• Spiderweb's Jeff Vogel: "The indie bubble is popping"
    29 replies, posted
[url]http://www.pcgamesn.com/spiderwebs-jeff-vogel-indie-bubble-popping[/url]
My problem is that there are too many games that are available but not complete. I'm not going to sit here and blame Steam Early Access or Greenlight because I like the concept of those programs, but it's just not my thing at this point to buy a game that I don't think is complete. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/anon_n1nj4/wishlist]I have 41 games on my wishlist[/url] and the entire last half are early access games that I'm interested in but I'm just not going to buy now because I don't know how close they are to being done or if some ever will be (a problem presented by Towns recently).
I'm perfectly okay with this, 80% of the indie devs that've been rearing their ugly heads are either trying to cash in on the indie craze or so lazy that they shouldn't be here to begin with. The indie scene is at its best when it's smaller and more focused.
Everyone's saying the triple A bubble is going to pop and now people are saying the indie bubble is going to pop, is there any part of the industry that no one thinks is going to crash and burn?
[QUOTE=Lucinice;44881789]Everyone's saying the triple A bubble is going to pop and now people are saying the indie bubble is going to pop, is there any part of the industry that no one thinks is going to crash and burn?[/QUOTE] I feel this is different, a lot of people are starting to realize early access and most kickstarter stuff is a stupid idea because most indie devs lack the experience to actually pull through with it, and we're suffering from indie dev complacency, I mean why put effort into anything when you can half-ass something and get legions of butt-kissers and easy money rolling in? That's the bubble that's going to burst.
like banned said, i think the bigger problem is lack of finished games. indie games are great and all, but the massive tsunami of half-complete games being sold and hardly updated is not.
If you make a good game, you will make money. This is no real estate market. There are some bubbles, but you can't say the entire indie market is a bubble.
problem with indie games: 1: they coming out half finished 2: most of the ones that get super popular are pretentious art games. People who want to play a great game see a review for it saying its amazing and buy it then get dissapointed that it's about some stupid political message about lesbians or some shit no one gives a fuck about.
[QUOTE=Kegan;44881807]I feel this is different, a lot of people are starting to realize early access and most kickstarter stuff is a stupid idea because most indie devs lack the experience to actually pull through with it, and we're suffering from indie dev complacency, I mean why put effort into anything when you can half-ass something and get legions of butt-kissers and easy money rolling in? That's the bubble that's going to burst.[/QUOTE] I feel like that only accounts for the PC side of things, more indie games are coming to consoles and since that doesn't have an early access system I don't see consoles having the same flooding issue. Also I think when an indie game comes out bad and half-assed that's probably more incompetence than malice.
[QUOTE=Wii60;44882619]problem with indie games: 1: they coming out half finished 2: most of the ones that get super popular are pretentious art games. People who want to play a great game see a review for it saying its amazing and buy it then get dissapointed that it's about some stupid political message about lesbians or some shit no one gives a fuck about.[/QUOTE] I still don't see why people loved gone home so much. It was a story, a short, barely interactive story. If I wanted that I would buy a book or a movie for less of the price, not a weak-plot, reading-simulator game. Arguable, obviously... but 20 dollars? Come the hell on. On the topic of this - I don't really care if a game is indie or triple AAA, I just care about it's current quality state, how polished it is and the amount of content/replayability available for the price they are asking or I bought it for. Right now, people are using early-access and things as an excuse to release half-assed, unfinished games, since I mean, they don't need to worry about earning money since everyone already paid for it. Early-access is a risk-based market for buying games, and with so many coming out and promising so much with little proof that they are going to complete it. Hes right. The "Indie" bubble is going to pop when everyone realizes half of these games aren't even going to be completed or released in the same state it was in beta/alpha. (See : amount of official updates on minecraft in comparison to before it began earning mountains of cash, surviving on the modding community, etc.) Everyone is trying to capitalize on this, and as a result hundreds of games are pouring out making it harder for un-informed (young steam users, for example) to discover games that people actually worked on and put a lot more time and effort than these early-access titles have so far put into, and in most cases, cost less and will usually last longer. In theory, yeah early-access is a good idea. It helps indie-developers gain the funding they need to complete their game and work full time. But most of them aren't, they just care about the money, and even if they did care about the game, the mass-amounts of gained money promotes laziness in the final product, since you don't have to refund anyone, ever, you already got the money! People are going to realize that early-access is a bad pre-order system and not spend their money on actual, completed games. Were opening up to a lot more bad games and general un-trustworthiness in the indie-scene. Eventually, the "bubble" will pop from too many in-experienced developers thinking they can make quick-cash, too many games will flood the market and "pop!" Less and less people buy indie games. Early-access is killing indie, in my opinion. But who knows, maybe the next generation of consumers will come out of the whole ordeal as customers who can make a informative purchase and not purchase the first flashy thing they see because it promises a buggy demo and small updates for years. Of course that isn't all early-access games - but at this rate, that's all it's going to be. tl;dr In my opinion Early-Access is being done wrong and agree with the article. Buy finished games, not sketchy pre-orders unless you have researched it immensely, if you don't want bad things to happen. [editline]a[/editline] A list of games, on steam, that are early-access and probably what the article is talking about. [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/298220/[/url] [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/282740/[/url] [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/291550/[/url] [url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/270110/[/url] The list goes on and on...
[QUOTE=Kegan;44881807]I feel this is different, a lot of people are starting to realize early access and most kickstarter stuff is a stupid idea because most indie devs lack the experience to actually pull through with it, and we're suffering from indie dev complacency, I mean why put effort into anything when you can half-ass something and get legions of butt-kissers and easy money rolling in? That's the bubble that's going to burst.[/QUOTE] Agreed. If there's a bubble about to burst, I'd say it'll be the early access bubble, not the indie scene in general. There are a ton of indie games being made now, though. The servers for Steam and such are powerful enough to store and distribute a ton of different games, and bedroom game development is only getting easier. I can see the likelihood of each indie game reaching success becoming very diluted by the sheer number of bedroom programmers.
[QUOTE=Wii60;44882619] 2: most of the ones that get super popular are pretentious art games. People who want to play a great game see a review for it saying its amazing and buy it then get dissapointed that it's about some stupid political message about lesbians or some shit no one gives a fuck about.[/QUOTE] The indie games that I can think of being really, really widely popular aren't like that at all though. Games like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy and Bastion aren't really pretentious art games (Bastion comes a little close, though).
[QUOTE=Wii60;44882619]2: most of the ones that get super popular are pretentious art games. People who want to play a great game see a review for it saying its amazing and buy it then get dissapointed that it's about some stupid political message about lesbians or some shit no one gives a fuck about.[/QUOTE] This isn't even a valid complaint. People can makes games about whatever they want and veil it however they please. That's the reason indie anything exists, is because big "things" like movies or books or games don't do it. I've never seen Gone Home get as much hate anywhere else than on Facepunch and it's almost a joke how much it's flamed now.
This whole early access half assery just feeds the perception of annoying self righteous true gamer types that any independently developed game is bad and they perpetuate that in the loud and really obnoxious way turning into a cycle where no one will actually buy a good indie game. See: Fract. Honestly? I don't want this to happen because I'd rather live in a world where developers can do whatever the hell they want to do rather than make what sells from a publisher. [editline]23rd May 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Wii60;44882619]2: most of the ones that get super popular are pretentious art games. People who want to play a great game see a review for it saying its amazing and buy it then get dissapointed that it's about some stupid political message about lesbians or some shit no one gives a fuck about.[/QUOTE] How pretentious of you to claim yourself the highest authority on what kind of games should or shouldn't be made.
I've never seen anyone be more proud of not spending 20 dollars on a game than people who hate Gone Home. I'd say it's the half finished games that are damaging the Indie game industry more than any "art" game like Dear Esther and Gone Home. Think The War Z rather than Depression Quest when the entire market crumbles.
what is it with facepunch always bitching about things being pretentious? It seems like every thread involving indie games has someone complaining whenever a game doesn't focus entirely on mechanics or it's story has any sort of theme or requires deeper thinking. Christ, I've seen people call the fucking stanley parable pretentious.
[QUOTE=mchapra;44883874] How pretentious of you to claim yourself the highest authority on what kind of games should or shouldn't be made.[/QUOTE] all i said is that pretentious art games are stupid and are possibly a problem, i didn't say they can't be made. they have a right to be made, i have a right to judge them, along with everyone else.
Early access is the dumbest shit ever but it's because people are ignorant it can legitimately make a game gold but this only happens when the devs are not shitlords and people don't buy it and then go "SCREW YOU THIS GAME ISN'T FINISHED!!!! REFUND!!!!" OR people don't research an early access game and buy an obvious scam. All you have to do is release an unfinished piece of shit and call it a game and you get free money. Early access should have 5 options. 1. Member restriction, AKA, only 1000 people can buy the game once its just started. 1 month into it if it gets very good reviews, 5000, then 10,000 etc. This way they get funds but not insane amounts. IT will be checked to see if its actually being updated, if not, revoked. The system works by user reviews. 2. Delayed payment. The game will have a delay in funds, where, if it does not reach X goals in X time, the game will be denied. 3. Free access for an eventually non free to play game. But if you play beta long enough you get free. This will be combined with member restriction but controlled by the devs. and these two only for already established trusted early access games to reduce scamming and make it fair. 4. what Garry did with rust. Every X time the amount is reset to 100$ and counts down to free, but will have a limited number of payments allowed per reset. Literally the users pay what they want in a fair way. 5. Limited pay what you want. The devs can't decide what you get for what you pay, but, you can pay 0$ to 20$ for the game. Devs can decide minimum down to 1$ but cannot go beyond 20$ additionally, educating people better on "What is early access" is [B]vital[/B]
[QUOTE=Wii60;44884128]all i said is that pretentious art games are stupid and are possibly a problem, i didn't say they can't be made. they have a right to be made, i have a right to judge them, along with everyone else.[/QUOTE] Excuse me but how exactly? I mean I see this all the time but how does stuff like Stanley Parable, Gone Home and Dear Esther affect anything in the industry at all? I mean do the developers go to people who have mechanically focused games' houses and trash their PCs?? I'm seriously asking because this leap of logic absolutely baffles me. [editline]23rd May 2014[/editline] It's like saying lemons being grown affects the growth of oranges
[QUOTE=J!NX;44884140]Early access is the dumbest shit ever but it's because people are ignorant it can legitimately make a game gold but this only happens when the devs are not shitlords and people don't buy it and then go "SCREW YOU THIS GAME ISN'T FINISHED!!!! REFUND!!!!" OR people don't research an early access game and buy an obvious scam. All you have to do is release an unfinished piece of shit and call it a game and you get free money. Early access should have 5 options. 1. Member restriction, AKA, only 1000 people can buy the game once its just started. 1 year into it if it gets good reviews, 5000, then 10,000 etc. This way they get funds but not insane amounts. IT will be checked to see if its actually being updated, if not, revoked. 2. Delayed payment. The game will have a delay in funds, where, if it does not reach X goals in X time, the game will be denied. 3. Free access for an eventually non free to play game. But if you play beta long enough you get free. This will be combined with member restriction but controlled by the devs. 4. what Garry did with rust. Every X time the amount is reset to 100$ and counts down to free, but will have a limited number of payments allowed per reset. Literally the users pay what they want in a fair way. 5. Limited pay what you want. The devs can't decide what you get for what you pay, but, you can pay 0$ to 20$ for the game. Devs can decide minimum down to 1$ but cannot go beyond 20$[/QUOTE] Exactly. There are plenty of great Early Access games, like Starbound, but absolutely no accountability for the shit developers.
99% of indie games suck. Indie games aren't any different than triple A games, because like triple A games, the market will only support of few. You know like how the market will only support Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and Mario? It's just like how the market will only support Minecraft, Gone Home, and Day Z. The successful indie games are really just triple A games that offer a different experiences than the mainstream games, experiences that EA and Ubisoft are too afraid to make. The rest of the indie games are just some 2D games with ~retro~ graphics and [I]innovative[/I], procedurally generated levels.
[QUOTE=mchapra;44884148]Excuse me but how exactly? I mean I see this all the time but how does stuff like Stanley Parable, Gone Home and Dear Esther affect anything in the industry at all? I mean do the developers go to people who have mechanically focused games' houses and trash their PCs?? I'm seriously asking because this leap of logic absolutely baffles me. [editline]23rd May 2014[/editline] It's like saying lemons being grown affects the growth of oranges[/QUOTE] i am sorry if im not explaining my reasons/mentality towards this properly (i don't usually get into debates for that reason alone) i just don't like games that prioritize story over gameplay. To me it feels like a cheap way to make money since gaming is still in it's early stages of a artform (all you gotta do is make a level to walk in, throw some story all over it, and complete). I wish that more developers learned to balance the two to make really cool games. a recent example of a balanced story/gameplay game is Transistor, The gameplay is really cool with this sorta turn based-esque combat and skills. The story and background plot is really well done too with each power having it's own backstory and everything. It properly balances gameplay with story. if the industry keeps getting rewarded for making walking story simulators instead of a balanced gameplay/story experience, guess what its going to keep making.
[QUOTE=J!NX;44884140]Early access is the dumbest shit ever but it's because people are ignorant it can legitimately make a game gold but this only happens when the devs are not shitlords and people don't buy it and then go "SCREW YOU THIS GAME ISN'T FINISHED!!!! REFUND!!!!" OR people don't research an early access game and buy an obvious scam. All you have to do is release an unfinished piece of shit and call it a game and you get free money. Early access should have 5 options. 1. Member restriction, AKA, only 1000 people can buy the game once its just started. 1 month into it if it gets very good reviews, 5000, then 10,000 etc. This way they get funds but not insane amounts. IT will be checked to see if its actually being updated, if not, revoked. The system works by user reviews. 2. Delayed payment. The game will have a delay in funds, where, if it does not reach X goals in X time, the game will be denied. 3. Free access for an eventually non free to play game. But if you play beta long enough you get free. This will be combined with member restriction but controlled by the devs. and these two only for already established trusted early access games to reduce scamming and make it fair. 4. what Garry did with rust. Every X time the amount is reset to 100$ and counts down to free, but will have a limited number of payments allowed per reset. Literally the users pay what they want in a fair way. 5. Limited pay what you want. The devs can't decide what you get for what you pay, but, you can pay 0$ to 20$ for the game. Devs can decide minimum down to 1$ but cannot go beyond 20$ additionally, educating people better on "What is early access" is [B]vital[/B][/QUOTE] I like these. Early Access should really just have higher standards than they do now.
I think it is more the fact that a lot of them just fucking sucked dick but pretended not to
The issue is quantity over quality has started to happen, there's many people with no real artistic talent, they don't treat game development as a passion and pump out any old garbage to make money and it's flooding the market..
[QUOTE=Killergam;44886654]The issue is quantity over quality has started to happen, there's many people with no real artistic talent, they don't treat game development as a passion and pump out any old garbage to make money and it's flooding the market..[/QUOTE] It doesn't help that steam basically allows any old publisher to dump their entire back catalog onto steam. [editline]23rd May 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=A_Pigeon;44885667]I think it is more the fact that a lot of them just fucking sucked dick but pretended not to[/QUOTE] Desperation Genres. ugh [editline]23rd May 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Wii60;44884128]all i said is that pretentious art games are stupid and are possibly a problem, i didn't say they can't be made. they have a right to be made, i have a right to judge them, along with everyone else.[/QUOTE] That sounds a weee bit contradictory.
[QUOTE=KennyAwsum;44886664]It doesn't help that steam basically allows any old publisher to dump their entire back catalog onto steam.[/QUOTE] This is the bigger problem than having too many indie games, if you look on the new release list on steam the majority of it isn't indie games but shitty ipad ports or 5 to 10 year old games no one cares about.
It's ironic that in Valve's attempt to support smaller developers they are well on the way to ruining them.
[QUOTE=Rufia;44886895]It's ironic that in Valve's attempt to support smaller developers they are well on the way to ruining them.[/QUOTE] Yes, Introducing diversity in a market and making a shitload of money is "ruining" them.
[QUOTE=mchapra;44886957]Yes, Introducing diversity in a market and making a shitload of money is "ruining" them.[/QUOTE] Not Valve, the smaller developers - it's becoming increasingly difficult to get noticed on the store and even if you are people are a lot less trusting of indie titles than they used to be. No Valve are doing fine out of it, the only problem this causes for them is a slightly damaged reputation.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.