I've been lurking these forums for a while and have finally decided to post something (a few of you know me from Ludumdare.)

Most people here, and indies in general target casual gamers. Do you think it's possible to develop independent games that appeal to hardcore gamers, or would it be too much work? I have a few ideas on what may work:

Benchmark games

Something with insane hardware requirements designed to push the newest hardware. For example, releasing a game that only works on DX9 video cards. I think there is a market if you have super high polygon counts and cool effects like HDR lighting and spherical harmonics. This has been suggested before but it was shot down due to the content requirements. Someone said something along the lines of "hardcore players don't want simple games with complex graphics, in order to sell to them you'd have to make something equivalent to UT2003."

I think it is possible to make something that is pretty simple and fun gameplay wise and has incredible graphics that will sell pretty well to people that just bought new hardware. This doesn't mean making Doom III, of course, more like an interactive Nvidia demo. The two problems here are price point and content. If you have a limited amount of content, even if your game is really fun and looks like an Nvidia demo, hardcore gamers may deem the game not worth the cost, even if it's $10-$20, I don't know how to solve this problem.

Nostalgic niches

Make games that used to be popular, but are not often released as mainstream titles. 2D scrollers, adventure games, War Games, Flight Sims, turn based strategy, and adventure games were all popular in the past but are now pretty rare. The thing is, I'm sure there are reasons these games have become less popular, and your game will always be compared to gamer's old favorites.

Independent developers already do this to some extent (mostly with schmups and puzzle games, sometimes with console style RPGs), but maybe it could be extended to some genres that don't get as much development.

Weird genres

Take an interesting game from the past or from another country and improve on it. There are plenty of weird games that have never been remade. A lot of them have flawed but fun gameplay. Taking a game like Alter Ego, Balance of Power or Princess Maker 2, giving it a modern treatment and fixing it's flaws could be a good idea. The good thing about these games is they were usually made by one or two developers in the first place, so they definitely aren't unreasonable indie projects.

There are some genres that are popular in Japan but have almost no presense in the US. Although it doesn't make sense for a huge game publisher to make a dating sim, I think there is a big enough niche (check the Megatokyo forums) that an indie could get a decent amount of sales and have no competition.

Experimental Gameplay

This is the most difficult one. Make a game that is really unusual, maybe even a new genre. This is a lot easier said than done, but this is kind of the holy grail of the independent games industry. You seem some of this in things like the Ludumdare 48 hour game competitions and Indie Game Jam.

Just a few ideas that have been in my head, feel free to criticize or add your own. Most independent (or semi-independent) games that appeal to hardcore players seem to be very complex and need large developers, so maybe it's not possible to make a small indie game that appeals to hardcore players. Or maybe I'm wrong and a lot of your customers are actually hardcore gamers?

The problem is, to create something typical of an eyecandy benchmark takes both a serious commitment to graphical resources (lots of high detail, high poly models, with good artwork), and a serious commitment to programming (you can't just multi-texture...to impress people you need real-time reflections, shadow volumes/mapping, per-pixel lighting, particle effects, etc). Anything less and it would probably get brushed off.

At that point, you've spent a ton of time making it pretty, and now you have to invest just as much time in gameplay (you don't have the advantage of being able to get away with making a lame-but-pretty game). Not too mention, high end graphics games tend to date themselves rather quickly. 12 months and people will be saying how lame your graphics are compared to the newest tech demo. I thought getting out of that short lifespan was one of the benefits to being an indie.

There's nothing wrong with having good graphics, but I don't think you want to make that your selling point.

Yeah I think with most of those ideas it would possibly gander a few sales and probably quite a bit of recognition. But the effort needed to produce will always well outweigh any income made on sales. It's unfortunate but the harsh reality of hardcore gaming markets.

However, if money is not an issue (and for some people it isn't), then some of these ideas can seem awefully appealing. The recognition alone a well-done retro style platformer could generate might be worth it to some people. But with those types of games also comes the usual set of motivational pitfalls... when you're doing something that's been done before and you know isn't going to get you the big $$.

- Air

So I guess the hardcore market just isn't viable, eh? I was thinking the benchmark game idea would work if you had a team consisting of a good artist and a good programmer and you didn't have too much content. Is there a market for short games with high production values at a low price?

What do you think about the experimental or rare gameplay ideas? I figure these are more doable than the others and would definitely fill a niche, but is there a market at all?

Originally posted by Impossible
What do you think about the experimental or rare gameplay ideas? I figure these are more doable than the others and would definitely fill a niche, but is there a market at all? Yeah I think there's a lot more room for success there. It's a hit-and-miss arena to be sure, but that's certainly better than a near always-miss that other hardcore style games would probably achieve. The trick is coming up with the ideas though. Some people have a knack for it, but myself I've never had an original gameplay idea in my life, heh.

For the record, some of the most fun games I've played in recent months were either simple two week fun projects, or stemmed from those game competitions. So I definitly think there's a lot of potential there... just a matter of teaming up with someone who can come up wih some cool concepts.

The trouble with the high performance low-content games is that they're still very difficult to make. It takes a lot of effort and a number of tools to make a visually spectacular game these days. To top it off, there's already a glut of them filling the shelves at the stores more or less. Lots of gamers (and not just people here) bitch continuously about the lack of gameplay depth in games these days, so I don't see games specifically geared toward being that way being very popular, unless the games in question sported some gfx that gave them some serious style points in addition to the technical achievement points.

But then again, if you manage to construct something that awesomely cool, then it'll be an irresistable temptation to want to actually turn it into a full-fledged gaming experience. That's how I would feel if in that situation anyways.

- Air

I'm going to look into my crystal ball and predict a small part of the future. According to a recent Jupiter Research game player demographics report, I noticed that the primary age of gamers is currently in the 18-24 range. Right now, that age group may be on the internet, and may have some disposable income, but do the majority of them have a credit card? I don't think so. So that makes them very unlikely to impulse purchase on the internet.

Having said that, in the next ten years, those college grads are going to have more disposable income, a credit card, and less free time. A "simple" and "shorter" quality game might appeal to them. Assuming all other factors remain constant.

Maybe there is a more viable future market for more hardcore games. Food for thought, eh?

Michael Sikora
Guardian Light Studios (http://www.guardianlightstudios.com)

Actually, that age group is very likely to have a credit card, at least in my experience. Getting them to take a look at your game and buy it is the hard part. When I was in college I can't think of a single person I knew who didn't have a credit card. Of course that's not exactly something that is advertised. I got mine almost right after I turned 18.

The biggest problem I see with all these games is they still require lots of content. Updating an old 2d game (that's more than a few screens) to the current graphics level requires tons of content (graphics especially).

Originally posted by Impossible
Is there a market for short games with high production values at a low price?

An example of a company that meets your criteria (high production value games, small team and low price) is Pom Pom (http://www.pompom.org.uk). As I recall from a previous thread here on the Dexterity forum, sales of their latest title, Mutant Storm, have not been as good as they'd hoped, and that game is beautiful! Puppy Games' Alien Flux is another example in a similar situation (though AF's only been out a month now--keep your spirits up Cas!). Does this mean there's no market for these games? Who knows, but if these games are having trouble, there doesn't seem to be much else that can be blamed.

It's all about exposure and marketing. The market which cheapass high-production-value hardcore games like Mutant Storm and Alien Flux is aimed at is a particularly fickle and tricky market to reach I think. These games require very careful targeting and a lot of effort to market successfully. (I think, it's too early to tell!)

There's definitely two schools of thought in the indie camp and many people have opted for the "write something simple that can run on an ancient computer" idea which is an example of the complementary market: aim at more or less everyone except "hardcore gamers". This market is at least 100 times bigger. However, there are at least 100x as many titles to compete with, and compete you will, because without higher production values you'll be another face in the crowd and probably slightly more at the mercy of chaos.

Cas :)

And, just to add to what Cas has said:-
The 'hardcore' crowd ( ... the ones most likely to buy MS or AlienFlux ) simply dont know what can be gotten online.
If you took 1000 hardcore gamers, and asked them what they thought of downloadable, budget games, I bet most would reply 'Nah, I dont do Pengo'.
They simply have no Idea that downloadable games have moved on so much because they simply havent looked. They still assume its all Mahjongg and the like.
And yes, these are guys with credit cards and willingness to use them.

But, its only a matter of time.....

I think the only shareware hardcore-game example are the CRPG games made by Spidweb.
Apart for that, I don't remember seeying any particular genre or benchmark or original gameplay, most are puzzles and action games.
I think also that this situation is going to change in the next few months, I've already seen some interesting work-in-progress...!

I think its time Action & Puzzle got married! ;)

Well, I continue inching towards release on one of those weird games fronts... :)

Date sims, though, I would hesitate on - a large part of the charm of these things (the ones available for purchase, anyway, which are hentai) is that they *are* Japanese. The art is 'authentic' anime-style, the voices (if intact) are Cute Japanese Girl Voices, and the inevitable translation errors are part of the fun. Simply the fact that it wasn't originally made in Japan would turn off some of your audience, and if your art wasn't up to modern bishoujo standards... remember, the gameplay of the average datesim (at least the ones I know about) isn't that thrilling. The art is the payoff. It has to be topnotch. And if you leave out hentai, you'll cut down on piracy but also probably on the number of people willing to buy your product. Worth the effort if you already *are* a top-notch artist, or know one who'll work for peanuts, but don't expect to be able to throw 3d renders into such a game and make sales.

(Of course, if you put porn in it and sell it cheaply enough, you'll probably make sales - the real new-releases in the h-game market right now are EXPENSIVE. $80 for the latest title!)

Now that you mention it, I've wondered about the potential for marketing something to the hardest of the hardcore: LAN partiers. If you're not into that scene there are definitely plenty of little LAN parties happening everywhere, all the time. There aren't *that* many games that are great for lan party play, and there's a distinct lack of coop titles, which gamers seem to be clamoring for whenever they get the chance with a game under development (Halo seems to be the current target for the appeal). That market, perhaps surprisingly, is not completely stuck on cutting-edge graphics, either. Counter-Strike is still the most popular free-to-play (non-MMORPG) online game out there, last I checked, and it's far from the most graphically advanced titles today. If you could come up with a great multiplayer coop or teamplay experience I think there's a niche there. Of course, it will be ruthlessly pirated and passed around at the LAN parties unless you come up with a good scheme where the game wouldn't connect and play with the same copy of the game on another machine.

Action and puzzle are getting married, and they've given birth to a weird mongy spaced-out white rabbit holding what appears to be a minigun.

Maybe we'll have something ready by Christmas ;)


Cas :)

Originally posted by Diragor
Now that you mention it, I've wondered about the potential for marketing something to the hardest of the hardcore: LAN partiers. If you're not into that scene there are definitely plenty of little LAN parties happening everywhere, all the time. There aren't *that* many games that are great for lan party play, and there's a distinct lack of coop titles, which gamers seem to be clamoring for whenever they get the chance with a game under development (Halo seems to be the current target for the appeal). Yea that's something I've discovered recently too. Some friends and I were looking for some good fun 3-4 player LAN games and we discovered that, well... there aren't any anymore. About the best you can get is some kinda FPS or RTS, but really FPS's aren't all that fun with just 3 people and a few bots... and we've long since played both genres to death anyways.

So we scratched our brains for a couple days trying to think of some good non-FPS and non-RTS lan games that would be suitable for 3-4 players ... and we really couldn't think of anything. Then again, like I said before, I can't think up game ideas to save my life. ;)

Some good ideas here. I think it's possible to make an FPS that's fun with just a few players, maybe even just an issue of map design, but most PC games are made for 8-16 players at least. If you look at console games (Halo, Golden Eye, etc.) most of the matches played are 3 or 4 players and those games are still tons of fun.

A good non-FPS or RTS game for LAN is worms, you may want to check it out. Side scrolling shooters with death match or coop play, fighting games, sports games, racing games and a host of genres that are popular in arcades and on consoles but don't have much presense on the PC are fun with 2-4 players. No one has really made a good "PC fighter", so if someone came up with a game that has an interface that works well on a PC (mouse\keyboard control as opposed to needing a gamepad) and had good network play I think people would pick it up.

Spiderweb is pretty hardcore, and I was impressed with Alien Flux, it's a very slick game. Seeing more developers working in "outdated" hardcore genres like spiderweb does would be nice.

Spiderweb is pretty hardcore, and I was impressed with Alien Flux, it's a very slick game. Seeing more developers working in "outdated" hardcore genres like spiderweb does would be nice.
After I finish this soccer management game, I really want to make an hardcore-type game. I have plenty of choice, need only to find the one that I like most :)

Benchmark games

Something with insane hardware requirements designed to push the newest hardware. For example, releasing a game that only works on DX9 video cards. I think there is a market if you have super high polygon counts and cool effects like HDR lighting and spherical harmonics. This has been suggested before but it was shot down due to the content requirements. Someone said something along the lines of "hardcore players don't want simple games with complex graphics, in order to sell to them you'd have to make something equivalent to UT2003."

I think it is possible to make something that is pretty simple and fun gameplay wise and has incredible graphics that will sell pretty well to people that just bought new hardware. This doesn't mean making Doom III, of course, more like an interactive Nvidia demo. The two problems here are price point and content. If you have a limited amount of content, even if your game is really fun and looks like an Nvidia demo, hardcore gamers may deem the game not worth the cost, even if it's $10-$20, I don't know how to solve this problem

I have to agree with Cass and Impossible on this one. In my opinion part of the allure of being an indie developer is the FREEDOM of choice. If I want to develop a game that only runs on DX 9.0 class hardware and above I can do that, conversely If I want to write maybe a text game that can run on a 386 I can do that to. I think if the game looked gorgeous and was also FUN to play you could really stand out in the shareware field of games.

Date sims, though, I would hesitate on - a large part of the charm of these things (the ones available for purchase, anyway, which are hentai) is that they *are* Japanese.

I think the suggestion was that there might be a market for dating games that AREN'T in a Japanese style... a market of people that DON'T already play the Japanese games. Please, people, if you rip off a Japanese genre - you DON'T have to impersonate the whole Japanese culture with it! RPG fans, are you listening?

The problems with doing a hi-tech demo has been pretty much covered. Long development time and a short shelf life is pretty much a rock/hard place scenario. Plus you really need access to the latest hardware BEFORE it's released, to get a head start. You need to have good personal relationships with the manufacturers. And you also have 3dMark to contend with.

Oh, and all my games have been, and will continue to be, at least a little bit hardcore. I like them that way. And for better or worse, indies can do whatever they like :)

Heh, it's nice to see this thread get resurrected. I think the biggest problem with the hardcore market is they may not be willing to pay for your game, or at least not pay $20, even if they like it a lot. The thing is, there is a rather large market of hardcore gamers (console gamers) that aren't hardcore PC users, but they may not be willing to play games on the PC or have a PC capable of playing a more technically advanced game.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
[B]I think the suggestion was that there might be a market for dating games that AREN'T in a Japanese style... a market of people that DON'T already play the Japanese games. Please, people, if you rip off a Japanese genre - you DON'T have to impersonate the whole Japanese culture with it! RPG fans, are you listening?

Good point. Although American and European dating sim games have been traditionally even worse than Japanese ones (Leisure Suit Larry is maybe the only exception, and I wouldn't exactly call that a dating game.)

Looking at your page I also agree that your game is at least a little hardcore. Just because it's a sidescolling platformer which has a lot of nostalgic power among hardcore gamers. I would consider anything that's not a happy, family friendly puzzle or arcade game at least a little hardcore. So games like Hamumu's Dr. Lunatic and Mark's Derelict could be considered alternative hardcore, although they also have a lot of casual appeal.

It seems like targetting extreme niches with a decent amount of very hungry customers could be a good idea. I see some people here doing that (Papillion with Charm School, Laser Squad Nemesis to some extent) It seems like you'd have to have a game that comes very close to (in quality) the gameplay or production of some of the top games in that genre, although with horribly neglected genres I think you could get away with less.

This thread's kind of converged with the "Get Niche" thread, and I have to say I think I'm going to get niche and fill the gap left by Jeff Minter when he more or less disappeared into obscurity in the 90s - off the wall shooters. They're fun to program, challenging to design, and exciting to play. There's a lot of people in this niche - the kinds of people that play Ikaruga and Tempest2k etc - that have a remarkably small choice of games to play. By defining Puppy Games as to be hardcore shooting games we'll be giving ourselves a solid market to chase rather than trying to sell super-easy games to everyone. We might not sell quite as many copies as the next coloured-ball matching game but we'll probably build a very dedicated fanbase who will buy everything we produce.

Of course the only thing better than that is being able to build a dedicated fan base of coloured-ball-matching players who'll buy every coloured-ball-matching game we produce ;) But hey, I'm in this as much for myself as for my customers, and I can't be arsed to write such games.

Cas :)

Yes, my game is definitely a bit hardcore. It is also quite difficult, requires reasonable co-ordination and contains graphic violence. I am hoping to get hardcore players interested; but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Just in case, it will also include a super-easy skill level and an option to turn off the carnage. Even so, it will never be like a popcap game.

But you know, if I can't make money making the games I want to make, then I don't want to make games at all. Simple as that.

Originally posted by princec
fill the gap left by Jeff Minter when he more or less disappeared into obscurity in the 90s

I didn't know he disappeared. Gridrunner++ seems to do all right. http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/

Yeah, but that's his only title for the PC in a decade (not counting Hovver Bovver or Deflex which aren't shooters). The previous one being Llamatron.

(Anthony's really hit the nail on the head there - if you can't write the games you want to write then you might as well be programming insurance software!)

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
(Anthony's really hit the nail on the head there - if you can't write the games you want to write then you might as well be programming insurance software!)


Insurance software is not nearly as fun as making a game, and is in fact, some of the most boring software in existance. I would make games for no money on the side and work at McDonalds if my only other choice was insurance software. The only games I don't want to work on are bad ones.

I spent three long, dark years writing insurance software :P
And now seeing as I can't live off my indie game "career" I'm about to spend the next 3 years writing local government performance management software. Hurrah for life and all its twists and turns!

Cas :)