As far as I can see, and read, Unity was the turning point back in 2006 that really catalysed the indie scene, ever since then the games market has become more and more flooded with indie and pro games on all platforms.
Now with the U4 and CryEngine prices, I assume trying to make a living out of games is pretty much not going to happen, well it will for a few, but generally there are so many people doing it that the vast majority will never make anything. There will be a lot of hopefulls but in reality only a few will survive, including the big companies like Epic, CryTek, Valve.
Don’t think so.
It’s easier to make prototypes now and easier to make games overall, but for good game you need learn A LOT, what, majority of people won’t do. Gamedev now is pretty popular thing - thanks to Notch and other successful indies! Some people want to make game of their dream(which is good), and some people want to make $ ONLY(which is bad).
Probably market will be taken over bad casual games, unfinished projects and etc, but imo it will help good projects to shine!
If you make good cake - there are always people who want a piece of
I think the market has always had the natural capacity to self-filter and self-segment to a certain degree.
Gaming is as big as ever.
I really doubt, with the insane demand of games from the insatiable mass of gamers, that ultimately only a handful of developers will survive.
Game development has always been a pretty intimidating field. The risk of never making something that’s noticed has always been there. I’d say with the recent explosion of the indie phenomenon right now you have way more chances of getting noticed than you did 10 years ago - IF - your game is good.
We’ve seen a recent shift towards a stable meritocracy in the last few years, with fresh ideas executed decently having a high likelihood of growing fast.
The key word is fresh. A game that fits the regular shooter formula without doing anything new and well will get nowhere.
It’s pretty fantastic considering the last generation of games stagnated to extreme levels.
Additionally, VR might be the future, so I’d try to get familiarized with the concept early. If it gets big it’s Really going to shake things up.
I don’t recall playing any indie game, maybe cause they tend to be boring to me I don’t know. All those flooding games you mentioned only takes us back to the old graphics/gameplay of 5-10 years ago.
Sure, there will be more low-quality games by people without enough experience, but the people that are skilled now have the opportunity to use really great tools and good games will always do better.
99.9999999999999999999999% of indie developers will never make a game that interests the games market place, they’ll still be here on the forums in ten years time dreaming about some other “hair brained scheme” for making a game.
Of the 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 % who actually do make a successful commercial game, they’ll change the industry for the better.
Aim at a realistic position in the industry, (ie Freelance modelling or rigging) otherwise you’ll just end up working in your local mall or McDonalds
I had all those illusions in the beginning, but now I make a good living working freelance and can have a good life
Will the game market become saturated with crappy, half attempted wannabe productions… possibly…
Will the game market become saturated with high quality, well designed and executed games… no.
Most of the people will download UE4, start a thread about a big MMO or FPS, try get a team of 20 members, and then quit after a few months.
I’m seeing so many FPS and Survival game startups, from developers who haven’t even finished a Pong clone yet.
As LexLuthor says above, he is bang on the money. For every developer that signs up, less than 1% will actually complete a game and release it to market.
So if you’re one of those developers that can complete a game, your future is still bright
As has been said, there will always be those who want to make a copy of something thats on the market (generally zombie or CoD clone) that will eventually give up after a while. But there are also those who want to make something unique, not only gameplay wise but visually. There’s this stereotype around the indie industry that it’s always going to use last gen graphics. That isn’t necessarily the case for all of them. It all comes down to the people working on the game, and their vision. Look at recent examples we’ve seen, Dead Crusade and Nelo. Those two are indie games, and are visually phenomenal. Both have very interesting gameplay. It’s up to the individuals working on the indie title to define their success. You only get out of it what you put into it. One thing I’ve seen is people tend to give up too easily. Nothing comes easy in life, and if you’re going to quit at the first sign of trouble then what is the point? Someone else also mentioned that many come here just to make a quick buck. This will not get you far. You have to love what you’re doing, it has to be a passion because there will be a time that you won’t get paid at all and your success is dependent on the long hours you put into it. If you have the determination to see it through, then you have nothing to worry about. The few that survive are typically the ones who put their heart into their work. And make no mistake, no one obtains success without a getting scratches or bruises along the way.
In my personal experience its hardest to get your game out to the World. Without a decent budget it makes your game even being know to many very troublesome. I believe advertising your game is much harder than making it, unless you have the funds.
I really liked this post. I agree with it (though the percentage may be slightly off haha) and it comforts me since I often wonder if going all in to make a game instead of pursuing a “realistic position” would be better. Game artists with stable jobs often make games in their spare time too, which is what I plan to do eventually.
I also agree with the guy that mentioned VR. I believe that this time, unlike the 90s, that it will really take off. I bought myself a dev kit recently and have been learning it to get in early like you said. I think that’s a smart move.
The world is a saturated place, but people still create amazing things. For instance I have seen people create the stupidest things where its flooded already but still get noticed due too the fact it was different. "you can make toilet paper to be " In this stage of time in the world anything is doable now, but everything takes hard work and long hours too.
With you doubting the world you are just doubting yourself. Before you look at how many games are out there you should of already started making your own game. Are you doing it for the money or because you like it? I find that most people who do not have a passion in what they do tend to fail.
All these big company’s started small, and grew big from just building and putting long hours and hardwork into something they love doing.
I don’t think it will make one bit of difference, UDK and Unity have been around for ages. Just because UE4 is newer and shinier, it doesn’t mean people never had the tools to build games before. Making games is still very hard (or time consuming, depends on your train of thought), there will only be a small amount of people who survive the process to completion and even less that will get to the marketing phase and be successful.
Actually the SDK for GoldSRC from Valve was the turning point back when HL1 was contemporary, followed by QERadient.
It was a Mod scene but it was extremely over saturated although very few of those projects ever saw completion many of those that did ended up becoming fairly major franchises like Counter Strike and Day of Defeat.
People have had inexpensive and free tools to create a complete games for ages and now it is just much easier to achieve a lot more in less time with fewer people but most indie projects will never be finished and of those that are very few of them will be any good.
Saying that i think we will see many more indie games come out but we probably won’t see much more competition then we have in the past.
If anything gets or is already saturated its the mobile markets. So many games released each day and many are 5 minute time killers that just do not warrant the download time for me. Download, say WTF, and remove it.
