this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Nacon exec says industry's problem is "too many games" (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 10 months ago by nanoUFO to c/games
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[–] sugar_in_your_tea 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I play indies because they're more of a "blue ocean" market, in that they push the boundaries to create very different experiences to what the industry is doing. These indies tend to trickle their way to larger studios once they prove the concept. For example:

  • Minecraft - general idea of crafting being a core mechanic; now tons of games have crafting as a major mechanic
  • Factorio - automation-type puzzles; didn't quite make it to AAA AFAIK, but there's plenty of other studios now making automation games
  • Demon Souls/Dark Souls - FromSoftware was small-ish before those games, and now there's a whole genre
  • Slay the Spire - now there's a ton of deck-building games
  • Limbo - see Little Nightmares and plenty of others that have a very similar feel

And so on. Indies tend to push the boundaries (i.e. blue ocean), and larger studios fill in behind them.

[–] ZOSTED 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I see what you're saying, and agree with your clarification. Maybe a broad term like red ocean wasn't the best choice of words.

I was thinking more about how it's harder for individual (or tiny) contributors to stand out. This is just one metric, but look at steam games tagged as "indie" released over the years. Game developers went from having stand out among dozens of other games, to hundreds.

Like I'm part of a group of solo/tiny game devs outfits, and we're seeing first-hand how a game is almost dead in the water unless you spend serious time/money on marketing.

E: forgot link

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah, it's pretty rough for devs, but there are still plenty of stand-out indies. It just takes a lot more work to stand out.