Know Your Market: Making Indie Games That Sell

In this 2018 GDC talk, Infinite Monkeys Entertainment's Erik Johnson analyzes trends in the Steam marketplace and explores how his game, 'Life Goes On', failed to match the market.

GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more. We post a fresh GDC video every day. Subscribe to the channel to stay on top of regular updates, and check out GDC Vault for thousands of more in-depth talks from our archives.

[YTRingoster]

This video is 169% more successful than the average puzzle-platformer.

[yolostudio]

00:50 Introduce himself and his game.
02:08 If you're making games to get rich, you're in the wrong industry.
03:18 Know the context.
04:16 Steam Spy is an absolutely fantastic resource. Boxleiter Method: estimate the number of sales base on reviews count.
05:42 The dominant factor in the game's success is the fallacy of believing that the world is fair.
05:49 Factor: Quality
08:32 Factor: Genre.
10:12 Factor: Visuals really matter.
11:21 Factor: Tone.
14:04 Factor: PlayTime.
16:27 Factor: Streaming
19:05 Takeaways.
19:33 Targeting a Niche.
We are #yolostudiogame - an indie game studio with two members. We are seriously learning about the game industry. So we tweet a GDC video summary every Tuesday.
Happy making game, everyone!

[EricWichman]

Steve Job said people don't know what they want, you have to show them. If you ask people what they want they'll give you a shopping list of things they think they want, and then when they get them, they say..."No. Not like that." People do't have a clue what they want. Build a game based on what is emotionally fun and rewarding for people. Build a game that makes people feel excited and you have a winner. Hit them right in the feels! A good team helps too. ;)

[augustvctjuh]

Glad I saw this video... I'm 2 weeks into making a 4 player local platformer game, thinking the market needed that....

[DudeBronkster]

On one hand, I'm surprised to hear his game did that badly, as Steam has recommended it to me on the very top of the store page probably more than 5 times. I thought that would count for something.
On the other hand, I'd figure that game wouldn't do well, because it didn't look one bit appealing to me.
He mentioned the importance of visuals, but I think he understated it.

Also, correlation isn't causation, so take all stats presented with a grain of salt. Just because moddable games do well doesn't mean yours will do better if you slap the feature on top. It might just be that the type of games that lend themselves well to modding do better, regardless of whether they have modding support or not. Various other things could factor in.

[Discipol]

This is a very good talk, appreciated! Speaker is neither monotone n'or fake excited. Makes me focus on the info and his words rather than the powerpoint and him.

[drewwilson]

It is not everyday you find a video you would 100% recommend to people.

[intrinsical]

I can recognize these are WEKA generated charts, probably also WEKA generated statistics.

Secondly, the statistics fit me quite well. I'm in my 40s. I am no longer interested in most AAA offerings that cost over $50 but only give 10 to 20 hours of gameplay. Instead, I look for "simulation" games that have deep, inter-related mechanics that require lots of play sessions and many hours of puzzling out, coupled with allowing me to be creative in coming up with beautiful and/or functional solutions. Games like Cities Skylines, Prison Architect, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Empyrion. Hence the hundreds of hours of accumulated play time on these few games even though I only play during weekends.

[EdmundKempersDartboard]

Really classy that these videos are not monetized.

[PatientZeroBalisong]

I've worked with a ton of indie devs, never made a game myself but the work that goes into some of these games are insane! good to know a lot of this stuff.

[metushelach]

Fast forward into the future - and this game of his has 232, 000 owners (according to Steam Spy). Not bad for an Indie game.

[otko]

one of the best talks. nice stats. please invite this guy to do a talk again

[HotTagProductions]

Really appreciate how thorough Erik was, and that data. Major kudos.

[leonardoraele]

9:25 hmm So, I suppose to sell well the best bet would be to make a first person roleplaying city shooter? 🤔🤔🤔

[Worgen]

"Should you make a puzzle platformer in 2018, the answer is no." Then Celeste came out and did gang busters. I think the real issue with Life Goes on is more the aesthetic, the game play looked fine but visually, I just had no interest in it.

[RGARnator]

10:05 Important distinction here: Art Direction vs Graphics. Indie games need good art direction, not good graphics.

[Amelia_PC]

This is a great video! Actually, when you're developing an indie game in the same high sales category, you may start to feel weird in the indie scenario. I mean, when you're developing a gritty third person shooter and look at your buddies games with colorful, heartwarming and cartoonish games, you feel bad for yourself. There were many times I caught myself thinking "am I doing something wrong? Why I'm doing a game so different from my game dev peers'? The journalists only review funny, cartoon and colorful games?". And I stop the paranoia and go back to my game...

[DavidPatMathis]

So make a dark goth Zelda clone full of gore and cliff hangers between sections.

Got it!

[getrekt]

On the other hand: Fortnite is colorful, League of legends too. Many games that did well are colorful (look at blizzards art style). I dont know... Maybe its more of if a game is good and looks aesthetically good too and people learn about it, it will sell.

[caruya]

These chart just show how lonely and unsocial we steam players are.