Hi,

I've read many of Steve's articles, and I think they are very insightful.

I have a question on one of the articles (ameteaur vs professional), he mentioned that when a product is released it may do very low sales initially, say $100 a month. Only after constant improvements and revisions the product matures and becomes a winner (potentially ofcourse). Since this entire process may take years to complete, how does a newbie know if his product still has the potential to be a winner? (maybe its a bad idea and he should drop it?). Ok your going to say market research, but its pretty hard for a newbie to get an accurate reading.


I am developing a Portal application (simple CMS), the potential market is every present, and so is competition. Since the leader in the portal category will make the most profit, followed by the 2nd place product making 1/2 of profits of the 1st and so on...is it worth me entering the market? It seems that its much easier to create a 'unique' product in a game since it's almost like a story/movie/book, while a web based application like a Portal has been around forever.

I don't think my post is written very clearly, but I hope you get an idea of what I'm trying to say.

That's a complicated question that can be answered from many different angles. Once the game has been selling for a while, you'll begin to develop a sense of its long-term potential, but each game can reveal this potential in very different ways.

With Dweep I saw great long-term potential because I felt the design was really solid and unique, and I could tell that reviewers really enjoyed it as something fresh and original. I believed in the game and wanted to push it as much as possible. I felt the technology was secondary to the gameplay -- there was a core of really good gameplay there, and the basic ideas were rich enough to yield expansion packs and sequels. Plus the feedback I got from players was extremely positive. The few complaints were things I was able to fix with relative ease. In other words I felt the foundation was solid, and I could build upon it for years to come.

But with other arcade games I wrote, I didn't feel the core gameplay was that great. I could keep building on the foundation, but there just wasn't enough there... deep down... to support continued expansion. Others had already done a better job at these kinds of games, and I didn't have much more to offer. There would be nothing unique or special about the final result. So I abandoned these kinds of games.

I think that if you reduce a product to its basic essence, you'll find that you've got a core that's really solid or one that's mostly hollow. Will this core still be solid in 5-10 years? Will it still offer something valuable to customers? Or will it just waste their time? Are they better off going with the competition?