Hacker News Reader

Comment by keyle | Hacker News Reader

They will do alright because of the art and the amount of press already generating sales ahead of time.

That's what you need as an indie developer. A lot of publicity and great art. It doesn't matter that you essentially reproduce the exact same recipe as any other Nintendo platformer, as long as you have great art and music, people will love your content.

Similar to hollywood movies being a rehash of each other with different actors and a different setting. It's all about the human condition.

So yeah, in the rare case of Cuphead, they will do well. Maybe enough to make the next one, if they didn't over-extend themselves.

For most small indies though, I can tell you first hand, it's tough. Especially since the whole Hello Games and No Man Sky's debacle, every 'gamer' out there is out to hate indie by default. We're scammers in sheep clothing.

View on HN

> That's what you need as an indie developer. A lot of publicity and great art. It doesn't matter that you essentially reproduce the exact same recipe as any other Nintendo platformer, as long as you have great art and music, people will love your content.

Oh how I wish that were true, it would make for such an easy formula to follow to commercial success! :)

The visual style is definitely unique, and will get them a lot of media attention. Good for them! But translating that into sales - that's not easy at all...

Eh. As long as the early reviews are okay I'll pick it up just for the art style and to play it friend friends on my couch a couple times.

> every 'gamer' out there is out to hate indie by default

that's a bit of an over exaggeration. Gamers hate overhyped, but under delivered games. It doesn't matter if it's indie or not.

Agree. I would say that part of that is due to the fact that gaming gets more open and new concepts and ideas are being introduced, which is naturally prone to underdelivering first, before becoming mainstream. This is similar to literature and movies and shows that the medium is growing up.

To some degree this is the result of the formulaic, hollywoodesque way how AAA games are being made, and the over-stated excitement about even small developments which indie games feature in terms of gameplay and storytelling.

On the other hand, there is also a significant hipster-ish culture around some games where "overhyped" really describes it. The documentation of attitude and lifestyle of the people who write and who play those games seems to be more important than the games themselves. This is similar to instagramming your own cooking all the time and instagramming your fashionable hip meals all the time.

Agree. I remembered Daikatana as a classic example of overhyped and underdelivered game. And it wasn't indie at all, it was a mainstream title from John Romero.

> Especially since the whole Hello Games and No Man Sky's debacle, every 'gamer' out there is out to hate indie by default. We're scammers in sheep clothing.

Maybe I'm just missing that part of the community, but that seems over the top. Pre-orders and crowdfunding, now those got a relatively widespread bad rep, and some people dislike themes primarily covered by indie games, but I don't see very many people care about general "indieness" of the developer.

That's a very optimistic view. Even if you do everything right, have enthusiastic press coverage, unique art style and gameplay, in the end it's still entirely a lottery. Betting the farm (or house in this case) on the success of one game is utterly insane.

tell that to the makers of mighty #9

Reply on news.ycombinator.com