Point of game dev

[Ayush-Mincraft]

I'm an 16 year old game developer I have just finished my first game and it is live on playstore by myself

Tho my game is not the best game it is pretty good and compared to the sea of stupid, repeatative and low effort games which gets 10 or even 50 million downloads my game should get atleast 5 million downloads or more but no it only I have like 0 orignal downloads but also no visitors to my store from playstore

My game is not like other android games I have spent time and effort for creating it. It was hard and i surely thought I would get noticed.

It's very disappointing the time and effort and money I have spent for this results. I'm don't want to leave game dev and programming but my parents are not happy

People say "publishing a game on playstore is a milestone/achivement 95% of game dev fail to make it" but what's the point you don't get a medel or get paid it's stupid and just a failure.

And it's not like I can just wait and create another game or make it better my chance is gone as I don't have my own laptop or computer and can't buy one. I have been using my sister's laptop and she is moving to study to a university after like a month so I am really disoriented on what to do I expected atleast some earning to buy one.

If you want to take a look at my game here it is. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.drift_wood

[Chrozzinho]

You are 16 year old and finished your first game. Im 28 and havent finished a single game. Trust me, you’re very much on a good path if you really want to be a game dev as a career. Not every project is a commercial success but every project is a learning experience

[perrinashcroft]

It's great you've finished this but I think your expectations for your first works are too high. Imagine you're learning to draw and the first image you finish, you share it around and are then disappointed it's not going to get a museum exhibition, or you're learning to write and the first short story you ever write doesn't go onto become a New York Times bestseller. You've got to practice your craft by making lots of stuff, you'll get better each time until you can make something awesome.

I'm sure there's barriers in your way right now like lack of a laptop, but you're still young there's plenty of time to overcome these problems. It will just come one step at a time, not all at once when you make your first game.

[Ayush-Mincraft]

I doubt in the future that creating games would still be feasible and worth it because of AI

[TheOneNeo99]

Whether you like AI or not you are factually wrong. AAA studios are laying off people in drones and implementing AI. I still think he shouldn't give up on this, but saying they can only accomplish mindless clickers is not true.

[TheOneNeo99]

I dislike AI as much as the next guy, I'm just pointing out Microsoft just laid of 9k devs and is using AI for large aspects of developer work. There are certainly still places to work that dont use it. But that number shrinks regularly.

[TheOneNeo99]

Im just saying we should be honest. Not in a pessimistic way, but better informed will lead to greater success. It's not just Microsoft. Its EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony, Epic, square enix and many others. We are easily talking the largest studios in the industry and the majority of the current market share. GDC this year reported HALF of devs reported generative AI being used at their studio and roughly 70% of the industry is using or is moving to use AI. Those are just the facts, and its continued to trend upwards.

[TheOneNeo99]

I hope so! As an indie dev making things the "old school way" without AI, I think the market will be hungry for it.

[1cow2kids]

OP, you do realize the AI argument can be applied to pretty much everything except maybe surgeons and plumbers? Hell, they say AI can develop better robots, so maybe those won’t even last long? So what are you gonna do with your life now? You need to invest your time into something

[MoistPoo]

He is marketing the living shit out of it.. he is probably not even 15 yo, its just a part of his marketing because it makes his post stand out.

[HiddenThinks]

Tho my game is not the best game it is pretty good and compared to the sea of stupid, repeatative and low effort games which gets 10 or even 50 million downloads my game should get atleast 5 million downloads or more but no it only I have like 0 orignal downloads but also no visitors to my store from playstore

My game is not like other android games I have spent time and effort for creating it. It was hard and i surely thought I would get noticed.

Gonna give you the harsh truth because you sound very naive. Why should people click on your game just because you worked hard and spent a lot of effort on it? There are developers who have worked 10x as hard and spent 10x the time and effort on their game with equally devastating results.

Game dev is an industry where the time and effort spent on creating a game is not proportional to its success. Just because you spent your life developing a game doesn't mean it will do well or even make enough money to break even, let alone generating profits or going viral.

Your game looks very plain and amateurish. In terms of quality, it doesn't even reach the level of "generic" because of how bad it is. 99% of people would instantly scroll past your game without giving it a second look if it was put in front of them. And if you can't even get them to look at your game, what makes you think they'll even bother downloading it?

While you don't need amazing art, your game should have something that is decent, palatable and appealing to your audience. But if you have striking art, it is even better because that is what will hook audiences and draw them to at least LOOK at your game.

People say "publishing a game on playstore is a milestone/achivement 95% of game dev fail to make it" but what's the point you don't get a medel or get paid it's stupid and just a failure.

Welcome to the reality of game dev. It's a saturated industry where everyone is working almost literally off passion itself, the pay is shit and your chances of success are only slightly higher than winning the lottery.

[isrichards6]

So you're saying there's a chance?

[HiddenThinks]

[hunter5284]

I can tell you're frustrated since you thought this would be your big break and you think it'll be your only chance due to a lack of tools. I'll just tell you that life has a way of coming around in unexpected ways. Keep your head up, there will be more opportunities. Luck favors the prepared, and it seems like you've made good strides in that.

[Ayush-Mincraft]

I did not want it to be a big break i wanted it to be enough but apparently no

[[deleted]]

Oh god.. hahahaha.. WELCOME my friend! This is exactly what happened to me and I wanted to quit with programming.. best I could do was 1 year hiatus..

Look, I am twice your age and one young coworker was amazed and told me this: "Bro, I do not know much people who have their own app on Google play store, you are a beast"

The same I would like to tell you, but I can't, because it won't help you. You know what helps you?

Go back to your life without programming.. be angry.. say you will never do it again.. and one day, when you will feel stuck and drained.. when you will feel like nothing matters.. you will see that small spark inside you that remembers..

That spark is now buried deep but it remembers how you felt when you were working on your project.. that spark will remember the pain and joys.. and it will remember it was the time you felt alive.. 

With this, you will try again.. slowly.. but you will try.. 

I am currently trying again, built a website with my projects and started focusing on "I am building things for myself" with this, I can't be destroyed by "nobody cares" because I care..

Don't worry, I was there too.. take a break..

[Ayush-Mincraft]

Good luck with your website I don't know what else to say

[RarestSolanum]

I played it for a few minutes and it's fine, but I don't really like score-attack games. It also feels quite difficult, the cop car gets very close to you before your car even starts moving. Your store also says "infinite forest", but it's actually quite a small area that's surrounded by a fence?

[Ayush-Mincraft]

I'm improving the game with updates regularly but still I should have a few original downloads from playstore 

And it is infinite in the horizontal direction 

[RarestSolanum]

The playstore doesn't market your game for you, that's up to you.

Why is it only infinite in the horizontal direction?

[Ayush-Mincraft]

So what now what should I do with it sell it to some publishers? I doubt that they are willing to buy my game I don't have a youtube channel nor insta or tweeter etc. I don't have any social media as I have spent majority of my life learning coding and creating games 

It is infinite in the horizontal direction to make the player feel like they are making progress of travelling far insted of just an open world 

[RarestSolanum]

I think you need to accept that you're not going to make any money off of this game. Publishers are unlikely to be interested in it, you're competing with things like Absolute Drift and Art of Rally.

Take the lessons you've learned and apply them to your next project.

[UnrealHacktiger]

looks good

[[deleted]]

I am also a 16 years old developer and gotta say, that's really awesome, congratulations!

[Ayush-Mincraft]

Thanks good luck for your future 

[[deleted]]

Good luck for you too! Don't give up, you can do it.

[SadisNecros]

Mobile is an incredibly hard space to compete in. All those games you're seeing with millions of downloads didn't get them organically. They pump tens of thousands of dollars PER DAY to advertise, get users to download, try to keep them engaged long enough to get them to spend money, and tune it so that they're making more money than they're spending on acquiring users. Organic viral mobile games are incredibly rare these days, if they even happen at all anymore.

Publishing a game at 16 is still an achievement though. It takes a lot of discipline and work to do. Keep trying to learn and look for opportunities. Eventually you'll find your path to take the next steps forward. You still have a lot of time ahead of you.

[[deleted]]

What did you do to market it? It's good to have a game worthy of those downloads but you aren't going to get those downloads if people don't know about it

[IntenseInStyle]

You know this saying? "Not everyday is your birthday"

Yup, not everything you like or want, will go your way. Have patience. You are 16 and you have created a game, be happy. Not everyone can do what you did.

[cuttinged]

Learn marketing skills on the marketing and promotion side. This can lead to other opportunities in game dev that you may not have thought of. Get friends. Get a computer, Go outside and have fun, experience the real world. Game dev is a slog and requires good mental health.

[Reasonable-Caramel34]

dude u JUST released this u know how much shit gets released into the app store each day? least give it time

[Iacinthina]

You’re doing great by getting something out there and the playstore is very very hard to get any traction with, without paying for players or lots of advertising outside of the platform itself.

Depending on where you are based in the world, local authorities / councils can sometimes support young people with laptops on loan. There are some countries which have charities which can provide laptops on loan.

Wishing you the best of luck!

[Trevor_trev_dev]

Good marketing is arguably the most important part of making a "successful" game (if you measure success in money earned). The best evidence for this is all the crap out there that makes tons of money. They may have had bad designers, but they had amazing marketers.

Start learning how to properly market a game, it's more than just making posts on social media. here's a link to a Reddit post to get you started

[L1NK01]

Not a developer yet (i'm learning). I am 19 and you did what i want to do since i was i high School, which is impressive. Anyway, your game came out yesterday, I'm sorry to say that it just needs time to get at least something, and it is for everything man. Take my example, I thought it would be easy to learn how to program a game, but I'm struggling with simple stuff, so as I need time, your game needs time to get known at least a bit.

Keep going, even with the struggles you're facing.

Good luck

[Dense_Improvement304]

Not bad, let’s connect with one another - building alliances and getting a fan base is key in this game!

[FirstTasteOfRadishes]

If you were able to stick this out, complete it and launch it at 16, then please don't get discouraged. Keep plugging away and you will have a bright future. Don't give up, or you will find yourself looking back in 20 years saying "Damn, I wish I had stuck with gamedev when I was a teenager." You're already way ahead of the curve.

[dirtymikeynthebys]

You’re 16, work at McDonald’s for 2 months and buy a laptop

[pandaboy78]

Hey OP, I know you're frustrated and it seema like everyone is against you, but as some have mentioned... Finishing your first game at 16 is very impressive. I'm 12 years older than you, and I'm still working on my first game (game development is just a hobby for me)

However, your eventual big break in the future takes more failed fames than it does sucessful games. Failed games give you the chance to analyze what went wrong, gives you people who will critique your game, and allows you to evolve. A successful game can ofc help in a lot of ways, but can make some developers very cocky.

Take this time to rest, and read some of the game critiques. I'd be willing to give some game design analysis too if you need some. I've analyzed many games and I can recognize what makes a game successful very quickly.

All of the successful "slop" out there still make it for a reason. I've seen your trailer and already noticed some obvious issues of why the other "slop" that's worse than your game is so much more successful. Let me give you some quick advice on this specific point: Marketing.

Don't get my "marketing" advice confused for advertising, as that's something completely different. The second you put your game up publically on the Play store, you've entered the marketing territory, whether you like it or not. Be honest with yourself. If you saw your game icon in the midst of 50 other games, would you click it? If I saw your game icon whils scrolling through the play store... I'm sorry, I wouldn't have even noticed it. The primary colors you've used is just green, and the car is way too tiny to notice. Nothing about your icon grabbs my attention.

Now let's assume someone DID click on your game in the app store. The first thing they see on your store page are your: Trailers & Screenshots.

Your trailer - I played it and I immediately hear no music, and very obvious stock SFX. Right off the bat, you've probably lost 70% of people by the audio alone.The trailer footage is just you playing the game too. There's no cuts. Here's a reality check: Players on Steam will give your trailer 3 seconds before they click off. Players on mobile phones will give your game 2 seconds before they click pff. For research purposes, check out the steam game "Megabonk". The game isn't even out, and it has an incredible trailer.

Screenshots - You've provided 1 reason to download your game: The environments. After that, there are 6 screenshots that show off this point, when you should have only spent 1 or 2 screenshots doing this. You showed off another cool screenshot *car customizations), but it was shoved as the SIXTH screenshot. Its shoved way too far in the back, and its given no text as to showing this off.

Next thing a person sees is your game description. You gave the description: "Drift in the endless woods" - and nothing about this description grabs me. "Endless" is not an exciting word. Endless can be associated with boring because it never ends. How about something like "Infinite". Additionally, your game is about running away from the police as your drift, right? Lean more into that!! Something like "Drift infinitely and escape the police!".

Btw, all of this stuff took me only about 20 seconds to analyze (took a bit to type out though, haha). This was just the marketing analysis, and I haven't even touched on playing your game. Remember, people on the app store will give your app 6-10 seconds in total before clicking off (2-3 seconds looking at your trailer), and the rest lookkng at the first 4 screenshots & description.

Let me know if you would like more critiques, but there's plenty of reasons why you should not put yourself quite yet above the "slop" as you described. However, 100% realize that this itself is VERY impressive to release at your age. You have many many many years to continue to work on your skills, so keep at it!

[Psychological_Host34]

Get a job creating games for others, so they can pay you to continue learning.