{"id":98156,"date":"2019-08-09T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T05:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/348360"},"modified":"2019-08-09T05:57:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T05:57:00","slug":"discoverability-a-hot-or-not-genre-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/09\/discoverability-a-hot-or-not-genre-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Discoverability: A ‘hot or not?’ genre guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u0092s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. <\/small><\/i><\/strong> <\/p>\n

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One thing I think about a lot when I check out today\u2019s mammoth crop of video games is this. How did people decide the concept (& therefore broad genre) behind their game?<\/p>\n

The reason this is particularly relevant in 2019 is that we\u2019re coming out of an era<\/a> (\u2018Early Digital Discoverability\u2019) where indie games were considered to be – just by existing – original and innovative.<\/p>\n

To the jaded consumer, they could be pitched as the ultimate form of self-expression. It was a world where marketing people & focus groups (arguably) had \u2018excess input\u2019 into what retail games were. But now: \u2018Just make the kind of game you want to make\u2019. Personal creativity reigned supreme, and devs got rich, too!<\/p>\n

Obviously, I\u2019m not going to stop anyone from making the kind of game they want to make, here in 2019. And the low barrier to entry means that, no matter how abstruse or different, you can make a game that reflects your passions.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say you\u2019ve put $20,000 into it, or $200,000 dollars, or $2 million dollars. And you still want your money – or your investors\u2019 money – back. You should probably look at how crowded that genre\/game feature is, how games using that feature are selling, and how excited the general public is about that genre.<\/p>\n

In addition to my GDC\/Gamasutra work, I get to see A&R decisions for No More Robots<\/a> from an advisory perspective. So here\u2019s my general conclusions, grouped into \u2018NOT\u2019 and \u2018HOT\u2019:<\/p>\n

NOT: Local multiplayer-centric games<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a classic gotcha here, which is – if you demo with your friends or publicly at PAX-style shows, local multiplayer games end up looking like a surefire hit.<\/p>\n

However, those demos don\u2019t reflect how most people play on their PC and console (alone!). People will rarely pay for games that rely on all their buddies turning up at the same time. And actually\u2026<\/p>\n

NOT: Multiplayer-centric games<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d actually go one further, and say that multiplayer-centric games are incredibly difficult to pull off nowadays. The main reason for this is that you need a pretty large amount of simultaneous uniques (maybe 250-500 for most games) to have people not yell in forums\/Reddit that \u2018the game is dead\u2019. And you need a lot of content updates for people to not get bored with the game.<\/p>\n

Of course, immediately people start posting that the game is dead, nobody else buys it, and the game ACTUALLY becomes dead. So your ability to sell copies for a period of years from people \u2018happening upon the title\u2019 is significantly affected by negative reviews.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not impossible to build a multiplayer hit, especially if you\u2019re starting out as free-to-play. But it\u2019s a \u2018triple backflip\u2019 level of difficulty, vs. a somersault for most single-player centric games.<\/p>\n

NOT: Shorter games<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nowadays, people often have all kinds of subscription services to try out games from, which means they can dip in and out of titles, and I do think they\u2019re getting pickier on length.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a problem if you want to sell your game at a $10 USD price point or less on PC\/console. But if your game is less than 5 hours long, it\u2019s very difficult to sell a mass of copies at what I consider is the \u2018best\u2019 dev-centric pricing for games ($20USD to $30USD).<\/p>\n

Otherwise you\u2019ll get a lot of debatable complaints about length in reviews. Heck, even Minit\u2019s reviews on Steam<\/a> have some rants re: time to complete, and it\u2019s $10. (This rule is obviously a bit different on premium mobile, but watch for another newsletter about premium mobile!) Again – plenty of beautiful, amazing shorter games, I\u2019m just talking about likelihood of higher revenues.<\/p>\n

NOT: Side-scrolling platformers<\/strong><\/p>\n

I feel like this is a Braid & Super Meat Boy hangover, but the amount of \u2018side-scrolling platformers with a twist\u2019 I see being put out there is almost overwhelming. There\u2019s a fair amount of \u2018masocore\u2019-style titles too that are incredibly difficult, but tricky to differentiate.<\/p>\n

A scan of the top Steam games<\/a> reveals that titles like Cuphead, Bloodstained, Celeste, and Hollow Knight have legitimately broken through to be big hits. And if you\u2019re going for platformer as a genre, a Metroidvania with outstanding pixel art is the best subgenre to push into.<\/p>\n

But I feel like these few top-selling games blind people to the amount of platformers released<\/a> – it\u2019s at least one per day on Steam, vs. far less for other genres like card games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I think (without any procgen elements) the genre is considered low takeaway and therefore low value by many game players. It\u2019s also low barrier to entry and fairly easy to create. I wouldn\u2019t go there, personally. You can, of course.<\/p>\n

HOT: Games with procedural generation\/roguelite elements<\/strong><\/p>\n

You may think that you\u2019ve read far too much about all these damn procedurally generated games like Binding Of Isaac, Streets Of Rogue, etc. So the Rogue-like\/Rogue-lite genre must be played out, right?<\/p>\n

Well, not really – if you look at recently released titles<\/a> in the Rogue-like genre, the volume isn\u2019t too scary, and the average number of Steam reviews seems higher than many other subgenres you can look at. There\u2019s perceived depth and replayability with randomness. That means people are more likely to buy the game at a higher price point.<\/p>\n

Plus, I think many devs value carefully handcrafted levels vs. carefully randomized levels as a \u2018higher level of art\u2019. Which can be counterintuitive to what players want to pay for. So that\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

And of course, you can apply procedural generation\/randomness to other genres too – as No More Robots titles like Descenders<\/a> have for mountain biking (!) and Nowhere Prophet<\/a> for single-player deckbuilding game. There are pluses and minuses to adding such computer-created randomness. But it still makes you stand out.<\/p>\n

HOT: Games with in-depth simulation or strategy elements<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is another extension of \u2018people like buying games that have perceived depth, because they think they will play them for longer, and get more value from them\u2019. I\u2019m not saying that people who buy these games always play them for longer. But they feel like they are more likely to. And that\u2019s half the battle.<\/p>\n

So if you look to games like Bomber Crew<\/a> or the less well-known and decently selling Overcrowd<\/a> (a commuter simulator!), you can see that these are the kind of titles that can demand a $20-$30 USD price point with ease. It helps that they are a little trickier to make and sometimes text-heavy, which raises the barrier to entry for development vs. Unity Asset Store reskins.<\/p>\n

One issue with this genre is that conversions to console are sometimes tricky (or just a bit unplayable, because they\u2019re so menu-heavy). So you\u2019re tending to lean more heavily on the PC side of things at that point.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless – if I was making any game from scratch in today\u2019s market and looking for a more reliable ROI, I\u2019d look at the success of publishers like Paradox Interactive<\/a>closely. You could think about how I could do similarly deep work on a smaller scale, or take a \u2018lite strategy\u2019 approach that\u2019s easier to port to console.<\/p>\n

HOT: Games that have an inherited audience in an underserved market<\/strong><\/p>\n

I may eventually do a standalone piece on this. But pent-up, sometimes unconscious demand from subgenres that are not well-covered on today\u2019s computers\/consoles can create massive hits.<\/p>\n

Some examples I\u2019d like to highlight: Cities Skylines is a great game. But it definitely hit big in part because of a bizarre lack of \u2018straight\u2019 citybuilders in the market and on Steam, after SimCity ground to a halt (and EA didn\u2019t even publish its 2013 SimCity on Steam, actually.)<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s a supply\/demand issue there. If you can identify those AND make a great game, then you\u2019re in wonderful shape. (Oddly, with one or two exceptions, I still think the city-builder genre is under-served right now!)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the genre that went out of fashion, but people didn\u2019t know they wanted to play until a new one turned up. I would definitely classify Stardew Valley as one of those titles. It intelligently mashed up the Harvest Moon\/Animal Crossing microgenre with some of the depth of Minecraft, at a time where Harvest Moon-style games were massively underrepresented on PC. And we\u2019re still seeing that niche as a great one even today (see the success of My Time At Portia.)<\/p>\n

One final semi-accidental example – when No More Robots signed post-Brexit pub simulator Not Tonight<\/a>, they were aware that the gameplay was inspired by Lucas Pope\u2019s excellent Papers, Please – if in a completely different setting. They thought that might be good (as long as people felt it wasn\u2019t a \u2018bad ripoff\u2019), but weren\u2019t really sure.<\/p>\n

In fact, there were a lot of big streamers who did entertaining video series on Papers, Please, and their fans really wanted more of the same. So \u2018Papers, Please-style games\u2019 was an under-served market – and the Jacksepticeye videos on Not Tonight<\/a> were the biggest sales bump NMR have ever seen from a single streamer.<\/p>\n

So again, people played something, and they want more of that thing. Don\u2019t make that game in an overly calculating way, but maybe there\u2019s a game you can make that could take hints from a neglected subgenre.<\/p>\n

HOT: Games that are different & visually attractive<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of the tips around what\u2019s \u2018hot\u2019 have focused on games or genres that already exist. But you don\u2019t have to make a game that\u2019s exactly like another game for it to be successful. You just have to draw people in.<\/p>\n

A good example of a recent mid-level success is Eastshade<\/a>, a game where you\u2019re a painter and explore a lush landscape. This is not really an existing genre – maybe a WAY scaled-back Skyrim. But it works because it intrigues and also has great art, which makes you excited to pick up. (I think The Witness is another good example of \u2018great art, intriguing gameplay\u2019 that hit its big cos it was slightly undefinable.)<\/p>\n

But as you\u2019re sneaking up on AAA levels of production, you have to be careful, because you will tend to get compared to those games. Even ambitious triple-I indie titles like The Blackout Club<\/a> are doing OK but struggling a little, because it\u2019s possible they\u2019re getting mentally compared by players to Destiny 2-style experiences.<\/p>\n

And immediately you get too close to games-as-a-service AAA games, especially if you\u2019re in the multiplayer-only space, you\u2019ll be outspent x100 by the dominant titles on content updates.<\/p>\n

Actually, Risk Of Rain 2<\/a> is one of the games to most intelligently split the difference in recent years – a graphically attractive but stylized experience that doesn\u2019t try to ape AAA production values, emphasizes the gentler side of multiplayer (co-op) but doesn\u2019t require it, and includes rogue-lite elements.<\/p>\n

What a perfect blend! (Although maybe the gameplay isn\u2019t that \u2018different\u2019\u2026 but that\u2019s fine!)<\/p>\n

[This article was originally published as part of the Game Discoverability Weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to now<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u0092s community.The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. One thing I think about a lot when I check out today\u2019s mammoth crop of video games is this. How did people decide the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}