In no other industry/medium do you see nearly as much survivorship bias as in discussion around videogames.
I’ve always liked to think of it as a lottery, but where there are a ton of things you can do to buy yourself more tickets.
Doing the bare minimum is unlikely to bring you success, but it does happen… on the other hand sometimes a game will have a lot of things going for it and still perform poorly.
Also of all the things that are likely to bring a game success, originality is quite far down the list. That’s one of those areas where survivorship bias has a huge influence. (source: I’ve been a self-sustaining indie game dev for 12 years)
I don't want to sound dismissive, but saying "a game will have a lot of things going for it" to me sounds like about average. I mean it can still work out, but it does raise a flag.
> I’ve been a self-sustaining indie game dev for 12 years.
I’ve always liked to think of it as a lottery, but where there are a ton of things you can do to buy yourself more tickets.
Doing the bare minimum is unlikely to bring you success, but it does happen… on the other hand sometimes a game will have a lot of things going for it and still perform poorly.
Also of all the things that are likely to bring a game success, originality is quite far down the list. That’s one of those areas where survivorship bias has a huge influence. (source: I’ve been a self-sustaining indie game dev for 12 years)