Why Indie Developers Go Insane

Whatever is the reality about Flappy Bird, it is inconceivable for me that at the same time an IT world that is incredibly capitalist, interested in big earnings, VC moneys, and where success is measured in rounds and exits, at the same time, can't accept that: 1) A simple game can earn 50k and is deserved, if people like the game. 2) That there is no need to search at any cost some hidden reason to remove the game. 3) That one does not need to get insane and/or break to go away from money.

Read this, despite the title. It describes truths about public creation generally, and should be of particular interest to HNers who dream of going into indie game development.

I'm not a developer and I've never put something together like this, however, having spent some time in the far east in my teen years and early twenties I know what it can be like when you become 'famous' or rich overnight. You can get a lot of unwanted attention, that may even put your family in actual threat of harm and danger. That is not a nice feeling and makes it very hard to sleep at night and even think during the day.

I really feel for this guy. I don't know what it's like in Vietnam, but given it's part of the far east, I wouldn't be surprised if he's had death threats and similar. Fame and riches don't necessarily lead to a happier life in these places, you need power along with it too.

That said, it's entirely possible that it has nothing to do with the any threat of actual harm and danger from external forces but just the barrage of envy, criticism and perhaps unwarranted attention. That's a problem that can be fixed.

If there are any indie developers out there that ever find them in such a bind or position, I'm making this plain and simple offer to you all. Please feel free to reach out to me. I'll help you work through it. I've helped plenty others in similar situations, and ultimately it's all about just 'getting out of your own shell' for want of a better phrase - and I can help you do that.

Hope that helps if anyone is reading this. Contact details in my profile.

For anyone who this article interested, I highly recommend watching Indie Game: The Movie. To say the least, it was eye-opening for me, as someone who hasn't put much creative work in the public space in any very visible way.

It's incredibly humanizing to see these people who built indie games that I enjoy greatly go through the amount of stress that they do, all over pieces of software that most people rarely blink an eye at.

It's also completely understanding when people like Phil Fish or Don Nguyen quit the industry. It takes a certain mindset, and I don't think people who start making games for the fun of expressing themselves fully realize it at first.

Jeff is spot on in his blog post.

To make an analogy, Dong Nguyen essentially tapped into the modern-day equivalent of Pac-Man Fever. In the 80s, it swept the world, to the tune of billions of dollars. It was the highest-grossing arcade game ever produced. People simply loved the game, and they couldn't get enough of clearing boards of dots, power-pellets and ghosts.

Most people probably knew nothing about who made the game, with the small exception of the corporate names on the game (e.g., Namco/Midway). Certainly, I suspect only the hardcore few would be able to name the programmer of Pac-Man, Shigeo Funaki. And I suspect that no one blinked their eyes in disdain when they saw the news reports of Pac-Man's financial success.

In a similar way, Flappy Bird took very simple game-play, and combined it with a simple challenge. This is, of course, not the first game to do this, but it took off so successfully that I suspect that a very high percentage of gamers have it installed, and even some non-gamers could likely brand-identify the game, or have at least heard of it. The power of the Internet has made Nguyen's name known, and quite sadly in some circles, despised for his financial success.

No one bemoaned Pac-Man's programmer, or Namco/Midway's success, but fast-forward from the 80s to today, and you get gems like this article [1] and its intellectual lamenting with, "[...] I begrudge a society that would turn it into a phenomenon."

I suspect that the author would have said the same about Pac-Man.

Casual games like Flappy Bird do not prevent someone from playing, say, EVE Online, to their heart's content. And, what if you just happen to like both types of games? I guess you are a real outcast at that point; a non-intellectual. To put it another way, just because you intellectually eschew casual games and choose instead to rock, say, Steel Battalion with a full-on controller [2] doesn't mean that you are necessarily leading the upliftment of society.

Fortunately, there is a game in the world for every gamer.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/02/03/flappy-bir...

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Steel_Ba...

This might be niave of me, but couldn't he just accept his $50,000 a day and simply not read the hate he was getting? It's not like he has to go on the computer every day - he could just do something else for a couple of weeks (at the most) until it all dies down and be $mucho better off.

I spent longer than the three days he's supposed to have spent on my latest game[1] and I would love a response like he's got.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyappe...

After reading /r/gamedev on Flappy Bird I got quite disgusted by their community. I hope doesn't represent the whole game development community. They seriously compared Flappy Bird to more in-depth games and took its success as some kind of threat without even realizing that short and addictive entertainment does sell. You can't compare Flappy Birds to "bigger" games, it just doesn't make sense. Flappy Birds is an amazing game in its own right.

This article definitely rings true. As someone who has published a few apps in the past, not even games, 90% of feedback received was negative and completely nonconstructive. It takes a while to realise it is nothing to do with the quality of your work or in most cases at all related. Regardless due to the low volume of downloads I received I responded to every single email or comment requesting more constructive feedback and mostly never got a response. In some cases I actually managed to help users with the ways they were using the apps which gave me a good sense of satisfaction, but mostly it was a complete waste of time. In one instance I really regretted replying as it just encourages further abuse.

Looking back all I can say is I can sympathise with anyone who has this problem and would also like to note weirdly I've never had the same experience with web apps. I can only assume the demographic of usage and ease of commenting on and contacting developers of mobile apps/games affects the feedback and comments you get.

This makes me want to start a blog to share and mock all the irrational hatred I'll receive if I ever make a successful app.

I'm not sure if that'd actually be a good idea, but there are so many trolls out there getting a hardon from sending despicable threats from a position of anonimity and non-accountability, that I think exposing those creeps somehow would be a public service.

When you understand that the majority of people out there are followers, cannot be bothered to risk making anything on their own, are in constant search of leaders to tell them what to say and believe, and take the lowest-effort path to approval and attention (eg sensationalist simple-minded criticism), and that there are others out there who are aware of this and exploit it (eg bloggers), and that all this is the norm and has been, you'll be better prepared to deal with, or better, ignore the haters.

People are lazy and selfish and will do whatever it takes to satisfy both behaviors.

If they go insane or experience serious anxiety, it's because some of the players are nit-wit jerks who feel the need to disparage, insult and threaten the developers on forums and social media outlets, and sometimes in real life.

Seriously (in the case of the Nguyen [1]), threatening a game developer of a (arguably) very mundane and free game because the dev decided it's not worth his time nor is the game's popularity aligned with his moral imperatives? This type of shit GRINDS my gears.

[1] - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/at-height-of-popularit...

> One angry message has more effect than ten friendly ones.

This is something more people need to be aware of in general: these kind of messages are processed by two entirely different mental systems that do not cancel each other out, with the negative emotions having a much larger relative weight because they evolved out of the "avoiding things that kill you" mechanisms, which is kind of a big deal in evolutionary terms.

That's a shame the developer was doing quite good with "Flappy Birds" he should probably re-consider taking it off the genie is already out of the bottle and taking it off now would not change anything.

Fuck it dude it doesn't matter just ignore anything relating to it it will go away eventually.

Give it time the internet has a short attention span. They'll see something more shiny soon enough.

I don't get the "everyone is a critic these days" argument.

We are entitled to our own opinions. As long as the opinions are expressed in a non-insulting manner, we have the right to utter them. We don't need a PhD, we don't need somebody's permission, we don't need to be rich, tall, fat, etc.

Remain polite but don't refrain from saying what you think!

I claim that there is MUCH MORE to this Flappy Bird story then his feelings were hurt so bad he left $50,000 a day.

The on going rumor is he bought reviews and that he was found out. The hammer from Apple and Google was going to come down, but now he can save face and come out with a game a few months later with clean reviews.

Glad the programer was able to make $1,500,000 so far it seems. Maybe he just retired and is going to enjoy life, I hope this is the real answer.

I find it ironic that a guy with the surname vogel (the German and Dutch word for bird) writes about Flappy BIRD.

Dong an don nguyen are commen names So I bet the knife maker loves the extra hits.

> Nobody gets out of this world alive.

No kidding…

Yes because indie developers lead such horribly unique lives. Another pompous piece of shit Jeff Vogel calls his blog. Get off your ivory tower. People go nuts every day and every place.