Where the Water Tastes Like Wine - American folk tale adventure where you wander through the US

[Decado]

Developers need to learn: this particular brand of hipster-critic does not represent the taste of the public at large. THIS SHOULD NOT BE NEWS. Art-house movies continually lose money for this very reason. The critic's aesthetic is different from the consumers. If you don't understand that, you will be broke.

 

[Blackthorne]

Right - what interests me is that this is a niche product... it wouldn't be appealing to the public at large and I'm pretty sure the dev knew that going in - but it appeared to fail even within that niche.

I make niche games for a particular audience - I know that, so I'm not expecting huge sales or anything. My games have done all right - they aren't, like, total failure, but they don't sell enough to make it even close to a career. I do wonder what his hope and realistic goals were for the game.


Bt

 

[MRY]

Of course, your game also made the mainstream press: http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...helped_me_become_a_video_game_voice_over.html

Woe is me. :D

 

[Decado]

Right - what interests me is that this is a niche product... it wouldn't be appealing to the public at large and I'm pretty sure the dev knew that going in - but it appeared to fail even within that niche.

I make niche games for a particular audience - I know that, so I'm not expecting huge sales or anything. My games have done all right - they aren't, like, total failure, but they don't sell enough to make it even close to a career. I do wonder what his hope and realistic goals were for the game.


Bt

He drank the Kool-Aid. When a dozen hipster critics praise your game, and you have no awareness of the business as it exists outside your circle, you will think you've got a hit on your hands. This is why playtesting and other kinds of research are so important. But, he didn't even need that. How big did he think this audience was going to be? He picked a pretty niche genre (adventure games), and then went turbo-leftist with the content and themes. Look at who the writers are, that tells you all you need to know. I like weird, niche games with unique premises, but I'm not buying anything written by Leah Alexander. Her shtick is tired, and I already know that everything under the sun is problematic and racist and sexist and please god kill me. And then of course, Johnnemann went on twitter and embarrassed himself with his anti-GamerGate shitposting.

Again, what did he expect? Take a low-played genre and cobble together a bunch of stories by nutty leftists, and then mock people on your Twitter feed. Okay. See you around, I guess.

 

[MRY]

I stand by my position that it's quite hard to know in advance what is going to happen with a game like that these days. Maybe a month before release you should have an idea, but at the point of debarkation, how would he know that this isn't going to be the latest quirky runaway success like Gone Home, Firewatch, To the Moon, 80 Days, Undertale, etc. I've only played half of those, and I haven't played this game, and it sounds like a key difference is the excruciating slowness of this game, but I dunno, it really doesn't seem obvious that it was going to bomb, especially as it crept along and won a bunch of prizes and massive news coverage.

To me, this is like some amateur boxer who somehow manages credibly to fight many rounds against a champion, only to take some hilarious, meme-worthy knock-out punch in the last round that makes him a laughingstock. Sure, it ends ridiculously, and maybe the guy was a goofball from the outset, but in the interim, he actually pulled off the remarkable feat of several rounds of impressive boxing. There are all sorts of games that fare way worse than WTWTLW has -- Kim by The Secret Games Company seems a decent point of comparison. Or, heck, The Long Journey Home (which has sold a few more copies, but has been out for months and steeply discounted, and had ~20 times the budget and put an entire wing of Daedelic out of business), or Sunless Skies, or that random Victorian New York RPG that came and went, or Bob Bates's Thaumistry, or Telepath Tactics, etc. And that's not even counting the endless shovelware out there.

It doesn't mean the meme-worthy knock-out punch isn't still funny, but I still think he achieved quite a lot along the way to being knocked out. Maybe part of the reaction is the feeling of relief that it didn't succeed, lest the world seem even more ridiculous.

 

[Heretic]

There are all sorts of games that fare way worse than WTWTLW has -- Kim by The Secret Games Company seems a decent point of comparison. Or, heck, The Long Journey Home (which has sold a few more copies, but has been out for months and steeply discounted, and had ~20 times the budget and put an entire wing of Daedelic out of business), or Sunless Skies, or that random Victorian New York RPG that came and went, or Bob Bates's Thaumistry, or Telepath Tactics, etc.

Based on screenshots and user reviews, all the games you mentioned, except for Telepath Tactics, have one thing in common - the gameplay is only secondary. They all focus on some other aspect, mostly writing or the setting, and neglect that which distinguishes games from other media.

 

[MRY]

I'm not even sure what we're arguing, but I don't think any of those games are farther down the narrative/gameplay continuum than Gone Home, Firewatch, To the Moon, 80 Days, Undertale, etc. Sometimes, for ineffable reasons, these games take off, and sometimes they don't. WTWTLW got close to escape velocity but didn't make it. It did so despite a modest budget, no publisher backing, and a zany guy with no business experience running the show. TLJH also did not achieve escape velocity, despite a larger budget, a renowned company's name attached, and real business people on the inside. In my view, this guy made a modest bet (spending some fraction of his savings/trust funds, a few years of hanging out San Francisco coffee shops and game development conferences, and perhaps some of his Gone Home goodwill); the bet paid out in publicity but not money; and now he's moving to, say, Austin coffee houses to develop the next game. It's not like it put him out of business (as TLJH did), or out of his home (as Hero-U may do), or out of the Codex's good graces (as TTON did).

He's like a Bernie Sanders of game development. Sure, he didn't win. Sure, there were some goofy moments. But he had a ton of fun in the spotlight expounding on his progressive politics and now gets to go on living more or less the same way as before, only with the warm memory of having been briefly adored, if not adored quite enough. Hard to imagine he'd give it up just to be a little bit richer and younger.

 

[Decado]

I stand by my position that it's quite hard to know in advance what is going to happen with a game like that these days.

You are correct, it is quite hard to really know. But, in hindsight, it is easy to see why Undertale was successful whereas this game was not. Undertale had the virtue of being fun. That thing that super serious ART GAMES are not allowed to be, because they have a THEME and it demands SERIOUS engagement with the player.

Also, I think if you are in the indie development business you should expect your game to fail, purely as a matter of probability. This is like writing short-fiction for a boutique magazine; almost none of those stories ever make anyone a dime. Almost nobody makes a decent living writing them, and almost none of the magazines that publish them are solvent. That's just the way it is. This is not an indictment of those stories -- some of them are quite good -- but the writer has to understand he is reaching a very small, very limited audience. No matter how many awards he wins at various writing conventions.

ETA: And to be clear, by "fail" I mean financially. It is quite possible that your game is an artistic success, or a personal one. But there are plenty of personally satisfied, critically acclaimed artists who are dead broke.

 

[MRY]

Also, I think if you are in the indie development business you should expect your game to fail, purely as a matter of probability. This is like writing short-fiction for a boutique magazine; almost none of those stories ever make anyone a dime. Almost nobody makes a decent living writing them, and almost none of the magazines that publish them are solvent. That's just the way it is. This is not an indictment of those stories -- some of them are quite good -- but the writer has to understand he is reaching a very small, very limited audience. No matter how many awards he wins at various writing conventions.

I think this is a good mindset, but I will say that within my life, indie game development has been a cash bonanza compared to every other form of indie art I know. Of course, every oil strike runs out, and the next one is harder, but the Steam boom was ridiculous and the Kickstarter boom similarly so. Basically everyone I know who wanted to make money in video games has done so; maybe not a ton of money, but nothing to sneeze at. By contrast, even the few people I know who are successful as writers (a very small minority) make next to nothing. I've made more part-timing as a video game writer than full-time genre novelists seem to be able to make, unless they're at the very top.

Imagine this guy had spent $140k making an indie movie about a skeleton hitchhiking cross-country and encountering weird people and sharing stories. Rather than selling several thousand copies of his game, he would've, at best, had a direct-to-streaming thing that seven people watched. Eventually the market will correct this, but the game industry has always been, and still is, probably the best place for solo/small-team to make a buck.

 

[laclongquan]

If you want to succeed at indie game dev, you have to come in with a business mindset.

Sure, you want to make a game for a super niche group. There's no unsurmountable problem with that. So you want to make an artsy game. No problem.

Research that market for your game. Marketing your game toward that market. Ensure that at the very least, all the customers in that segment know about your game so you have a fighting chance.

What kind of customers that like artsy game with lotsa text? Gamer? Not likely, brother. IT's <<visual novel>> gamer segment we are talking about. The type who like to see lots of text on screen (and arts), and care not that much about gameplay. They are a niche group in the overall gamer market.

The dev fail at this short guide to niche success. Hell, 1st step, even.

Comparison? Type Moon, biatch! Know what I mean? Research that phenomenon to know what your model of success is.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

How does an indie developer conduct such research?

 

[laclongquan]

1. Do it yourself. Go to a prestigious forum such as ours and ask "What kind of artsy game that you think as successful? With good sale? Name? Please help?" We will give you a list of name, review from ourselves, numbers even, then you can just do the legwork/reading.

2. Have a trusted partner do that marketing himself. Have him going to a prestigious forum such as ours and ask "What kind of artsy game that you think as successful? With good sale? Name? Please help?" We will give you a list of name, review from ourselves, numbers even, then you can just do the legwork/reading.

3. Hire a marketing specialist to do that marketing for you before hand. Mind you, that require an prestigious INDIE GAME DEVELOPER listen to a lowly marketing staff about such unimportant thing like what customers want and also such important thing like what directions of arts, writings, gameplays model you need to make the game to follow. Dear god that's a deal killer right there.
But in case you can trust such an down to earth fellow, have him go to a prestigious forum such as ours and ask "What kind of artsy game that you think as successful? With good sale? Name? Please help?" We will give you a list of name, review from ourselves, numbers even, then you can just do the legwork/reading.

The very fact that you know a prestigious forum like ours mean at least you know where your niche customers' loud vocal audience is.
The very fact that you know to ask us mean you pay attention to customers.
But a definition of indie game devs is mostly " We dont need no steenkeeng customers".

 

[Blackthorne]

Of course, your game also made the mainstream press: http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...helped_me_become_a_video_game_voice_over.html

Woe is me. :D

Ha! I forgot about that article. Cyrus voiced some characters in the game, and somehow had that gig too. That was just luck... but we did have some nice press coverage from some sources. Our pro-reviews were all over the place... some places savaged it and others ridiculously praised it. In the end, honestly, four years later - it's all just a bunch of words. Quest for Infamy has had a long tail as a game; people are still buying and playing it now, which is all I could hope for in the end.

But, like I said, this post-mortem was interesting to me because while our subject matter and execution were VASTLY different... I've been there as and indie developer, and what makes one thing a success and another not is often a mystery. It's like you said several times above - sometimes there's no rhyme or reason why one thing catches fire. You can do a lot of things to try your best to make it fit and succeed, laclongquan above lists some great things you can do as an indie dev for your game.

Then there is also the point of "drinking the Kool Aid". Sometimes you believe your own hype so much, you forget to look outside yourself when you're creating something. So many people love to believe themselves to be "artists" and they tend to become insular as such, believing that their point of view is what creates the art. Which is true to a point, but I think stepping outside of your own views, biases and even knowledge base (just for a bit) helps you create that much better. In the time since I wrote and created Quest for Infamy, I've learned a lot of humility, I think. I got taken down a couple pegs, by myself and by life itself, and I think it's made me better. I'll probably never get to have the unique situation that led to the creation of QFI and I'll never get that kind of atmosphere again, but I think it's made me a better adventure game designer. My games in the future will be smaller, for sure, but it's my hope that they're better in many ways. Of course, that remains to be seen, but let's hope every game I make from here out is some kind of learning experience.

And I'm sorry, but no matter how mature I become as a designer and writer, I'm never not throwing a piss or shit joke in my game somewhere, because that shit is funny and I don't give a fuck what any civilized tart says.


Bt

 

[Decado]

How does an indie developer conduct such research?

This research is available from companies like Nielsen and EEDAR for a fairly inexpensive rate. There is not excuse for not doing it, unless you really have no money. Like, you can do it for a few thousand bucks.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Like, you can do it for a few thousand bucks.

Yeah, that's not pocket change to some people.

 

[Decado]

Like, you can do it for a few thousand bucks.

Yeah, that's not pocket change to some people.

If you're spending 140,000 on making your game, 5,000 is 3.5% of your total spend. That's a small price to pay to figure out if you're wasting the other 96.5%.

 

[MRY]

I never in a million years would've thought that I'd be reading posts on the Codex explaining that what game developers need to do is design their games based on what third-party market-research firms tell them. Do you think that would've improved AOD and Underrail? Battle Brothers? Arcanum?

Ultimately, game development is a good field to be in as an indie because you can make what you want and still earn a surprising amount of money. It's not a particularly great field to work in if you want to get rich, though, and I'm fairly sure that indie game developers trying to chase the market are likely to end up worse off than ones frolicking in weird directions. Again, WTWTLW is in the top 1% (.1%?) of results in terms of public acclaim, and well above the median in terms of sales -- per Steamspy, median copies owned for the launch month is 4k and that's at a median price of $9, and I believe that WTWTLW was at over 5k a couple weeks ago, at $20. There is a high likelihood it will wind up in the top 20% or so of indie games in terms of revenue. Is there any reason to think that if he had instead attempted to make a visual novel, he would've wound up with Hatoful Boyfriend rather than PANIC at Multiverse High?

What this guy spent $140k on was not a business investment, but a chance to lark about in San Francisco as a renowned bohemian artist. When all is said and done, he might get 50% or 80% return on that investment. It is certainly true that if, instead, he had worked as a data entry specialist at $35k a year, he would today have $140k credit in received salary rather than $140k debit in paid commissions -- a $280k swing. But if he had worked as a data entry specialist instead of going to a $60k/year college, he would have had an even better swing. Either of those swaps would've been a miserable one for him, though, and ultimately he doesn't need the money. The economic arguments here remind me of Ebenezer Scrooge saving his pennies on coal while shivering under threadbare covers. He chose the life of Mitya Karamazov; WTWTLW was his Grushenka; who are we to fault him for spending his inheritance on such a spree?

 

[Decado]

I never in a million years would've thought that I'd be reading posts on the Codex explaining that what game developers need to do is design their games based on what third-party market-research firms tell them. Do you think that would've improved AOD and Underrail? Battle Brothers? Arcanum?

If the argument is about financial return, then it makes a lot of sense to talk about this issue. And as it stands, the developer is the one complaining about how his game made no real money even though it was feted by a cadre of game critics.

Again, I tend to agree with you. But he is the one complaining about making no money. To use your term, it appears that he wants to be both a renowned bohemian artist, and sell a successful game. These things are not mutually exclusive, but the area of the Venn diagram in which they overlap is pretty fucking small.

 

[MRY]

To be a starving artist you must (1) loudly let people know you're starving and (2) not actually be starving.

 

[Outlander]

I never in a million years would've thought that I'd be reading posts on the Codex explaining that what game developers need to do is design their games based on what third-party market-research firms tell them. Do you think that would've improved AOD and Underrail? Battle Brothers? Arcanum?

I don't think Decado is saying that the design of the game should be based on what third-party market-research firms tell the developer. But it certainly could help steer you in the right direction, business/marketing-wise.

AOD, Underrail, Battle Brothers, Arcanum, etc were made by genuinely talented devs. Where The Water Tastes Like Wine? Not so much.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I stand by my position that it's quite hard to know in advance what is going to happen with a game like that these days. Maybe a month before release you should have an idea, but at the point of debarkation, how would he know that this isn't going to be the latest quirky runaway success like Gone Home, Firewatch, To the Moon, 80 Days, Undertale, etc.

Um... you never plan or even secretly hope that your game will be the latest quirky runway success, so asking how would he know it won't be the case is kinda silly. You make games for a specific audience, ideally an audience you're part of yourself (i.e. you know first-hand what this audience wants and expects).

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

He lists 6 reasons why he thinks the game failed commercially, but he forgot the most important one: There is no gameplay. None.

Video games are a visual aesthetic experience

LOL

With over 20 writers it's pretty clear that what Blaine suggests may very well be true - you had ton of "idea guys" who knew next to nothing about game development itself. Easy come, easy go.

The idea guys who didn't have any good ideas or knew hot to write for that matter.

How many "Where the Water Taste Like Shit"-writers it takes to make a decent game? None. It's not a game, it's a "visual aesthetic experience". :D

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Nobody trusts the game journos anymore, they can sing praise to intersectional diverse games as much as they want.

But that's the question. Who are they talking to?

- It's established that they have no game knowledge, and some of them even despise gamers.

- It's known that there are some conflicts of interest involving indie pussy or triple-A doritos.

- Popamole players don't read or watch them.

- Serious players despise them.

It seems like a paralel bizarre reality completely disconnected from the subject matter it is supposed to be based on. A similar criticism applies to cRPG writers. Who actually "reads" those pretentious people?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Bloated egos and bloated virtue signaling.
These folks imagine themselves as great writers, great critical thinkers, great beacons of morality, then one day decide to make a game and all that they inject into it are the two ingredients above. The press follows the plan and praises the illustrious work.

The press is also believes they are signaling some sort of intellectual sophistication by praising this pretentious trash.

Then, at the last stage, comes the paying gamer who - they really seem to ingenuously believe - is supposed to reward their self-indulgence with REAL WORLD money because they're so certifiably great, not to mention that if he didn't do it they'd be "scared". The gamer, instead of being the center of the productive struggle from the beginning, is hardly even considered throughout the whole process if not for the money they intend to extract from him at the very last stage (incidentally, if they're so all-virtuous, why do they want his money so bad? Money is evil). I'm sure they'll learn all the right lessons from this, they sure seem to be doing just that....

I was about to quote the famous line that the market wants what the market wants, but then I remember that Undertale was a huge hit. Oh, well...

As to your other point, being a full-bore polarized progressive doesn't entirely preclude the ability to write and design computer games, but it's usually a bad sign..

It's a bad sign in recent times because it means they will spend a lot of time virtue signaling on the internet.

 

[Belegarsson]

What the ever loving fuck really, that's what I was thinking while I "play" this damn game. I got fooled by the goddamn soundtrack and that dire wolf pic, and I'm on my way to clear backlog starting with story driven games now so why the fuck not right? But this game, it's a pain to play through. I have no idea why I'm wasting time in this stupid self-monologuing, self-chest thumping, self-nut sucking "story" that has no idea what it aims for. It's so god damn directionless, it's so unsatisfying, so random, so monotonous, so dry, so barebone, so painful to get through. The entire game consists of a collection of very short stories, you collect them so you can... tell them to other people and that's it. You walk around aimlessly, you travel through these barren, basic-looking lands with very little personality. I can get emotional easily but this game just didn't provoke any reaction from me. How did you make a narrative driven game such soulless? I'm not even pissed because it's bad, like sometimes a game can be so bad it's entertaining, this game is just offensively boring, it's an empty barrel of nothingness.

I played these games in a last couple of days:
Aviary Attorney
Orwell: Ignorance Is Strength
What Remains of Edith Finch
Last Days of June
A Case of Distrust
Batman: The Enemy Within

Know what these games have in common? I got a "wow" reaction out of them, yes even a god damn Telltale game in 2018. Aviary Attorney? It's clever, funny and charming as fuck. Orwell? UI design itself has more personality than this game. What Remains of Edith Finch? I'm sorry but comparing it to any walking sim is cheating. Last Days of June? It's god damn adorable. A Case of Distrust? Impactful presentation. Batman? It has meaningful character arcs.

Your game has serious issue when a song's lyric in the OST is memorable and more impressively written than any story in your game. I only read half of Steinbeck's Travels with Charley but it's already more entertaining than this pos.