Incorrect Assumptions
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- Опубліковано 13 лют 2024
- I want to correct some assumptions that people are making about my videos, based on their comments in the channel.
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"anything guarantees a good game"
-Tim Cain, 2/14/24
Haaaa, got him!
Lol
😋That's exactly what he said and meant. 🤣
He is a hero.. and he has to leave.
Unintentionally amazing thumbnail
Hi raycevick
hello Raycevick
I asked Tim in the ‘Receiving Criticism’ video if he’s aware of how his thumbnails are being selected bc they’re great.
@@raylder6339He has to. His insomnia video is proof enough for me.
Hey dude, it's nice that you try to clear up you points - but it's also worth remembering that you can't fix "stupid" and the internet is ripe with stupidity (and they are also the most vocal group).
All your stuff is awesome and really appreciated - all the people who almost never leave comments online really appreciate you!
I gotta say you really hit the nail on the head with regards to what people say they want versus what they actually want. Fallout 4 is a prime example. A lot of people complained about the leveling system but the trend Bethesda has going is to make games that will appeal to the widest audience possibly and enough people are okay with that so it ended up being a success with what I believe is an acceptable amount of backlash.
Saying that you can't fix stupid as a striking similarity to saying that you can't do a thing that can be done... But you don't know how and thus.. it can't be done..
I've never figured out a way to do it... But I'm pretty sure it can be done... But the more that we give up, the worse it's going to be.. both in how difficult that task can be, and how widespread it gets.
The more ideologically divided, about every stupid little thing.. sometimes even just about a back and forth exchange that you had right then and there.. The less people are going to listen, or even have the capacity to listen.. and I feel like that might be part of the first step, but I haven't done successful trials in a lab environment only a theoretical...
@@JackWseThere is a secret book (jk) which has the answer to that, here let me quote it for you:
"Do not answer the stupid one according to his foolishness, So that you do not put yourself on his level. Answer the stupid one according to his foolishness, So that he does not think he is wise."
“I am video games.”
- Tim Cain, 14 February 2024
Hi Tim, It's me, some of everyone. You're a sweet person to worry about all these little misunderstandings. But you know, some people deliberately misunderstand things so they can engage in recreational outrage. Others come with a chip on their shoulder about a topic, and nothing you ever say will change their mind (like the budget stuff). I don't gotta tell you though, You've got gamer feedback your whole life! You know how we are.
Hey, it’s me, some of everyone. I second this and want this comment to rise to the top hence why I’m replying 😊
*OMFG, HOW DARE YOU PURPOSELY MISASSUME THAT I PERSONALLY MISUNDERSTAND THINGS PURPOSELY!! IF HE WANTS TO BE BETTER UNDERSTOOD THEN HE SHOULD USE BETTER WORDS!*
*Seriously though, 100% agree with this! And from my point of view I'm the most important part of everyone*
@@Ms.Pronounced_Name” Aaah scary caps! Controversial response”
*glances at the YT algorithm to see if it’s noticed there’s a ruckus*
@@raylder6339 Fracas!
Making some of the text bold _definitely_ makes it think there is engagement
these vids are always great with my morning coffee
I love coffee ☕️ 😋 ♥️
i look forward to it every morning!
I also love to watch Tim's videos during the morning when making breakfast.
He got a high CHA stat for sure.
This is my coffee-learn time 😊
I really like your stories. I know they’re often anecdotal, but it’s a tiny bit like being there. I like hearing the highs and lows.
Hi Tim, really enjoying your insight into these topics. I've been going back and forth for weeks on various designs/ideas and don't seem to be getting anywhere productive, I'm curious if you have ever experienced some form of designer's block and how you would navigate overcoming or working around it? Keep up the great content! ☺
I stop trying to design and go do something else. I will play a video game, board game, or tabletop RPG. I will watch a movie. I will walk my dog and look at nature. I'll even look at...UA-cam videos.
Somehow this recharges my cranium.
Even after being told before about publishers simply ignoring contracts in order to say they don't owe devs money that they signed for, it's no less infuriating each time you hear about it.
16:07-16:09. No you have not. I'm not even in the games industry (SWE) but I learn more from you than I have so far. Theres alot of content that when compared to your videos won't age like fine wine. Thank you.
One of my old bosses in my IT job told me never to do assumptions, always be sure and confirm everything. One of the best tips i ever got.
Sounds like a smart guy. Or a hypocrite, I dunno.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd Well, he said that because working as IT you had to hear the problems from the users, he meant that i had to hear the users and always be sure that their problem and what they're saying is the same thing
@@NoTAdrian115 okay, so a smart guy I think. Thanks for the clarification
@@NoTAdrian115 Oh, yeah. Clients never know what they want, and they don't know what words mean.
@@SyndicateOperativeThey're also strangely adverse to writing down their wants in documented form.
"it guarantees a good game" people like "one fits all" solutions, do that single thing and everything will work out.
But games, like most things, success is a cumulation of a lot of good and bad decisions, good and bad situations, good and bad things happening, then in the end you got a thing, let's hope it's a good one in the end. No single thing will guarantee success.
I'm still waiting for your autobiography, "The legacy of Cain", to come out! :D
I'm SO sorry... I had to.
Well I'm pretty sure he already admitted to having a Dorian Gray painting somewhere... So... Whatever those shenanigans are, there's definitely some crossover somewhere with elder God style vampires.. or at the very least if you really wanted it!
Good one!
I am a huge fan of nuance and context.
Weakness in peoples reading and listening comprehension frustrates me every day. So much that sometimes I start to suspect that the failure to communicate is mine.
But no, usually it's clear that the problem is that someone didn't read everything I wrote, or instead of listening to what I say, they spent the time working up a way to reply to the first part of the first thing I said without the context of the remainder of my statement. People are too eager to be right.
Well, I for one am glad I discovered this channel and it's been great to get to know the man behind some great games I've enjoyed over the years.
this video was one i was expecting for a long time, very funny but needs to be here for future reference especially as more and more find this channel.
Thank you for all that you do Tim!
Well Tim, I do enjoy our morning coffee together.
Now I know we don't know each other, but your videos make me feel like I am sitting down with an old friend.
Have a great day, Sir! o7
Every video you make its wonderfully informative, thank you Tim
Spot-on. "No, that's not happening"
Thank you Tim.
Everyone on the internet is taking Everything out of context and I needed to listen to this.
I think you talk very well and have great experience to share. Everyone should know watching any video that it is the author's experience and opinions. I like the more positive GameDevs but I also like the ones that are constructive and real as well. Thanks!
Love the way you are explaining the topics. It's like a non-stop 5/5-train. Choo Choo! 😁
Going to be honest, I read the title and got really excited, I thought this was going to be about misdirecting players in quests or story, whether it's good to lead them down a wrong path, then give them a big reveal. Is that something that's done often, something to be used rarely or just s flat out bag idea? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I’ve been guilty of this in the past
It's absolutely true that marketing budgets correlate with sales of any kind of product. People will do what they are told if they arre told to do it often enough. Andt they will be happier having done so than not even if the product wasn't good. Because the pleasure was in complying. By complying they set themselves in the group of people who "did the thing". If you ask me I think it's very sad.
Well versed and great insight and impressive patience. 👍
Hey Tim, I think it's just hard to be a figure on the Internet these days. No matter what you say and no matter what you do, there will always be people commenting asinine, subjective things based on a narrow perspective. Regardless, I find you to speak eloquently and I really enjoy you sharing your perspective in a field that I will never be a part of. I appreciate these videos
This is true, but imagine if someone responded to this comment completely misconstruing what you said and arguing that you are an idiot. You might just brush it off and often I do the same, but at the same time there is always that nagging impulse to correct that person. Multiply that by 1000 if you make videos about video games.
I'm not sure if you are saying that he should ignore these people or not, but it can be hard to do for a content creator. Especially in this space where you have a generally younger audience who is often misinformed or just ignorant of the way things are.
@@charliericker274 I am not telling him to do anything. What I am really trying to say is that Tim is a much better person than I am, as I would not be able to handle all the perspectives on his opinions/perspective without arguing every single one. I am just saying I admire his resilience.
Hey Tim, it seems that being understood is really important to you. I think your videos are exceptionally clear. You're a wonderful communicator. I'd like to add my voice to those reminding you that, no matter how well you communicate, there's going to be people incapable or uninterested in truly listening. I feel your skill is at a level where it's mostly those people leaving the concerning comments, and I doubt this vid will impact the frequency with which you see them, because... again... they aren't listening. It's great you're trying to reach more people and clear up misunderstandings, but I feel it's highly unnecessary stress and effort on your part.
Considering some of the most profitable games are pretty much just thinly veiled slot machines that takes advantage of peoples built in weaknesses I'd definitely say good game and profitable doesn't always match up.
Yeah and maybe they will profit in the long run with these modern subpar games that are slot machines, unfinished, plastic etc. But it is also possible they only profit in the short term and that the gaming industry will eat itself as they do poor entertainment and will be gobbled up when some new entertainment arrives or some old entertainment takes over (or takes large shares of their pie).
Games like super mario bros, final fantasy 7, gta 3, Fallout 1 were the giants they stood upon. But if they keep churning out boring stuff they may find that slot machines was a deadend.
In some part i think this is allready underway. Many (most?) games now seem to ask the question how do we get more out of our current customers (microtransactions etc) rather than how do we get new ones. A lot of them tried to get more customers and failed (losing money while trying). They failed because their product isnt good enough and now they seek to milk their old customers to make up for it even more than before. Shrinking industry? Just compare it to the journey gaming made from the 80s to the end 2010s. The growth was enermous. Now? We will see where they end up but it may be downhill from here.
Thank you for all of the great videos, Tim! You are abundantly patient and gracious when it comes to low-effort UA-cam comments 😆
hi tim, really love your videos they give very great insights about game design! i have a question tho about how music works with game design, like do you decide before hand what kind of music is in the game and is it a super planned process? thank you! :)
I thought this was going to be a video about incorrect assumptions in programming x) Still a great video, as usual!
3:30 "I never saw this" does not invalidate someone else's experience, false accusations do
Love your videos, Tim. How much do you consider your audience when making a game? Who do you consider your audience? How much are you making decisions on the type of game that you would like to play vs. what you think the "target demographic" would like? Thanks!
"I want originality"
"Man, Palworld is awesome"
Massive respect for your humility and patience explaining in this videos.
Unrelated but was the engine you made for Fallout the first game engine you ever made? (or engine)
I really liked your point about airlines and the cheaper tickets; people want things but won't pay for them some times. I wish there was a better way to parse through feedback sometimes though. 😅
Would love to see a video on features you wanted to put in your games but were unable to do so.
Missing features because we ran out of time? - Check!
Fallback feature no one wanted but we needed something - Check!
Missing features because no one on the team knew how to make them? - Check!
Missing features because we didn't know the engine supported them? - Check!
Director asked for one thing and got something that technically was that thing but not what they meant? - Check!
All of these happened to our 3 months, 12 people school project game. I though I'm just bad, never realised these things happen with real professionals who have worked a long time at the industry too.
Ah ! So you are experiencing the classic internet experience. People making assumptions whitout the broad context. If you ever asked yourself why lots of UA-camr keep repeating "That is in my opinion","In my experience", "From what i saw", "This thing is whats happening, except [INSERT_EXCEPTION_HERE]",etc. Well that is why. People ALWAYS make assumption on the internet, especially on UA-cam. Apparently, 90% of viewers comes from the recommended tab, so when a video gets caught on in the algorithm, you get a bunch of people that do not know who you are, did not watch any other of your videos, etc. So, they make assumptions on what you say.
The rest of the video was interesting, like always. Have a nice day !
This is the internet man. You could do 15 videos talking about how much you love waffles, the second you say you also like pancakes you'll get a dozen people saying "why do you hate waffles so much?? What did they ever do to you?"
Honesty for all
It would be interesting to hear your experiences working with producers and project managers, both good and bad ones.
People need to hear that bit about marketing budget correlating with sales. As a modern case study id guess Diablo 4 sales pie chart is 45% marketing, 45% nostalgia, 10% informed purchase with an expectation to enjoy the game.
13:00 Basically Wildstar in a nutshell, when trusting the story that they changed the game to "Duh, hardcore!" in the last months before release.
What are your thoughts about niche games or indie games that do eventually gain mainstream audiences? Either through viral means or cult followings growing into a larger audience over time. In this case, Fallout is mainstream enough 25 years later to get a TV show. Thanks!
As an artist/designer myself, I really enjoy the information and stories on your channel, especially the talks with Mr. Leonard! I actually went back to play Fallout 1 and 2 after playing FO:New Vegas, which is one of my all-time favorite games. I picked up New Vegas as a teenager because I thought the Desert Ranger looked awesome, and had zero expectations going in. Had no idea there were 2D Fallout games from the 90s until much later. Gave Fallout 1 a shot and didn't realize I could lose the game after 150 days. That made me put it down for about a decade before recently jumping back into it, and I love it even more now. Fascinating learning the history!
I misundestood you or others too but I don't lash out here. I always think that maybe there are more things I need to learn.
Thanks for sharing about features you don't like in released game. It's hard to understand those properly unless the director told us.
I have to imagine there are wild implications to you sharing these things, but I'm SUPER curious what kinds of features you wanted to put in a game that no one could figure out how to achieve
even marketing and budget arent connected.
if you know how to market....,
doesnt necessarly mean you have a bad marketing campaign when not using money.
yes you can be creative in marketing without spending a penny and have astounding results.
in gaming for example, you could choose not to release game due to saturation or popularity.
or look at the market and see what is missing is also a marketing strategy, doesnt cost anything.
but then again, especially in gaming you have all these investors and publishers not thinking about these things.
demanding you to release, i understand.
i come from the music industry standpoint and that market is a lot more free if you know what to do.
there are so many more ways to get youre royalty's without having music on spotify or being stuck to this label (publisher)
know thisL if you are not reciving royalty's for youre work everyone is consuming, somebody else who knows, probably has youre money or is stealing youre money.
great video Tim.
people have to much assumptions in general about a lot of things in the world.
I'd like a platform where you could quiz the audience before allowing them to comment.
Aw, you had to mention Wildstar.
I always think about how beautiful the art, and writing was. It gave an honestly fun vibe. It's a shame all the actually mechanics fell short to retain a playerbase.
I hope everyone that worked on that game went on to do great things, they were all so talented artists and writers.
Neat point about engines. Having both made your own game engines and used commercial ones which do you prefer? Are the cons of making an engine (time and money?) worth it? What are the pros?
12:23 Palworld Vs. Pokémon
So fallout was really about building a better plasma gun all along?
The Enclave plasma thrower is pretty op in fallout 76... With the right perk cards...
Damn, I incorrectly assumed this video was going to be about "Being Proactive".
I hope he does a video on that at some point
@@arcan762Honestly, I feel that he could do at least three on the topic.
I can understand a lot of what you've put down here and I know you've made comments about it previously too so it's clear it's ongoing.
A question you may not want to answer but towards the end when you talked about the bonuses and residuals or ownership of IP.
Do you ever see the gaming industry employees unionizing itself? Or is it too easy for them to be stopped by just shuttering studios that do unionize?
This thumbnail is legendary
When people talk about the game industry being larger than music movies etc... There's a huge part of me that wonders if a lot of that is the gotcha mobile microtransaction market.. I would love to see the traditional video game computer game numbers where where a lot of the money gets spent in terms of budgets etc.. versus the lower cost investment multitudes of the mobile market and browser markets..
which is a strange thing to have said out loud.. considering what you would have thought it was back in the day of the early 2000s.. but... I mean back then if your movie cost more than $100 million you were absolutely at the top.. and there were near a handful of those every year and that was more then several years combined going back to the previous decade.. depending on which part of it of course... A large team was still in the hundreds, and an average team was still in the tens.. and that would have been a larger budget game... At least on the pc end...
Thinking about the team that did far cry, and how they made that tech from the ground up more or less, shopped the dinosaur demo to Ubisoft, and then made the entire game on the engine within the span of a couple of years and a couple of dozen people at its core.. completely technologically dwarfing the two juggernauts of Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 before they had even hit the market by months.. and both of those had small teams by comparison to nowadays, with Half-Life 2 being the largest if I recall... And the longest development cycle...
But even that's a little bit compressed as there was a report that at one point it was costing them a million dollars a day to develop the game.. but I'm assuming that wasn't for the full 6 years lol.. and that implies a pretty big team.. also don't know where that quote is from so it could just be BS...
I do seem to find that it's kind of fascinating how much smaller teams were able to accomplish much more in the innovation department and propel an industry that was much smaller, but in its smallness was constantly iterating.. and then as soon as it became seemingly big.. mainstream let's say.. it immediately stagnated, even regressing.. definitely fracturing.. and now you hear things like needing to make 6 million copies sold to get an ROI... When if you sold a million you were doing pretty darn good! Just a few years prior...
I remember a lot of companies because of the late '90s crashing and smashings of development studios ended up getting eaten up by the larger survivors.. The idea being if they weren't constantly on their own constantly making publishing deals that required a multi-month now at this point multi-year cycle with absolutely no way to survive at a certain point when it would potentially fail.. and just being tired of that cycle and wanting to you know have stable lives and be able to eat..
Made a lot of sense right.. and I guess nobody was looking behind EA's shed or down in Bobby kotics puzzel basement...(poor, poor Raven). Now a failure basically means a shawarma carving almost of the staff, QA in beta testing have been hypernormalized into contracting roles that are the software seasonal workers essentially of the industry... And we've been stuck in a 20-year time warp for peripherals, and go figure.. game design alongside it...
I genuinely do miss the days when gaming was a smaller market... But again... I have a hard time believing in its size just on account of The traditional computer games style of games... That said.. The MMO and the microtransaction have definitely increased a good chunk of money that can be extracted that was not available before.. so maybe it is..
I really appreciate your pragmatism, experience, and attitude, and feel that you communicate very effectively. Would be a great honor to drag you out of retirement and make a game with you. :P
As an outsider I find the lack of royalties even if a game sells well over time very frustrating. Which leads to the question: how can we support you?
I've bought a couple of your games I didn't already have since listening to this channel, out of genuine interest, but is there anything we could do that would put at least a little money in your pocket?
The obvious is very implicit indeed. Some people are just so dull to miss implicit things
I'd be very interedted to hear your thoughts on Path of exile, it's a very interesting game to me because it's a very hardcore game with a lot of complexity buy it has gotten pretty popular even with more casual audiences, causing a vast majority of the playerbase to just follow building guides online instead of creating their own builds
Tim, I'm a game design student in the seattle area (woodinville.) I watch your videos and have gained so much insight into your perspective on game development and your experiences in the industry, so thank you for that! Do you ever get coffee with students becasue I'd love to talk and get advice, perspective and deeper insight from you if it's ever available :) Even if not I hope our paths cross someday and I might have something interesting to show for my time in the industry.
Thank you for all of your contributions to the industry.
Hey everyone, it's him, Tim.
It’s amazing that your games aren’t considered AAA by the current standards. Yet, pretty much every game you’ve shipped/help ship are all time classics. Maybe goes to show ballooning game budgets don’t translate to a good game
Good morning!
Master Tim, please. Tell us about mmorpg genre, as you were working on 'wildstar'. We really hope genre can deliver us good games again, but it is like people who working on it are out of ideas.
Also, please, share us some stories how 90s-2000s mmo were if you like.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the difference between "impossible" asks from publishers and folks who don't understand what they're asking for, and the "it's not impossible, I/the engine dev just don't know how to do it" you mention in this video.
There are often stories (which may all just be anecdotal!) of folks who are in positions of leadership but who lack knowledge of the tools being used demanding certain features that the engine devs find impossible to implement. How do you draw the line here, if at all?
Oof - things are grim in the games industry and as a student at one of the most prestigious gaming colleges, that scares me.
In regards to the point of people not caring enough to buy original games over familiar games: Those of us here are outliers. Most people who talk about games online are outliers. Even though we hear that everyone wants unique, original games, we need to keep in mind that the people saying that are a vocal minority that are more invested in games than the majority of the market.
I refuse to think you said something wrong you have been in the business from the 80’s I’m sure the ones making the anger are well let’s say they don’t matter I know your genuine Tim don’t forget that you sweet humble person
My favourite statement about Assumptions is "When you Assume, you make an Ass out of You and Me".
Are there any good studies on the correlation or lack thereof between review scores and sales? Does genre matter?
I’m not sure of any such studies, but I’ll explore the correlation for my own games in tomorrow’s video
What made you set the original Fallout in CA, as opposed to on the East Coast or elsewhere?
Have you ever made any small personal side projects that you hadn't shown anybody?
Hello everyone and Mr Tim Cain ;
If you've read some of my comments of your videos , you might know how i passionately love your work and one of the biggest impact of my life is you sir , i chose to become software engineer because of you :) ( Well it's obvious also , i mean even my avatar is the end scene of the Fallout 1 )
I think that what people once played games created in 10 to 20 years ago while they were kids or teenagers which they have enough time to play or give chance to any games back then now become adults and because of they have not enough time to search on the internet to find out if there is a game that he or she once liked that kind game style still exists , that might be the one of the problem if that game ain't have enough marketing budget to show people that , those kinds of games stil exists . One of the other problem might be also , yes the person finds out that kind of game still exists but ain't have time to play or have time to play but these people have some friends they playing other types of games , soo that person playing with their friends online with those kinds of games and not spending their time to play their games once they've liked . These kinds of assumpsions can be generated more but the thing is if you decided to make new Arcanum or Fallout like game ( not saying Outer Worlds because it's a kinda new game :) ) am i going to play that game ? definitely yes , but will there be enough people play those games to cover the money you spend on developing those games , probably might not be .
Thanks again sir for everything you did on gaming industry .
See you again on your next video :)
Good morning 🙏
Is Kerghan meant to represent Socrates? His addiction to knowledge and learning is what led me to that conclusion.
Hello from the future and to the future!
I just said, "I care" ... and then Tim speaks the truth. Not enough people like me care.
dont stress the small stuff tim love this channel and your insight
Tim there was an option to place bets in Fallbrook in The Outer Worlds that didn't do anything. Cut content?
Like Pal World is Pokémon! High production value compared to what I've seen Nintendo release.
Yea, I'm guilty of that first one. I made some assumptions about the way you worded things for a time, and thought you were making generalizations about the industry and ignoring major issues. Figured out sometime later that I was wrong about that. Sorry if that was a bother.
It's hard to completely avoid misunderstandings, especially online. Hopefully this video will help cut down on it in the future.
So basically what you're saying is that passion guarantees a game will be good.
Can anybody explain about why a feature might not be supportable by an engine? What kind of a thing would someone want in a game that wouldn't be doable, or what about some kind of feature would make it not work?
Good morning tim.
It makes sense that marketing would affect sales. No matter what "gamers" want to think we are the minority. Most people who play games are "casual" ( i don't want to seem like thats a criticism). They play one or two games a year, maybe the same game in each years iteration. We can shout as much as we want, the money is in those people.
Hey Tim. I had a question that I'm not sure if you have any opinions about, but here you go. I know nothing about game development and have never tried to do it myself, but I did try a short foray into modding one of my favorite titles recently-- mostly just basic coding and nothing else. Ultimately, I ended up stopping the deeper I got into it because I started to feel like I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game the same way if I knew what was going on under the hood.
You obviously still play games despite being a game developer, but I wondered if you thought perhaps that being someone 'in the know' about making video games has ever had any kind of negative influence on you playing or enjoying a title that you might have otherwise liked, and why that is. And even more specifically, have you ever enjoyed the games you have made yourself the way regular consumers have, or has being the lead/major developer on them made that impossible or different?
It's hard to play other people's games or my older ones, because I tend to analyze them. "I'd do that differently"..."why is this feature included?"..."does the designer seriously intend for me to play this way...I mean, I am being rewarded so I think so, but it's not fun".
I am playing an older video game now, one I didn't make but really liked. I will consider doing a video about what I think about it now.
You might like these two videos I made:
Playing My Older Games: ua-cam.com/video/rHSlfFuIuls/v-deo.html
Why I Play Games I Don't Like: ua-cam.com/video/Nq87YGJYXAU/v-deo.html
@@CainOnGames Thanks for taking the time to reply. Yes this sort of analyzing thing is what I'm talking about. Fortunately for me this only extends to the one title, but I feel like if got into making games (not that I plan to) then I would end up doing what you're talking about and it would become not fun... or not as fun.
Ultimately you still end up noticing things you dislike in a game but if you 'understand' what's happening and the process behind it I think it will definitely make the feeling worse. Also... I should have looked and seen that you had a video about what I was asking. I just watched your commonly asked questions video too... forgive me.
A point I always try to remember surrounding the correlation of sales topic. An amazing game that 100% of buyers like with only 1,000 players has 1,000 fans. A terrible game that only 10% of buyers like with 1,000,000 players has 100,000 fans.
That's x10 the potential word of mouth marketting and discussion around your game even if the quality doesn't reflect it.
Indeed. There's a reason why the big expensive games with budgets of, say, $100 million spent on the development, spend yet another $100 million on marketing. It's basically half the overall budget, if you want your game to reach enough audience.
That's also typically why so many indie games are the best games you've ever played, yet they sell next to nothing and have a tiny audience - indie devs tend to either not believe just how important marketing is, or they simply don't have the funds to market the game hard enough.
Human condition alas. You could say something as innocuous as "the sky is blue today" as someone will "interpret" that as "oh they hate green". It's why everything in the corporate world is becoming recorded now, simply so that what was actually said can be referenced back to. Very sad!
What was programming like before Google? Was it harder or easier? Did code quality suffer as the result of Google becoming widespread?
i dont think people will ever accept how messed up the industry is how it churns and burns what they assume to be a bottomless resource of people who want to make games taking advantage of these people at every opportunity, unfortunately the industry rewards the koticks more than the cains
Well said as usual. Watched that VR video as well. I’m 100% in the “but I want it” boat. Look left and right and no one cares about VR. It’s good perspective to have. Glad you mentioned the unique games thing. Always love them but seems like COD wins every year. Oh well. Thanks again for the videos.
It's a gimmick, and I have terrible eyesight.
Vr and 3D are not for me
@@wesss9353 that’s unfortunate. I think there are headsets working on trying to fix that issue. Built in. No add ons nothing.
@@ButtorsGaming it looks fun. But I'm not going to spend a ton of money on a headset to see if it works for my terrible eyes.
@@ButtorsGaming Sunny Days just made a compelling argument for the Apple VR headset...
@@wesss9353 its going to have the same issue as every headset but much quicker. What can it do besides movies and computer/ipad stuff. That’s the issue. Other VR has games and it’s still an issue. Retention is the #1 killer of VR.
#legend
Yeah tim. I always assumed y'all got something in royalties. I have a somewhat niche question. I believe interplay didn't pay you tons for fallout. Have you subsequently profited from speaker engagements and whatnot? I know most people's games didn't become cult classics that eventually became iconic, but a few did. I'm interested in less direct ways that one can profit from their games down the road. Thanks for all you do and have done.
Thanks for sticking through the long post, if you do, as being nuanced and establishing a framework from which to examine an issue often takes more time than a "hot take."
I hear what you're sayin' and I agree with the essence of your sentiment with the airline analogy, but it's kind of a bogus analogy. Voting with your dollar is a bogus idea. Straight up myth, tbh
The ocean isn't full of plastic because we decided we like products packaged in plastic. Plastic is lighter and less expensive to ship and now my generational cohort is full of microplastics. Same can be said for Boomers and lead. Like, we're not choosing what's being sold to us; we're buying what's available. We didn't "buy" climate change or pollution. The top 100 corporations are responsible for 70% of emissions and then we were sold the myth of the carbon footprint. And now there are well-meaning, ill-informed yuppies confused if recyclable paper bags are better or worse than reusable plastic bags. The FDA exists (sometimes only in theory) so people can't legally sell us actual poison. And, like, I don't even want to get into politics and money as speech, ya know what I mean?
ANYWAY, to bring it back to games, lol, Gamers™ rejected horse armor, DLC locked on disc, disc-less consoles, there was a wild saga re: "ethics in gaming journalism," crunch, losing access to digital purchases, and more. Now we have to get used to seeing our favorite studios bought-out and shutdown, constant HR-flavored scandals, and CEOs saying we're on our way to getting used to not owning anything. The problem isn't the people consuming the art, but the conditions of the people making the games. A lot of devs are thrust into an arena where they're in community with their direct competition. A lot of art is that way. If the medium is going to get better, the makers are going to have to come together to wrestle decision-making power away from the managerial class through unions and collective action. We just saw a bunch of strikes move the needle in 2023! And now with all the layoffs in 2024 (publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2024), it might be time for folks to re-center the focus of the industry in which they work. I personally would like to see guilds come back. Guilds would be so cool. Like, a crest or insignia would be so freakin' cool.
If corpos want to subsume the labor of game-makers for profit, it ought to be on the game-makers terms. You, yourself, have spoken about how you've been lied to, how employees leveraged promotions, titles, and raises to get more elsewhere! Too many sharks and only drops of blood in the water. I think you were getting to the real substance of the issue when you started talking about WFH(ire) and how games are already commodities as music is shifting in that direction.
TL;DR it might me more useful to frame the situation as one where the managerial class is taking advantage of artists that want to make art than to suggest consumers somehow embolden managers to make harmful decisions that are anything but informed by the-bottom-line.
I read what you wrote and I think we are both right. I'll explain.
You said "the ocean isn't full of plastic because we decided we like products packaged in plastic" and you are right. We decided to buy the cheaper, fresher fruit, and that took plastic packaging and long distance shipping to provide that. If we all decided to buy locally grown, in season produce, that would help, but that requires time and money and CARING to do. Many people are lacking one or more of those qualities. It's really hard to be a good person now. Without going into more detail, I highly recommend watching the show The Good Place.
As for video games, if all gamers took the time to research what games they bought and only bought ones made without crunch and that provided fair wages and offered the devs bonuses, then things would get better fast. Way faster than unions could do it. But gamers don't do that and in all likelihood can't even access that information, but if they cared that strongly about it, they would refuse to buy a game without being given that information. But most would never do that, because playing the game is more important to them and they consider it "not their problem". They say they care but don't act like they care...and ultimately only action is important.
Again, voting with your money works...but only if everyone does it. It's the Prisoners Dilemma.
@@CainOnGames Another long one. I did try to keep it short, but failed! I do want to thank you (again) up front for taking the time to respond to me at all, though. I know how valuable your time is, so I will be grateful my -entire life- that you thought to spend any of it on me. I really do appreciate that you continue to take the time to nurture game devs and foster dev discussions through your UA-cam channel. Really. Thank you. 🙏 Feel free to jump off here, lol
We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. I don't think we can ignore the reality of things like society is stratified economically and that there are barriers to entry for people just off rip. Like, disabled people exist. I don't want to get too deep into it as I feel it goes beyond the scope of games, but I'll leave it at this: there are people who don't have much of a choice of what they purchase because they live in a food desert or a city that isn't walkable, have lacking public transit, and more. People are born poor, grow up poor, live poor, and die poor. I don't think they're making the choice to do that. There are people lacking opportunities, access, and income to leverage into exercising agency.
We're buying fresh produce because it's available. I believe that because it hasn't always been available. Oranges used to be gifted as Christmas presents because of their rarity. Now I can get navel oranges for 77 cents a pound if I want. I don't see orange groves in the neighborhood and I have to imagine that's true for everyone in town. The Good Place does tackle how people do and try to make decisions without being fully aware of the ethical implications of something.
I'm actually a big Michael Schur fan and his teams' works have be super influential in my approach to art. Love Brooklyn Nine-Nine (RIP Andre Braugher), Parks and Rec, and his episode of Black Mirror. I'm the one guy that doesn't like The Office, though. His teams' works often center solutions derived from a collective operating within a harmful system with too much inertia to meaningful address from the inside. The solutions, by my appraisal, are akin to getting ahead of the train and switching the tracks. The works often highlight how people might not be aware enough to make better decisions.
And that, for me, is where the whole research argument falls apart, too. When are we to do the research for informed purchasing? On our commutes? On the clock? On our way home? Instead of caring for kids or pets if we have them? Instead of nurturing our interpersonal relations? Instead of experiencing art? I don't mean to sound snarky or dismissive, so thanks for sticking with me through that, but I do want to illustrate that time is precious. And, like, having the whole of human knowledge at our fingertips is a relatively new experience for a lot of people, but the mechanisms at play on a societal level are a lot older than cell phones.
Workers had to develop their relationship with labor in the era of robber barons when the very idea of labor was abhorrent to a lot of people. Not work, we'll always have to work, but the idea of exchanging time for money where folks kept nothing and decided nothing was not popular. Labor turned artisans and craftspeople into wagies. And it took factory fires, company towns, wage slavery, and a grueling pace for people to take the collective action necessary to get the 8-hour work day and 5-day work week. And corpos still hate when people get together. Anti-union tactics, rules against fraternization, the dogma of professionalism. Even things like alcoholism and substance abuse took a uniquely American tone in highlighting the responsibility of the individual only for something like AA (community) to take the reins and demonstrate that people work and heal better together.
The solution, in my opinion, is for the people that make the art to leverage their ability to make the art to make art they're proud of making. I think that looks like a handful of similarly skilled people coming together. And I think that's easier, not easy per se, but easier for that number of people to come together than for all consumers to adopt new spending habits. None of it comes without sacrifice, though, so who knows?
Consumers even have an intense relationship with their libraries. We can't dictate that there be physical releases or an .iso to save to our PCs without disc-drives. You did outline that indies are beyond the scope of what you cover, but I do think the fact that a lot of indies are just digitally distributed.
TL;DR voting with dollars only makes sense without structural analysis and systems critique. An in-depth look at the overlapping societal mechanisms, the enmeshment at play, reveal that to be a farce at worst and a luxury at best.
I am the Mayor of Yapperville today! 😂
@@shockmethodx You might appreciate Deborah Frieze's TED talk, 'How I Became a Localist' and the UA-cam channel, Local Futures. While not specifically about the gaming industry, they do promote better understanding the complexities of the world we live in. I've also found them of invaluable assistance in navigating the crises we've created for ourselves as a species.
I've spent some time in adult game dev. It's okay.
No one does anything for Revenue Share. Rev Share sounds exactly like Work for Free when you say it. Because the game isn't making money yet.
So it is all done on contract. 'Verbal' contract as no one actually has the ability to read, negotiate or edit a contract. It's a very low skill field.
EA Spouse, gamergate, etc. How do these sorts of gaming pop culture events affect your game development?
The indy scene by definition can't really be clumped in with the rest of the game industry. That's kind of the point of being an indy developer. So I don't know why people would use indy developers to refute something you said you are seeing in the greater industry.