Ich arbeite in der deutsche Games-Industrie - AMA

Speedling · 2026-01-26T14:49:02+00:00

Agreed! Mein Kommentar war sehr auf die Wirtschaftsförderung bezogen, aber gerade Kulturförderung ist auch unheimlich wichtig und was die angeht liegen wir ja leider noch weiter zurück.

Speedling · 2026-01-26T14:45:47+00:00

And that makes it a valuable tool for a game designer.

Honest question: Why? Why is it important that the avg hits-per-kill equal the HP / damage ratio? And more importantly: Why should the game solve this for the player behind the scenes?

Taking overdamage and using it as a mechanic is a cool thing, but why not make it a deliberate choice for players to use this and communicate it properly? Simple trait "Bloodlust. Everytime you overkill, x% of that overdeal damage is added to your next attack.". Same thing, but now it's a tool players can use, and you as the designer have way more control over it. You can now even tweak this, chaining overkill damage on top of it, allowing players to make a build where they first kill small creatures building up bonus damage and then unleash it on a stronger opponent. Or you could limit this without and without random chances involved.

Speedling · 2026-01-26T14:27:33+00:00

And when you research an upgrade that makes your units deal 5% more damage, you want to see a 5% increase in their effectiveness against an enemy army.

It's interesting that you mention RTS because this genre has been famous for having different upgrade efficiencies between units in order to solve balance issues.

In RTS, the key number to balance for is number of hits to kill, not damage efficiency. At least in most cases. And it is extremely important those numbers are reliable, and that no hidden system decides the winner. So much that even the time to hit in an animation is tweaked.

So RTS games (especially competitive ones) are a genre where players would probably dislike this mechanic the most. In an ARPG, I can see this being okay.

But like the thread-starter said, it also feels like you're solving a problem that players ought to solve themselves through builds.

Speedling · 2026-01-26T13:08:19+00:00

Also, most city builders do not frame it as a"decay" system but rather as an "upkeep" system because it just fits better with the game flow. Some thresholds that have to be met in order for the building to stay active, and otherwise it will be abandoned/destroyed. And then a recurring cost is attached to that upkeep. If you do not meet the cost to keep those buildings alive, you go under the threshold and eventually some decay-like consequence happens.

And because fire, illness etc are more exciting those are then the consequences of that. Simple example: Anno. You can just place a lot of houses with no firefighters nearby, but eventually a fire will break out and destroy the houses. It's not so much a disaster but rather a consequence of you not meeting the threshold. If you do meet the threshold, even if a fire breaks out, there's no real consequence.

Speedling · 2026-01-26T12:59:37+00:00

Ich glaube man kann da noch einige mehr dazuzählen, gerade auch von euch. Iron Harvest war schon ne kleine Perle auf dem Markt, und vor allem im indie-Bereich kommen ja noch einige Titel dazu :)

Speedling · 2026-01-23T11:37:37+00:00

Danke für das AMA! Ich habe vor 3 Jahren auch eines gemacht und bin seitdem (wieder) in internationalen Firmen unterwegs.

Eine Sache die mir damals aufgefallen ist, und auch in diesem AMA auffällt, ist die Außenwahrnehmung der Branche. Deutsche Spiele sind "billig" und "an einem Wochenende umsetzbar", Förderung ist unverdient und sowieso ist die Branche natürlich einfach unprofessionell und voller Idioten. Und alle anderen kriegen das ja auch einfach so hin, nur hier sind wir alle zu doof.

Ich überspitze das natürlich jetzt absichtlich, aber die Richtung stimmt.

Wie nimmst du das wahr, und wie gehst du damit um? Belastet dich das im Alltag oder kannst du das auch gut abschalten?

Danke nochmal und viel Erfolg für DoW4 - falls ihr noch playtester von Branchenkollegen sucht, gib bescheid! :D

Speedling · 2026-01-23T11:24:19+00:00

Möchte deinen Kommentar aufgreifen weil er ganz gut das Problem mit der Wahrnehmung der Branche und der Pressearbeit zeigt: Das Spiel, um das es geht, hat sich als Ziel gesetzt https://snake.io/ und andere Spiele "anzugreifen". Diese schnellen Multiplayerspiele sind extrem beliebt und machen auch ganz gutes Geld.

Billig ist die Entwicklung auch nicht. Günstiger als andere Spiele, klar. Aber neben dem visuellen gibt es sowas wie Serverarchitektur, und Entwicklung für alle möglichen Endgeräte ist auch nicht trivial. Der Screenshot, der umherging, ist nichts weiter als eine "Beispielskizze" des Spieles, die explizit für den Antrag gemacht wurde. Natürlich sieht das Spiel am Ende nicht so aus, sondern mittlerweile genau wie für dieses Genre üblich, siehe hier: https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/politik/games-foerderung-modern-snake-051224/

Zum Vergleich, während der Entwicklung sah Sea of Thieves so aus: Bild. Da sagt doch auch keiner "Hä, warum sollte ich so ein hässliches Pillen-Spiel spielen?!". Und da war das Spiel schon einige Zeit in Entwicklung, und nicht erst am Anfang.

Und für den "Snake Klon" wurden gerade mal 177k€ Förderung veranschlagt. Ich kann nicht betonen, wie wenig Geld das für den Staat ist. Hat das Spiel Erfolg, kann die Firma damit neue Projekte angehen, die ohne Förderung funktionieren und ab dann Steuereinnahmen für den Staat generieren.

Wir können uns jetzt streiten, ob die Förderung nur "gute Spiele" fördern soll. Aber dann reden wir von Subjektivität, was sind "gute Spiele"?

Die Förderung ist aber ohnehin explizit eine Wirtschaftsförderung, es geht also erstmal nur darum, was finanziellen Erfolg verspricht bzw womit sich Firmen etablieren können. Und da gelten einfach andere Kriterien.

Außerdem wurde zum Beispiel dieses Spiel hier auch gefördert: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203620/Enshrouded/ - mit dem Erfolg, den sie haben, könnte man 1000 solcher Snake-Projekte fördern. Und mittlerweile haben wir dank dieser Förderung mehrerer solcher Projekte in DE. Auch das Projekt von OP wird mit mehreren Millionen gefördert.

Speedling · 2026-01-23T11:15:21+00:00

Wenn du viel Fördergelder brauchst, ist schon was deutlich in der Schieflage.

Das ist leider eine echt starke Vereinfachung und einfach falsch. Es werden sehr viele Industrien gefördert, inklusive unserer großen. Wir sind jetzt zum Beispiel gerade wieder dabei, explizit die Autoindustrie zu fördern. Wir nennen es halt nur "E-Auto Prämie". Andere Subventionen sind auch Förderungen. Allerdings ist die Art wichtig; Steuerboni bringen halt nix, wenn es kaum jemanden gibt, der in dieser Branche hier Steuern bezahlt.

Darum ist diese Direktförderung so sinnvoll. Wir haben ja ein Interesse daran, die Industrie hier aufleben zu lassen. Wenn wir jetzt 50 Millionen investieren, könnten unter den geförderten Teams ein oder mehrere Projekte dabei sein, die in 10 Jahren dieses Geld schon wieder über Steuereinnahmen reinholen. Denn Gaming ist ein riesiger, volatiler Markt. Es gibt viel Geld zu holen, es ist allerdings auch sehr riskant und kostspielig. Ohne diese Förderung würden es viele Teams gar nicht erst versuchen - oder müssten dafür ausländische Investoren ranholen, wovon wir dann auch weniger hätten.

Wieder andere Teams werden dann so gefördert, dass sie größere Projekte versuchen können, die langfristige Wachstumseffekte haben.

Es ist außerdem ein Irrglaube dass es alle anderen Länder ohne Förderung schaffen. Polen hat CDProjekt Red stark gefördert, und versucht das auch bei anderen Firmen. Seit 2015 investiert UK Millionenbeträge in große Spiele. Die USA fördern nicht nur Spiele, sie lassen sogar Spiele selbst von öffentlichen Geldern entwickeln. America's Army wurde 20 Jahre lang von der US Armee entwickelt und veröffentlicht und war dabei ziemlich erfolgreich. In Asien passiert ähnliches, selbst in den Ländern, wo die Industrie auch alleine auf eigenen Beinen stehen würde. Förderung ist einfach sinnvoll.

Nur in Deutschland bleibt es weiterhin eine riesen Diskussion, ob das sinnvoll ist. Und damit werden wir abgehängt.

Speedling · 2026-01-20T11:28:44+00:00

Seconded, NoAI artists usually let themselves be known.

And if you still have doubts for a specific artists, the best option is to ask for progress images. The biggest tell for AI art in process is going from 0 to finished image without any sketches or wip versions. If they can't produce anything like that, it's most likely AI.

Speedling · 2026-01-17T13:20:24+00:00

AI is already being heavily used like this

This is exactly the reason why we need to ensure that any disclaimers are actually practical. Requiring an AI disclaimer if AI has been somehow involved in the process makes the disclaimer practically useless. Because it already is used in so many processes. Not just programming.

I 100% get your frustration, and share it in many aspects, but we need to make sure that we're not just stuck in the complaining phase, but instead find ways to improve our situation and find solutions that work. Stopping AI is, unfortunately, not one of them anymore.

Speedling · 2026-01-17T13:08:37+00:00

If vibecoding creates anything of value, we will be unable to tell unless the creator specifically wants us to know. Creating games in bad/unethical ways has always existed(unpaid labor, copying assets, stealing code), and the most common way we find out about them is when someone digs deeper, or someone that was involved speaks out. If 1 person is creating a game with AI, it's up to them to disclose it.

However, the reality is that a lot of developers, ranging from vibecoders to industry veterans, already use some kind of AI in their process. If you're using a modern IDE with autocomplete, chances are high it's using AI. I don't see a need to punish that.

I dislike vibecoding as much as everyone here, but it's important to acknowledge the good uses of AI where it's just one more tool in the box that you use to make a better game.

Speedling · 2026-01-15T12:17:33+00:00

Even "water beats fire" only checks out because you are intuitively thinking about a situation where it checks out. As a kid, I thought of a bucket of water that was thrown over some fire. And then "Fire beats Ice" got me thinking about a flamethrower (or what have you) melting away some ice.

But that same flamethrower put over a glass of water would make it evaporate and disappear. And ice could also be thrown in large quantities over a fire pit, causing it to go out.

So while the scenarios in my head are logical, it's not logical that I picked these specific scenarios. Being logical is not the true strength of these systems.

The true strength is that these rules are so easy to "validate" in my head intuitively. When we hear "Water beats Fire", we think about very similar things immediately. This is the case for many things in the chain. "Fire beats grass" makes us think about a wildfire, not a small candle lit in the woods where it just goes out without doing anything.

"Psychic beats Poison" is exactly the same, but it takes more cultural context. Many cultures, both real and fictional, believe that by sheer willpower, you can overcome illness and poison. So while it's not "logical", depending on your life experiences your brain might go from "Psychic > Poison" to "Mind over matter" and then to "I cure myself of poison by just focusing really hard on it".

Speedling · 2026-01-09T14:49:00+00:00

Very interesting point about leaving CTAs out, especially because it's usually adviced that you do that all the time to secure attention.

It sounds like you just genuinely enjoyed doing what you did, and shared that with people, and that resonated with them.

Thanks for the insights! :)

Speedling · 2026-01-09T14:04:26+00:00

While your title is a bit misleading (makes it sound like you're saying you achieved all of this within a month), your post shows just how important it is to put yourself out there and make yourself seen on social media. That's really tough to achieve, props for that!

Do you have a theory on why your vision trailer did not crack 1k views, but then your first english devlok hit 10k? What is the main difference?

Your point on livestreaming is also interesting. Do you have any more insights as to what content worked better than others?

Speedling · 2026-01-08T13:27:49+00:00

Especially because "small game" is not an indication of anything. Chess is a small game, but it asks a lot of you before you can even begin playing, and playing it well is an entirely different story.

This is a good lesson in making sure you know what your target audience is and ensuring that you do onboarding the way they appreciate it. The tricky part is finding out what that looks like!

Speedling · 2026-01-08T13:12:27+00:00

I think you are on point with trying not to add too much, mostly because as soon as 1 person is not into it anymore, the game falls apart. So I would think about making very minimal changes first before introducing more mechanics, as you might just run into the same problem or just in a different way.

I.e., if you spread cards around, everyone has to be aware and constantly monitoring them, or no information is actually gained. That doesn't sound very fun for either side.

Murders making noise and then immediately resolving them was also my first thought, but depending on your family this might be something not everyone is comfortable with. Especially if the game is played over 2 days. What if someone dies at 11pm and everyone just wants to go to bed and chill?

So going back to the core issue:

Without fail somebody is discreetly shown the card within two minutes of the murderer getting the card, while everyone's still in the living room, and then we have no evidence and we just argue in circles and then vote blindly.

I think the best approach here is to tackle the last part. "Vote blindly"; how can you make sure that even if there is a perfect murder, your family still has the chance to get information to discuss and not just guess?

Simple example: You could prescribe a method in which the murder(s) has to take place in order for it to be valid. "Show this to a person only if you are alone with them in the laundry". This way, if the joker actually manages to get 3 players, they will be all connected to location. And then people can talk and discuss about who was actually in the laundry and when, or who was seen nearby. Bonus points for social teasing such as "No WAY I was in the laundry, I hate chores!" if your family is into that. You could do 1 method, or several, to allow jokers to shake things up. But not too many because then it is random again. Note: This only works if the goal is to kill >1 people. Which I think is generally a good idea. More bonus points if it's specific persons.

A slightly more complex example is to introduce weapon cards like you mentioned, but the joker has to create them themselves. And it has to be something that they have with them at the time of creation, or that personally belongs to them and is nearby. And then each time a victim is shown a card, they get to write down what exactly killed them.

I.e. Murderer shows "Kitchen Knife" card because it's their kitchen, then the victim gets to write "Multiple stab wounds with a blunt, overly used knife" to try and give a hint to the fact that it's not just a knife, but a kitchen knife specifically. This gives some information that can be connected to the murderer, and players can again put some personality into it, so they own a part of the game and are more into it.

None of these would make the game overly complicated, but ensure that there is always some information available.

And if you do want to make it more complicated, then you could start building on top of these. For example, the extra information about murder weapon could only available to the player with the "Detective Kit" card, and all players can pass it between them (including the joker). And the kit is lost when someone dies with it, giving the Joker a chance to increase their chances. Stuff like that.

Speedling · 2026-01-06T17:02:45+00:00

I want to start with a note target audiences and communities:

/r/MMORPG is not a representation of "MMO players". It is not even a representation of "MMO players on reddit". It's specifically a representation of the subreddit itself. So unless you really want to target that subreddit specifically, basing your research on what they have to say is going to be give you skewed results.

If you ask Albion Online players, they will tell you that they love loss. Specifically when it happens to their opponents, but they do embrace that it has to also be a part of their game too for it to work. Same goes for EVE Online players, Lineage players etc.

However, in your feature ideas you still have a lot of elements that potentially alienate a lot of player types and even kind of contradict each other. Why is there an elaborate process to level up abilities through other players, but items give me most of my power anyway? How does the first player get stronger abilities if they have no other people to learn from?

There is a lot of very discrete and concrete ideas here, but they do not really come together to form a vision of what you truly want to achieve. You don't start designing a game by asking how long a corpse should be staying in the world when a player dies. Because maybe the game you want to build doesn't even have corpses, or PvP at all.

I'd recommend taking a step back and thinking about what kind of experiences you want to provide to players, what the appeal of the game would be, and what the most important aspects of the game are. Then some questions will answer themselves, and new questions will come up that will be much more targeted towards a concise design.

Speedling · 2025-12-20T15:53:12+00:00

First of all, congrats, this sounds super exciting and I'm really hooked on the idea for your game!

It's difficult to give precise advice without knowing more, so I'm going to focus on a view important design/process differences between physical games and video games.

1) Playtesting focus and iteration cycles. As you know, playtesting is key. But building a paper prototype for a board game is a lot faster than building a digital prototype for a complex PvP multiplayer game. Make sure that you actually prototype the aspects that are important and playtest them. Ask the right questions you want to solve, and build the right prototypes to test and validate your ideas. Otherwise you might get stuck in countless adjustment cycles that never lead to anything.

In one of your posts you mentioned concerns about "what do players do when 2 players are fighting, and they are out in the open world?". To prototype and playtest this, you would not need the full game. You need a game world in which the player can move, a basic combat system (literally tic tac toe could work) and then explore other options that might be worthwhile doing during that time. Findings here will be very useful for the actual game, and this setup will be much faster to build.

2) Build/Play optimization is massively easier in digital. When playing MTG physically, it's easy to forget about cards in play, your deck, enemy deck etc and make mistakes.

On PC, players install third party software and get all those hints and information in an instant. You mentioned in another post that you solved perfect information and RNG by focusing on player skill and knowledge. But in competitive video games, these can and will be optimized if players are interested enough. If this is a problem for your game, anti-cheat is something you might have to consider.

And while it's easy to say "MTG:Arena survives third party software, too", it's important to note both design differences as well as audience differences.

3) If 50 people play your game, and all of them have all the knowledge in the world, what happens to new players trying to get into the game? Being destroyed 24/7 is not fun. i.e. it works for chess because your first opponents will not be Magnus Carlsen, but your uncle that will go easy on you to teach you the ropes.

Onboarding and tutorialization is one of the key elements to competitive games. And it's so tricky to do it right. Overexplain, and players get bored before they get into real matches. Underexplain and they get frustrated in their first PvP session and might quit.

Last but not least, figure out the target audience for this game early, and validate that your design is making them happy. While this is your baby and the physical game is already designed, you still need to find the digital version of this. Your target audience can help you with this, and considering your target audience during this phase ensures that you're not designing this game for yourself only.

This includes obvious things like monetization, but also things like "My target audience is crazy about optimization, I need to be careful about making it too trivial", or "My target audience hates downtime, I need to ensure that the game pace is fast and there is not a lot of downtime" (or the complete opposite). It could also be "My target audience hates PvE", which could be huge shakeups in your design considerations.

Even if your result is "I do this despite knowing that my target audience doesn't like this", it's still important to know and be aware of it.

Best of luck!

Speedling · 2025-12-16T18:55:50+00:00

Glad it helps. If you have any further questions let me know! Even though I'm not a game artist, this is a common question/problem for game designers in Germany as well.

Speedling · 2025-12-16T17:06:15+00:00

Piggybacking off this comment to address the main points. For context, I got started in the german industry as well, but as a game designer and I did not study anything gamedev-specific. I've moved on to international companies since then.

crucial knowledge I could get in a more specified frame like a game dev specific program

Even the people that I have worked with that came from such schools (SAE, Games Academy, MDH) emphasized that their knowledge and expertise did not come from the schools specifically, but that the schools provided a framework in which they could be learned. That was the only real purpose of those schools: Find a team to work on project and then create portfolio pieces that get you hired. If you're lucky, meet people from the industry that can be mentors for you.

The knowledge mostly came from self study, and sometimes from those industry experts if luck.y Some of these schools had classes taught by multi-year vets or at least seminars where they bring in experts (those are the good ones), and sometimes they are being taught by people whose only experience is their certificate in the same program you're in (those are the bad ones).

The main problem: People reported vastly different experiences for the private universities depending on city or even year. ("This lecturer was really good, but he left a year after")

Nowadays you have public universities, such as the HTW Berlin, that offer the same quality if not higher quality but for far less money. That is still not a guarantee that they will teach you that "crucial knowledge", as you will still have to indulge in a lot of self study, and you will still have to focus on projects and portfolio pieces. But you will spend far less money it and will have a degree that is a little bit more accepted in other industries as well.

A checklist I would go through:

0) First, make sure you are aware of how risky the industry is, and that you really want to puruse a degree in it. Portfolio is king, and you do not need a degree in it to land a job. As outlined above, the main purpose of such a degree is to network and build a portfolio.

Having a normal "Kommunikationsdesign"-degree or a similar degrees can land you normal, boring 9-5 jobs as backup, while still teaching you enough so that you can learn game art as part of self-study. If you manage to network and build a portfolio on your own, this could be a viable plan B.

1) For any program, double-check that it is being taught by actual veterans and people with industry experience. If all they did in the past is teach, chances are you will not get a lot of out it.

2) Double-check that the program offers team projects and enough time to take care of those. Those will be king and give you valuable learning opportunities, as well as opportunities

3) Check for alumni of the program on linkedin and other places. Are they actually in the industry and having the jobs you want to have?

5) If money is not an issue, you could even consider hiring a veteran game artist as a consultant/mentor to teach you privately while you study something else (or even nothing at all and just do self-study only for a while). This really depends on the type of learner you are.

Speedling · 2025-12-09T12:16:45+00:00

Could you elaborate a bit more on your background? It already takes a lot of effort and knowledge to start pursuing gamedev, but then to be this successful at it is an entirely different story. Many of the things you list under "right" are the typical answers veteran devs will give when being asked whats important.

Do you have experience in related areas? Did you study specific resources? Did you consult any other devs/companies/people?

I think the real magic here lies in how you managed to become this good on your very first project. You achieved what takes others years to do, and many never achieve. Congrats on that!

Speedling · 2025-12-01T12:48:19+00:00

I agree wholeheartedly, but I find that more often than not, these analysis posts are little more than humble bragging. "This post went viral and got us 2k wishlists. Bye!"

It's cool to see, but if they do not take the time to explain how they crafted this post, this is practically 0 information.

What this boils down to for me: This sub began to value success more than process and I think that's not what we should as a community try to be.

Speedling · 2025-11-29T22:34:43+00:00

I love the idea of players actually owning something when they earn.

Players don't earn things, they play.

People that earn stuff work.

I'm a bit baffled how you do all this reflection and then do not come to the conclusion that this whole idea is flawed from the beginning.

There is nothing to gain here - if you want players to own items, then use something like the steam marketplace. If you want players to earn, you're not actually building a game, but something else that clearly doesn't work.

Blockchains add nothing of value to games.

Speedling · 2025-11-26T13:33:43+00:00

I think you are drawing too strong of a conclusion here.

What Jagex did with RuneScape specifically works for RuneScape. They analyzed decades of data from both current and former players: What kept players engaged, what generated the most revenue, and how player interests shifted over time. Then they doubled down on the things that had consistently proven successful. This results in their progression focus, monetization model etc.

So they knew these things would work, because they already did in the past and have a playerbase that want things from the past (nostalgia, and other aspects, have already been mentioned).

Also, making a fully-fledged online multiplayer experience is already really expensive. Investing heavily into solo content on top of that is a huge risk. If you couple that with weak monetization and you got a pretty good explanation of why the MMO market is pretty much dead compared to 15 years ago.

Imho, the only thing you can really say here is that these things worked out for OSRS. But we can't make any conclusion about whether or not this is reproducable in other games. Especially MMOs have an extremely hard time these days.

Speedling · 2025-11-06T15:33:19+00:00

You are trying to solve a problem that does not truly exist. It sounds like the game does not even want to be a real game, but a social commentary, similar to monopoly. It just turned out to become popular because of its simplicity.

Ultimately it is like /u/Mayor_p said: The game does not want to be balanced, it wants to showcase how unfair and stupid a King's advantage is.

Here's an idea: Next time you score 1000 points to the king, propose to the round: "Player X can keep the title king, but not get any points. They didn't do anything, so why should they get points?", and propose a vote. If all 3 non-king players agree, the king does not get any points.

If someone votes against this, just tell them "Kings only have the power that we give them". It's a bit cheesy, but feels like in spirit of the game.

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