Submitted 3 days ago by Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/discoverability-is-the-industrys-achilles-heel-marketing-survey-finds
I’ve found some of my favorite smaller games from watching twitch streams of people searching for new games.
It’s got to be miserable to make a game and know its probably going to be lost in the sea.
My favorites are Heaven’s Vault, Astronaut: The Best, and Wazhack.
Almost like things were better when we bought physical goods, instead of slop inside a program.
Take off your rose-tinted glasses. We would be having this issue with physical goods as well because every game would still be competing for the attention of the customer with every other game ever released. The only thing physical goods would do is chop off the legs of the indie scene because it would simply be too costly to put their random ideas on a disc. Vampire survivors wouldn't exist without digital releases, Balatro also probably wouldn't exist. A lot of even weirder indie games wouldn't exist because the cost of physically releasing them would be too much to take these random chances of releasing something weird.
I will highlight the existence of shareware, freeware, and other indie physical distribution channels. Both IBM compatibles and other PCs had "homebrew" scenes, not dissimilar to the "indie" scene today. The Amiga is still noted for the PD offerings it boasted. Many of the big companies now started as Indies. So, no.
Katana314@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I would hope most of the industry learned a big lesson from Apex Legends. The day before its release, no one knew of its existence. The sole reason that it blew up was because it was fun.
Viral sharing of interactivity is likely the most cost effective way to run a marketing campaign for games - not bus ads, pre-order hype, etc. In other words, Make good games.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Good games fail to make their money back all the time. It’s not just enough to make a good game. In the case of Apex Legends, a game that needs to keep you playing long term at the expense of others, it needed to not only be good but also be earlier to market than its competitors, which is impossible to plan for. It’s success involves a lot of luck, too, and using it as an example is survivorship bias.