IS INDIE GAME DEV DEAD? (My 2020 predictions!)

hey guys how's it going my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe also a game called once upon a coma click those links in the description y'all - it sounds weird click they'll click the links in the description and you can get a free copy of both those games or at least pinstripe you can wishlist once upon a coma that's coming out soon and you can support on patreon get a free copy ok let's get started on this video I'm really excited about this video because this is my 2020 predictions video it's gonna be a casual video where I just talk to you about what I think is gonna happen in the game industry in 2020 2019 was weird year it was a really weird year we had things like stadia come out or at least they're moving forward with stadia VR as growing subscription models are becoming more of a reality we had apple arcade come out at the game store I think came out in 2019 as well as a weird year and just in a huge explosion

of great games so 2020 is an interesting year it's gonna be a really interesting year so here are 5 predictions from a layman like me and I say layman because if you guys met me you would know I'm a bit of a buffoon in a lot of ways I don't know a lot but I have been making games for 10 years so I can sort of have my ear to the ground a little bit but before we get started guys I want to thank Skillshare for sponsoring this video Skillshare is an online learning community for creatives where millions come together to take the next step in the creative journey for 2020 now specifically if you're curious about deepening your existing passion for game design it's an incredible place whether it's audio design for your games or to the illustration or animation or unity or unreal coding storytelling marketing management whatever it is you need to learn about game development it's on Skillshare now one of my favorite classes is by Rusty Smith and it just covers unity basics now the coolest part about this ad read is hey what do you have to lose

just get to three months of Skillshare premium by clicking the link in the description it's really that easy you really can't beat that guy's give it a shot see what happens let's make 2020 the year where you become again and release your very first game or if you've already done that congratulations but let's make it the year where you take game dev to the next level all on Skillshare click the link in the description to get to three months of premium membership and explore your creativity all right so my first prediction is that VR is going to be given a huge massive breath of life in a way it'll be resurrected because I feel like you know a lot of people thought it was not really gonna happen and it's not that great but so is every technology and I like to think about the first automobiles I don't know where I read this but basically automobiles were

thought of as stupid when they first were invented and this was mainly because the roads were not made to you know support car wheels they were made to support horses right so and they were also dangerous they still are dangerous it's crazy that we actually accept that danger in our day to day life but technology is slowly accepted and once it's accepted it becomes this huge explosion and everyone wants in the same I think is true for VR I think when I was convinced of this is when half-life Alex half-life Alex was announced and this is because steam is taking there I think most valuable IP and putting it into something like VR to me that seems highly risky and they hopefully obviously have a reason why they would do that and so honestly guys this is sort of a gut reaction to just watching valve make a decision like this now

obviously we have Medal of Honor doing this and we also have the Walking Dead franchise doing this so they're making VR games in 2020 as well and my thinking is VR headsets are slowly going to come down in price and they already have but I think that in 2020 it's definitely gonna become more affordable to get a VR headset so that's just my gut reaction what does this mean for you it doesn't mean go ahead and make a VR game but what it does mean is keep it in mind as you're creating your game think of ways that your game could at least support the VR audience and I think this is especially important to think about because the companies that are investing in VR they have huge sums of cash that they're willing to throw at game devs who make VR games right and I think that it's important to remember you don't need to think about games sales and we'll talk about this in a second you

don't need to think about selling a VR game you need to think about I guess selling a VR game to a VR company or investor does that make sense so instead of selling it to an audience think about selling it to a company because they might have half a million to a million dollars to throw at game devs who are making VR games again doesn't mean you have to go make a VR game but it means at least think about making your game compatible with VR and plugins or assets on the unity asset store like the ops if ultimate character controller actually allow for add-ons to enable VR in your game especially if you're making a 3d game all right so enough about VR the second prediction I have is that money guys is not going to come not money guys money comma guys is not going to come from game sales it's actually going to come from investment or advances from

massive companies in the United States and elsewhere if you'll just let me rant here a little bit game sales have become increasingly more and more difficult to accomplish at least significant game sales enough to support your studio and hire people it used to be not that difficult like in 2009 I don't think it was as difficult difficult as it is now to cell games and actually make enough money from game sales I know from personal experience that sales numbers have been disappointing from time to time for me and it's caused me to to jump from Kickstarter to investors to publishers to make revenue from YouTube sponsors always looking around for different sources of income because game sales is just not enough now the good news for some devs out there is that working with

large storefronts like the epic game store or Playstation or stadia or even Xbox allows for you to get large sums of cash and advances immediately from these massive companies and this is I think mainly due to this subscription model becoming such a popular thing especially in like the streaming services like Netflix or Apple TV Plus is that what it's called Apple TV or Apple TV plus whatever it's called or even Disney Plus these streaming models have become so popular that it's kind of obvious that the game the gaming industry needs to adapt to this as well now this sounds terrible this sounds like a really bad thing for game devs especially if you're making small games and you don't get a you know an exclusive deal with these companies it means that you're gonna be giving your game out for free basically or competing with the free model by

selling a $15 game versus all these other amazing free games it sounds like a nightmare but if you focus on getting a deal from these companies and I know it sounds like you know a pie in the sky but if you can learn to pitch your game to these companies I think it'll be a great win for a lot of game devs many of you are watching this video so keep that in mind keep in mind that you can actually make games by just pitching your ideas to these companies and hopefully they'll you know strike a deal with you and give you an offer number three gorgeous 3d beautiful massive open-world games not necessarily open world but just adventure games are going to become the norm and even worse and I say worse because it's just scary to see this happen it's gonna be happening from very small teams and even solo deaths and a lot of you are gonna ask me why is

that possible in 2020 how come all these open world massive beautiful gorgeous games in their 3d are coming out so much and so often and I saw a lot of these games in 2019 but why is it happening in 2020 and I think it's because of the unity asset store if the unity asset store has plenty of not only just 3d models that you can buy for $10 and drag and drop into your game but they have huge tool sets that you can create a game basically without needing to ride any write any code at all actually I'm the only going to talk about one tool and we talked about it earlier it's optic op Civ ultimate character controller or if you're making a third-person game just get the ops of third person character controller now it sounds like it's just a character controller but it's actually and this isn't sponsored by the way by them it sounds like it's just a character controller but it's actually an entire system for you to collect items collect

weapons save data inventory systems UI systems everything you need to create a third-person game something like Legend of Zelda even could be created using the the tools available from op Civ character controller so tools like this on the asset store make it incredibly easy to make games I spent three months making a first-person shooter game this year just testing out my 3d skills and I coded pretty much everything from scratch and kind of abandoned in that and then went and went and downloaded the ops of character controller and I made a game that was way better in a week so just keep that in mind when you're creating your game this year that there are so much available on the unity asset store you you don't spend a lot of time on the unity asset store collecting various

assets to use in your game I'm sorry to say it but you're gonna be left behind in the dust of the devs who do sort of lower their pride a little bit realize that they don't have to make everything from scratch and are willing to download these assets and make a game with the help of other devs it's a weird thing because you're not hiring devs you're not contracting out work you're just buying assets for $10 a great example I like to think of is if you wanted to create let's say a grass system like maybe the one in breath of the wild where the grass is blowing in the wind and and you could run through it and particles emit if you wanted to create a system like that well you could spend you know three months making a system like that that's three months that's let's say a minimum salary of four thousand dollars a month so that's four thousand dollars times three that's twelve thousand dollars to create a system like that or you could buy it for

$15 in the unity asset store and that's an asset called grass flow a really really great asset and a really nice developer as well so moving on number four game dev cities are going to become a thing of the past now unless you're living in like China or Russia or places where the government and the political landscape isn't as friendly towards remote working and and I guess working across borders gamedev cities aren't that important if you're in any city that has Wi-Fi you can make games doesn't really matter so just this is kind of a short point but don't worry too much about where you're located I get a lot of emails from people saying they feel like they don't have the right location to make games and again I understand if there's political unrest in your in your area that that might be

difficult but pretty much any of them anywhere in the world you can make games and pitch them to studios now obviously a lot of the money is sort of hyper focused in big cities like you know Austin Texas or Los Angeles or I don't know Boston or Seattle a lot of the money is hyper focused in these areas but that doesn't mean that you can't reach out to these areas from anywhere in the world the majority of my funding the majority of my publishers they're on the west coast and I'm on the East Coast in North America so it's worked out that way and it's all been through email and discord and I see no reason why I can't recommend that for you in 2012 all right finally number five the indie dev field is going to get extremely crowded I know that that is depressing and I know that that's scary but it's good for you to

know I think that the indie game dev field is so crowded right now and it's gonna get worse in 2020 and it's because tools like unity and the unity asset store and unreal they just make it so easy to make games it's not as hard as it used to be it's actually getting very easy to make games now let me give you some advice and I'm giving myself this advice every day that is ideas matter way more than individual skill sets now if you're gonna go work for a company then individual skill sets are awesome but if you're gonna be an indie game dev and work with a small team your ideas are the most important thing so acting is let's say an art director someone who sees the big picture someone who's able to take music take models take code and bring that all together and I don't know where those you source those from you can contract it out or you can get it on the unity asset store to take that

content cater it towards your game and create a product one big final product that is what's going to matter in 2020 this is definitely self-serving for me because that's my forte individual skill sets are not my forte my forte is art direction and and like I said taking a lot of different creative assets and putting them together to create a game so overall guys just focus on great ideas if you're if you find yourself focusing on the small details of your code well that's wonderful and that's a really good trait to have but there's very little value in that there's very little value in becoming really good at one thing unless you want to go work for a company if you want to go work for a company it's totally different that's great but if you want to be an indie game deaf you got to learn to focus on the big picture and that's especially true in

2000 all right those are my predictions for 2020 hope you guys like this video please leave a comment you have any questions let me know try and answer as best I can leave a like subscribe hit the notification Bell do all those cool things that remember you can support on patreon thanks guys I'll talk you later bye [Music]