That probably sounds a little trite, but the context here is ‘games developers’ and indies vs the rest of the world.
I read this Games Industry article with interest…
It’s not that ‘mobile has become hostile’ to indies. The problem is getting any market-space to get sales traction for the indie game developer. Now the big boys are in, it’s impossible. And now Apple have provided ‘ad space for sale’ it’s made it 100x worse, as the big boys just buy all the ad space. Purdy dumb move IMHO. Great for cash generation though!
It’s not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. Indies create the platform, because they are typically the first to embrace a new technology ‘because it’s cool’ or because it’s cheap/easy, etc.
iPhone was a desolate wasteland for games – Apple totally misunderstood their product for this genre, and took years to catch up. But by the time they did, the platform had been well established as a gaming hot spot by ‘the little men’, and it then attracted the attention of the big boys, who then dominated the top 20 from there on in. Only the really rare ‘stand out’ indie games made any headway. Nowadays you have to be the top 1% to get any revenue of note.
It doesn’t always work that way though – the GamePark 32 (which was awesome btw!) disappeared. The Raspberry Pi is doing well – but not stupendously so as it truly deserves – though again it’s a slightly different market niche.
So for the wannabe indie, there are two things to watch out for;
- Hot new platform which none of the big boys support or care about (yet)
- Big name behind the platform, or one who doesn’t understand the potential so hasn’t yet attracted the big boys
Get those two right, and get in early… and you never know…
Hmm… VR headsets anyone?