I took my time and read the whole thing, it's a sad but true situation. But the guy forgot that there are more gamers than ever so "X" is actually growing, slower than the game industry maybe, but growing. Anyway some developers will drown in the games flood.
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you know... both of you, that was a sarcastic statement, of course i forget, again, that no one can see my eyebrow raised when they read my comment.
anyway, of course PC gaming is not dying, but people being saying that since the 90s.
same for indie games, yes individual debs starve, but as a whole the indie market is raising, spceially with the AAA games being terrible disasters (not in sales, yet)
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Popping or stabilizing? If it was popping it means that there will be a sharp decline in indie games after a pop occurs, however I really doubt that would happen. Not every game deserves to make a million dollars, especially when the cost to enter the PC indie game market is so low. What's wrong with making a stable living? You only need a few hundred dollars if even that and some creativity along with coding and design graphic skills to make a simple indie game, which can make ten thousand or more in a couple of months.
Furthermore unlike before there are also tons of tools, tutorials, game engines and assets available for free or next to free. There are always easier methods to sell the games. No need to create your own distribution channel you got steam, desura, gog, etc. You also get a ton of free publicity via social media, link sharing sites like reddit and youtube channels. This did not exist to such an extent a decade ago.
A long time ago it would cost you thousands of dollars to get a basic logo designed on a computer, now you can get one for cheap or make it for free yourself. I'm not saying quality hasn't decreased or increased, all I am saying is that the cost has. As the cost decreases so does the profit margin. Quality products will still make tons of money.
Therefore I believe we will continue seeing many indie games developed, yes we will get a lot of crap but we will also see more creative games with new concepts. Also as tools improve in the next decade we will see more indie games reaching the complexity of current AAA titles that cost millions of dollar to develop. Not to mention that artificial intelligent software might be around the corner, which could really simplify design and coding.
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Yes, simple games are cheap. But once you get to more complex and deeper games the man-years start raking up and those can range from 10k to 100k depending on location. Professional, medium budget indie games might drop substantially. There will always be cheap hobby projects, but how many of them are worth playing really?
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No disrespect to Mr Vogel, but he also said the only way he could sell his games was with a hefty price tag. He always rejected any argument against going for a cheaper price point, unsustainable according to him. Then bundles came around, made millions, he finally accepted the truth and raked in his fair share of cash.
I'm sure he's sincere in his thinking, I'm not saying he's trying to lead struggling devs to leave and new entrants to just give up before even trying - I just don't think he's proven to be the person who can interpret the trends and see beyond the present day.
I am not that person either, so this is just my opinion, FWIW: Indie has proven indie is not neither niche nor a fad, there is a different way to make games, and probably new ones will come up in the future.
The current players in the market may not have it as easy as the early birds (but I wouldn't dare say it was EVER easy), but indie is here to stay. Many indies probably will stop being indies to found or join bigger studios, others will leave the firms they work at now and go solo, etc. Things will evolve, that's life.
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"I'm not saying he's trying to lead struggling devs to leave and new entrants to just give up before even trying - I just don't think he's proven to be the person who can interpret the trends and see beyond the present day."
I believe that is exactly what he says what has to (will) happen. Many indie devs will dissapear from the market because they cannot sustain themselves because Y > X (in his words).
Why would u say he is not a person who can interpret the trends? If not a person with 20 yrs of experience in the "indie scene" can do that who can. He also seemed tto me very sincere in his arguments because he states that he was part of the whole process:
"And hey, I’m not blameless in this. My games have been in a million sales and bundles. It’s what you have to do now, and I’m just as fault as everyone else."
At least he says at the end that he hopes he is wrong but for now his theory seems to fullfill itself...
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I think it should be noted that publisher involvement has contributed just as much (if not more) to the overwhelming amount of titles added to Steam. If you just combine Kiss, 1C and Strategy First you already have 70+ titles added to Steam this year. Many of these are simply the publishers getting back catalog titles on Steam. Steam is becoming more and more important every day to the PC market, so it makes sense that companies are going to do this. Even if I might not be a fan of some of the titles I think it's great for the community. But compared to a lot of Steam users I'm an old fogey, so I'm more likely to appreciate some of these older titles.
I will say I'm not so much a big fan of the glut of early access titles on the store now though. There is a fairly large segment of the gaming population that isn't into the idea of buying early access in the first place. So all these early access titles have to divy the potential remaining customers. That's why we're now more commonly seeing early access games end up bundling. They need to people to be part of that early access, and they simply can't get them. There are quite a few very warmly received early access titles that have practically no one playing them, and that could really hurt their final product.
It didn't help the indie community (including a lot of these early access titles) that Steam decided to not repeat the Spring Indie Sale this year. That was a huge blow to the indie community. Guess Steam thought that the DIY sales were enough. Even though they don't really promote them much, and the restrictions on them are pretty tight. Plus a lot of developers don't even know the system even exists.
His bundle comment is a bit off though. The general idea of bundling isn't really an issue. Even the amount of them isn't really the problem. The trend of lowering the price per key in bundles is alarming though, since that is what makes it unsustainable. We're not so slowly moving towards a point where 10-20 cents a key is considered standard. And that is more the customer's price. So the amount actually going to devs is lower than that. That's not sustainable. Especially since the promotion aspect of bundling (apart from Humble) is vastly exaggerated. And even if it was somehow sustainable, then the overall quality going out to the customers is going to go down the toilet very quickly. We're actually at the point right now where bundles that cost $4-6 are getting criticized regularly for being too expensive. That is simply sad. But those lower price points set up unrealistic customer expectations for others, which is hurting the long term viability of the bundle market.
Honestly I felt bad about the price per key with running a 15 game bundle for $5, and that was entirely focused on previously bundled games. That's high compared to what is going on now. If it wasn't for our big project coming we might actually be in trouble with the way the non-Humble bundle market is trending. Because I just don't see us changing our approach to adapt to this trend. It's simply going too far.
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The trend of lowering the price per key in bundles is alarming though
What trend? The price is definitely low, but it's been a problem with bundles since the beginning. The Humble Bundle debuted as "pay what you want". Millions of people paid $0.01 for a bunch of games -- and they got Steam keys for them.
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There is a reason why I said the non-Humble market. Humble is an anomaly, and always will be. Even when people could buy 1 cent bundles (massive exaggeration on your figure by the way) the average price per key was still high, since many paid more. They also sell 10x more and the participants gain real promotion. None of that can be compared to the rest of the bundle market.
There is a trend of the actual paid price per key from multiple bundles going through a decline. It's not even sustainable at the lower prices we're seeing currently, and there's still a chance it's going to go lower.
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Yeah, slight exaggeration. :)
Still, regarding prices. Be Mine and Be Mine 2 had 6 games for $1, and that was 2 years ago. Indie Gala 1 also had 6 games, even before that. Indie Gala also had happy hours, and you could potentially get four bundles for a dollar (if you already bought something, so lets say 3 copies on average, total of 18 keys for $1). Indie Gala 5 (2 years ago) had 8 games (counting the Ironclads collection as separate games).
Again, I'm not sure how you can claim that things have gotten worse.
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I can because I'm not looking at a few bundles from 2 years ago that was also impacted by it still being a relatively new phenomenon. Overpayments was much more common back then, since it was still a new thing and there weren't as many bundles for people to buy. And IG's happy hour didn't impact the PPK paid as much at that point, since the group market for that has massively expanded over the years. Plus the impact of resellers with that situation has dramatically increased as well. And they've introduced more gimmicks over time that have impacted it further.
The bottom line is that the average price paid is going down. That's hurting the potential for the future quality of the non-Humble market. It's why we see more repeats and crossbundling now than ever, and this is going to get worse. It's not because there aren't enough games. There are tons of games (old and new) that simply won't get involved with the non-Humble market, and that group is increasing because of the progression. Unfortunately that group is where a lot of the quality titles are.
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I'm not looking at a few bundles from 2 years ago either, these were examples and I'm not sure why you thought otherwise. Looking at all the Groupees bundles I bought (33 currently), most games were under 20 cents. Looks clear to me that you're trying to force your point of view on reality, such as how you convince yourself that happy hour doesn't affect PPK by talking about the market. As that comment clearly indicates, you yourself feel that it's the size of the bundle market which makes the situation bad, not the actual PPK.
As for repeats, they certainly indicate that many developers and publishers feel that bundles are beneficial to their bottom line. Repeats are typically higher profile games, which bundles need to help sell the lower profile ones, or up the average price paid. And sure, not all developers and publishers have warmed up to the bundle market, but there are more bundled games today than ever before. They are also spread a lot thinner than before, because of the sheer number of bundles, but again, that's not a problem with the PPK.
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The amount of games impacts PPK, but that's not everything. It's more about the average price paid for those games. Since the average price paid is trending down then it's affecting that PPK, and then that obviously affects what goes to the developers. The number of bundles definitely affects that, since most customers have a limited supply of funds. They might have overpaid for a bundle a couple years ago, but not as likely to now since they want to buy 3 other bundles (and sometimes by the same bundler). But the amount isn't everything. Some of the bundles are just set up to encourage lower price paid with utilizing sometimes multiple gimmicks. And often these gimmicks become central how the bundle is perceived.
There are more bundled games because there are more indie Steam games. There will be a pretty healthy supply of indie games for bundles (unless Greenlight changes dramatically), but the higher quality games are becoming more resistant. It's not about some developers or publishers warming up to the bundle market. It's that they already were, and now they're starting to distance themselves from it. When it starts to fall below 20 cents per key going to the developers (and we've seen below 10 recently) then it really becomes an issue.
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The problem I have with the 5-6 dollar market of bundles isn't that its 5 -6 dollars for a bundle, its that usually I have most of the games in those bundles already, with the exception of maybe 3.
I have gotten most of the blink bundles (you help run those right?) but this last one I almost didn't because I had already purchased 5, I think, of the games in it. I wish bundles would go the way of the Groupees build a bundles, I am perfectly happy paying the 50 cents or even a dollar for each game in a bundle, as long as I don't already have any of those games. I personally calculate the price per game I DON'T ALREADY OWN, and that usually equates to 70 cents to a dollar/game, alot more than the mentioned 20 cents for each game. I'm also not a big fan of hidden games or bonus games getting added to bundles because I feel like all of those will be things I have already purchased elsewhere, and generally they are. Since I like to wait until they have all been revealed (unless the price per game is within reson for me from the get go,) I often forget to even check back and lose out on buying it later.
P.S. I think I have bought Escape Goat 5 times now...
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I'm the coordinator of Blink Bundle. Every bundle probably has their own reason for not doing a build type bundle. Some might do it because it puts pressure on them not to just toss in some filler owned by nearly everyone. But I personally don't see Blink going in that direction simply because I enjoy putting a lot of effort into trying to revive fun older titles a bit that have, for one reason or another, been overlooked. A build style doesn't really go in line with that. Collectors would enjoy it, but you can't solely rely on the desires of collectors.
Unlocks and bonus games (and I feel like a broken record with this) are an unfortunate necessity with specific bundles. Some really important sites to bundling (i.e. Reddit) don't allow you to re-promote unless you are changing something. And it gets Twitter, Facebook and all the other sites talking about it again. It might be different if we ran multiple bundles or a store, since we could re-promote through the posts related to those (though to be fair a couple of the bundles that have those still do unlocks). If we had a bundler cut that was more in line with others (BB is only 15%) then maybe we could put more into advertising. In a perfect world it wouldn't make a difference if we had everything unlocked, but it isn't a perfect world. So it's either frequent price drops or unlock titles. Since we care about the PPK going to developers then the unlocks are answer.
That said, we're actually changing our approach with how we bundle in the near future. And with the changes we should be able to remove unlocks.
And usually we won't include a game that has been bundled 5 times, but Escape Goat was still not widely owned compared to many games that had been bundled even once or twice. So we made an exception. We can't overlook quality titles because of really fanatical bundle buyers that pick up every Greenlight or offshoot bundle, since we'd be excluding deserving devs.
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you make a lot of sense and I don't pretend to know anything about how to promote anything or how the whole bundle scene works in the backroom. and I salute you guys for giving a great cut to the devs. Like I said I have bought all but the trading card blink bundles because I thought they were all great. Do what you need to do is all I say, my reply was simply musing my own thoughts out loud. I wish I could offer more to each dev out there, and what I was getting at with the build bundles, was that it would give me the opportunity to give more to the devs that have not gotten any money from me already, rather than limiting it to some absurdly low amount of cents because it has to be split between games that I have already, if I had all the money in the world I would happily give as much as I could.
I Also feel like getting keys for games that I already have hurts their potential future sales in some small fashion since I end up giving those keys to my friends or family since I have no use for them, I mean those people could just buy the game in one of the bundles too, and it would equate to the same amount of money, but some of them may actually buy those games from regular retail channels and spend maybe 100x as much on that same game. It also might hinder the sales of that specific bundle in the short term if that person only wants that specific game from that bundle. I also know that there are groups on steam that do just this and split a single bundle with others so that they only buy one bundle and get what they want for a cheaper price, its sort of the same concept.
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But then the reverse is quality games getting overlooked unfairly. That's one of the great things about bundling is that you can end up getting some hidden gems that you wouldn't have thought about getting in the first place. Especially if a bundler puts some effort into getting some more bundle resistant developers on board, rather than just tossing in filler that has been in 2-3 other decent selling bundles in the past 3 months.
We have a lot of different ideas for types of bundles we may initiate, but I can safely say that build a bundles are one we won't touch. We'd much rather move in a direction where we get to a point that every game in the bundle is something highly desired.
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The end of Indie gaming is nigh.
Death and taxes to follow...
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Very good read and quite possible a true analysis of the indie situation. I was around when home computers died. I was around when Sega produced its last console. I came back to PC gaming through Steam and I take full advantage of sales and bundles. There will be AAA games... always. There will be indie games (guess what in the 90s they were called shareware ;)), but maybe not on Steam. I quite like to see original ideas in games, but a lot of indie games become same-ish, leaving a bad aftertaste of plagiatism in your mouth. The market is oversaturated for sure and still there are great ideas born every week/month. I also think that indie games have influenced big publishers to think harder about creating more interesting games (with varying results though). Overall I also think the bubble will pop, but there will be survivors and they'll be better off afterwards. Hopefully that will mean great games with a decent price for us.
tl;dr: Yep, the bubble will burst soon, but really good indie developers will continue to give us great games.
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If you pop on over to Moby's database, you'll find that the high point of game releases was 2008, with 3600 releases. Then, every year thereafter, there's been less, down to just under 2000 last year. Or more than 1500 titles down. The "glut" of indies is not actually a glut of new games, but a situation where people have become much more aware of the indie titles that are out there. The indies are now featured on Greenlight, have there own dedicated sales at major online retailers, have bundles, and have Kickstarter. Where before, the indies were only on their own sites or indie collection sites, where they could be safely ignored by everyone.
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Yeah, there's too many games. My library has stuff in it that I didn't even touch once, because they were part of bundles, while I was interested in only one or two games in the bundle. And I have other stuff that I didn't even activate yet, just because of "eh, it's just 1$ so why not get it."
And then there's the shitty Indie games that flood Steam. Tons of them. Games of a level of quality that used to be released as freeware in the past, made by some guy in his spare time just for fun. Now they're trying to sell these. Something similar happened in 1983, and the video game marked crashed and remained dead for years.
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I think this is the right place to share this interesting blog post about the (indie) game industry:
The Indie Bubble Is Popping.
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