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[ionitron]

I havent played it yet, but what was the story behind Undertale's success? It seems like it came out of nowhere and blew up massively... was it just Ready-For-Primetime with regards to meme-ability or what? Was it kinda fostered by RPS?

Someone feel free to correct me.

I think a decent part of its success came from the fact that its creator, Toby Fox, did music for the massively popular Homestuck and already had a foot in the door in the Earthbound fanbase. Then from there it was word of mouth. It also resonates a lot with the tumblr teen audience, more than any other game I've seen.

 

[More_Badass]

Yacht Club will never have to work for press coverage again, Shovel Knight was a massive success. The Maldita dev though? He already put out a great game, one I think is on par with Shovel Knight. He did this after putting out numerous high-quality games for free over the past several years, the types of games that would sell easily for $10+. Completely free, just because he liked doing it. To me that's not only an inspiring tale of exactly the type of gamer-friendly developer we should be championing behind, but his games aren't bad either and you can't find anyone talking about it.

That's a lot of devs though. I'm always championing Daniel Linssen over in the Indie Games thread, his freeware library is constant quality. Or myriad other devs who mainly do freeware games before doing paid releases, and student projects from DigiPen and other schools, and game jams

Also Maldita is in a position where it will be hard to get more attention. It's an indie platformer that's currently only on Xbox One. It's the sites that mainly do PC coverage that know to check out itch.io, or freeware games, or that focus more on indie games (how RPS and PC gamer do features on new freeware games every week)

Case in point: the dev's previous freeware games got coverage from sites like Destructoid, Eurogamer, Verge, and IndieGames
http://indiegames.com/2012/12/maldita_castilla_releases_1212.html
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/12/3760356/play-this-maldita-castilla
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...dita-castilla-is-a-worthy-spiritual-successor
http://indiegames.com/2015/12/out-of-work_vampire_hunters_sh.html
https://www.destructoid.com/the-curse-of-issyos-is-the-ninja-gaiden-of-greek-mythology-324428.phtml
http://www.siliconera.com/2015/11/1...e-indie-classics-reveals-the-curse-of-issyos/

Unfortunately, being only on Xbox and not really getting much spotlight like Swordy, Far, and For The King is going to hurt the game's ability to get coverage.

I follow indie games closer than most, and I totally forgot about the game. Didn't even recognize the name, and only vaguely recognized it when I saw a screenshot.

 

[More_Badass]

Some perspective from the writing side

Here are the places I go to find games to cover for Screenshot Saturday posts on NeoGAF and for sites

http://www.screenshotsaturday.com/
https://twitter.com/hashtag/screenshotsaturday?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4yn2oy/screenshot_saturday_290_limited_edition/
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24094.7920

Of those 1,000+ tweets and posts by devs, I narrow it down to 15-20 games
(And those 1,000+ posts to dig through? That's 1,000+ every week)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OffwrAU18O0ixMr3ssZS_vYNEWYa6Kf5QMJqvdK3fms/edit?usp=sharing

Then I choose the 5-7 most interesting out of those to write about, sometimes a few more.

http://indiegames.com/2016/08/screenshot_saturday_highlights_8.html

I'll post the longer list over in the Indie Games thread

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=213572943&postcount=103

Or the Screeenshot Saturday threads before the number of screenshots became too much to load well
2016: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1165572
2015: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1092948

And that's how an indie game can easily be overlooked

 

[MHWilliams]

I've found that doing stuff like devlogs, participating in Screenshot Saturday, etc. can help devs get noticed. Although I'm mainly speaking from my own experience, since I browse Twitter, TIG, and Reddit every weekend, sites like RockPaperShotgun, Indie Games, Killscreen, and others often use those as sources. RPS even used to do a Devlog Watch, where they'd highlight interesting looking games in development, and Indie Games does a weekly #SS post

Screenshot Saturday and the indie thread here on GAF are great places to look.

Honestly, I'd argue that's in the same vein as not really being interested in a game until someone you trust on GAF or a friend goes, "Hey check this out. It's pretty cool"

It's really no different than browsing Steam and figuring out what you want to check out or play. It's not a malicious "I'm going to keep ignoring this guy's game and refuse to look at it". It's a "I got so many days in a week, need to write X amount of stories a day/week, have so many new releases, trailers, and previews I can write, etc. because I also have games to play for review and need to do life stuff like eat, sleep, and be with family" You tend to choose what looks most interesting, what interests you, what catches your eye

Personally I learn about at least 10 games I've never heard of every weekend, and that's not counting all the press releases I get and the games I see on sites. That's at least 500 new indie games every year, plus games that I already know of that are getting released or getting recent news. It's humanly not possible for me to write about everything I'd love to write about

And I'm speaking as someone who never writes about AAA games, and only writes about indie games. It's not politics. It's sheer volume, time, and interest

This is largely the issue here.

My work day - and people forget it is work - is split between my current review titles, my daily writing, and any previews or events.

I write news, that's 3-4 articles per day. This week I had Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for review. In the near future, I have a review for King of Fighters XIV and prep for WoW: Legion. Outside of reviews for those titles, I probably also have to edit my captured game footage into a gameplay video, video review, or the like. I have three interviews - one with the indie team behind SNOW - that I have to find time to transcribe.

That's not counting the indie games that are on my desk, including Necropolis, Rimworld, Starbound, and Loot Rascals. Or the numerous games that I'm interested in that are in various stages of development.

I review comics on the side. The time commitment for that is the time it takes to read it. 10 minutes tops. For a game? That can be anywhere from thirty minutes to many, many hours. I barely review comics anymore because games are taking up all my time.

Most of the indie time I get is at PAX East and West, where I try to set aside a day to wander the booths and see what captures my interested. Divested from the day-to-day work, I get a chance to see some games and write previews to get them in front of people. But that's A) not normal and B) requires me to actively shut out appointment requests to make it happen. If I didn't do the latter, my PAX would purely be appointment after appointment with little downtime.

None of this is a whine, by the by. I love my job. But this is the reality of it. I have a limited amount of time and yeah, we have to write about certain games to keep the lights on. (Which is a function of readership.) There are games I'd like to spend a lot more time with - Rimworld for example - that I can't because I have other responsibilities.

So yeah, it's a problem I'd love to fix, because I love indie games. But I don't have the answer for you. It's hard out there and there are way too games these days to give everything ample coverage. Finding that balance is an ongoing struggle.

EDIT: To flip it around, think about it this way. You're focused on getting covered in RPS/Polygon/Kotaku/Eurogamer, but what about focusing on smaller sites? There can be something symbiotic there, but I find most want coverage from the big ones because they get the most out of it. More eyes, greater visibility. Because their time and effort is finite. The same is true of media.

Some perspective from the writing side

Here are the places I go to find games to cover for Screenshot Saturday posts on NeoGAF and for sites

http://www.screenshotsaturday.com/
https://twitter.com/hashtag/screenshotsaturday?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4yn2oy/screenshot_saturday_290_limited_edition/
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24094.7920

Of those 1,000+ tweets and posts by devs, I narrow it down to 15-20 games
(And those 1,000+ posts to dig through? That's 1,000+ every week)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OffwrAU18O0ixMr3ssZS_vYNEWYa6Kf5QMJqvdK3fms/edit?usp=sharing

Then I choose the 5-7 most interesting out of those to write about, sometimes a few more.

http://indiegames.com/2016/08/screenshot_saturday_highlights_8.html

I'll post the longer list over in the Indie Games thread

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=213572943&postcount=103

Or the Screeenshot Saturday threads before the number of screenshots became too much to load well
2016: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1165572
2015: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1092948

And that's how an indie game can easily be overlooked

And you cover indie games only!

 

[dglavimans]

Maybe my website is too small but if I where a serious indie developer I would move everything and start to reach out to many sites... We will always be interessted in at least giving an interview with you because we have a team for it. But rarely get an email.

Like I said not a big site, we email publishers for the triple a games and make appointments but for indie games I think they need to take the step towards the site? You cannot expect us to take contact with every indie dev for example because that time we do need to chase the bigger review games, with all the respect for the indie devs

 

[More_Badass]

My work day - and people forget it is work - is split between my current review titles, my daily writing, and any previews or events.

I write news, that's 3-4 articles per day. This week I had Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for review. In the near future, I have a review for King of Fighters XIV and prep for WoW: Legion. Outside of reviews for those titles, I probably also have to edit my captured game footage into a gameplay video, video review, or the like. I have three interviews - one with the indie team behind SNOW - that I have to find time to transcribe.

This right here. I write for three different sites, and do reviews for two of those. And when I get more time, I also write on my personal blog. Thankfully, one of those I can play games on the go because it's a mobile gaming site

Sometimes I envy those who mainly cover AAA games. They tend to know what's coming out months in advance. Indie games? Stuff gets revealed and released any time, any day, and you have a endless well of places to get games to write about, from freeware releases and game jams to new releases, new trailers, new games revealed on Twitter and TIGSource and Steam Greenlight and GAF. Part of the challenge is just figuring what you want to cover.

And when to cover them, because due to how transparent indie development tends to be, do you cover a game when you first find it, or wait to the alpha/prototype, or when the dev posts some cool GIFs, or wait for the first teaser, or that teaser isn't every informative and need to wait to an actual trailer, or you just see that the game is getting a Kickstarter and so you should wait till the campaign starts, or just noticed that some game you were interested in a year ago is suddenly releasing in two weeks (cough The Warlock of Firetop Mountain...wait, that's coming out this month too cough cough)

I don't do video, so I can't imagine how much more taxing that makes things.

And like you, I do it because I love writing about games and spreading the word on cool promising games. But I can't write about everything. Sometimes the most I can do is a post in the Indie Games thread and a thread in Gaming side

 

[MHWilliams]

This right here. I write for three different sites, and do reviews for two of those. And when I get more time, I also write on my personal blog. Thankfully, one of those I can play games on the go because it's a mobile gaming site

Sometimes I envy those who mainly cover AAA games. They tend to know what's coming out months in advance. Indie games? Stuff gets revealed and released any time, any day, and you have a endless well of places to get games to write about, from freeware releases and game jams to new releases, new trailers, new games revealed on Twitter and TIGSource and Steam Greenlight and GAF. Part of the challenge is just figuring what you want to cover.

And when to cover them, because due to how transparent indie development tends to be, do you cover a game when you first find it, or wait to the alpha/prototype, or when the dev posts some cool GIFs, or wait for the first teaser, or that teaser isn't every informative and need to wait to an actual trailer, or you just see that the game is getting a Kickstarter and so you should wait till the campaign starts, or just noticed that some game you were interested in a year ago is suddenly releasing in two weeks (cough The Warlock of Firetop Mountain...wait, that's coming out this month too cough cough)

I don't do video, so I can't imagine how much more taxing that makes things.

And like you, I do it because I love writing about games and spreading the word on cool promising games. But I can't write about everything. Sometimes the most I can do is a post in the Indie Games thread and a thread in Gaming side

Your work in the Indie Thread is a huge help to me, by the by. Thanks for doing it.

 

[Paz]

EDIT: To flip it around, think about it this way. You're focused on getting covered in RPS/Polygon/Kotaku/Eurogamer, but what about focusing on smaller sites? There can be something symbiotic there, but I find most want coverage from the big ones because they get the most out of it. More eyes, greater visibility. Because their time and effort is finite. The same is true of media.

I just want to say this is a hugely important point.

At PAX I probably send about 100 personalized emails to different outlets/youtubers/streamers and the majority of my responses (Which is a fraction of that outreach) are people from smaller outlets, their audiences are quite important and often can become your most valuable community members and evangelists because they're not necessarily the mainstream, they might just be your niche. Also, quite often folks from the larger outlets will take notice of games getting positive responses from other writers or those writers end up at major sites and will remember your game - There are an innumerable number of reasons it's important to talk to anyone who'll give you the time of day if you're an indie developer, it's not always about reaching a million people with a single article.

I'm immensely grateful to anyone who looks at indie games, who organizes and comes to appointments for smaller titles, we're all part of this same ecosystem. I'm also grateful to players who choose to play my game at a conference when there could be 1000 games on display all right next to them.

Overall my points earlier in this thread were that the situation is complicated, it's incredibly hard to find an audience as an indie developer and attracting attention seems to be more impossible with each passing day, but things aren't easy for the critics and journalists out there either who are flooded with games and have to try to make a living while balancing their personal interests against things in the public interest (There's no point in writing about every indie game if nobody is going to read it).

I don't have solutions, to some degree I think great stuff has always and will always fall through the cracks, the best thing everyone on every side can do is be honest and try their hardest to make each others lives less complicated. I do this on the developers side by making my game easily available to critics and journalists, by making art assets and screenshots and logos easily available, by showing up to events and sending personal emails trying to organize meetings that are convenient for them, and by making something that I believe is truly great and worth their time and attention. None of that gives me a guarantee that I'll make connections and find an audience but it's really all I can do, the rest is out of my hands.

 

[Atomski]

Going to something like gamescom wanting a lot of attention for a super small game just seems like a complete waste of time and money.

The same reason smaller stuff at E3 just gets brushed under the rug.

These conferences are just not the best places for indies that are not backed by some big publisher.

 

[More_Badass]

Going to something like gamescom wanting a lot of attention for a super small game just seems like a complete waste of time and money.

The same reason smaller stuff at E3 just gets brushed under the rug.

These conferences are just not the best places for indies that are not backed by some big publisher.

The majority of indie games at Gamescom, Pax Megabooth, and IndieCade aren't backed by a big publisher
http://indiearenabooth.de/presskit,exporthtml,3.html
http://indiemegabooth.com/event/pax-west-2016/
www.indiecade.com/e3_2016/games

 

[Grimalkin]

Many of them look good, but "good" isn't enough to catch my attention anymore, especially since I barely have time as it is to play the games I really, really want to play.

Not to pick on you, Jason, but as a former game dev I really disagree with what you said here.

When you are "on the clock" isn't it your job to play games you aren't already interested in and find the good ones instead of writing about what already has hype from other journalists or the community?

Now in your own personal time you can play whatever you want whenever you want.

I'm not speaking of you specifically but I am so sick of game journalists washing their hands of their responsibility and the effect they have on the industry as a whole.

Literally one mention on Kotaku can make or break a game, especially an indie game and it seems like absolutely none of the game journalists active on the major sites are willing or able to acknowledge that they hold major power over indie devs.

I understand you specifically do not have the time to cover every great game out there but I feel that sites like Kotaku could do a much better job than they are now. The thing is Kotaku can write their seemingly endless fount of posts on the site rambling about Destiny/No Man's Sky/whatever the game de jour is and still cover other stuff. It's not like the internet is going to run out of space.

I understand better than most posters on NeoGAF the symbiosis between AAA publishers and game sites but I do not buy that you cannot hire someone who is already passionate about indie games to write for your site. Kotaku could become one of the major taste makers for indie games instead of just parroting what NeoGAF (or the like) has already found.

I get that SEO and clickbait and popular games are what make your bosses money. I just feel like Kotaku could be doing a much better job serving the underdogs in addition to what makes money.

 

[More_Badass]

Not to pick on you, Jason, but as a former game dev I really disagree with what you said here.

When you are "on the clock" isn't it your job to play games you aren't already interested in and find the good ones instead of writing about what already has hype from other journalists or the community?

Now in your own personal time you can play whatever you want whenever you want.

I'm not speaking of you specifically but I am so sick of game journalists washing their hands of their responsibility and the effect they have on the industry as a whole.

Doesn't work like that, at least from my time at smaller sites (IndieGames, Killscreen, etc.) It's not an assembly line. The job isn't to play what you arent interested in, but to write about noteworthy stuff that caught your eye. With the sheer number of indie games news, reveals, and releases, that's the only way to really narrow down topics to a manageable levels.

This is the noteworthy stuff that caught my eye today

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OffwrAU18O0ixMr3ssZS_vYNEWYa6Kf5QMJqvdK3fms/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Grimalkin]

Doesn't work like that, at least from my time at smaller sites (IndieGames, Killscreen, etc.) It's not an assembly line. The job isn't to play what you arent interested in, but to write about noteworthy stuff that caught your eye. With the sheer number of indie games news, reveals, and releases, that's the only way to really narrow down topics to a manageable levels.

This is the noteworthy stuff that caught my eye today

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OffwrAU18O0ixMr3ssZS_vYNEWYa6Kf5QMJqvdK3fms/edit?usp=sharing

But you prove my point exactly. You go out of your way to find interesting games that no one else is covering. You posted upthread the time and effort you take in doing so. It's an active choice you make, to sacrifice the "easy wins" of AAA coverage.

Think of how much more coverage both you and the games could get if you were hired on at Kotaku or one of the other big sites.

 

[Griss]

The reality of the situation is obvious - number of devs and number of games vs time and interest of the audience.

But it's still heartbreaking to think of someone actually pursuing their dream, putting their heart into it, finishing it (the hardest step) to the point they can take it to a conference... only to be ignored. That hearts my heart.

It's like when you pass a restaurant and there's no one in there. So one day you go in just to give them business, and you're secretly hoping it's bad because then you'll understand, but it's excellent and the servers are super pleasant, and the chef greets you because he has nothing better to do and he's lovely and talented... and you feel worse. It's just competition, marketing. They're not making it. And the next time you pass by it's empty again...

Yeah, it hurts to think about for me.

 

[More_Badass]

When I send a tip about some Kickstarter or some game that I wish had more attention to Kotaku or RPS or whatnot, a tip I saw somewhere was that it's more effective to email an individual writer than the general site email. Mainly because the latter get flooded and stuff gets overlooked easily while the former, you find writers who covered similar games or have expressed interest in genres. I imagine that might be useful for devs sending emails too

But you prove my point exactly. You go out of your way to find interesting games that no one else is covering. You posted upthread the time and effort you take in doing so. It's an active choice you make, to sacrifice the "easy wins" of AAA coverage.

Think of how much more coverage both you and the games could get if you were hired on at Kotaku or one of the other big sites.

We're talking about indie games here. Regardless of what site you're on, covering indie games isnt easy. Having the microscope zoomed in a bit thanks to the recommendations of the community, or friends, or other writers is helpful. I search a lot, but coverage on RPS and Kotaku and other sites is invaluable too. Even among sites, writers chat with eachother. We recommend things, because we all play different games and have different interests.

 

[jschreier]

Not to pick on you, Jason, but as a former game dev I really disagree with what you said here.

When you are "on the clock" isn't it your job to play games you aren't already interested in and find the good ones instead of writing about what already has hype from other journalists or the community?

Now in your own personal time you can play whatever you want whenever you want.

I'm not speaking of you specifically but I am so sick of game journalists washing their hands of their responsibility and the effect they have on the industry as a whole.

Literally one mention on Kotaku can make or break a game, especially an indie game and it seems like absolutely none of the game journalists active on the major sites are willing or able to acknowledge that they hold major power over indie devs.

I understand you specifically do not have the time to cover every great game out there but I feel that sites like Kotaku could do a much better job than they are now. The thing is Kotaku can write their seemingly endless fount of posts on the site rambling about Destiny/No Man's Sky/whatever the game de jour is and still cover other stuff. It's not like the internet is going to run out of space.

I understand better than most posters on NeoGAF the symbiosis between AAA publishers and game sites but I do not buy that you cannot hire someone who is already passionate about indie games to write for your site. Kotaku could become one of the major taste makers for indie games instead of just parroting what NeoGAF (or the like) has already found.

I get that SEO and clickbait and popular games are what make your bosses money. I just feel like Kotaku could be doing a much better job serving the underdogs in addition to what makes money.

This is a pretty rude post -- "SEO and clickbait" do not describe what Kotaku does -- but to address your misconception, no, it's not my job to play video games when I'm on the clock. I go to the office from 9am to 6pm every day and write/report stories. Once in a while I might stay home and play a game during the day if I'm reviewing something that's a kajillion hours long, but the bulk of my gaming time is on nights and weekends, even when I'm playing games for work.

What you don't seem to understand is that Kotaku is staffed by 11 full-time employees. We try to run new posts once every half hour. You can do the math yourself, or trust me when I tell you that the bulk of our time is spent operating the website, not playing games. Even Nathan Grayson, a powerhouse reporter who tries to check out every single new game that hits Steam on a weekly basis, plays most of those games when he's off the clock.

In the next few weeks, I plan to review Trails of Cold Steel II and Phoenix Wright, two smallish games that will both take me a great deal of time to play. Neither of those reviews will do huge traffic -- I'm reviewing them because I know a certain subset of readers care about my thoughts on them. And yes, I'm playing those games during my nights and weekends, on top of my day-to-day Kotaku responsibilities and various deadlines for my book.

What's more, even with all of these limitations, we STILL cover tons of unknown indie games every single week. In the past FIVE DAYS alone we've written about Giga Wrecker, Reigns, Glitched, Inversus, Bound, and much more.

So kindly fuck off with your "SEO and clickbait" accusations. And maybe try actually reading Kotaku.

 

[Paz]

It's kind of sad that a thread about the painful realities of being a tiny indie trying to get attention and what that means for the dev/press relationship ended up in throwing around insults like SEO and click bait, I mean here we have a public forum with various experienced developers and press interacting and this is the result.

Damn.

 

[More_Badass]

It's kind of sad that a thread about the painful realities of being a tiny indie trying to get attention and what that means for the dev/press relationship ended up in throwing around insults like SEO and click bait, I mean here we have a public forum with various experienced developers and press interacting and this is the result.

Damn.

Some people have weird beliefs when it comes to writing online and writing about games

But on topic

- Don't announce your small game, release your five years of hard work, or start your Kickstarter in the weeks before, during, and after E3. That's a sure fire way to get minimal attention and little press coverage, while every major site is concerned with pre-E3 announcements, the conferences, and best of E3 lists. I've found that during the Steam sales and the Christmas flood of AAA releases are similarly bad times as well.
- Don't start your social media prescence like a week before your game comes out. I know Twitter gets a bad rap, but as someone who's always looking for games and likes spreading the word on games, it's a godsend. Devs help out other devs with retweets, Screenshot Saturday is watched by a lot of sites, the #gamedev hashtags always has promising stuff, and you can build a nice web of followers pretty quickly. When I first started my blog years back, Twitter was invaluable in getting views and getting seen
- I have to imagine places like Devolver and Adult Swim follow TIGSource closely. Especially the latter; a nice chunk of their published titles had devlogs there (Rain World, Katana Zero, Death's Gambit, Rise & Shine, Oblitus, Small Radios Big Televisions). And much like Twitter, you can build an audience there if you update regularly.

 

[ScatheZombie]

So kindly fuck off with your "SEO and clickbait" accusations. And maybe try actually reading Kotaku.

Ok, let's read Kotaku then...

Here's your recent article list - please note, I honestly believe you are the best writer at Kotaku, so this is presumably the best your site contributes:

PlayStation Plus Gets A $10-Per-Year Price Hike - reposting a press release.

PSA: Don't Buy A PlayStation 4 Right Now - clearly clickbait title that's just reposting two previous Kotaku articles in one.

Beloved Destiny Community Member Dies At 33 - you literally just posted a Neogaf thread. Like... literally the thread is in the article.

Apparent PS4 Slim Leaks On Auction Site - another literal post of a Neogaf thread.

Come the fuck on, man.

 

[Necromanti]

Say what you want about Jim Sterling and his coverage of the crap that shows up on Steam--the chap is brutally honest and has interests that don't always align with the mainstream consciousness--but he also covers a lot of promising, unknown projects including ones that have ongoing crowdfunding campaigns. (And is always 100% transparent about things when it comes to disclosures.) That has given a lot of those games a push, no matter how small, resulting in devs thanking his fans for their support. I feel like the independent Youtube crowd are doing a decent job of finding the games that fall through the cracks and are missed by the bigger outlets, but I suppose even then, it's a tough business.

 

[More_Badass]

Ok, let's read Kotaku then...

Come the fuck on, man.

You know how many sites and such use NeoGAF as a source? It's kind of funny being on the other side, and seeing that my posts here have been sourced quite a few times.

And yes, press releases get used a lot. When you're on press lists and regularly get press releases on news and upcoming games, it's very helpful

On the flip side

Inversus - http://kotaku.com/inversus-is-the-most-fun-ive-had-shooting-other-players-1785460802

Reigns - http://steamed.kotaku.com/reigns-combines-ruling-a-kingdom-with-tinder-1785224769

Oceanhorn sequel - http://kotaku.com/indie-zelda-like-oceanhorn-is-getting-a-sequel-1785586252

Life Unfolds - http://steamed.kotaku.com/life-unfolds-crams-an-entire-lifetime-into-30-minutes-1785322780

And more

 

[ScatheZombie]

You know how many sites and such use NeoGAF as a source? It's kind of funny being on the other side, and seeing that my posts here have been sourced quite a few times.

And yes, press releases get used a lot. When you're on press lists and regularly get press releases on news and upcoming games, it's very helpful.

... and that has nothing to do with the fact that Kotaku and most of the major publications are absolutely built upon exploiting clickbait, editing for SEO, and focusing heavily, if not exclusively, on already popular titles that have been covered to death elsewhere. I don't see how that's insulting or rude. It's literally what they, and most other gaming news outlets, do. Like, are we just arguing the frequency at which they do it? Are we arguing the severity at which it's done? Or are you honestly trying to argue they never do it? Because that's demonstrably false.

Finally getting around to giving minor coverage to a relatively unknown title that's already been in the news for weeks, if not months, isn't some magic bullet that somehow absolves a particular outlet of their atypical contributions to the community. Every single one of those titles has been covered elsewhere, repeatedly, before Kotaku got around to bringing them up. That's the argument. Not that they never cover indie titles - just that they only cover indie titles that they've already been told are worth covering by other outlets or the community at large (not to mention that most of them are just reposts of press releases that everyone else is also covering).

Acknowledging the unsavory limitations of game's media publication that include having to exploit clickbait, having to edit for SEO, and having to devote the vast majority of your time to already popular, covered titles isn't an insult - it's an acknowledgement of the reality of how you must operate to be one of the top media outlets and a reality of the market. I don't see how pointing that out warrants personal insults.

 

[eot]

When was the last time a really cool looking indie game didn't get enough attention? If the game is really good then people will want to see it. It's as simple as that. The press don't have to give indies attention just to be good people. If the dev created something amazing people will show up. If they created something that's "whatever" then they will have a whatever reception.

This is one of the most naive posts I've seen on this forum.

 

[SomTervo]

When was the last time a really cool looking indie game didn't get enough attention? If the game is really good then people will want to see it. It's as simple as that.

i don't think it's as simple as that unfortunately, and I don't think you can say this unless you've looked through thousands of indie games that never made it. Heck I've worked on a fairly large one that did OK in the end but nearly totally lost its shit and completely flopped. And it has fucking no word of mouth despite being an excellent game that came out within the last few months.

 

[Jamesac68]

I went to PAX East this year and played a ton of games. Day 1 was crammed with appointments to the point where I actually resented it, Day 2 wasn't so bad but still busy, Day 3 I had an ummoveable chunk of 3 hours carved out to spend with my wife. Even so I didn't get time to cover Hidden Folks, Graceful Explosion Machine, Metrico+, Forgettable Dungeon, Desync, that amazing-looking purple puzzle FPS I can't remember the name of that I'm really looking forward to, and a bunch of others that I wish I could have done more with. By the time I completed all assignments I was brain-frazzled.

As it turns out, having a wife, regular job, and not writing particularly quickly make it really hard to cover everything. One of the reasons I do a Screenshot Saturday round-up is to try to get a little coverage of the things I'd otherwise never be able to devote any words to. This week I found a game on there, Caveblazers, that I went and spent the $5 on just because I like that kind of thing. Maybe I'll have time to do something more than just play? I like to think so, but file it under Good Intentions.

Point is, there's only so much time to cover things, and even then how much attention does it get? I like to think that everyone's going to look at the Russian Subway Dogs article (for example) and think it looks great, and I'm happy the developer likes the coverage, but realisitcally it's only a tiny little bump to the attention the game will need.

 

[samred]

Yep. If you come to me and say "hey, I was in jail for five years for armed robbery and I designed this game on thousands of pieces of toilet paper that I hoarded so I could type it up and find an artist when I got out" you will probably get my attention.

ugh quit stealing my indie game scoopz

 

[samred]

In all seriousness: The avg games conference is an event where control and puppeteering and smoke-and-mirrors stuff wins out, which is why bigger companies love 'em. Indie devs often don't need that stuff. Their games (with some exceptions) are better appreciated with more time and access.

That changes once a game has been picked up by a publisher or has a better marketing/buzz foothold; until then, just send EXEs and Zip files and dropbox links to writers/streamers/loudmouths who seem like they're into your type/genre of game. Keep the pitch simple and make it sound like you've looked at at least one review the person has written/streamed before. "I saw you're a huge fan of XXX; my game isn't the exact same, but I think you might dig it because of YYY. Here's a YouTube link of raw gameplay. Longer press release is pasted below. Lemme know if you want an itch.io code and/or ZIP file. Thanks!"

And before doing that, try hitting up smaller local game-dev events and expos where people put their games out and talk to each other about what they're making. Seattle has a ton of these (and I sneak into them whenever I get an invite). Until someone says to you at a public event, "This game is awesome, I want to buy it," don't expect jerkwad writers/streamers to automatically feel that way. (We're jerks and we're not always right, never forget that.)

 

[Peltz]

Just want to say, if anyone doubts that amazing indie games are not being covered, please, go to any gaming convention and check out what is being made these days.

I went to PAX East a few years ago and played tons of fun games that are definitely quality that I've literally seen no coverage about.

 

[Clear]

It seems to me there's a chronic need for sites to offer weekly/regular "catch up" pieces where short-form impressions of games that haven't gotten full reviews can be gathered together. I'm not talking about a digest of the weeks coverage, I'm talking specifically about covering new releases that have slipped through the cracks.

I think this would both provide a great service to both consumers and developers.

Enterprising media sources please take note; Noone appears to be doing this sort of thing at present, and as such it could draw additional interest.

 

[ymgve]

In all seriousness: The avg games conference is an event where control and puppeteering and smoke-and-mirrors stuff wins out, which is why bigger companies love 'em. Indie devs often don't need that stuff. Their games (with some exceptions) are better appreciated with more time and access.

That changes once a game has been picked up by a publisher or has a better marketing/buzz foothold; until then, just send EXEs and Zip files and dropbox links to writers/streamers/loudmouths who seem like they're into your type/genre of game. Keep the pitch simple and make it sound like you've looked at at least one review the person has written/streamed before. "I saw you're a huge fan of XXX; my game isn't the exact same, but I think you might dig it because of YYY. Here's a YouTube link of raw gameplay. Longer press release is pasted below. Lemme know if you want an itch.io code and/or ZIP file. Thanks!"

And before doing that, try hitting up smaller local game-dev events and expos where people put their games out and talk to each other about what they're making. Seattle has a ton of these (and I sneak into them whenever I get an invite). Until someone says to you at a public event, "This game is awesome, I want to buy it," don't expect jerkwad writers/streamers to automatically feel that way. (We're jerks and we're not always right, never forget that.)

I'd probably refrain from mailing EXEs and ZIPs unsolicted, unless you like getting mistaken for viruses and phishing mails.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Just want to say, if anyone doubts that amazing indie games are not being covered, please, go to any gaming convention and check out what is being made these days.

I went to PAX East a few years ago and played tons of fun games that are definitely quality that I've literally seen no coverage about.

Anyone who doubts their existence baffles me. As someone who plays a lot of horror games, and that includes indie ones, there's a ton that I don't see anyone but me and maybe one or two other people mention that are actually very good. There's just so much out there and coming every week now it's hard to keep up with everything, even for me, a guy who dedicates much time to a specific genre.

 

[Shadowheart]

So today I am on my way home from Gamescom. Tired from all the appointments upon appointmens I scroll through my Twitter feed and see a Tweet about some developer who was at Gamescom and was bummed out about the media not showing up for his game even after sending out invites (not to me).

It then hit me that as a game developer myself and writer for a game website it is really hard to stand out as an Indie dev. You have limited recourses and even when you can go to Gamescom you get outshined by all the other games that are there.

For me it isn't even on purpose. We arent that big of a website but even then Gamescom was full of appointments rushing from the left to the hall to the right with a time frame of 30 minutes. I do feel for developers that want to get their love and message across in a game and are bummed out like that by the media

Honest mathematical question: If there were an indie E3, would the type of indie devs we are talking about afford to attend and present? I am assuming these devs are making games without much or any financial backing.

I also assume digital marketing is attractive (sending copies to websites and reviewers, forums, streamers, etc.).