Why these weird indie games BEAT the AAA industry 

wishlist my non meme game on steam pls store.steampowered.com/app/2862470/BUMBI

If i wanted to see real world graphics i wouldn't gaming, i'd shutdown my computer and go for biking.

Fun > Graphics

We can say that Lethal Company create a good idea about this type of gameplay that Content Warning use and expand. People have bought it because they wanted something similar to Lethal Company and the price was super accessible. I think this type of experience open ups space for creativity and originality in the game dev community.

I think the co-op + scary is a trend now. People seem to enjoy it.

$100 million is a huge amount. Suppose, if a person saves $5000 monthly, it will take him 1666 years to reach $100 million.

I would say what these games also have in common is an easily exaplainable or understandable concept. They're good for the elevator pitch. On the other hand, I bet there's a good number of games that also fulfill all of these criteria while not making it big.

so, use a simple Gimmick, outlandish artstyle and make it land on a streamer's lap, now you're in heaven for a couple of weeks.

The video creator failed to mention one small but crucial detail: the number of major studios versus the number of indie ones. How many small companies attempt to create games only to end up without funds, compared to the large companies that consistently secure funding and produce games that earn less than these indie titles?

I think theres a little bit more to it than horror coop with funny elements though. Lethal company is about a mysterious company that doesnt care about it's employees and content warning is about making a startup channel in the content creation landscape thats becoming more and more prevalent. Both play with topics that are either very very relatable or prevalent in today's society. Lethal company mirrors the dystopian corporate world that most of us find ourselves stuck in while content warning mirrors the desire of making it big in the vast digital content creation scene thats only growing more and more with each passing year. I very much think you missed the fact that the subject and/or tone of these games resonate with deep rooted feelings within the playerbase of today's society.

Also content warning took the already successful formula of lethal company (first person co op horror game with funny janky enemies and proximity voice chat) and got their game out quickly to catch some of lethal company's hype. Not saying there's anything wrong with that but I think that is also a big factor in their success EDIT: Oh nvm you mentioned that later in the video lol

Great video, really enjoyed it, the explanation to why those indie games whent viral and managed to make a lot of money was great, thank youu

This is a really good video idea (studying viral games and trying to replicate their success in a month or two), remind me to do this and become a multi-millionare sometime soon lol

Oh, I saw your new game in a reddit post, didn't realise it was yours! Looks great.

I'm a total armchair critic here, but I would caution against chasing current trends. Unless a dev is _lightning_ fast in getting something out the door, they may just miss the wave.

Wow Bumbi is really coming along! Looking forward to your future updates there :)

I think this also explains why speedrunning took off and why the current Deep Dip 2 streams are doing so well. Take a simple concept and make it something you can do with friends and just have fun. Speedrunning was all about the community of "hey I beat this game this fast" and now it's a major past time for many gamers. Deep Deep 2, let's take a car and make it climb a tower and no check points. Not sure if it's selling more copies of trackmania, but it certainly is an interesting challenge and I would not be surprised to see other people just make a simple game based on it.

Amazing breakdown :) Thank you for sharing Sam!

Time to make another game with a similar formula and a totally different name~ I present to you!! Content Company! 😎😎😎😝😝😝

Loved this video! Thanks for the insight. looking forward to more of your videos!

The thing about Only Up, the game concept always existed since the halo 3 'forge/custom games' days.

This is nice Sam, very well approached. Great video!

Games are all about fun gameplay. Even with vast sums of money that gets thrown at AAA titles, they're more than often dull, not fun or just re-hashing of old ideas, although looking visually stunning. So.. make the gameplay fun and addictive, and the sales will follow

Hi SamYam, I love your video , and I have always been curious as to how coders like dani and yourself manage to learn all of these networking concepts. For me personally, when I open any documentation, my mind just explodes, so i guess do you just push through and read all of the documentation or do you utilize any other sources? oh and what about how you learnt the concept of client-side prediction?

Great vid, hope your game is a smash hit!

Thank you for your analysis!

All of these games have a certain charm to them, like the devs just wanted to create something to play with their friends. And I think that adds a lot of personality to the games.

Thanks! This is invaluable.

love the videos

Hi, on your tutorial on AR Foundation, there is a section of the video surrounding Build Settings - where you either need to select Ios or Android, My Question is if I wanted to create an app for both IOS and Android, is there a way i can do this perhaps simultaneously and without having to pay for plans etc..

Great video! Landfall is really good at making awesome new things

I found this to be so true with my game jams games the less serious I made them the more response I got it was a sort of opposite effect of what you would expect!

Good vid! People are attracted by what is fresh and full of life - and that's often missing from the triple A productions, not only in video games, by the way.

*by 2030, Rockstar will be the only AAA developer left standing so I'm definitely in support of the little guys rising up and making fun games* 👍

Indie games make money? @_@ This is super insightful

my little game "square bird" had 100 million download, for week it was 1# in U.S charts

Can you make a video about accelerometer control in unity?, I'm novice to Game Dev & Unity help me pls

This video, as is, should be a GDC talk.

Same with youtube videos, make a shitty karlson replica and it gets more views than making an entire soulslike game

I already had a Feeling Indie Games were going to be the Next Big Thing in Video Games BUT I had No idea the Amounts were this Huge, even though most devs won't see that much $$$

07:04 godot spotted!!

WHEN DID BUMBI BECOME DOG!?!

Your game is looking great btw

They do think about marketing too, we just ain't good at it and haven't learn the skill before finished our game, thats why no one plays our games (maybe).

landfall games is peak!!! 🔥

7:20 AAA companies have the most money and largest teams, yet typically take the fewest risks, leaving us with many identical copy/pasted "popular" games which get incredibly boring playing the same safe format often. These AAA teams also tend to make their content more bland by always targetting the largest demographic. Indie devs are the solution, as they add creativity, which is why such games can occasionally outperform AAA titles. The big flaw with indie games, is the fact they have significantly fewer resources (time, money, team size, experience). You often see a couple amazing ideas or systems in overall mediocre games.

Woah, what did you use that embedded est. revenue right into the store page?

Consistency + Trying new things = Profit!

Sorry for the weird question but when you were young did you share a computer with someone and what was your age when you bought your own computer?

Good evidence that creativity, charm & fun often beat polish - Though I wouldn't necessarily say 'worse' More just 'Lucky' and 'Marketable' lot of the times

The name of the game is Bumbi. It was so fast to read 4:10

You have a soothing voice 😇

I literally searched for this video for 2 hours and finally found it when I painfull scrolled through 12 daysvof my watch history (i watched like 34 videos on a day.. I was in holidays..)

Gooood

My Boi Pe$o Pete in the twitter timeline!

Big streamers play it = success

It may be wrong but I think one other reason many Indie game's found sucsse is. 1.The fact that it's cheaper to to buying 2. The developer make with pation and care's about the player's and for the game. 3.the developer take the nessery time to make the game. Of course what you said it's true as well I don't argue with that I don't know for other indie developer's but as indie developer my self I have the freedom to spend as much time as it needs to make this project. Yea it may take forever to create because I work on my own but I don't have dead line or boss that have to listen 😅.

from an artistic pov it does bother me if many indies are going the direction of "streamability" which seems to mean there will be a lot less diversity in the indie market idk tho. thinking about marketing is annoying as hell. most of us are just in it to fill this creative urge inside ourselves.

I'm miffed, I didn't get the notification about it being free until the day after the free run ended. I'm not paying ten bucks for a free game.

worse games is crazy, they aren't worse, just indie.

You forget to mention that lucky period when a big influencer picks up a game and presents it to their audience in a very good time window. Without influencers, there is zero marketing.

When I saw the title "Why worse games make more money" I first thought this would be on modern AAA games vs older AAA games before they could be patched. Now they all need to be patched. Well, at the very least I can say the Indie hit games might have as many bugs as AAA games, but at least the Indie games are priced right. Now I miss the days when games came on cartridges and you never even noticed the occasional bug.

Lucky and genious devs

My queen, your twitter account on patreon has a typo.

this game crash is brazzzy

100M but 30% taxes on Steam 30% taxes outside US 10% other fees Still 30M back to that 21 years old boy 😂

Did everyone forget that Phasmophobia pretty much inspired all of these? XD

I feel like these new AAA games have the hands of big wigs cramming their demands into a game, and they ruin it.

hi

Your game looks really fun but polish the art a little more with some nice assets also you should definetly port this to mobile as well

Feels like coop goofy simple games are having great times since among us and phatasmofobia, that is where I would bet. For a developer it is great to have all the income but all those cited arent they momentary sucess? If so it's hard to reproduce it intentionally and the formulas gets old easy. Despite all th crap AAA games trows on us nowdays, people still comes back to those frachises with their over explored and copied formulas even when they are copied by indies or low budget studios.

it's nice to lecture me here lol

3:29 HAH "full STEAM ahead..."😀 You didn't notice the pun🤣🤣

What people care about is fun ngl

Content warning is not an indie game

Because of zoomer humor

"Buggy Games with 400 DLC's" 🤣🤣🤣 no shhhh lol it's bloody ridiculous. COD is now a mutated toxic fish swimming down the 💩 filled wasteland. 🤣🤣🤣

💌💌💌

#1❤

Reason : innovation + risk taking, a lot of these projects simply fail. Triple A is not able to take the sale risks with triple A budgets.

This comment will be in the video about how I blew up.

People will pay money to be stupid

hey except for only up both content warning and lethal company are fantastic games. Your title that says "worse games make more money" is straight up false

Yes there is It's called social norms destroyed the attention span of the young so they want a game that lasts less than 3 minutes

People that make shitty games make fun games. People that try super hard to make good games forget to add fun to the game. Developers often treat their games as 'their baby' and completely forget, that they don't make games for themselves but for others to play. And if the game is not fun for others and instead it only tickles the developer's autistic spectrum, it is no nobody's surprise that it failed. That's the only pill many devs have to swallow - don't make games that please yourself, make fun games that everyone enjoys.

Among Us, Content Warning, Lethal Company, and now Abiotic Factor. I cannot stand these games. It's simple co-op gameplay that are cheap and made quick. It's like H&M for games.

Content warning honestly shouldn’t have managed to be successful

indie games = just fun AAA games = no soul no jiggle no bitches more LGBTQC++ and more bug not finish more SJW