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Comment by cousin_it | Hacker News Reader

His sense of what games are "cool" wasn't in tune with the public. That's the cardinal sin. Pixel art dungeon crawlers aren't cool. It's as if he was a musician and decided to release a glam metal album today. Low budget, poor marketing, uncooperative bureaucracy - nah dude, none of that matters, you're just too in love with glam metal and people aren't buying glam metal.

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It's as if he was a musician and decided to release a glam metal album today

There's still plenty of interest in glam metal. Steel Panther are doing well, and back in 2014/2015 when Mötley Crüe did their "final tour" they were one of the best selling acts during that period.

It might be better to say that "his sense of what niche to target, and how to target that niche, wasn't as well developed as it should be". In the same sense that you can make money selling glam-metal today, he probably can make money with a pixel-art dungeon crawler, if he can figure out how to target the specific group of people who are into that sort of thing.

That is called "targeting a niche" and makes sense if you can't compete against those big marketing budgets. Even the glam metal niche is still alive: hairmetalheaven.co.uk

But you need to make sure the niche is large enough to support your financial needs and that they want what you're making. Did he talk to his target audience or otherwise pre-qualify his niche? Also, did he promote his game or just rely on Steam? There is so much on Steam these days, what did he do to stand out?

>There is so much on Steam these days, what did he do to stand out?

Write a cautionary tale and get recognition even in auxiliary communities.

That's true, good point.

He did some promotion:

"Please note that I did all the marketing I could afford to do on my own and with a halved budget. I emailed 187 reviewers and news website. I tweeted out like mad and got about 50 retweets and >10K impressions on the launch tweet. Before release I even had a mention about the game on Rock Paper Shotgun's german website."

Nothing wrong with targeting a niche, IF the niche is willing to pay a hefty sum for their needs. In this case he sold 90 copies on Steam, I think that every pixel art dungeon crawler fanatic on Steam has a copy now.

It's not a hefty sum at all, though. £5 (or the dollar equivalent) is nothing for a game aimed at a niche. If it's good enough, those 90 people would probably have paid a lot more, maybe 2 or even 4 times as much. The real issue though, I think, is that niche markets require recurring payments. So, as others have said, you either release a lot of games (or sequels) targeting that niche, or you move to some kind of subscription model, but that's very difficult with an indie game.

Personally I really enjoy this particular niche but unfortunately this sad article is the first time I hear about the game. Instant buy and looking forward to getting home to play.

I love pixel art dungeon crawlers, but the competition is completely insane. I can't build something along the lines of Terraria or Starbound given a lifetime.

Glam metal isn't really a good analogy. I'd say it's more like building cathedrals. The market isn't what it used to be. They're still admirable and today's tools are better for them. But they're monumental work, even for the experienced, and you'd be insane to tackle that with 4 months of savings.

I want to make a game eventually, and I'm a risk taker, but even I would save up at least 3 years before I go indie.

> like building cathedrals

Cathedrals were AAA titles, took generations and the funds of a pope.

Pixel art indies are like Norwegian Stav Kirke, a cathedral made of wood. It’s concevable you could build one yourself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church

No, they're more like "home churches", which are what they sound like -- churches that meet in peoples' homes and put on their own services and activities with the budget they can scrape together.

The best indie titles hold their own on design and experience against AAA, albeit assembled less expensively.

Not every indie is a stave kirke, some are straw huts. Just as not every AAA is a cathedral, some are just 3 walls and a price list for future construction.

Maybe your example represents the game kit or game builder games.

> Pixel art dungeon crawlers aren't cool.

I bought at least 3 of them. My steam recommendations are full of them and many have big, happy communities. I think "aren't cool" is a bit of an overstatement. They're not AAA level cool, but few things are.

Actually a lot of games make good money with pixel art and with dungeon crawlers. combining both is actually a good combination. You shouldn't just play tripple A games, who btw cost hundreds of millions and hundreds of people to build and then try to give advise about Indie games.

PS: This is not a pixel art game.

Disagree. It's a niche, and the market size is bigger than 700 people. It's just that the 700+ people who would buy his game don't know about him yet. So ... marketing.

Definitely. Although I appreciate this article and him writing honestly about his process, in all seriousness the game is a pixel art dungeon crawler with Wolfenstein 3D -style graphics, how do you expect that to sell ?

The games market is so saturated with actual good, polished content, everybody knows this, making an indie game you need to really stand out from the crowd from the view of game mechanics in a spectacular way, or you need really good graphics and sound, and still you are not guaranteed even to make your own investment back.

Been working at a big mobile game company myself and seeing this shit first hand, you make like 50 games and maybe 1 or 2 were like good or really good, not even great. It's a brutal business, and oversaturated like heck, how are you going to stand out with this kind of game ?

The pixel art thing is quite trendy if the game is also good. Good Night Knight has been getting a lot of hype recently: http://knightdev.tumblr.com/

That game looks like it has some character, unlike the OP's game.

It definitely has. Watch this gif: https://gfycat.com/firsthandwellworndotterel

Yeah, it's the kind of thing I might have been interested in 20 years ago. Now I looked at it as a result of this thread and thought "that's cool!".

But do I want to play it in competition with so many other things I could play? Not really. Sorry :( I'm sure it's very well done and I might enjoy it, but there is no reason to move it to the top of my large to-do list...

>Yeah, it's the kind of thing I might have been interested in 20 years ago. Now I looked at it as a result of this thread and thought "that's cool!".

That also means you're now 20 years older, and perhaps not in the target demographics for games in general.

The demographics of gamers may be broader than you think - "older" gamers are a significant segment of the market.

This is probably true. I don't have so much time or interest any more, but I am in a position to just buy a game without thinking of the cost now if it interests me at all whereas I was not 20 years ago.

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