How to make game for steam?

[Lucrecious]

The indie game market is extremely saturated - there are a ton of great indie games on Steam that will never see the light of day simply because of the sheer amounts of games released daily on the platform.

For reference, over 4000 games were released on Steam in 2016, that’s about 10 games released a day on average.

This is why, unless you have a lot of money, a lot of time and a great development team, you shouldn’t be focusing on making a decent living off indie games. Focus on making a great game, put it on Steam and market it as well as you can. Don’t expect to become a millionaire, because you probably won’t.

“How to make game for steam?” First things first - make the fucking game.

Also, I wouldn’t really take Leinadien’s advice on his “order of importance” list, seeing most successful games on Steam focus first on gameplay, then graphics and then story. Leinadien has it backwards lol

I mean just look at the platinum best sellers for 2016 on Steam - only Fallout 4 and No Man’s Sky have a “focus” on story (and that’s being generous).

For indie games, it’s pretty much (1) gameplay, (2) graphics, and (3) story. Here’s a random top 58 indie games on Steam list that I found on Google. The only indie games there with a focus on story are Undertale and, maybe, the Stanley Parable. Again, to say that these games focus on story first is a bit of a stretch.

If you want to learn how to make good games, the first thing you should do is make some games. I can’t think of a single indie developer that has created a masterpiece game on their first attempt at creating a game ever. You should also play and analyze good/successful games. Take note of elements that make a good game good. Do the same with bad games - what makes a bad game bad? Listen to GDC talks and other developer talks. Lastly, if you get really into it, read some books on game design (although, imo, this last one isn’t really necessary).

99% of people on this forum don’t know how to make a game, let alone a good one. It’s up to you to figure out how to do it. So, don’t just take my word for it - do some research as well.

[Leinadien]

The indie game market is extremely saturated - there are a ton of great indie games on Steam that will never see the light of day simply because of the sheer amounts of games released daily on the platform.

How do you know nobody sees them? I see them and I wouldn’t want to play them. You call them great indie games most probably don’t agree since the games aren’t selling well. You could say the same about movies, nobody cares for 20 minute shorts of a group of teens talking to a ghost or shooting laser guns. You underestimate what people are willing to waste their time and money on. If the games don’t sell well they’re bad games.

Don’t expect to become a millionaire, because you probably won’t.

Unless you know what kind of game you would play. I know what kind of game I would play and it’s not running around as ketchup. If you have in your mind a game that you would want to play even when there are games like Assasin’s creed or Dark souls around, make that game and it’s going to make you rich. If you have no respect for your audience and makes some mediocre play as a cabbage game or some other terrible idea then expect not to be rich.

Also, I wouldn’t really take Leinadien’s advice on his “order of importance” list, seeing most successful games on Steam focus first on gameplay, then graphics and then story. Leinadien has it backwards lol

No you’ve got it wrong, any kind of gameplay if done right is fun. A racing game could be fun, a shooting game could be fun, a platformer could be fun, a rpg could be fun. All of them could be fun if done right, does it matter what kind of gameplay you choose, not really. What’s most important is that it’s simple because you’re one person and creating a real time strategy game probably isn’t a good idea. What’s far more important is story and by story I don’t just mean “go save the princess” I mean cutscenes, an intro, an ending, some middle act, interesting characters to play as and fight. After that comes graphics, generally you want to keep it simple because you’re one person, cartoony look to the characters can be done right. You can look at Disney for reference, the gameplay isn’t that important, the game is going to have some kind of gameplay, the important thing is just to make the gameplay a good version of whatever genre of game you’re working on. Also about gameplay, I wound’t really call gameplay a large portion of the game. As most of us ought to know by now, a guy in a room shooting at incoming cubes. It’s not really what makes a game great, there are tons of shooter games, tons of racing games, tons of platformers with almost identical gameplay, what makes some better than others is the setting, the characters and the story and of course graphics.

1. Story, characters, setting.
2. Graphics, camera animation, music.
3. Gameplay, some problem that the player has to solve.

I mean just look at the platinum best sellers for 2016 on Steam - only Fallout 4 and No Man’s Sky have a “focus” on story (and that’s being generous).

They’re all different kinds of games, all with different types of gameplay. You can change the gameplay for anything and the games would still be of such a quality that people would but the games. It’s not the gameplay that makes these games great, it’s what the gameplay is wrapped in. On your lists every type of gameplay is listed, which proves my point. It doesn’t matter what kind of gameplay it is as long as it’s presented well.

And to be honest from looking at the top indie sellers, the games are quite terrible. If you have such a low opinion of yourself that you don’t think you could make a better game than stardew valley or Braid I don’t know what to say. Uninspired, lack of imagination? What’s most important is story, characters, setting, graphics, music, any kind of gameplay will do.

[cadaei]

This is a great reference for game design:

The Art Of Game Design

Has some really interesting discussions on what play is, what makes something fun, how to balance difficulty so as not to frustrate a player.

Like others have said - go make a game!

[Dantus]

@Leinadien, you have a very strong opinion of what a good game is for you and what the important aspects are in your opinion. It would be great if it was that simple to create a commercially successful game. If everyone would like to play the same kind of game, only games which are made in the way you described would be top sellers, but that’s clearly not the case. I am sure you could find an audience for this kind of game, but it is not a magic bullet. You seem to like cutscenes a lot too, yet there are many players who start to push all the buttons very hard because they want to continue playing the game.
There are very successful games which have absolutely no story or a story no one ever cared about. Flappy Bird, Goat Simulator, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy are just some examples.

There is a broad range of games that can be successful, that’s why I think it doesn’t help to have such a narrow view.

[Leinadien]

There are very successful games which have absolutely no story or a story no one ever cared about. Flappy Bird, Goat Simulator, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy are just some examples.

To put such games on a pedestal would be a diservice to the medium, games can be just as deep and thought provoking as movies maybe even books. There once existed soap operas on tv, a fumbling dad that makes stupid jokes to a laugh track. If we were discussing movies you would throw that at me and say that movies or tv series don’t need stories or good cinematography or graphical quality. A fat dad that makes bad jokes to a laugh track are popular! Yeah guess what also is popular, Justin Bieber.

You can’t equate something of poor quality with something that is genuinly good just because they’re equally popular. Also most of the people who buy super meat boy are very special people, from what I can recall you run around as a baby and fight poop monsters. Dude listen, I have no special recipe of how to make a perfect game but gameplay is not as important as you think. What’s far more important is what I mentioned earlier, this applies to all mediums of art.

I’ll give you this in multiplayer games, gameplay is most important. Because then it’s not about story or graphics, then it’s about interaction with other players, that is more important than everything else.

[Dantus]

@Leinadien

To put such games on a pedestal would be a diservice to the medium, games can be just as deep and thought provoking as movies maybe even books. There once existed soap operas on tv, a fumbling dad that makes stupid jokes to a laugh track. If we were discussing movies you would throw that at me and say that movies or tv series don’t need stories or good cinematography or graphical quality. A fat dad that makes bad jokes to a laugh track are popular! Yeah guess what also is popular, Justin Bieber.

You can’t equate something of poor quality with something that is genuinly good just because they’re equally popular. Also most of the people who buy super meat boy are very special people, from what I can recall you run around as a baby and fight poop monsters. Dude listen, I have no special recipe of how to make a perfect game but gameplay is not as important as you think. What’s far more important is what I mentioned earlier, this applies to all mediums of art.

I’ll give you this in multiplayer games, gameplay is most important. Because then it’s not about story or graphics, then it’s about interaction with other players, that is more important than everything else.

This thread is about successful games, about commercially successful games. It is not about what you consider to be a good game and which qualities you think a game should have. You can not guarantee that if a game has those qualities that it is automagically popular.
I love Mario games, but according to your definition, they are not good and I should especially pay a lot more attention to its ugly story. I enjoy Minecraft, just because I can build stuff in this world and I can explore it and I can be creative in totally ugly ways, but I play it without any story! At the same time I enjoy games like Heavy Rain which are all about the story. I am a fan of games like Thomas was not Alone or Dear Esther, which have a story and are executed in very different ways.

Not every game needs a deeper meaning or a story. They exist to entertain people. If it is well done, it can be an amazing or even ground breaking game, even if it has no story. Some games simply don’t need it.

[Lucrecious]

@Dantus

Not every game needs a deeper meaning or a story. They exist to entertain people. If it is well done, it can be an amazing or even ground breaking game, even if it has no story. Some games simply don’t need it.

I would argue that unless your game is story based, like Heavy Rain, any of the Telltale Games or Dear Esther, most games don’t need a story at all. So I agree with you mostly.

Look at the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The story quests are less than 10% of the game, and most of my hours were spent on non-story related things. If you look at BotW let’s plays on YouTube, the players barely spend time on story, they just go around doing their own thing.

I agree, there are multiple ways of making great successful games, but the majority of successful games are gameplay-based, not story based (again, refer to indie list + platinum Steam list for 2016). I, personally, don’t think story-based games are good because they defeat the entire purpose of a game, so games like Heavy Rain don’t appeal to me. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad product - it’s good for what it is, I just wouldn’t call it a good game.

In any case, like I’ve said before, graphics market games well, but gameplay sells them best (if anything really). A great example is Rocket League, it looks pretty nice, but the gameplay is what really made it a phenomenon (to the point where it’s an e-sport now).

[Leinadien]

I rarely play games, I find that most people stop playing games when they reach adult hood. I still read books and watch movies though. At the risk of sounding arrogant, let’s face it most games are designed for children or teenagers. That you’re enjoying minecraft and super mario and zelda says more about you than it does about the quality of the game. Games haven’t matured as an art form just yet, but as a generation of gamers grow older and wiser they might desire more from games than the, pardon my french, same old shit.

What I think you’re failing at understanding is that the gameplay itself isn’t the actual game, shooting a gun would be considered gameplay, you can modify how you aim, perhaps the camera angle at which you aim, maybe you want to jump but these things is like deciding a nice color to paint your room in. It’s not the most important aspect of a game nor what makes a game interesting to play. In fact in most games the gameplay is filler, they’re problems presented to the player to get from point A to point B. Whatever takes place between point A and point B can be changed, let’s race a car from point A to point B, or shoot at incoming enemies, or jump on boxes.

It doesn’t matter, there are popular games within each genre of game. The genre is defined by what the gameplay is like, so I repeat gameplay does not matter much unless you’re dealing with an online game. What matters more is the experience of going between point A and B. Story, music, characters, setting. Now I’m not labeling you guys anything but it’s common knowledge that hardcore gamers, people who makes a replicate of a star trek ship in minecraft or spend hours in simulator games, they’re not exactly impressive human specimens. They might in fact be on the autism spectrum or they suffer from various diseases, perhaps obesity. The kind of people that want to ESCAPE reality not CELEBRATE it.

Children haven’t even faced reality yet, and I find that it might be the case that many “adults” also long to run around as a baby once more, they’re able to do that through super hero movies and minecraft games. You’ll find that most people would prefer to celebrate life and not escape it. I think a good game like good music and litterature should be inspring and beautiful. Who cares if you jump on boxes or shoot at enemies, that’s filler and can be done right with little effort. What’s hard is making the journey from A to B pleasant.

[Lucrecious]

I rarely play games

lol, and here you are giving advice on how to make good games, dkm

I find that most people stop playing games when they reach adult hood.

The average gamer age in 2016 was 35. Is 35 not adulthood yet? Or is the average gamer autistic? hahahaha

Now I’m not labeling you guys anything but it’s common knowledge that hardcore gamers, people who makes a replicate of a star trek ship in minecraft or spend hours in simulator games, they’re not exactly impressive human specimens. They might in fact be on the autism spectrum or they suffer from various diseases, perhaps obesity. The kind of people that want to ESCAPE reality not CELEBRATE it.

lol, got em’!! The great Leinadein strikes again!!!

I think a good game like good music and litterature should be inspring and beautiful. Who cares if you jump on boxes or shoot at enemies, that’s filler and can be done right with little effort. What’s hard is making the journey from A to B pleasant.

You don’t understand gameplay or games in general, which is why you don’t find games like Super Meat Boy, Braid or Limbo inspiring nor beautiful (even if you didn’t enjoy playing them). In relation to great literature, I can show you Moby Dick and 1984, but if you aren’t able to understand them, then you’d probably call them terrible - this just seems to be a common trend with you.

As an English and Literature minor, I read a great deal myself. I find that books also are a way of escaping reality, especially when their captivating. Same with movies. Same with any good art, actually… the escape from reality is not limited to video games.

Anyways, I’m just having a little fun before a moderator comes to close the thread since it’s gone completely off topic…

[Dantus]

@Leinadien

I rarely play games, I find that most people stop playing games when they reach adult hood. I still read books and watch movies though. At the risk of sounding arrogant, let’s face it most games are designed for children or teenagers. That you’re enjoying minecraft and super mario and zelda says more about you than it does about the quality of the game. Games haven’t matured as an art form just yet, but as a generation of gamers grow older and wiser they might desire more from games than the, pardon my french, same old shit.

Even if games were actually designed for children, would that automatically mean I am not allowed to play them? I guess I am not supposed to have fun playing them.
If you had an actual look and interest about how games evolved over the years, you could clearly see the progress they have made and you would notice more and more new ideas being explored especially thanks to indie developers.

@Leinadien

What I think you’re failing at understanding is that the gameplay itself isn’t the actual game, shooting a gun would be considered gameplay, you can modify how you aim, perhaps the camera angle at which you aim, maybe you want to jump but these things is like deciding a nice color to paint your room in. It’s not the most important aspect of a game nor what makes a game interesting to play. In fact in most games the gameplay is filler, they’re problems presented to the player to get from point A to point B. Whatever takes place between point A and point B can be changed, let’s race a car from point A to point B, or shoot at incoming enemies, or jump on boxes.

Games are an interactive medium where players spend most time using its gameplay. As such, that makes it the absolute core of every game. If that is just some sort of filling element, it is boring and means the game is not enjoyable, because again, that is the thing players spend by far most time with and hence it needs to be the best part of it.

@Leinadien

It doesn’t matter, there are popular games within each genre of game. The genre is defined by what the gameplay is like, so I repeat gameplay does not matter much unless you’re dealing with an online game. What matters more is the experience of going between point A and B. Story, music, characters, setting. Now I’m not labeling you guys anything but it’s common knowledge that hardcore gamers, people who makes a replicate of a star trek ship in minecraft or spend hours in simulator games, they’re not exactly impressive human specimens. They might in fact be on the autism spectrum or they suffer from various diseases, perhaps obesity. The kind of people that want to ESCAPE reality not CELEBRATE it.

The gameplay is a core element of the experience. I agree that the setting and the music play an important role as well, because they are visible and are being experienced while the player is actually playing the game.
Besides being a child, I am now also escaping reality. But I am glad you are not labeling anyone!

@Leinadien

Children haven’t even faced reality yet, and I find that it might be the case that many “adults” also long to run around as a baby once more, they’re able to do that through super hero movies and minecraft games. You’ll find that most people would prefer to celebrate life and not escape it. I think a good game like good music and litterature should be inspring and beautiful. Who cares if you jump on boxes or shoot at enemies, that’s filler and can be done right with little effort. What’s hard is making the journey from A to B pleasant.

Thanks for teaching me what is appropriate stuff for me and what not. Without you I would have been a lost soul, really appreciate it!

[Dantus]

@Lucrecious

I agree, there are multiple ways of making great successful games, but the majority of successful games are gameplay-based, not story based (again, refer to indie list + platinum Steam list for 2016). I, personally, don’t think story-based games are good because they defeat the entire purpose of a game, so games like Heavy Rain don’t appeal to me. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad product - it’s good for what it is, I just wouldn’t call it a good game.

I wouldn’t call it a good game either, because it is amazing!
It is a totally different experience and I understand that there are a lot of people who enjoy various games, but not this kind. People are different and enjoy different experiences.

[Leinadien]

Games are an interactive medium where players spend most time using its gameplay. As such, that makes it the absolute core of every game. If that is just some sort of filling element, it is boring and means the game is not enjoyable, because again, that is the thing players spend by far most time with and hence it needs to be the best part of it.

By that logic a prototype of a game is all that matters, let’s put a guy inside of a cube and have him shoot at other cubes. That’s the gameplay in it’s raw form, which is what you seem to desire more than anything else. I don’t agree with that, to me the gameplay can be replaced with anything, the prototype can be exchanged for any other prototype as long as the story, characters, setting, graphics and music are good.

But each to their own.

[Dantus]

@Leinadien

By that logic a prototype of a game is all that matters, let’s put a guy inside of a cube and have him shoot at other cubes. That’s the gameplay in it’s raw form, which is what you seem to desire more than anything else.

As mentioned, it is interactive. Part of the interactivity is perceiving the game’s world through visuals, acoustics as well other elements such as music. Everything that happens during the game play is important and that’s where the main focus has to be during the development.

I have no idea why you are participating in this discussion, because you have a very strong opinion about what a good game is, without the slightest sign of being open to other ideas.

[Lucrecious]

@Dantus

I wouldn’t call it a good game either, because it is amazing!
It is a totally different experience and I understand that there are a lot of people who enjoy various games, but not this kind. People are different and enjoy different experiences.

I really liked Heavy Rain, I just think it plays more like an interactive movie rather than a game. I feel like I could get the same feeling watching a Heavy Rain Let’s Play as I could playing it. I can’t say the same about BotW or Rocket League.

Again, personally, I just think games should be first and foremost gameplay, otherwise, it might as well be a movie or a book. That being said, I’m not against games like Heavy Rain or Until Dawn, I just don’t think they’re games really.

In any case, gameplay should intertwine with the experience of playing it. So a game like Journey, its gameplay is mostly about exploration and discovery, so it’s essential for it to have great music and an interesting art style - I would put those things in the gameplay category for Journey.

[KotarosDevgame]

I agree here with all BGE Superstars and role models good that we have that people here and thanks for all advise i learn very much things from you all.

good work and greetings

[haidme]

By that logic a prototype of a game is all that matters, let’s put a guy inside of a cube and have him shoot at other cubes… as long as the story, characters, setting, graphics and music are good.

SuperHot has no graphics,no story, no quality music…nothing, actually it was a game jam game made for 24 hours. Look what only a good gameplay idea can do.

you just need to make a decent game and Steam will buy it

Steam does not buy games…you sell games on steam like in a bookstore.

For an indie developer graphics, sounds and story is the least important. Why? Because a good graphics needs a lot of money, a good music/FX needs a lot of money, a good story needs great animations, voice overs and models and tons of scenes settings = tons of money and time.
That’s why indies are focused mostly on gameplay. When it comes to selling games - that is business and not making the game of your dreams. If you want to sell your game, you need quality in every aspect and trying to make a game with great graphics or story will kill your company finances very quickly.

[BluePrintRandom]

@Leinadien

How do you know nobody sees them? I see them and I wouldn’t want to play them. You call them great indie games most probably don’t agree since the games aren’t selling well. You could say the same about movies, nobody cares for 20 minute shorts of a group of teens talking to a ghost or shooting laser guns. You underestimate what people are willing to waste their time and money on. If the games don’t sell well they’re bad games.

Unless you know what kind of game you would play. I know what kind of game I would play and it’s not running around as ketchup. If you have in your mind a game that you would want to play even when there are games like Assasin’s creed or Dark souls around, make that game and it’s going to make you rich. If you have no respect for your audience and makes some mediocre play as a cabbage game or some other terrible idea then expect not to be rich.

No you’ve got it wrong, any kind of gameplay if done right is fun. A racing game could be fun, a shooting game could be fun, a platformer could be fun, a rpg could be fun. All of them could be fun if done right, does it matter what kind of gameplay you choose, not really. What’s most important is that it’s simple because you’re one person and creating a real time strategy game probably isn’t a good idea. What’s far more important is story and by story I don’t just mean “go save the princess” I mean cutscenes, an intro, an ending, some middle act, interesting characters to play as and fight. After that comes graphics, generally you want to keep it simple because you’re one person, cartoony look to the characters can be done right. You can look at Disney for reference, the gameplay isn’t that important, the game is going to have some kind of gameplay, the important thing is just to make the gameplay a good version of whatever genre of game you’re working on. Also about gameplay, I wound’t really call gameplay a large portion of the game. As most of us ought to know by now, a guy in a room shooting at incoming cubes. It’s not really what makes a game great, there are tons of shooter games, tons of racing games, tons of platformers with almost identical gameplay, what makes some better than others is the setting, the characters and the story and of course graphics.

1. Story, characters, setting.
2. Graphics, camera animation, music.
3. Gameplay, some problem that the player has to solve.

They’re all different kinds of games, all with different types of gameplay. You can change the gameplay for anything and the games would still be of such a quality that people would but the games. It’s not the gameplay that makes these games great, it’s what the gameplay is wrapped in. On your lists every type of gameplay is listed, which proves my point. It doesn’t matter what kind of gameplay it is as long as it’s presented well.

And to be honest from looking at the top indie sellers, the games are quite terrible. If you have such a low opinion of yourself that you don’t think you could make a better game than stardew valley or Braid I don’t know what to say. Uninspired, lack of imagination? What’s most important is story, characters, setting, graphics, music, any kind of gameplay will do.

IMHO a good game tells a story using gameplay, or allows the player to create their own story, inside your framework.

you probably hate DnD too eh?