Game Industry Very Competitive !!

Here's the deal, as more and more are joining the game industry, the game industry are getting competitive than ever! The marketplaces are filled by tons and millions of games for Android, iOS, Windows phones and etc...

The majority problem with all indie developers that they excel in an area while they lack in others. Thus, huge and official game development companies are getting on spot. With lots of teams members and effective employees with high degrees, these companies excel at their work, paying attention on each area of the game , and with few advertisement, when the game hits the market, more than thousands of downloads are made in few days, and revenue is generated immediately which make this a perfect advantage for the huge names (for example EA Games, Sony, Microsoft, King, etc..) to dominate the market.

On the other hand , indie struggles. As customers and players are getting very demanding, the indie developer has to make triple effort to serve it to the customer. Customers and players always criticize indies for either their graphics or the gameplay or even the concept. Even the greatest names like King has been criticized by customers that their newest game: Candy Crush Soda Saga has a bad graphics (Source: Google Play App Comments)

The conclusion is, indies are pretty creative and trying to make a great game, but indie developers lack money, an appropriate studio and an efficient and skilled team. I'm not telling indie to give up , it just we cant compete others and being indie forever will not increase your place in the top charts

As noticed there might be great indie games, but it will be hard to obtain international popularity worldwide unless you made a mega hit like Minecraft !

Well...

If I recall correctly, minecraft was not made to be the ultra big hit it has been, and king is not one of the "greatest name" of the industry.

As for the indie struggling, it is actually their choice to be independant, however the gold rushing way it has been showed really did not help: everyone wants their part of the cake, and not everyone wanted to work hard for that part (let's be honest, I can understand that the flappy bird guy did not expect what happenned to him, but when everyone tries to replicate that sucess clearly just for money without passion nor working, not to do quality, it is bad), then you have also the viability of the different markets (googleplay seems to only works for "big names" to sell games, other have to rely either on ads or in app purchase since they cannot convince the player to buy their games, and since most of them think it is "normal to rely on advertising if the player does not want to pay" rather than "the players do not want to pay for our product, uh-oh... we are in trouble" I do not expect the situation to become better, some do not even care about what products are advertised, some even do not do games, they do something that can have ads in it first).

Am I the only one to think that no matter how much people work on a product, we can at least expect quality? I do not say that we should all have games as good as GTA San andreas or batman: arkham city, but at least games that are more interesting that a game and watch, or at least where effort has been put.

When I play a game, even older ones, I expect something good, is it a good story? Good controls? Good graphics? Heck not even that, consistency, the game has to feel right, not forced, pixel art made for the game can look better that ultra hd assets that feels wrong for the game, the story should not have forced passages (I will not forgive how phantasy star 2 killed Nei, it was really a "we kill a character because we could"), however some of the games I see one the google play lacks this consistency, they are like "pieces of games put together", like a cheap food platter trying to look like a 5 stars restaurant, but they lack the passion and the quality.

Of course the quality of a one man game will not be the same as a big team, but that does not forgive the fact that it can be a bad game made by peopel that do not want to make any effort, and when a bad game is paid, or has advertisement in it, we should not let them pass.

PS:not talking about you of course, while you do not have yet reached your full potential, you still are doing a great job and have passion.

Aphrodite thanks for your nice note. Let's say it, are we able to make games that are really good as those who has been working in this field lots of years and with full experience? I guess your answer is no, why? because they are specialists. I don't say indie are not strong enough to make a good game, in fact I'm indie too so we are in the same track, most of those experts are doing it for living, while we, most of us, are doing it for passion. but sometimes customers' sanctification is stronger than an indie's passion. Do you agree?

Well, quality and market are two different things, and individuals (as I think it is mostly about them more than non publishers) can have a really hard time, proffesionnals are normally payed for their job, they have the security (not "I must finish it and sell it now! I need money" But "I have to keep doing a good work to deserve what I am currently payed for"), it is like doing a harder job with less experience and/or budget, less time too, and less planning ahead even (generally, there are not as much specialists in all related domains), and also something that big companies can do, and every men also can do, but that an individual game developper that tries to make a living cannot without taking a big hit: Fail, a big company can fail, they do not want to, but if it happens, well, they can take the hit, learn from it, and continue with the budget they have (pretty sure they try to see what happens if it fails so they do not take too many risks), an individual cannot really afford to fail on a game they have done for like 3 months, as they do need the money to continue, unless they had the chance of having a good amount of money beforehand, and of course, due to the lack of knowledge and help they might have, as well as time, the chance of failing is greater.

However, some people actually try the other way around, rather than risking failing on a 3 months/one year/maybe more game, why not producing large amounts of games, and each can bring a short income so some can fail? And so mass production can exist, which fill up the markets.

Of course that does not imply to someone that do games only for passion, without trying to make an income out of it (that does exist, before someone says it is stupid). As they have no budget or marketing or income to think about related to their games. An exemple would be someone with a job that does games during his free time, he has security, he has passion, he have less time of course, but is not squeezed by a need for money.

As for the question, customers are tricky to satisfy, and the fact that money comes from them is the struggle.

Of course all of this is my opinion.

Some good points Aphrodite ....

I think being good at individual aspects of gamedev is completely different from actually producing an entire game. Producing and overseeing a game is more like being a record producer, or film producer job. You have to have the ability to see outside the game and/or see it from a distance. This is huge problem for indies, since usually they are a one-person shop and working very close to the nitty gritty details on a daily basis... but as we've seen it's also very possible.

I think indies, need to take their time and don't expect overnight success. Also, if you are panicking about money and selling the game you are working on, then that is a huge risk. You might consider some help if that is the case. Working with others helps focus and the other person can act as a sounding board which can help decision making.

But obviously a 1-person game will not be as "polished" or "deep" as a giant studio. But still, who's to say that a solo artist can't perform an amazing solo version of "Over The Rainbow" just as well as triple scale orchestra players can perform a Mozart symphony? It's all in the scope, and scale...

I say, make great art (games) with what you can do... once you start reaching beyond what you can do is when you fail.

The answer to great things is observation and interest, then achieve through doing & learning and Learning and doing.

Patience is needed as already stated.

Being unique is something each one of us is born with, but small bits of that can be lost during the search of info in the big pile of knowledge already established.

Same goes for being/becoming indie developer, one moment there is this spark of having that great idea, and the next moment research starts.

While researching most of the time happens by looking at "the big pile of whats already out there" one can easily lose track of their initial sparkling idea.

Maybe that idea was only there to learn something new and needed for the next step.

And maybe that next step is the unique breakthrough that'l reach lots of people.

Games that set apart are mostly based on what is unique, although it might not be obvious at first glance.

With minecraft, it was clearly noticeable, a new era of creativity.

But when we look at the next iteration of call of duty or need for speed it seems not unique at all.

However through the eyes of the player that is new to the game, its either the greatest thing in the world, or not their cup of tea.

The more people that become players, the more game-judges we have to face.

Being in front of a judge is not the nice'st thing to do, especially if they are with many and "not into" that new game you've worked very hard on.

So with that comes a choice: Do we focus on the people who like, or do not like.

And which do we be our selves.

Then there is also the most important variable in this scope which are newborn players.

Each day babies come to planet earth and while we might think of them as non player because they are to young, they will get older and come into contact with video games.

To them int the future call of duty 2050 might be the most unique thing ever created, but it also might be your indie game.

Getting noticed should not be a focus, cause it can distract from the foundation of what most indie's are doing.

However this is a hard thing not to focus on, it is also something u can become profoundly good at.

As with anything in this world there is one simple rule for getting noticed.

"Interesting things, are a gift to interested people"

So if the focus is on that which "is" interesting, then the interested will be there, each day new players are alive.