Yeah but the vast majority of those failed games look bad and are mediocre gameplay wise. Even if they are a true passion project. They don’t come close to the quality of games like Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy, Inside or even Pizza Tower. Most sidescrollers (including metroidvanias, rogue likes and souls likes) released on Steam are of low quality because it’s very easy to make a basic game in that genre.
Yes the genre is risky but if you make a very good looking game that stands out with top notch gameplay you increase the odds of success significantly.
Budding indie devs need to realize whether they can make such a game. If not they need to find another genre that is less crowded or a genre with a very high demand, like the horror / liminal space genre those games have a much higher success rate compared to the average platformer.
Yeah but the vast majority of those failed games look bad and are mediocre gameplay wise. Even if they are a true passion project. They don’t come close to the quality of games like Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy, Inside or even Pizza Tower. Most sidescrollers (including metroidvanias, rogue likes and souls likes) released on Steam are of low quality because it’s very easy to make a basic game in that genre.
Yes the genre is risky but if you make a very good looking game that stands out with top notch gameplay you increase the odds of success significantly.
Budding indie devs need to realize whether they can make such a game. If not they need to find another genre that is less crowded or a genre with a very high demand, like the horror / liminal space genre those games have a much higher success rate compared to the average platformer.