Designed a second game, put all the marketing learnings into it, 48 hours after launch the biggest streamer on twitch was streaming it.

4 days later he quit working for me. Couldnt be happier for him.

The biggest thing I saw was that 2 guys, Unity, unity asset store and some upwork artists made a really pretty decent game. I love how this has come full circle. I'm 47 and back in the 8 bit days games were made by 1 or 2 people. 15 years ago this just wasnt possible, but now with unity, unity assets, remote for hire work, steam and twitch for marketing you can legit make it as a 2 person studio. I love it.

The distribution of Steam and viral marketing of Twitch have revolutionised indie development for the better. In addition to this, as an asset he now has a Discord server with 10ksss+ subscribers. I doubt he will ever pay for a $ of traditional above or below the line marketing.

But yeah, the entry fee for that lottery is at a historic low, which is still great (especially for hobby devs who don't care about the rest!)

When in reality, you have a great deal of control. Marketing IS something you can control.

Sure, some streamer randomly picking up your game is beyond your control. But you can certainly create conditions that would make it easier for your game to be picked up by a streamer (build relationships with journos, streamers; get paid marketing, etc.)

Calling it a lottery is a disservice to the people who actually put in effort to create these games.

Not sucking isn't enough. Even being "Great" isn't enough. And even being "amazing" just isn't good enough to be successful. You need people to notice and care and help you and carry you to success. Mediocrity with a lot of public and positive reinforcement beats quiet greatness. Truly great things die every day from lack of attention and the willingness / motivation of others to help you carry that greatness forward. No greatness succeeds on its own, despite how great it might truly be.

Great point.

If every creator does marketing, then everyone is in the same position and nobody has control. Also, check out this research paper, published in Science, showing that popularity signals like the number of downloads and ordering by popularity increases the unpredictability of a music market, which is an opposite effect to what you expect. I suspect similar effects happen for game and other cultural markets:

Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S., & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5762), 854–856. https://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full....

I think that both for simple and complex games there are those that nobody cares about and those that end up really popular. Sometimes it's about good marketing, sometimes it's about making what people actually want to play (instead of what you want to make), sometimes it's about developing it really well, other times it's just about being at the right place at the right time.

Those aren't mutually exclusive qualities, for certain titles you might need lots of one of them, or maybe a mix of all of them. In regards to what you actually need, it can indeed be a lottery and thinking that hard work (or marketing) is all that's necessary in ample amounts (or even is a pre-requisite) might be misleading, because it's not the full story.

For an example of how any mix of those aspects can lead to failure, look at the launch of Brigador, a well made game that was a flop: https://youtu.be/qUsuusNLxik

Then contrast that (years of development) with something like Vampire Survivors. Or maybe 2048, or Flappy Bird, or Wordle for examples of even simpler projects that were also easier to make, that still were immensely popular and much more successful.

I challenge anyone to provide a link to an actual great indie game that hasnt done well. that flew under radar.

The point I think people usually mean to make is that the odds are low (really, extremely low) so it's not really a prudent financial choice unless you have other ways to support yourself and don't care about potentially throwing away the time/effort if it doesn't work out.

Unfortunately I've seen so many people pour their hearts and souls into a game thinking they can just start marketing it when it's ready: You should be engaging with your future audience well before then.

You don't have to take money from them, you don't have to make empty promises, but in the current landscape you need people to be waiting for your game, not you waiting for players, because odds are they won't come.

For every lucky game that gets the right streamer there's 10 more that are truly great games that just never get traction and die.

Sounds to me like an opportunity. There may be a demand for a service that reviews indie games and "discovers" (promotes) little-known-but-great ones. It even has an obvious revenue source: allowing advertising by games (so long as advertisements and promoted works are VERY CLEARLY separated).

You need to basically be an app store but do it better than original.

Quality is necessary but not sufficient for success.

Also: a while back, I wanted to empirically test the "any good game will succeed on steam, and if it doesn't succeed, it isn't a good game" hypothesis by setting up a little metagame called "Steam Prophet". We would track upcoming steam games and try to predict which ones would succeed BEFORE they came out. We eventually disbanded the project when we got so reliably good (but not perfect) at predictions that we got bored and quit. Turns out that just a few leading metrics were incredibly predictive of day 1 (and thus day 30, day 60, and day 90, and year 1) success -- chiefly the number of followers the game had on Steam on launch day. It is a rare game indeed that can succeed on Steam without first having banked tons of high quality wishlists (of which followers is a public proxy metric for).

The spirit of Steam Prophet lives on today in the form of Simon Carless' Game Discover Co newsletter, which obsessively follows upcoming and newly released Steam Games: https://gamediscover.co/

Most good single player games do well.

Aside from rare cases like Flappy Bird, and aside from the usual vagaries of commercial, technological and artistic projects. And aside from special challenges like the minimum playerbase size required for an online game like Among Us.

During development, developers could set up a Steam page, release one or two trailers as soon as possible (with mocked-up gameplay if necessary), and try to predict the audience's interest by the increase of followers/wishlists (compared to other games). In case of a lukewarm reception, they could decide to drop this game and start developing another one.

Did you write about the leading metrics and your insights somewhere, aside from this article, which seems to be from the beginning of your "Steam Prophet" project?

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/what-i-learned-playin...

Most developers have very little understanding of marketing, and are very hesitatnt to pay for good marketing services.

Here's something most people won't tell you: the majority of online marketing is paid, either explicitly (i.e. you pay Google) or covertly (i.e. you "bribe" an editor at Forbes to feature your article).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/

Looks like it sold incredibly well and was abandoned by the developers and is no longer for sale.

A weird example.

A lot of the advice out there is something like: "create a community" or "go join several communities" or "get to know other indie devs on Twitter". To me, this simply feels fake. I don't really participate in any online communities. I spend enough time in front of a computer for work and I prefer to socialize with my real life friends.

Besides, I simply have no idea how to get any kind of attention on social media. I created an eight-page booklet that recreates the first issue of Nintendo Power, except with my characters in place of Mario and Wart. It's an homage, because I developed a retro game. Somebody suggested that I post it on a retrogaming subreddit, where many others were posting fan art, and those people should recognize the magazine cover that I recreated. Well, I posted my PDF and it got about 4 upvotes. A simple photo, posted around the same time, of the very common TMNT NES cartridge got -- 800? 900? I stopped looking.

I understand that what I made is not going to be for everybody. I'm not expecting to be a millionaire. But damn if I can't figure out how to even get it in front of people. Everywhere I try just gets ignored.

The game is pretty substantial too. Mac, iOS, and Windows versions all done by me -- custom game engine -- 40+ hours of gameplay -- about a 5-6 hour minimum play time if you start from scratch and you know what you're doing (I was shooting for 3.5ish hours to equal Mario 3 or Mario World in "size" or "depth"). Lots of fun secrets. Nothing repeated. Challenging, but not as hard as Dwarf Fortress. Real life playtesters (not friends or family) asked me to reset the game so they could start all over again.

I just wish somebody else could do the social stuff. It all just makes me want to stop programming altogether. My brain just does not work along the lines of "how can I phrase this email to get this person's attention?" So I realize cold calling is a numbers game but I seem to be ignored no matter what I do.

I want to make great stuff, and I really don't care about attention/fame/money -- but what's the point of working so hard if nobody gets to enjoy it but me?

The video takes way too long to get to gameplay. Screenshots do a poor job explaining what the mechanic is. I've read the capsule image, watched some of the trailer, looked at several of the screenshots and still can't tell you what the gameplay loop is. Sort of a top down puzzle thing? With a "match the color" mechanic? The art is not good enough by a mile. OK I just read some of the "About This Game" -- no one cares how many hours of gameplay, if it's so novel why can't you explain that better than "always something new", which is redundant. Surprises also feels like it's just more novelty. The first point about various suits is not exciting, why should I care? Having a handful of people really love it isn't sufficient. I had a game on Dictionary.com that people played hours daily, still couldn't make money from it.

Stepping back, I think there are ways you could vastly improve your marketing, but is it worth it? Take the "L" and move on to your next project. Use what you've learned to improve and "make great stuff." It's better to move quickly, learn, and make better and better stuff until you've hit on something that works. At least I wish someone had given me similar advice back in the day.

PS All this is coming from respect and recognition of the incredible amount of hard work and sweat you've committed to the game. You're a bad ass for working so hard and completing a game!

You know what? I won't make any more. I think I'm done.

I'm not interested in learning what people like or adjusting to what's popular. Why on earth would I go through this again? Nothing I am interested in working on is ever going to be profitable. Simple as that.

This has nothing to do with your comment. I've had it with programming, I've had it with tech, I've had it with people. I will just scrape by doing the bare minimum to survive as a freelancer.

I wish I could throw my computer into a river.

Firstly;

>> Nothing I am interested in working on is ever going to be profitable. Simple as that.

This is a critical understanding. Because it helps you to determine what _value_ you get from an activity.

For most of us, let's say 99%+, we have creative hobbies. Some play music, some write, some cook, some make pottery or art, some program. The value of a hobby is that the process itself brings us personal joy. The value gained is in the process, not the result.

I've started making pottery. Some of it comes out the way I like, some doesn't. Some doesn't survive the firing process. But there is joy in working the clay, joy in decorating the result, joy in the finished piece. But it's safe to assume I will never sell the results (as in, no-one will buy them) and in some ways selling them would rob me of the "hobby". Frankly, I'd rather give them away. Given how much I pay for the studio time etc it'll never be profitable.

So if i's not profitable, why do it? Because doing it brings me joy.

So it is with programming. Either you are doing it for profit (work) or for fun (hobby). If you are doing side-projects primarily for money then for starters, don't write a game. there are a zillion games in the world, and just like music, the number of them that make actual money are vanishingly small. Going from "I need money" to "I'll write a game" is not a good strategy.

Lots of Indies write games though because writing games can be as much fun as playing them. The joy is not in the selling, but in the process. As long as you end up with a game you like to play, well, you have your reward.

In many ways, most open-source projects can be thought of as "hobbies", not in a pejorative sense but because, for most of us, they are not income. The value has to lie elsewhere, in the creation process, in the community or whatever.

>> I wish I could throw my computer into a river.

Clearly the act of programming is not bringing you joy. For you the computer is work, and you should use it doing things that people are paying you to do. That's completely ok. I use my car to go to a place I want to be, I don't "go for a drive". For me a car is just a tool, for others it's a major part of their lives. That's ok, we're all different.

So, in conclusion, if you want to make money with your computer, then there are lots of ways to do that. (hint: it's not in writing games.) If you need suggestions in this space, then by all means ask.

But most of all I encourage you to find an outlet for your creative instincts. One where you get joy from the process, not profit from the result. Programming is not providing that. Tech is not providing that. People are not providing that. You need to find that for yourself.

Good luck!

Perhaps some contrasting animations or visual guides would help with that.

Interesting. I think I sussed out the gameplay loop almost immediately because it resembles Chip's Challenge[0]. Maybe that's misleading, but to anyone who grew up in that era I'd think that's what would immediately come to mind.

> The art is not good enough by a mile.

Disagree. It could be a little better, but it is appropriate for what it is aping and plenty readable. Many many games have done well on art of about this quality or worse.

> no one cares how many hours of gameplay

I do, and so do a lot of people if How Long to Beat is anything to go by. In my case though 40hrs is too many and would be a negative.

[0] I later saw that it called this out in the video, during a part I skipped because, as you said, it takes too long to get to the gameplay.

Looks like 1990 Chip's Challenge on Windows 3, thats not a good look.

For what it’s worth, I had a similar experience. I launched a game on itch.io for fun, and got a ton of positive feedback (including “I love this game!” And “I can’t believe this is free!”), but when I launched on Steam (also for free, but now with music people said they liked and new features), it bombed.

The cherry on top was when I posted a Show HN here (it’s a zachlike programming game, using an esolang—-right up HN’s alley), and didn’t get a single upvote. I’ll admit: that hurt.

I have been struggling with this myself. Not just about programming but other creative pursuits as well. Recently it has been photography. I take pictures while knowing whatever I'm looking at has a far better picture on its wikipedia page.

I suppose we're supposed to take some sort of fulfillment in the process of creation itself? But that just goes back to the old koan of the tree falling in the woods. If I create something, but nobody ever sees it, did I create it at all? Doesn't feel like it.

You have been trained to require external validation for your work. Maybe it's a modern thing with upvotes and twitter and likes and whatnot.

If you create a thing, then you have drawn on your skills, probably improving them. Whether the thing is seen by others is irrelvant. What is relevant is your experience in creating it, and the use of it (whether it has a use, or just has aesthetic value).

Maybe practice by creating something, then destroying it, as if it had never existed. What remains? Memory and skill, both of great value.

And simply the fact that, nowadays, you have access to the production of thousands of other people, with which you can compare yours. And in most cases it will compare unfavourably; to make it worse, almost all those people are unknown to the general public, they are often not even professionals, they are just very ordinary persons with a hobby, and yet you can see in a couple of clicks that they get (much) better results than you do.

On may call this a self-validation based on external elements.

Perhaps, as it devalues your creations in your own eyes, it reinforces the need for external validation.

Thus you kind of do have to find at least enough fulfillment in the process of creation and of self-improvement to keep at the grind. Some amount of existential dread of that sort is also just part of the grind of any creative pursuit.

At the same time though, it also helps to keep some perspective and step back for some time if it becomes too consuming. I let this sort of dread get too far for programming, which had me shirking all other important things in life (family, food, sleep, work) just to keep coding. Once I stepped back from it I got a lot less stressed, managed to find other aspects of my skills I needed to work on and also managed to find a place to apply myself to which is sufficiently fulfilling.

> I suppose we're supposed to take some sort of fulfillment in the process of creation itself? But that just goes back to the old koan of the tree falling in the woods. If I create something, but nobody ever sees it, did I create it at all? Doesn't feel like it.

I think these questions come back to "what is the meaning of life?", no?

Among many things, I enjoy hiking. I also know for a fact that thousands of people have been to every place I go and none of my trips will ever be publicly notable. That's OK. When I hike, I enjoy the journey... exercise, clean air, calm views, quiet space, one with nature, and the ego-scratch of reaching a summit... my experience feels good, deep in the bones and belly. What more could one want? If no one knows about the trip, does that invalidate or lessen my experience?

I carry the same perspective to creative pursuits. The mental exercise, honing skill, going from nothing to something - some moments are frustrating, but in aggregate it feels good. At work, I do find capitalist realities corrupt the creative joy, but I accept that as part of where we are as a society.

This can mean:

- Paying the platform (the easiest and most scalable, but also the most expensive and arguably least effective)

- Paying an influencer for an explicitly labeled sponsored content (effective, but depends a lot on your target demographic)

- Paying a popular account to share your content "organically", without any explicit sponsored labeling (the most effective, but also the hardest to scale)

You'll find that once you get a decent amount of following, it's easy to snowball into a much larger following - provided you have content worth sharing.

I’ve been down your road before, and it sucks, but ultimately it’s why you need to make sure you enjoy doing what you’re doing above all else, with the hopes that others will enjoy it.

Sometimes you just gotta make something because you want it to exist in the world, and because YOU want to be the one to bring it into existence.

Personally, I love that you’re keeping a concept like this alive.

That said, because it’s the internet, I can’t help but add my $0.02 on your marketing efforts.

So, from your brief description of your attempt at Reddit marketing, I can’t help but notice that your game is very much going for the Chip’s Challenge / MS DOS / Windows 95 vibe.

Yet your marketing efforts and description of game length is trying to make a Nintendo Power / Super Mario connection. On a subreddit in which people were upvoting NES cartridges.

I’d say that’s the wrong audience. While there’s plenty of overlap between early PC gamers and early Nintendo gamers, most people tend to focus their nostalgia on one over the other.

You’ve found a cool niche, but I would expect far more resonance with the vintage PC / DOS gaming crowd, and maybe even the Amiga / Atari PC crowd.

But like I said, I’m not any better at this than you, and I also acknowledge that your Reddit story may be just one of many attempts you’ve made at marketing.

I hope you keep at it, and find enjoyment in the process, but don’t be afraid to take breaks, or try something wildly different. Best of luck!

Life starts posing those existential questions at the extremes of sacrifice, especially when you're working for something your brain subconsciously knows could potentially turn out to be vaporware.

If you're going to play the game of wanting users, then 1) immediate and regular program-shaping user feedback is king and 2) many overnight successes take longer than expected [1]. At 4 years in you're really just getting started with learning. Obviously you're in the phase now where you recognize you need help and can't do it all yourself, so how badly do you want your Everest? It always takes teams to reach any great summit.

[1] https://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2008/05/guit...

Your game looks super basic and through that unappealing. You would've gotten a feedback IF you would've not mentioned the 4 years sunk into the game. Virtually all that feedback would've been negative or critical, but people are just not assholes enough to tear into a massive amount of effort when it seemingly yielded so little. Hence the silence when you try and engage.

It isn't a trivial task that anyone can do, at least efficiently (paying the minimum amount for the maximum number of conversions). It is just like programming where some people never seem to get it, except you are also competing against others.

If marketing is not something you are talented at or something you want to spend time and effort on, try paying for it. Even the biggest studios are buying ads and paying influencers.

As best I can tell, success in those efdorts is equal parts luck, wit, and having something unique yet relatable.

It feels fake to let people know what you're working on by writing about it? That's what you and the parent are de facto saying.

How else do you expect them to find you?

There is no possible way around it. You have to tell people what you're doing. Repeatedly. You have to cultivate an interest in your thing. If one can't be bothered with that bare minimum building block, well, there obviously will be no successful outcome. It's definitely not build it and they will come (they don't know it exists until you show them). Give them a reason to care, cultivate interest, and they'll show up.

I'm too busy making stuff and hanging out with my real friends to go be fake with people just to market to them in the future.

I guess you could try to make as many games as possible, quickly, and hope that one hits just right, and then focus on it and make it better fast.

I mean, Dwarf Fortress was like the ultimate “good game, tiny community” example and even they had two dudes working on it, IIRC one of whom seemed to spend quite a bit of time dealing with the community. And despite making every game designer’s favorite game, they still had to hire a publisher in the end…

What's the game?

If you happen to visit the website and see the Nintendo Power-esque PDF, tell me, shouldn't that grab the attention of the right person? I know I don't have the best social understanding but I thought I nailed that one.

Marketing is just so opaque. I would rather write an OS from scratch. At least I know that can be solved given enough time.

He would go as far as to develop the website and marketing assets, all the way up to and including an order form, spending money on advertising, etc. and see how it performed. And when people hit the order button they'd just get a message which said "currently out of stock - check back soon."

If the numbers coming back from a marketing campaign were good he'd then go on to develop the product.

Now you could debate the ethics of this but the key point is that the best way to figure out the sales and marketing side of a business is trial, error, and measurement of the outcomes. You get a marketing message of some kind out there, and you see if where and how you did it is a winner. You get your message/funnel/whatever as close as possible to an actual sales process. You get as close as you can to measuring specifically buying intent. You defer as much investment in actual product development as you can. Your time and money instead goes into looking for a technique and message that work.

Eventually you get enough info about your market this way that marketing looks much much less opaque. You will come to understand who would buy your shit and why. If you are a creator/maker/artist/developer/etc. and you achieve that understanding you've basically written yourself a golden ticket for many many years at that point, because for you, making the thing which fulfills that demand is really the easy part.

It's understanding what the demand is and who has it that needs your time and attention at the start. Understanding the shape of the hole in the universe which you are going to fill. Once you achieve that everything else falls into place.

When I think of the fun NES games I played, they were not puzzle games. They were TMNT 2, Mario (obviously), TLOZ, Contra, Metroid, Megaman. Those are more action games, not puzzle games.

While watching the video, I couldn't really understand what was happening. You showed gameplay, but what was going on was indecipherable.

Anyway, maybe the game doesn't appeal to me, and it does to others, IDK, I don't spend much money on games. From time to time, I'll spend a couple dollars on a mobile game if I enjoy it. Maybe you should change your marketing to make it F2P and users can purchase the full game after 4 or 5 levels via in-app purchase.

Maybe 30 years ago, but we're all (mostly) grown up now. Even for those old school gamers, I don't think it's enough to just give them something retro -- there's still got to be something new brought to the table, and I'm just not seeing it here. I'm sure it's clever and all, but when it comes down to it, most people need (not want -- need) novelty.

I'd honestly love some cliff notes or a bulleted list from someone who has actually succeeded, especially if they ( like me ) had no marketing experience beforehand.

There's a guide that was posted to this subreddit a while ago too, that gives what you are looking for I think. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_ma...

It's important that it's authentic though as people can see right through someone's BS. In your situation you were simply playing a game you liked, which is about as authentic as it gets. There are a lot of people out there grinding away at something they don't necessarily enjoy, for the end goal of making money or success, which sounds terrible to me. I'd much rather grind away at something I truly enjoyed and where it's a win/win whether success comes with it or not.

In my younger and very introverted days I accidentally figured this phenom out. I was on a BBS site for a couple years, just hanging out with people with the same interest (motorcycle riding/racing). This led to IRL meetups, which led to me riding for a professional motorcycle racing team, where I lived my dream racing fully built Superbikes for several years. There was some luck involved of course, but it would have never happened if I hadn't participated authentically on some random website.

Since learning this important life lesson I've applied the same philosophy to my professional life. At this point I've had enough "lucky" situations happen where it's affirmed my opinion of statistics at play.

1. Before you start the project, do some research and ask yourself what is unique about your game? Why would someone play it instead of the leading competitor? Don't settle for an idea that doesn't have plausible answers.

2. Build the game really well. REALLY WELL. Amazing artwork, great style, a visual feast. Fun, snappy gameplay. Depth. I'm talking hours of engrossing gameplay. Solid, performant, virtually bug free.

3. Along the way build moments into the game that really stand out, that would look hot in a gif, that would pique someone's interest if they heard about it.

--- most people get it wrong before this point ---

4. OK now you're ready to start marketing to people. It's easy, just tell them about your game. How? Break the game along different dimensions. The story. The game systems. The emotions players will experience. etc. For each of these, break them into smaller blurbs. You now have dozens of things to share, start recording gifs/video/screenshots to support what you've written. Now start posting to social media. If someone finds your Twitter profile and scrolls through, they should come away understanding what your game is and why they want it.

5. Next go to Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, websites, etc. and find the top accounts that cover / discuss games like yours. Follow them. Interact with their posts/communities. Especially keep an eye out for opportunities to share your work with them.

6. Advanced: come up with some marketing moments. E.g. announcing your game with a launch trailer, revealing the release date, releasing a demo, your launch day, etc. Put these all on a calendar. For each date, work backwards ~2 months. Coordinate social media posting, email with press/influencers using those dates.

I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it's really so so so hard to get steps 1-3 right. People delude themselves into thinking they're on the right track simply because making games is incredibly, super hard. It's outrageous how much work it takes to make something at all. But no one cares about that. Another reason I think people fail, myself included, is we tend to make very safe, hackneyed games. How many of us are guilty of making a game set in a vaguely DND/Tolkien world? That's tired. I know someone still manages to beat the odds every year, that's survivorship bias in action. Play with a stacked deck, make something truly original.

A fantastic game doesn't have to be visually stunning to be successful. It helps of course but visuals don't make/break an otherwise fun game. What does matter however is that the visuals need to make sense and be consistent.

You can get away with "ugly" or otherwise unremarkable graphics but inconsistent or confusing visuals will interfere with gameplay and the game will suffer.

Personally, I'm willing to make sacrifices to make games, but I'm not willing to go as far as them.

To be honest, this is really all you need. Now granted, REALLY WELL these days means competing with reputably teams (indie and AAA) with a lot of experience and/or manpower, so we're well past the Cave Story days. But if you spend the time pushing your craft and/or finding like minded people, it's not impossible to just focus on this.

But in terms of budget (time and money), your steps are probably the best to make a "good" game actually sell well. Personally tho I want to really try pushing the envelope with my project one day. One day far into the future after I really learn the 3D art pipeline.

Another idea: Bribe a popular streamer to play your game and tweet about it. I am sure it is common.

It is illegal in the context of radio stations that play music.

Legal in almost every other context; payola is one of the most obviously stupid laws we have.

> 15 years ago this just wasnt possible

Actually around 2003 to 2006 I was doing that. Back then we were releasing games on PocketPC, which sold around $20. It was basically 1 programmer and 1 artist, or some could do that all by themselves.

But then came a period where mobile became really popular, and a lot of money started flowing into that game platform.

But I do agree that now you have both the platforms and tools for small game developers to pull off some very nice games.

While it's certainly possible it's very much the exception rather than the rule here. Let's take the parts of a game and individually look at why:

* Gameplay - This is where small indies really shine it possible to create a game with some cool gameplay. The problem here is that to create something that people actually find fun is rather hard. Most Indie games are boring as shit, they often have a single gimicky gameplay feature. You can try this yourself to come up with something that's truly fun. Sit down for 30 minutes and build a game that's unique and fun, you'll fine it's really hard. That's why the AAA game studios don't really do that. They use other techniques to sell the game like using and big well known IP. Most AAA gameplay is not unique and often is really not that fun for this exact reason. Note also here most indie devs who have never actually made a hit with tell you to just work on making the gameplay in your game really great. It's a cop out.

* Art - This is one of the hardest parts. You can kitbash a bunch of asset store stuff but then your game looks like a hodgepodge mess. You can hire an artist but if you want something really good looking you won't find them on upwork selling their labour at sweatshop rates. Really good artists are specialists in specific areas like character design, concept art, environment art ...etc. Trying to just find someone on upwork who will do all of that really well for you is basically impossible. Also note if you use stuff off the asset store you will need your artist to match that style which is actually really hard. To get really good art for a game you have to hire a team and build from the ground up. That's very difficult for indie teams most of which have no money to spend on art.

* Sound - Great games have great soundtracks. Often composed by someone with a lot of experience. These people are hard to find and even harder to convince to work on a game. Again like the art it's not something people are selling for cheap on upwork. Note also that you will want stuff in the game like jumping sounds, landing, clicking all that stuff. You can again find packs with this on the asset store but they often just won't have that sound you are looking for and mixing sound packs make the game seem cheap. The sound design has to be all one piece of work really. Think mixing 8-bit era sounds with more modern stuff it doesn't work.

* Testing - Often not looked upon but testing your own work doesn't work. You need someone independent to look at what you've done and break it. If you've ever played Bethesda Games you'll see what poor testing looks like. Note that the larger the scope of your game the amount of testing becomes exponential. The big AAA game studio have more testers than devs by far. If you look at many of the small indie game this really can kill the game. The devs chuck something together which looks ok and is fairly unique but is so poorly tested that no one is willing to buy.

All in all it's possible to do but really hard and I would say they got really lucky.

> The distribution of Steam and viral marketing of Twitch have revolutionised indie development

Yes but not in the way you think. Before anyone was able to put stuff on these shops getting on Steam was a one way ticket to $$$$. There where curated stores and even being in them meant you got a seal of approval from the likes of valve. Now-a-days the steam store is filled with so much asset flip junk "indie games" it's become a meme. To be seen on any of these platforms is now a real miracle. Again on twitch getting picked up by a big streamer is like winning the lottery. The vast majority of streamers on twitch make no money and have such a tiny audience getting on their streams would only net you double digit sales if you are lucky.

Sure it seems that way now, but what happens when a volcano appears under their house and it floods with lava? Or they go to war with the elves?

Remember: Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for one night; light a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

I hope so, but it is amazing how quickly one can burn through money by making foolish choices. Or just being unlucky. I can’t be the only one who remembers esr being worth tens of millions on paper, then losing basically all of it.

IIRC the stock price fell quite a bit before he could sell.

...which was entire reason for Steam release in the first place

One paramedic prices having a heart attack at about $400k pre-insurance† (or no insurance). Check those limits on your plan...

† Healthline has an article with another example from 2012 priced at $500k

The ACA does prohibit these limits for certain "essential health benefits", but there's a lot of wiggle room that insurance providers will take advantage of.

In actual health insurance, there is no longer a coverage cap. So you don't need a backup insurance plan past 5M or somethign anymore.

They deserve it absolutely but $2M each does not put them in a position of "fuck you" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI

A 4 or even 3 percent withdrawal rate is more likely to be sustainable. Those are also rates I see suggested more commonly on retirement planning sites.

So, yes, $2m should probably be modeled at about $80K income per year before taxes without touching principal but without building savings.

(May be somewhat higher with higher interest rates/inflation.)

My understanding is that annuities provide in general a worse return than the so called 4% rule on average.

There's a whole active debate around exactly what numbers are sufficiently safe over what time horizons and what portfolio mixes. For a fun long read, see ERN's series on safe withdrawal rates https://earlyretirementnow.com/safe-withdrawal-rate-series/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

I bet I'll see 5% within next 2 months. Obviously interest rate changes drastically over time.

The only real challenge is a portfolio mix and withdrawal strategy that minimizes the damage from withdrawing during downturns. That's where the 4% rule becomes relevant.

5% interest hasn’t been avail from a bank in a couple of decades, and the fact that we’re close to it again doesn’t mean it will stay that way…

You just can’t get a guaranteed risk-free return of that range indefinitely, which is why a lot of people shoot for 3-4% when they don’t have more capital to invest in riskier but higher return investments.

Edit: this also touches on a grievance I have with progressive taxation and annualized retirement savings. These guys might have been in a Lowe tax bracket for many years and be back in a low tax bracket depending on how sales go over the years. The one time they hit it home they are in the top tax bracket and can only max out tax advantages from retirement contributions for that one year. They'd be in a much better position in this regard of their income was spread out. The entire system is build assuming people earn pretty much the same year to year. Same for other self-funded founders with exits.

I do get a kick out of the idea that these guys basically revolve a lot of their life around developing DF. I wonder how much of their lifestyle could be legitimately expensed from a corporate account without any IRS hassle.

No kidding. I spent most of my 20s and part of my 30s working for companies without a 401k (several small startups or video game studios). I'd love to put in more than the max now to make up for it, but have to make do with just buying stocks without the tax advantage.

I think that if you're considered 'behind' for your current salary and age, especially significantly so (I bet a bunch of people here, even those 10 years younger than me, probably have 5-10x more in their 401k than I do), there really shouldn't be much of a cap on what you can put into your 401k.

Like the cap should just be a max total you can have in there based on your age, not a cap per year.

[1] https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-the-state-of-long...

Asking for a married friend…

* Standard-deduction next year is $27,700 married ($13,850 single)

* Long-term-capital-gains is 0% on first $89,250 ($44,625 single)

Thus if you have the tooling to perfectly control your income, e.g. you take $27,700 in treasury bill payments and then sell off enough stock (or take qualified dividends from your corporation's bank account) in the total of $89,250, you'd end up with:

* Ordinary Income: $27,700 - standard deduction of $27,700 = $0 taxable income

* Long-Term-Capital-Gains of $89,250 = 0% ltcg tax bracket

= $116,950 ($58,427 single) of federally tax-free income

Then if you're in a no-income-tax state (such as WA, like the Adams brothers), you don't owe any taxes at all.

[1] https://www.kitces.com/blog/long-term-capital-gains-bump-zon...

Unless there’s another way you hand in mind?

That is exactly what "fuck you" money means. It's not about having so much money you couldn't possibly want for anything. People will always want. It's about having enough that you're not beholden to anyone for your basic needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjKP8vYjpQ&ab_channel=Youtu...

I always thought it meant something like "enough money to tell literally anybody to go fuck themselves without fear of the economic consequences". But I did a little googling and apparently "fuck you money" is one of those things that doesn't really have a clear-cut definition. Which is weird.

In theory there is some specific dollar that you earn which puts you over the line into "fuck you" money. If you're a dollar away from financial independence, are you worried about saying "fuck you" to your boss? Hell no! Which must mean that you're already safely in "fuck you" territory.

So that the magical greenback--the one with the serial number ending in "FU"--must come way earlier. Maybe it's the buck that puts your bank account into five figures for the first time. Or the one that tops off your 6-month emergency fund. Hell, if the dollar that puts you in the dos commas club doesn't send a surge of "fuck you" power running through your veins... you might just not be the "fuck you" type.

First, you can't predict what will happen with the economy vis-a-vis your investments and cost-of-living. Sure there are rules of thumb, but depending your age and the current situation, assumptions like "I can perpetually do a 4% drawdown" may or may not be reliable.

Second, the ability to say FU to everyone is not a black and white decision. Perhaps you value earning more to live a higher lifestyle in the short-term, with some optionality to say FU if things go sideways. Other people might have been burnt and would rather live a life of poverty than be forced to capitulate to The Man one more time. In the immortal words of Lawrence from Office Space: "you don't need a million dollars to do nothing". Most people probably fall somewhere in between.

And last but not least, declaring financial independence raises new existential questions which people may not be ready to answer. Having a job gives a baseline social connection and sense of communal utility. To actually declare financial independence poses a risk of alienation, which may have no upside once the immediate threat of short-term dependence on one's employer is removed.

It is about significantly improving your economic baseline, your p90 negative outcome. You can be making a million dollars a year and still be needy as hell. You need to keep your job, need to your investments stay up, need interest rates to stay down. If you're leveraged, there's a decent chance you'll go broke on a long enough timeline. And you'll always be partly aware of it. Your baseline is getting a job you hate so you don't go homeless.

If you have 2 million in the bank and don't leverage too hard, your baseline is being the average American while working 0 hours a week. You can do that until you figure out whatever is next, instead of sending out resumes.

"So, what the hell DO you do if you are unlucky enough to win the lottery?" https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/whats_the...

It's got some dark news, but real advice that seems legit.

If you're going the Reddit route, at least link to /r/fatfire or /r/personalfinance

A competent business owner coming into a windfall this size is in a pretty good spot compared to your average rando off /r/askreddit~~

EDIT: Please disregard this comment, just left it here as a monument to my own jerkness

I saw "AskReddit", quickly skimmed and saw something along the lines of "Every lottery winner gets murdered by family", and jumped to the conclusion that this was your typical /r/AntiWork-esque "Mediocrity is good" viral post.

I think all the advice he posted about setting up trusts, buying index funds and treasuries, etc would fit in great here, on /r/fatfire, MMM or anywhere else.

How many more dwarf fortresses could we have if we gave people the safety net to follow their dreams? Instead of worrying about basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare.

However what we saw with covid stimulus and unemployment wasn’t the “everyone’s now an artist” outcome that is suggested with UBI.

We definitely saw creatives able to express and build their visions into the world, thanks to the money and additional time.

But we also saw, and still have ongoing, many people who choose not to work [0]. Some percent of these people are suffering from substance abuse. Not to say this is purely the outcome of UBI, but I can’t imagine it helps those individuals with such proclivities for abuse.

Personally I think we should have a good UBI at the least, qualified for individuals who make under a certain amount and who are able and working, or legitimately looking for a job.

There’s a reason many trust fund kids go broke or dive into substance abuse. Sure there are examples of families who would not do this under similar circumstances, but giving out money for no work (assuming one is able to work), leads to hedonic pleasures unless the individual is purposely aware and trying to avoid such sand traps.

[0] - https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea38.htm

I do think UBI has risks, hopefully we can encourage useful pursuits, public works, etc.

Absolutely no auditing was being done. Some states require you reach out to or inquire about at least 2 jobs per week, nothing close to "all of your time" YMMV I suppose.

>U.S. watchdog estimates $45.6 billion in pandemic unemployment fraud

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/22/unemploym...

That might seem a bit of an extreme statement but the reality is that as soon as children enter school they are steadily stripped of their creativity in favor of discipline and obedience. They are raised in a capitalist society where they are told that their worth is tied to their job. And they spend a huge chunk of their lives doing what their boss tells them.

As far as the stimulus check, these were people trying to survive a global crisis and managed to get a break from the drudgery of their degrading, exploitative jobs.

You can't make claims about human nature without considering the context in which these events are occurring.

It sounds like you think this is bad. Why?

The "U" in UBI means "Universal". Once you add any kind of means testing you ruin the whole idea.

So, so many. Linux is a good example. Linus has talked about how he was able to spend a lot of time on getting Linux off the ground because back in the 80s and 90s, study allowances in Finland were very, very generous. Took him like 8 years to graduate, and during that time he didn't have to worry at all about finding a job to pay rent and buy food. These days, the system is similar, but they do monitor your progress more closely and will cut off the allowance if you don't progress in your studies. (ask me how I know :P)

While some jobs may be completely pointless, I think we would quickly find that we actually need people doing boring jobs because society would fall apart without them and then no one gets to build video games.

I don’t think jobs would go away like you seem to imply. When I say taking care of peoples needs I don’t mean giving everyone a mansion.

The current entertainment market already saturates this several hundred times over.

Creating several dozen more dwarf fortresses won't do anything since they will just take attention away from each other.

Since information can be replicated for almost nothing.

Whereas physical labor can't be replicated nearly as easily.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/canada/british-columbia/...

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-paramedics-...

Its due to the governments defunding public healthcare in order to 'strangle it then save it'. You defund it, make people say 'it doesnt work', then say that "We need to privatize it."

Its de facto privatization method used since Reagan/Thatcher. Same method is being used in any country that ends up with a 'privatizing' government.

Public health is just difficult to fund. Especially on a shrinking population.

They only have two choices now:

* increase or keep immigration at the same rate

* decrease or eliminate benefits like socialized healthcare and social security

Increase productivity (per capita output), increase taxes, specifically pursue high income society development paths (including on who you allow to immigrate, such that high income immigrants promptly become high tax contributors).

Canada is more or less already doing this. They'll likely just have to boost taxation further.

You’re right about the other two either already happening or inevitable.

Lastly, Canada's population isn't shrinking. It's growing, thanks to a sensible immigration policy (well, mostly sensible; not recognizing the credentials of healthcare professionals is pretty dumb).

Public healthcare is only difficult to find when your government's priority is to personally engorge on a gravy train powered by corruption. All of the issues facing the Ontario healthcare system are intentionally self-inflicted.

Sure, just be a socialistic/communist government and be able to finance the pension system while depending on US money (because there isn't any good alternative), once you go too much into debt and deal with IMF, and be sure not to defund important services (like medicine) when they ask you causing bank runs and bankrupcy. Easy, no?

Oh, and make sure there is no corruption that would cause funds to be mismanaged.

Why the hell would they depend on US money if they become a socialistic/communist government that channels its GDP to its people instead of channeling it to tax breaks for the rich.

> corruption

No problem - they can just legalize it under the name 'lobbying' like how US did it.

Indirectly, because they depend on petroleum/oil/gas. Sure your glorious government has to import energy or other fuel derived products. Not to mention imports don't magically teleport to your location, they also depend on oil to get shipped.

> No problem - they can just legalize it

That's just papering over the issue. Akin to saying we solved drunk driving by setting alcohol in blood to 50%.

There is no country in the world where public healtchare is failing without getting DEFUNDED intentionally.

You’re still down to some major choices:

* End immigration and end public benefits like healthcare

* Keep immigration and keep healthcare for now. Then pray that someone finds a solution someday to a shrinking population because immigration will only slow it down.

* Drastically increase taxes. This isn’t really a viable long term solution because in most places that have a lot of socialized benefits the taxes are already very high.

I’m having trouble finding the original statscan article, but according to their projections even if you drastically increase immigration even higher than it is today Canada will still eventually face a population decline. Immigration only slows down the decline. I can’t help but think that the world is experiencing a more subtle and slow version of Children of Men

When are people going to wake up and smell the class war?

Because the evidence just passes me by in the form of news articles, new laws being proposed, new budgets undercutting public health care and promoting the private sector.

I have stories for days. But as you say, I need to start saving the sources because I'm not really into politics. I'm a nerd, I live in a nerdy bubble. I just observe the world around me and see the corruption.

You can do the rationing through market forces, where people who can't afford it get less care; you can do the rationing through some other allocation system (e.g. priority systems, or long queues, or lottery, or committee allocation) which in effect still mean that not all people get everything.

If you want to say "In our society, everyone gets healthcare" then you have do define "healthcare" narrowly, which includes some services but not everything technically possible - I mean, if we have services that take more than a man-month of labor for each month of prolonged life (and there are some) then that's not possible to provide for everyone always even from a purely mathematical standpoint.