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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Indie developer calls the indie boom "unsustainable"

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-05-22-spiderweb-software-indie-pc-boom-is-not-sustainable


Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel has warned PC indie developers that the "bubble" in which they have existed is about to burst. The problem: "Too many games."

In a post published on his blog, Vogel, who has operated Spiderweb Software independently for almost 20 years, addressed the issues raised by the enormous number of games that have been added to Steam this year.

In short, the extremely lucrative context in which games like Braid, World of Goo and Castle Crashers made small fortunes prompted an avalanche of new developers to make games, flooding the market and driving the value of games into the ground.

"So what this grumpy old fart is saying is that there are Issues. They should be discussed," Vogel said. "There are new obstacles that should be planned for and forces you may blame for your problems that, in fact, you shouldn't. If you are a green developer, face these facts, or I believe destruction awaits."

"My games have been in a million sales and bundles. It's what you have to do now, and I'm just as at fault as everyone else"

 

As evidence, Vogel pointed to recent data suggesting that as many as 40 per cent of Steam purchases are never launched at all. The reason for this is simple: the consumer never wanted them in the first place,

"Indies now do a huge chunk (if not most) of their business through sales and bundles, elbowing each other out of the way for the chance to sell their game for a dollar or less," Vogel said.

"Indie gaming started out as games written with passion for people who embraced and loved them. Now too much of it is about churning out giant mounds of decent but undifferentiated product to be bought for pennies by people who don't give a crap either way.

"It's not sustainable."



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More like most companies that go mobile only will go bankrupt.



B-tier games are almost gone, AAAs struggle to make significant money except for a few exceptions and now the current indie scene is unsustainable. Good times ahead.



Player2 said:

B-tier games are almost gone, AAAs struggle to make significant money except for a few exceptions and now the current indie scene is unsustainable. Good times ahead.


Pretty much this.



Yawn at the doom thread. whatever.



 

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spemanig said:
Player2 said:

B-tier games are almost gone, AAAs struggle to make significant money except for a few exceptions and now the current indie scene is unsustainable. Good times ahead.


Pretty much this.

Sad but true.



Player2 said:

B-tier games are almost gone, AAAs struggle to make significant money except for a few exceptions and now the current indie scene is unsustainable. Good times ahead.


For this reason I think Nintendo is best prepared for the future. Other than the SNES they've never outdone the competition hardware power wise. They've been content with incremental steps forward with hardware while maintaing strong software sales. Sony currently employs the Genesis popularized model of selling hardware at a loss and making up for it with software sales. Because Nintendo limits the power of their hardware they can keep prices low and still make a profit, or at worst, break-even.



"On my business card I am a corporate president. In my mind I am a game developer. But in my heart I am a gamer." - Satoru Iwata

kowenicki said:
Well obviously.

When people talk about 100's or 1000's of indie games coming like its a good thing, I scratch my head. Most will be ignored and just as many will be crap. Many developers will earn nothing and leave the industry, possiblee future stars lost.

Some good indie games stand the chance of being missed in the plethora of trash.

Don't worry.. a lot of them won't even release because of failed kickstarters.. more and more kickstarters are being started and asking for more and more money.. that's has to collapse soon cause they all fish in the same, small, audience.. surely they can't hope & expect that people will support 10+ kickstarters..



 

Face the future.. Gamecenter ID: nikkom_nl (oh no he didn't!!) 

Yeah it will be a while before I am going to get another indie game. I got around of 10 of them on PS4 (that I bought) and honestly only 3 of them I played more than three hours. I feel burned because I bought games like Daylight and Titan attack. Is their any kind of quality control going on?

Also checked yesterday the store and saw that transistor is almost 20 € damned :(..



Player2 said:

B-tier games are almost gone, AAAs struggle to make significant money except for a few exceptions and now the current indie scene is unsustainable. Good times ahead.

Nailed it.

So, what will become of gaming when the mid-tier games, the AAA games and indie games are gone? And let's not forget that only a very few games makes it big on mobile.

Seems like it's not only Nintendo that's d00000med



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