Your games are bad (and that's ok)

[@eastshadestudios8335]

Great video! It really makes me worry about what people heard watching my video! Did people hear "it's not okay to be a beginner!"? For the record, I have tremendous respect for anyone who finishes a game of ANY standard. Market competitive or not! Well I hope people take your video to heart if they got any bad feelings from mine ❤!

[@bitemegames]

I don't think that's what most people got away from it, but it rang so true when looking at Forge Industry and how it was nowhere near the bar, that it made me question "Fuck me is this gamedev thing really worth it? Can I even reach the bar in any aspect?". A few days of contemplation later, I realized it was, and figured I'd make this video. -M

[@SenkaZver]

It's easy to look at those who were very successful and miss all of the attempts and failures behind them. Everyone sucks at first. Mastery takes effort and time.

[@mandisaw]

It's hobby vs commercial dev. @Eastshade's vid was aimed at folks wanting to sell games, while most viewers are just learning. It's an odd quirk of game-dev that so many folks try to learn how to make the product while selling it 😅

[@honaleri]

I don't think anyone walked away from your video feeling like giving up. I think people realized, this is a profession, with a professional standard. And as a result, to compete in this market, one must compete with a professional standard. The issue is, most game devs are dudes who downloaded an engine and started messing around without direction. And at the end of the day, that's equivalently to a kid doodling in the margins of a lined notebook thinking about being a mangaka. The difference in quality is staggering. But because its "a game" it's hard for people to see just how drastic the skill differences are compared to something immediate like a single drawing. People don't see these as equivalent, but they are. You can't just open a notebook and be a mangaka (One excluded- hyper outlier right there) and you can't just open a game engine and make the next Undertale or Hollow Knight. Yet everyone thinks they are the guy, only to find out...they aren't the guy. "The guy" is either incredible lightening in a bottle or, genuinely a professional who has worked for decades to get that success, and carefully curated it. People don't see that work, so they assume there isn't any. But there is...a lot.

[@mandisaw]

@@honaleri 💯But even those web-manga & Pixiv/LINE novel folks aren't "rookies". One's WikiP entry says he started drawing in middle & high school, and One Punch Man launched in '09 [age 23], so that's at least a decade of practice, in line with your point. Still an accomplishment, esp for folks who didn't come up the traditional way as apprentices. But doesn't fit the "I put pen to paper for the first time and drew _Berserk"_ narrative of indie game-dev 😅

[@AvexFuddle]

My games are awesome (you don’t know them, they go to a different school)

[@mandisaw]

...a different school, in Canada 😂 [This is the US version, maybe for them it's Italy 😅]

[@bruceburnett5372]

Nothing good comes easy. Got to put in the time. Great vid as usual.

[@SharpDressedBear]

Thumbs up just for the flexing with Code Monkey!

[@PauloHSousa237]

I'm building games for more than 4 years and I published more than 20 game on Itch ( Won a couple of gamejans). Believe it or not I still don't feel ready to publish a game on Steam.

[@mandisaw]

That could just be imposter syndrome... Maybe show your games to player communities in your genre, and see what they say. Art's value is up to the artist, but a product's value is up to the customer 😄

[@clubtonberry]

I'm just finishing up my dev on my first game and I 100% agree with you. Marketing is only half the battle. I know that my first game is going to be very short and a bit shitty, so I'm releasing it for free on steam. I'm using the soundtrack to my game as a sort of tipping system instead. If you liked my game, you have the option to spend $7 to buy the ost. That way there's less pressure on the consumer, and also less pressure on me to feel like I should be making money off my game. The game is registered for NextFest and I'll just see what happens!

[@RockyMulletGamedev]

Marketing and a good game multiply each other to reach a successful game. You won't market a bad game into success and you wont sell a good game nobody knows about. I think because making the game is the fun part that gamedevs are excited about, they generally ignore marketing, leading to the narrative of "the problem is the lack of marketing" making people blind to the quality of the game they made... You don't need one or the other, you need both.

[@mandisaw]

💯 I wonder when the narrative took root that even basic market-research was somehow less important than art/dev skills, or worse, made you less "pure" somehow. Even in fine arts museums & galleries, much of that work was made by request of a patron, to feed/house the artist. Making money from your art doesn't diminish its artistic value.

[@Kolbiathan]

I'm almost done my first game! And it's... well it's really simple and not that great! but I'm gonna just put it up on itch for free as I've only spent about a month and a couple weeks of my spare time on it, but I learned tons!

[@mandisaw]

That's how it's supposed to work! Web is good for feedback and the browser-constraints forces you to keep scope small & gameplay loops focused. Good luck & congrats!

[@holacabeza]

Japanese fountain girls dating sim: market demand through the roof ma man!! Stop resisting NOW

[@mandisaw]

Game-dev is like any other craft. Misshapen pottery bowls, and paintings where the faces came out smudged, those are all part of your journey as an artist. It's ok not to sell stuff until you get to a decent level. It's also okay to "learn in public", but don't bet your house or stake your ego on it being a knock-out.

[@gamedevrobot]

I've been trying to think this way, but it's hard sometimes. Feels relieving to hear others talk about this. It can really be an emotional roller coaster :)

[@footballgirl48]

Great video ! Something great usually takes great time and great effort and repeatedly failing and learning from failure.

[@JonWith1n]

Really good advice, Thank you

[@MrPatrichon]

Your videos are great. I really appreciate your honesty. This is what I needed to hear today.

[@Furfire]

I wish more devs followed your lead and cancelled their game when they realized it wasn't high quality. The amount of shovelware uploaded daily on steam annoys me

[@TJ-wc3iq]

Talking about the "marketing" to software engineers really makes sense 'cause most of them (us 😅) don't think this way. Thanks!

[@svetlanasygiainen5339]

Maaan, I'm really rooting for your game succes!

[@Ryanowning]

Yeah, got to agree there. I wish I had more saved up because I will definitely run out of funds before my first game is even half way to Early Access; especially since I'm doing the dumb thing and "making a BotW" as a first time solo dev. Time to job search 😅 Still going to keep going. I know it'll suck for the first release which is why I'm not actually following the advice of getting a Steam page ASAP. I'm mostly using this massive project as a way of learning everything all at once. Which, BOY AM I LEARNING A LOT. And not learning. Why didn't I follow my own advice of NEVER putting Structs in Structs? Thank God for Backups I guess... All my Abilities/Spells have been unceremoniously deleted because Structs corrupt Structs...

[@zejugames5045]

Great points! I think, though, that you are understating the importance of genre selection. And the huge opportunities available in genre mashups!

[@SeyferX]

where do they learn this hands gesticulating techniques? actors university?

[@bitemegames]

I have no idea honestly, I've always done it. Some love it, some hate it. Regardless, it's so much of a habit it's hard to stop doing it, so you better get used to it. -M

[@Sluggernaut]

Not sure if this is in your realm of videos to make but I would love a video about games that had an end game design change and the game went huge. Two examples come to mind: I heard Diablo was supposed to be a CRPG like Baldurs Gate. It was a HUGE and popular genre at the time. But some engineer made what we know as the game mode Diablo is now, to test stuff. He showed a designer and that was it. The designer loved it and said thats how the game is going to work and it spawned an entire genre. The only other one, off the top of my head, was Bastion. They added the iconic announcer/narrator at the very end of the dev before release and it made the game just really stand out and put supergiant on the map.

[@graydwarf22]

There's a making of Diablo video somewhere on youtube that touches on this. From what I remember, the studio got bought/sold and Blizzard said, "turn-based is no good, can you make it real-time?". The lead dev scoffed at the notion but ended up changing one line of code (his words from interview) and the rest is history. It is a fascinating area of game dev and I was thinking about it earlier this morning. How many A+B game design ideas end up being crazy hits because the dev stumbled upon A+Zed during the making of A+B? Humans have been failing forward for a long time and game-dev follows that exact model most of the time. It really comes down to how effective you are at iterating. Even huge studios fail forward in their designs most of the time when working on new projects.

[@mandisaw]

Fortnite. It was designed nearly all the way to launch as a 4P co-op post-apocalyptic survival game, hence the crafting & shooting loop. Then PUBG blew up, so they added a Battle Royale mode. There's a GDC talk about their art design that shows the exact moment they scrapped the game as-designed, and were told to repurpose it as this new thing.

[@ryuusaisai]

@@mandisaw The issue with Fortnite is, that it was released (in early access iirc) as a 4P co-op tower defense game. So to say they pivoted before release is a stretch, since they still released the original 4P co-op and left that one to die in a ditch.

[@mandisaw]

@@ryuusaisai Agreed, although it's a fine distinction, considering how few ppl knew the game from its EA incarnation vs the post-change/launch version. I don't know the EA numbers but it might as well have been an internal beta compared to the numbers they pulled at height.

[@ryuusaisai]

@@mandisaw Yeah, the battle royale is popular, but that doesn't invalidate the pre orders they did and early access launch (39.99$+) only for a few months later to release the battle royale mode, and shove the PvE on the back burner. They didn't pivot their idea at all, else the original wouldn't have stayed online either.

[@trashman1358]

Excellent advice. I'd love to see you guys make another 'Settlers 3' game where you take all you've learnt and polish it all. I think with everything you've learnt and saying here? You'll have a great chance of being a success. And PS - I've never played the first game? But stick combat in it. Even if it's just like Settlers 3 (you have to kill stuff to unlock the land so you can keep building) Just put combat in it somewhere - it gives the player an immediate visual, on screen goal to strive for. But hey, whatever you decide, the very best of luck to you all!

[@View619]

Good video, the truth hurts but people need to go in with their expectations in check.

[@lildgamedev6885]

you and code monkey flexing was amazing lmaoooo

[@flamart9703]

I like these demotivating videos too. :)

[@channyh.221B]

I like how happy you are, with missing the point of this video :)

[@flamart9703]

@@channyh.221B I'm a game dev, it's natural to be happy no matter the circumstances. :)

[@ultimaxkom8728]

All videos are potentially demotivating. This is why mind tempering is important.

[@captainawesome2226]

Brilliant advice. You guys are one of only a few voices in the industry that aren't full of shit. I know I won't reach the level of quality I'm aiming for. But I enjoy trying. It does get depressing sometimes, but I really don't like making small crappy games. I like making large crappy games that will never ship. I think the secret is to not look at anyone else's work beyond familiarising yourself with a given genre. It's so demotivating to know that you are competing with ex-industry veterans with a budget of a few hundred grand. We are all trying to win lottery with our games, and given the state of just about everything else in the real world, that isn't even a waste of time anymore.

[@sascha1461]

Released my first (kinda) finished game on steam and made like $200 with it. Worked months on it and if I look at it today I'd probably rather take it down than show it to someone I know. But I've learned a lot by going through the whole actually finishing and releasing a game on steam thing.

[@gameboardgames]

One big surprise for me in this video was those Songs of Everjade impression/visit stats. 134,509 impressions in a week! Holy cow, that's like +30x my weekly impressions for my game.

[@bitemegames]

This was actually bad for us, as this was during a Steam Next Fest. Forge Industry got 500k+ impressions in the same period of time during that Next Fest. We go into the stats here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/paXTenawl82nmNk -M

[@gameboardgames]

@@bitemegames Ah ha, thanks for the clarification. That makes much more sense that this was during Next Fest, and not a typical week.

[@Quadinian]

Thanks again for the great vídeo. Best regards from Brazil.

[@SmartLearningAI]

Very good tips, learned the hard way. Thanks.

[@Pariatech]

People will do the marketing of a good game for free.

[@noviceartsinc]

I think the way early devs should look at this process, is to first learn how to "fail well." Focus on finishing projects that improve your capabilities by the end of the journey, and then you will find that down the road you've built up enough of a foundation to stand on.

[@Dardasha_Studios]

Thanks for the advice. This helps.

[@bazyt1]

Just read Chris Zukowski 's article about your first game, was a very interesting read. He's very constructive too.

[@fancifulconcept]

There are no shortcuts. Become an increasing better game dev by being a game dev and _finishing_ projects

[@jaredkidd6685]

Although I know my first game being published isn’t a masterpiece, I’m keeping that knowledge stored away for the next one.

[@bannedaccount586]

Haha I'm making a 2d platformer and I really can't wait for it to fail lmfao

[@gekks]

Yes! I love my crappy game 😁

[@MetalloDevasto]

On one side i see all the skills needed to make a game (3d models, art, music, AI, animations) and on the other side i see people have fun with the horror version of Thomas the tank engine...

[@blindsidedgames]

Do you do this fulltime?

[@lightoflifegames7227]

why didnt you put a lower price if it wasnt quality enough? looked good to me anyway

[@bitemegames]

I assume you mean on Songs of Everjade, the game we cancelled? Because we were still very far out from releasing it, even with a heavily cut scope and reduced price. We go into our reasinings/coping further in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/paXTenawl82nmNk -M

[@MohamedSaber007]

i'd be very happy if my game made 10k

[@ThousandairesClub]

*being content with mediocrity is the death that keeps on dying* 💀

[@mandisaw]

Who said anything about being content? You start at the base of the mountain, and climb up.

[@jessicasumait7707]

lovely video 🤪👑😘

[@humman007]

Probably only bad, simple, stupid game with achieve great success was Flappy Birds, but without good marketing just by simply luck

[@bitemegames]

It still was addictive and good game design, which got it to that marketing hype in the first place imo. -M

[@AndreyMakarov-i7h]

Game dev is too hard to be honest.

[@markguyton2868]

You assume I have a game :\

[@astromonkey1757]

While i agree that bad games don't sell i can invalidate that point by bringing out some games that are horrendous and blew up, you undersell human psychology and how something bad can be made glamorous or even exploit easily addicted minds with lottery mechanics for instance, just to name one of the many weaknessess of the mind.

[@markguyton2868]

So the current AAA industry meta?

[@mandisaw]

You mean "bad" as in bad for ppl's mental health, their wallets, the industry, etc. All valid, but those successful games are objectively beautiful & well-crafted. I stayed far away from Genshin b/c I could tell it was such a good "bad game" that it would surely hook me if given half a chance 😅

[@ryuusaisai]

There are always exceptions to the rule, doesn't mean it invalidates the rule.

[@dreamingacacia]

Make a 10 minutes video to say "skill issue" lol....well talking about automation games; Can you guys make mafia tycoon or something? The prohibition period selling liquor and illegal stuffs. i might buy if it's good xDD. About successful games, I'd say as long as you can learn from the previous projects, then you're already success. That's the spirit of game developers. Don't quit the job to make games or make games in hope of getting rich. Focus on making better games than your previous games. There are only a few millions people whom are in the gamedev circle either in the industry, indies, or wannabe. The rest are either not interest in gamedev or given up after witness how hard it is to make games. I swear it's much much fewer than people playing around in stockmarket. Not to mention people that stay around lottery which are much more than people playing in stockmarket. Y'know the number of gamedevs are more than Sadhguru's believers and a large number of gamedevs are Sadhguru's believers, though not all of Sadhguru's believers are gamedevs. I mentioned this because game development is mental taxing, so people are seeking something more spiritual. And yeah, the reason I watch this video is because I fucked up my game project and need some time off.

[@burnheart2965]

Nah, my games are great