to spend enough money on them that I can keep making games that they like.
I'm perfectly fine with the fundamental laws of economics, and I'm not asking for a special exemption. There were thousands of people who were willing to spend the $2 on my game before I switched to a "fremium" model (where the ratings ended up higher, but the income lower).
Aside: I'm not going to create another game like the one I mentioned above. Not enough demand and it didn't distinguish itself. I have no illusions there. People DID like it (I still, years after release, get fan mail), but I was paid a pittance for working on it.
I do have an idea for a game with a better supply and demand equation, and I have thoughts on how to monetize it, which involves payment for the game instead of ad support. And I would love to offer that game to users to test for free before they buy. But because of the quantity of jerks who feel entitled to get everything for free, and who will wreck the ratings of my game, I may not even offer a demo. [1] Which may itself kill the game. Time will tell.
[1] Just to be clear: Until you've installed a game you can't rate it. So if it's a free-but-limited demo they can rate it after they download it, but if it's a paid app they have to buy it to rate it.
Sure, but as I think was discussed on the ATP podcast, it was probably a marketing gaffe more than anything. If they had called it "Monument Valley 2" and charged the same, people probably wouldn't have complained too much, as that sort of branding is more in line with App Store expectations. (Maybe not, though.)
In any case, whining aside, I doubt their sales suffered too much! And I'm glad we're getting more high profile pay-up-front games like MV to reset buyers' expectations.
Which is a bit of a shame. The add-on pack is slightly shorter but of a much higher quality than the original! So for half the cost, you get a few more levels that are much more clever and visually interesting.
Frankly, if they released another pack at full price, I'd be thrilled. Forgotten Shores started with the same slow pace, but by the end the levels were truly lovely works of Escher art. The final level harkened right to some brilliant bits in Fez, which is a far larger and complex game.
Have you played it? It's like watching an animated movie. There is negligible repeated content, at least as far as the art and levels are concerned. Unlike 99% of iOS games, I felt as satisfied in level 1 as I did in 10. (And in fact, some of the best content is in the last few levels.) Everything feels alive and dynamic, from the crows to your friendly neighborhood totem. I even felt feelings. In an iOS game. Can you believe that?!
I have. It is like an animated movie. Very pretty, but while the mechanics could be deep, I felt that the levels themselves were not. Unlike for example Braid or recently The Swapper, there were no epiphanies, just “rotate all the things and try to tap on the correct tile”.
Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a puzzle game, but this sort of space bending would really lend itself to more interesting problems to solve.
Mobile Phone games are suited for that kind of gameplay (and Dragon's Lair has been re-released for iOS I read), everything old is new again I guess :)
fwiw the expansion is IMO a much better set of levels. longer, deeper, more bendy. especially after replaying it, the original set isn't as compelling (though still introduces the concepts very well). it is still pretty far down the "not much thinking required, just keep poking" side of gaming though, sadly.
If you're going to complain about originality, you really should be pointing at Echochrome. The Fez stuff doesn't really kick in until the MV DLC Forgotten Shores. That said, Monument Valley is a phenomenal improvement on Echochrome in style and art direction (though I really do appreciate the stark black and white style of Echochrome).
But it's easy to forget just how unusual those games are. There's a dearth of well made Escher games. I can only think of half a dozen off the top of my head, and perhaps none that are simple enough to be on the iPhone (4S in my case). Now, we can argue about what counts as well-made, as there are a few that were acclaimed that I didn't really like (I'm looking at you, The Bridge). But MV really is a fairly unique take on the idea, and about half-way through Forgotten Shores really begins to wake up into its own.
I'm a huge fan of Fez, and picked up Monument Valley for Android. It was fun, but extremely easy and super short. I decided to pass on the DLC, figuring it'd be more of the same. Does Forgotten Shores step the game up to the next level? Worth buying?
Unexpectedly, yes. I think it's better in just about every way, and it becomes excellent in a few. My only complaint is that it feels like a third installment would be the real game; I got the feeling at the end of FS that everything preceding was just training (like how a large portion of Portal is slowly and carefully acclimating the player to the mechanics before giving them a gun).
I consider $2 impulse-buy money, so I got the DLC. It starts off the similarly, but about half-way through ustwo seems to hit their stride. The last level has some flat-out brilliant Fez effects, and a few of the levels really play proper homage to the Escher design. My math says you get 2/3rds the game at about 50% more quality (integrated over the whole run) at half the price, so that's like twice the value. Compound levels are used more, so the game pleasantly drags on a bit. Just don't expect to be confused or stuck on any puzzles.
I won't lie: it's still short, and it's still easy. But it's also two bucks, which is slightly more than a candy bar and a bit less than a load of laundry. And I tend to enjoy the game art for its own sake.
So I think the game is still mostly an art project and it stands on its own in that respect. While FS doesn't expound on the plot much, I don't think anyone will mind too terribly. But there is some thread to follow, and for a game without much of a plot there are certainly twists.
Most of the time, whenever somebody complains about their games getting no sales and I look at the stuff they've made, I see games that are fun and clever, but very one-note. Like, you can already see how the rest of the game is going to go just by looking at a screenshot. That's not a bad thing, but I don't think it's the kind of stuff that sells anymore. (With obvious viral exceptions that occur unpredictably every so often.) Whereas with a game like Monument Valley, you want to get in and explore it because every single level is unique.
Several years back, the developers of Sword and Sworcery talked about how their business model was entirely about chasing the long tail rather than aiming for the mass market. It paid off wonderfully for them, and I think — I hope! — it still makes sense.
[1]: Hey! If you liked Monument Valley, you should totally check out Windowsill. Short but gorgeous. Listed as an inspiration by MV's developers. Demo in browser: http://windosill.com