This is a great example of Betteridge's law. The games that are underappreciated by the videos' metrics are niche games, and as such would naturally underperform as compared to games with more...
This is a great example of Betteridge's law. The games that are underappreciated by the videos' metrics are niche games, and as such would naturally underperform as compared to games with more mainstream appeal. Taking all of Steam as a single data set occludes most of the insights, where a genre-specific analysis might gather more useful info. Where he does this, the fact that the "underappreciated" games are mostly just ok games that got unexpectedly high Steam reviews, and that's not the same as great games being ignored.
I'd go further to say that the big take away from the video of how much marketing makes a difference is likely because of the niche effect you identified. The only insight that is generalizable is...
I'd go further to say that the big take away from the video of how much marketing makes a difference is likely because of the niche effect you identified. The only insight that is generalizable is that marketing matters.
Somehow this was a more interesting take than the countless other "let's use statistics on game sales and extrapolate wonky marketing-strategies from that" articles/videos. For once, it was way...
Somehow this was a more interesting take than the countless other "let's use statistics on game sales and extrapolate wonky marketing-strategies from that" articles/videos. For once, it was way less defeatist. I'll be honest: I like how he flat out excluded random anime games, ww2-sims, "experimental" games and whatnot. Games like this clutter up most statistics and while it seems heartless to exclude them, there's a reason they seem to be of a different category than, say, Celeste or Superhot. So what's left are games that maybe didn't make a lot of money but few of the remaining made no money. $100k is an alright sum for small/single-dev games, especially if the developer doesn't live in San Francisco.
In the end, the video, to me, quite convincingly showed that quality does play a role in indie games (although you need to bring in those first 50 reviews somehow). I'm extremely skeptical about primarily blaming "marketing" (actually "PR" since marketing actually would require market research going into the decision to make an indie game in the first place, which I don't think is a thing that's happening) for the success or failure of a game. Those post-mortems on gamasutra (which apparently is now gamedeveloper.com) where a developer blames "bad marketing" for poor sales almost always are about a game that looks... kinda underwhelming. PR is a multiplier. It needs to sell something and that better be good. Be unique, stand out. In indie games that's almost synonymous with quality.
I gotta say, though, I believe the reason Mini Metro was more successful than Linelight was that it came out earlier (2013 vs 2017). Way less crowded market.
This is a great example of Betteridge's law. The games that are underappreciated by the videos' metrics are niche games, and as such would naturally underperform as compared to games with more mainstream appeal. Taking all of Steam as a single data set occludes most of the insights, where a genre-specific analysis might gather more useful info. Where he does this, the fact that the "underappreciated" games are mostly just ok games that got unexpectedly high Steam reviews, and that's not the same as great games being ignored.
I'd go further to say that the big take away from the video of how much marketing makes a difference is likely because of the niche effect you identified. The only insight that is generalizable is that marketing matters.
Somehow this was a more interesting take than the countless other "let's use statistics on game sales and extrapolate wonky marketing-strategies from that" articles/videos. For once, it was way less defeatist. I'll be honest: I like how he flat out excluded random anime games, ww2-sims, "experimental" games and whatnot. Games like this clutter up most statistics and while it seems heartless to exclude them, there's a reason they seem to be of a different category than, say, Celeste or Superhot. So what's left are games that maybe didn't make a lot of money but few of the remaining made no money. $100k is an alright sum for small/single-dev games, especially if the developer doesn't live in San Francisco.
In the end, the video, to me, quite convincingly showed that quality does play a role in indie games (although you need to bring in those first 50 reviews somehow). I'm extremely skeptical about primarily blaming "marketing" (actually "PR" since marketing actually would require market research going into the decision to make an indie game in the first place, which I don't think is a thing that's happening) for the success or failure of a game. Those post-mortems on gamasutra (which apparently is now gamedeveloper.com) where a developer blames "bad marketing" for poor sales almost always are about a game that looks... kinda underwhelming. PR is a multiplier. It needs to sell something and that better be good. Be unique, stand out. In indie games that's almost synonymous with quality.
I gotta say, though, I believe the reason Mini Metro was more successful than Linelight was that it came out earlier (2013 vs 2017). Way less crowded market.