Hacker News Reader

Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

Aside from Andy Weir (who got picked up by a publisher and properly edited), the self-published books I've read have been remarkably awful, including some stuff that was widely recommended.

The fundamental truth of creative work is that if you make something genuinely great, you'll probably have a smooth path to success. I see a lot of anxiety among indie game developers about the sheer quantity of games being released, and yes bluntly, if you make a merely average game nobody will care. Make something great.

View on HN

> if you make something genuinely great

Hindsight Bias is blinding here. Judge whether something is "genuinely great" before you know its success or failure, and then we'll see if that's a true statement.

Indie games are interesting because you'd think given the nature of their development they'd do more interesting things, but stunningly they've mostly stayed within a few codified genres (roguelike/ deckbuilder/platformer galore). There aren't many successors to the giants of the old like Terrarria or Dwarf Fortress.

I'd have to chalk it up to a lack of vision (I don't genuinely believe someone grows up wanting to make a roguelike deckbuilder), but then that begs the question of why are they in game dev in the first place.

You don't think it's because the audience is already familiar with those types of games? It's like asking why studios are all producing super hero movies instead of avant guard indie films.

Indie means low budget (although even that is getting perverted), not hobby like development done as a labour of love.

The latter are few and far between, but they have always been.

Can a game historian count the Doom clones that showed up after Doom? Does anyone remember any of them with the exception of Hexen and Rise of the Triad?

> The fundamental truth of creative work is that if you make something genuinely great, you'll probably have a smooth path to success. I see a lot of anxiety among indie game developers about the sheer quantity of games being released, and yes bluntly, if you make a merely average game nobody will care. Make something great.

Not necessarily, I've seen plenty of good or great works go unnoticed. In movies and gaming that's often a timing thing (releasing too near popular works, releasing at a bad time of year, releasing on a console that's on its last legs, etc), but for other types of works it can simply be a failure to market said work at all, or the subject not immediately catching people's attention.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com