did you read the first point about how this is manifesto not for Gideon Kennedy seller of videogames?
I was just looking through my extensive wishlist of games on itch and realized nobody is going to buy these games.
Well I do agree, most of them. First the TUTORIAL HELL (you'll eventually stuck, doesn't matter which update)
Basically NOT ENOUGH QUALITY GAMES/PROGRAMS/OS.
No, you're talking about quantity, please. You're encouraging AI. NO!!
I do get it, we need to learn & improvise & happy with small task, achievements. Sure & move on.
I get it its a publishing/selling/buying PHYSICAL/ONLINE stuff IS VERY DIFFICULTY APPROACH. MARKETING is completely different beast. also understanding which CATEGORY FITS to your "PRODUCT/stuff".. Strategize what people want (even they don't know, no one knows, its like a choosing a mood with specific time & place, others to be related together to other dramas/rumors, like its convenience, HYPE == SELLS),
Which also don't forget, WERE ALSO a PRODUCT (our soul) to them You know "ToS" agreement. You have to be careful.
What about others PLAY/READ/WATCH (it doesn't matter if its free/buy/pirated)? We still need those people around you, that you can relate to them & to you, that you making them. A healthy community & creator itself. Balance is important. I didn't say it was easy. If you take it, then it takes a lot of responsibility.
And 1 last thing.
Did you know that you have to pay 100$ to publish 1 Steam game. Now count that.
Some small bits of rebuttal I have
3. For some of us making Game Jam titles, them being more focused can also be forged from this push to prevent burnout during the jam. I've participated in quite a few jam projects personally where the team wrecked the scope and they couldn't even get a game to show for it
4. You should still aim to make sure you are making a game that is fun. If you aren't even having fun playing what you're making, you're just gonna burn out making it.
Also, smaller games are a good way to make you experiment on something without burning out. Wanna add some new mechanic to your big project? Make something smaller on the test bench, so you aren't getting buried under spaghetti.
Hi, I read this manifesto some days ago and really liked it. So I made a game without a wish of selling it https://hanamigi.itch.io/oh-it-is-wet
Posted the manifesto in a game design group and some ppl got very upset. Good.
I loved this manifesto and i've linked to it on my nekoweb site.
I've been working on making a game recently and while I do think i'm less capitalism poisoned than many this was a great reminder. And a good push to go get more work done on my shitty game that I love.
I love this because it has been my philosophy for making games all along. So far I have one game that I've finished (i.e., that I have resolved not to work on any further), a handful of games that are "playable" but not (in my mind at least) finished, and a bunch of half-working demo-ish projects. And I'm fine with that.
the anger and defensiveness this elicits in people is super interesting lol. (condolences and also congratulations on making something meaningful)
Reading this brings me to some thoughts that are mostly better summarized as “no one is going to buy YOUR video game”
Once you think about how to sell a game, you already make it not yours by trying to bring something that is not yours to yours. Therefore, you are not selling YOUR game.
People cater to life. People intuitively feel life, like we can feel sunlight with our skin, not just register it with our eyes. Money is a quantitative symbol of success, but itself it means nothing - it can be fabricated to imitate that there is meaning, because if you can fake it you can make it, which births an impostor syndrome. Probably it also births debt. Anyway, I call it all sociological insulin resistance.
Dear Ill Omens,
The following appears to be a typo, but since no one is going to read your manifesto, it's totally fine.
"If we stop making things people because will not buy them"
Love,
Mud Punk
For the people who have actually read through this and don't understand, this is mostly a motivational pep talk to go out and put something out there, just because you can. And preferably let it be rubbish because not everything has to be indie hidden gems or somthn. For everyone else who didn't read it and doesn't understand, you be plebs
This manifesto often conflates “no one is going to buy your game” with “no one is going to play your game”, ironically reinforcing the capitalistic notion of games as products you ostensibly seek to challenge.
You can make games that no one will buy but many people will play. There’s nothing wrong with that. Rebelling against… uh, good game design practices (section 4) and implying that these represent Marketable Games implies you still conflate “quality games” with “marketable games”, and that any game that isn’t marketable is necessarily “bad”.
agreed, and i would also like to make the incredibly tiny nitpick that when people tell game developers to start with smaller projects, it's usually not with capitalistic intent! when learning a new skill, it's counterintuitive to make your first attempt an ambitious, feature-rich one. since you don't have the skill set to actually be able to finalize yet, you'll probably either end up with something you didn't plan for or want, or worse, give up on the hobby entirely because you got too overwhelmed too fast (game design is difficult even within elementary projects like pong clones, and the more elements you add, the more difficult the project becomes.)
after over a decade of trying to make this "sell shit online" thing work, it's freeing to have someone say effectively, eh, statistically no one was ever going to buy any of it in the first place, and trying to come up with a rationalization of that is just post-hoc rationalization from a sample defined by survivorship bias. thanks for that clarity.