Jeff Vogel Soapbox Thread

[Angthoron]

Think how much more money he'd get if he'd only have released one game.

Isn't that what he did?

Nah, he saturated the market with shitty clones.

 

[G a R M]

So basically Vogel is pissy because he actually has competition now and can't just keep copy + pasting the same old shit with a sightly different story anymore?

 

[DraQ]

Well it looks like one!

It doesn't.

WoG is all smooth vectors characteristic for most flash games. Pixel art is by its very nature rasterized.

Anyway, what disturbs me abut those newfangled pixelized indies is that they go far beyond how pixel art can and should look like - they seem like they're running in 160x120 or something, with brick sized pixels everywhere for no reason.

 

[DalekFlay]

It doesn't.

I already corrected myself after googling pics of it. We can all move on with our lives.

 

[Johannes]

So basically Vogel is pissy because he actually has competition now and can't just keep copy + pasting the same old shit with a sightly different story anymore?

I thought he earlier pointed out how Avadon is a great financial success and things have never been better for him.

 

[Roguey]

"Puzzle game" is code word for shit game that pretends to be smart or artsy.

Um, no, puzzle games are... puzzles. And one of the great things about World of Goo is that, while its puzzles have an optimum solution, the mechanics are flexible enough to allow multiple ways to reach your goal. Not unlike Hitman: Blood Money, another fucking classic.

How many good ones did we get? Ho that's right, you are a retard. Path of Exile is a better "Diablo" clone than Diablo 3. When big companies fail to deliver, indie developers step up into the game. Or at any rate, that was the underlying idea, and the heart of the argument. Instead, what we get is pixelated hipster nonsense. So what went wrong?

I saw its character creation screen, it looks like cargo cult garbage. Thou art plebeian.

 

[Crichton]

I've tried several of Vogel's games and have yet to complete one so I'll admit that he's probably not some kind of game design wizard and when I observe the difference between his output and other shoestring budget productions like "Expeditions: Conquistador", I can't see where the money's going, so maybe he's no financial genius either.

But I'd say people are being too hard on him here. I think his basic point is valid; that is, lots of "games industry" guys had better grease their assholes because hard times are on the way. However, there's a huge difference between saying the "games industry" is on death's door and that no one will be making games in three years. The "games industry" is a bunch of wank; you've got AAA action-rpgs that cost US$200 million to make, congenital optimists making subscription MMOs that'll go bankrupt in two years and hordes of indie dipshits making minecraft clones and side-scrolling 2D platformers. I really don't care that all that's going down the shitter. If anything, it's good for me because all those unemployed artists, modelers, animators, voice actors and even some programmers should lower the cost of making things I actually want to play. When you have games like Blackguards, Expeditions: Conquistidor, Faster than Light and even stuff like that Space Hulk remake and they're all making money, then the only parts of the "games industry" that I care about are in stellar shape.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

am i the only one here who thinks vogel is a fucking retard always and only pushing his own agenda?

the e.t. landfill is a wrong example because that wasn't an increase in offer, that was a supply of a single product. a bigger offer is NEVER negative for the customer. NEVER. even if it's mostly crap, it's still more to choose from, tastes differ, there's always a market for something, for as small as it can be.
who can have issues with a wider offer? shit sellers with no multimillionary marketing. oh wait...

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/t...m-when-they-have-six-options-rather-than-24-1

People buy more jam when they have six options rather than 24.

Two stands were set up in Draeger's, a store known for its immense variety. One stand had six jams and the second had 24 for customers to stop by and sample before choosing to buy. The test was set up to see how many people would buy jam when they were presented with six choices versus 24.

The results: While more people stopped at the stand with 24 jams, more people actually bought the jam from the stand with six options, and were six times more likely to do so.

 

[Turjan]

The results: While more people stopped at the stand with 24 jams, more people actually bought the jam from the stand with six options, and were six times more likely to do so.

That jam example is interesting. I know that this is true for tech products and is one of the reason for Apple's success. On the other hand, if I think about it, I'm more or less only intrested in three to four types of jam, so it may fit.

But yeah, decision paralysis. In case of indie games, it's already beyond that point. It's more at the "can't care to look at it anymore" stage.

 

[Spectacle]

It doesn't.

WoG is all smooth vectors characteristic for most flash games. Pixel art is by its very nature rasterized.

Anyway, what disturbs me abut those newfangled pixelized indies is that they go far beyond how pixel art can and should look like - they seem like they're running in 160x120 or something, with brick sized pixels everywhere for no reason.

The reason is money/time. Retro pixel graphics can be drawn quickly and gives you graphics for your game that won't scare away customers. I'm sure pixel art drawn for 1920x1080 would look great, but will take forever to draw.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

[DraQ]

It doesn't.

WoG is all smooth vectors characteristic for most flash games. Pixel art is by its very nature rasterized.

Anyway, what disturbs me abut those newfangled pixelized indies is that they go far beyond how pixel art can and should look like - they seem like they're running in 160x120 or something, with brick sized pixels everywhere for no reason.

The reason is money/time. Retro pixel graphics can be drawn quickly and gives you graphics for your game that won't scare away customers. I'm sure pixel art drawn for 1920x1080 would look great, but will take forever to draw.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

I was thinking of something like 640x480.

High res pixel art is prohibitively expensive, though it may scale to high res if it's the type of game where you scroll around the area - you simply fit more onto the screen.

 

[Turjan]

Anyway, what disturbs me abut those newfangled pixelized indies is that they go far beyond how pixel art can and should look like - they seem like they're running in 160x120 or something, with brick sized pixels everywhere for no reason.

The reason is money/time. Retro pixel graphics can be drawn quickly and gives you graphics for your game that won't scare away customers. I'm sure pixel art drawn for 1920x1080 would look great, but will take forever to draw.

Sometimes, you can consider it an artistic statement. Like here, where the pixel art is mixed with other elements. Which is okay in my book.

Or this, where it is extremely blocky, but works in a way:

 

[DraQ]

The results: While more people stopped at the stand with 24 jams, more people actually bought the jam from the stand with six options, and were six times more likely to do so.

That jam example is interesting. I know that this is true for tech products and is one of the reason for Apple's success. On the other hand, if I think about it, I'm more or less only intrested in three to four types of jam, so it may fit.

But yeah, decision paralysis. In case of indie games, it's already beyond that point. It's more at the "can't care to look at it anymore" stage.

I'm not sure the jam example is relevant here.

Yeah, it's very true for pretty much interchangeable consumer products where added variety doesn't really add anything meaningful, but still increases effort expended on picking the product, but in case of stuff like games, you generally hunt for specific stuff, and I'm not nearly at the point where I'm swamped with several nearly identical titles I'd want at the same time.

 

[Athelas]

The first wave of indies (Braid, World of Goo, etc.) actually had a gorgeous art style. After that, the whole 'pixelated, blocky, look how retro we are!' aesthetic became popular, despite looking like absolute crap IMO.

 

[Turjan]

Yeah, it's very true for pretty much interchangeable consumer products where added variety doesn't really add anything meaningful, but still increases effort expended on picking the product, but in case of stuff like games, you generally hunt for specific stuff, and I'm not nearly at the point where I'm swamped with several nearly identical titles I'd want at the same time.

Well, the jam example is definitely one on a reduced base, but it works as it illustrates the problem. The distinction between cherry and strawberry is obvious. The one between strawberry and strawberry rhubarb is already a bit trickier. Then you can have different sugar content, different size of fruit pieces (or none at all) and so on and so on. You can go pretty far in this regard, and jam companies actually do that. Even my local discounter with a very reduced line of products has 4 very different kinds of cherry jam.

When you say that you are not swamped with several nearly identical titles*, you are not paying attention (which may be good for your sanity). I had already linked to the current line-up of the Groupees Greenlight. You have standard arcade shooters, tower defense and Bejeweled clones. It's the same stuff over and over, just with a fresh coat of paint.

*I saw your "I'd want", but you have to wade through all the shit to find the gold nuggets

 

[Angthoron]

Should also point out that the jam example is an example of impulse buy. If you want the game sales to be based on impulse buying (and I imagine that this is what industry wants), then yeah, it's an appropriate benchmark. However, for actual "educated" purchasing, variety is not a detriment.

 

[Turjan]

"Educated" buyers don't spend enough.

I could impose a rule that I only buy a new game when I'm done with the one I just bought. Yeah... don't see that happening.

Also, educated buying means that you have to put effort into educating yourself. With the current rate of new releases, that becomes increasingly difficult, because you need lots of time for that.

 

[Angthoron]

"Educated" buyers don't spend enough.

I could impose a rule that I only buy a new game when I'm done with the one I just bought. Yeah... don't see that happening.

That's oversimplifying. I can also say that an impulse buyer will buy the entire shelf if there's only 4 jams on it for the fear of a global jam shortage. As someone that considers self as "educated", I can buy a bunch of stuff without completing everything in my backlog, it just means I'm not buying obvious shovelware shit. Checked that Groupees bundle - is there anything worth buying?

Indie games are not jam. Vogel's games are not jam. And yet even before his stuff was on Steam, and before indie was the thing of the day, he managed to sell his games for a living. Fairly similar-feeling games, too, I should add. Several wargame companies manage to make a living by selling incredibly expensive campaigns still based off the same engine, without being in bundles. Sure, right now they're suddenly jam-like, and this is where I definitely agree with Vogel, this won't last forever. However, this current "jamming" will lead to the point where a lot of designers/programmers will end up grouping up for B-level gamedev, and that means that the B-level will have a pleasant variety of people to pick from. Don't expect them complaining about a sudden abundance of jam, either.

But yeah, this is more of a developer issue rather than a consumer issue for certain.


Oh yeah, and the issue with indie games is mostly not that they're of too many flavours - it's more like there's five-six flavours packed in different jars in different stages of completion, and of different degrees of questionable quality.

 

[Turjan]

Indie games are not jam...

Oh yeah, and the issue with indie games is mostly not that they're of too many flavours - it's more like there's five-six flavours packed in different jars in different stages of completion, and of different degrees of questionable quality.

Funny enough, that's closer to the actual "jam" situation in most supermarkets than you may think. Five to six flavors, packed in different jars pretty much nails it.

But let's not overextend this jam example. I don't see our opinions differ much on the actual topic, indie games .

That's oversimplifying.

Sure, that's oversimplifying. But in principle, I handle my buying habits pretty much that way in other fields, like clothes. My gf sure saw that differently, but that's exactly the difference in buying habits we talk about here.

The indie gaming industry pretty much just wants you to spend a few cents on a game just to look at it. That's why you have these elaborately produced sales pitch videos in that Groupees bundle. The games themselves are pretty bland compared to the videos. Just look at the art they produced for some of those videos.

 

[Gord]

We're jammin'...
We're jammin'...
And I hope you like jammin' too!

 

[DraQ]

When you say that you are not swamped with several nearly identical titles*, you are not paying attention (which may be good for your sanity). I had already linked to the current line-up of the Groupees Greenlight. You have standard arcade shooters, tower defense and Bejeweled clones. It's the same stuff over and over, just with a fresh coat of paint.

But those are pretty much the rock bottom. Tower defense and bejeweled clones are inherently shit, or at least pretty much exhausted with 1-2 games, everything after being essentially reskins, while arcade shooters were already ancient when PCs started rolling as dominant gaming platform and are simple enough to make innovation really hard.

Culling those genres is definitely a good thing.
In creative media/entertainment market, if you can't establish some actual unique identity, you *deserve* to die.

*I saw your "I'd want",

but you have to wade through all the shit to find the gold nuggets

Nope.

 

[Gord]

Aren't dragons natural horders?

 

[Delterius]

Oh yeah, and the issue with indie games is mostly not that they're of too many flavours - it's more like there's five-six flavours packed in different jars in different stages of completion, and of different degrees of questionable quality.

And a shill infested giant committee of olfact impeded and blindfolded 'library' completionists are the ones who choose what goes to the shelves.

 

[StaticSpine]

I do not get the point.

If you are a reasonable gamer you will find what you need out of that greenlight/bundle/etc crap and you will spend your hard earned money on the games you really need/want to play. That's the only thing that matter.

 

[Gord]

Yeah, while I did some impulse buys form time to time, it was nevertheless stuff I had at least a modicum of interest in.
How much I'm willing to spend on a game is ultimately decided by my interest in it. Say we get a worthy successor to MoO 2 tomorow? D1P for 50 bucks, no question.
Same with the really interesting indie games (although they tend to sell cheaper, since the smaller initial investment allows for lower pricing and indie devs generally have lower goals as far as profit goes).

Most of the indie bundle-fodder stuff however will never appeal enough to me to warrant spending more than a few bucks on it.
Insofar I'm also not fully agreeing with the idea that frequent sales and bundles will automatically condition the customers towards lower pricing - I think it will affect some people, but mostly those that anyway would never have paid full price for the game, since they aren't interested enough in it.