本文原作者：Jeff Vogel 译者ciel chen

“我们的游戏叫做Mystik Spiral. 那是一个交互式侵略型独立游戏，主题是墨守成规的企业文化的弊端。在Steam上发行，支持Windows和Mac系统，游戏平台仅支持Xbox One”

在过去几年来，我的两篇文章《Indie Bubble》和《Indie Glut》受到了很多的关注。（甚至为此在GDC上讲话了。）

我们快速地过一遍游戏历史：2010年左右，由于各种因素（AAA型创新停滞、出现更好的开发工具、有了更好的网上商城销售游戏），独立游戏开始沸沸扬扬地流行起来了，并且赚了不少钱。在一小段时间里，如果能拿到那张“金门票”——在Steam上架一款游戏，这意味着你能狠狠地赚一笔。这是“独立游戏泡沫（Indie Bubble）”时期。

想要开发电视游戏的人（比方说……每个人）看到了这种景象后就一头扎进去了，“嘿，我想发财，也想圆梦啊！”成群的开发者进入了独立游戏市场。于是出现了好多好多可以玩的独立游戏，没人想过会有这么多。“这是独立游戏过剩（Indie Glut）”阶段。

最后，我可以完成我的文章三部曲了。现在我们可以看看四周，看看结果怎样，这个阶段我怀疑永远不会变了。（除非地球被太阳耀斑摧毁我们才可以从头来过。）

如果不能把握基本现实状况，你是做不成生意的。恩，这个话题挺值得我们缅怀的，所以再聊一次吧。对现实的恰当理解将会帮我们处理很多其他方面的复杂事件（比如，苹果和Steam会付费给开发者让他们把游戏上架到他们的商店里，或者永恒的“可发现性”问题）。

为了看看我们处在哪一个阶段，就来说说一个关于经久不衰、属于年轻人的创新之路：组乐队。

我觉得如果我懂得一点音乐的话这会变得很有趣。有人能帮我把这个转换成《吉他英雄（Guitar Hero）》的谱吗？我想我可能得学学怎么弹奏那些橘色的音符了。

音乐人的故事

几十年来，已经有很多的年轻人，他们怀揣着热情和创造力去追求梦想、力量和年少的雄心壮志——通过成立乐队，他们达成了自己的夙愿。

为什么不呢？要学会一样乐器、写歌、开演奏会、发行一张唱片等等是需要相当多的技巧和艺术天赋的，所以乐队就像一块海绵很好地吸收了过剩的野心和能量。但是乐队所需的能量并非高的吓人，所以任何人都可以组建乐队。

通常，乐队是大众流行文化的对立面。“去你的整容、AAA级、批发、没有灵魂的垃圾Katy Perry!我们即将创作的才是真正的艺术。”这是一个价值爆棚的目标，尽管有99.999%的时候他们是做不到。

当然了，大部分乐队最后都解散了。毕竟，大多数乐队都挺吓人的。即使他们没那么吓人，不过他们会长大变老、会失去激情、会失去梦想、会受到生活的干涉、会去做保险销售员或者其他的什么、他们的唱片demo会在阁楼上积灰、被他们遗忘，然后等他们有了孩子，他们的孩子又开始成立自己的乐队。

不过并不是所有人最后都放弃了。只有极少数的乐队，通过他们不同乐器不同技巧的组合、搭配，再加上运气，他们真的成功了，而且把音乐做成了事业。其他的音乐人可能做了自由职业者或者在商业环境下营生（音乐工作室、演唱会公司等等）。还有剩下的，他们那该死的灵魂被困住了，缺乏天赋又无法放弃，很长(真的非常非常长)的一生都活在失败的音乐人的阴影之中。

大部分人都放弃了（或者把艺术作为爱好）。这没什么关系。比起音乐人，这个世界更需要修水管的。

但是，赤裸无情的现实是：想作为一个音乐人（演员、作家、舞者）来过活的人，能让他们胜任的工作实在是太少了。

有一段时间，你不得不面对这个问题。迪士尼电影和《爱乐之城》欺骗了你——在某一个时刻，你的拒绝放弃慢慢带你走向一个受人崇拜的烈性年轻人的消亡，最后成为了一个警世的寓言故事。

无论如何，这大概就是这件事的整个套路了。长期以来，但凡有所天赋、激情和时间的年轻人都会将其投之于乐队上，有些人发家了。剩下的就是另外一回事了。

现在你可能明白是怎么一回事了

跟三五好友聚在一起编写一款游戏就像组建一个新乐队。这不是将要发生的事，这已经是事实了。

很多人写过有关大量游戏涌入Steam平台的事。而我写这篇文章的时候，单单上个礼拜就发行了125款新游戏——绝对没人能想象到有这么多游戏。这也是为什么Steam很难做到让每个新游戏都能被看见的原因。说句实在话，没什么人会想喝从消防水管里喷出来的水。

不相信我？你自己看吧！

来看看吧，独立游戏上新速度很快，所以它们大部分都是昙花一现，他们的创作者很快就会从公众视线里永远消失。

这里有个有趣的小把戏——写下Steam最近发行的10款游戏。然后等一个月，再看看他们在SteamSpy的销量如何。你会发现很少游戏能有后续销量。每个游戏的制作人都是一个玩乐队的孩子（这并没有什么不对的地方）。

这下也没必要再为电视游戏过剩阶段预测什么结局了。因为它已经成为现实进入我们的生活中了。乐队没有消失，还有数以亿计这样的乐队呢；做海量游戏的人们也不会消失，他们会是那些乐队里的一份子。这样的人不会减少，他们会源源不断地贡献出他们的热情打造出有自动生成系统的Roguelike 2-D平台游戏（现在可以是VR游戏了！！！！）。

这是为什么“独立游戏末日”这个辞藻毫无意义。因为其他领域也照样有这样的情况，但是没人会说什么音乐末日、演员末日、作家末日之类的。因为它现在就是生活的一部分而已。

这是个新的日常。所以，如果你有觉悟，想要走这条路，那你必须知道要如何应对它。

有趣的商业小贴士！当你开始看到这样的文章的时候，你已经对该信息的掌握落伍了。

屏蔽不会改变任何现状

我之所以说到这个情况，是因为经常有人在谈论到Steam平台的游戏热潮时，他们好像总觉得大部分游戏都是垃圾，觉得Steam应该屏蔽调这些垃圾游戏。

我用一整篇文章来写过关于这一部分东西，因为本来文章实在太长了，所以我就把有用的部分直接拿出来讲。我在这里就帮大家点一点：

Steam不喜欢屏蔽游戏，他们讨厌这样。

就算他们屏蔽了，至少有一半以上的游戏会留下来，因为这些游戏够好。所以，照样独立游戏还是多得数不清。

花在Steam上架的费用也是花，花在Itunes上架的费用也是花，两者的效果差不多。或者说，根本没差。

Steam和Itunes都没有可发现性问题。他们和消费者都没什么问题，问题出在开发者身上，诶。

游戏开发专业的大学文凭

大学，实际上，就是交易。他们收费来提供一样产品（学位）。就像务实精明的商人，当他们看到电视游戏活了，他们就会跻身跃入这个行业，以10万美金的税后报酬为交换条件，然后会慷慨地给你一张纸证明你知道怎么做游戏。

我曾经写过关于大学电视游戏学位的文章。我没有什么要补充的，除了你最好别再机会渺茫得不现实的情况下去学一张这样的文凭。

你可能在电视游戏产业上干着终身事业。嗨，什么都有可能发生的。但是电视游戏是一个艺术领域。写好一个电视游戏程序是很难的（就像成为一个全职音乐人一样难），而且这当中很大一部分的人的灵感在中年以前就燃烧到尽头了。

想要一张电视游戏专业的文凭？可以。但是你会想像得到——比如说吹长号的文凭一样来得到电视游戏专业的文凭吗？你也许会是游戏制作的成员中的一员，但是你最好还是要有个强有力的备用计划。

全球化竞争！

在Vidya geams.biz上的竞争将会变得更加可怕。游戏开发已经越发成为全球化的活动了，这意味着不仅有更多的游戏竞争对手要打败，还有更多的价格下行压力。

“供需法则”已经让我们知道当在供（游戏）过于求时，价格会被无情地打压。（这解释了Steam和Humble Bunble上的高折价现象。）当看到独立游戏者哀怨地请求同行加入他们来保持游戏的价格，在经济学内容面前却只能是徒劳无功，我感到很悲哀。（尽管我要提示一下，如果你们的商业模式需要价格垄断来存过，那这种模式可能有些缺陷。）

不过价格依旧是要跌的，因为你将和第三世界的开发者进行更加激烈的竞争。现在竞争的日子就已经很难熬了？等到你用十分之一的生活成本在一个城市跟谁在竞争，这个谁可以只收一美元的游戏购买费而依旧过得很好。

是的，无论你之前对你的游戏抱有多悲观的想法，事实依旧比这还要惨。

所以要如何才能成功呢？

一个真正好游戏总会让人感觉耳目一新、构架可靠，并且能够成功通过席卷式传播或者好的PR手段得到关注。就像有些乐队还是能致富的，你也可以的。

你只需要守望着那些难得的机会，借机做款这样的游戏：它要是【经典流传的】，但得要用点新的方式来做些【细微的改变】——就比如16-bit的《牧场物语系列（Harvest Moon）》，或者2-D的《我的世界（Minecraft）》,或者有着地狱般枪林弹雨战斗系统的日式角色扮演游戏，或者是设置有更多Huniepop的《Huniepop》。

总有方法能致富——你需要的就是足够出色，适时察觉到合适的机会，再加上一点运气，然后努力做出一款棒极的游戏。

我堪忧的未来

当“Indie Bubble”发生的时候，我超出自己想象地狠赚了一笔。然后我把钱存起来了。在很长一段时间里，我见证过繁荣与萧条，我知道人必须存点之前赚的钱来为将来做打算。

但是游戏行业对于小型开发团队（如果你不是写出《我的世界》的开发团队，你就属于小型团队）来说就总是处在萧条的阶段且没有尽头的。所以现在我问自己：“我怎么样才能在开发新游戏和重制旧游戏之间做出选择来让Spiderweb Software继续存活20年直到我退休呢。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Quick version of indie gaming history: In 2010 or so, due to a combination of factors (AAA creative stagnation, better development tools, better online stores to sell on), indie games caught on in a big way and made a ton of money. For a short time, getting the Golden Ticket and landing a game on Steam was guaranteed big cash. This was the “Indie Bubble” phase.

People who wanted to write a video game (i.e. everyone) saw this and went, “Hey, I wanna get rich following my dreams too!” There was a big pile-on. MANY indie games became available, more than anyone actually wanted. This was the “Indie Glut” phase.

At last, I can complete the trilogy of articles. Now we can look around and see where we’ve ended up, a phase which I suspect will be permanent. (At least until the Earth gets hit by a large solar flare and we get to start over.)

You can’t deal with this business without grasping its fundamental reality. So it’s worth wallowing in this topic one more time. A proper understanding of reality will help us process a lot of otherwise perplexing issues (like Apple or Steam charging devs to have games on their store, or the ever-present “discoverability problem).

To see where we are, let’s talk about a long-standing rite of passage for young creative types: Starting a band.
I think this would be really funny if I knew anything at all about music. Can someone translate it into a Guitar Hero chart for me? I think it means I have to learn how to play the orange notes.

The Story of Being a Musician

For decades, many young, enthusiastic, creative people have worked through their dreams, energy, and youthful ambition by forming bands.

Why not? It’s takes a fair amount of technical and artistic aptitude to learn an instrument, write songs, get gigs, press a CD, etc., so it’s a good sponge to soak up excess ambition and energy. But it’s not a prohibitive amount of energy, so just about anyone can start a band.

Usually, this band is a reaction against corporate pop culture. “Screw your plastic, AAA, mass-produced, soulless Katy Perry crap! We’re going to create real art.” This is an entirely worthwhile goal, even if it fails 99.999% of the time.

Of course, most bands die. After all, most bands are terrible. Even if they aren’t, people grow older. They lose their energy. Their dreams die. Life intervenes. They get jobs as insurance adjusters or whatever. Their demo CDs get stuck in the attic, forgotten, and then they have kids. Who start their own bands.

Not everyone gives up, though. A tiny handful of bands, through a combination of skill, connections, and luck, become actual successes and make careers out of it. Other musicians make a living as freelancers or working in a business environment (studio musicians, corporate gigs, etc). Others, the damned souls, trapped between a lack of talent and an inability to quit, live long (looooong) lives as failed musicians.

Most quit (or do art as a hobby). This is ok. The world needs plumbers far more than it needs musicians.

But the hard inexorable math of the thing is this: There are far more people who want to make a living as a musician (actor, writer, dancer) then there are paying jobs they can occupy.

There comes a time when you have to face this. Disney movies and La La Land lied to you. There is a point where refusing to give up makes you stop being an admirable young spitfire and start being a cautionary tale.

Anyway, this is the basic cycle of the thing. For the last few decades, younger people with a certain amount of talent, energy, and time could soak all that into starting a band. A few prospered. The rest went on to other things.
The current location on Steam of the New Releases chart. (Artist’s conception.)

You Probably Figured Out Where This Is Going

Getting together with some friends and writing a game is the new Starting a Band. I’m not saying this is going to happen. It already has.

Plenty has been written about the flood of games appearing on Steam. As I write this, 125 in the last week alone. More games than anyone wants, that’s for sure. That’s why Steam has made it very difficult to see all new releases. Let’s be honest. Almost nobody cares to drink from this firehose.

Don’t believe me? Check it out yourself!

It is very instructive to look at these new releases, which is why the site What’s On Steam, which just shows all new releases, is useful. Take a look. New titles appear FAST. Most of them will bomb, and their creators will vanish from the public view forever.

Here’s a fun trick. Write down the most recent 10 Steam games released. Wait a month. Check their sales on SteamSpy. (Bear in mind you need a few sales to appear on SteamSpy at all.) You will see very few games that get any traction. Each of their creators is just another kid who started a band (and there’s nothing wrong with that).

There’s no need anymore to predict the endgame for the video game glut. It’s happened. We’re living it. Bands haven’t gone away. There’s still a billion of them. People making lots of video games won’t go away. There’ll always be a billion of them, offering their hot take of the procedurally generated Roguelike 2-D platformer (now in VR!!!!!).

This is why “Indiepocalypse” is such a useless term. Other fields have exactly the same situation, but nobody talks about the Musicianpocalypse or the Actorpocalypse or the Writerpocalypse. It’s just part of life.

This is the new normal. So, if you are one of the doomed souls who is determined to make a living in this business, you must figure out how to deal with it.
Fun business tip! When you start seeing articles like this, you’ve already missed the boat.

Curation Won’t Make a Difference

Here’s what gets me about the situation. Often, when people talk about the flood of games on Steam, they act like it’s mostly trash and Steam should just curate most of it away.

I wrote a whole article’s worth of stuff in this section, but this post is already stupid long, so I chopped it out to post on its own. I’ll bullet point it for you:

1. Steam doesn’t want to curate. They hate it.
2. Even if they did curate, at least half of the stuff would remain, because it’s good enough. It’d still be a flood.
3. A fee to get on Steam won’t change anything any more than the fee to get on iTunes did. In other words, not at all.
4. Steam and iTunes don’t have a discoverability problem. They and their customers are doing great. Developers are the ones who have the problem. Nyeah.

College Degrees In Game Development

Colleges are, for all practical purposes, businesses. They charge a fee and provide a product (your degree). Like good, practical businessmen, when they saw video games get hot, they jumped forward and generously offered to give you, in return for over $100K USD of post-tax money, a piece of paper that claims you know how to make them.

I’ve written about college video game degrees before. I don’t have much more to add to that, except to say you shouldn’t get one without being realistic about your chances.

You might have a lifelong career in video games. Hey, anything’s possible. But video games are an artistic field. Writing a successful video game is HARD (like becoming a full-time musician), and a huge portion of the field burns out of it before they hit middle age.

Want a degree in video games? Fine. But you may want to approach it like getting a college degree in, say, playing the trombone. You might be one of the ones who makes it, but you’d damned well better have a solid Plan B.
Steam tried to get me to pay full price for an indie game. My face when.

Global Competition!

The competition in the vidya gaems biz is going to get even more gruesome. Development is starting to become far more of a global activity. This will mean not only more titles to fight, but more downward price pressure.

The Law of Supply and Demand already tells us that when there is a glut of supply (games) and roughly constant demand, prices will be pushed inexorably downward. (Which explains deep discount Steam sales and Humble Bundle.) I’ve sadly watched indie devs plaintively asking their fellows to join them in trying to keep prices high, only to see those efforts get ground to dust by the inexorable gears of Economics 101.

(Though I would note that if your business model requires Price Fixing to survive, it may be a bit flawed.)

But prices will get even lower, because you will increasingly compete against developers in the third world. Having a hard time competing now? Wait until you’re fighting someone in a country with 1/10 the cost of living of yours. Someone who can charge $1 USD a copy and still make out great.

Yeah. However pessimistic you were feeling about your game’s chances before, it’s even worse than that.

So What Does It Take To Succeed?

A really good game that feels fresh and new and is solid and also manages to, through going viral or really good PR work, get attention. Sometimes bands still get rich. So can you.

You just need to watch for those rare opportunities to make a game that says, “It’s Like [Popular Thing], but [Some Small Change].” in a new way. “It’s like Harvest Moon, but 16-bit.” “It’s like Minecraft, but 2-D.” “It’s like a JRPG, but with bullet hell shooter combat.” “It’s like Huniepop, but more Huniepop.”

There will always be ways to get rich. All you have to do is be brilliant, spot the right opportunity at the right time, have at least a little luck, and then make an amazing product.
This is all getting depressing, so, to cheer you up, I added a picture of an adorable doggo.

My Grim Future

When the Indie Bubble happened, I made a bunch of money. More than I deserved. And then I saved it. I’d been around long enough to see both booms and busts, and I knew you had to save during the former to prepare for the latter.

But the games business for small developers (and if you are an indie developer who didn’t write Minecraft, you are a small developer) is in a bust phase that won’t end. So now I’m asking myself, “How am I, between new games and remastering old ones, going to stretch Spiderweb Software for 20 years and reach retirement.”

It’s scary. I don’t know if I can do it. Our newest game, Avadon 3, didn’t do that well. I think it’s a really good game, and the people who bought it seem to like it. But there are new RPGs coming out on Steam every single workday, some of them are good, and you can only hold off so much competition before being overwhelmed.

Next year, I am going to write an all new game engine and series. I think it’s going to be really neat and different from what I’ve done before, and I’m excited about it. But I’ll tell you this: Its development is going to be LEAN AND MEAN.

I’m using as little custom art and music as I can. (Working title is “Unity Asset Store: The Game.”) Any way I can cut costs and still maintain a constant art style and game quality, I will take it, and I won’t apologize. This market doesn’t allow for blowing money unnecessarily anymore, at least not for me.

If you criticize me for that, feel free. It’s your right. I’ll just think of the developers who, during the Indie Bubble, flush with easy Steam money, made fun of my development style TO MY FACE. Developers who are sadly no longer in business. While I keep plugging along in my humble little bottom feeder way.

My goal is to prove you can live an entire fulfilling career writing indie games. From college to old age, all the way through. I’m over halfway there. But man, the next two decades are looking like a long road.

I’m Done Writing About This

This blog has been focused on the indie business for the last few years, and I’m mostly done with that topic. I believe we are in a stable phase now, so there isn’t much else to say. I think that most gamers don’t actually care. They don’t care about business stuff. They just want to talk about games and how awesome they are.

I write this blog to get attention for myself, because it’s really hard for a small developer to get attention. From here on, I want to write outrageous funny things about games in the hope that I get a little attention and something goes viral and I pick up a handful of customers along the way.

Good luck to everyone in this business. Unless you’re directly competing with me, in which case I wish you luck in some other business.

And if you want to make a living in games and need some advice, here it is: Write a VR game. It’s TOTALLY going to be the NEXT BIG THING and not a faddish washout AT ALL.（source：gamasutra.com）