How hard is it to be a successful indie dev?

How hard is it to be a successful indie dev?

>inb4 mobile game devs claim to make real games
Just no.

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>successful
Hard unless you're extremely lucky or talented

Luck nor talent have anything to do with why and how "indie" devs of the last 5 years became successful.

One part skill one part marketing one part luck.

I've been surprised to find some good indie games on Steam that were pretty fun and well made that were released months or years ago and I never heard about them before.

Even getting some big e-celeb to play your game is no guarantee of success. I forgot the game, but PDP or someone played it and it got several million views but the game literally sold like 300 copies.

Really? Because it sure as fuck wasn't hard work.

>gamergate
please leave

It literally does.

Well if you look at indie games today it doesnt take much talent
put some memes in and go

Valve shows that its possible

What is your skill set?

Programming?
Writing?
Drawing?

What happened to those shoes, OP?

Undertale proved you just need to steal music and game ideas +memes.

>Make a video game
>It's a good video game
>Sell 100k copies
>$10 each
>Steam take 30%
>Make 700k instantly
>Be successful

How hard is that even?

Or you can follow what others do now
>Copy other game's concept
>Polish it to make it look good
>Add Waifu baits
>Sell 5k copies
>$5 each
>valve take 30%
>Make $17.5k
>Rinse and repeat

Don't forget make trans and gay PCs.

Is there still a market for Yume Nikki style horror/ish rpgmaker games?

I want to make one of those in my spare time and I would like it if I could actually use it for profit.

>if I could actually use it for profit.
No it won't make a profit.
There was never a market for that kind of game.
Unless you already have a fan base and willing to shill for you.
Or you have relations with """"""journalists"""""" which they can shill for you.

Other than that, just have fun making the game, and watch nobody play it, then cry, then die a little inside.

>Is there still a market for ... rpgmaker games

Ok but what if I add sexy waifus?

Have fun paying for artists

You're asking random fuckwads on Sup Forums instead of investigating/looking up demographics, sales numbers, and other various data.

You're not even serious about this.

like this user said
Unless you can draw high quality waifus.
But if you could, you would had went to the patreon scam instead of thinking to make a VN here

>>inb4 mobile game devs claim to make real games
What do they make, then, imaginary games? They usually take less effort of course but that doesn't make them any less of a game, even if they're shit. Yes I'm nitpicking, but saying something is not "real" when it's actually just shit triggers my autism

>shit controls
>aimed at lowest common denominator
>over-saturated market with shit quality control
That said, there are still probably some decent games that make good use of the platform, but it's like finding a needle in a mountain of shit.

Its depends.

The most defining factor is the uniqueness of your game or at least it has something to make it stand out.

If you're gonna make an 2d rpg then unless you stray from the usual cutesy fantasy shieit then your gonna have to compete with a million other special snow-flakes. Most successful indie games in recent memory became a hit due to literally having little to no competition. Of course skill and effort is to be expected in abundance.

Worn for many, many years.

95% of indie games (actually funded ones, not just amateur hobby projects) don't get finished.
95% of the ones that get finished don't make the money back, nor get any recognition.

As you can see, the odds are your game won't get finished, and if it does, won't get noticed.
There is no money here. Video games may not be high art, but they work like the arts in that sense. You don't learn to play the guitar to make money. There is no money here. Only a very, very small minority of people who are both talented and necessarily get lucky, only they can turn it into a job, and inspire others into that trap.
There is no money here. If you want to make money, take out a loan, contact Subway and open a fast food joint. Guaranteed returns. Don't get into video games for money. There isn't any money here. Only do gamedev if you enjoy it, and want to do it, and the work itself fulfills you and you are happy to deliver a game that 30 people will like.

There is no money in indie game development. The odds are astronomically low. Terrible investment.
Either do it as a hobby, as a passion, or stay away, for your own good. Notch is an exception, not a trend.

Pay-to-win grind em ups
OR
Hats

Both are insidious business models.

>those holes

Get your boots to a cobbler, pardner

But Adam Sandler told me that cobblers steal your identity.

>inb4 mobile game devs claim to make real games

you clearly have buckets of experience and know what you're talking about

He's a Jew, user. Of course he's afraid of an honest job

Like anything else in life.
Will depend of how you were rised and how your brain works, starting with a 3 digit iq.
>rised like a snowflake to become a hipster faggot
see phill fishy.. and his "game mechanic"
>rised like a spetz natz and drank vodka since you are 12
See the slav dev who made space engine
Now the games
>1 is a shit generic platformer with a "good idea" and nothing more that got prised because of "contacts and good friends"
>the other is a procedual generated space with the size of the virgo supercluster and its still planned to be a full game and people barely know about this
>see all those points???
>every single one is a star system you can visit.

Real games stand on their own two feet for value. They don't need pay gates or hats, cruches used by the weak and feeble.

Not hard. All you have to do is latch onto a shite webcomic about a decade before you actually start making your game.

its hard. Most devs don't realize they need a marketing team so people know your game exists.

>>inb4 mobile game devs claim to make real games
a lot of AAA devs are starting mobile games companies cause it's a lot of proft for small teams

Why go out of your way to post about games you've never played? What do you get from talking with yourself about nothing?

Are you lonely? Did somebody hurt you?

I'm here for you user.

What disturbs me is that AAA titles spend upwards of 50% of their budget on ads. Where's the sense in that, there'll be no game to play? Nothing but a glorified tech demo.

No, shitumbrltale proved that you need contacts in the scene and appeal to the present trend.
Like AAA titles prove that you need to spend like 60% of the entire budget in marketing to generate hype, and then kill anyone who disagree using your fanbase and paid shills as shock troops.

It's cancer. Just cause everyone you went to school with the starts selling smack doesn't make it right.

Because there is no guarantee that more money spent on a project = higher quality while on the other hand marketing dollars guarantee more sales.

It's business.

I'm sorry you're so paranoid to think whole world is out to get you.

Just because you come from AAA doesn't mean you're not making a mobile game. Mobile games have yet to break into the core gaming space.

They dont need to.
Look at candy crush as an example.
Activision payed a shitload of money for that link 3 to win.
And its a free game...
Everything is not the same.

Remember that shit "gamers dont have to be your audience anymore"?
Where do you think that shit came from?

99% of mobile games fail or make barely enough money to cover production. Your mobile game is either the biggest thing ever or it's buried in the millions of competitors. The core games market has something mobile developers would love, a little stability.

Where's your integrity to the art? Money won't buy back dignity. Blood money is still blood money no matter what great games you make with it.

Someone said there is a 1 % chance of being able make a living off of being an indie dev and I think that's about right. I've been trying for three years but my most "successful" game sold around 200 copies. There are so many things that have to go right. Think of it as trying to become a rock star, all the tools are there, just learn to sing or play the guitar, but in the end it's not that easy is it?

I dont think there has been a new succesful indy dev in the past year apart from stardew dev

And he worked on that for over 5 years

good luck with marketing and word of mouth

Its ez

Buy up a few sewing machines, have full screen pop up ads

Hire a few chinese staff (They cost less then the electric bill)

And you have yourself the next clicker hit

Being a flavor of the month here is not much, but what in that normie market?
You will get at least 200k downloads if the flavor is good enough.
That is enought to cover the development of the most simple to create shit you can throw to them.
Making games for mobile was hard in the iphone 4 era, because only a few phones were capable of doing 3d and shit, so the most popular games were 2d, emulation or just pure copies.

Now, with phones more powerfull, look at the chinise brother of splatoon, except from the animation quality and the physics engine, wich are lower because they are jews with narrow eye lids, its almost the same game.
But what about that abortion of platforming when you are just a square box and when you tap, you jump, and you need to avoid obstacles, thats all the game. you can do that in exel in a few hours, and its still a very popular game.

Toby Fox

You cant get into the top 500 lists and get seen without paying chinese rating farms at this point

More then 2000 apps released a day

>making games on a different platform
>blood money
I can tell you do nothing but play games all day for most of your life.
Go outside.

Fuck you Geometry Dash is fun

that took him years too

>You will get at least 200k downloads if the flavor is good enough.
>That is enought to cover the development of the most simple to create shit you can throw to them.

Very few games get that many downloads unless they are free and free games make you nothing.

The one thing a higher processor and increased graphics can't do is make the screen bigger, which is why core games will never be played on mobile unless there is no other choice.

>automatically assume it's about gamergate
What the fuck is wrong with you?

Piracy doesn't help. Too many gamers don't respect devs.

But... was hard to develop?
Its mario, with forced movement, no graphics and the levels are based on speed and timing.
Its the most basic shit you can make, and still was a very good idea.
Same with candy crush, a copy of doctor mario, wich was a poor copy of tetris.

As a platformer is an abortion, maybe if that kind of games gets its own genre, but as a platformer gets boring after a few minutes, and you dont really control anything, will be more like a jumper than a platformer.

Thats when an army of bots and some "friends" come handy instead of doing a marketing campaign.

I can tell you're a money grubbing whore who gladly sell gambling games to kids.

Better work as a regular person, save money, buy houses and live from rent.

fuck those stupid kids, the sooner they learn gambling is bad the better.

It should be their parents responsibility to teach them , not mine.

>my game doesn't sell
>doesn't post a link
post the game faggot

a lto fo them do.
I've pirated samurai gun. Played it with friends, we loved it. But the full price is too much for a game like that.

Bought the OST tho, since it is too fantastic.

Hey dude I was just answering your question about succesful indie devs of last year

I've played texas hold em as a kid a lot for cookies.
We all turned out fine.

Statistically you have ~99% chance of absolute failure

>Its mario, with forced movement
Jesus christ don't tell me it's the first time you hear about the "runner" genre

I dont like platformers and those kind of games, so yea, you just told me that it has its own name.
I rarely play on my phone, and when i do, i emulate nes games.

You must went full SJW Twitter Facebook Tumblr normie activist to became succesful dev

You should try 10000000 and You Must Build A Boat. B2P, cheap puzzle games, very fun and no microtransactions whatsoever. That should maybe change your mind on mobile games.

That's why people who work on Art fields don't bother with statistics, it's passion and hard work that matters. Guy who made FNAF and undertale guy for example had passion for creating, of course there's lot of luck involved, but also that fire of creating something.

I'm talking about those online casinos aimed at kids.

Age of Decadence dev actually posted a 5 step plan for wannabe indie devs yesterday that's p interesting.

irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7211.0.html

>"you must went"
>buzzword overload
>out of nowhere attempt to derail thread

Isn't he the guy who took a decade to finish his game?

Hahaha I love that game. Used to play it with a mate and my brother when he slept over. Oh the memories.

Can't have Decadence without Decade.

>change your mind
No.
For me is simple.
>simulations
Yes
>games
Depends
And inside games there are:
>2d
No
>3d maybe
and inside 3d there are:
>arcade versions of a possible sim
>Fps with decent physics and hitboxes
>build your autism (pic related)
Yes
>the rest
Mostly no

Did all devs start as people disgruntled with current game trends?

Is there a successful indie game that doesn't pander to autists or some kind of retards?

>out of nowhere

Dude look at Toby, he got success because he was gay activist

Ah, there you are.
Did you make a tutorial on how to make those legs yet?

Hardly. Especially nowadays.

Most people are just in on the mobile fad to make a quick buck. There are even forums where you can hire Indian dudes to program game clones for you, I remember it being especially popular during that flappy bird craze.

nobody starts game development for that reason (at least anyone who lasts past on week)

He got success before revealing any such thing.
Fuck off any time now.

It does envolve hard work

They are usually a one man team

its really hard work to create an entire game on your own

Im still finding ways to make them more lightweigh, and also how to avoit the shit collapse by its own weight (look at the damage in its feets).
But also got distracted in making a working centraedi pod, wich is way way harder because vectorial thrusting.

>its really hard work to create an entire game on your own
STOP

RIGHT

THERE

CRIMINAL

SCUM

Disgusting. No wonder I hated undertake the first 5 mins of gameplay. Nothing but Pokemon with stupid minigames and ear bleedingly awful music.
>inb4 oldfags call me a generational newfag with no taste

but that's exactly why they started making aod, and they've gone 12 years or so now

this is such a dumb statistic
no writer expects the first thing they write to sell
no musician expects the first song they make to sell
but people expect their first video game to sell and give up when it doesn't and cite that statistic as why
if you want a good chance at being successful you need to be commited to your craft for 5 - 10 years realistically

It's true though.

You've pretty much got a 99% chance of failure as a musician or writer too.

>effort = success
you are a retard

like most statistics, it's true but misleading, it implies that no matter what you do you only ever have a 1% chance of success
If you commit yourself for 5 to 10 years like anyone who's serious about it should your chances are probably around 50%

Getting into writing or music to make money is equally as retarded as getting into vidya for that purpose.
The arts don't make you money. Only a very, VERY small minority LUCK out into becoming industry leaders and get rich. Nobody else.

No success is being able to make a living selling what you create, and you need to put effort in for that to happen unless you get lucky

It's at times like this I like to quote this bald dude.