An interesting read.

People have different definitions to indie games, but I think it is wrong to think that non indie games can't make artistic/fun/complex/platform games. Aren't some new mario games are actually platformers? I am sure there are examples for all the others as well.

I don't like to bash the big industry, I think every big studio should be examined as a per case basis. It is not fair to say that above a certain team size, companies can't make A or B games.

Just my opinion.

@Adam: Maybe people would consider talking to you about your game if you had a better attitude? Or emailed editors of certain gaming-related websites for consideration, maybe? Don't make yourself suffer more than you have to.

@Adam: wow, you have very clearly NOT played Boulder Dash and/or Spelunky, because if you had you'd know that those two particular games are not even *remotely* similar: the former is a Dig-Dug-like puzzler while the latter is (as should be abundantly clear from the title) a Spelunker-like platformer. Are you basing your criticism on screenshots?



Spelunky is one of the games I've most enjoyed playing, ever; beyond the game itself being really fun/challenging and very well-presented, the introduction of randomly-generated levels in a platformer is AFAIK a first.



I understand your frustration concerning Flytrap, however there are almost 700 games on XBLIG! I can recall maybe one or two being featured on TIGSource, but even if they randomly featured one a week you'd only have a 7% chance of being featured in year (and this number will only go down as more games are added every day).



BTW there are many writers, not just Derek who decide what games to feature, and personal attacks are really not going to help anything.

I have to agree with Raigan. ]edit] Chill out and make games your proud of and recognition will come.

"Correction, there are almost 700 games on XBLIG that aren't Flytrap. "



I really don't see the point you're trying to make, if there is one. My point was 99% of XBLIG games have no been featured on TIGSource, there's no reason to feel personally targeted.



Some non-Adam-related thoughts on the article:



-AFAIK Derek didn't create TIGSource, he took it over when the original founder had to stop

-we're the true originators of spite-based game development! damn it!!

-there had better damn well be an option to turn on the original pixel-y graphics for XBLA Spelunky

Adam,



just thought I should throw a few words in here. I'm one of the editors at Indiegames.com, and I received your email about Flytrap about a month ago. The email contained a few paragraphs about the game, and 3 screenshots.



After reading what you sent me, I then went to check out the game more. Your email didn't supply a website, so I went hunting for one, and came up with nothing. You hadn't even supplied a link to the Xbox Live Marketplace page for your game, which was a little odd given this is what you were trying to sell to me. After Googling it and finding the page, I was presented with a 'Content not found' page on the Xbox.com site. Not a great start.



I then decided to hunt on Youtube for a video of your game, and yet again came up with nothing. Honestly, you are here complaining that no-one is giving coverage to your game, and yet the real problem is that you need to have a quick and very easy lesson in marketing. How is anyone meant to get excited about your game when all you give them is 3 measly screenshots which all look the same?



Unfortunately your view of gaming sites which cover indie titles has been skewed due to your feeling of rejection. This is completely understandable, but coming on here and spouting off about how your game hasn't received the 'deserved recognition' it needs is pretty childish. Maybe you should instead be trying to work out WHY your game hasn't taken off how you would have liked. As I said before, marketing your game properly would be a very good start.

Adam, this may surprise you, but telling everyone off and claiming to be superior to them is not the way to anyone's heart. "Talk about my awesome game, you dick" is very probably not going to cut it! Maybe you think this cantankerous stuff will get you more play. Maybe it will! Who knows.



Raigan - yeah, I edited the intro to reflect the TIGSource thing.



I also agree about the original pixel graphics for Spelunky. DEREK DO AS WE SAY.

Adam, it did, but unfortunately in a negative way. My first impression of you is now not a very good one, which is not really what you want, when you're the only current champion of your product.

Adam,



I'm glad it helped. As for needing a standard form for what it is we are looking for, honestly that's the kind of thing you should really research for yourself. I receive dozens of emails a day, and understandably I'm going to choose to follow up on an email which gives me tons of details about what I'm looking at over another which gives me barely anything.



I would suggest you go check out this Indie Marketing Guide on Dev.Mag, it has some great information in it you will probably find very useful -> http://www.devmag.org.za/articles/78-ZERO-BUDGET-INDIE-MARKETING-GUIDE/

Adam,



OK I apologize, let me rephrase what I said. Where I said I want 'tons of details' I meant 'better details than a few screenshots and no links'. I believe that journalists in general are very clicky clicky people (please slap my hand if I'm wrong with this, anybody) so if there are pretty links to websites and videos for me to work my mouse pointer around, I am there like a shot.



So there, you heard it here first - if you want to get coverage for your venture, just light up your emails with blue underlined goodness.

Adam, above all you should have a website where people can actually find things. All you really need is a good website with video, a description, and screens on it. And of course a good game.



You should also be aware that putting down other peoples' games (especially without playing them) and saying yours is way better calls people to compare. With a negative attitude, people will go into it looking to prove you wrong, rather than with a fresh slate (think about how you might go about playing Spelunky, if you feel slighted).

Adam,



I feel like I should write up some kind of article dedicated to this... I may just have to do that. Remember this is only what I would like to receive - others may have different preferences, but I'm going to guess it can't be that far from my thoughts.



The main text of your email was good - it was quick and to the point, explained what your game was about, and told me that if I wanted to check out your game, you were willing to send review code. So far, so good. The screenshots were also appreciated - not too little, but not overkill either. So everything that was there is good - you made me want to go hunting for your game. Of course, this is where it went badly - no matter how hard I tried (which, for the record, was probably about 2 minutes) I couldn't find a single other thing about your game, including the actual marketplace page.



It's as simple as this - (1) a link to your game (if it's an Xbox game, a link to the game's site and a link to the marketplace page), (2) a link to a video of the game (never underestimate the power of being able to see a game in motion), (3) you may want to think about the subject line of your email. Simply putting 'Flytrap' as the subject may mean someone will glance over it and not notice it. Think about possibly 'Xbox Live Indie Game Submission: Flytrap', or even more simply 'XBLIG: Flytrap'.



That's all I've got on the spot, but I think I'm gonna have a sit down and write up a full list of where some indie devs are going wrong marketing-wise.

Adam,



well now that's definitely a preference thing. In fact, that's probably even a 'what kind of day am I having' kind of thing. I guess some days a humourous email will tickle my fancy, and other days I just want it said to me straight. One thing I can tell you though - and again, this may just be my preference - when I receive a 'proper' press release (you know the type I mean, beginning with the words 'FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE' and full of ---------------- all over the place) that usually puts me off completely.



But please let me repeat myself - this is my preference, and if there are any journos out there who think this is bull, please tell me to go lie in a road.

Adam: Upon reading your first comment I tried to google your game and all I found was a review site where you had written a comment complaining about the negative review of your game! Of course the fact that the site in question was NegativeGamer.com didn't seem to matter to you. Needless to say, this coupled with the post was enough to give me a bad first impression.





"the point I'm trying to make is that I've been waiving the best game ever made in your faces but you're all too busy going ga-ga over the latest platformer gimmick to notice."



Do you really think that, or is it hyperbole? If your game really is the best game ever made, you won't need to worry about marketing, because word-of-mouth will do that for you; anyone who played an XBLIG game that was better than Doom, better than Super Mario Bros 3, etc. would be raving to everyone they could find!





"Miyamoto never had to work for press like this."



Okay, #1: he didn't have to work for press at all, because he worked for a company, he wasn't doing it all himself. If he had hand-made Donkey Kong in his garage, maybe no one would have ever heard of it! #2: how many years -- or DECADES -- did he work for Nintendo, even _after_ several hits, before he gained widespread recognition ("widespread" relative to gamers)? Do you think he got all whiny a month after his game launched when it hadn't yet achieved legendary status?





Spending $10k on an XBLIG game is a huge risk, when all reports have been that the vast majority of games on that platform see less than that in sales. Why not release a PC version as well? Pricing your game at the maximum 400 points is also a risky decision.



Instead of ignoring or dismissing negative feedback, you should try to actually take it seriously. Your girlfriend respected you and cared enough to tell you how she really felt, which I'm sure wasn't easy, and you seem to be bitter and resentful about that!





Basically this is becoming sad. There are already enough deluded game developers around, from "Bob" to abaraba, please don't be another one of them.



It sounds like you've had a hard time, but your hostility makes it very hard to be sympathetic.





ADDENDUM: I just tried to find and play your game so I could decide for myself if it was indeed the greatest unknown game of all time.. and I can't find it on XBLIG. I went to Indie Games->Browse->F, it's not there. Was it taken down?

Thanks for explaining all of that.



One thing I will say about IMAGWZombies is that it has tons of personality and style, and it's $1. I felt like the developer deserved $1 simply for having that idea and running with it, and executing it well. Yes it's yet another arena-shooter, but it's well-made and it doesn't take itself too seriously.



Making decisions based on the outliers is very risky, because that amounts to betting at terrible odds; for every XBLIG that has 5 digits of income there are maybe 50-100 which see an order of magnitude less. Even if your game is good, there are many reasons why it may not be commercially successful -- better to count on average/median sales, that way you have a small chance of being pleasantly surprised instead of a large chance of being hugely disappointed :)

I think you're failing to consider some important factors; it may have cost 18x as much to make Braid, but that doesn't mean it was 18x as risky.



For one thing, how fun a game is really should have no bearing when it comes time to deal with numbers. For one thing, many of the most critically acclaimed and adored-by-fans games have been commercial failures -- "fun" just isn't correlated to sales at all. Also, it's very hard to judge how "fun" a game is when you're making it, because not everyone shares your tastes -- just look at TV, movies, music and you'll find that stuff you hate is loved by millions of people and vice versa. Every developer thinks their game is the best, it's a tautology because if they didn't they would change it to whatever they thought was better!



More importantly, the way that numbers work wrt XBLA and XBLIG is maybe not intuitive. I'm not a business genius, but here is my amateur analysis:



At 70% x $15 per sale going to the developer, Braid would have to sell 17k units to make back its budget of $180k.



A conservative estimate of the average sales of an XBLA game at the time that Braid was released might be around 50k units; this means that even if Braid had been an incredibly poor seller and only sold 25k (which AFAIK is a number that the vast majority of XBLA games have reached) that's still more than the 17k required to break even -- it would have made about $80k in profit for the developer.



So even in the absolutely worst possible case it wasn't going to lose money, because hitting the break-even target of 17k was virtually guaranteed _without_ considering the individual merits of the game (i.e regardless of whether a game is good or not, according to the historical data it's going to sell more than 17k on XBLA).



So with Braid, the budget is much less than the worst expected sales revenue, so it's **not at all** risky -- it's highly likely to at least break even. Of course, it _is_ still risky in that the game might not get finished, Microsoft might cancel it for some reason, etc.. I just mean that based on average sales even the most conservative analysis should predict that Braid will make money.





I don't know the numbers as well for XBLIG, but I'm assuming that the average number of sales is appreciably lower: 100? 500? 1000? The worst case is then much worse than XBLA, I would guess than you can't *count* on selling more than 500-1000 units on XBLIG. Couple that with the fact that prices are capped at $5, and XBLIG can be a much riskier proposition than XBLA.





Of course I'm maybe a bit too risk-averse, but I feel the same way about XBLIG as iPhone -- it's great that it exists, I'd like to make games for it as a hobby, but it's way too risky to pursue as a career because you'd need to get lucky in order to make money -- if I was going to use that business strategy I'd save myself the effort and buy lotto tickets or go to Vegas.

It's worth noting that XBLIG is deliberately nerfed to have nowhere near the potential of XBLA for unit shifting. You only have to look at what it doesn't have to begin with...



It doesn't have achievements.

It doesn't have Live! enabled leaderboards.

It doesn't have offline play.

It doesn't have the dash visibility.

It doesn't have the magazine (online/offline) coverage XBLA titles do.



What XBLIG *is* is primarily is a toybox that someone came along at the last minute and added points-value to. It's pitched at hobbyists, deliberately skewed as much and as such, harder to get a goldrush on - not that it's stopped a lot of people from misunderstanding that with the inevitable disappointment and sadfaces that accompanies the sales figures.



Also, worth noting that when it comes to competing for folks money - you're not competing with other XBLIG's, you're competing with the entire 360 digital catalogue - other XBLIG titles *and* XBLA, avatars, map packs, everything you see on the 360 dash storefronts. So, you either have to have something very special and unique to the service (and promote the crap out of it) or have something comparable with XBLA content in order to compete.



It's why Nathan Fouts can make a better living than most people on the service with Weapon Of Choice. Well, that and he's bloody good at PR. He'd still make a metric muckton more if he were promoted to XBLA, mind.



That's not to say that there isn't money to be made, because it's already proven that some people can and will do so but that's going to be a lot more rare than even the appstore breakaway hits, not just because of what I've listed above but because it's simply not as convenient as the appstore for impulse purchases nor is it as portable.

Where's the reference to my awesome indie game site?



http://playthisthing.com



I mean, cOme oN.



Its ironic but still, we'd love for you to stop by.

I don't get the "super indie", I mean I wrote a game I wanted to play with a different style of control that is experimental, there is no saving and when you die it is game over and dumbed to the X-Box dashboard. I provide very little in the way of a tutorial because I want you to hak (or figure out) how to play the game. To me indie is making the game you want to make, regardless of whether you get paid or who you work with. My game ZenHak still gets comments like I was confused or this is hard, or why don't you have a save feature everytime it is reviewed or when I have to update it, so yes you have to defend your indie vision, but even if I made a non-original pong clone or a rhythm screen saver, if that is what I wanted to play and make then it is still indie in my book.



Glen

http://www.zenfar.com

Adam,



if you're still looking for advice, I wrote up that article I was threatening to pen -> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MichaelRose/20091212/3798/The_Idiots_Guide_to_Mar
keting_Your_Indie_Game.php



Hopefully you'll find it useful :)

@Adam: I think the main issue with Flytrap was that it needed more external marketing - I think there's been a bit more of that since I originally reviewed it (*plug* http://www.caffeinated.org.uk/xbig/review.html?reviewee=flytrap), but as with the initial responses to this article, a lot of the discussion has been defensive rather than positive.



To my mind, Flytrap makes for a nice little coffee-break game: it's not revolutionary or radically different, but it does a good job of combining some traditional mechanisms with modern graphics and styling. However, I'm not sure it's ever going to get the recognition you want it to (I've seen the threads where people have discussed turning it into an arcade game!), due to the following:



1) 400MSP for a coffee-break game felt expensive. Are you planning to stick to this price point when it's re-released? I appreciate that 80MSP is a very low price point, but have you thought about 240MSP?



2) Flytrap is good at what it does, but it's good at being a casual, traditional shmup experience. I can't recall the last time any of these broke into the mainstream!



3) One thing which is notable in the top-selling list is the fact that the traditional coffee-break games (i.e. block swapping and Arkanoid/pong clones) are very much absent. In general, I don't know if XBIG is actually a good place for "coffee-break" experiences. There's a lot of overhead involved in booting up the X360 and getting an XBIG game loaded - this doesn't compare well to the PC or iPhone environment, where you can just boot up a web-page or tap an icon - and unlike XBIG, you can multitask while playing coffee-break games in these environments.



Looking at xbox.com, the best-sellers generally fall into the following categories:

a) Gimmicks (massage tools, festive themes, avatar games)

b) Multiplayer titles

c) Medium-depth titles (i.e. titles which generally work best in 30-60 minutes play sessions, generally involving some RPG-lite elements and/or grinding - Miner Dig Deep, Fishing Girl, z0mb1es)



Overall, it might be worth looking into expanding into other markets. The iPhone market is saturated, as is Flash, but there's still money to be made from them. Also, the PSN/PSP networks aren't as overloaded - and there's DSiware, which very few people seem to have made inroads on yet, despite there being over 10 million consoles out in the wild...



Admittedly, these all need more up-front investment than XBIG, but you've already got the majority of the assets in place.

@Adam: Interesting responses :) I have to admit, there's a certain glass-house thing when it comes to me recommending people do better publicity, as I haven't really done much with my website yet - despite it having 600+ XBIG reviews and a (hopefully) well designed interface for searching out games. I definitely need to spread the word more!



Back to the discussion...



1) I think there's certainly a "firesale publicity" element to the sales boost for WOC - and discussions elsewhere (yakyak) have shown that setting iPhone game prices above the 99c level have generally resulted in better sales - it helps to set a perception of quality. However, I'd also point out that the 400MSP price-point is in direct competition with XBLA: Wikipedia lists around 70 titles at that price point and while a lot are retro-remakes, you also have stuff like Zuma, Worms, Geometry Wars. Unfortunately, for all that 400MSP is still incredibly cheap, it's the relative value (80 vs 400MSP) that tends to drive people's perception of value, not the absolute.



Also, personally I think z0mb1es was successful thanks to the self-referential irony in the song ("buy me... I'm only a dollar") - and the fact that it's actually a pretty good arena shooter - it's certainly head and shoulders better than the similarly themed Boom Chick Chick or Dead Meat. Then too, the developer is fairly well known and respected in the indie community with several XBIG/XBLA releases, making for some free publicity/awareness. The odds of anyone being able to reproduce this feat is fairly small - though I've no doubt people will try!



2) Pac-man had a key advantage at the time of being unique - indeed, the US market thought it would be a complete failure because it didn't fit into the demographics at the time. It also had two things going for it: 1) Cartoon-like graphics and 2) non-violent gameplay. Without wanting to sound negative, the Flytrap graphics may appeal to a wider demographic, but does the shooting-gallery gameplay?



3) I'll be interested to see Flytrap when it's re-released, as I have to admit I didn't see that much in the way of evolving gameplay mechanisms in the original demo - albeit it was a while ago, the game's not on my HDD any more and I've played several hundred XBIG games since! As such, I'll reserve further judgement until then - but I will comment that getting "simple but deep" gameplay can be distinctly tricky, as it's often possible to simply use brute-force as a substitute for skill!

Hmm. Thanks for the feedback on the website:) I'm debating adding a blog-style front-end to the reviews... Beyond that, I've not had any other accessibility problem reports and I do all my development on Firefox! That said, it may be just a timeout issue: the web-server is UK based, the XML for all the games weighs in at around 600kb and the server isn't currently running gzip compression. There's contact details on my website: I'd be interested in finding out more like connection speed, browser version, screenshots, etc, etc!



Anyhow, that's getting away from the discussion at hand...



Consumption/destruction: it's an interesting argument, but from what I recall, the focus is still about shooting bad guys with a gun (whether it shoots water or bullets) and the consumption is very abstracted: sucking up enemies is still violent and all you get is a new plant-pot at the end of the round.



Still, I'm a cynical, hardened male gamer, so possibly not the best person to judge on that front :)

Well, if I learned anything from this thread, it's that if I see the name "Adam Coate" attached to a game, I certainly won't be rushing to check it out any time soon.



The first thing I see is you bitching about how life is so unfair that Gamasutra covers these games of the incredibly talented co-creator of the absolutely phenomenal Aquaria and fantastic Spelunky, and wahhhh wahhh wahhhh WHERE IS MY COVERAGE????



Then I read further to find out that you hadn't even bothered to post a freaking YouTube video, something that my mother could do? You didn't even set up a web site? You didn't even bother to tell the people you're bitching to where they can go to download your game?



And then you pretend "haha hey guys, right? any publicity is good publicity, isn't it? Eh? Ehh??? Right?? *nervous laugh"





Life is hard. Game development is harder. Getting noticed is very hard. Well congratulations, you've turned yourself from just another fish in the sea to an entitled jerk whose games I'll probably never care about in the future.

Adam, since this has become the "Why My Amazing Game Is Not Recognized" thread, I will stand in defense of the poor Gamasutra crew.



Man, do you have any idea of how many games are out there? Just because you think you are "waiving the best game ever made in their faces" (really?), it doesn't mean that they have to make a huge effort to simply try to know anything about your game. I spent more than 30 minutes trying to find any info on it. All I got was some screenshots and two small reviews on small sites. And both of them said your game is not worth the price.



"Games journalists are more interested in pushing out a quick story than actually playing the games". Don't do this. It's your fault, not theirs, and saying things like that only makes people think that you are crazy and childish.



What world do you think you live in? You sound like the village madman. At least NOW you are getting some publicity. I would REALLY like to play your game, but you "pulled it of the store after 3-4 days due to lack of interest". Really? 4 days? Do you think Xbox owners are telepathic, sensitive beings? I try to play the Indie games every week. Guess what? You pulled your game so fast that I played some of the titles released on that week, but wasn't even aware of the existence of Flytrap.



You are NOT complaining that people do not recognize the genious of your game (and, to be honest, I very much doubt there is any). You are complaining that people don't KNOW that your game exists. How could they POSSIBLY? The best publicity it ever got is actually this whine thread you started. And now there is a lot of negativity involved in it. If I ever play it, I will sure try to stay focused in the game and its inherent qualities, not in your promises of "best game ever made".

"What do women, on average, like to do the most? Shop and eat; aka consume."



Haha oh wow!

@Adam



Are you serious or are you trolling?

@Adam: I think you need to take another look at the Negative Gamer review. They didn't say that your game sucked; They said that although it was fun, they didn't feel like they had a reason to keep playing. You game has no score and no new content as the play progresses. Can you think of a single successful game that does not give the player more content to spur them on? The biggest reason I kept playing Pack Man was that I wanted to see the next stage. Your game might be good fun, but with a price of 400 points it gives the player expectations that you do not meet. I would bet that Flytrap would get much better reviews at a lower price point.

@Adam



And yet, my only emotional response to that statement is highly destructive. Hmm. Think you might not be onto something there.

@Adam



Alright, here we go.



PART THE FIRST



1) You have a hard time finding valid information about the structural differences in the brains of males and females and how they ***socially*** apply to ***social*** behavior not because it hasn't been studied but because the results are largely inconclusive. As a matter of fact, using biological evolutionary theories of sex and gender to justify sex-normative roles (not even gender-normative, as it tends to rely entirely on the physical) is something I usually see discussed primarily by the types of gentlemen who have something to "prove" and something riding on it. Which has little to do with this discussion except that it helps cement my belief that you seem to not actually respect women as much other than the "mysterious other" you want to market your game to.



2) Shopping - While on average women may be higher spenders, this is partially due to constructed gender roles in society relying on women spending more (women who are lower-income on average as well, not to mention it still be suggested that we stay home/take care of the household/not work/get protected instead, often by those aforementioned gents who are fond of evolutionary biological gender theories). For example, to be publically viewed as respectible (and not slobbish, "not taking care of themselves", "not caring how they come across", etc), women should buy enough outfits to wear different clothing several weeks in a row, wear makeup (which, if it's not going to ruin your skin, is actually quite expensive) every day, maintain their hair (a female haircut costing much more than a men's haircut on average), etc, etc, etc. The image a woman is socially encouraged to present is more expensive than that of a man -- which isn't to say men don't have their own pressures and how gender roles being stereotypically enforced don't have problems across the board, but hey, we're talking about how women like shopping. Since it is so heavily enforced in society that a woman "should" be these things, it isn't exactly shocking that people get some enjoyment over, say, doing this with their friends to get their socialization done at the same time. Regardless, the stereotype -- which is simply a stereotype -- is that women like shopping for the love of shopping; perhaps you might look more into why women *happen* to shop more, and what sort of stress relief causes any kind fo enjoyment reaction as a result. But, you know, since you're researching a stereotype, I highly doubt you'll find much. Yes, yes, I am offended when you rely on stereotypes. Not controversy. *Stereotypes* of femininity. And then put it on the X-box system, for crying out loud.



3) If you seriously think you can talk about how women "like to eat" without raising the huge problematic nature of the view of "women who like to eat" and how society treats that, I wonder what rock you were raised under.



4) Where did you get these averages from, anyway?



PART THE SECOND



1) You are convinced that controversy for controversy's sake is a good thing, and thus I suspect you basically just added that statement to troll this thread a little more to get yourself more "publicity".



2) You are also trashing a) Game Designers (obviously, it's their fault, not yours, despite the fact other QA folks can get their concerns across quite well -- I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you've demonstrated repeatedly that you're an argumentative stubborn wall-with-ears who refuses to change your mind regardless of how many professionals are gently telling you it's a bad idea), b) Game reviewers (when you are a game developer!), c) The very site you are on, d) other professional game developers...



3) You think all of this is a good idea, and will not revise your stance. "this is the type of tactic that's necessary to get noticed. " Protip: Not all attention is good attention, and losing respect in the industry will not aid in people respecting your work in the future.





PART THE THIRD



Because of parts 1 and 2, I don't actually expect you to take in any of what I said. My advice, despite all that, is learn some PR. Learn to think outside stereotypes, because that's what I'm seeing over and over from you: Stereotypes, with you better than all those "sensitive designers", ignorant reviewers, girlfriend who didn't believe in you (but you showed her!), fellow commentors who just won't give you a try, etc, etc, etc. Talk to them with grace, even if you feel insulted, and you'd be surprised how much respect you gain, rather than lose. Though you might be a bit on the late side now.



Good day to you, sir.

@Adam



As I expected.

Hey, you guys know what's awesome? SPELUNKY.

OMG I LOVE SPELUNKY I THINK BRANDON IS RIGHT

@Adam: Negative Gamer gives its ratings in a negative light. It has 3 ratings: Don't buy, Try the demo, Buy it. He suggested people not buy Flytrap.



I understand that it is hard for you to say that the product of your hard work is only worth $1, but compare it to the value of other people's hard work. Most AAA games cost $50 - $60 and take between 50 man-years and 250 man-years to make. The highest end of that is $1.20 per man year with the low end of $0.20 per man-year. How long did Flytrap take to make? If it was 4 months then you are charging $15 per man-year. As a one-man show you can be significantly more efficient than a large team, but that is not enough to account for the difference.



Look at it from the other side: Are there any successful $5+ games with as little content as you have? Asteroids did, but that was a long time ago. Modern gamers expect more. Geometry wars is probably the closest and it has about 10 times the content. If you want to be successful at a $5 price point, you need more content: levels that are more than superficially different, high scores, boss battles, power ups, more enemies...

To bring this full circle, I'd like to see Meredith's epic post on Spelunky's potrayal of women.

I haven't played (though it sounds enjoyable), so my opinion is going to be limited to glancing at the wiki, then this: That walrus looks *amazing* in that wig.

@Brandon



Holy crap, *yes*!



@Adam



I recently read that Brandon Sanderson's 'Elantris' was like his sixth novel, and his first to get published and break him into the mainstream fantasy market (and when he made it, he made it big) - I was amazed that he kept going so many books in, and I'm glad he did because what I saw as an awesome first novel was actually a long road full of hard work. I bring it up as encouragement not to take you first shot as the make-or-break scenario but rather something to further your future work.



It also leads me to my other point though:



I read somewhere (else) that you should *never* badmouth your fellow writers - the community is so insular that everyone hears everything eventually and communities like that have long memories. Agents and reviewers are part of that crowd and a negative opinion can haunt you for a long time. I think the indie games community is a lot like that - we have our fair share of characters in the crowd, but for the most part they're targets of derision rather than admiration. Our heroes are the one that foster the community as a whole with their work - Derek is just one example. From the comments you've made here, it sounds like you respect your game far more than you respect your fellow developers or your audience - I don't know if you meant it as such, but most of your comments are pretty insensitive to the your reviewers and future players (along with you fellow professionals here who are just trying to help). Meredith made a better post discussing this, so I'll leave it at that.



A lot of what makes reading about and playing indie games so much fun is that the creators seem to make something because they wanted to play it themselves. Derek didn't target the roguelike crowd, he made something he thought would be fun and it just happened that it was. I'm glad he likes what he does or Spelunky might never have shown up. When you start talking about straddling some demographic to broaden your appeal, I start to glaze over.



Finally, women make babies too - maybe we should have more birthing mini-games. I wonder why more people don't cater to the mothering instinct. They practically can't help it.



(...that last part was probably too much.)

Heh, I was hoping you'd have something to write up about this http://spelunky.wikia.com/wiki/Damsel.

@Adam: I completely agree with you that the "You need more content to justify your price" attitude can lead to bad game design. My last post was unclear: when I said that your game does not have enough content to justify $5 I was thinking that lowering it's price was a much better idea than adding boss fights.



It seems to me that you are pricing it at $5 because, even though other games of the same size and scope should cost less, Flytrap is just so much better than everything else: "It is my honest opinion that Flytrap is the best game I've ever played". It is a terrible idea to give a game a price that only makes sense to those who can see that you are the greatest game designer to ever live. You can sell your game to the dozens of people who think it is that awesome, or you can try to sell it to the rest of us who think it is just another simple fun game.



P.S. Don't call Meredith a troll for giving you a polite and thoughtful response.

@Scott



Well, again, I haven't played it -- I don't know if in context it's tongue in cheek and making a hyperbolic satire of the standard "Damsel in Distress" early (and not so early) video game tropes, or if it's taken in unironical "Hey, what can I put as your Key Item here -- I know, let's make the item that woman object thingie!" I mean, the fact you can play as the Damsel by unlocking her, with equal abilities, implies to me that they at least thought about it -- or, well, I guess if you can also get a kiss from a Damsel when playing as a Damsel, it could just be fanservice. Either way, I haven't seen it first hand --so I'd rather hold off than essay about the portrayal with an uninformed opinion. ;)



Edit: I see if you switch to her, you rescue the Spelunker, so that's pretty cool.

This thread went from irritating to epic in a matter of hours, and two things are definitely clear: (1) Spelunky is awesome and (2) Adam Coate should have his own chat show, as watching train-wrecks is fun

Aside from Spelunky, know what else is awesome? Derek Yu.



Spelunky and Derek Yu are both very awesome.

I like both of those things.

@Adam: Has it occurred to you that people who are not emotionally invested in the game might not like it as much as you do?

The highest praise I could find (other than you):

"Flytrap may not do anything spectacularly different or unique, but it is a good, solid game" -Caffeinated

You should be proud that other people like your game, not disappointed that they can't fathom the magnitude of your genius. You made a simple fun game. You can either try to market that simple fun game or you can try to market the best game ever that only you can see.



P.S. It is not impolite for Meredith to disagree with you. If you actually believe she was rude, could you include a quoted example?

I can understand where Adam C. comes from, seeing as I'm heading into that same uphill battle for attention. But I learned from previous efforts that I have to suck up those big empty silences and just keep pushing for ways to "better sell a better game." The particular way in which I learned this was through posting games on Kongregate some years back. Kongregate users can be pretty vicious, but one of the most memorable comments I received for those games was "good game make another," which doesn't seem too harsh, until you try to think about it:



"Make another" implies that the game has already passed beneath that person's attention span, and probably did so within five minutes or less of playtime, so no, it wasn't *that* good of a game, they were just humoring you. A real sucker punch of a comment, done with just four words, and probably not even intended in a mean way, but boy, does it sure deflate the ego that can accumulate through months of effort. My expectations were high, and seeing them get demolished was one of the best lessons I've had.



If I can do better than that - if I can make the game that gets "good game" without any qualifier - I'll be happy.



(I would also point out that it is actually a natural thing for people working very hard on something to cross over from "tempered belief" in their efforts to "ungrounded faith," simply because they worked hard at it, and that is what happened to me exactly. If I don't actively reevaluate my game from the ground up and seek out feedback, my perception and the world's perception will only drift farther and farther apart, and the game will be the poorer for it. So I have to make active efforts to keep them in sync.)



I started an open dev log for my game some time ago looking to get early feedback; I still have until February before it's done:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=8098.0



At this moment, it has a whopping 16 replies. Most of them are mine. It started in *September* and I started posting weekly builds at the end of last month. Meanwhile, other dev logs on TIGSource about pixelly metroidvania platformers(there are quite a few along these lines), some of them with only screenshots, are racking up 2 to 10 times as much "attention-per-time-unit" in terms of views and replies. Why? There are plenty of reasons:



-The other games are potentially more interesting to the TIGSource forums audience - targeting, preferences and such.

-My game doesn't push many boundaries in innovation or wacky ideas; the intent has always been towards a subtle, technically-driven polish/execution to get at that casual/hardcore sweet spot - to create gameplay variation without exposing the player to tons of concepts(controls, stats, etc.) up-front. Payoffs from that are only just starting to show through in the last week or so, but I'm planning to add a few more features regardless...

-The experience I'm providing has very little content, still, making it hard for players to achieve a "flow state" or provide a good judgment of the overall experience.

-Although I've made a few things in the past, and I have a bit of "industry experience," I have no real track record or fans as an indie.

-I don't have a bold, engaging art style to sell the game absent gameplay; I'm just barely getting by in that respect! (In fact, I just spent the evening considering a purchase of stock models so as to spruce up the environments)

-I don't have many obvious bugs or mistakes for people to complain about; having those can reveal how many people are interested enough for those things to start to matter. I should probably insert a playthrough-stopper in the middle of the next build just to see what happens.



But I don't think I have reason to complain. I'm not trying to push the game yet, and I won't until it's done. Getting attention at this stage is a bonus and I have plenty of room to keep adding features, polish, and generally make it more saleable - my goal in maintaining the devlog is to find out if anyone is truly hooked on the game, and if nobody is, that's not a lack of attention - that's because the game *isn't good enough.* (That's essentially the state it's in right now.) And if it doesn't succeed, in the end, I still come out of it with assets, story IP, and technology. I can choose to make a sequel or a "variation" with a different and possibly more compelling mechanic, or parley it into the portfolio for a job. Regardless, this game will let me progress to that "better thing" off in the distance - and making my faith be about more than the one game is really helpful in focusing myself.

Hm... with all due respect, I don't believe it's rude to point out behavior one is engaging in: You have been arguing repeatedly in the comments ("Raigan, the point I'm trying to make is that I've been waiving the best game ever made in your faces but you're all too busy going ga-ga over the latest platformer gimmick to notice."), and stubborn ("Even with all that, though, I'm sticking to my guns with the 400 point level."), and people attempting to discuss possible mistakes with you have more or less been "talking to a wall".



That said, I hardly intended to be rude, and though I suspect to some degree that your problem with my "rudeness" is to some extent a "tone argument", and don't apologize for the content of my comment itself, I do apologize if I caused any offense or pain.

Adam, are you going to the next Colorado Game dev in January? If you are, please bring my wife's Gamecube game and after that you can forget that I exist.

This is a great comments thread. It should be linked in the article and/or highlighted in the weekly members blogs roundup article.

I agree, they should call it "How to Squander Your 15 Minutes By Repeatedly Shooting Yourself In Both Feet: An Instruction Manual".

comedy gold.

hey adam:



one reason spelunky got so much attention is because it is a game by derek yu.

and people give a shit about who derek yu is because he's a great guy doing great thing.

not only that, he is a likable person with a likable personality whereas you just made a total dick of yourself.

I wish you people would stop rudely talking about Derek Yu & Spelunky...

in Adam's Flytrap feedback thread. SHOW SOME RESPECT!



PS: @scott anderson... I'm hoping that in the next few posts...



1. Meredith proposes to Adam using a hacked level of Spelunky...

2. Miyamoto himself announces that from now on, all Zelda titles will be XBLA exlusives @ 400points.

3. Michael Rose asks people to stop sending him emails with "blue underlines" made using formatting, rather than actual links.

4. Luke Arntson's wife turns out to be the online reviewer for Xbox360 magazine, and offers a 9/10 review... in exchange for her Gamecube Wario World disk.

5. ...and in the last post of the thread, Adam admits that he's really been writing under a pseudonym... because his real name is Tim Langdell.

@Adam



Nice edit.



No, I have no interest in making you look sexist. Frankly, I have a much bigger interest in, for example, you not looking sexist by, for example, taking my comments under consideration and doing further research, even if you ultimately end up disagreeing.



And on that note, I do have interest in a) calling you out on statements that are sexist and b) give you advice on another approach that might actually appeal to women, as opposed to that one, which is incredibly unappealing. Such as, oh, ignoring the incredibly, incredibly flawed (and traditionally conservative-value-reinforcing-bias'd) field of evolutionary psychology, looking into the social reasons why those averages (if they are true, since you failed to provide a link, making me think you are basing it instead on media portrayals) might be. For example, social respect-earning motivations. I also have interests in requesting that you acknowledging the social concerns of the tack you took (voracious eating as an appeal to womanhood) and suggesting that that, too, may benefit in factoring into your design decisions. Otherwise, trying to appeal to a female audience with your technique is likely to miss the mark and you, then, miss your downloads from that female audience you were trying to appeal to.



(I did, admittedly, read your other responses, then go in expecting that you would ignore me and take it as a big attack on you and masculinity in general instead of on your topic and your approach to it, based on everything else you have been doing in this thread so far, and I was, in fact, correct. But I wasn't trolling. For the record, I almost wish I *were* trolling, as a) it would be much less of an exercise in futility, and b) I kept thinking up awesome comebacks that I had to abandon in favor of attempting reasonable discourse.)

@Gabe



So what you're saying is I should check out Spelunky, amirite.

"Adam, are you going to the next Colorado Game dev in January? If you are, please bring my wife's Gamecube game and after that you can forget that I exist."



"@Luke

I'll be happy to mail you your stupid Gamecube Wario World game, since you obviously only care about money and material goods. Some friend you are, won't even spend $5 on my game when you make $85,000 a year."



This guy is comedy GOLD, I say. This post is now officially kitsch.

Sigh. I'm out - no point to say anything more, apparently. You can have the last word, we all can (women or not) enjoy you consuming your foot, and, yes, get back to Spelunky.

@Meredith. Depends. If you want to be glued to your PC gamepad for hours, with luscious platformy HARDCORE ADDICTION, I'd say YES.

But if you need to have any sort of productivity on your PC... AVOID SPELUNKY AT ALL COSTS.



PS: If 'consuming your foot' wasn't comedy gold, but it was at least 'comedy silverware'.

@Adam



Okay, mailing address sent to your Gmail although you should have my address from the last time you stopped by.

This thread fascinates because Adam is right about something. Flytrap probably *is* the best game ever made. At least, it is for him! It's the best game in the world for Adam because Adam made it. It might not reflect everyone's reality--or even anyone else's!--but at least it reflect's Adam's reality.



This is a powerful thing! Jane Gamer's LittleBigPlanet level is probably the best level in the world for her (because she made it), Joe Flash Hobbyist's game is probably the best Flash game in the world for him (because he made), and so on.



Adam: Have you seriously considered that you have such a high opinion of Flytrap simply because you made it yourself?



Also: Derek Yu is dreamy.

@adam



"...and yet you make all sorts of psychological and scientific claims that you think are automatically backed up by the fact that you're a woman. Your posts aren't intended to initiate discussion; they're intended to initiate heated arguments"



I think she's actually thinking that psychological and scientific claims are more likely backed up by, well, the doctors and scientists and studies and stuff et al. Kinda by virtue of being erm, scientific and stuff. Just a wild and crazy guess, mind.

Matt, y'know, Adam's opinion of himself and his own game aside I've never quite managed to get on board with that sort of attitude.



If nothing else, I'm probably my own worse critic (which is most of the time a good thing and sometimes very much not). Yes, I'm proud when I finish something* or put it out into the world if only for y'know, finishing it, but more often than not I can see more glaring flaws than most people and try to learn from the mistakes I've made for the next one.



Personally, I think being able to draw a reasonable distance between yourself and your work for critical purposes is absolutely essential. Which, I'm pretty positive is something you'd agree with but I figured it needed stating for the benefit of the thread.



Perhaps that's why I still haven't managed to make the greatest game in the world though!



*I think there's also a noteworthy difference between thinking "this is the best game I've ever made" and "this is the best game ever made". The former, I think, is perfectly understandable.

If someone is rude and aggressive, I don't go over to their house. If someone is generous and amiable, even if they are a bit strange in any other way, I would have them over to mine. This is fairly common, I think. Spelunky is a wonderful game by a person who goes out of his way to support others. Adam Saltsman's Canabalt is a wonderful game - again - by a person who goes out of his way to support others. Not only do I buy those games, but I will buy the next games they produce on that basis.



If someone makes good games but is rude and aggressive, then hey, I miss out on good games. My loss.

Hello,



just wanted to point out the fact that Gamasutra is an awesome resource for developers who want serious & professional infos, which include professional user attitudes.



So I am surprised to discover these 100 comments about bashing someone here.

I'm not taking defence of anybody here, but it would just be better to stay into the scope of the article ;)



Cheers

Wasn't that article supposed to be about Spelunky? What the hell is going on here, sound like someone is trying to alienate all the major brains of the industry toward himself...



On another note someone mentioned Dwarf fortress, instant win sir, instant win.

Great article! A very open and honest interview and quite a fun read. It's unfortunate this comment section is ALSO becoming quite an interesting read...



First of I just wanted to say thanks to Michael Rose for writing up that article he did on marketing your indie game. Very nice to have that as a resource. Much appreciated. Probably the best thing that's come from this discussion! ;)



I also would like to point out that not all XBLIG devs have this same chip on the shoulder that Adam has. I currently have an XBLIG out and I just about pee myself every time I see my game on the 360. When I get feedback from parents telling me how their kids like the game, I'm smiling all day long. Sales are terrible, but I'm super happy. Next game I get to try something new and I'm excited about that as well.



Derek Yu is so dreamy!!!! :)

Part of the problem is that many developers are looking at XBLIG wrong. Yes, you can make money off of it, but I think more people should try to look at it as an easy way for indie developers to get their games to people. Yes, there are sites like Kongregate, but web distribution is always problematic. With XBLIG, you have a built in audience of millions that can easily (despite what most people say) find your game and try it out. It's also easier on the developer as you can get feedback from dozens of other developers. The peer review system also ensures that games are mostly bug-free and consistent in some areas so players don't get frustrated.



That being said, if you're going to treat it like a business in that you want sites to review your game, you as a developer need to step up and be professional and do some PR. You have a ton of codes that you can hand out so use them. There's a bunch of sites that are reviewing games so get in contact with them (sending them a code means more incentive for them to review your game). Don't expect anyone else to do your work for you.



Also, if you're going to do the PR, you first have to create a quality game. Gamers, which group most reviewers belong to, have some expectations of games these days. Meet them or suffer their wrath! :D If you want to innovate with new, creative gameplay that's fun, but don't expect world-wide acclaim. Some people may not get it and everyone's taste is not the same.



The game industry is the best place to work in the world, even as an indie. Have fun with it and you won't be sorry.

@Adam

"It was tested at frequent intervals by blind playtesters"



Maybe this is part of the problem.

@Dave Carlile



Thank god it wasn't only me :-)



Regards,

Paul Cunningham

Isn't this what really happened....



Flytrap by Adam Coate



This is the greatest and best game in the world, Flytrap

Long time ago me and my girlfriend here

We was hitchhikin' down a long and lonesome road

All of a sudden, there shined a shiny demon in the middle of the road

And he said

"Make the best game in the world or I'll eat your souls"

Well, me and my girlfriend, we looked at each other

And we each said, "Okay"

And we made the first thing that came to our heads

Just so happened to be

The best game in the world

It was the best game in the world

Look into my eyes and it's easy to see

One and one make two, two and one make three

It was destiny

Once every hundred-thousand years or so

When the Sun doth shine and the moon doth glow

And the grass doth grow

Needless to say, the beast was stunned

Whip-crack went his whippet tail

And the beast was done

He asked us, "Be you angels?"

And we said, "Nay, we are but men (and a woman)"

Rock

This is not the greatest game in the world, no

This is just a tribute

Couldn't remember the greatest game in the world, no, no

This is a tribute...





PS - off to try this Spelunky now - heard some good things about it.

@adam



They were making a joke about the "blind playtesters" phrase, as if they were seeing-impaired. Not in the best taste, but eh, this is the internet. I also think it would behoove you to work on your next game already, or at least get a video of Flytrap being played. How hard can it be to get a gameplay video up? Get Fraps, record video on the PC, and you're done. Wth? I know I wouldn't download an indie game without a demo or a youtube video of the game. Those virtual currency points are worth their weight in digital gold!



Also, Spelunky is excellent!

Did this thread really happen?

adam, i'm going to beat you up at recess.

Had to join GS for 3 reasons.



1) Spelunky's the best and it was good to learn what Derek thinks about. He's right that distribution, as long as it doesn't change the core game content, doesn't make games non-indie. It's always a question of how much control people have over their own creation. And remembering that 'indie' and 'good' are seperate things.



2) I think Meredith's assessment of Spelunky is right. The game is formally sexist (you have to go through the dude first to play the gal). I think it's (partially) mitigated by the reasons behind it which seem to be video game love and Indiana Jones type stuff.

Also the game's heterosexist. These aren't issues for most of gamers. But (for those of us who give a shit), is it weird that these issues stick out more for me in a roguelike? Not that I give set narratives a pass, but the open structure seems to demand a lot more.



3) I've never laughed harder at a forum than reading Mr. A, responses to Mr. A, and Mr. A's rejoinders. Towards the end I think he was roleplaying. There's something going on here...

Goodness, what a thread.



@Adam: I hope this thread is increasing your internet survival skills. It can take a very long time to amass the wisdom necessary to interact productively with a crowd, if one is analytical and argumentative by nature (as I myself am). You might avail yourself of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, and particularly the Thinker vs. Feeler axis, to understand why your personal style rubs some people the wrong way. I would also point out, in any sufficiently large forum you WILL rub someone the wrong way, if you keep arguing. If you're going to think like a marketer, you should decide WHEN it is worth arguing to advance your brand / identity / goals / integrity, and when it's just going to wear people out and make them tired of your brand.

Spelunky is awesome +1

Derek Yu is awesome +1

Michael Rose is awesome +1

Gamasutra is awesome +1



But, the t-shirt and stein is even more awesome.

Were I to be completely honest, having spent a bit of time with both, I'd probably rather play Flytrap than Spelunky. But I'd probably not bother playing either again for my own personal enjoyment.

I am totally necroing this thread because I missed it the first time around.



Adam, you are HILARIOUS. This is Andy Kaufman-level material here. If your code is even half as good as your trolling, you're the next Iñigo Quílez.

I'll just leave this right here:

http://squarecircleco.com/flytrap

Wow, I stopped following this thing when it happened the first time... Now I've read it entirely.



It is EPIC.



TOTALLY EPIC!

Haha this is almost too funny, if a little bit sad. Spelunky was one of the best games of 2009 and this thread got tainted by this retarded Adam guy. But yeah, at least we all got our laughs.