Is Indie Game SUCCESS all about LUCK?

Thank you so much for sharing this! How long on average does it usually take for you to finish a game?

I am from among us
I ate cat

Success in any field is partially about luck

About to setup my steam page this weekend and I’m super nervous. I’m by no means expecting to make a killing, but the idea of my first launch is both exciting and nerve wracking.

I’m sure this guy was crushed. Putting all of that work in just for no one to really play your game has to hurt. After making a game to near completion, it’s a real eye opener that even “bad games” are a ton of work to make.

My game isn’t huge by any means but I haven’t really don’t anything else while working on it. I haven’t played a new game since working on mine. So I’m sure putting forth all that work and sacrificing so much time without getting big results must hurt

Oh, u live in Portugal? Espero que tenha gostado do pais! :)

8% make more than 100k... That's all i need to know. Keep in mind that in any business, only 10% suceed

Hi Code Monkey, could you expand on why it is important to get a large wishlist prior to launch? Even if launching in Early Access? This isn't clear to me. Does Steam treat your game differently, depending on how many have it wishlisted on launch? Or does it start burying your game a few months after launch, if it wasn't successful right off the bat? Thanks.

Я наприклад роблю свою першу гру і паралельно працюю. Для мене успіх, якщо я отримаю 1 позитивний відгук. Ігор так багато, що можливо я взагалі нікого не закавлю, тому для мене перша гра про розуміння ринку і того, що я можу запропонувати ринку

Sir, your channel is a gem, thanks a lot for this video, I enjoyed it as much as I was informed!

Bruh for real are you caring about twitter Karens?

He should feel lucky to have sold a few hundred copies of such a game with this price tag. If he would be more informed about the market, he could have sold thousands with a more reasonable price.

I would like to hear what was different (in the game, or marketing, or anything else) about Survivor Squad: Guantlets and Game Corp DX that led to different outcomes. Because (without having played either), those two games seem to be the best argument that it's mostly about luck!

That being said - I agree with your main point, I think.

I would say: make your own luck

made a shovelware game and now society is to blame. dev is a sore loser

ROFL what a MOTIVATIONAL video that ends with
'I am SURE you will find the sucess you are after.'
A few years go by, WHERE is my 100 million dollar game.

Seriously I wasn't looking forward to this video, as I KNEW it was going to be NO luck is involved. I wouldn't call it luck, but bad things happen to good people. The best doesn't always win.

On your other point I tend to call it the 'Kids' who make Raft in a weekend and it blows me away. I keep plodding away knowing I'll prob never do that at 45. (BUT that is one recipe they say, make TONS of games.)

HOWEVER, I am keen to follow in your footsteps a bit, and KNOW I am not looking for success as they are, and hoping for that $1,000 a month or, WELL to make something from my effort and hard work. SO yes eventually some thousand years from now I will be successful. ERR I hope!



I THINK another area of 'success' for me is a complete, start to finish FULL game, even if it has only a few mechanics. NOTHING someone would be interested in, but something I'm keen to 'solve'. Even with my Steam release I don't feel I accomplished that goal.

Very well said CodeMonkey!

I launched my first game on June 2022. Sold 142 copies. Earn 100 dollar( after steam cut and taxes). Not happy with that but good start. Need luck + skills to stand out. Good game need good marketing. So first step is create good game and then market it good.

Luck does play a big part. Especially in the hyper saturated market of today, when you release a game on Steam or one of the countless console marketplaces, you need some luck to be seen. Even if you make the best game of the world, that does little if noone finds it. There's the saying of a "Hidden Gem" for a reason, games that were phenomenal but simply didn't get noticed in their day.

Of course there are ways to influence that with marketing and such, but marketing costs money and not every indie studio has enough money for a big marketing campaign. So often enough, you have to rely on word of mouth, and that requires luck, that people who are influential enough spread the word to enough people to make a difference.

So of course you have to make a good game first, but that alone isn't enough to grant you success. At the end of the day, selling video games is a business, and luck is a required part of becoming successfull in any business.

Thank you, need more videos like these

Good talk and something that needs to be repeated so less people will fall for the same mistake. Its really unfortunate how many people come into releasing their first game with such grandiose and lofty ambitions because of survivorship bias. We really need to temper expectations and look at reality that we're most likely not gonna be the next Vampire Survivors and be able to accept that fact. It's tough to be critical and harsh on your game, but its the only we can find joy in the smaller successes we do get.

Thanks!

Very good video, also this insane competition is why I shifted my game to mobile, and if that makes some money, then I will focus on a longer time to develop my real PC game.

Great video!

Really insightful video! I'm glad that I watch this kind of content from time to time when I'm not working on my game - it prevents me from having unrealistic expectations.



Anyway; about ten million copies should be a cakewalk. (:

>complains about game success being pure luck
>ignores "make experiment or make best of class" concept
>ignores market research, makes platformer because super meat boy was popular sometimes
>doesn't build game design in a cohesive way, throw random things because they look fun
>pixel art is great because it was great when game were 8bit
>never performs playtests to find out if game is actually interesting to play
>ignores asset stores because true game is when you do everything by yourself
>ends up with mediocre art
>0 marketing because marketing tricks were ignored as well during production
>even advices for Steam page are ignored
>"why market is so unfair?"

Your insights are never not valuable, whether they're relevant or useful to me directly merely decides to what extent I can benefit from them, but there's always something to learn, even if it's a reinforcement of standard critical thinking practices in the pursuit of removing subjective bias in ones perspectives.

Wait, survivor squad flopped?

It's the only one of your games I bought and played organically. That's interesting.🤔

Success has nothing to do with luck or merit. What really sells is always advertising. If they know you, even if you make a trashy game, you will sell a little, at least at first. And vice versa, even if you do a GOTY, if they don't know you, you don't sell....
And advertising can be paid for, so in the end, it's not luck, it's not merit, it's not advertising, it's having money...

Can you make a tutorial to explain how the background animation in duet games is made?

Hello, I like your tutorials very much.

Having said that, how many of your viewers actually managed to publish and profit from game development? A quick survey?

Considering the country i've born in, my success chance is almost 0%

That kind of real talk is very useful! I'd add that you create your own luck. There is always something to screw up and there is always something to learn and improve.

LMAO 20 bucks for that game okay cool i can buy that or Hades for 20 bucks. If he priced his game better maybe he would've sold more copies. I would buy this game for 3 bucks if i just saw it randomly. I enjoy buying smaller indie games blind it feels exciting.

Thanks

I like this format. Furthermore I would like to state that making mobile game is also a great option.
Making a PC game is harder because standards are higher. But downside of mobile games are that you should carefully consider monetization and double your efforts on marketing

I like this format

You're STILL not providing anything substantial or good tips that people don't already know about. You're just giving one game crap of what they didn't do. You're essentially saying that luck IS involved, when really its... wait for it... companies! They're trusted by default compared to individual sole traders.

Thank you for your opinion.
I would like to see more videos of this format.

I see that you replied to almost all our comments. I'm just here to say thank you 💖

I just want to add that "luck" does play a role to achieve a success, though in most cases it only plays a very minor role. In very rare cases, like Flappy Bird or Among Us , "luck" can help launch the game to a broader market, causing a massive success. However, "luck" also helps a bit in ordinary cases, and people don't often notice it because it seems so natural. Maybe a not-so popular streamer happens to play your game, driving a hundred of people to buy your game. It's not much, but that's "luck" doing his thing.

In the end, this word "luck" only means the variables we failed to predict, there's nothing magical about it. Focusing on working hard and smart, remaining humble, and helping other devs is a better path to success than worshiping the god of "luck" 😆

Thanks for the video 👋
Can't wait to play your new game

Interessante esse novo formato que você usou combinando vários vídeos "aleatórios" para dar corpo. Eu acho que vi um site uma vez que vende assinatura para ter acesso a pequenos vídeos genéricos assim que você pode usar.

I haven't even finished a single game yet and I still wonder why I haven't succeeded

I like how you take the time to explain realistic expectations, given stats you have collected. Any game I have developed started as a passion project solely for the fun making it. Monetization for me has always been an after thought. I'm following your development progress closely to better understand what I should be doing compared to what I already do. Thank you for this video and keep up the great work.

The trick to prevent those flops from happening (or stop a project before it's too late) is absolutely to show your product to other persons, as early and as often as possible. Exactly as you said, players do not care a bit about the amount of time that you spent on a project: if it doesn't look like something they would want to play, then it's gone. A glance by outsiders at this project in this video could have served as a warning very early: the game, no matter how good it actually is, does not look professional or polished. The 3d models are simplistic, but not especially cute or notable, the lighting is really basic, the environments are uninteresting, the presentation is quite bland... Overall, it indeed seems to be another overblown presented 3d project that had little focus on the art or the presentation. I don't say this to be mean to the devs; rather, because I am convinced this is the reaction that most people would have had, especially non-devs. There are so many great games outside, that if yours looks really rough around the edges, it will not catch much attention at all.

Today, with very open platforms like Reddit, getting such feedback is quite easy. If you post your game near release to r/gamedev (which has thousands of active users each time), and it has at most a couple dozen upvotes, that's a very big smell. Again, one could blame this on luck. But if you retry a couple times, on different subreddits and maybe after having tweaked your presentation a bit, and it still doesn't get engagement, then you need to reconsider your presentation a lot. Why would people not even bother to click the upvote arrow on Reddit to show that they are interested in it, but decide to invest a couple of bucks and hours to play it ? Answer: they probably won't.

selling solo-developed indie game for 20 bucks is kind of crazy...