Niche Games: Why They Are Essential in the Video Game Industry
As game developers, we're often in a position where you have to make decisions about what your game should be. Too often in this industry, we talk about games that have 'mass appeal' and ones that can hit a 'wide audience'. But what about games that hit a niche market? Why is that such an ugly word in game development? It's a perception I've personally been struggling to change within my own small circle of developers. The common belief in a studio environment is that games must be made to appeal to many people. It's not enough that you make something and, hopefully, there are segment of people who will enjoy it. In the age of Steam, GoG, and Humble Indie Bundle, niche titles do have a place and more developers shouldn't be afraid of it.
"I would argue that in today's industry, making a good niche title has a much greater chance to succeed than ever before."
To be fair to traditional developers, most of the anti-niche feelings come from publishers. If you are a traditional developer, the normal course of business includes creating a concept pitch, shopping it around for a publisher who likes the general concept, then signs the cheques as you create your game. Many developers were privy to the whims of the publisher through this system. And many publishers flex their 'we have the money' muscles and affect change to a game just because of questionable focus tests. More often then not this hurt the title. At least the ones I worked on. Yet, I've also had discussions with developers who vehemently oppose niche titles because they don't sell well. Examples like Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, FTL, or Rogue Legacy seem to contradict the norm and I would argue that in today's industry, making a good niche title has a much greater chance to succeed than ever before.
Engines like Unreal, Crytek, and most impressively Unity, have also paved the way for developers to create quality content without million dollar licences. It's an unprecedented time in the industry where hobbyist and professionals alike can create something and release it to the public, and it's never been easier to get your game into the hands of people who want to play it. At the end of the day, we making fucking video games. They are meant to be fun, engaging, intense, emotional, or visceral experiences and, in an ideal world, we shouldn't have to worry about retention, daily active users, or whatever other bullshit term we tell ourselves so we can suck out more cents from 2% of users.
Niche games are games that aren't meant to be played by most people, which is totally fine. This is something that the industry needs to come to grips with. With the rise of cheap middleware, indie developers are doing some new and interesting things and paving the way for niche titles to be celebrated again. Once we get over this irrational fear of niche games, the whole industry will be better off for it.
Cheers.
"I would argue that in today's industry, making a good niche title has a much greater chance to succeed than ever before."
To be fair to traditional developers, most of the anti-niche feelings come from publishers. If you are a traditional developer, the normal course of business includes creating a concept pitch, shopping it around for a publisher who likes the general concept, then signs the cheques as you create your game. Many developers were privy to the whims of the publisher through this system. And many publishers flex their 'we have the money' muscles and affect change to a game just because of questionable focus tests. More often then not this hurt the title. At least the ones I worked on. Yet, I've also had discussions with developers who vehemently oppose niche titles because they don't sell well. Examples like Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, FTL, or Rogue Legacy seem to contradict the norm and I would argue that in today's industry, making a good niche title has a much greater chance to succeed than ever before.
Engines like Unreal, Crytek, and most impressively Unity, have also paved the way for developers to create quality content without million dollar licences. It's an unprecedented time in the industry where hobbyist and professionals alike can create something and release it to the public, and it's never been easier to get your game into the hands of people who want to play it. At the end of the day, we making fucking video games. They are meant to be fun, engaging, intense, emotional, or visceral experiences and, in an ideal world, we shouldn't have to worry about retention, daily active users, or whatever other bullshit term we tell ourselves so we can suck out more cents from 2% of users.
Niche games are games that aren't meant to be played by most people, which is totally fine. This is something that the industry needs to come to grips with. With the rise of cheap middleware, indie developers are doing some new and interesting things and paving the way for niche titles to be celebrated again. Once we get over this irrational fear of niche games, the whole industry will be better off for it.
Cheers.
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