When should an indie studio begin to show game content? Thread

All news isn't necessarily important to your followers. What do you guys think is a good starting place to begin showcasing your game's work? Should early character development, designs or sketches be announced to the public, or should they be kept in the dark? Should a company wait until it has gameplay to showcase before it discloses itself? Let me know what you guys think!

-Gabriel follow me @adventureco2

I guess it depends on wich type of game you want to show. If you make a puzzle game people will be more interestd in Gameplay mechanics more than concept design. On the other hand, design, concept art et so on are more important in RPG type of game.

But I think that art is often more attractive than mechanics, and it easily catch the eye

That's a great way of putting it. Art really is what attracts players huh?

Prototypestudios wrote: That's a great way of putting it. Art really is what attracts players huh?

Yes. I will go a step further and say: picture will always be more appealing to brain than a plain text. That's why people won't even bother to read your description if the artwork is puny. Well, I'm not happy with that as well, since I know plenty of games that are underestimated just because they lack AAA graphics (but are great anyway). But that's how the human body works and you cannot do anything about it.

And regarding the topic: In my opinion, the right time is when you have something interesting to show off (a prototype, artwork). Then you can start conquering all the internets and start making hype for your game.

Edited by: iKonrad

Wow that's quite the touching result man thanks

I think it's better not to show anything till you close to release, cause then you'll have more to show on the regular basis before release. That should generate better hype among the average users, than dev blog over the span of months/years which only indie enthusiasts will follow. Sorta the marketing strategy that AAA developers use, couple months before release they pump out as much content as possible without spoiling it.

When you have a game to show, start showing it. I personally would never show concept art, pre-development diagrams, or any kind of planning. I would only start posting things when you have something you can show that is actually a game, even if the game isn't done yet. This has the added advantage you can sell the concept art as bonus material later

I think it's a great plan to at least show some content to keep feeding hype/curiosity but whatever you release you keep in mind that it is solely for that. I see a lot of people post things like "what do you think of this costume color/design". If you are going to post something for the game it should be rock solid and final (or damn close). Anything you publish for public eye is your first representation of your company and/or game, remember that. You can learn a great deal from how major studios do it, many may have a site with some basic stuff about an upcoming game, concept art and other aspects but they usually push out a trailer or cinematic a year or so out from estimated release.

I have been posting demos of my game since week two of development (29 weeks ago), because I was determined to get feedback as I went. Since I have not put effort into art, the results have always been poor, but, I did get some feedback, and what I did get was very helpful.

Unfortunately, I think that the well has run dry because good feedback is actually hard work, and most people won't be that interested in an early prototype. To sum up, I don't think it hurts to show what you're working on, but don't expect tons of feedback or hype. I'm actually going to scale back the effort I put in for my game's non-existent fan base. It's gone from every two weeks, to once a month, and soon it will be every other month. I'm still working on it regularly, and updating my site, but I think people on various forums are getting over sensitized to the releases.

i read nothing when making opinions on games that I haven't tried yet.

Screenshots define if I want to give a game a chance or not. An awesome looking game can be many things. I have a special taste and can appreciate different looks. Some only like Crysis AAA look, others prefer ascii, pixel etc.

So show an awesome screenshot - when you have one. If you haven't got awesome screenshots yet, wait till you got it.
To simply write a description of a game is far from enough. Cus what is that anyway? is it what you intend to make? It is easy to describe a cool game, than to actually make it. So if you can't show me that it is awesome then there is no way I'd ever get it.

andreasng wrote: i read nothing when making opinions on games that I haven't tried yet.

Screenshots define if I want to give a game a chance or not. An awesome looking game can be many things. I have a special taste and can appreciate different looks. Some only like Crysis AAA look, others prefer ascii, pixel etc.

So show an awesome screenshot - when you have one. If you haven't got awesome screenshots yet, wait till you got it.
To simply write a description of a game is far from enough. Cus what is that anyway? is it what you intend to make? It is easy to describe a cool game, than to actually make it. So if you can't show me that it is awesome then there is no way I'd ever get it.

Well the game my team and I are producing (like any other game and like you said) is hard to describe with just text. My plan is to slowly showcase different phases and builds of the game. For instance now, during the preliminary phase of our game (as we built the first stable version of the game) we plan to include a lot of the design we develop, like character designs, along with various teaser arts, along with various concept art pieces. Once our first stable built comes out, we'll update all our content and begin posting game play content. What do you think on that?

Grim_Jester wrote: I have been posting demos of my game since week two of development (29 weeks ago), because I was determined to get feedback as I went. Since I have not put effort into art, the results have always been poor, but, I did get some feedback, and what I did get was very helpful.

Unfortunately, I think that the well has run dry because good feedback is actually hard work, and most people won't be that interested in an early prototype. To sum up, I don't think it hurts to show what you're working on, but don't expect tons of feedback or hype. I'm actually going to scale back the effort I put in for my game's non-existent fan base. It's gone from every two weeks, to once a month, and soon it will be every other month. I'm still working on it regularly, and updating my site, but I think people on various forums are getting over sensitized to the releases.

The thing about us is that we have a few departments working on different aspects of the game. So content is always coming along, I just didn't know if it was best to begin posting it up and talktng about to prossible (probable and possible lol) fans.

andrewty07 wrote: I think it's a great plan to at least show some content to keep feeding hype/curiosity but whatever you release you keep in mind that it is solely for that. I see a lot of people post things like "what do you think of this costume color/design". If you are going to post something for the game it should be rock solid and final (or damn close). Anything you publish for public eye is your first representation of your company and/or game, remember that. You can learn a great deal from how major studios do it, many may have a site with some basic stuff about an upcoming game, concept art and other aspects but they usually push out a trailer or cinematic a year or so out from estimated release.

Yeah our point is to release various trailers as the game becomes closer and closer to it's final release. For now our character designers have developed quite the number of concept art pieces, and I kept wondering whether these should be disclosed to the public

In case your game gets successful, the press will find the first three screenshots you ever posted of it and print those over their articles.

It depends on how well researched your project is. I'd say work for a couple of months and then update, when you know you have something. On the other hand - if you know you got what you want and expect/need good publicity from the start, post it right now. Important to me would just be to see that there is some consistency in the quality and design. Feedback from the community shouldn't be the reason to make the game, even though it is nice to get some compliments.

Edited by: SinKing

SinKing wrote: .... Feedback from the community shouldn't be the reason to make the game, even though it is nice to get some compliments.

I was seeking feedback from the community to assist with the fine points of designing the game. I don't want to spend 12-16 months working on something only to discover that it has no appeal. Compliments are not what I'm looking for early on.

I know, yet I feel that most projects come out too early, because they are looking for approval and motivation.

There is a conflict in my "logic", because on one side I want more projects to come up front and show us what they got. On the other hand I know that you get one chance to present yourself. If you put enough effort into the primal scream of your project and present it to the public in an appealing way, you have so much less to do afterwards. It is hard to bring a project back on track, when the public rejects it (for lack of knowledge about its goal, perhaps). That's why I say it is best to keep the project under wraps and the public out. That is, until you are sure that:

- you have a sufficiently good art direction
- gameplay mechanics that stand out as "yours"
- know, where you wanna go from here (e.g. kickstarter + founding a studio vs. years of internal work + rare announcements)

I think a good compromise would be to give sneak previews of the project, instead of throwing it all out there. It should be a mystery. Why show an entire asset right away? Why not show just a very nice detail and hold a competition about who makes the best guess about it? It's not all about information, it's entertainment why we browse for mods and indie games. So, first presentations could start modest with content but visually sound and with a visual theme for later presentation. Work early on making your project interesting and keep it in the public news by updating frequently. Show more and more as you feel pleased with it, instead of showing everything you have and explaining every little detail. Keep some mystery for later

Edited by: SinKing

The important thing is to start hype and continue the hype. If you reveal a bunch of content (say concept art) then don't have anything to show for a month the hype with die down and people will stop talking about the game. I would say release art about a month (MAX) before you have some pre-alpha footage to show off. Don't use all of your pre-alpha content in one go either. Spread it out over several updates over a week or so (if it makes sense to do that).