Unreasonable
The "next Balatro" won't appear on a spreadsheet...
After enduring another round of "where will the next Expedition 33 come from??" discourse, it's easy to get the sense that many people in games are asking the wrong questions or listening to the wrong advice.
It might help to make a distinction when it comes to game development approaches. I'll borrow from the saxophonist and YouTuber FoolishFrankie and define a couple of groups: "working musicians" and "artists"…
A Working Musician in our context would be a dev who is trying to make games within a specific genre at a specific budget range, targeting their work at a defined audience. They will often take on contract work as well, but when it comes to their own independent efforts they are still aiming to be driven by the market. To be clear, this is a valid, laudable and creative path: "They're the person I want to sit down, hang out and chat with - they're the ones who know," as one musician comments in the video above. I think a lot of discussion around hero auteur devs can lead to a form of sneering at this approach - it's something that we need to get away from and be clearer about.
In general, I have focussed on speaking to this group of devs because, while creative energy and originality are essentially table stakes for this kind of work, there is a clear zone of rational product-based thinking which lends itself to data, argument and discussion: if the goals are clear, it's easier to offer advice. This is why I called my first series on this Substack "Play to the Audience" - I've seen many pitches from devs who are attempting to do this but perhaps haven't quite lined everything up correctly.
An Artist is a dev who has a singular focus on expressing a particular idea. They might well factor in some information from the market, and they almost certainly will be engaging with an audience on some level, but they are primarily motivated by their own creative interests. They are unafraid of taking huge risks or alienating a large segment of the gaming audience - they are going to make what they want.
Yes, a lot of devs cross over between these categories at different times - the "one for them, one for me" strategy is sometimes a good plan - but that doesn't mean it's a great idea to elide them.
Working Musicians
This style of indie dev has always been challenging - it is difficult to hedge your bets in any way when making a game, as games are singular endeavours which do best when there is a very high level of commitment from their developers. It is still possible to get outsized results however, if you are able to be smart about positioning, specific about who you are addressing and you do a great job.
The classic Working Musician play is to get funding from a publisher by putting together an appealing pitch that lines up with current market trends. Action roguelikes, deckbuilders, city builders, auto battlers and now Balatro-a-likes - it's been possible to fast-follow in all of those categories and find some degree of success over the last few years by playing the hits.
The problems for Working Musicians come when their costs get too high, they don't stick the landing in their genre of choice, they aim just outside the range of audience tastes or they behave too much like Artists. To build a development business around this model, you need a truly profound understanding of your addressable market - many publishers look for devs who can demonstrate that and stick to their guns. If I see a project by devs who have worked on mods, or are very active in a specific community, I get more interested by default - they already know the songs that the audience loves.
The most successful Working Musicians focus on high upside genres that resonate personally with them; they add a huge amount of polish while driving down costs and finding efficiencies. Building reusable tech, maximising LTV with DLC (I apologise), using detailed testing to avoid surprises with the audience - all of these approaches can help mitigate risk and keep the process under control. If that sounds like a tough gig then - unfortunately - it is. You still need the creative energy and aggression, but you have to channel it through a set of precise criteria.
I would say the critical factors of success here are:
Picking a genuinely high upside area to target
Nailing the needs of that audience
I've steered clear of genre here intentionally because I don't believe that genre is everything, and I often think that an excessive adherence to Steam tags and Wishlist hunting is counter-productive - this is about your own read of the gaming audience and what it wants.
While I still believe it's possible to have some significant success with this route, it is important to stress to those who fund games that the "next Balatro" will not come from a Working Musician - it can't be produced under lab conditions. What we will see is some superb Balatro-a-likes - I’m sure that a few of the several billion that are currently in development will do great!
No, the Next Big Thing will come from an Artist.
Artists
What if you really want to stand out, create an entirely new genre or do something that bucks conventional trends? Then, by default, you are an Artist and artists need to be fundamentally unreasonable on some level. I still believe there are some hard and fast dynamics in play with gaming audiences - emotion and retention will always rule supreme - but beyond that feel free to be Weird.
Game development can be very insular - the Working Musicians are busy meeting the defined needs of audiences who have already shown their hand by playing other similar games. But consider introducing some hybrid vigour by broadening the gene pool - are there influences outside games which could be mined for inspiration? What about older genres which need a modern twist to make them work? What will shock people and be uncategorisable? What does it look like if you just start making something?
This isn't about an absence of technique or becoming completely untethered from Planet Earth, but it is about rejecting compromise in service of a vision.
Successful artists are able to match this singular approach to their work with some kind of interface to the commercial domain. This might have to take the form of another entire person - a partner who can navigate this stuff - or it might need some extensive personal development. I've seen Artists who are obsessively paranoid about "business" or completely disdain it as worthless, uncouth or immoral - again, if you can't change this then find someone who can shield you from it. Personally, I think art benefits from a connection to reality but it's not your job to listen to me.
Sometimes an Artist has to take a totally unreasonable position in terms of time or money. They might be able to cheat with this: artists in many creative fields very often will have "unfair" advantages like private wealth, vast cashflow from a previous hit, a job which allows them a huge amount of flexibility or a family willing to support them. As I've said before, I don't think it's at all interesting to position this in any kind of ethical taxonomy - instead, we can think about an ecosystem that is able to support unreasonable people doing things which don't make sense.
Those of us on the commercial side of games often spend time talking to Artists like they are Working Musicians, pointing them at Steam data and asking them to size up their TAM. This kind of thing is a requirement of more commercially focussed funding, which might require evidence that this planning has occurred, or it might be coming from a publisher who needs to make sure that their developers are aligned with their commercial interests. But it is very limiting.
I was struck recently by Devolver's abject failure to define what a Devolver game is - outlier indie games are discovered via taste, vibes, friendships, reputation and wild coincidences. If you want to be a successful Artist in games, then you need to develop Extreme Vibes - you must become Unreasonable and follow your emotions to their logical conclusion. Inventing a game that combines the finely-tuned stochastic thrill of poker with the seductive charms of solitaire doesn't happen because you check the Steam Top Wishlists every week.
Advice for Artists needs to center more around topics like keeping perfectionism in check, making time for the right things, knowing when to concede or hold the line - we need to stop pushing folks working in this way towards a more “sensible” approach.
The downsides are obvious - you have more to lose if you take a big bet; you have to move forward in the dark if you're exploring new areas - so make a conscious choice to take on a project in this category.
A Reasonable Conclusion
To keep up the musician analogy with some direct musical experience, I've worked on artist albums, soundtracks and production music - I see each of those along a sliding scale from Self to Client. Personally, I've got a lot of enjoyment from all of them - it's pretty amusing to hear that something you worked on has ended up on a reality TV show or a Japanese radio advert; it's deeply satisfying to hear someone was moved by one of your artist tracks. Ultimately, it’s all good, and if you find yourself in the rare position of being able to make games that sell in any capacity then that’s something to enjoy.
This isn't about judgement - it's about definitions and support. If you want to fund Artists you need to deepen your deal sourcing and engage with unreasonable people! If you want to support Working Musicians then you need to help guide them and give them structure - publishers in particular have access to way more data and greater audience understanding than devs ever will - they should be using it!
Let’s be reasonable and stop pretending that everybody’s goals and risk profiles are the same.
This is an excellent take! I have been thinking of this but through the music industry where artists with unwaivering vision regardless of what people think about it are able to innovate. I think more than ever that following a well regulated route, as optimal as it may seem, seems to become less and less fruitful statistically. This has a rather poisonous knock on effect for future artists having to deal with ‘learnings’ that really don’t need to apply. wonder if this reflects with games too.