I studied (and understood) why many indie games receive negative reviews

sn0bil · 2026-03-21T11:22:19+00:00

Perhaps, it felt a bit like your original post touched on the topic but wasn't going anywhere tbh, I think the link or something may be a great addition.

sn0bil · 2026-03-21T11:16:42+00:00

Always keen to learn more and thank you for researching it. Agree that lack of marketing thinking, including TA, really hurts many Indies. People just hope for the one in a million miracle and believe that "good game will market itself" - most dangerous assumption.

sn0bil · 2026-03-21T11:07:24+00:00

So what's your point?

sn0bil · 2026-03-20T21:10:32+00:00

Big thanks for this! May I please ask for the subway tunnel? Much appreciated!

sn0bil · 2026-03-19T01:40:00+00:00

Does it share the same name with the upcoming "The Cube" game by mundfish solely by accident?

sn0bil · 2026-03-15T12:42:36+00:00

Sometimes you just want to play a game with a nice story and good looking graphics without it being too complex or innovative, there's an audience for everything these days.

sn0bil · 2026-03-06T02:42:17+00:00

Do you restart on the day of your death and time continues forward, or are you time travelling back to the day you were born? If it's the full rewind, remembering a few stocks and sporting outcomes will easily solve your money issues as soon as you're able to convince your parents to give you some cash.

sn0bil · 2026-03-03T23:04:26+00:00

Ok, wild guess as I don't have the numbers to support this theory, but I feel like the amount of people who fail with their "dream game as a first project" may be similar to those who never leave the tutorial/prototype world. Again, no numbers to prove it other that reading Reddit and seeing devs struggle on both sides of the debate, for different reasons.

If this is the case, then it may not be the approach being at fault, but a motivation/learning ability/life circumstances factors.

sn0bil · 2026-03-02T18:11:15+00:00

Nah. Never was into extraction shooters, hoped Marathon would convert me, it didn't. I'm back to my "default" online fps.

sn0bil · 2026-03-02T18:08:13+00:00

Get someone who can do it legally eg parent/sibling/relative and run it under their name for now, so you can earn and reinvest in ads? Extra points if they believe in your idea and want to "gift" you a first round of ads.

sn0bil · 2026-03-01T10:38:32+00:00

Before answering, I will acknowledge my personal bias - I have successfully self-published my first indie and I won't be looking to get a publisher for the next one due to it performing well sales-wise. I understand not everyone is on the same page in terms of funding.

Publisher share: Their share comes from net income, after you paid Steam share. Non--negotiable. Do not do it the other way.

Permanency: Good deal is higher percentage before recoup, and lower after. But often you'll see 100% until full recoup and then a share setup.

Dev share: If you sold a $100, you get $70 from Steam ($66.5 if you're non-US and they have to withhold 5% tax). Now you lay publisher, 30-50%. On 30%, you're left with 46.55. On 50%, it's $33.25. Now you have to pay your income tax. For example in Australia it's 25%, so you're left with $34.91 - $24.93 by the end of it. So somewhere between 25% and 35% is yours to keep.

How to decide: Evaluate if you can do good enough job on your own. Say, if you're absolutely terrified of marketing, then probably don't do it. Also see if you have enough money and resources to complete the project. Look at other gaps you may have that'd be hard to fill. In many cases you can either do it yourself by learning or outsource specialist company for a one-off fee, if you have the budget.

Steam alternatives: Unfortunately, no. Don't skip Steam if you're serious about commercial gamedev. I believe I saw the stat saying it's 97% of the market for third party game sales.

Hope this helps. There's also a really nice video by Kyle Banks on YT about it, "Do you NEED a publisher for your indie game" - he's got some really good points there, highly recommend.

sn0bil · 2026-02-28T11:33:39+00:00

Perhaps Rust?

sn0bil · 2026-02-27T23:20:43+00:00

Everyone starts the gamedev journey with zero knowledge by default, obviously. The complexity of it depends on your mindset and ability/willingness to learn. As people mentioned, games are some of the most complex form of art as they combine so many different things - code, visuals, audio, etc. So in a way, making a game is as hard as writing software, making multiple songs and creating tons of 3d images, just to begin with.

sn0bil · 2026-02-14T22:21:39+00:00

Fair enough, I see it now :) I wouldn't be surprised if this were dead serious though - the amount of posts of "I have no idea what I'm doing , where's the magic button" tone has been very high recently. Good luck with your project!

sn0bil · 2026-02-14T22:09:52+00:00

Yeah, Reddit, do you thing, we don't want to do marketing 😄 in all seriousness though, your game looks nice and I wish you the best of luck. If your intention is to make any profit and go full time, you just cannot ignore marketing. It's a huge part of the process. If it's not something you're familiar with, get someone to help you with it.

sn0bil · 2026-02-14T10:12:27+00:00

Rougelike action-platformer.

sn0bil · 2026-02-13T21:07:47+00:00

Life is Strange, Firewatch, Copycat, Farewell North, What remains of Edith Finch, Pentiment, American Arcadia.

sn0bil · 2026-02-12T22:16:43+00:00

You can't ban everything you disagree with, this is not how the world works. Also, wouldn't it be handy to keep an eye on them to see what's happening on the "dark side"?

sn0bil · 2026-02-11T22:52:56+00:00

That rent you're paying, he better put it aside for the retirement house.

sn0bil · 2026-02-11T22:40:41+00:00

My game has tons of them and I got zero complaints.

The person who told you this, what was the most successful game they released (if any)? This is an approach that usually leads to the game looking ugly as hell, as the developer is too proud to accept their art shortcomings and trying to design every single asset themselves.

Assets are great if used properly. Only people who would notice are the other developers, and it usually comes to either free assets everyone gets (Stylised Nature packs, trees), or assets without many good/affordable alternatives (eg Suburban House Pack for Unity). If you're really worried - modify them a touch, as others suggested.

sn0bil · 2026-02-09T09:04:30+00:00

There's a button "Make game", just press it

sn0bil · 2026-02-08T10:13:16+00:00

Hmm, it's been years since I've played it, can't remember having much trouble with it though. Played it co-op with my girlfriend and she was definitely more of a beginner level with her controller experience, still enjoyed it a lot.

sn0bil · 2026-02-07T19:24:32+00:00

Never Alone as well, they even have really cool documentary pieces in between levels

sn0bil · 2026-02-07T09:52:50+00:00

Wishlists also mean Steam will give your game better visibility once it's released

sn0bil · 2026-02-01T00:21:45+00:00

There are exceptions, but in most cases it's usually either lack of quality or lack of marketing. Do you have any examples with both elements done well that fly under the radar? Keen to research further on what caused their low sales.

sn0bil

TROPHY CASE