Making a good game doesn't guarantee success

[@ZahrDalsk]

I think a good game does guarantee success (but it could take a while for word of mouth to do its thing); people are just being too charitable about what's a good game, and mistaking the absence of a negative (your "make no mistakes") with the presence of a positive. An awful lot of "just ok" games are getting called good, and they're not. Doesn't mean they're bad - they're ok. It's making an ok game that doesn't guarantee success. Maybe it's because today everyone is so polarity-brained that games have to be either "awesome" or "garbage" and there's a refusal to acknowledge that most non-bad games are just mediocre (which can still be enjoyable), and very few games are genuinely good.

[@Swagbastian]

This is more true than the video. It takes a lot to make an excellent game.

[@andrelisboa7193]

luck is when opportunity meets preparation(cd projekt red guy)

[@mandisaw]

Pretty sure that's a military saying. Might even be a modernized version of smth in Art of War

[@john.movement]

@@mandisaw I've heard that saying in other contexts before too, I like it as it makes an intangible concept actionable!

[@MystiqMiu]

know this from Blue Lock, LoL

[@karamzing]

There's a book titled Thinking in Bets written by a poker pro that basically says that you should evaluate your own performance separate from the outcome. You can do everything right and still lose due to bad luck. You just have to try again. You can also get a lucky win despite making mistakes, but you should still try to correct those mistakes.

[@SinnerBeforeGod]

That is simply the best advice for life in general, imo

[@sealsharp]

Ooh, that's a though one. I think the first step is to understand that the time in when we saw a game and "is it good?" decides if we are going to play is far far far so far gone. This is not 1999 where it makes a difference if the game is an 75 or an 85 in the print magazine. There is more good out there that a single human could ever play. Every sale there are games of super quality sold for pennies. If the games industry stopped now, we would have something cool to play for decades. And let's not forget that the primary competition of established entertainment is no other entertainment but KZbin & stuff which takes most of peoples time at a value proposition of "seemingly free". That's where it starts now. So getting people to play a game means your game needs to be noticed (not that easy in the flooded-with-shit state the world is now) and trigger the "i want that" more than other things. Don't ask me how to do that. I don't know because nothing gets me to buy on release. I'm the "cool, i'm gonna wishlist that and play that sometime in the next 5 years" person, the worst customers, lol. Imo it is hard to capture a general audience because it is hard to qualify where to find it. My favorite genres are boomer shooters and hack&slash(diablo-likes). Every indie boomshoot i know of is covered on one of the channels that focus on that. That's where devs and players meet. But the genre itself is pretty strong which means there is that kind of community. No idea how it is with other games. Are there people who cover all 2D platformers?

[@mandisaw]

Entertainment is a hard business. No one needs our products to live, and tastes can be fickle. All other media survive by having a mix of novel ideas & tried-and-true ones in the pipeline, and making sure they save money from the hits to weather the misses. First question folks should always ask themselves, honestly - "would I pay for this game?" If your game seems like the generic knockoff of another game, then reconsider what you're offering players. Welcome to showbiz 😅

[@vincev4630]

I remember being a kid, staring at my game collection, admiring the box art as I'm flooded with memories playing it... yeah, many games don't do that for me now... if the game can't be a plushie or a badass figurine, I won't even look at it. NOVELTY, is a big part, not just the FUN.

[@MoonMantisGames]

Thanks for the Trace Hunters B-roll!

[@digitaltectonics]

I saw that and was going to message you, LOL

[@johnpenn]

great information and recognition of luck

[@MattPritchardOfficial]

Nicely done and well expressed video. :) You already know some of my takes on the situation and how it's changed over the years.

[@flamart9703]

Oh, on the contrary - if the game is good, it's guaranteed success. But of course "good" means "really good", not just "good for someone".

[@stementhusiast816]

No, this is absolutely not true. No real investment is risk-free just because it's good. It's a just-world fallacy. Luck is always a component. A "really good" game does not guarantee success.

[@humman007]

Big success works by probability of winning which can be increased or decreased but will never approach 100%, unless someone count small goal like just release game as success

[@timmygilbert4102]

People should know about the kano model.

[@iady1368]

TOUHOU MENTIONED

[@mandisaw]

Good example of identify an underserved niche, then make yourself the best-in-category. Bonus points if you can establish a reputation for consistently high-quality games, and streamline your process to make the design to launch pipeline as smooth as possible.

[@dobrx6199]

Little bit depressing but it's true, thanks for the video!

[@libertarianterminator]

I've seen VR games do well and then the next one does even better despite being worse.

[@mojoGameDev]

Hi folks at BiteMe Games,Loved the video. and was wondering if you could give some tips on how you created the balancing system for UNICYCLE PIZZA TIME?

[@SenkaZver]

Very true. Which is funny as the people who love saying "just make a good game and you'll succeed" or "your game didn't succeed because it's bad" are the ones who ignore good games for basically these reasons.

[@milhouse8166]

Basically what reasons?

[@AndreyMakarov-i7h]

It's more of a problem of small studios trying to make games in big genres.

[@nights312312]

Dont you have EU power jacks in belgium ?

[@bitemegames]

Yes, but I ain't in Belgium, I've been living in Japan the past 2 months. -M

[@4d4Games]

Preach 🤍🩶🖤

[@libertarianterminator]

Can I make a game like Into the Radius, but in ww2 behind the lines?

[@dobrx6199]

I mean it depends entirely on the execution, that sounds like a cool idea but if the game isn't fun then it doesn't matter. Also, isn't into the radius a vr game? The VR market is small and hard to market for so I wouldn't recommend making a vr game

[@KDmadness18]

Hey please respond! I am planning on giving steam keys to many streamers, but according to your other video it sounds like you only want them to play it like 2 weeks or so before the game releases. Since I don’t want to leave my marketing all to the last 2 weeks, should I actually just have streamers play my game months before it releases instead?

[@mandisaw]

That's an embargo date scenario - in your message, you include a specific date when videos or posts should go-live. Streamers can post afterwards, but they shouldn't post before that day (maybe include a specific time & time-zone if you want to be even clearer).

[@KDmadness18]

@ okay so if I’m understanding, I can message them months ahead of time, giving them the steam key, but I ask them not to post it until a specific time range (which would be close to my release date). Or another option, since I’m still polishing my game maybe I can reach out to them months before, letting them know I can send them the steam key in the future?

[@mandisaw]

@@KDmadness18 Personally, I'd wait until your game is at its best, and just send messages with keys & info then. You're not a major studio release, so it's not like they're gonna put you in the calendar before playing the game. They likely won't remember your first message at all.

[@KDmadness18]

@@mandisaw that’s a good point, thanks for your help

[@bitemegames]

You don't have to wait until you have a fully released demo to contact streamers. Another approach is sending them an early exclusive demo, months before release. This is where you have the concept of marketing beats. A big demo update, game release, or post-release update, are all great moments to contact influencers. You do want to give them something more than the average joe, so either give them access to your demo a few weeks in advance, or give them a demo that has a bit more content that the public version on your Steam page for example. Then, when your game is about to come out a few months/years later, you can contact them again and be like "hey, remember that demo you played months ago? You will want to check out the game again, as it had a lot of updates leading up to the release". -M

[@Nubian_King_RNM]

So in otherwords, good people having good business sense, when it comes to your projects goes a long way towards helping you at the end. I.e know what your selling and definitely know who buying, but that's just my opinion tho. 😅😅