Why "Niche" Games Don't Sell

[@thomasbrush]

Good thoughts bud

[@paipai762]

Nice interview with Jonas today, bud. : )

[@channel11121]

I always understood that the advice of honing in on a niche to mean an _existing_ (but under-served) niche, not to create a new niche.

[@channel11121]

This video ended up being more about the idea of having an understandable central mechanic that everything revolves around, which I think is a really helpful thing to keep in mind.

[@coegho]

I was going to say the exact same thing

[@neenaw]

Really solid take on balancing familiarity and uniqueness in game design. The bit about over-niching and losing players totally hits. Also, the reminder about how important it is to make your game readable in short clips or screenshots is clutch advice for marketing.

[@cosmicradgames]

In UX called Jakob’s Law. Unfamiliarity in design frustrates the end-user.

[@frecktech4115]

Hmm 🤔 that makes sense, it’s human psychology i guess

[@seamusoblainn]

For me, design has to appeal to the emotions (you want to play the game) which influences 'mental hooking' (you automatically visualise yourself playing it), and in the moment of doing so you (hopefully) are experiencing 'deep nowness', flow state or not

[@godril90]

Actually a good way to see your work😊

[@gliderman8934]

4:06 I disagree with one part of this statement. If I showed someone 3 seconds of Pokemon to someone who's never seen pokemon before, and the player is just in the overworld running around, the person will think that pokemon is a game about exploration, and while that's part of it, pokemon is more of a monster-catching game where you use the monsters to fight. if i showed someone 3 seconds of minecraft to someone who's never seen it before, and they saw the player fighting the ender dragon, they would think that minecraft is a game where you fight dragons, or fight in general. And the point of minecraft is more so to build what you desire, and collect what you desire, and just plain old do whatever you want, go find a dungeon or a village in a desert or something, even though fighting is part of the game. See what i mean by this? 3 seconds isn't always enough to get the full picture of a video game.

[@a1a3a5]

best thing to do is innovate a crowd favourite with a new mechanic or other twist

[@owlmaster1528]

5th ! Basically don't overengineer the wheel.

[@Hawkeye_173]

Love your content man!

[@0xde57]

you could fit like at least 8 more locks on that door...

[@ScientiaLudos]

Good idea

[@daniellyons6269]

I suspect that more often than not, niche is code for "I haven't found the audience yet. I haven't figured out how to make the game not alienating."

[@ManaWeaver]

Good video. You want to balance novelty with accessibility. I think this is applicable in your lore as well, tbh.

[@1_Man_Media]

Great stuff as always, but I am still waiting for the explanation about the insane door locks you rocking. Are you alright? :)

[@Alex-jb8wr]

lol was checking the comments if anyone else noticed as well

[@REE-Animation]

100% true 👌

[@kawakami_idv]

Could you cover some stuff around multiplayer games, please? Like liveops, monetization and maybe something more

[@delgoodie]

Wow this is pretty much the exact thing i needed to hear. This entire channel is a bunch of the unconfirmed ideas i had that i didn't believe in because of the echo chambers of gamdev community. Im making a zero-g shooter (vids on my channel). do you think this idea is just already to niche to succeed / how could i make it still appeal to a broad audience without sacrificing zero-g

[@TheSmallestLittleBilly]

These are so smart, keep it up

[@GingerCat_Studios]

Good content bro

[@RohanDaDev]

I feel like for strategy games, niche is ok. Astrea :Six Sided Oracles and Cube Chaos are examples.

[@ariamohebi]

Goat

[@Hiihowisitgoing]

Think the game bopple battle does it really good feels familiar but it is different at the Same time

[@TheSophieGames]

Nice, I'll watch it in a bit

[@dawidbujak]

Shame that you didn't give any examples

[@Twest1]

But he did...

[@dawidbujak]

@@Twest1 I mean the games that failed - were too niche. Also he talked about minecraft, which not necesarily confirms his thesis. Minecraft was 2009, 15 years ago, back then there were almost no indie games, the whole market was totally different

[@publicalias8172]

@@dawidbujak The examples he's talking about are games that are so niche he wouldn't even know about them because they failed... do you really want him to say, oh that game Zog4000 that everyone knows about, great example of a niche game that failed.. but everyone knows about it.. sure

[@radoslavdimitrov7505]

This kills the game companies nowadays

[@MikMikBrody]

yep I've been saying this for 32 years and counting! Anyways I gotta go now, so I'll see ya later

[@buddhassyzzurp3158]

Why is water wet

[@635574]

Should we call this Niche-on impossible?

[@AnotherMFwithstudy]

I prefer longer videos it has more info

[@publicalias8172]

No, if you know what you're talking about you can say it concisely.

[@AnotherMFwithstudy]

@publicalias8172 video shouuld be longer if the topic needs it if not then i dont see a problem here

[@mrabtruse]

Only niche game I seen this be successful is Five Nights at Freddie's

[@mrabtruse]

At first I was about to disagree but instead I was thinking and totally understand what your TOTALY saying! Great advice.

[@itsalwaysme123]

too* In your description! Love your videos. You're helping me make my game better and influencing anything I work on in the future.

[@PeterParker-yg6fc]

isnt balatro niche>? slay the spire? ftl?

[@ScientiaLudos]

Yes, those are examples of games that are correctly niched, and still have a broad enough appeal to be really profitable. The issue is getting too niche to the point where you're kneecapping the potential reach of a game.

[@swuffy464]

I much prefer these shorter videos