KZfaq... stop linking me old TB content. My heart can only take so much.

Rip, I will forever miss these discussion videos, no one did it better :(

A bleak picture painted that holds even truer four years on.

Quite some time after this video I got this game really super cheap on a Steam sale, because i had remembered it from this video. And I can see why the sales are so low. This is an EXTREMELY niche game. It's a very very difficult platformer that there definitely is not a huge market for. It doesn't have the Metroidvania thing going for it like other difficult platformers (Ori, Guacamelee, Hollow Knight) have. The screen rotating mechanic is hard to get used to as well...I'm not susceptible to motion sickness like a lot of people are, but even without that it gives the game a really niche aesthetic in addition to the niche mechanics. I'm not saying it's a bad game, it's good for what it is, but even though I do tend to like platformers it was hard to get into.

Interesting to hear the mention of Desura several times; failure of an indie game delivery platform. I lost about a dozen indie projects when that disappeared, most being this kind of small scale slow-burn type of project. Over saturation is probably one of the biggest factors. Even when you go shopping and see two dozen flavors of pasta sauce, which do you think sell most? Traditional and marinara. Nobody wants to spend an hour contemplating on that stuff, simple and straightforward sells; too much fluff just turns people off. Trends would be a big factor as well, Meatboy got very popular and became one of the early indie games to make mainstream through XBox Live and such. Similar platformers thought following that trend would be a quick cash-in. Very quickly consumers found how tiresome it became, and probably even quicker because we went through the same trend after Minecraft became huge. It's true there is no secret to success, you're looking at a crap-shoot at best. But there are definitely ways to increase the odds by being passionate and standing out from the crowd, we still have breakaway successes today like CSD, Dead Cells, and Kerbal Space Program. Was it their marketing that made them successful? Or was it some indescribable attraction that drew more people to check them out? Was it just the right place at the right time? Maybe some combination of these factors, but I think the passion of the developer plays the most significant part. Creating something you truly love and believe in translates to the final product itself, and your fans will see that, word of mouth counts for a lot. Finally what you consider "success" is a bit subjective, depending if the dev is doing this part time, on the side, or as a main source of income. Indie devs relying on this as a sole income would be well advised to think again. Especially if you have little or no experience in the field, and no name to speak of. Keep your day job and do it for fun, even if it does become "successful". Until you need to focus full-time on development, don't expect it to be a full-time job, same with KZfaq creators. Keep the passion, but don't over inflate your ego and even selling 20 copies over a year might seem like a success to you, at least that many people appreciated your work right?

Good video. Alot of interesting points. Its hard trying to find and build an audience. And even harder to sell things to them. Alot of it is luck,talent, and more luck.

Ironically this game has now 500k sales. RIP TB*.

I will say that the reason why I would never play this game is because it's almost instantly nausea inducing. I can't even watch this video, I have to just listen to it.

I could only watch a few seconds of this vid - spinny cam made me motionsick so hard it's not even funny. That's at least a few % of people who do not agree with the statement that the game is good.

Rip legend.. We miss you brother.

It really doesn't look fun. That is a relief. The tragedy is when the game is good and still fails.

I love platformers, puzzle games, and metroidvanias. However, I cant play a game like this, it's far too dizzying.

Really want to vote 5 stars for fireboy and watergirl on hudgames. It's a great game.

This doesn't look like a bad game by any means, but it looks like a very difficult, very niche game, with limited appeal outside of the audience that is hardcore into these types of games (which is really small). It looks like the developer was just wanting it to be a lot less niche than it is.

I recently released my new roguelike brickbreaker, Roguebreaker, a loveletter to the 80s, and has only sold 89 copies. The market is definitely still tough in 2018. You can blame a ton of stuff, but it's hard to get the eyeballs. I get about 200-250 storepage views a day and that becomes 0-1 sales a day. It's tough because on one hand, I am very happy with how fun Roguebreaker is, and how good it looks and feels. But on the other, you have to take a hard look at the market, and even if there was several games with 20k copies sold, there was dozens and dozens of failed low quality brick breakers. I thought that mine would stand out, and in a certain sense it does, but it's just not enough. I've made 4 games now across 8 years of time, and it always comes back to the amount of people aware of the game, rather than the game itself. Also, now that it's 2018, we've raced to the bottom. Games are 99c all over the place. Roguebreaker's 3.99 instead, because I still need 27 sales a day to pay rent, and I don't think I could pull in 3x as many sales, even if I cut the price down by 75%. This is a great video though, market's tough, and you need to resonate with people.

Is that character a kittenpus? RIP Totalbiscuit

I think he hit on it- that it's not just 1 component. It's a combination of the game itself, viral marketing, being on the right storefronts (availability & saturation), and low pricing. But in the end a lot of it is just luck, sort of like which memes take off. Meatboy also had an entire romantic mythos surrounding the development and the developers in the form of Indie Game The Movie.

I remember beta testing this :)

1 year later. The rotating screen thing. I can do a lot of pixel art games. But the 'indie' (small/shareware) guys do a lot of that. So it's saturated. That can be a good thing! If 'indie' dev embraced that to be the B movie houses of games? and leaned well into making the games over the top? Plus focus on a specific theme, and treat their games as old school shareware? Ie it may or may not sell. I've tried to do mostly or more indie games. And eeef. oof. It's so hit and mis! Downfall: nice light arcadey game, Stardew Valley: ????, but then their's shovel knight. -_-. AVGN does it better Cinamascare hired (or tried to) some smaller guys and... I guess AVGN the game is MIA indefinatly. DeadCells:I fail to get the big deal, just repetive burnout that's not fun. But then Mutant Football League is pretty fun in small amounts. I tend to like pixel graphics, especially in moderation. Indie guys lean into them, because, umm reasons? oO Just in the comments of a old video alone their are a lot people tired of the nestolgia factor indie studios lean into.

Unfortunately the very harsh reality that I only accepted recently after many years in denial is this: the vast majority of people who play video games AREN'T INTERESTED IN PLAYING A BIG VARIETY. There's a reason why there's a giant gap between the very best selling games and the almost best selling games. We have to realise that if somebody has a game they like and it is already giving them what they want and continues to give them what they want, what incentive do they have to try anything else? Even another popular game isn't likely to peak their interest unless their friends are playing or it has serious marketing and acclaim behind it. There is no shot in hell someone is going to try a no-name indie game. Gaming may technically be "bigger than ever before" but the overwhelming majority of players are paying attention to essentially just the top 1%. Since this video, the situation has only gotten far worse with literally tens of thousands of games releasing every year on Steam.

19:11 so damn true

Didnt Tb do another video like this, where he focued on this puzzle platformer where you where supposed to take pictures and such?

19:10

F to this game and Biscuits...

What is going on in this comment section.

It looks like absolute trash. Why did they expect to do much better when they dont put in the time to make it good, or even decent

Can i take a second of your time to talk with you about superfighters deluxe? A 2D shooter in steam ☺

12:32 Platformers are meant to be hard. Git gud.

Its not decent. Its aweful.

Yeah it is an outlier, its a case of niche. If you have something, you have something. It doesn't make sense to try and find a game pattern, it is where there is none, it is disingenuous to yourself to do so, and anyone who is aware of what is out there in the market. Kind of like making a match 3 game. Just don't bother, but you can create a game that is a match 3 game, if you have a point of difference that has some sort of value, but otherwise don't bother. You could make a match 3 game for a specific Smart Watch, on a Tuesday in 2019 and will sell well, but do it for steam and put on the PC, who gives a fuck?

fourth.

Second?

Steam is absolutely bombarded with these pixel graphic games....just too many

First?