business - Fortress of Doors

Degraded Blockchains

The minute you connect your blockchain to an app frontend you now have a degraded blockchain, one that cannot even in principle guarantee immutability, trustlessness, and decentralization – at least not for assets that the app's customers actually care about.

roblox

So You Want to Compete with Roblox

My inbox is stuffed with pitches from start-ups wanting to compete with Roblox, that plucky Lego-ish multiplayer game-creation platform currently valued at 41 billion dollars. They shouldn't try, but here's how to maybe not fail if they insist anyways.

fnf

The Future of Games is an Instant Flash to the past

The success of an open source browser game called Friday Night Funkin tells us where "instant games" might go. Hint: we've been here before.

gamedatacrunch

GameDataCrunch: my facts-first game metrics website

I'm working on a new website called GameDataCrunch.com, a new way to understand the game industry by looking at metrics and slicing them up in a bunch of different ways.

steam

So You Want To Compete With Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache

Four new competitors have emerged to take on Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache. Let's see how they stack up.

steam

Operation Tell Valve All The Things, 3.0

I surveyed a bunch of Steam developers and they told me how they feel about recent developments.

steam

So You Want To Compete With Steam

This article also available in: Russian translation by HTR Mobile Uzbek translation by Drawings Team) I get a lot of pitches for "Steam competitors" in my inbox. 99% of them are doomed to failure, but the worst part is the vast majority are doomed before they even start.

business

Stores vs. Developers vs. Customers vs. Publishers

All of the major game stores (Steam, GOG, Origin, Uplay, itch, etc) serve different groups at the same time, many of which have competing interests. Broadly speaking, they are: Customers Developers Publishers The store platforms themselves You'll often hear complaints about various stores (Steam, most commonly). But something that's not

steam

Steam Discovery 2.0, Stegosaurus Tail 2.0

Our game Defender's Quest will be five years old in just a few days, which is a good opportunity for a retrospective on how Steam has changed in that time. On November 8th of this year, Steam launched its much anticipated Discovery update 2.0. I've written previously about the

open source

How We Paid Our Open Source Taxes

Open Source libraries tend to have two problems: Not enough funding Not enough contributors* *Particularly concerning when you consider the Bus Factor. When you're maintaining an open source library, and you're not getting paid for it, and nobody's helping you, and you're constantly fielding complaints from users that this or

4currencies

G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies

I never thought the day would come where I would passionately argue that fans should pirate my game rather than pay for it, but here we are. That's conditional, of course. If you're going to be buying Defender's Quest from us then knock yourself out! But if you're going to

dq1

Supporting a single-player Indie RPG for Four Years

It's hard to believe, but on January 19th 2016, four whole years will have passed since we first released our game Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. What's even harder to believe is that we're still actively supporting it with patches and updates, with the biggest one of all soon

4currencies

Ad Blockers and the Four Currencies

Apple recently allowed Ad-blocking in iOS 9. Some people responded like this: Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth. There's more nuanced takes, but these two are the best, the first elegantly showing how Apple is a master of cynically

steam

Mods, Salutary Neglect, and Storks

Okay so let's talk about this whole Steam Workshop paid mods thing, the internet freakout, and its subsequent reversal. Some very good points have been brought up by the "against" crowd, among them: No try-before-you-buy No strong assurance of refunds or support Mods are often interdependent, fear of

business

Game Maker, Security, and Freedom

So Game Maker just got bought by a gambling company, and as the ancients have foretold, the gnarled old Lars has duly appeared from his hermitage with semi-inflammatory opinions on the subject: XNA: abandoned. Flash: neglected. GameMaker: sold. Your proprietary tool could be next. Open Source.

defender's quest

I Wish Upon a Steam

I write about Steam a lot, because they hold my fate in their hands like a tiny bird. (Photo by Chris Yarzab, link) Given the recent flood of games onto Steam, I had high hopes for the long-awaited Discovery update, which introduced "organic" traffic channels such as customized

defender's quest

Steam Traffic Patterns Deep Dive

So in a previous article I talked about the Steam Discoverability update (which I'm calling "NewSteam"). One of the big new features was a detailed traffic analysis, which Steam has explicitly given me permission to share with the public. Although we can't talk about sales except indirectly (or

steam

Why are we releasing DQ1HD as a free upgrade?

We recently announced an HD re-release of Defender's Quest 1, and that it will be a free upgrade. Some people want to know why. Specifically, two things prompted me to write this article: This thread on our steam page by long-time DQ fan Whisperling, advising us not to release as

steam

Fixing Steam's User Rating Charts

Recently I wrote a big article about the new changes in Steam, and rendered my judgment: cautiously optimistic. After further reflection, my position is unchanged -- most of it's very good, but some things need work. NOTE: Although my tone throughout is quite critical, make no mistake, I am a

defender's quest

Brave NewSteam World

Over two years ago I wrote an article called The Holy Grail of Digital Distribution where I described what an ideal digital game store might look like. In the last two weeks, Steam launched their long-anticipated storefront overhaul (which I'll call "NewSteam"), and I think it's time to

business

Follow Your Dreams!...Or Maybe Don't.

I am filled with absolute terror whenever I get a message like this in my inbox: "You inspired me to quit my job to make indie games!" (emphasis mine) For those of you new to this blog, my name is Lars Doucet, I'm an independent game developer, and

defender's quest

Was Localizing Defender's Quest Worth It?

Let's find out. First of all, our total sales to date, across all PC portals for the original Defender's Quest are: $656,000 USD gross 195,000 units sold Next, our monthly sales on Steam: (No y-axis label because Steam doesn't like us being too specific about exact sales on

dq2

Will that crowdfunded game ever actually ship?

So you come across a neat-looking new game on Kickstarter. It's got fancy concept art, it has some big names involved, and their pitch is really convincing! Surely this will be the game of our dreams? Well, maybe not. The failure of the Yogscast game is

business

Dear Adobe: Support Haxe, save your Tools

Dear Adobe, My name is Lars Doucet, I'm a game developer; I can proudly say that I have been using your tools, and Flash in particular, for over 15 years. I love your tools, I think they're great, and I would be really sad to see the Flash ecosystem die

steam

An Algorithm for Discovering "Hidden Gems"

So you've probably seen that Ars Technica article that has magically reverse-engineered every steam game's gross (sales+free-key-redemption) numbers.Everyone's talking about this graph:The obvious first statement is "WOWS! Video games are a hit-driven business!!!" For what it's worth, our game Defender's Quest is probably located somewhere