GOING COMMERCIAL, WHEN AND WHY?

author=unity
Good point! I may be selling my own interests and ideas short. There's certainly nothing wrong with testing the waters and see what works and what sells ^_^

Haha, well, that might just be my naïveté talking ;^^ But, if you think about it, in our relatively small community we have, like, what, a half-dozen game makers who love making classic 2D rpgs about yuri? I can only imagine that somewhere out there's an audience dying for more games like that :D

Hahahaha, I thought you know them all already :P well, I s'pose Bossgame might count too, but maybe not until it's actually for-real announced, eh?


Really though, look at Train Simulator! That's like, super-niche! How many people are so into trains that they're willing to spend $30-60 on a hyperrealistic train simulation program? Apparently enough, because they keep making more and more of it :P

I think the scariest thing about going commercial for me would be polishing and supporting the game. When people spend money on something, they expect a certain level of "quality" - not necessarily polish (although sometimes that too) but like, they expect there to be very few bugs, and when things go wrong they're a lot likely to demand things of you. Which is fair, I guess! But right now I don't know if I have the time necessary to commit to all that.

author=El_WaKa
Thanks to everybody, I'm not going commercial (Because my games suck) and right now I want to focus on learning more about the programs (not only RM, maybe a bit of Game Maker or Flash, and in the future learn a programming language) and making better games

That's the way to go. If you don't have confidence in yourself, people aren't going to buy your games. Of course, having confidence in yourself is the key to develop a game regardless of being commercial, but you know what I mean.

I feel like whether a game is commercial or not is a choice you need to make fairly early in development, as it definitely affects your plans and resources available to you. This is especially true if you can't roll your own tech and have to buy it (Art assets, music, etc.). Especially scripts, as many scriptwriters require a license to be purchased to use in a commercial product. Hell, some asset creators flat out FORBID you from using their content in a commercial product, which sets off all sorts of red flags, but that's off topic. If you happen to integrate such assets into your project and THEN decide to go commercial, you're in trouble, especially if you're almost done.

In any case, I'd say start off by building your fanbase and resume with free games. Potential players will get to know you, see that you develop good games and complete them, and they'll be a lot more willing to support your commercial endeavors. Only after you have a few games under your belt should you consider going commercial.

author=slash

author=TFT
hyper light drifter is visually stimulating to children who just figured out how to open mspaint.

I definitely dig the Hyper Light Drifter style. Dungeon of the Endless has a similar style and it looks great. It's consistent, fits the setting, and works great mechanically. I don't think it's one I'd pick myself, but it definitely works. Owl Boy looks great too, but damn, I can't imagine how much time all of that took ;-_-

For an experienced pixel artist, not as long as you'd think. It probably didn't take much more time than "Hyper Light" graphics. It sounds ridiculous, but when you see experienced pixel artists streaming their work, it's remarkable to watch the speed and efficiency. I haven't matched that yet, but am hoping one day that I will!

author=TFT
hyper light drifter is visually stimulating to children who just figured out how to open mspaint.

icnt tell the difference both bleed into each other like a perfectly layered tileset.

This style is very cute and endearing, you just can't help but cheer for it. It's like when you watch a child with crayons for the first time. You can tell they're going to be something great when they apply themselves one day. Ganbatte heart machine-kun!

I cast Scan:

Left image: Pixel Art level 5
Right image: Pixel Art level 50

Hmm. Hyper Life Drifter did a good job creating its color palette. My compliments about the graphics end there. But I guess that's the point - it could obviously improve a lot still, I don't think it's good enough for me, but it has successfully gone commercial, right? So the barrier to entry for going commercial is lower than the barrier to entry for being actually good.

I mean, I guess I knew that already; almost no AAA games are actually good. But they attract people to play them despite their problems.

I think that while AAA games need to be like 80% acceptable in almost all areas for people to consider them worth buying, indie games just need to be really good at one thing.

What slash said. Also AAA titles can sink or swim on their own terms, it doesn't really matter about production values. Remnants of Isolation did the whole player direction and storytelling thing tighter than most AAA games I've played. I recently played Dead Island Riptide and while it was fancy and had some nice crafting features, it was ultimately quite badly paced and lacked engagement. Whereas with Remnants I was transfixed the entire time and I consider it the better game.

Oftentimes indie games are like indie films. They're often low budget, but these constraints can often lead them to be more creative with their boundaries. Please don't tell me Transformers (100s of millions of dollars budget) is better than Whiplash (<10 million). It's not that being an indie game limits your roof of potential, it provides limitations so you can innovate and be better than the guys who do AAA.

Also we need to be careful not to be judging Hyper Light Drifter on its visuals when the game hasn't even come out... How can we know it's good or not if we haven't played it ourselves? From the gameplay videos I've seen it actually looks kind of solid gameplay wise too, but even then we have to reserve judgement. I'm not saying it's gonna be great, but I'm not saying it'll be terrible either, but I think it's healthy to say "it *looks* like it's gonna be this or that", because you never really actually know until you play it.

Indie games and/or games in general succeed when they have focus on things AAA games are too afraid to try. And this is why if an RPG maker game is actually a great game, why not sell it and maybe people will see RPG maker as a more legitimate maker. I'm not saying that releasing it for free is inferior. I'm just saying that selling is an option we shouldn't be prejudiced towards as if someone is "selling out". In summary, I find indie games often trump other games in terms of design and innovation, and I don't think it's a terrible thing for anyone to aim to sell it if it's good enough.