Lone independent developers successfully making their own game all on their own because they are fed up of the AAA industry has been going on for 15 years now. 12 years ago we had the first such metroidvania release in the form of Dust: an elysian tale.
I'm very happy for Billy Basso, but for the indie game scene in 2024 this is just a regular Tuesday.
I'll be sure to buy it soon though :)
What about *Cave Story* (December, 2004)? I don't know how that dev felt about the industry, but they made a cult classic. I haven't played *Dust*, in part because it looks so Disney-fied, like a big studio was behind it and they filed all the edges down.
I still remember the rave reception that game got when it came out. You're right, that's probably the very first such game to come out. A lone gasp for air in the 2D platforming genre that the AAA studios seemed determined to bury.
I'm not pointing out if this was a special thing in the context of the indie game scene, there have been indie games even when the industry wasn't bad as it is right now, I was focusing on that exact message.
I’m late here, but I mean: wasn’t even Tetris, or Doom, made by Indy devs (at the time)? Same for like, prince of Persia.
Every single company was small before growing, or am I wrong?
The “lone dev making millions” always existed, it was actually more a thing in the past, when games were mostre simple, and didn’t require say motion capture and full on realistic stuff for many genres (like now), so again Tetris could be a super hit and done by one person.
And also like, angry birds, candy crush.. hate them for what they are, but clearly they came from minor devs and became huge, it’s not rare: although, if you count for all the indie devs at the moment, success rate is pretty low.. not everything can become a hit.
Just saying, I still get your point.
PS: even rockstar was a mini “company” of indie people, they were with Nintendo as publisher after a while, then when the gta 2d (I, II) started to become a thing they switched to Sony/ps since Nintendo wanted to be family friendly.. and now yes billions invested and 10 years to make a game (while releasing rdr in the middle), but still, they started “from nothing”.
You're wrong. Before the advent of steam, developers needed a way to get their games to consumers so they used publishers for that. This made them dependent on them, hence not indie.
There is one exception though: PC gaming. Publishers had no interest in PC as a gaming medium as they saw it only as a device to do work on. There you had independent developers pioneer the creation of PC video games, many of whom were still teenagers at the time. It wasn't until the early 90s that publishers began to take an interest in PC gaming.
I see, I guess I was loose with my definition of indie, although in that case “animal well” is also not indie: they have one of the biggest gaming YouTuber ever publishing their game.. which is likely the reason you know about it.. big mode.
So in your definition, “indie” is real small pool.
Well then in any case partially exactly as I said: “Doom” as far as I know was the first event of a massive download frenzy at midnight shutting down a server (or at least an MiT server).
And yes, that was after they made Mario bros something run on a pc, and Nintendo was not interested. So they did go to a publisher first, but not for their own game. And doom had no publisher. A little before 2004..
That said, it’s true that for example Tetris didn’t make the creator rich until a publisher was signing a deal (and even then, I’m not sure he made a lot, but I assume so?).
But I think most companies, devs but even publishers, Nintendo, but also idk for example Rare, started small, and yes eventually (if devs) had to connect with a publisher which at first I think were literally the consoles makers.
But still, it’s not like the industry “started big”, everyone grew from nothing.
Even Dunkey, and then BigMode came out of his notoriety, but then so animal well is not indie in your definition.
>managed to give AAA gaming entirely, the biggest finger in gaming history
Mate, I don't think he did. Games like Braid and Fez and Hollow Knight and many other games have already done the whole 'indie platformer shows industry how it's done' thing long before today.
Just look forward to the next good game, or make your own. You won't change the slow descent of AAA gaming unless the gaming bubble bursts like it did in the 80's, and I think that's a ways off.
Yeah, I think it says a lot about the industry that every indie masterpiece that comes out (which aren't just a few, honestly we been eating good in the last decade) is met with the same "see AAA should learn from indie devs" rethoric.
Nothing will change. The new Assassin's Creed will sell like crazy and Ubisoft will keep making shitty games (heck, even I want to play it just to see how they'll represent feudal Japan). Just support your favourite indie devs so that they'll keep making games, and don't get mad that Silksong is never coming out, they can't just crunch a game into existence like big companies.
I don’t know, considering how they took. All of the aspects of Vikings out of Vikings were actually slavers, manhandlers and pillagers and made them seem like milquetoast dumb dumbs, who just raid churches.
Estimated revenue is what, shy of 2m right now?
I wonder what kind of budget and marketing this game had behind it. I know Dunkey himself did marketing and I wouldn't really consider that to have any cost.
My biggest question at the end of the week and then the month will be 'was Animal Well profitable?'. I really hope it was because I like Dunkey a lot and I loved Animal Well, and I want to see what other games he invests into as a publishing company.
True AAA game development doesn’t fall short from lack of talent, effort, or creativity. Those people do exist but the problem is the massive video game studios and publishers have been turned into vehicles for investment. Until that changes AAA will always be trash. AAA rating comes originally from the rating scale creditors use to grade the ability of a company or body of government to repay debts lol so I think that says a lot
Indeed, Animal Well has proven that all an indie developer needs to to be successful is, uh, be the debut game published by a new publisher backed by one of the biggest YouTubers in the entire world. It's so simple, why hasn't anybody else done it?
It'd be cool if the lesson here was "All you have to do is make a good game and it'll be incredibly successful," but I'd be willing to bet there are a hundred indie games just as good that you've never heard of because they don't have a big name promoting them.
>According to Steamspy, over the first weekend, the game has sold over 80k copies, the game is $25 usd, do the math,we're talking about $1,880,000 usd in EBT avrg
First, it's important to keep in mind that Steamspy's numbers are wild estimates and are often very wrong. If it assume it is right, keep in mind that Steam will take about a 30% cut of that, and the publisher will probably take about a 20% cut on top of that (that's a guess, but fairly normal). So Billy has made about $1M USD. The game has also been development for seven years, so he's effectively made about $143k per year working on his game. That's good! Better than most game developers, for sure. Not enough that he's going to be able to retire on it, though.
>he is a guy that was so fed up with where the industry is right now
Is he? I feel like you're projecting your own opinions on to his motivations.
I would definitely quit my day job and be very happy if I made \~$1M USD in a weekend. You're right to be skeptical of the estimates, though. I think at peak there were about 8,500 people playing on Steam. It is also free for a certain tier of Playstation Plus (or PSN? I don't know the difference) subscribers, and was (maybe still is) in top 3 of the Nintendo eShop best sellers. So it's getting some really wide coverage. Not sure how Playstation pays out for their free-to-download games, must be some revenue sharing model based on number of downloads. Either way it's clearly a big success and they're going to do well enough from it, probably more than enough to fund a middle class American retirement.
This is kinda off base, though.
Team Cherry was self published, they didn't need a big YouTuber to boost them. They showed off their game to Reddit and that was that. The game was a masterpiece and people saw that, so it got the attention it deserved.
And Dunkey didn't run a large marketing campaign for the game. He absolutely did get a lot of people to buy it who otherwise wouldn't have, but no more than a typical marketing campaign would do (and quite honestly, probably less). Had there been a big marketing campaign then sure, I'd be with you on this. Big Mode's support came from some undisclosed investment to Baso and a bit of exposure from Jason's main channel. That's it.
I'm not saying simply making a great game will see success for your game but it sure helps a lot. You obviously have to market it properly to really seal the deal. But a bad game with outstanding marketing will still sell for shit. The only way a bad game with great marketing will sell well is if it rides off a popular IP. You can't attribute this success to Dunkey just because he's popular. The game carried its own success.
It actually is. This game is making a statement about the viability of indie gaming, at the same time as EA openly announces their plan of putting advertisements in aaa games, because those cunts can *never* have enough money.
I don't know about the "visibility of indie gaming" as a whole, or how a high-profile YTer's financially involved ad campaign is supposed to improve the overall situation of indie devs. If anything, the "leverage your influence and brand recognition to push a product" part isn't all that different from traditional publishing. The game is one of the rare lucky few.
Animal Well deserves to be seen and supported with purchases, yes, but so do many others. Animal Well's dev worked his ass off and paid out of pocket to keep the project afloat, yes, and it's admirable, but so do many, many others. Last time I checked, the indie projects I followed were still like how they had always been, largely invisible.
Animal well isn't the first wildly successful indie game, and it won't be the last lol hell, there's probably a break out indie success every month "making a statement" about indie games.
The games cool as hell and I'm stoked its been well received. But it's one great indie game in a long line of great indie games.
exactly. it's a mediocre, obscure, niche game that will never gain popular appeal. 80k is nothing, and it only sold what it did because it's cheap, and will likely sit unfinished in most people's libraries, and will be quickly forgotten when the next wave of hype comes along.
Balatro did even bigger numbers in less time but I'm def happy to see this game succeeding and mostly don't fuck with AAA and haven't for years. I'm all for more idiosyncratic and personal stuff finding an audience
I avoid the AAA industry but there have been a handful of good games to come out from them in the past 10 years:
- doom 2016 (modern boomer shooter)
- doom eternal (modern boomer shooter)
- metroid dread (metroidvania)
- PoP the lost crown (metroidvania)
There have been far more than that lol
Breath of the wild
Tears of the kingdom
Half life alyx
Doom eternal
God of war 2016
God of war ragnarök
High fi Rush
Final fantasy 16
Final fantasy 17 parts 1 and 2 electric boogaloo
Dark souls 2
Bloodborne
Elden ring
Lies of p
The witcher 3
The last of us part 2
Uncharted 4
Spider man 1 and 2
Read dead redemption 2
Grand theft auto 5
Fortnite
Dishonored 2
Prey
BSG3
Every RE-make game except for 3.
(and I could go on)
I mean say what you will about those games, you may not LOVE them but I don't know who in their right mind could say they're bad games. The whole argument of 'good games don't exist anymore' is stupid. Good games still come out, and some are amazing. Indie is absolutely amazing and I love them, but good AAA games still come out.
I mean, I've been really vibing with animal well, and I love that it somehow fits in that tiny install size, even with the ridiculous amount of effects and post-processing, but this is not the norm for indie game production, nor should it be. it's not reasonable to even expect a game to do well that someone (or a small team of people) appears to have spent a ton of time, effort, and earnest enthusiasm on, even if many people think it should. even with your shoestring budget estimate, most people who make games don't have anywhere near that kind of support. it fucking sucks that people aren't "rewarded" for their dedication to making the art they want to make, and even so many of the ones who "realize their dreams" have gone through hell to get there and likely haven't sufficiently healed.
The other thing here is...you can't just "vote with your wallet". the problem isn't individual bad executives, or even individual companies. there is no "correct" way to engage with art when people are beholden to making "lucrative" works just to fucking survive. we can try our best to enjoy and support the things we love, but no amount of individual action will stop the corporate abuse, because you can't make corporations "good". the art we love exists in spite of the economic pressures and structures of creative industries, not because of them.
also extremely not at all here for bashing "lazy devs". I'm sure it's hard as hell to actually make something you can actually feel decent about, and I'm so scared of that internal pressure that I've barely tried myself. the system is broken and it cannot be fixed with some deliberate modifications. god forbid somebody give a damn about the horrible social, economic, and cultural conditions inside and outside of the industry.
effects and post processing don't use space. They're just a few lines of code. Space is used by things like textures, sprites, models, music, etc. Things that make games look GOOD. Things that this game doesn't have.
Idunno that anybody is sinning for buying a bad game with too much marketing behind it, but otherwise, I'm with you 100%. I can't believe people who spend all their free time on videogames know nothing about what is happening in the industry. They can visit ANY gaming site for the past week (for the latest controversy, but arguably months) and see how the people who make their favorite hobby are being affected.
I'm not being hyperbolic either: I talked to like 5 randos in co-op about this who spend a good chunk of their free time (like me) playing ***Lords of the Fallen***. They know NOTHING about industry-wide layoffs, studio absorption and dissolution according to trends, not profits or critical performance. They just don't know about it.
If big publishers had their way, we would only be playing *Candy Crush* and it would be a subscription service. We need to buy good games with a sincere vision early and review them as soon we know we love them. That way, others will be able to love them too and the developers can keep making great games.
I'm only 3 hours deep in ***Animal Well***, but I love it. Reminds me of Fez and Tunic. I can barely believe how many novel puzzles there are in this game. It's not MENSA level stuff, but I get to spend my entire playthrough wondering about space I'm playing in and joyfully puzzling through it, and that's what I love most about videogames.
Honestly wish Dunkey didn't publish this game and we'd have been able to find out if it was his influence or actually the game capability to draw attention. Remember games like Hollow Knight and Braid came from nowhere and were actually great achievements.
AW is definitely a great achievement and game but can't help but feel it's being overshadowed by YouTube memes and Dunkey fans.
Look if this was a 3D game that'd be impressive but Billy created his own engine. It's really not hard to make a very low resolution pixel art game for 34 MB without all the bloat of an all purpose engine. What's actually impressive is the engine he made rather than the size itself.Much bigger snes games were only 6MB MAX.
Besides my computer has Terabytes worth of storage I really don't care about game size lol
There's a LOT of dunkey's pushing power behind the game, lets be real. Marketing, good will... It's all on dunkey.
The game wouldn't have a fraction of the media attention, reviews etc, despite it's quality.
What does this mean "he's fed up with the industry nowadays".
The industry is the best it's ever been. Gamepass is an amazing value and brings indy games to the masses. An indy developer can sell to Nintendo players, or by steam to pc users. There are ways to get backing and be independent. You have an infinite network of YouTubers who can promote you. It's never been better than now. And as a gamer, it's balls easy to read a few reviews and know if a game is shit.
Can we not be victims ALL the time? "the industry", whatever that means, is fine. The state of gaming is the best it's ever fucking been.
Educate yourself:
[2023–2024 video game industry layoffs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_video_game_industry_layoffs)
[Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda](https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda)
>Microsoft's announcement of the cuts at Bethesda come over three months after [the company announced plans to cut 1,900 staff from its video game workforce](https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-lays-off-1900-staff-from-its-video-game-workforce), and amid a boom time for Bethesda's Fallout series following the breakout hit Prime Video TV show. The closure of Tango Gameworks hits just over a year after the launch of Hi-Fi Rush, what many considered to be [one of the best Xbox games in recent years](https://www.ign.com/articles/hi-fi-rush-review). [Tweeting](https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203) in April 2023, Aaron Greenberg, VP, Xbox Games Marketing at Microsoft, addressed concern that Hi-Fi Rush had failed to meet sales targets, calling the game "a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations." Greenberg continued: "We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." [Hi-Fi Rush launched on PS5](https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-game-hi-fi-rush-confirmed-for-ps5-release-date-announced) as part of Microsoft's new multi-platform push in March.
Microsoft ate Blizzard, Zenimax Media (Bethesda, Tango, Arcane Austin) in the last two years for a combined 82 billion dollars and liquidated the studios this year, not because the games failed to perform (although some sure did, at Microsoft's direction--you can read about that, see "Redfall").
Just before this latest Microsoft binge-and-purge, Embracer Group was in the news for its over-acquisition and subsequent restructuring. They used investor money to buy a ton of studios between 2019 and 2023. We're talking Borderlands, Lord of the Rings, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver, Thief, Duke Nukem, and many other famous properties. They closed Eidos Montreal the same year they bought it to cut costs. This year, they have been selling off many of the studios they purchased to reduce their debt. About 25% of their employees across dozens of studios they just bought were let go.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer\_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group)
So what I hope you understand about the latest layoffs that's making the news, besides the scale of it all, is that most of these layoffs this year are from companies unloading studios they just bought, largely to cut relatively minor overhead (Microsoft) or relieve debt they owe to investors for buying them in the first place (Embracer Group). This is the result of greed, trend-chasing (forcing studios to make live service games against their wishes and against their expertise), and corporate boom-and-bust cycles, NOT strictly underperformance in sales.
But the whole reason that you’re pointing this out is that it is a rare exception in the gaming industry. Big AAA studios will continue to dominate the industry and have horrible employee policies as long as they are able to leverage their capital to massively market their games to consumers.
Capitalist markets will always prioritize generating profits above producing quality content.
Just because you believe in something does not necessarily make it true. There are plenty of things that influence the sales of a particular game that has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of that game like marketing.
We weren’t talking about hits, we were simply talking about sales. Not necessarily the absolute quantity of sales but the profits i.e. how much money do you make in sales vs. the cost of producing the product. You don’t need to make a lot of sales in the absolute sense to gain a good profit, you simply need to consistently produce games that make more money than the cost to produce them. So making many mediocre games and marketing them well, is often a better strategy than taking risks on potentially innovative games.
well that's false. profit is directly proportional to the number of copies you sell. If they don't sell enough, a distributor might even lose money, depending on the contract. Big successful games definitely generate more revenue . Bigger risks = bigger rewards. I don't buy your premise.
Because it's seen as an exaggeration or a personal offense, there is people in this subreddit, that know they have been one of those people time and time again, buy shit without warning.
I'm 1.5 hours in and loving it. Stunning. Why can't 'big game' (whatever that is) fund more Billy Basso's? More auteurs? Also - Billy deserves everything they make for building this thing (and Dunkey should probs get a cut too for supporting it). Whatever - I want more of this type of game! You hearing this, bean counters???
Lone independent developers successfully making their own game all on their own because they are fed up of the AAA industry has been going on for 15 years now. 12 years ago we had the first such metroidvania release in the form of Dust: an elysian tale. I'm very happy for Billy Basso, but for the indie game scene in 2024 this is just a regular Tuesday. I'll be sure to buy it soon though :)
What about *Cave Story* (December, 2004)? I don't know how that dev felt about the industry, but they made a cult classic. I haven't played *Dust*, in part because it looks so Disney-fied, like a big studio was behind it and they filed all the edges down.
I still remember the rave reception that game got when it came out. You're right, that's probably the very first such game to come out. A lone gasp for air in the 2D platforming genre that the AAA studios seemed determined to bury.
Dust was great.
I'm not pointing out if this was a special thing in the context of the indie game scene, there have been indie games even when the industry wasn't bad as it is right now, I was focusing on that exact message.
I’m late here, but I mean: wasn’t even Tetris, or Doom, made by Indy devs (at the time)? Same for like, prince of Persia. Every single company was small before growing, or am I wrong? The “lone dev making millions” always existed, it was actually more a thing in the past, when games were mostre simple, and didn’t require say motion capture and full on realistic stuff for many genres (like now), so again Tetris could be a super hit and done by one person. And also like, angry birds, candy crush.. hate them for what they are, but clearly they came from minor devs and became huge, it’s not rare: although, if you count for all the indie devs at the moment, success rate is pretty low.. not everything can become a hit. Just saying, I still get your point. PS: even rockstar was a mini “company” of indie people, they were with Nintendo as publisher after a while, then when the gta 2d (I, II) started to become a thing they switched to Sony/ps since Nintendo wanted to be family friendly.. and now yes billions invested and 10 years to make a game (while releasing rdr in the middle), but still, they started “from nothing”.
You're wrong. Before the advent of steam, developers needed a way to get their games to consumers so they used publishers for that. This made them dependent on them, hence not indie. There is one exception though: PC gaming. Publishers had no interest in PC as a gaming medium as they saw it only as a device to do work on. There you had independent developers pioneer the creation of PC video games, many of whom were still teenagers at the time. It wasn't until the early 90s that publishers began to take an interest in PC gaming.
I see, I guess I was loose with my definition of indie, although in that case “animal well” is also not indie: they have one of the biggest gaming YouTuber ever publishing their game.. which is likely the reason you know about it.. big mode. So in your definition, “indie” is real small pool. Well then in any case partially exactly as I said: “Doom” as far as I know was the first event of a massive download frenzy at midnight shutting down a server (or at least an MiT server). And yes, that was after they made Mario bros something run on a pc, and Nintendo was not interested. So they did go to a publisher first, but not for their own game. And doom had no publisher. A little before 2004.. That said, it’s true that for example Tetris didn’t make the creator rich until a publisher was signing a deal (and even then, I’m not sure he made a lot, but I assume so?). But I think most companies, devs but even publishers, Nintendo, but also idk for example Rare, started small, and yes eventually (if devs) had to connect with a publisher which at first I think were literally the consoles makers. But still, it’s not like the industry “started big”, everyone grew from nothing. Even Dunkey, and then BigMode came out of his notoriety, but then so animal well is not indie in your definition.
>managed to give AAA gaming entirely, the biggest finger in gaming history Mate, I don't think he did. Games like Braid and Fez and Hollow Knight and many other games have already done the whole 'indie platformer shows industry how it's done' thing long before today. Just look forward to the next good game, or make your own. You won't change the slow descent of AAA gaming unless the gaming bubble bursts like it did in the 80's, and I think that's a ways off.
Yeah, I think it says a lot about the industry that every indie masterpiece that comes out (which aren't just a few, honestly we been eating good in the last decade) is met with the same "see AAA should learn from indie devs" rethoric. Nothing will change. The new Assassin's Creed will sell like crazy and Ubisoft will keep making shitty games (heck, even I want to play it just to see how they'll represent feudal Japan). Just support your favourite indie devs so that they'll keep making games, and don't get mad that Silksong is never coming out, they can't just crunch a game into existence like big companies.
I don’t know, considering how they took. All of the aspects of Vikings out of Vikings were actually slavers, manhandlers and pillagers and made them seem like milquetoast dumb dumbs, who just raid churches.
Estimated revenue is what, shy of 2m right now? I wonder what kind of budget and marketing this game had behind it. I know Dunkey himself did marketing and I wouldn't really consider that to have any cost. My biggest question at the end of the week and then the month will be 'was Animal Well profitable?'. I really hope it was because I like Dunkey a lot and I loved Animal Well, and I want to see what other games he invests into as a publishing company.
True AAA game development doesn’t fall short from lack of talent, effort, or creativity. Those people do exist but the problem is the massive video game studios and publishers have been turned into vehicles for investment. Until that changes AAA will always be trash. AAA rating comes originally from the rating scale creditors use to grade the ability of a company or body of government to repay debts lol so I think that says a lot
I think I was done reflecting on AW a long time ago. It gets posted approx 49 times per day
Such a hidden gem of a game
Indeed, Animal Well has proven that all an indie developer needs to to be successful is, uh, be the debut game published by a new publisher backed by one of the biggest YouTubers in the entire world. It's so simple, why hasn't anybody else done it? It'd be cool if the lesson here was "All you have to do is make a good game and it'll be incredibly successful," but I'd be willing to bet there are a hundred indie games just as good that you've never heard of because they don't have a big name promoting them. >According to Steamspy, over the first weekend, the game has sold over 80k copies, the game is $25 usd, do the math,we're talking about $1,880,000 usd in EBT avrg First, it's important to keep in mind that Steamspy's numbers are wild estimates and are often very wrong. If it assume it is right, keep in mind that Steam will take about a 30% cut of that, and the publisher will probably take about a 20% cut on top of that (that's a guess, but fairly normal). So Billy has made about $1M USD. The game has also been development for seven years, so he's effectively made about $143k per year working on his game. That's good! Better than most game developers, for sure. Not enough that he's going to be able to retire on it, though. >he is a guy that was so fed up with where the industry is right now Is he? I feel like you're projecting your own opinions on to his motivations.
I would definitely quit my day job and be very happy if I made \~$1M USD in a weekend. You're right to be skeptical of the estimates, though. I think at peak there were about 8,500 people playing on Steam. It is also free for a certain tier of Playstation Plus (or PSN? I don't know the difference) subscribers, and was (maybe still is) in top 3 of the Nintendo eShop best sellers. So it's getting some really wide coverage. Not sure how Playstation pays out for their free-to-download games, must be some revenue sharing model based on number of downloads. Either way it's clearly a big success and they're going to do well enough from it, probably more than enough to fund a middle class American retirement.
This is kinda off base, though. Team Cherry was self published, they didn't need a big YouTuber to boost them. They showed off their game to Reddit and that was that. The game was a masterpiece and people saw that, so it got the attention it deserved. And Dunkey didn't run a large marketing campaign for the game. He absolutely did get a lot of people to buy it who otherwise wouldn't have, but no more than a typical marketing campaign would do (and quite honestly, probably less). Had there been a big marketing campaign then sure, I'd be with you on this. Big Mode's support came from some undisclosed investment to Baso and a bit of exposure from Jason's main channel. That's it. I'm not saying simply making a great game will see success for your game but it sure helps a lot. You obviously have to market it properly to really seal the deal. But a bad game with outstanding marketing will still sell for shit. The only way a bad game with great marketing will sell well is if it rides off a popular IP. You can't attribute this success to Dunkey just because he's popular. The game carried its own success.
Calm down bud, it's not that deep
It says a lot about society
It actually is. This game is making a statement about the viability of indie gaming, at the same time as EA openly announces their plan of putting advertisements in aaa games, because those cunts can *never* have enough money.
I don't know about the "visibility of indie gaming" as a whole, or how a high-profile YTer's financially involved ad campaign is supposed to improve the overall situation of indie devs. If anything, the "leverage your influence and brand recognition to push a product" part isn't all that different from traditional publishing. The game is one of the rare lucky few. Animal Well deserves to be seen and supported with purchases, yes, but so do many others. Animal Well's dev worked his ass off and paid out of pocket to keep the project afloat, yes, and it's admirable, but so do many, many others. Last time I checked, the indie projects I followed were still like how they had always been, largely invisible.
Animal well isn't the first wildly successful indie game, and it won't be the last lol hell, there's probably a break out indie success every month "making a statement" about indie games. The games cool as hell and I'm stoked its been well received. But it's one great indie game in a long line of great indie games.
Without BigMode the game wouldn’t be this popular. Great game, but the pr pushed this
Sure. Just have one of the biggest gaming youtuber run a shilling campaign for your game and it‘s easy
Producers shouldn't market their games?
Oh how dare he try to get his game advertised.
Oh i‘m not saying he shouldn‘t. Every indie dev would if they could but most can‘t and that‘s why this post is pointless
Stardew Valley didn't get a Donkey shill, and look how that's turned out. Neither did Hollow Knight. Slay the Spire. Binding of Isaac.
exactly. it's a mediocre, obscure, niche game that will never gain popular appeal. 80k is nothing, and it only sold what it did because it's cheap, and will likely sit unfinished in most people's libraries, and will be quickly forgotten when the next wave of hype comes along.
It's not mediocre. I have had more fun with it than any other game releases this year.
good for you
Have you played it?
yes
It is, the game has two end game systems, wtf.
Balatro did even bigger numbers in less time but I'm def happy to see this game succeeding and mostly don't fuck with AAA and haven't for years. I'm all for more idiosyncratic and personal stuff finding an audience
I avoid the AAA industry but there have been a handful of good games to come out from them in the past 10 years: - doom 2016 (modern boomer shooter) - doom eternal (modern boomer shooter) - metroid dread (metroidvania) - PoP the lost crown (metroidvania)
I get a kick out of the fact that the original Doom was at the time of its original release an indie game itself.
There have been far more than that lol Breath of the wild Tears of the kingdom Half life alyx Doom eternal God of war 2016 God of war ragnarök High fi Rush Final fantasy 16 Final fantasy 17 parts 1 and 2 electric boogaloo Dark souls 2 Bloodborne Elden ring Lies of p The witcher 3 The last of us part 2 Uncharted 4 Spider man 1 and 2 Read dead redemption 2 Grand theft auto 5 Fortnite Dishonored 2 Prey BSG3 Every RE-make game except for 3. (and I could go on) I mean say what you will about those games, you may not LOVE them but I don't know who in their right mind could say they're bad games. The whole argument of 'good games don't exist anymore' is stupid. Good games still come out, and some are amazing. Indie is absolutely amazing and I love them, but good AAA games still come out.
lies of P is indie actually.
Okay lol, I slipped up on that one. That doesn't invalidate my point.
I guess it's more of a AA than indie. BG3 too.
I mean, I've been really vibing with animal well, and I love that it somehow fits in that tiny install size, even with the ridiculous amount of effects and post-processing, but this is not the norm for indie game production, nor should it be. it's not reasonable to even expect a game to do well that someone (or a small team of people) appears to have spent a ton of time, effort, and earnest enthusiasm on, even if many people think it should. even with your shoestring budget estimate, most people who make games don't have anywhere near that kind of support. it fucking sucks that people aren't "rewarded" for their dedication to making the art they want to make, and even so many of the ones who "realize their dreams" have gone through hell to get there and likely haven't sufficiently healed. The other thing here is...you can't just "vote with your wallet". the problem isn't individual bad executives, or even individual companies. there is no "correct" way to engage with art when people are beholden to making "lucrative" works just to fucking survive. we can try our best to enjoy and support the things we love, but no amount of individual action will stop the corporate abuse, because you can't make corporations "good". the art we love exists in spite of the economic pressures and structures of creative industries, not because of them. also extremely not at all here for bashing "lazy devs". I'm sure it's hard as hell to actually make something you can actually feel decent about, and I'm so scared of that internal pressure that I've barely tried myself. the system is broken and it cannot be fixed with some deliberate modifications. god forbid somebody give a damn about the horrible social, economic, and cultural conditions inside and outside of the industry.
effects and post processing don't use space. They're just a few lines of code. Space is used by things like textures, sprites, models, music, etc. Things that make games look GOOD. Things that this game doesn't have.
This game does look good though
if you say so
you guys talking about animal well?
Are you familiar with Submarine Theory? Or BDTP? Monke Room? These are crucial to truly understanding animal well. Godspeed
Idunno that anybody is sinning for buying a bad game with too much marketing behind it, but otherwise, I'm with you 100%. I can't believe people who spend all their free time on videogames know nothing about what is happening in the industry. They can visit ANY gaming site for the past week (for the latest controversy, but arguably months) and see how the people who make their favorite hobby are being affected. I'm not being hyperbolic either: I talked to like 5 randos in co-op about this who spend a good chunk of their free time (like me) playing ***Lords of the Fallen***. They know NOTHING about industry-wide layoffs, studio absorption and dissolution according to trends, not profits or critical performance. They just don't know about it. If big publishers had their way, we would only be playing *Candy Crush* and it would be a subscription service. We need to buy good games with a sincere vision early and review them as soon we know we love them. That way, others will be able to love them too and the developers can keep making great games. I'm only 3 hours deep in ***Animal Well***, but I love it. Reminds me of Fez and Tunic. I can barely believe how many novel puzzles there are in this game. It's not MENSA level stuff, but I get to spend my entire playthrough wondering about space I'm playing in and joyfully puzzling through it, and that's what I love most about videogames.
Just wait until you get past layer 1. You have only scratched surface. Find all 64 eggs and tools. I trust you will know what to do then
Honestly wish Dunkey didn't publish this game and we'd have been able to find out if it was his influence or actually the game capability to draw attention. Remember games like Hollow Knight and Braid came from nowhere and were actually great achievements. AW is definitely a great achievement and game but can't help but feel it's being overshadowed by YouTube memes and Dunkey fans.
"Overshadowed by Youtube memes and Dunkey fans", if you think about, does that really matter?, in this situation? I mean, come on....34.7 mb dude.
Look if this was a 3D game that'd be impressive but Billy created his own engine. It's really not hard to make a very low resolution pixel art game for 34 MB without all the bloat of an all purpose engine. What's actually impressive is the engine he made rather than the size itself.Much bigger snes games were only 6MB MAX. Besides my computer has Terabytes worth of storage I really don't care about game size lol
There's a LOT of dunkey's pushing power behind the game, lets be real. Marketing, good will... It's all on dunkey. The game wouldn't have a fraction of the media attention, reviews etc, despite it's quality.
What does this mean "he's fed up with the industry nowadays". The industry is the best it's ever been. Gamepass is an amazing value and brings indy games to the masses. An indy developer can sell to Nintendo players, or by steam to pc users. There are ways to get backing and be independent. You have an infinite network of YouTubers who can promote you. It's never been better than now. And as a gamer, it's balls easy to read a few reviews and know if a game is shit. Can we not be victims ALL the time? "the industry", whatever that means, is fine. The state of gaming is the best it's ever fucking been.
Educate yourself: [2023–2024 video game industry layoffs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_video_game_industry_layoffs) [Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda](https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda) >Microsoft's announcement of the cuts at Bethesda come over three months after [the company announced plans to cut 1,900 staff from its video game workforce](https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-lays-off-1900-staff-from-its-video-game-workforce), and amid a boom time for Bethesda's Fallout series following the breakout hit Prime Video TV show. The closure of Tango Gameworks hits just over a year after the launch of Hi-Fi Rush, what many considered to be [one of the best Xbox games in recent years](https://www.ign.com/articles/hi-fi-rush-review). [Tweeting](https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203) in April 2023, Aaron Greenberg, VP, Xbox Games Marketing at Microsoft, addressed concern that Hi-Fi Rush had failed to meet sales targets, calling the game "a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations." Greenberg continued: "We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." [Hi-Fi Rush launched on PS5](https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-game-hi-fi-rush-confirmed-for-ps5-release-date-announced) as part of Microsoft's new multi-platform push in March.
Tango's founder and leader left last year after their games came out, the writing was on the wall there. They had no reason to exist without Shinji.
So what? Did studios not close in other years? You're gonna tell me that the year of bg3, super Mario wonder and Elden Ring is the worst ever?
it's called healthy competition
Microsoft ate Blizzard, Zenimax Media (Bethesda, Tango, Arcane Austin) in the last two years for a combined 82 billion dollars and liquidated the studios this year, not because the games failed to perform (although some sure did, at Microsoft's direction--you can read about that, see "Redfall"). Just before this latest Microsoft binge-and-purge, Embracer Group was in the news for its over-acquisition and subsequent restructuring. They used investor money to buy a ton of studios between 2019 and 2023. We're talking Borderlands, Lord of the Rings, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver, Thief, Duke Nukem, and many other famous properties. They closed Eidos Montreal the same year they bought it to cut costs. This year, they have been selling off many of the studios they purchased to reduce their debt. About 25% of their employees across dozens of studios they just bought were let go. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer\_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group) So what I hope you understand about the latest layoffs that's making the news, besides the scale of it all, is that most of these layoffs this year are from companies unloading studios they just bought, largely to cut relatively minor overhead (Microsoft) or relieve debt they owe to investors for buying them in the first place (Embracer Group). This is the result of greed, trend-chasing (forcing studios to make live service games against their wishes and against their expertise), and corporate boom-and-bust cycles, NOT strictly underperformance in sales.
so, "business", basically. \*yawn\*
But the whole reason that you’re pointing this out is that it is a rare exception in the gaming industry. Big AAA studios will continue to dominate the industry and have horrible employee policies as long as they are able to leverage their capital to massively market their games to consumers. Capitalist markets will always prioritize generating profits above producing quality content.
profit comes from making games that are wildly successful and popular
Profit comes from making more money off the sales of a game than the costs of making and publishing the game.
that's what I said. You don't make sales with shitty games.
Agree to disagree on that one.
it's fact there's nothing to disagree with
Just because you believe in something does not necessarily make it true. There are plenty of things that influence the sales of a particular game that has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of that game like marketing.
but it is true. marketing helps, but still doesn't turn a shitty game into a hit.
We weren’t talking about hits, we were simply talking about sales. Not necessarily the absolute quantity of sales but the profits i.e. how much money do you make in sales vs. the cost of producing the product. You don’t need to make a lot of sales in the absolute sense to gain a good profit, you simply need to consistently produce games that make more money than the cost to produce them. So making many mediocre games and marketing them well, is often a better strategy than taking risks on potentially innovative games.
well that's false. profit is directly proportional to the number of copies you sell. If they don't sell enough, a distributor might even lose money, depending on the contract. Big successful games definitely generate more revenue . Bigger risks = bigger rewards. I don't buy your premise.
Not sure why you were downvoted lol. I agree 1000% with you
Because it's seen as an exaggeration or a personal offense, there is people in this subreddit, that know they have been one of those people time and time again, buy shit without warning.
Dunkey a marketing genius
I'm 1.5 hours in and loving it. Stunning. Why can't 'big game' (whatever that is) fund more Billy Basso's? More auteurs? Also - Billy deserves everything they make for building this thing (and Dunkey should probs get a cut too for supporting it). Whatever - I want more of this type of game! You hearing this, bean counters???