My take on this subject matter: games, and moreso particularly indie game development, went through a sweet spot of time and technology somewhere between 2003 and 2017 or thereabouts. In that period, games were easy enough to be made that most people could, given time and not as much relative resources, and have a very reasonable expectation of success when finished. If you released a mid tier horror game on Steam in 2014 you could easily make $50,000 of sales. Prior to 2003, games were much more difficult to create, and post 2017, much easier, so the market is being flooded.
But if you compare game-making to trying to make a career out of music, or writing (next to impossible in 2024), or film-making, or almost any other creative art, it's the similarly bad odds of success.
I'm a game-maker these days (RoadHouse Manager on Steam, wishlist today!) and I love it, would still be working on my game if I made $2 million dollars tomorrow. But the profit prospects are incredibly slim for my game, and it's practically invisible, it'll probably end up costing me a large chunk of time and savings. But any creative industry is like that. Going into game making as business, as a way to generate profit, inevitably will lead to failure, from solo devs like me megacorps like Sony.
The best you can do is make the best game you can, do the required marketing and necessary things that you can, and roll the dice. If you don't like roll the dice, it's better to sell nuts and bolts or become an accountant, plumber or mechanics. Fixing a car or balancing your books is certainly a more useful skill than game-making, afterall.
All valuable and insightful points. There is definitely a large component of "success" which is down to luck, but game development (and game-adjacent development) is still viable enough with a solid grounding in reality and decent business-oriented thinking.
I think a lot of developers and studios can get caught up in their passion, which is not a bad thing, but there should also be a healthy dose of *everything else* a business needs, if they want to be a going concern for any length of time. A moonshoot is great if you can pull it off, but don't discount the benefits of making a solid, competent product and then another, and another.
The biggest constraint for many is the same as for any other business: capital. In that scenario, where outside investment must be sought, or a dedicated team need to invest whatever they can, the ability to identify and mitigate risk is critical. That includes doing all of the homework, figuring out the marketing plan, and knowing your competition and the likely environment you're going to launch into. Knowing when you're over-reaching is difficult, but important. Only once you've done your best to mitigate risk in such a highly competitive market, should people begin to attribute things to luck. Luck is definitely part of it, but there are *so many other* parts to it, too!
It's not a lottery, but it is massively influenced by luck. Massively.
I think of a game release as a roll of the dice, but one where you can improve your odds.
I reckon you have to try and roll at least 13 on two dice, but you can have +1 for excellent execution, +1 for enthusiastic publisher backing, +1 for a previous similar hit, +1 for a platform reaching a large audience etc. etc.
So, keep trying, and make it your best shot, but at the end of the day the dice roll and it goes one way or the other.
My most-unlikely-cause-of-game-cancellation was an international collaboration kippered by Putin invading Ukraine. Not a lot we could have done to mitigate that one.
Fantastic article, really enjoyed this thanks.
My take on this subject matter: games, and moreso particularly indie game development, went through a sweet spot of time and technology somewhere between 2003 and 2017 or thereabouts. In that period, games were easy enough to be made that most people could, given time and not as much relative resources, and have a very reasonable expectation of success when finished. If you released a mid tier horror game on Steam in 2014 you could easily make $50,000 of sales. Prior to 2003, games were much more difficult to create, and post 2017, much easier, so the market is being flooded.
But if you compare game-making to trying to make a career out of music, or writing (next to impossible in 2024), or film-making, or almost any other creative art, it's the similarly bad odds of success.
I'm a game-maker these days (RoadHouse Manager on Steam, wishlist today!) and I love it, would still be working on my game if I made $2 million dollars tomorrow. But the profit prospects are incredibly slim for my game, and it's practically invisible, it'll probably end up costing me a large chunk of time and savings. But any creative industry is like that. Going into game making as business, as a way to generate profit, inevitably will lead to failure, from solo devs like me megacorps like Sony.
The best you can do is make the best game you can, do the required marketing and necessary things that you can, and roll the dice. If you don't like roll the dice, it's better to sell nuts and bolts or become an accountant, plumber or mechanics. Fixing a car or balancing your books is certainly a more useful skill than game-making, afterall.
All valuable and insightful points. There is definitely a large component of "success" which is down to luck, but game development (and game-adjacent development) is still viable enough with a solid grounding in reality and decent business-oriented thinking.
I think a lot of developers and studios can get caught up in their passion, which is not a bad thing, but there should also be a healthy dose of *everything else* a business needs, if they want to be a going concern for any length of time. A moonshoot is great if you can pull it off, but don't discount the benefits of making a solid, competent product and then another, and another.
The biggest constraint for many is the same as for any other business: capital. In that scenario, where outside investment must be sought, or a dedicated team need to invest whatever they can, the ability to identify and mitigate risk is critical. That includes doing all of the homework, figuring out the marketing plan, and knowing your competition and the likely environment you're going to launch into. Knowing when you're over-reaching is difficult, but important. Only once you've done your best to mitigate risk in such a highly competitive market, should people begin to attribute things to luck. Luck is definitely part of it, but there are *so many other* parts to it, too!
It's not a lottery, but it is massively influenced by luck. Massively.
I think of a game release as a roll of the dice, but one where you can improve your odds.
I reckon you have to try and roll at least 13 on two dice, but you can have +1 for excellent execution, +1 for enthusiastic publisher backing, +1 for a previous similar hit, +1 for a platform reaching a large audience etc. etc.
So, keep trying, and make it your best shot, but at the end of the day the dice roll and it goes one way or the other.
My most-unlikely-cause-of-game-cancellation was an international collaboration kippered by Putin invading Ukraine. Not a lot we could have done to mitigate that one.