![]() Either indies try to match the quantity of content which lowers the quality and fans complain about “jank” or “yet another low quality indie game” or indies try to match the quality of AAA and produce a beautiful game but it’s only 1 hour long and took the team 5 years to make. Many times you will see indie studios attempt to make linear, 3D, beautiful games, but they don’t have the resources to satisfy the gamers expectations. We are scrappy which is why indies make so many procedural or roguelikes: it allows for content reuse. Unfortunately we small indies do not have that luxury. Players expect hours and hours of content and these games can satisfy them because of the huge art teams. Most of the studios behind these games are AAA that hire dozens (even hundreds) of people to take a basic gameplay mechanic (like shooting) and then throw huge resources at generating content that most players run past or interact with for a few seconds. Fans love these games because they are deep immersive environments that are beautiful. This category is the big one and knocks off most of the games on Dan’s list. Most of the data from all of these came from this blog post about the most popular genres in 2022. I broke Dan’s list into categories because many of the games have the same problem and I don’t want to repeat myself. But if you don’t get many sales, you will at least understand the market dynamics. If you are just doing this as a hobby and don’t mind what you make that is OK! I applaud you for it. IMPORTANT NOTE: The intention of this piece is to get you to see what is selling so you can reach the level of success you want. ![]() If you stick to “what you know and love” you will miss out on these wonderful niches.They don’t end up on “best ever” lists but Steam fans are EXTREMELY hungry for them and they are begging us to make more of these games for them. These genres are too niche and journalists don’t write about them. On the other side of the coin I find there are lots of very profitable niches that people aren’t making games for.I find most journalists and omnivorous players (like myself) play a lot of linear, content-heavy, story based games that work at AAA and AA scale but are extremely difficult to pull off at the indie scale.I will also show you lots of games that are not on Dan’s list that are very good genres on Steam that the press just doesn’t cover or are completely oblivious to. My goal is to change your perception about how the Steam marketplace and its fans are different. In today’s column I specifically want to go through Dan Ryckert’s list and explain why the games on typical “best of” lists don’t work on Steam for indie game developers. I am not even talking about having a hit game here. However, after studying the Steam market for years, I can tell you that 90% of the games on the list are terrible games to make as an indie game developer who has a small team, a limited budget, and is trying to make a sustainable income so that you can quit your job or stay as a full-time indie. I counted it up Dan’s list and I played 80% of these games and I liked all of them! This is a good “Best of” list! If you asked me to make a game that I “knew and loved” it would probably come from this list. Look: IGN’s is basically the same, so is Metacritic’s. I am not trying to pick on Dan if you read most journalist’s “best of lists” they will mostly be the same as his. 1MNdiBWsSF- Dan Ryckert December 24, 2022 Based on facts, evidence, and years of hard research, here are the objective Top 100 Games of All Time.
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