The "Indiepocalypse" is now a thing

[Unkillable Cat]

Most games, even AAA ones, are relying on youtube for their "structure". If something interesting doesn't happen in the first 10 or 20 minutes of the game people won't make good videos and that means you're losing customers. However, this is not a new tactic, remember how the level(s) contained in demos or shareware versions were more detailed than other stuff in the same game. Still, it feels as if devs are begging for money these days.

IIRC, the term for this is 'weighted demos'.

But to answer your question honestly...No I don't. I'm not saying that games released during the shareware era didn't do this (the guilty parties usually just filled up the remaining episodes of the game with generic, bland filler content) but there was a completely different mentality towards demos and trailers back then. We even had a few Unique Content Demos that features scenes, areas and levels that never found their way into the retail release. But the closer we get to modern times, however, the more truer your words get. Unreal's first level is a good example, the first trailer for Planescape: Torment is outright fraudulent in what product it's advertising, but Prey's demo is probably by far the best example of this practice - once you get past the point where the demo ends, there's barely any new or surprising content to be found in the game...at least not compared to all the content found in the demo.

In fact, YouTube itself is guilty of this with its 'thumbnail' policy. How many times have you clicked on a YT video because the thumbnail image was interesting, only to realize that the image in question isn't even in the video?

 

[Infinitron]

A perspective on the indiepocalypse from a developer who did things the old-fashioned way: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-10-toki-tori-developer-two-tribes-is-shutting-down

Toki Tori developer Two Tribes is shutting down

Toki Tori developer Two Tribes will be closing its doors this autumn, but not before releasing shmup Rive in September.

So why shut down the studio when it still has one final game on the docket? According to Two Tribes, it's because they're "dinosaurs".

The studio explained in a new blog post that when the company launched in 2000 it was a different world. A world without digital distribution, middleware, or Let's Play videos. Instead, it was all about scrappy developers building their games from scratch and signing deals with publishers. That was the industry Two Tribes was born into, and that's where it thrived.

"Back then, there were maybe a dozen game developers here in The Netherlands," Two Tribes reminisced. "It was extremely difficult to enter the global games industry, as you needed to have a track record and experience. Even if you took a shot, you still had to secure backing from a publisher, since the only way to reach gamers was through physical distribution.

"The technological bar was also set very high, as there were no middleware engines available. There were severe hardware limitations and most of today's sophisticated design tools were non-existent. You basically had to make everything yourself. We felt comfortable working in such an environment, and we actually still cling to this DIY mentality."

Alas, this was not to last. Game development became a young person's game with all sorts of new avenues popping up for aspiring developers, leaving Two Tribes' more conventional model in the dust.

Rive is shaping up to be one helluva note to go out on.

"The big change happened around 2008, when new technologies and tools allowed developers to make games way more easily and faster," Two Tribes said. "Suddenly, because of digital distribution, small developers were able to create and publish their own games without the help of big publishers. Initially this was great for us, as we were one of the first developers to enter the Steam, WiiWare and iOS markets. Business was good. We were on the shortlists of companies like Nintendo and Valve."

This didn't last, however, as the industry became increasingly competitive. "The market was flooded with games by developers from all around the world," Two Tribes said. "Game development schools were erected, and every year thousands of students tried their luck under increasingly difficult conditions. With game changers such as the Humble Bundle, the ever-continuing race to the bottom and a growing focus on free-to-play games, it became tough for a game to even hit the break-even point."

Last year Two Tribes co-founder Collin van Ginkel explained to Eurogamer that Toki Tori 2 sold so poorly that it bankrupted the publishing side of the company. The development side remained as a skeleton crew of three working on Rive.

Two Tribes is best known for the Toki Tori series, but it also handled the Wii U port of Swords & Soldiers as well as the PC port of Edge.

Yet Two Tribes seems humble about its defeat in the mercurial market. "We are used to working with our own proprietary engine. It's technology that works great for us, but is by no means competitive with tools like Unity or the Unreal Engine," the company admitted. "And then there are monetisation strategies like free-to-play. We only know, and feel comfortable working with, the traditional model of full-priced games. The same goes for marketing: we know how to make a decent trailer and send out a press release... but have no clue how to get traction on YouTube and Twitch."

"We've been working in the games industry since early 2000, making us dinosaurs, old farts, grandfathers or whatever you want to call us," Two Tribes lamented. "We just aren't on top of the games business anymore. Therefore, it makes sense to focus our attention elsewhere, perhaps even outside the games industry."

It's a sad state of affairs for the Dutch studio, but it's not going down without a fight as Two Tribes is exceptionally proud of its impending swan song Rive.

"We've saved the best for last," Two Tribes said. This echoes the studio's sentiment from last year when Ginkel told us "We tried to make everybody happy [with Toki Tor 2]. And now we're just making ourselves happy."

 

[Excidium II]

Blame the world.

 

[Mustawd]

This didn't last, however, as the industry became increasingly competitive. "The market was flooded with games by developers from all around the world," Two Tribes said. "Game development schools were erected, and every year thousands of students tried their luck under increasingly difficult conditions. With game changers such as the Humble Bundle, the ever-continuing race to the bottom and a growing focus on free-to-play games, it became tough for a game to even hit the break-even point."

This is not a hard concept to understand. Yet, people are talking about this as if it was unexpected or some kind of extraordinary tragedy.

 

[Morkar Left]

I never heard of one of their games...

 

[DeepOcean]

I did shit nobody care about... the world is doomed!

 

[Konjad]

I played Toki Tori. A bland and boring casual game. Nothing of value will be lost.

 

[Thane Solus]

The problem the markets are not really regulated, and in our case, only GoG and maybe Gamersgate have some quality control and dont accept anything, thus better audience and steady profits there if you have a decent game for them. Steam and other stores accepts just about anybody with the retarded idea, that market will choose wisely and regulate itself, no it wont, it will just crash eventually. But steam makes their money on auto so they dont care. Fuck Gaben, it was cool until he stop caring at all.

Yes, it way much harder than before, but its also easier, more tools to use to speed the development, but much more competition. Of course that doesnt stop people that try to make unique games and challenging games. So until the market crashes completly and even then, real indie devs and companies will make a steady profit as long as they develop niche games for their niche audiences, or some unique games in general. They make less money but enough to continue to make good games, or in some cases to make enough money to buy a villa in Los Angeles and cry on twitter that they are alone...and retarded.

So yes, its harder to make an easy profit from a mediocre,shit games or buggy games, how it was before. You got push the design much further and choose a proper cultured niche, where you can challenge the players minds. Games like Battle Brothers, Train Fiver, Cities Skyline(small team, were indie, not anymore tho ), Darkest Dungeon, Xenonauts, Prison Arhitect, Rimworld, Space Engineers, Kerbal Space Program and so on...

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

I'll give them credit for creating their own engine, so many indie "developers" fuck up by using unity and knocking together an ok demo without understanding how to push it towards anything else that it's refreshing to know they probably knew how their own engine actually worked and what to get out of it. The fact that they made uninspired games despite having some measure of technical prowess was their downfall though. I think the whole indiepocalypse is a bit overblown. The market has been flooded by making entry easier, but it still takes a mixture of good game design, artistic sense & technical prowess to make a good game. I'm not sure if the chances of striking gold ever changed for indies, guys who make strong niche titles will get a following but I can't see them ever getting rich off it. The big titles that rake in the money still have to be a good game at the core of it although they need mass appeal too, it's just that getting noticed and having your popularity blow up is still as much a crap shoot as ever.

 

[Mustawd]

I think the biggest challenge for indies is that regardless of some of the quality of their games, they still suffer a bit from price depreciation due to so many market entrants.

So a quality game that could have sold for $20.00 before the Steam boom now has to start at $15.00 before discounts/sales to make the same volume.

At the end of the day the boom-bust model will continue just like all other growth industries. Consolidation is inevitable.

 

[Farage]

I'll give them credit for creating their own engine, so many indie "developers" fuck up by using unity and knocking together an ok demo without understanding how to push it towards anything else that it's refreshing to know they probably knew how their own engine actually worked and what to get out of it. The fact that they made uninspired games despite having some measure of technical prowess was their downfall though. I think the whole indiepocalypse is a bit overblown. The market has been flooded by making entry easier, but it still takes a mixture of good game design, artistic sense & technical prowess to make a good game. I'm not sure if the chances of striking gold ever changed for indies, guys who make strong niche titles will get a following but I can't see them ever getting rich off it. The big titles that rake in the money still have to be a good game at the core of it although they need mass appeal too, it's just that getting noticed and having your popularity blow up is still as much a crap shoot as ever.

> uses own engine
> makes shitty game
> gets massive failure
Should'a used Unity instead.

 

[Delbaeth]

Not related to this game in particular, don't know the game, didn't play the game and haven't heard of its developers.

I am wondering myself about few indie developers promoting some DRM like always online things.
I believe that some indie developers are full DRM adopters, because they would like to force publishers who sell oldies to get DRM too, and in the end, those indies would like oldies games to be prevented to be sold, because those oldies games would be better than these indie games.
Or am I paranoid?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Not related to this game in particular, don't know the game, didn't play the game and haven't heard of its developers.

I am wondering myself about few indie developers promoting some DRM like always online things.
I believe that some indie developers are full DRM adopters, because they would like to force publishers who sell oldies to get DRM too, and in the end, those indies would like oldies games to be prevented to be sold, because those oldies games would be better than these indie games.
Or am I paranoid?

No, this is what Microsoft is trying right now with UWP. If that thing ever takes off, a future release of UWP will block out any and all games that aren't UWP-compatible...and that's before Microsoft implements the 'reserves the right to deny any title from being allowed to run on its OS because reasons' clause.

The indie devs would need to band together to have a decent chance of making any progress on this front, though.

 

[tormund]

Not related to this game in particular, don't know the game, didn't play the game and haven't heard of its developers.

I am wondering myself about few indie developers promoting some DRM like always online things.
I believe that some indie developers are full DRM adopters, because they would like to force publishers who sell oldies to get DRM too, and in the end, those indies would like oldies games to be prevented to be sold, because those oldies games would be better than these indie games.
Or am I paranoid?

TBH, as tinfoily as that might sound, I often get the impression that some devs (not only indie ones mind you) and some game journos are already doing their best to prevent younger gamers from playing older games. It might be that some of them honestly dislike some of those games and think that they don't hold up to "moderns standards" (see any RPS article on Myst or Duke 3D), but I'm certain that some of them are aware that some of those games might make new ones look weak in comparison and increase demands younger games have from new games.

 

[Delbaeth]

Unkillable Cat: following the MS stance, I believe that there are some people angry at XB1 launch. They would have better used their tools back then to force a new Windows with UWP instead. They can do what they want due to the unwillingness of users and devs to try another OS.

tormund: It certainly is. Back then, they mainly used graphics to legitimate new games instead of previous, old or "ancient" games, no matter how deep, interesting or else they were. In the other hand, other media do the same thing regarding music, literature or cinema. Or even fashion.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/post-apocalypse/

Post Apocalypse

I think it’s OK, it’s safe to come out. I think the indiepocalypse might be over.

Steam Spy figures so pinch of salt and ownership doesn’t necessarily equal sales, good spacious margin of error too but still…

At the time of writing:

Enter The Gungeon: 153,000
Hyperlight Drifter: 101,000
The Culling: 383,000
Stardew Valley: 916,000
The Witness: 99,000
Undertale: 1.4 million
Firewatch: 249,000
Subnautica: 548,000
Prison Architect: 1.5 million
Invisible Inc: 183,000
In 1980, someone died.

I’m just plucking titles of prominent indie games out of my arse here, to be honest. It’s early morning, I haven’t slept much, punching things into Steamspy like a boss and watching it spit pretty good numbers at me. Numbers for games that would have been just as impressive during the alleged indie boom years. I’m looking at numbers (hello Prison Architect and Undertale) for games that would have had people shitting themselves with excitement at the thought of being able to shift that many copies at any point in our indie history.

The indiepocalypse has been, always will be a lie perpetuated by old men who should know better.

These games, the big sellers? They’re the exceptions. It’s true. They would have been one year, two years, three years, four years of five years ago. But look at those numbers. Just look at them. They’re incredible. We live in a time when one dude can sit down and make a silly RPG with heart and it sells over a million copies. Five years ago, I swear that’d be resigned to ‘cult hit’ because we weren’t where we are now. We didn’t have the reach, the exposure, the interest we had then.

It’s an amazing time to be making games. An amazing time to be selling games. I’m spoilt for choice in a way I could never have imagined for buying games. We can put games on an ithing, look at all those people putting games on Sony things, MS things (All six of you! Well done, you!), Nintendo things, phone things. Look at it.

There is no indiepocalypse. We can stop talking about it now, stop running panels on it, stop listening to old men pontificating about it. We’re selling fuckloads more games than we’ve ever done before.

There’s just the cold hard reality that most people will never, have never sold these numbers. Never will. And sometimes that bites the folks who thought they had it all sussed out.

It’s not doom and gloom, it’s just fucking hard to sell games for most people. Trust me though, this is the best time to try as long as I can remember. Don’t let old people scare you off.

 

[Excidium II]

Intense research. Support his Patreon.

 

[Mustawd]

There is no indiepocalypse. We can stop talking about it now, stop running panels on it, stop listening to old men pontificating about it. We’re selling fuckloads more games than we’ve ever done before.

This is the most retarded way of making an argument. The indiepocalypse was never about the entire thing melting down. It is, and always was, about how increased supply would pinch margins, create new substitutes as game mechanics become less and less original (rouge-lite/rouge-like anyone?) and make it more difficult for upstarts to succeed.

I don't have any numbers to actually back up the fact that it has already begun, but neither does this idiot have any to discount it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

It's not helping his case that the titles he mentions have been around for different lengths of time.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

For fucks sakes he's listing Prison Architect as proof that there's no indiepocalypse but that game was in EA for years before this indiepocalypse shit.

 

[Mustawd]

It's not helping his case that the titles he mentions have been around for different lengths of time.

It also is not helpful to focus on pure sales number now that we're living in the bundle age. Or the fact that Steam takes XYZ amount off your profit margins.

 

[Mozg]

Enter the Gungeon is interesting because it's amazing that an indie dev finally made a new action roguelite with high enough general production values to be on the level of Binding of Isaac (Rebirth) that integrates stuff from Spelunky and Nuclear Throne (except at action game framerate). I gotta think there's still a lot of slack left in the market if it takes that long to follow an obvious recipe for success that's perfectly suited to the reigning Tuber/Twitcher marketing environment.

 

[Infinitron]

Vault Dweller on surviving the Indiepocalypse: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ve-the-indiepocalypse-in-5-easy-steps.109606/

 

[Mustawd]

I think the biggest challenge for indies is that regardless of some of the quality of their games, they still suffer a bit from price depreciation due to so many market entrants.

So a quality game that could have sold for $20.00 before the Steam boom now has to start at $15.00 before discounts/sales to make the same volume.

At the end of the day the boom-bust model will continue just like all other growth industries. Consolidation is inevitable.

IP-gobbling publisher THQ Nordic announced today that they'd acquired Logic Artist's Expeditions franchise

So we have Obsidian, inXile, Hairbraned Schemes, and now the main IP of Logic Artist being acquired.

I think we can safely say the A.5-AA rpg dev consolidation is well under way.

I guess the questions now are:

1.) Who is left?
2.) Who is next?

For #1, PB comes to mind off the top of my head.

 

[a Goat]

PB games are published by nordic too, but they're indie by themselves.

then there's obviously Larian and I guess aterdux and few others of this caliber and general geographic location

 

[Zarniwoop]

And Cleve of course.