Teardown is another solo-developed singleplayer game that had a similarly-confusing drama pop up around it recently. The guy decided to get a publisher because making a game on a custom engine by yourself is very hard, and that publisher then provided some extra help to work on expansions that are like, absolutely huge and practically their own games within Teardown's engine. It's really cool. But the amount of backlash he got just for getting a publisher and even doing paid expansions was crazy. It was a minority, sure, but a vocal one that was trying to be as loud as they could, it was obnoxious lol. It was a whole cacophony of complaints like "The game doesn't have enough content, and you want us to PAY for more?" even though the base game is like 10+ hours already, has replay value, and full mod support. There were people complaining that any kind of additions should just be free updates, regardless of the base game's size. And there was of course that one crowd that thinks multiplayer is an easy thing to add and should just be in every game by default. I don't know a lot about netcode, but i'm pretty sure it would be literally impossible to add multiplayer to Teardown lol. But anyway yeah this sort of thing sucks, I agree. A lot of it comes from this mindset that every game needs to be live service in some way, but what really sucks is when players also buy into that idea. EDIT: I know that wasn't entirely the same situation as this, but I still felt like sharing cause I think it sorta fits in with the idea of people who are doing things mostly solo and being successful, but getting backlash for it without any real reason.
This EXACT thing you talk about was also stated by Dave Oshry of New Blood on Noclip podcast. They had a huge cashcow which is ULTRAKILL that has funded a slow but steady release of similar indie titles. They seem to enjoy the slow burn of making a couple interesting games rather than THE biggest game ever.
I've seen a lot of people be angry about video games in ways that indicate they're not playing the same game in the same universe I am. I don't know who's in the wrong universe, but the one I'm in has some pretty good early access games in it. Also, there's been weirdly little vitriol sent the way of my game compared to what some similarly sized good games in the same genre get. I don't know if it's purely because my game is free, that it runs on low-end hardware, that it's very difficult, or that it gets monthly updates, but *something* we're doing is making the game attract way fewer angry people than I would expect.
I have to wonder if we should just have the soft or hard crash now to shrink expectations for the medium, and come back renewed to make things that are fun to play. It feels like we're due a correction.
I am a solodev, now I will add procedural generation, multiplayer, complex economy, intelligent NPCs, multi-ending and it will have real-time, weather and seasons, that will totally get at least a 5/10 on these reviews hahahahaha.
Teardown is another solo-developed singleplayer game that had a similarly-confusing drama pop up around it recently. The guy decided to get a publisher because making a game on a custom engine by yourself is very hard, and that publisher then provided some extra help to work on expansions that are like, absolutely huge and practically their own games within Teardown's engine. It's really cool. But the amount of backlash he got just for getting a publisher and even doing paid expansions was crazy. It was a minority, sure, but a vocal one that was trying to be as loud as they could, it was obnoxious lol. It was a whole cacophony of complaints like "The game doesn't have enough content, and you want us to PAY for more?" even though the base game is like 10+ hours already, has replay value, and full mod support. There were people complaining that any kind of additions should just be free updates, regardless of the base game's size. And there was of course that one crowd that thinks multiplayer is an easy thing to add and should just be in every game by default. I don't know a lot about netcode, but i'm pretty sure it would be literally impossible to add multiplayer to Teardown lol. But anyway yeah this sort of thing sucks, I agree. A lot of it comes from this mindset that every game needs to be live service in some way, but what really sucks is when players also buy into that idea.
EDIT: I know that wasn't entirely the same situation as this, but I still felt like sharing cause I think it sorta fits in with the idea of people who are doing things mostly solo and being successful, but getting backlash for it without any real reason.
This EXACT thing you talk about was also stated by Dave Oshry of New Blood on Noclip podcast. They had a huge cashcow which is ULTRAKILL that has funded a slow but steady release of similar indie titles. They seem to enjoy the slow burn of making a couple interesting games rather than THE biggest game ever.
The ironic reality is that making "the biggest game ever" isn't sustainable anyways.
I've seen a lot of people be angry about video games in ways that indicate they're not playing the same game in the same universe I am. I don't know who's in the wrong universe, but the one I'm in has some pretty good early access games in it.
Also, there's been weirdly little vitriol sent the way of my game compared to what some similarly sized good games in the same genre get. I don't know if it's purely because my game is free, that it runs on low-end hardware, that it's very difficult, or that it gets monthly updates, but *something* we're doing is making the game attract way fewer angry people than I would expect.
Right on point Chet!
Have a nice day! :)
I have to wonder if we should just have the soft or hard crash now to shrink expectations for the medium, and come back renewed to make things that are fun to play. It feels like we're due a correction.
I am a solodev, now I will add procedural generation, multiplayer, complex economy, intelligent NPCs, multi-ending and it will have real-time, weather and seasons, that will totally get at least a 5/10 on these reviews hahahahaha.
Portal is one of my favorite games of all time . . . but it accounts for only a small fraction of the total time I've spent playing games in my life.