So many indie games in development, how many really are completed?

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

So, in my efforts to whore out market RPC, I’ve been looking all over the web for places to post my game.One thing I’ve noticed in my adventures is how many indie games with full fledged teams exist, and how few of their games ever get completed.

From what I’m seeing the ratio of games started to games completed is huge. If I had to pull numbers out of my ass I would guess that about 50+ indie projects get started for every one actually completed, and this isn’t even counting the ones that are obviously “doomed to fail” made by people wide-eyed and wearing thick rose colored classes (We all know quite a few of those). I’m talking about serious development projects with actual mainstream potential. Is it extremely common in the indie development world that so many indie devs just get bored and quit? I understand there are many possible roadblocks along the way, like your artist quits, funding runs dry, lead programmer dies of a brain tumor, and so on and so forth, but the amount of incomplete games out there is absolutely staggering! I can’t imagine that that many vanish due to reasons beyond their control.

Anyone else have any input on this phenomenon? From what I’ve seen, it seems simply a case of extreme burnout more than anything else, where the team either falls apart or, they can’t stick to one project long enough to actually complete it. While the other issues do come up, I can’t imagine them being so common as to knockout thousands of indie games for the handful that push all the way to the bitter-sweet end.

TIGSource is the best example of this, page after page after page of top notch games, and a huge amount of them are dead and a lot of them look beautiful, with artwork and coding well beyond my abilities.

#2

I think that many large companies have deadlines and people to answer to when a project fails, while indie developers don’t have anyone to answer to, so projects just fade away.

CopyableCougar4

#3

As I see it, there’s a fine line between “indie developer” and “not-quite-yet indie developer” (or, perhaps more accurately, “hobbyists who want to sell a game”). The former group includes individuals and teams who have actually released a game. If you just focus on them, I suspect the numbers will look different.

#4

… or even worse when you extend this and take “hobbyist who does not want to sell anyway” into count.

#5

Regardless of occupation the majority of people I know that “worked for the man” and then decided to go solo end up failing. They don’t have or develop the skills. To focus on the really important and not get (overly) distracted, keep the nose to the grindstone on their own (the boring stuff’s gotta get done) and (very important) the self-awareness to set reasonable, to their skill sets, goals and ones that can be achieved in a smallish amount of time. Heck “the man” will love you too if you develop these skills. When you work for yourself never forget that you’re the man and he should hold you accountable for your time.

Oh and I’m talking about “pros” because if experienced people blow it you can’t really expect hobbyist to do better.

#6

hobbyists have shit to do, girls to date and money to earn

life can be distracting D:

#7

Money and time.

It takes time to plan a project, it takes money to pay the bills. While making money you can’t always plan, when planning you are most likely not making money.

90% of games fail due to lack of direction imo, where people get this super awesome idea and suddenly it goes way off course. They end up with a pile of shite that makes no sense.

The only people that ever finish games are the ones that had a base idea, planned it (I mean really planned it, plenty of notes, spreadsheets, concept art regardless of how shit) and stuck to the plan.

#8

I think this projects are not Indie-Projects, but Hobby-Projects.
IMHO an Indie should allready have completed and sold a project, if not he couldn’t do it as his work.
A hobbyist instead has a “normal” work and the project is just a fun project.
While an Indie has the motivation of earning some money, a hobbyist has only the fun as motivation. If the project isn’t fun anymore the project is likely to be abandoned.
Also a hobbyist can code only in his free time, where he also needs to manage his life (familly, freinds, club other hobbys and so on).

It is a disadvantage but also an advantage: While many comercial project are just made to earn lots of money and therefore often lose their potential (new games by big publishers for example), those “Fun-Projects” often become more then you think (look at the featured projects on this site for example).

#9

I don’t fully agree with that: What if you have a day job and create a game in your free time, however with the clear objective of breaking through and making money, and this work can be a drag and not fun at all MANY times. But to be successful you gotta keep at it.

Between being a full indie and just someone doing a project for fun.
This is how Puppygames initially got started IIRC.

I pointed this out a couple times actually, at large I don’t really enjoy programming that much. However to create something you want you need to use tool and build it, even if its a grueling process.
I can understand that for many these hobby projects are fun, but to me what is really fun is having it done, having people play it, people talking about it, reflecting, discussing.
It’s kinda like writing a book… I’m sure the process CAN be fun, but you kinda have all these ideas and its most fun, at least to me, when its done and people finally give you feedback.

#10

But an Indie Developer allready works as an independed programmer (“Full Time”), while a hobbyist most times has a regularly paid job. Even if he wants to become an indie developer, he will keep in mind, that he does not need this project, he can still earns money from his job.

I agree, that it is fun, if someoen plays your game/reads your book and that will deffinitly keep you motivated. But to have the hope, that someday someone will play your game/read your book, you need to see some progress. If the progress does not show, cause of some problems (somethings worng with the code/the story of the book) this hope will vanish.
In this case the only motivation left is the fun, if there is any.
It is just hard to keep yourself motivated and i guess this is the problem, why so many projects are abandoned.

#11

True.
Well for me the hope is in the prospect of people experiencing my story some day, and getting exciting about the next part.

#12

What Roquen said. “Working for yourself” is hard, since you feel like that you’re the boss so you have the priviliges to do anything you want.
“Oh, I’m not gonna work today, got something more important to do; Should I watch this new series instead of working one or two more hours?; It’s fine if I only work 3 hours today, really;” etc.

Even though I’m technically not working for myself but for JBS (I’m sort of on my own though with my teammates in my project) sometimes I catch myself doing exactly this. This is fine, as long as you actually don’t want to make a living of indie game dev, but if you want to go serious you have to learn how to manage your time, and to get over the fact that development is not going to be always fun.

#13

[quote=“aldacron,post:3,topic:50787”]
I doubt it. Second project syndrome. For the first project, you keep it simple. But for the second project you think you can be more ambitious, because you have experience now. My first job was for an indie company like that. The first project was in beta when I joined, and the second project had a 250-page rulebook to be converted into a proper spec and implemented. I’m not sure exactly what the current status is, but I think that 30 to 60 man-years went into it and nothing was ever published.

#14

I think a lot of you are misunderstanding me a bit, I wasn’t factoring in hobby programmers at all.

If you take a look at TIG’s devlog section or IndieDB’s game list you’ll see literally thousands of quality games by indie studios that are simply just dead. I mean, we all know that most hobby games will never be huge projects with mass exposure, I’m actually referencing the ones that could be, or the developers intended them to be. :wink:

Best example of this is TIGSource’s years of posts in Screenshot Saturdays, where nearly all the games in that thread were never completed, and a lot of them have a massive amount of quality/appeal that blows away what most of us can do.
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24094.0

#15

I see a lot of very very simple art there.
Real concept art / artworks are rare.
So if programmer did that art, then there is no reason to assume its a larger professional group

But every project like this has to start as a hobby project, because there is only 2 ways:

  • Start as a hobby and work and work and eventually transcend (all the while make money somehow, so you dont die)
  • Get a huge loan or multiple loans and put it all on one card and work on it full time, trembling