[HN Gopher] Making Games
___________________________________________________________________
Making Games
Author : et1337
Score : 208 points
Date : 2023-06-28 11:41 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (etodd.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (etodd.io)
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| This resonates more than not. At some point game development (or
| development in general) becomes an escape from even external
| validation. In my youth I got lost there for a long time and I'm
| not sure I'd do it again outside of a hobby interchangeable with
| painting.
|
| All the turmoils and joys of art bundled into one.
| tobr wrote:
| I found this rather profound and moving. It makes me reflect on
| my own motivations in creative work. It's interesting that you've
| come full circle - from living with a need to be seen through
| your work, to recognizing that that is an unhealthy driving
| force, and then back to accepting it as natural part of making
| art.
| belugacat wrote:
| Andrei Tarkovski:
|
| "An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed,
| his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum.
| Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the
| world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were
| perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but simply live in it.
| Art is born out of an ill-designed world."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V27XlEDLdtE
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Perhaps it explains my perception of his work as ill-designed
| movies.
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| The game industry is much more cutthroat and high stakes than it
| was a decade ago during the indie explosion.
|
| Many of the indie darlings from that era would be lost in the
| noise now, and the quality bar expected of even an indie game is
| insane. Outside of Jonathan Blow and Pope, I struggle to think of
| game creators that would stand out of the crowd nowadays.
|
| By all measures, I had pretty good success shipping an indie VR
| game in 2016. Competition was low and our low poly art style was
| passable because the game had personality to make up for it. I am
| 100% confident that even a few years later the game would've sold
| 4 digit copies. Even with the success, I still would have made
| more money as an engineer elsewhere. Of course having
| successfully "done the indie thing" has a high non-monetary
| reward that made it worth it for me, but I was also financially
| well off and could afford that loss.
|
| I'd counsel anyone at this point to find a AA indie team or even
| go AAA and consider just working on something you have passion
| for on the side. Drastically less risk if you go that route, as
| you can quit when you know you "have something". Or just enjoy
| throwing your game up on itch or Steam and have fun seeing other
| people play.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > Many of the indie darlings from that era would be lost in the
| noise now.
|
| What to make of the absence of A-lister game development
| personalities? There are maybe exactly zero. Notch disgraced
| himself, and he may be the single only person to have ever
| gotten into the regular person popular consciousness enough. In
| the near past, Sid Meier and Will Wright had their names on
| games, but I guess not in a memorable enough way. I'm not sure
| anyone watched the three or so TV series about John Carmack and
| John Romero. Gabe Newell, Shigeru Miyamoto, Sam Houser, Tim
| Schafer, Hideo Kojima... A baby boomer is not going to
| recognize any of these names. None of these names pass the
| "Mom, have you heard of..." test.
|
| So there will be lots of noise.
|
| There are benefits to this - the absence of a system - though.
|
| - no institutional power: As you may have experienced, there's
| no one taste maker. When you are trying to market for $0, it's
| literally all serendipity.
|
| - the heritage: There's no such thing as a nepo baby in game
| development. All those ex-Blizzard people have just as little
| chance of making something anyone plays as you do, even as they
| finance 8 digit budgets to your 0.
|
| - the data: Valve, benevolently, shares the data that movie,
| TV, music and book financiers hoard, allowing any 1 smart
| person to correctly play the role of the 10,000 studio
| executives at Disney.
|
| - there's even some up front money, for nothing: Facebook, also
| benevolently, gave out lots of development checks for games,
| expecting basically nothing in return; Epic Mega Grants
| similarly.
| lukas099 wrote:
| It seems rare for there to be famous personalities as 'in the
| background' as game developers are. The exceptions I can
| think of tend to have their name in huge letters on the
| covers of things (book authors, movie directors). But most
| famous people have their face or at least their voices
| directly in front of people at least a good portion of the
| time.
|
| One exception I can think of is influential business people
| like CEOs and founders of large companies.
| tonymillion wrote:
| To extend on your point, and to brain dump something that
| went through my mind about the parent comment:
|
| I can tell you the name of (most of) the characters of the
| Avengers movies. I can also tell you the name of _some_ of
| the actors who play those characters. I have absolutely no
| idea who directed them (nor do I really care that much). I
| can 't tell you the names of anyone involved in the
| production (art/music/cgi etc). I can tell you it came from
| Marvell Studios via Disney.
|
| I can tell you the names of the characters of HalfLife
| series. I can't tell you the names of the voice actors
| (apart from the fact nobody voiced Gordon (lol)). I can't
| tell you the name of the guy who wrote the story, other
| than he left Valve and published a story outline for
| HalfLife 3. I can't tell you the name of a single
| programmer, visual or level designer, artist, musician etc.
| I can tell you Valve made it.
|
| So yeah, unless your character also shares your name, and
| as you point out, unless the game is titled "John Smith
| presents a John Smith game directed by and starring John
| Smith: JOHN SMITH THE GAME" you can all but forget about me
| knowing your name.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| This guy might be familiar to you :p
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau
| guestbest wrote:
| It is telling that game developers are not storytellers
| like those who write novels or even performers in a niche
| like like opera singers. It looks like after all these
| years, computer games have been around since the 1970s,
| they don't have not only don't have the cultural cache of
| writing but also music.
| adamrezich wrote:
| the nature of the medium allows one to create games that
| don't have "writing", per se--where the "narrative" is
| the emergently-developing narrative you the player are
| telling yourself as you play. in this way, games have the
| potential to be fundamentally different than all other
| forms of linear storytelling. I still enjoy story-centric
| games, but as time goes on, I find myself looking more
| and more for something different and better. some of my
| best and most meaningful experiences with games have been
| these emergent narratives. it would be nice if more
| people tried to make games like this, because it's really
| something you can't get anywhere else, aside from a
| tabletop RPG (but even then, that's different, too).
| vkou wrote:
| There's a reason the 'storytellers' in games aren't
| getting star billing.
|
| Games are a hugely collaborative effort, unlike books
| (which are just a collaborative effort).
|
| Music is also collaborative, but there's way more people
| involved in making most games, than the people whose
| names end up on an album cover.
|
| Movies are also a highly collaborative effort, but even
| there, there's usually one 'czar' - often the director,
| that gets to stand behind nearly every creative decision
| made in the film (Even if they weren't the one who made
| it). Again, no such thing usually exists with games.
| There's just too many parts to them, no one person owns
| all of them, and the costs of making 'cuts' preclude a
| single opinionated personality from doing an eleventh-
| hour pass on it in post-production.
| matthewrobertso wrote:
| >I'm not sure anyone watched the three or so TV series about
| John Carmack and John Romero
|
| Which series were these? I'd love to watch them but can't
| find any information. From googling they shot a pilot for a
| Masters of Doom series in 2019 but it seems to have never
| been released.
| 99_00 wrote:
| Poppy Playtime - Mob Entertainment
| hgs3 wrote:
| > Many of the indie darlings from that era would be lost in the
| noise now.
|
| This isn't specific to games. I doubt many dot-com millionaires
| would have the same success with the web if they were born
| today.
| afterburner wrote:
| You would recommend working at a AAA game dev company? I've
| heard the work-life balance is terrible... Not sure you would
| even have time for a side project.
| teamonkey wrote:
| In my opinion, the conditions in AAA are considerably better
| now than they used to be 5, 10 or 15 years ago, in general.
| Not everywhere, certainly, but overtime culture is lessening
| and there's a more supportive attitude to employees.
|
| Average pay for the average employee is slowly improving too,
| and getting more evenly spread, though still a lot lower than
| equivalent jobs in other tech sectors. Better pay for most,
| but fewer Ferraris in the car park.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The companies still seem to prey on naive but excited
| employees who want to work in the gaming industry so badly
| they will accept the risk of low pay and overwork; it's still
| an employer's market.
|
| Indie games - once established anyway - seem like a better
| bet, some of the bigger titles in the space nowadays in terms
| of sale - I'm thinking Hollow Knight, Hades - seem all right,
| in that their current games are still a steady income stream,
| allowing them to take the time with the - guaranteed
| successful - sequels.
|
| Only a matter of time before they get bought up by a bigger
| studio / publisher though, one big payout. Happened to KSP,
| and while I had faith in the new developer studio, the sequel
| is off to a disappointing start.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The progress on KSP2 is promising enough to maintain my
| interest, but they definitely went into early access way
| too soon. It's a really bad look to launch a sequel with
| ~10% of the content of the original.
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| It's no better in smaller studios frankly. Best bet if you
| want balance is to not work in games at all and then make
| games on the side.
|
| Edit: I have a US-centric viewpoint and I can't speak to
| other countries.
| meibo wrote:
| It's pretty good in that regard in my experience, in Europe
| anyway. Everything else pretty much still applies though,
| out-of-touch execs and all.
| munificent wrote:
| While I'm not religious, everything else in this wonderfully
| written, honest article mirrors much of my own past and
| psychological development.
| Hexigonz wrote:
| This article couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I slogged
| through myriads of tutorials for unreal and unity. I watched dev
| logs where people seemed to effortlessly build their ideal worlds
| and then go viral for it on youtube. All while thinking "if I
| could ever just take some time away from my web dev career, I
| could make games too. But it takes so much time to get started."
|
| Enter Godot. I have LOVED it. It has absolutely changed the way I
| think about game dev, and the journey with it so far has been
| refreshing. It feels natural to code in, things are organized in
| a way that I don't need a degree in the engine to understand, and
| the UI is simple and clean. This post inspired me even more to
| keep going full bore with Godot. Thanks man.
| dimgl wrote:
| > I watched dev logs where people seemed to effortlessly build
| their ideal worlds and then go viral for it on youtube
|
| Heads up that a majority of these are "fake", and/or stretch
| the truth considerably. There was one where in one video they
| had made a fully realized open world in Unity and in the second
| they implemented flying.
|
| It's all smoke and mirrors. These creators have spent weeks
| getting these games to the point at which they're at. Whether
| it's in training, or in previous failed games, or in creating
| templates to make future games, it's _never_ that easy. There
| are so many nuances to these engines that you can easily lose
| an entire day just fiddling with one feature or fixing a bug.
|
| So take it with a grain of salt.
| ProjectVader wrote:
| I can totally relate to this but in a different way. Music is
| very similar, especially nowadays when everyone has an opinion
| about what you should create, and it's easy to get lost in the
| sea of YouTube tutorials of people telling you which way is the
| right way, or even listening to what's accepted in the mainstream
| and attempting to contort your own work to fit within that
| structure.
|
| After all, any form of expression can be seen as art, be it music
| production or games, and the constant battle we feel as artists
| can be overwhelming at times, especially when you want others to
| acknowledge and validate you.
|
| Wouldn't it be cool if your son and his son could look back and
| say, "Look what my dad/grandfather created". For me, that thought
| is a-lot more full-filling than worrying about what the rest of
| the world thinks.
| nathants wrote:
| making a living off indie gamedev is not realistic because of how
| easy it is to do the same as software engineer.
|
| so why not both? a few years on, a few years off, repeat. remote
| work makes this even easier.
|
| i'm just starting gamedev, and am building just to see if i can.
|
| i like the game i'm playing, but i feel like it could be better.
| i'm impressed with what's possible, but wonder if current
| technical limitations are surpassable. i accept that industry
| sees odd things as cost centers, but how would things change if
| they didn't?
|
| individuals will make the next breakthroughs in every field.
| software is unique in how powerful an individual can be.
|
| gamedev is probably the hardest thing there is. it combines
| everything. your bank account will grow smaller, but you will
| grow bigger.
|
| failure isn't just an option. failure is the plan. what an
| amazing opportunity. what a time to be curious and to wonder.
|
| last nights vid:
|
| https://r2.nathants.workers.dev/jetpack_mantling.mp4
| at_ wrote:
| Interesting article. I landed on 'game development' as a way to
| keep some form of artistic practice alive while I have a 9-5
| because they're affordable to make (albeit time expensive) and
| essentially act as gesamtkunstwerks that can absorb as many other
| hobbies and interests as you can cram in them. Photography?
| Analogue synthesisers? Geopolitics? Shader coding? All material
| for building your game world. There's also the slim but not
| impossible chance your creation sells a few copies. At the very
| least, you might pick up some useful skills for your dayjob.
|
| My first game (not available anymore, but it was this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQfMHzbFL-w) sold maybe a few
| thousand copies, but it briefly hit the front page of reddit,
| indirectly led to some other fun opportunities, and got the
| chance to get a feature on the App Store (...though I didn't see
| the email until way too late), which was probably some of the
| most fulfilling stuff that has happened to me online, as someone
| that keeps a minimal online presence otherwise. But commercially?
| It would be considered an abject failure by any studio that had
| to keep the lights on. As far as hobbies you don't have to leave
| your desk for, game development carries with it so much
| possibility. Which is also what makes it so dangerous and
| alluring for so many, I think.
| irrational wrote:
| It's interesting to me that "games" has become a synonym for
| "video games". I play board games instead of video games, so when
| I clicked the link, I went in thinking it would be about board
| games. I suppose this is an example of majority rules. The
| majority play video games instead of card/board games, so "games"
| has defaulted to "video games".
| badpun wrote:
| Going even further, just 50 years ago, "games" meant activities
| such as tag, dodgeball etc.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| they still are
| irrational wrote:
| I'm over 50. We had lots of card/board games 50 years ago.
| And we called them games.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I've worked on both. There's a lot of overlap. In fact I've
| seen quite a few board game designers tap out of the industry
| recently due to various frustrations and burnout. I haven't
| really made a name for myself yet in board games, but I also
| tapped out (and started focusing on making video games again)
| because there are a lot of frustrations in board games:
|
| - Convincing a publisher to sign your game takes a lot of
| marketing skill that an engineer like myself isn't used to, it
| can be harder than finding an audience of players, since you
| have to set up a meeting for each one person you're trying to
| convince to give your game a chance
|
| - Or your can go Kickstarter, but then you're committing to
| basically being a publisher yourself, and not
| designing/developing games
|
| - Board game publishers are also having a rough time since
| there's been so many issues and sudden surprises with shipping
| because of the pandemic. That's calmed down a bit but it's
| still putting publishers in a precarious state, and they tend
| to have fairly thin margins to begin with.
|
| - Board game designers also tend not to get paid very well
| unless they land on an evergreen title, like Dominion, Ticket
| to Ride, etc, and/or have a constant pipeline of games (which
| takes making great relationships with publishers and convincing
| them to sign a bunch of games you churn out) and people in the
| industry in general tend to get paid less (can be 50% less)
| than the already underpaid people in the video game industry. I
| keep looking at salaries in job postings and going "No way I
| could take that much of a pay cut, as much as I'd probably
| enjoy the work more"
|
| I know one guy that worked on a game for two years, made a game
| that was successful by the publisher's standards (it was in
| Barnes and Noble) and only received $9,000 in royalties ($18k
| split in half with a designer). He quit and started a marketing
| company and is a lot happier now. A few others I know are
| taking long breaks because they're just burnt out from the
| constant grind.
|
| That being said I did have a burst of motivation a few months
| ago and designed a few small games and tried pitching them at a
| board game convention this past weekend. One meeting (with the
| largest publisher, even) went pretty well, the others didn't.
|
| If nothing else, I can always code a web version of the games
| and release them without needing a publisher, eventually, or at
| least make Tabletop Simulator versions of the games.
| glimshe wrote:
| People have been doing things for the sake of doing them for
| centuries. Sometimes one person creates something - a painting,
| sculpture, book, game - that resonates with the public and is
| lucky enough to get noticed. It's a mix of talent and luck, which
| includes being at the right place at the right time.
|
| I believe that the mistake is to _expect_ that you will be
| rewarded for your efforts just because you created something that
| resonates with _you_. It might happen, it might not. On average,
| I think that game developers make less money than food servers at
| McDonald 's. And it was always like that, someone creating
| speculative work and trying to probe the market almost always
| makes less money than someone working on a guaranteed, time-
| honored market need.
|
| The question is - was the trip worth it? Lots of times, it isn't.
| But let's take someone who spends a year of their life
| backpacking around Europe or wherever. Was it worth it?
| Moneywise, it was a huge loss of money, not "profitable". But it
| could have been personally profitable, it could have been the
| best thing this person has done in their life and one of those
| "deathbed joys".
|
| If you approach hobbies and game development this way, I think
| it's much easier to accept a market failure. It must be worth it
| to YOU, otherwise you're in for very likely disappointment.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'd beg to differ here on the typical developer. In nearly all
| of these accounts, it rarely (if ever?) seems that the
| developer actually makes a product that resonates with
| themselves. In this case, the developer ultimately never even
| made anything at all. The thing I most often see is people
| being expected to be rewarded for making simply "something" as
| in you create a product, and it's completely playable as a game
| - but it's nothing more than that.
|
| And I think _that_ era is completely dead, if it ever really
| existed at all. What I mean is somebody might see a game like
| the Binding of Isaac sell a zillion copies and think to
| themselves, 'Wow - I could make that game. I could even make
| it better!' And they're probably right, but with _that game_
| already released to massive popularity, creating a clone just
| isn 't going to resonate with anybody unless it takes it to a
| whole new level, which clones essentially by definition don't
| do. You can see this exact attitude in this author with his 3d
| renderer. He expected people to appreciate it because he spent
| thousands of hours on it. But people don't care about stuff
| like that, they care about what's in front of their eyes - and
| what was probably a few poorly lit textured polygons moving
| around is not going to inspire fanfare.
|
| Ironically low-effort clones also work as an example on _this_
| front. Vampire Survivor is another game, technically trivial,
| which has sold about a zillion copies. And it 's little more
| than a reskin of 'Magic Survival' [1]. But the author clearly
| saw the potential in that game that nobody else did (including
| its own author), so he deserves all the credit and reward he's
| received. It just feels like if we viewed game development as a
| market, it's full of people buying high, selling low, and then
| becoming all philosophical when looking for why things didn't
| turn out as they planned, as if there was some deeper meaning
| or lesson to be learned.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnM9CIqv8Iw
| yannyu wrote:
| You're not wrong, but is this the way we want art to be
| created? Should arts be primarily pursued by those who have the
| means to defer or lose income, or those who have the reputation
| and connections to nearly guarantee economic success?
| whateveracct wrote:
| I think you're creating a false dichotomy here.
|
| Art can be made by people who wish to make it, and it doesn't
| have to be some "do art or make money" choice. Plenty of
| people who aren't filthy rich have leisure time and artistic
| desires.
| somenameforme wrote:
| The number of bands, and increasingly even of huge
| independently developed games, that started with some guy
| doing something in their spare time after work is exceedingly
| high.
|
| In times of patronage, even being able to obtain the
| instruments of your art was a substantial (though even then -
| not insurmountable) obstacle. Now? You can buy a saxophone
| for 20-30 minimum wage hours, same for something like an
| electric guitar + amp. The cost for other arts tend to be
| downward from there. In modern times programmers have it the
| easiest. Free IDEs, free libraries, free tutorials, free
| everything - you just need a computer and you instantly have
| access to resources that would have cost tens of thousands of
| dollars, at one time, for free.
| c_crank wrote:
| It's nice when you can rely on the rich to provide patronage
| for high quality art. But one could not expect this from the
| current rich.
| lukas099 wrote:
| This is one argument for universal basic income: that it will
| lead to an explosive output in the arts. (I don't know enough
| about the debate than to comment on it further than that.)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Let me ask you something: would you value a set of ~5 games
| that are an imagining of VCS-era console games as envisioned
| to exist in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union was
| the predominant exporter of culture rather than the US?
|
| Because that's the kind of thing I come up with and would be
| making if I had a life situation where I didn't have to sell
| entirely too much of my time for food, shelter, and health
| care.
|
| So I guess what I'm asking (genuinely) is, is that the kind
| of art you _really_ want to see a lot more of[0], and filter
| through, and one way or another _pay for_? Or is it perhaps
| better the production of such things is the domain of people
| who do not require such support?
|
| [0] I do, but I'm clearly biased. Count me among the people
| who want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who
| are paid more to work less.
| jckahn wrote:
| I'm the developer of https://www.farmhand.life/, an open source
| indie game with a modest following. I've seriously explored
| commercializing Farmhand, but never actually followed through
| with it (aside from an exploratory spinoff[0] that never even
| made enough money for Steam to pay out to my partner and I). It
| became clear that I'd have to fundamentally change Farmhand in
| ways that cater to monetization opportunities (via in-app
| purchases or ads) rather than my own interests. And if the game
| failed commercially (which it almost certainly would,
| statistically speaking) then I'd be stuck with project that's
| not fully aligned with my interests and values. I'd almost
| certainly lose all motivation and the project would die.
|
| So, Farmhand just exists as a free open source game that I love
| making and handful of people enjoy playing. And I hope it
| continues on like that for the rest of my life. I think I'll
| reflect positively on that choice on my deathbed.
|
| - [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2080880/Farmhand_Go/
| glimshe wrote:
| Well written! I think you should up the price to 4.99!
| jckahn wrote:
| Thank you! I think increasing the price of Farmhand Go from
| $.99 would pretty much kill all future sales, as we've only
| sold 85 units since launching in 2022. It's great to know
| that someone thinks the game is worth more than that
| though. :)
| ctenb wrote:
| A game costing less than one dollar strongly signals it's
| not worth any money, let alone my time. I'd probably not
| even look at it for that reason.
| schemescape wrote:
| I agree with this. Also, a higher price leaves room for
| discounts, which might help convert wishlists.
| Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about.
| glimshe wrote:
| Yeah, this is a well studied economic effect. Sometimes
| increasing prices increases sales. My first "gut"
| reaction looking at his game was "Gosh, a 99 cent phone
| game, no thank you" but I kept looking and it's not bad.
|
| People who play real games (rather than addiction-driven
| phone games) are willing to pay to get what they want,
| within reason of course.
| jckahn wrote:
| That's an interesting point. My partner and I went back
| and forth on pricing before we settled on $.99. That
| seemed to be the price that these types of narrowly-
| scoped, casual games go for. It's certainly possible that
| we got that wrong, as we are not experts at this kind of
| thing.
| glimshe wrote:
| These people will also get your game for 2.99 once it
| goes on sale. You don't want the full price of your
| life's work (based on your words) to be 99 cents, this is
| the exact price point of one gazillion awful games. I'm a
| heavy gamer and pretty much refuse to buy 99 cent games.
|
| Well, do a before/after comparison of profits after
| changing the price, and running a few sales (like
| thanksgiving), and come back to tell us how that went :).
| jckahn wrote:
| We just upped the price to $4.99:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2080880/Farmhand_Go/
|
| Thanks for the suggestion! I don't expect to start making
| significant money with this change, but it will be an
| interesting learning opportunity if nothing else.
|
| I'll update this thread if we see a meaningful change in
| sales! :)
| c_crank wrote:
| If I had the kind of brain to grok vector transformations, I'd
| build my own game engine. But I don't, so I decide to write
| stories on the side instead.
|
| The guys who can do that stuff are wizards
| nixnax wrote:
| [dead]
| q_andrew wrote:
| Hi Evan, I enjoyed this blog post a lot. I released my first
| indie game this February, after working on it since graduating
| college. It has made 3x my normal job's salary -- I'm still torn
| about whether to make a sequel and go full time, or stick with my
| usual 9 to 5. Let me know if you have any good tips!
|
| I think gamedev was also a very big escape for me since middle
| school, and your post reminded me a lot of those dark times.
|
| I also agree that games are an art, I went from drawing ->
| modeling -> rendering -> programming, so it was easier for me to
| reach those conclusions.
|
| Making a game to show off your cleverness is definitely not the
| best motivation, but I have found that it can improve the game's
| "experience" if you can harness that feeling. Straddling the line
| between personal interest, feasibility, and market value is maybe
| the most important thing to get right as a solo developer in my
| opinion. I could see developers who got lucky with their
| obsessions getting absolutely devastated with their lack of hits
| afterwards (something I'm afraid of doing myself!).
|
| The comment about the twitter gamedev scene being driven by
| terminally online people is very accurate, although I still
| admire some of the more educational/resource oriented ones for
| their sheer willpower.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Some of this resonated with me, some did not. I don't think there
| was an insecurity I needed salve for as a motivation for writing
| games. Neither do I think that programming generally has been a
| "power trip" for me.
|
| But like the author I came to see my writing of games as
| satisfying an artistic (and also a technical need) I suppose I
| have. Why express yourself artistically in software? Maybe
| because I am not as skilled at painting or music to hope to
| express myself in that regard.
|
| And I think early on, perhaps still, I wrote games to make
| tangible the idea for a game that _I_ would like to play. (That
| others might also enjoy the game should not come as a surprise.)
|
| In fact, plenty of times when learning I can program, I have had
| non-programmers tell me about their own great idea for a game and
| ask if I could write it. I feel a little uncomfortable when they
| do because frankly it's difficult for me to be inspired by
| someone else's idea. Often, I tell them, "Why don't you teach
| yourself to program?" I know how dickish that sounds but in fact
| I am essentially telling them to take the exact path that I took
| myself, ha ha.
|
| :
|
| I agree indie game writing is art.
|
| When I first wrote shareware when I was in college any money that
| showed up (maybe $10 a month) went directly to buying a pizza and
| two cokes for my then-girlfriend and I that Friday night. It just
| seemed like gravy.
|
| But when programming became a career for me, and the internet
| added a more realistic means to monetize software, there did come
| in this creeping expectation of making enough to "live on" from
| games. I am coming to see now that this kind of ruins it for me.
|
| Having recently retired, I used my time to rewrite one of my
| early shareware games for Steam. It was fun to go back to C for
| the nostalgia, fun to modernize the game using a cross-platform
| library (SDL), fun to see 60 fps so easy....
|
| But I sunk $1000 into the thing if you count buying a Steam Deck,
| paying Steam $100, and the various controllers and such I
| purchased (for the oft-neglected PC's I pressed into game-
| development service -- I am normally a Mac guy but I wanted to
| try cross-platform). All told I have made about $570 from the
| game and I don't expect to make much more.
|
| I think I'll write another game or two for Steam but, and perhaps
| this is a healthy mindset, I don't expect to make any money doing
| it. But in a way I feel I am slowly coming back to my college
| days and can begin to look at any sort of recompense as ...
| having paid for the Steam Deck at least.
|
| I am glad the author has come around to a similar conclusion. I
| think it can make game-writing fun again. (I am also glad the
| author seems to have exorcised some childhood demons in the
| process -- congrats.)
| matuszeg wrote:
| What's the name of the game? I'd love to check it out on Steam.
| an_ko wrote:
| Based on their blog, I think they mean this:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2318420/Glypha_Vintage/
| wsc981 wrote:
| Glypha is fun, used to play it a lot on macOS in the System
| 7.0 (or so) days. I expect the remake to be similar fun.
|
| Would buy it again on GOG, but Steam I kinda try to avoid
| these days.
| gochi wrote:
| >Why express yourself artistically in software? Maybe because I
| am not as skilled at painting or music to hope to express
| myself in that regard.
|
| Why do you feel you need to be skilled in either to express
| oneself? The expression is the goal, not the perfection.
|
| I also don't believe that you have to let go of the expectation
| of compensation. You can have both compensation and expression,
| just maybe use a little more time/money towards marketing.
| Jare wrote:
| Below a certain level of skill, you simply can't express
| yourself. You can try, but then you step back and see what
| you built was nothing like what you intended to build, and
| does not express what you wanted it to express; not to
| yourself, and likely not to others.
|
| You don't need to be a world-class master, but there are
| minimums.
| gochi wrote:
| I want to push back on this idea, but I relate to the
| undesired effect. The catch is that this undesired effect
| is a necessity to then becoming able to express oneself in
| that format.
|
| It's frustrating and most people quit at this part, but
| this journey is also an expression. You look back on that
| old raggedy drawing or whatever it is, and understand
| exactly what you were wanting to express and how you just
| couldn't. That piece becomes a symbol of your persistence
| and effort, and winds up meaning far more to you than most
| of your other work that has far better detail or granted
| you far more money.
|
| So I wound up agreeing with you, it's correct that below
| the minimum you struggle to express yourself the way you
| intended, but that is perfectly normal. Embrace it, don't
| let it become your limitation on why you refuse to learn to
| make music or games or create pottery or what have you.
| jonhohle wrote:
| That had a great turn going that I find is probably true in my
| own life. I spend a lot of time on things that I think are neat,
| but that I think will please others at times at the expense of
| myself and my family. The idea that games and game dev (of any
| dev) can be a coping strategy for past injury is also
| enlightening.
|
| As someone who always wanted to get into game dev, but saw it as
| something that was continually further and further from my reach,
| I was expecting a primer and got more than I thought. Thanks!
| sircastor wrote:
| The games industry is a very unforgiving one. Players are fickle,
| large studios are often abusive, platforms are territorial. I
| think games are wonderful, but like any art form, they have to be
| fulfilling on their own. Your happiness cannot be built on
| someone else's opinion of your work. Of course, that could
| legally be said about anything.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I believe that desiring to be truly _known_ by more than a couple
| of your closest relations is unfortunately a losing proposition.
| I 'm just making up numbers, but I think about 90% of people's
| caring about other people goes to the people they are around all
| the time. Then 90% of what's left goes to people like The
| Beatles, or Trump/Biden, or whatever celebrity. Trying to get the
| attention of others is fighting for scraps of scraps.
|
| I did this once, at work. Worked on a passion project that I
| poured my sweat and soul into, didn't even receive a 'good job'
| (this team had some organization issues and I wasn't even on the
| radar of almost anyone who worked there). It was truly
| demoralizing but a necessary dose of reality for me. Probably
| working at an early stage startup or small independent team where
| everyone who works there is actually best friends with everyone
| else is the only way this would really pay off.
| c_crank wrote:
| I've gotten the most enjoyment out of side projects when I know
| that I'm making them for close friends first, and any extra
| popularity is just a bonus.
| lukas099 wrote:
| That is a really good idea: make something for someone you
| really care about and who really cares about you.
| NortySpock wrote:
| I have also found that building things "for fun" and "for the
| sake of learning" has been both fun and educational.
| imtringued wrote:
| I have built a side project with a user base of less than ten
| people. Mostly people I have known for years. The only
| counterargument is "why aren't you using <more popular
| software> instead?"
| schemescape wrote:
| Last year, I finally worked up the nerve to make a free web game
| into a real, complete game and release it on Steam.
|
| Since I was doing it for fun, I decided to make the game free
| (this meant I missed out on learning if people liked the idea
| enough to pay, and also I couldn't use sales to drive interest).
|
| I grudgingly set up a Discord server and released the game.
|
| I was lucky that someone with millions of followers recommended
| my game, and that the overall response was positive ("very
| positive" on Steam, briefly), but what did I really get in the
| end? A couple of fans, a few hours of talking about my game with
| strangers, an interesting story ("a billionaire beat my game!"),
| and witnessing people beat me (handily) at my own game.
|
| Was it all worth it? Should I do it again? Honestly, I don't
| know. I'm still processing it all. I do have a nagging feeling
| that my tech skills could be put to better use, or at least help
| people I know, instead of strangers.
|
| Like I said: still processing :)
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Well, what was it?
| schemescape wrote:
| Link is in my profile.
|
| I didn't think the specific game was super relevant to the
| story, so I decided to leave it out. I also wanted to avoid
| the HN trope of "cool story! I'm working on this thing that's
| only tangentially related: ..." :)
| spencerflem wrote:
| I struggle with this a lot @ helping people with tech
|
| It seems like most of the industry is pushing bits around or
| trying to make specific shareholders rich at the cost of
| everyone else.
|
| Rambling, but it you get any good insights I'm definitely
| interested in hearing them
| golergka wrote:
| > make specific shareholders rich at the cost of everyone
| else
|
| I haven't worked in a single company that have succeeded in
| making their owners rich without giving the clients what they
| want. Have you? The only entities I know that do that are
| organised crime and governments.
| cbau wrote:
| A lot of companies directly go against their users to
| enrich the owners, see Reddit right now. Just the rational
| move by companies that have established
| monopolies/oligopolies. Also companies that exploit
| negative externalities.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Some examples:
|
| - Everything Microsoft has been doing to windows: adding
| ads, shuffling the UI around, resetting the defaults every
| update
|
| - see also: reddit, facebook, everything else in it's
| "enshitification" phase
|
| - Anything involving ads is (imo) polluting the world
|
| - Things that are literally polluting the world (usually
| not tech, but sometimes)
|
| do _on net_ these companies do more good for the world than
| bad? maybe, but certainly most of the work going into them
| seems to be in "capturing value" which is of no use to me.
| Most of the proprietary software I've used has slowly
| gotten worse over time.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Comcast
|
| Well, that's kind of a mix of both categories, to be fair
| schemescape wrote:
| I don't really have any insight, but I found this comment
| (and its parent) helpful as a starting point:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36508063
|
| It seems so obvious, but it's also easy to lose sight of,
| especially when technology is so interesting!
| Tade0 wrote:
| > It seems like most of the industry is pushing bits around
| or trying to make specific shareholders rich at the cost of
| everyone else.
|
| My co-worker from a decade ago named it "shovelling virtual
| gravel" and I think this expression really catches the spirit
| of it.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| beats pulling the real stuff
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk
|
| Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons
| spencerflem wrote:
| i like that a lot
| tobr wrote:
| Let me see if I follow. You made something because it was fun
| to make it. You "grudgingly" shared it. It had some success,
| and now you wonder what did you really get in the end?
|
| What did I miss? You did it because it was fun. And... it was
| fun? Then just because you release it and share it with others,
| now only external validation counts?
|
| I think this is a trap I fall in all the time as well. I make
| something, and as long as I keep it to myself, only my own
| experience with it determines if it was a success or not. As
| soon as others get to see it... what I think of it doesn't
| matter anymore. Only their reaction.
| schemescape wrote:
| Oops, I meant I "grudgingly" setup a Discord server (and
| happily released the game). Sorry that was very unclear now
| that I'm re-reading it!
|
| Having said that: you're right that once I released it, I
| suddenly had thoughts about how well I thought it should do,
| and those were hard to quell.
|
| Edit: Discord did end up being the right thing to do,
| however. That's how I was able to connect with many of the
| players (that I probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to
| talk to otherwise). My only gripe with Discord is the "walled
| garden, but somehow de facto communication medium" aspect.
| dimgl wrote:
| If you made money, why wouldn't it be worth it?
| schemescape wrote:
| In case that was directed at me: charging for the game limits
| the number of people who will play it, and the biggest
| "payout" for me was seeing people play my game and talk about
| it (and show me tricks I didn't know existed). Coupled with
| the fact that I would have realistically grossed less than
| $4k (for hundreds of hours of work), trying to earn money
| would have probably made it _less_ worth it.
| mdip wrote:
| Thank you for the thoughtful, honest, introspective essay[0]. I
| have a 15-year old son who -- like a lot of kids -- is interested
| in making games for a living. I've shared other pieces with him
| about "what it's really like to write software in the computer
| gaming world" and after clicking the link, quickly sent him this
| one. I just assumed it'd be something along those lines so I sent
| it before I read it.
|
| These "real life in the world of game development" pieces are
| usually the kind that serve only to discourage a kid from wanting
| to write games (and really any other software for that matter)
| which is not really what I'm aiming for. I simply want him to
| have a more realistic view of what game development really is and
| I suspect he'd be interested in a lot of _other_ corners of
| software development.
|
| You basically nailed it, here[1]. In fact, as I read it, I
| imagined my son writing something like this in the future --
| albiet with some details changed. He's an incredibly intelligent
| 15-year old kid who has pretty serious ADHD and struggles due to
| family circumstances. He had similar issues with friends --
| mostly related to being homeschooled until last year[2].
|
| [0] Looks like submitter is the author assuming the HN profile is
| accurate.
|
| [1] As a fellow Christian who was praying about his son this
| morning, I suspect this was something He sent my way ;).
|
| [2] He's got friends and makes friends easily but the school he
| was put in was a small (unfortunately awful) Christian school
| with kids who had attended since Kindergarten ... it was hard to
| break into.
| mysterydip wrote:
| As someone with ADHD, game dev has been a great hobby for me,
| but not something I could do full time (at least
| independently). There's so much breadth and depth in game
| development, you can hyperfocus on "the new shiny" almost
| indefinitely: 2D and 3D graphics, shaders, networking, AI,
| procedural generation, animation, physics, etc. And then
| there's worldbuilding research, sounds, music, pixel art,
| vector art, 3D modeling, etc.
|
| All of these things led me down rabbit holes that gave a wealth
| of knowledge and experience, many of which I apply to my day
| job (or let me be in a position to move up). In 20+ years, I've
| made hundreds of prototypes, engines, and demos. I've only
| fully released a handful of games, and for the most part they
| were a slog to complete.
|
| For the longest time I thought it was something wrong with me,
| just "too lazy" to complete something or I needed to "try
| harder." I've since come to learn more about ADHD and see it's
| an expected result as dopamine levels change throughout the
| project. So I've changed my expectations from "I'm going to run
| my own indie studio someday" to "I'm going to work on whatever
| moves me right now and use it as a fun learning experience."
| et1337 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, hope it can be helpful to your son! I think
| something about Christian schools, groups, even churches makes
| them tend to be super clique-ish, at least in my experience in
| the US. I struggled way more in those groups than in others,
| which is pretty sad and backwards.
| yazzku wrote:
| The best part of this post is the irony of sharing it on HN :)
| But we feel you, bro.
| KapKap66 wrote:
| I followed the Lemma development/game thread you had on Facepunch
| loosely; I would check up on it occasionally to see how things
| progressed since I was interested in parkour games at the time.
|
| I don't really have a point to make, but I thought I'd share.
| thrown1212 wrote:
| Exit through the gift shop. A tale about the commoditisation of
| what people thought was art. This is that. Indie game devs are
| the legions of graffiti artists whose purity and form will never
| pay the bills, regardless of how superior their underlying
| passion or technique is. Because money don't care.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Can people not make games that are not intended to sell much?
| Like Passage (2008), Escape from Woomera (2004) etc, i.e. games
| that have a political or artistic purpose.
|
| I ask this as someone who doesn't play video games (never
| played any of these so called "Art Games").
| turtledragonfly wrote:
| > Why had I tried to make personally meaningful art and make
| money from it? Isn't that a contradiction?
|
| This is somewhat where I am now, working on an indie game that I
| must realistically guess will not pay the bills, once I release
| it.
|
| I took a somewhat backwards/opposite approach, though: worked at
| a "real job" for decades, got some savings, and now am finally
| scratching that itch. If it fails financially, it will still be
| an emotionally and personally satisfying journey for me (also
| painful, but that's what happens when you care about things :)
|
| I appreciate this post for its honesty, and it's presentation of
| issues as the author's own experiences and self-discovery, not
| trying to wrap it up as advice per-se. I find it much easier to
| take advice from people who aren't pushing it as such.
| dopeboy wrote:
| I'm the co-founder of a fantasy sports game, so I've come to know
| the real money side of gaming somewhat intimately. As much as
| people scoff at the money component in a game...it leads to hyper
| engaged users. Our folks are incredibly stick and while it's a
| small cohort, it's a positive sign. They're spending over an hour
| playing everyday, which I'm proud of.
|
| I think if you're building a traditional game (with no money
| component), you have to go into as a labor of love. You're
| competing for attention among a _vast_ canvas of alternatives.
| That is so hard to do.
|
| My dream is to one day build a command and conquer successor.
| That market is tiny and the whole genre has pretty much moved on.
| The people who'd want to play it are millennials like me. I'd
| need to completely alter my motivations and expectations going
| into it.
|
| I think as more people are wide eyed about this, we'll see less
| of the "punch in the gut" stories like these.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| C&C has 'money', so guessing you mean real-world money. So it
| wouldn't surprise me that real money makes games sticky, as it
| raises the stakes and entices folks prone to gambling.
| dimgl wrote:
| I think the whole trope that "making a successful game is close
| to impossible" is overly cynical.
|
| I've found a few people online say that they don't understand why
| their game did really poorly even though it's like X and does Y
| AND Z. So I ask them to show me their game. I haven't found a
| single scenario where the game wasn't unfinished, janky and/or
| just plain unfun.
|
| I want to go against the grain here and say if you have a game
| idea, just make it. But don't expect people to buy it if it
| sucks. Like with all good artists, you have to be conscious of
| whether the thing you're making is a good product or not. I think
| the author of this article realized that eventually.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I see this sentiment a lot on Twitter and Reddit, but it's a an
| overpressured Copium tank
|
| You can see a ton of polished, fun games that weren't
| successful by just skimming over lists of games on phones,
| Steam, or Nintendo Switch. I'm not going to bother linking any
| of them, since you're just going to nitpick and insult the work
| of random people you don't know, and it won't be a productive
| path of conversation.
|
| That said, you can redefine your idea of "success" a little and
| make a comfortable living:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c
| dimgl wrote:
| > nitpick and insult
|
| Sorry, but this is disingenuous. Valid criticism is not
| "insulting". Additionally I've already watched that video.
| That developer purposefully made an extremely niche product
| that only a fraction of people wanted and was able to make a
| living doing that.
|
| Which... proves my point. His games don't have mass appeal at
| all, so they don't make money.
|
| I've been through the Switch catalog. There is so much trash
| on there that it's unbelievable. In fact, most people will
| agree that these App Stores are chock full of garbage games.
| I get ads for garbage mobile games on my Instagram feed all
| the time.
|
| Making a playable game and making a good game are two
| different things. Most games are simply not good games.
|
| Edit: I'd argue that you can't give me a good example because
| they don't exist. If there was a game you truly loved that
| was an underrated gem, you'd be super quick to show it. And
| that's what I'm trying to say: this concept of a polished,
| good game that is inundated and skipped on by the sheer
| amount of volume of good games, in my view, simply doesn't
| exist.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| It's not valid criticism though. You just said:
|
| > I haven't found a single scenario where the game wasn't
| unfinished, janky and/or just plain unfun.
|
| You could easily find lots of problems even with hugely
| successful games like Vampire Survivors or Enter the
| Gungeon. I'm fully confident that given a random assortment
| of fun, polished, shipped games that didn't go viral,
| you'll be able to come up with a long list of complaints.
| dimgl wrote:
| Right but in this argument the onus is on you to find a
| game that should have been successful, but wasn't, due to
| the sheer volume of good games, not the other way around.
| You're making the argument that there lots of games that
| are polished and deserved some kind of success, and are
| inundated by other polished games. I'm arguing this
| simply isn't the case, and most indie devs that have
| complained about this have not made good, fun games.
|
| Flaws or not, Vampire Survivors and Enter the Gungeon
| found a market because they were fun games that had some
| redeeming qualities that wasn't widely available on the
| market at the time. Other examples: Project Zomboid,
| Shovel Knight, etc.
|
| Edit: still waiting on ONE game. Just one. Feel free to
| edit your comment with a game that deserves more
| recognition.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| EDIT: This is what I'm talking about. Not a productive
| conversation. You've convinced yourself that every failed
| game dev deserved failure, and all you have to do to
| prove it to yourself is make a half-assed complaint about
| every game you see.
|
| Send me an e-mail and I'll just message you every game I
| come across that should have been a hit and wasn't, once
| you get tired of it you can block me
| dimgl wrote:
| Why can't you share it here, on Hacker News, for everyone
| to see? These games deserve more recognition. Please, I
| want to be proved wrong here.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| How about much of Obsidian's catalog pre- _Pillars of
| Eternity_
| JSLegendDev wrote:
| An example of a game I think should have been a success
| but wasn't is Counter Spy released for the PS4. It's a
| really fun game and just stumbled on it in the PS Now
| catalog.
| dimgl wrote:
| This is a great example! I took a look at the trailer and
| I think the artstyle and gameplay looks really
| interesting. I took a closer look at it looks like
| reviewers at the time had a lot of technical issues. I
| wonder if those issues are now fixed. Did you play it on
| the PS5?
| sp3n wrote:
| > should have been a hit and wasn't
|
| care to share a few of those on here?
| larsiusprime wrote:
| The best game that exhibits this is Among Us, but not in
| the way you think.
|
| What you're actually getting at here is a hypothesis that
| success for a game isn't contingent on circumstances, a
| variant on the "a truly good game, will sell" hypothesis.
|
| Among Us is a very clear case study to the contrary; it's
| a clear example that success, even for "truly good games"
| -- IS contingent on circumstances. Being a good game --
| whatever that means -- is necessary, but not sufficient.
|
| Among US was released in 2018 and it was a flop. I know
| the development team, and before the game released they
| were ready to call it quits any day.
|
| It wasn't until 2020 that a particular streamer picked it
| up and that, combined with the pandemic, vaulted it to
| mega success. If that hadn't happened, it would have been
| a flop to this day.
|
| This was a multiplayer game, and so if at ANY POINT they
| had given up the ghost and just shut the servers down --
| as they very well could have totally rationally done --
| it would have never taken out, and if I were to have
| shown you Among Us as a game that was good but didn't
| succeed, I'm sure you'd pick it apart and say, well of
| course it wouldn't succeed, look how much it sucks.
| zinxq wrote:
| I posted something along the lines of "games are too easy to
| make" on reddit and got expectedly lambasted. My fault, don't
| tell people with new found ability that the only reason they have
| it is because it's 100 times easier than it used to be.
|
| A long time ago, I got interested in computers to make games but
| immediately veered into other kinds of software. No worries - I
| always planned that once I was "done" in the application/startup
| space, I'd head back and make those games.
|
| Sadly - I waited too long. Like music, books, or photography -
| the supply-side is so inundated with content that the market is
| more about marketing than creation or merit. Mind you, never did
| I expect or even care if I made money. That was never the goal.
| But now I realize just to get some people to play my game would
| be a huge undertaking requiring tons of luck - just to rise above
| the noise. That was the deal breaker - I don't care about making
| money - but I do care about eventual players, at least if
| something will take months or years* to create. I wanted to make
| games, not do marketing.
|
| The bright side is there's no shortage of fun games to play. I'll
| stay on the player side of the equation!
|
| *Wouldn't be surprised if something like ChatGPT allows games to
| be made in days in the semi-near future. If so, I just might make
| games anyway - still not for money, and now not for players - but
| just to finally let those ideas out of my head.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| It is true that Unity and Unreal lowered the technical
| difficulty to make games. And the market is saturated with
| acceptably good games. You get posts by people who say, my game
| is as good as game X or game Y and had new features. Why isn't
| mine popular as well? It's usually a complicated question that
| people who enjoy making games don't like to think about: what
| makes people spend money on games.
|
| But there is still plenty of room for ambitious, beautiful,
| complicated or thought provoking games. That's what's hard now.
| It used to be hard to make good pathing AI or a performant 3D
| renderer or real time physics. Now the challenges are different
| but still very hard.
| dimgl wrote:
| > You get posts by people who say, my game is as good as game
| X or game Y and had new features.
|
| A majority of the time, this just isn't true. I'd like to see
| a single example of a game that wasn't successful but was
| legitimately a good game.
|
| And yes, I think making a completely derivative and
| uninspired game that works well is not the mark of making a
| good game, even if it technically works.
| chefandy wrote:
| You say making games is too easy when you mean creating the
| programs you play them on is easy. You entirely disregard the
| large number of other people and skills required. Most
| developers do this in most areas of expertise.
| nkjnlknlk wrote:
| It depends what the OC was envisioning as their game. Not
| every game requires a "large number of other people".
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| If your goal is only to have a few players rather than to make
| money, then find and advertise to the niche communities in
| genres closest to your game : if people like your game, the
| marketing is going to take care of itself !
| nkjnlknlk wrote:
| > Mind you, never did I expect or even care if I made money.
| That was never the goal. But now I realize just to get some
| people to play my game would be a huge undertaking requiring
| tons of luck - just to rise above the noise. That was the deal
| breaker - I don't care about making money - but I do care about
| eventual players, at least if something will take months or
| years* to create.
|
| I broadly agree but I think you're being too pessimistic about
| not having players. If your game is not novel (or maybe even if
| it is), I'm sure you can find a community that would enjoy it.
| Maybe participating in that community counts as marketing to
| you but I feel like sharing what you have created and marketing
| what you have created are separate.
|
| Reddit is a good place for this type of discovery. Discords of
| other niche games in similar/adjacent genres would be another
| one. I feel like it's not as hopeless as you make it seem!
| ben_w wrote:
| > Wouldn't be surprised if something like ChatGPT allows games
| to be made in days in the semi-near future. If so, I just might
| make games anyway - still not for money, and now not for
| players - but just to finally let those ideas out of my head.
|
| I'm currently doing exactly this. There's some games I never
| finished and released back in the 2009-2011 period when I tried
| self employment, so I'm using ChatGPT to build me a javascript
| game engine and Stable Diffusion to make some art.
|
| The world doesn't need another vertical scrolling shooter, but
| I'd like games that don't waste time on loading screens and
| have nothing to do with the evil that is 'analytics'.
| lazycog512 wrote:
| This is kind of what I like about Japanese e.g. Comiket culture.
|
| The official Touhou circle table is just a table like every
| artist in the hall (well, maybe positioned to accommodate the
| wait line). People will have favorites, but it's an equalizer.
| Touhou itself is that root - some drunk programmer releases his
| random game with memes in it and ends up being The Guy.
|
| Western indie gaming... kind of lost that spirit.
|
| I vibe more with the meritous sort of game more than some
| elements of WIG - there's no profit, it's just some guy that
| busted out libSDL and other free software and made a game with
| it. He even released the source GPL'd eventually.
| adamrezich wrote:
| great post--it resonates, deeply.
|
| I won't bore you all with the full tale of my similar story arc,
| but, in short: physically moving away from the scene, eventually
| mustering the courage to kill the full-time indie gamedev dream
| for good (after a few increasingly desperate attempts and
| monetizing this thing I spent my whole life working toward), and
| then finally finding myself slowly progressing elsewhere in life
| as a result (meeting the woman who I would go on to marry and
| start a family with; starting a career working a mundane but
| decently-paying programming-ish job for my hometown school
| system) has been one hell of a ride, to say the least.
|
| I eventually reached conclusions that are very, very similar to
| those that the author reached: game development was, as it turns
| out, almost entirely a coping mechanism for avoiding progressing
| forward in life, by maintaining an internal illusion that
| someone, _somewhere_ would care about the cool stuff I was
| making, such that it would all be worth it in the end--all the
| while giving me the feeling of _control_ over something, even if
| basically nobody else in the world cared about it but me.
|
| I still make games, but I've fully come to terms with the fact
| that it's almost certainly never going to be more than an
| interesting and fun hobby. this might not end up being the same
| conclusion someone else treading more or less the same path comes
| to, but, it's where I ended up, and I'm much better for it.
| bitwize wrote:
| "The marketplace is the enemy of the artist." --Orson Welles
|
| I've made my peace with the idea that I love making games but do
| not want to participate in the game _industry_. If my games
| remain forever outsider art, so be it... at least I made them.
| Little worlds for me and anyone interested to play in, ships in a
| bottle for my shelf.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| This article strikes very close to home. My current project is a
| web based multiplayer game that I'm working on as a hobbyist.
|
| Games are complex creations. I didn't fully understand what I
| didn't know until I started programming games. Learning has made
| me a much better software engineer.
|
| There's also too much noise and too little signal in the game
| pedagogy space. I spend a lot of time synthesizing information to
| really understand how to make a game because I have to.
|
| I'm excited to unveil my current project as it'll represent a
| release of the type of software I wanted to be making from the
| start of my game dev journey: multiplayer experiences.
| aschearer wrote:
| People saying that it's "easy to make games" surprise me. Are you
| actually trying to make something real, or is this just
| speculation? If you're on the sidelines or a dilettante, why
| speak? You're just adding noise.
|
| Personally, I'm in the trenches and making games is _hard_! Sure
| we have faster computers and better tooling. We also have _much_
| higher expectations... Still, it's incredible to make games. I'm
| so lucky to work on them each day.
|
| If you feel what I feel you don't make excuses about "luck." What
| the hell is luck? Of course "success" is out of your control...
| But you control what you make. You can choose to make something
| beautiful, to hone your craft, to stir a feeling. What could be
| better than that?!
| schemescape wrote:
| I think they're probably saying that the technical aspects of
| making a game are generally much easier/more accessible now.
|
| I don't think anyone would claim the actual game design is much
| easier (and the marketing is probably more difficult now).
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Outside of a few niche genres, the expectations have scaled
| faster than the tech has, compensated by scaling up team
| sizes.
| philipov wrote:
| The indie game market is _far_ from a niche genre, and
| expectations remain within reach of the tech available to
| solo developers. It has never been easier to get into hobby
| game dev than it is today.
| tnecniv wrote:
| In the context of the article, the author is talking about
| Indie games. Normally those feature simple but well-crafted
| graphics and mechanics. Many of the genres biggest hits
| have been made by individuals or very small teams. Some
| examples are 2D platformers with some kind of ingenious
| twist. Making a platformer in 2023 is not very difficult,
| but making a good one is.
|
| I've had an idea for a strategy game I've wanted to make
| for years, but a big reason I haven't started it has been
| how much tuning of the mechanics I will need to do, and a
| distrust of my attention span being able to slog through
| that process. However the game I have planned, while doable
| by one person, is a much larger scale than some of the most
| famous and influential indie games
| watwut wrote:
| Small games exist too and count as games too. Personal
| games made by one person and posted on itch are games too.
| mcv wrote:
| I think making games is easy to some people, at the right time
| in their life.
|
| When I was a kid, my older brother could reproduce any game he
| saw. He saw Tetris and he built it. I described a Mario game
| (well before Super Mario) and he built it. He wrote a text
| adventure. Later he learned proper programming and stopped
| making games. I don't think he can do it any more, but at that
| time, it seemed to be easy for him.
|
| Of course games changed a lot since the early 1980s. But on the
| other hand, to make a game without all these modern frameworks
| and game engines, also adds an additional barrier that he
| easily overcame.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I've been at it for a year now and still a long way to go, but
| not only is it satisfying when you see each feature come to
| life but my skills at my day job have never been sharper, it's
| been worth it just for the experience and mental "strength
| training".
|
| No business feature in my 15 year career has ever come close to
| the complexity of shaders, trig, and physics!
|
| In the end whether I ship it to market or not I will always
| have the satisfaction that I literally achieved my childhood
| dream and, if I recall correctly, fame or riches was never part
| of that equation.
| krumpet wrote:
| The very first game I built was a Breakout clone. Getting the
| game to work wasn't difficult. Getting the game to work well
| definitely was.
| turtledragonfly wrote:
| > No business feature in my 15 year career has ever come
| close to the complexity of shaders, trig, and physics!
|
| Yeah, it's wild how even simple-ish video games can put to
| shame reams and reams of "enterprise-y day job" code in terms
| of complexity and demands on you as a programmer. I love it
| (:
|
| Aside: I wish DMs were a thing on this site; you should let
| me know your game if/when you make it public!
| electroly wrote:
| I tried to find the comments you're talking about and found
| only two that seemed to be talking about ease of development.
| Both of them were clearly making the point that the _barrier to
| entry_ being lower than in the past has lead to a glut of basic
| low-quality, low-effort games. That is, people are producing
| games that boot up and do something but don 't meet today's
| expectations for quality games. They're talking about the ease
| of making shovelware; you're talking about the difficulty of
| making AAA games. I'm not sure the sentiment you're responding
| to (that _good_ games are easy to make) actually exists in a
| comment here.
|
| They're clearly right about their point. You can make a shitty
| game in one sitting using today's tools; I've done so a bunch
| of times. My games all suck but they _are_ games with art,
| music, sound, and gameplay that people can play and enjoy
| briefly. You are also clearly right that making good games is
| hard, and indeed getting harder. The quality bar for a AAA game
| is insanely high in 2023. I don 't see these as being
| incompatible points, and I'm not sure the anger I sense in your
| post is warranted--was it necessary to suggest that anyone who
| disagrees with you is a dilletante and that their posts are
| noise?
| kbenson wrote:
| > People saying that it's "easy to make games" surprise me. Are
| you actually trying to make something real, or is this just
| speculation? If you're on the sidelines or a dilettante, why
| speak? You're just adding noise.
|
| Perhaps you're interpreting a general statement that means
| different things to different people through your own context
| and missing a bit of what they mean. It's easy to do something
| as a career and discount the non-career people doing it, but
| everyone has their own reasons do to things, and sometimes it's
| not external.
|
| If we replace "games" with "art", then we get people saying
| "easy to make art". I'm sure professional artists trying to
| support themselves think similarly to you, that it's _hard_ ,
| and I'm sure it is. But they may not be talking about art the
| same way you are talking about art.
|
| Making art for yourself can be fun, and relaxing, and even
| liberating. Making games for yourself can be too. In this
| context it can be very "easy", because you're only looking to
| please yourself. It's no less "real", it's just for a different
| purpose in some cases. They aren't adding noise, they're
| talking about a slightly different thing, but it's also an
| important thing, and also _important for the other,
| professional context as well_.
|
| Do you really think professional game makers and art makers are
| making their profession better by telling laypeople that no,
| what they're doing is not the same at all and what you do is
| hard so they shouldn't relate their own experiences? Won't your
| profession be better served by instead of discounting their
| views discussing the differences of when it's done personally
| or as a hobby and when done for general consumption? Aren't
| many of these people the professionals of tomorrow, or maybe
| _not_ , and you're helping some people realize they'd rather
| keep it personal and a hobby?
| a1o wrote:
| > it can be very "easy", because you're only looking to
| please yourself.
|
| You have no idea how much harder I can be on the developer
| when I have a direct line to talk shit in his head
| xwdv wrote:
| It _is_ easy to make games.
|
| It's difficult to make _good_ games. It's difficult to make fun
| games. It's difficult to make complex games.
|
| But it's easy to simply _make_ games.
|
| People make games in 48 hours. People make games with pencil
| and paper. People make games probably no one ever plays.
|
| If a game is difficult to make, it's because you have made it
| difficult: You've given in to scope creep. You've chosen an
| ambitious idea well beyond your abilities. You have complicated
| multiplayer network code where it's hard to keep clients in
| sync. You're writing everything from scratch...
|
| But overall, if you can stick to something simple, manageable,
| and well within your ability to execute, you will realize it's
| _easy to make games_.
| sien wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Like writing a novel. You can do NanoWrimo and bash it out.
|
| But it is incredibly hard to write a good, entertaining and
| successful novel.
|
| Music and drawing or painting is similar.
| tiffanyg wrote:
| There are a lot of stupid comments on HN (to be fair, I've
| contributed some of them, willfully or not). One real
| "distinction" of HN - as much as this seems to pervade far too
| much modern & social media 'discourse', in general - is in
| strident arrogance. The confident assertion of BS, often
| couched in fancy language, is _par excellence_ *.
|
| * Those who miss my own self-mocking should feel free to
| consult "Catullus 16" in lieu of submitting their critical
| commentary on my comment
| ambyra wrote:
| I get pretty dismissive when I hear someone is designing a custom
| engine for their game. It often seems like they're stalling for
| one reason or another, or have something to prove. Mother 4 is a
| good example.
|
| I read tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow w my girlfriend. She
| didn't understand why building an engine is such a bad idea (for
| a modern pc game). I compared it to a hobbyist car designer
| starting to design a car by formulating his own rubber for the
| tires, and building the engine and transmission and wiring from
| scratch.
| thrown1212 wrote:
| There are two types of game developers: those who spend their
| time making tools to make games and those who spend their time
| making games. So really there is only one type of game
| developer.
| hgs3 wrote:
| > I get pretty dismissive when I hear someone is designing a
| custom engine for their game.
|
| Teardown [1] was developed by one guy, custom engine, and sold
| over a million copies. The technology is so unique that it
| wouldn't be possible to implement in an existing engine, at
| least not without significant rewrites.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teardown_(video_game)
| imtringued wrote:
| The average video game engine accomplishes none of these
| goals.
| fhd2 wrote:
| Seems more comparable to using a framework like Rails or
| rolling your own. Both can be valid decisions from a business
| perspective, depends on the situation, what you're trying to
| build and what kind of team you have.
|
| As a guy who started 14 games (most with a custom engine, some
| not) and released none of them, I think both approaches can
| keep you from shipping in their own unique ways if you're not
| focused enough on _what_ you're building :)
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| I disagree. in some ways it's inefficient, but there's a
| homogenization of game engines (UE) which makes a lot of AAA
| look the same with similar performance issues like shader
| compilation
| gochi wrote:
| That's a false narrative, game engines don't create games
| that look the same. Actually one of the funny propositions
| (not serious) that a fellow game developer had on social
| media was to instead replace the default game engine logo
| with a custom one, just to avoid this narrative that gets
| repeated. Outside of asset flips, most people can't tell
| which engines create which games without that giant logo
| alerting them. Then it creates this bias of "oh yep that's a
| unity game!"
|
| Shader compilation has more to do with dx12 than it does game
| engines. Game engines try to encourage developers to handle
| this appropriately, but there is no one button automatic
| handling yet. You would also run into this issue in your
| custom game engine unless you avoid vulkan/dx12 entirely.
| fhd2 wrote:
| I have no scientific basis for disagreeing, but from my own
| experience, I can definitely tell with >50% accuracy
| whether a game was build with Unreal or Unity, especially
| for indie games. For Unity it's something about the
| materials and lighting that seems to give it away, for
| Unreal stuff like over the top focus effects and such.
|
| Technically, from what little I know about these I don't
| see why you couldn't make a game look exactly the same in
| both. But I guess what's easy to do and what the respective
| community commonly does have a notable impact? Or maybe
| people self select for one or the other based on what games
| that align with their sense of aesthetics use one or the
| other?
| gochi wrote:
| Yeah most of it stems from the asset marketplace. If you
| look at Unreal's marketplace or Unity's asset store and
| sort by top seller (and especially the free categories),
| you'll probably find exactly the things that you're
| talking about. From particles to sounds. Great resource,
| but a lot of developers don't really customize them much
| and they tend to be the things people are noticing per
| engine.
|
| You are on the money regarding self-selection as well. A
| small team is probably going to pick Unity due to all the
| preconceived notions, and alongside this will probably
| create similar looking visuals to other Unity games due
| to a reliance on the asset store if their team isn't
| heavy on visuals. It might seem like I'm focusing too
| much on the asset store, but it goes for custom assets
| too where even if you're working smartly, you have to
| blend those premade assets with custom ones. If you're on
| a large team working on an Unreal game, it's probably
| going to be realistic looking for example so you're
| limited based on what lighting makes the skin look good,
| what particles make sense in a grounded world, and so on.
|
| It's technically possible, you're only going to run into
| problems when you then try sharing assets from different
| stores (audio and textures excluded), where you now have
| to recreate it from the ground up to match in that other
| engine. So you're also right about that aspect!
|
| As real examples of the flexibility of modern game
| engines, Octopath Traveller Yoshi's World, and Arkham
| Knight were made on UE4. For Unity; Cuphead and Escape
| from Tarkov.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| One of the great things about both Unity and Unreal is
| that both engines let you get a basic project up and
| running quickly. Throw in a cube, give it controls and
| movement, and build a little level, and things basically
| work. The game engines have handled physics, lighting,
| shaders, camera, etc without you needing to touch them.
|
| The tipoffs you are detecting are those game engine
| default settings. One distinction between them is that
| Unreal has motion blur, camera aperture effects, and some
| fancy lighting configured by default. Unity is more
| "basic" by default. For small projects, a dev is focusing
| on other things rather than pouring a lot of energy into
| how light reflects off surfaces or whatever. Each engine
| is capable of really unique looks, but they also look
| pretty good even if a dev doesn't touch it.
| lfowles wrote:
| > The tipoffs you are detecting are those game engine
| default settings.
|
| I thought you were going to say that Unreal games max out
| their settings at "Epic" :)
| whateveracct wrote:
| I think it's wrong to be dismissive. Or rather, it seems to be
| the product of an efficiency mindset.
|
| If your goal is to release as fast as possible or create as
| many games (for some definition of game) in your lifetime, then
| I guess there's a case against building your own engine or - as
| I would call it - using libraries.
|
| But big engines definitely have distinct "feels" and can't
| quite hit certain gamefeels.
|
| There's also the long view: What if I spend 5 years making an
| engine, learning gamedev and computer graphics, and come out
| highly expert with an engine built to my tastes? At that 5 year
| mark, suddenly my engine is better for me than the generic
| ones.
|
| You may say - there's no guarantee! True. But what if I know
| I'm technically excellent and that I'd be wasted that advantage
| of mine by _not_ going that route?
|
| What if I really only want to make a handful of games in my
| lifetime. Maybe I'll release smaller ones along the way as
| learning exercises, but I'm fine with spending 5-20 years in
| the dirt growing and come out the other side with something
| truly special?
|
| Tools affect your art. Especially programming & gamedev which
| is so psychic. I may not want my mind tainted by engines with
| product-mindset values I don't agree with.
|
| The reasons go on.
| bashmelek wrote:
| Thank you. For me, I like making engines. It's my time off, I
| can do what I want. I know someone else will make something
| leagues better with premade engines. But it's not a race. And
| I make many of my own art assets too. They're terrible. I
| make these things for myself and to share with a few people
| dear to me. Maybe they makes me no more grown up than a kid
| hoping their drawing gets on the family fridge, but I want to
| create these things, not just produce.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Eh, of you spend five years not telling stories, you will be
| woefully out of practice as a writer, with an underdeveloped
| craft. You are how you spend your time - spending five years
| on an engine means that there are a lot of things that you're
| not.
|
| There's a list are great reasons to make a new engine, but
| making a great game is not on it.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I would think you would be making games with and without
| your engine as its being developed.
| whateveracct wrote:
| You can do other things concurrently, you know. I find it
| not hard to both draw and write and make music along with
| the programming. Most knowledge and skills development in
| those areas happens subconsciously in my experience.
|
| Viewing things like this as zero sum is a bad mindset imo
| and not one I want affecting my art.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It kinda sounds like martyrdom, or a monk or philosopher,
| pursuing enlightenment or, in this case, knowledge and
| expertise.
|
| But like with any software development, technological self-
| gratification doesn't make a product. Every programmer loves
| writing code, but you need to be aware whether you're writing
| code for writing's sake or if it has an objective.
|
| If you want to develop games, develop games; focus on results
| first, only when you've proven to yourself that it's games
| you want to develop instead of the technology behind them can
| you start to think about what the existing engines are
| lacking that your custom engine would do better.
|
| It has the same energy as PHP developers from a decade ago
| that for some reason all insisted on writing their own
| frameworks, CMSes, etc.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Right exactly I'm not trying to be an efficient gamedev
| pumping out money making products.
|
| I have my boring software career to make me money. I am
| seeking higher satisfaction at this point in my life.
| nebulous1 wrote:
| This ended up to be much more about the author than about "making
| games". Obviously nothing wrong with that but it wasn't where I
| thought it was going.
|
| I think there are plenty of artists that make money. I think
| there are plenty of spaces where people are known inside the
| space but unknown outside. I don't know whether most indie
| developers want to be "known" or not, but obviously the _vast_
| majority of people in any space are not known, inside or out.
|
| I don't know. Indie game dev is a niche profession with a low
| success rate, and even those that have some success often leave.
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