Yesterday the Steam summer sale started for this year. As most of you probably know, it came with the Monster Summer Game, a clicker game meant to be "a bit of an homage to those [Cookie Clicker, AdVenture Capitalist and Clicker Heroes] clicker games". I have never played any of those games because I think clicker games are terribly boring, but I have heard of them because some of my friends have been playing them. I was wondering when Cookie Clicker was released so I looked it up on Wikipedia, and it turns out it was released in August of 2013.
Suddenly I realized: in April of 2012 I created Level up: The Game as a joke, which is basically the most simple form of a clicker game. Apparently these clicker games are actually 'a thing' nowadays. If I had considered creating a web-game out of my own joke, perhaps my game would have gotten as popular as Cookie Clicker was, and I would have started a whole genre! :( If only I had seen that people are actually capable of liking such a horrible concept!
Of course I know it is not that simple. Timing, design and connections also play a large role in becoming known on the internet. Still, I will never know if I could perhaps have made something 'big' back then...
Oh, and something else entirely: I have almost finished my studies! Waheee!
Maybe. There's a game called Progress Quest that reminded me of your game, as you litterally pick your stats (which seem meaningless) and then the computer plays a RPG for you, in plain text and progress bars.
There's a number of ideas I've had in the past that have since become "big". Having weak AI in a multiplayer game is one example. Although my execution was going to be way different, DotA and LoL are pretty big right now. Halo Warzone with creeps was much closer to what I had planned.
Ultimately though, it's not about what ifs, but what was. We can run around claiming we were first, but no one will believe us, and if they did, it wouldn't mean anything. Sure, we'd get recognition for starting a game design fad, and that's it really.
There's a few games that actually beat big names to the punch. The Guardian Legend did the whole "action game with persistant RPG mechanics" thing way before it was popular. Death by Degrees, while not a very good game, has a structure and combat system similar to Batman Arkham Asylum. There are many others, but I won't go into them here.
Games like Parasite Eve 2 and Dino Crisis 2 felt like they were ahead of their time, and while they never got much mainstream recognition, I won't be surprised if at some point there's a smash hit game or mod that uses a similar structure or mechanics. Although the core concept of "kill stuff = m guns to kill stuff" has been done a fair amount, the execution hasn't quite matched those games.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
"Ultimately though, it's not about what ifs, but what was. We can run around claiming we were first, but no one will believe us, and if they did, it wouldn't mean anything. Sure, we'd get recognition for starting a game design fad, and that's it really."
Oh I know, and I was not completely, entirely serious when writing this blog entry. It's just that I wrote this program as a kind of parody, and now similar games apparently are popular. That surprised me quite a bit.
And yes, I get the idea :) That's why I mentioned the importance of timing/design/connections (I forgot marketing), because I know that big games with 'revolutionary' mechanics usually didn't actually invent those mechanics. They just have enough 'weight' to become well-known and popular, which causes most people to think those games were the first with those particular mechanics.
In the end it's the execution that matters most, not being the first one with an idea! Which is something that used to be said on the forums quite a lot of few years back I believe. In the case of my clicker game, the execution was done very poorly ;)
Yeah I know that feeling. I have a concept game uploaded somewhere here on ModDB , I called it "Squatters". I did this back in 2013 or even 2012 I think and just today I saw that there is an upcoming Rainbow Six (Siege) game which is basically the same as my concept on ModDb.
It is a strange feeling.