The "Indiepocalypse" is now a thing

[Metro]

Nice bait and switch, but you're the one with 20,000 posts on one gaming forum

In fairness we need to add the posts from your shitty old alt, too.

 

[stray]

Damn, what high school did you go to in order to have so many successful people? And how come all these nerds know each other and aren't basement dwellers

Silicon Valley maybe?

 

[DrowningHarvey]

Good news. It is long overdue that the herd of hipster devs spewing out faux retro pixel crap was culled. Should give small to medium studios bit more breathing room when the sea of shovelware subsides.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Honestly I tend to see a lot more utter garbage from small to medium studios than I do from individual developers. It seems like the moment you have more than 2 people involved in a game's development everyone defaults to "We need to sell to more people" and the game turns to extremely generic shit, is made for mobile, difficulty is slashed, etc.

Hell, look at Shadowrun. Pretty much the only redeeming quality of that game is the setting and general format. I'm glad it's being made because I want to see more from that franchise, but it fails on pretty much every level as a game.

 

[MRY]

Damn, what high school did you go to in order to have so many successful people? And how come all these nerds know each other and aren't basement dwellers

Only Derek and I were classmates -- I knew Jeff from UseNet (the early Internet was a smaller place, I guess), and I met Tom at camp.

 

[Trotsky]

Damn, what high school did you go to in order to have so many successful people? And how come all these nerds know each other and aren't basement dwellers

That's why mommie/daddy pay top dollar to live in a fancy zip code and possibly send junior to private school.

 

[Trash]

The sheer amount of shit makes it hard to find the genuine good games. Then again, hasn't this always been the case? For the msx or c64 you could find row after row of shit games with only a handfull of genuine decent ones in between. Then with the amiga and pc you had tons of crappy shareware games with only a few apogee quality ones. The market has grown and the exposure through the means of the net has grown as well and with that the amount of crap you have to dig through. Otherwise it's just the same old thing all over again.

 

[MRY]

That's why mommie/daddy pay top dollar to live in a fancy zip code and possibly send junior to private school.

To meet people who make indie video games?!

 

[thesoup]

Damn, what high school did you go to in order to have so many successful people? And how come all these nerds know each other and aren't basement dwellers

Quite simple. Because basement dwellers are morons. Every successful nerd ever had enough social skills to prop himself up. Basement dwellers are basement dwellers for a reason - they are incapable of producing value and thus remain in the basement, patting themselves on the back on how too good for this society they are.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Alas, we can't all be Thomas Edison. We'd run out of neighbourhood pets.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

The thing about this whole issue is that all the indie games have to have a marketing budget now. Otherwise, they risk remaining obscure and being missed by the potential players.

It is gonna cut into their budgets depending on how well they manage resources and how niche their game is. But it is hardly an apocalypse. Good product will always stand out in the sea of mediocrity (or shit, as the case with many indie games these days)

 

[Trotsky]

To meet people who make indie video games?!

Did I strike a nerve? I'm not trying to antagonize you but reread what you said.

Back in high school, I knew a handful of people who wanted to make games: these include Jeff Hangartner ("Tsugumo"), who I taught some Quick Basic tricks to so that he could make an RPG -- he now supports himself making indie games; Derek Yu (a classmate of mine), who is now a bazillionaire off of Spelunky (back then, he and another classmate of mine were making Eternal Daughter, his first indie game); and Tom Cadwell (whom I met at a summer camp), who's now VP of Design at Riot Games, and got a job at Blizzard off the strength of his indie game Strifeshadow. To be sure, there were some who dabbled in game creation but turned to other pursuits in college -- they're now professors, lawyers, coders at Google, etc. It's not like the "success" rate was 100% -- but it was probably around 20%.....

Setting aside my perhaps unusual adolescent group of acquaintances....

There is nothing wrong with advantages in life. Risk and effort still matter but successful people usually minimize their privileged backgrounds leading to erroneous assumptions.

 

[MRY]

Did I strike a nerve? I'm not trying to antagonize you but reread what you said.

I mentioned three people I knew when I was 14-18, one of whom I went to school with, two I didn't, so I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make. I'm still not -- that is, it's not clear to me if you're saying that the reason why so many would-be game-makers I know went on to be lawyers, doctors, etc. is because of privilege, or that the reason so many succeeded at game making is because of privilege. I definitely agree with you that parents do everything they can to make sure their kids can be lawyers/doctors/real estate brokers/bankers/etc., and that you can pay money to make it more likely that your child will become such a thing; it may be that there is some ancillary benefit that you get in terms of making games (for example, I had access to computers with BASIC on them, which was essential to everything that followed for me). But I had initially read your post as suggesting that parents try to advantage their kids in making games, which seemed hilarious to me -- to this day, my parents are convinced I'm a game programmer in part because they are incapable of conceiving how games could have stories.

But whatever the case, indie game development seems unique to me -- after all, when I talk about people I know who succeed at making games, relatively few of them came from privileged backgrounds. By contrast, most of the people I know who wanted to be novelists, actors, musicians, etc. did come from privileged backgrounds, but none of them succeeded. And the people I know who succeeded at indie game development didn't succeed because of seed money from millionaire parents, though I gather that some people have had such good fortune -- the cost of entry was ludicrously low. Derek succeeded because Game Maker was free (I think) and because his style of cartoon art was really well received. As far as I know, he developed that art style doodling, not from some grand master teacher.

Though, that said, one big break I got is that I'm pretty sure TimeGate hired me because I was in law school, so perhaps there's something to your theory after all. :D

 

[Metro]

That's why mommie/daddy pay top dollar to live in a fancy zip code and possibly send junior to private school.

Shut up.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The thing about this whole issue is that all the indie games have to have a marketing budget now. Otherwise, they risk remaining obscure and being missed by the potential players.

It is gonna cut into their budgets depending on how well they manage resources and how niche their game is. But it is hardly an apocalypse. Good product will always stand out in the sea of mediocrity (or shit, as the case with many indie games these days)

Pfft. It's always been that way.

 

[Trotsky]

Quite simple. Because basement dwellers are morons. Every successful nerd ever had enough social skills to prop himself up. Basement dwellers are basement dwellers for a reason - they are incapable of producing value and thus remain in the basement, patting themselves on the back on how too good for this society they are.

Maybe so but individuals and their environments shape each other reciprocally.

 

[stray]

The people I know from 14-18 are dead or serving long sentences.

But I think I could still make a good game based on what I know too. Maybe I should get a Patreon.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Pfft. It's always been that way.

Which part?

 

[Damned Registrations]

The first part. Just because we didn't notice them didn't me there weren't any good indies that died in obscurity before. Hell, that shit even happens to major game releases by large companies that don't market enough.

 

[Konjad]

It is better to have a lot of shit games and some good, than to have few games and almost none good. 99% of them might be crap, but you don't have to get them, just look for few interesting ones. Twats crying about indie "crash" are just shitty developers who don't understand that their games are just boring crap or they do, but want attention so a few more people would buy their stinking turds.

 

[thesoup]

It is better to have a lot of shit games and some good, than to have few games and almost none good. 99% of them might be crap, but you don't have to get them, just look for few interesting ones. Twats crying about indie "crash" are just shitty developers who don't understand that their games are just boring crap or they do, but want attention so a few more people would buy their stinking turds.

Yeah. In other words, had these retarded faggots who just complain been at the forefront of when indie games started making it big - indies making it big wouldn't happen, there'd be no greenlight, humble bundle or general indiefaggotry because no one would still care about their shovelware.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Good news men

The decline is over! Top quality games like these now grace the Steam frontpage:

store.steampowered.com/app/359050/

At least the reviews are a little entertaining:

>Game glitches out
> black dad disappears

Most Realistic Game 2015

10/10 would recommend to family and friends

 

[CyberWhale]

It is better to have a lot of shit games and some good, than to have few games and almost none good. 99% of them might be crap, but you don't have to get them, just look for few interesting ones. Twats crying about indie "crash" are just shitty developers who don't understand that their games are just boring crap or they do, but want attention so a few more people would buy their stinking turds.

This + a lot of these retards could actually join up and make a good game together instead of wasting their time making simplistic clones that no one will bother to play.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Eh, I dunno. Too many cooks and all that. I'd rather see people work on individual projects- the ones with good ideas stand out better that way. If a group of 10-20 people make a good game, who's to say which of them made that possible and who was dead weight?

Though the more I try to keep track of the quality of various developers, the more I begin to think it's all a crapshoot and their talent doesn't matter at all, even if they work alone.

 

[Metro]

It is better to have a lot of shit games and some good, than to have few games and almost none good. 99% of them might be crap, but you don't have to get them, just look for few interesting ones. Twats crying about indie "crash" are just shitty developers who don't understand that their games are just boring crap or they do, but want attention so a few more people would buy their stinking turds.

Obviously, more games for you to beg.

 

[Andhaira]

Vault Dweller If you had launched a couple of years ago at peak time on steam you prob would have walked away with millions. Launching now will not be near as profitable. Though I guess a few years down the line when indies re-surge in some way you can repackage and relaunch. Another way would be to convert AoD for the tablet and touch market.