During peak Covid, Vampire Survivors blew up as the hot game. It is a pedestrian dual stick shooter. There are hundreds of examples which do the same thing, possibly better.
Getting a hit game requires decent fundamentals and a heap of luck.
Getting a hit game requires decent fundamentals and a heap of luck.
But the dev nonetheless thought it was a great and underserved idea. So he cleaned up the concept, got rid of the ads and other mobile crap, brought it to PC, and made $millions. His idea was then widely cloned, but games are much closer to art than commodities - so one can't expect clones to do as well as the 'original work' when they're being sold in the exact same gallery. That said, some of the clones also did extremely well when they meaningfully iterated upon the concept instead of just outright mimicking it. For instance Halls of Torment is another great game in the genre.