As someone who just got into Tim Rogers from his youtube Action Button reviews (specifically the Tokimeki Memorial one), I've now made it my mission to go back and watch every piece of content he's ever taken part in producing, and I'm not regretting it.
RU-vid's algorithm is being surprisingly helpful for once. The more Tim I watch, the more Tim I get recommended; even on channels I'd never heard of before.
Same hahaha. Some of these mean spirited comments about him as a game developer are pretty surprising considering how good he is as an entertainer and explainer, and with how much he knows about games.
@@yokaicustoms I was in a lot of the original VIDEOBALL videos when the game released and he was streaming the game. I'm about to go back to the past and watch as many of them as I can find :)
He had some information there. Namely "make what you want but be aware that it might not be what the customers want, also don't sign a contract with a publisher that you can't deliver because it may lead to sticky situations, like the publisher closing down and leaving you in the dirt, also marketing and the timing of the marketing/going live is key, aaaaaand, don't put your phone number on a slide, also ... #truckheck, k bye". Takeaway from this talk: if you want to earn money then make a game FOR the audience; do your market research in time; sign with a stable, marketing focused (not development focused) publisher; or if not signing with a publisher then do your own marketing 24/7 and use the leftover time for development; and don't put your phone number on a slide. Also #truckheck...k bye.
The Citystream Twitch situation may have been a mess but I admire how much the developers cared about the players. Really sweet at the end for their game.
The way the dev actually read out Citystream "extreme" with a voice modulation shows that care. He is talking about a failed game in a 'developer' conference. Preaching to the choir, so to speak and still goes that extra mile. (6:40).
@@arjunsatheesh7609 It's a classical example where devs have ideas but completely ignored checking if the ideas were contributing to fun. Plus the presentation were a mess, too many words, to many details and a little info on the actual slides.
@@yrussqi disagree. 3 years late but i thibk that the real problem was not finding out how to make money with their game. i thought his presentation showed the downfall very well
You can't make esports happen, it just happens. Tim makes a very good point. There are waaaay to many developers right now (any dev that makes a freakin multiplayer game) that try to shoe horn an esports culture into their game. I really wish more devs would just focus on making their game awesome first and foremost.
Mr. Rogers forgot to mention that Videoball's online at launch was... offline. It took at least a week and a half for a patch to fix it, at which point everyone had given up. It was a tragic. Mr. Rogers accurately identified the shortcomings besides that. I'll always look at Videoball as one of the greatest tragedies of that generation. With good promotion and, yes, a PlayStation Plus launch, it could have soared. I hope he gets a chance for a remake or sequel. Remember, no one remembers Speedball. Everyone remembers Speedball 2.
Major shouts out to Adrien for laying bare not only the finances of Game Oven's finances, but also the interpersonal project struggle. Those piracy graphs broke my heart.
That game is one awesome failure, I never heard of it before this vid, but it must have been a beautiful story for the players who joined the game, having really lived and grew with a huge community of other players and the devs at the same time, that rocket ride in the end really was a wonderful touch even as it ends
I think the only reason it failed was just the lack of time they had to spend making it to begin with, also they should of had a full time person doing beep or have it be purely ai driven. hopefully they revisit the idea because I think there could be a lot of potential with a bit more time and resources put into it.
The game oven guy is a total tool. His partner is probably better off without him. Lesson from game oven. Never work with a guy who wants you to do all of his projects but quits the moment you want him to help with yours.
Moses Zero im stunned that the 2nd speaker learnt nothing from his total failure. He spent the whole thing blaming other people for his failures as a leader and developer.
The reason why his talk feels wrong is because he talks about his partners' personal stuff. So, the programmer had his ego hurt because an article did not acknowledge him as a cofounder? Ouch. I really wouldn't want somebody say something like this about me in front of a live audience.
@@elchotocorazon Social component doesn't mean advertisement games ya weirdo. Look at their library of games, look at how all of them encourage group/party play. He wanted to make games for a group, or for partners, not for a solo audience. That's all Social Component means
The videoball dude was really dumb. There is so many other ways to make money with videogames. I know a guy that is making 6 figures by doing 6-hour reviews of obscure Japanese games.
He is Tim Rogers and he used to work for Kotaku until recently; he has 150+ amazing videos over at Kotaku. I'd suggest videos like Metacritic Vs Yelp and his Final Fantasy VII let's mosey series to get started. Also, he just made his own RU-vid channel
It's so sad to see Videoball went the way of Nidhogg. I remember the geeknights saying in every pax recap that it was going to be the biggest game ever when it finally launched.
anony mous what are you talking about!? IT WAS BOYAN's "minuscule" vision that stopped this mastodon of game design -DaTrippyHippy- LOL JK Yeah - I agree - that dude is an idiot and it honestly sounds like he is skewing the stories to make it seem like he WASN'T a dick to Boyan - which really makes me wonder just how bad he actually treated him.
Yeah pretty much - they made a bunch of games that Boyan wasn't interested in, and then when they finally let Boyan design a game the presenter quit and killed the company. WTF
Lol that friendster app or whatever that game was called sounds like TRASH... And why does he keep talking about himself as if he's Steve Jobs? WTF? #LongLiveBoyan
I find that in these situations there really isn't a good or bad guy. There's lack or communication, conflicting interests, all that stuff. But the idea of "good" and "bad" implies an intend, which just doesn't apply, usually.
Adriaan's talk felt a bit unusual and grimy not sure how else to describe it but the fact that he was talking publicly about the private work relationship with his friend without the main person to defend himself felt unfair and a bit sickening you don't have to agree with me btw If I were to put myself in Adriaan's shoes and talk about a friend I worked with in public I'd hate myself for it unless I was praising them
Why should he defend himself? He is not put in a bad light he clearly shows that it was just their different expectations not any flaws of his that let them fail…
CityStream sounds like it could have been a bigger, better, r/Place, but they just didn't have any working AI. They should really revisit this concept.
It sounded like a massive pain in the a with a ton of complicated rules and conditions that has nothing to do with a simplified graphics of a "fun" twitch game.
Tim Rogers obviously rules and I came to this video to watch him, but that first speaker's talk was super interesting and I'm not even a developer (I skipped the second one)
Damn, Videoball looked really good! I think it would kill on mobile. One finger makes the Triangle torpedo to where you're touching, then another finger you hold to apply force (if I interpreted the controls correctly) In all fairness, any soccer like game that isn't Fifa will get compared to Rocket League nowadays, but IIRC, there isnt a Rocket League type game on the app store at the moment. 2 vs 2 mode barebones with matchmaking then you can scale from there. Im sure there would be ways to monetize the game without being that intrusive (you could embed sponsors logo's onto the fields?) or you can monetise it in a way which adds value to the player (maybe players get to customise their quarter of the field or something) I dunno. I really hope somebody picks it up again
Oh man, that Game Oven thing sounds exactly like what I thought my dream job would be, and hearing all the downsides to that kind of attitude and structure kinda makes me rethink that dream.
Yeah, unfortunately, making a gamedev company is as much business as fun-times. Don't get discouraged though. If you do it right (or have the right person to help you out with it) and get the hang of it, it can turn out amazingly :)
In the dreams defense, the guy giving the talk goes on about how his colleague felt like his ideas didn't matter, yet when hes put in the exact same situation on 'jellyreef' with his colleague taking control, he cant handle the taste of his own medicine. Honestly I think it was just a case of good friends don't necessarily make good colleagues, they should have noticed their stark difference in design goals early and never worked together. both ways they wanted to make games were valid, they just didn't align. Pro tip: do a bunch of game jams with someone before you make an indie team, that way you know if your visions align before diving in the deep end.
take me a lot of time to hear Game Oven guy blaming his team @@ more than 1000 days of development / business, studio made only little 144K EU to growth within internal conflict.
@@mayrbek123He's doin' game reviews on the youtube channel Action Button, which are a blast (his Pac-man and Tokimeki Memorial reviews being my favorites thus far).
Tim Rogers was so much fun to listen to. Videoball looks like a lot of fun. I hope that a venture capitlist without any sense and with exceptionally deep pockets invests in Tim Rogers. At the very least, get that coder a new car. 🌻
I think what summarizes the game's main problems is this: I've watched minutes of gameplay and I still have no clue what the game is about and what the hell is going on.
Thank you. That guy is terrible drama queen. I guess, receiving 120k of subsidies and price money constrain his creativity too much. Also, leaving in the middle of the project as a lead game designer... Jesus..
He kind of shit on his partners the whole time, as well. On FriendStrap or whatever it was, he blamed Bojan for not really wanting to be a part of it, then he made excuses for being the same way himself on Jelly Reef.
@@KrucLeo having to rely on subsidies and prizes to keep a company afloat is like relying on winning the lottery to pay your mortgage: it's a terrible idea, it's not reliable, and just because it worked doesn't make you successful. He did pretty darn good as a gamedev, just not so great as a business partner or business owner.
I do agree that it feels hard to sympathize with him. It was kind of particularly ironic that he noted that the fact that he received all the credit in the media was hurtful to the team, then gives this presentation where he shares only his own side of the story and doesn't really accept any responsibility for what happened, essentially sidelining them again.
In my opinion, listening to the developers of failed games is a lot more informative than listening to the ones that succeeded. Learning from the mistakes of others gives you more creative freedom than listening to success stories and trying to emulate them because you are chasing a trend.
Dude stream city sounded amazeballs. Damn wish I hadn't missed it. The real actor talking head sounded awsome too. Like the special NPCs in Matrix online!
Videoball looks like awesome party game. Maybe it could be remade with different graphics and name, like Rocket League was in order to target interested audience.
@@cantrip7 I'm glad I'm not the only person who decided to track down these GDC talks after watching Tim's End of Year/Decade list. (It's nice seeing all these old comments saying that Tim should be a comedian)
I think the second person just was shitty at being a team member. He talks so much about how they disagreed, and only mentions his projects, and babies them, while pretty much having Bojan be a worker when he was a cofounder. He also talks about him focusing on the previous games and that Bojan didn't like them, but he didn't really care, but then when Bojan does the exact same thing with the roles reversed, he doesn't even see through the hipocrisy
I have a feeling Videoball is going to be one of those constant undercurrent type games, given enough time. I know I'm planning on running some games with my friends next week!
damn I think the second talk is pretty uncomfortable, but also kinda important. I had a group project in uni that went really badly, and I think it was mostly 1) having different goals for the project and 2) me being an asshole where nothing seemed ever good enough by either party.
One of the main takeaways I think is the importance of visual design and research. And sure programmers can make games but you truly do need an art designer who knows what they're doing. I think the 2nd guy's issue is that sure he has interesting ideas, we all do. But as an indie game dev you need to wear more than one hat, that's something they taught us early on in game dev. Like if you can't code and you're not an art director or writer or visual designer, what are you contributing? Aside from just telling everyone else what to do? It seems like the 1st game suffered from not enough time spent in reconnaissance.. and not enough playtesting. Plus I cannot *believe* they spent time actually playing as the AI helper LIVE! That is mad. Also as someone else commented, 10mins into the talk and I still had no idea how the game worked or what it really was. Where was his elevator pitch? The third chap, despite his sardonic delivery he was rather honest about the game's failings. It sounds like they had the makings of an interesting enough game but man it looks ugly. I don't get why he's so attached to that ugly visual style and acting like the only alternative is Fortnitification? Thomas Was Alone is a brilliant game with very simple visuals, yet it's effective, because the different shapes *mean* something and they actually have personality. The fact that the original playtest version of Videoball looks identical to the shipped version speaks volumes. They didn't spend enough time iterating on their art design. A game that looks either visually confusing and cluttered (the pro footage), or simple and boring (the 1v1 footage), is not going to do well as a streaming/esports game. It has to be fun and interesting to watch as well as to play.
Tim perfectly sums up why videoball failed at 43:20: "If the sound was off, I'd be like 'man, this game sucks'". That tells you right there that the game's presentation doesn't adequately convey what makes the game exciting. Visually, the game lacks any sense of identity, and that makes it hard for people to get excited about it, even though it's clearly fun when played with friends. I think that fan art of Videoball X is on the money. What the game needs is really just a fresh coat of paint. I imagine the game being shown from a 3/4s angle and having a bunch of crazy characters to play as, each of whom has some kind of unique projectile they use to hit the ball. For example, you might have a kind of standard soccer player who shoots out a kind of energy foot projectile, a dog who hits the ball with the shockwave from a bark, or a robot who fires a laser to hit the ball. They'd probably all function near identically, but it would give the game far more personality than it currently has. Gussy up the arenas, toss in some flashy visual effects for when people score a goal, and maybe add some commentary, and I think the game would get vastly more attention. Since you know the core gameplay is fun, it's probably worth taking another shot at it again sometime.
Simplistic art is not really a problem if it's done good. There are many examples of games that sold good while only having basic shapes as their graphics.
Oh, video game players getting addicted to gambling, that sure doesn't ring any bell (cough valve cough) I really think games/platforms using gambling schemes should abide by the online casino regulations if the tokens can be bought with real money.
But in the case of that game he stated that they made sure to not let the players gamble with real money or with stuff bought with real money. They had to work in-game to gamble their stuff away. I do agree with your statement though and in most countries any type of gambling associated with real money is regulated by online casino rules. Some countries take it more seriously than others. Take China for example where they wanted to ban Overwatch (loot boxes) because you can spend money on boxes to open and you don't even know the chances of loot types. So Blizzard had to reveal the chances to China to comply to their online gambling laws.
Wow that first guy. I can see why he would join the game in place of an "AI" meant to deliver automated responses... "Dammit, who typed a question mark on the TelePrompter?"
Too bad Videoball came out a couple years too early to make it on Nintendo Switch. That's the perfect platform for it given that most people would have at least 2 controllers with it whereas if someone owns for controllers for their PS4 I consider them a psychopath.