Hiya
What a title! I’m somewhere between depression and mania at the moment. It’s rapid as well, I was hyper this morning and now I’m an anxious ball of depression. Welcome. Pull up a chair and warm yourself by the glow of the screen. Today we’re discussing what in the absolute deving hell is going on with indie games and what we can expect as rewards for making them.
I’ve been keeping an eye on how some developers have been reacting after the release of their games. Especially those which didn’t meet the devs sales expectations. I’ve seen a few who seem to blame the public for not giving their game a chance. Some take it well and just continue on with updates or a new project. I definitely want to be in the latter category.
It’s easy to sit back and make opinions on an emotional developer throwing a wobbler over poor game sales. I think we must remember though that gamers don’t owe us anything. We can learn to code, to draw, to design levels, to make music, and to write. We can write code to thread all these components together. Then we can refine and refine until our game is as good as we can make it. We can learn marketing strategies to let people know of our games. We can do all of this and more besides, and I reckon we are half way to being successful. The other half is probably luck.
I imagine the amount of good games sitting on Steam right now with unlucky developers behind them. I imagine I will be in this category. I very much hope not, I’m not exactly living the high life right now. But I think I can live with being unsuccessful, I’m not so sure I could live with not trying. And if the worst happens and Five Arcade sells only a handful of copies, then I will simply start my next game and try again. Because what else would I do?
I genuinely believe that last paragraph, and yet my brain starts envisioning every single alternate reality, and apparently I’m anxiety ridden in most of them. I’m also fairly certain that the anxiety felt by these alternate mes are stacking on top of the me me. I can deal with anxiety attacks from this reality but I’m getting somewhat angry about suffering anxiety attacks from alternate realities, that’s a tad too far. I would discuss this with a therapist but my country decided that therapy wasn’t overly important for poor people and cancelled me sessions.
No excuses here, I’m going to get this game over the finish line, in time. But my leg and hip have been extra sore this winter. Often feels like my leg is trying to rapidly escape the clutches of my hip. I’m struggling to even sit at my computer. If my game makes any money I may invest in a laptop and a decent chair to sit on. Oh, and definitely some heating, it’s quite cold.
This is the year Five Arcade is released. It simply has to be. The amount of spectacular games I see on Bluesky alone from wonderfully dedicated and brilliant people is awe inspiring. I’m not sure where I fit in with a group of people as creative and awesome as this, I hope I can one day feel as though I fit in here.
Anyway, I was gifted a Switch 2 with Mario Kart for me birthday so I’m off for a few races before firing up Unity and getting back to work.
Bye for now.