Indie RPGs - On Reviews

Blatantninja sends in this article at Ars Technica on why (too) rearly reviews on indie games can hurt sales. PR dude extraordinaire Tom Ohle (ex-BioWare, The Witcher, GOG etc) provides the background:

"Especially with smaller, more affordable games up to $10, you're really banking on a lot of players making an impulse purchase; at $50 it's more likely to be a well-thought-out decision," Ohle explained. "If a review is positive, you want people to be able to buy the game right then and there, and if they can't, there's a good chance they could forget about it, and you've lost that sale for the time being or, worse, forever."

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The Rampant Coyote also tackles indie reviews, although looking at double-standards:

Now that being “indie” has gone from being an almost unknown term to something of a badge of honor (with all the annoying pretension that sometimes accompanies it), there have been some accusations – not entirely unjustified – that gamers and reviewers both have a double standard when it comes to indie games, heaping praise on an indie game merely for the virtue of being indie where a mainstream, traditional game would earn little but derision.
On the one hand, I bristle at this. In a sense, it’s like people heaping praise on their kid brother’s efforts at writing a story, simply because “he’s trying.” It indicates greatly reduced expectations. I don’t want to expect less of indie games. In many ways, I shouldn’t have to. ‘Cause there are a lot of places where indie games are breaking new ground, doing what mainstream games are no longer willing to do, and accomplishing some pretty impressive things. And if you want to talk “fun factor” – the pure entertainment value provided for your dollar – my favorite indie games compare favorably to all but the most addictive mainstream games in my library.
But let’s face it: If I truly wanted to erase those distinctions, I wouldn’t be calling them “indie games,” now, would I? Just… games.

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More information.

For the most part I think Indie games suck badly. They're too casual to me. But every now and then one appears that is worth a price - always very little.

Indie games are more like casual games for people who don't play games, at least they are to me. Worth about $2.50 or less. I think that's the most I've ever paid for one.

I think they should try harder. You make it in your garage so-to-speak, go for the stars. Make something really good. Why make crap.

I'm willing to buy an old rpg from Sega game system times yet an awesome one for a cheap price, but not practically all of anything indie as they are just not that good.

Go above and beyond, do something great, indie game designers.

Well, you're on a significantly different wavelength to me. I spend a fair chunk of my time playing indie games. Certainly casual games are a big part of the indie offer but Avernum 6 or Dominions 3 or [...] offer gameplay as good or better than any AAA production.

The first writeup is about pre-release reviews? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point of those, indie or mainstream. What's the point of publishing a review when the title is not available yet? For any title? I never got it.

northreign said:

For the most part I think Indie games suck badly. They're too casual to me. But every now and then one appears that is worth a price - always very little.

Indie games are more like casual games for people who don't play games, at least they are to me. Worth about $2.50 or less. I think that's the most I've ever paid for one.

I think they should try harder. You make it in your garage so-to-speak, go for the stars. Make something really good. Why make crap.

I'm willing to buy an old rpg from Sega game system times yet an awesome one for a cheap price, but not practically all of anything indie as they are just not that good.

Go above and beyond, do something great, indie game designers.

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Try harder?

Do you even know what it takes to make a game? What is really good for you?? Spiderweb games, basilisk games, and a few others don't make "crap" games. All of their games take years of work, they don't just cobble these things together in their garage. Making games is hard, if it wasn't everyone would be making one.

Case in point I was going to develop a scifi game using the eschalon engine, I spent weeks just developing screens and concept art as well as hashing out story and plot elements. I was looking at investing a significant amount of time to get the project rolling let alone completing it. Not to mention if you have to outsource any of your game it is not cheap, art is expensive and music.

Aim for the stars indeed.

"Indie game" has a wiiiiiide meaning. Most indie games do kind of suck, but then one could say most games in general suck. There are indie RPGs especially though that are better than most RPGs released lately.

To be honest though I seem to be a big fan of smaller, European developers. Stuff like Risen, STALKER and Machinarium really floats my boat. I just got The Precursors and it seems awesome so far.

I used to enjoy indie crpgs much more than I do now. I think part of the reason is because 15 years ago an indie game looked about 3-4 years behind the AAA titles, graphically. Now, most look 15 years behind the AAA titles. My minimal graphical acceptance level has risen so that many indies don't make the cut. I'm not proud of this, but it is what it is.

I think that total conversion mods are a nice compromise. A game like Nehrim, gets to use a fairly recent graphics engine and still looks pretty good. I wish more companies would release their design kits, so we could have a huge variety of looks.

My graphical acceptance level seems to stay firm at what I saw when I entered the genre. A lot of indie games look that good, so I'm happy with them.

rune_74 said:

Try harder?

Do you even know what it takes to make a game? What is really good for you?? Spiderweb games, basilisk games, and a few others don't make "crap" games. All of their games take years of work, they don't just cobble these things together in their garage. Making games is hard, if it wasn't everyone would be making one.

Case in point I was going to develop a scifi game using the eschalon engine, I spent weeks just developing screens and concept art as well as hashing out story and plot elements. I was looking at investing a significant amount of time to get the project rolling let alone completing it. Not to mention if you have to outsource any of your game it is not cheap, art is expensive and music.

Aim for the stars indeed.

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Oh, idk… it sounds like you were aiming quite high. High enough it sounds like you stopped? Yours could have been one of those rare gems of indie games.

Indie games are easier as they can get away with using old graphics from the 90s, no voice acting, pre-made engines, throw in some art packs, buy some commercial use royalty free music, or better yet ask someone who provides music for free and see if you can make a deal with them for music they already created if the game sells. No money out unless it sells and no harm done if not.

On top of that its possible to make an indie game with newer graphics and still make it a simple one too.

Many indie games are quite easy on the scale of making games. Simply my main beef is that many don't really try or don't know what they are doing so its too hard. They just create simple things for easy money. Sure, there are exceptions.

Are there any rpg indies on steam worth buying in the actual indie category? They all look quite ridiculous to me. I wouldn't play any if I could be paid to do so. An indie dev needs to step up there and offer a good rpg.

Dhruin said:

but Avernum 6 or Dominions 3 or […] offer gameplay as good or better than any AAA production.

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Those two I get and surely are fun for what they are.

Indie devs need to step it up a bit more than that though.

Call it Avernum 6 HD or whatever. Would you take an upgraded Avernum 6 over the one right now if they truly did a worthy job? Probably right?

But, most likely they will just throw out cheap stuff even though they could make something better if they wanted.

Yet some indie devs will go on to make some really special stuff all because they try harder. Even though its not an rpg Zeno Clash is a great example of an indie dev doing something quite interesting and different yet will a higher difficulty of development.

crpgnut said:

I used to enjoy indie crpgs much more than I do now. I think part of the reason is because 15 years ago an indie game looked about 3-4 years behind the AAA titles, graphically. Now, most look 15 years behind the AAA titles. My minimal graphical acceptance level has risen so that many indies don't make the cut. I'm not proud of this, but it is what it is.

I think that total conversion mods are a nice compromise. A game like Nehrim, gets to use a fairly recent graphics engine and still looks pretty good. I wish more companies would release their design kits, so we could have a huge variety of looks.

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It would be nice if Bethesda and others would do what e.g. early Valve did and offer the most talented mod teams a chance to go commercial.

Northreign: I don't think you have any clue what it takes to make an indie CRPG game. A surprising number of the regulars here do. So I'd recommend you stop embarassing yourself.

GhanBuriGhan said:

Northreign: I don't think you have any clue what it takes to make an indie CRPG game. A surprising number of the regulars here do. So I'd recommend you stop embarassing yourself.

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Cool. Shame I've never heard of any of these games. One last embarrassing moment. Don't quite your day jobs.

Still, if it is what puts bread on your table then good for you. That really is indeed a good thing.

I have my opinion and if you don't like it tough. We're all men here are we not?

northreign said:

Indie games are more like casual games for people who don't play games, at least they are to me. Worth about $2.50 or less. I think that's the most I've ever paid for one.

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Err, pardon me? Try playing Knights of the Chalice and then come back to me and try arguing that it's designed for casual players who don't play games….then try to keep a straight face whilst doing so.

northreign said:

Call it Avernum 6 HD or whatever. Would you take an upgraded Avernum 6 over the one right now if they truly did a worthy job? Probably right?

But, most likely they will just throw out cheap stuff even though they could make something better if they wanted.

Yet some indie devs will go on to make some really special stuff all because they try harder. Even though its not an rpg Zeno Clash is a great example of an indie dev doing something quite interesting and different yet will a higher difficulty of development.

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Would I take Avernum HD over not-HD…sure. I'd also take Crysis but better graphics with less system requirements and I want it tomorrow for $0.99c…but I know reality.

"Cheap stuff even though they could make something better if they wanted". Yeah. I'm sure there are poorly-made rip-off indie games but I don't think you get the realities of development. If these guys had millions of dollars, they wouldn't be indie.

Your example of Zeno Clash is an interesting one. It cost $250,000 to make…in Chile.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4156/postmortem_ace_teams_zeno_clash.php?print=1

Let's translate those numbers (roughly) to a western country. Seven full-time developers, over two years. Say…$50,000 per man (pretty cheap for a programmer) x 7 x 2 = $700,000.

Basic pay, no health plan, retirement plan, no offices, no equipment costs…$700k. So, I need a partner and we both need to sell our houses, tell the family to risk everything and hopefully we get Zeno Clash at the end.

An RPG needs far more resources than Zeno Clash.

Personally, I wouldn't do it in a million years - and neither would most people, which means you get a limited number of Zen Clashes. I think it's a bit unfair to think that indies that can't or won't raise $700k are "cheap".

That doesn't mean you have to like indie games but if you get over the graphics and look in the right places, there are definitely some indie games worth looking at.
Even if you don't, perhaps you can understand those basic graphics usually aren't just because they are "cheap".

What Zeno Clash does prove is that spending 10's of millions of dollars on something like Call of Duty's singleplayer is a load of crap.

Dhruin said:

If these guys had millions of dollars, they wouldn't be indie.

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I keep itching to bring up Minecraft.
(It's probably the exception but does it show what indies can do)


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I recently realized that I have spent most of my gaming time last year with indies.
They seem to be the only good chance of getting something different —- the worst thing an indie game can possibly do in my opinion is try to compete with the mainstream.
With that in mind, I don't think much "leniency" is needed when reviewing such games (even the graphics/sound department can be great if it is 'smart' instead of expensive - see Machinarium)

Anomaly: Warzone Earth is a great game, I suggest players give a look to it. Well go back reading the article.

EDIT: Ha well, the article contents is a bit obvious, but I do agree it's not linked with huge indie sales when it's (very rarely) happens.

Brother None said:

The first writeup is about pre-release reviews? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point of those, indie or mainstream. What's the point of publishing a review when the title is not available yet? For any title? I never got it.

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You'll read only few enthusiastic review about an indie game, so there's much chance that 3 days after you have forget it. If the game is available and quick to order there's a chance a review trigger a sell.

For AA game, you'll read ton of reviews and have few chance to forget the game, so when it is released there's more chance you was expecting it. There's much less chance this ever happen with an indie game, never from reviews

If it was easy to develop indie rpg's everyone would do one, but in reality you have a handful of decent devs and a whole bunch of r pg maker games. I'm not sure about you but I don't 700,000 to invest in a game.

Spiderweb does a good job in reusing his assets to create new games, Basilisk is getting going and doesn't have the history yet. The good news about these two devs is that they make enough money to keep making games. The average forum user has no idea a game made by a company has a large number of people working on it.

As a message to any indie devs reading this? There is a light at the end of the tunnel and you have an audience.

What puzzle everybody is certainly the mysterious huge hit that happen very rarely for some cheap indie game.

About link with review/indies/sells as quote in the article, it's a quite similar mechanism that is one of the stronger element moving sells on App Store. You see a game in some selection, possibly just some Apple one in the App Store itself, click to see the dev summarize and few snapshots, then you check some users review, at this point if you are interested by the description and the snapshot, an enthusiastic user review can trigger the click and buy. Well low prices help build such mechanism or even are required.