About Inspiration And Oversaturation

As a game developer, I’ve seen lots of trends in video games come and go over the years. I’ve seen the same thing in books, in music, in all the areas in which I work and make projects. This article will mostly focus on video games, but I think it holds in all of them.

The cycle looks the same every time.

Someone makes something new. It is successful.
Others try to copy it, jump at the opportunity, especially if this thing keeps being successful.
Until everyone seems to be doing the same thing and the idea/genre/market becomes oversaturated.
At which point the success stops, because there’s too much coming out and gamers are fed up.

I’ve seen this happen a few times and decided each time to not jump at the opportunity. Video game development was just “one of the things I did”, and I was more focused on other things (like writing books) at the time.

Until I saw it happen again and did decide to jump in, because things happened to line up. (And, erm, I’m old enough now that I need a proper income from my creative work.) I decided to make an incremental game when they were selling well and saw success in the market.

As I worked on my game … I saw everyone else do the same. Incremental game after incremental game launched within a few weeks, as I was crawling forward on my own project. It got so bad that content creators started to automatically ignore/blacklist any games with the word “incremental”, because there were just so many.

I saw gamers being overwhelmed by what’s on offer. I also saw very low-quality rushed games flooding this market. I saw subreddits changing rules to lower the influx of incremental games. I saw discussions about redefining what it means just to prevent oversaturation.

And I started to worry—of course I did! When my game releases in a month or so, will there be any appetite for it left? Am I too late? Am I one of the silly sheep chasing this trend and making a game nobody wants anymore when it releases?

When this article releases, you’ll already know what I decided to do. I decided to continue the project and finish it anyway. But only after some deep thinking and mind-set shifts that were so helpful to me that I wanted to write this article to (try and) explain them.

Fact #1: A good game is a good game

The real problem here is the worry that my game “won’t sell”. That the trend will have died down, gamers will be fed up with these types of games, so my game won’t sell. (Or it will sell far less than it would’ve at the start of this trend.)

But that’s not the only part of the equation. That’s not the main reason to make a game, of course. The main reason is that you hope to make something good and fun, something that adds to the world and people’s lives.

And so I looked at my ideas and thought to myself: As long as I focus on making a good game, then I have my motivation. If all else fails, even if the game sells zero copies, I will still have finished a game that I think has value. Just reminding myself of that fact helped a lot in continuing development.

Now you might be thinking: Well duh, Tiamo, isn’t every developer trying to make a good game? And no, not necessarily. You can make a game and focus completely on what sells. You can make a game and focus completely on using it merely to market your other work or gain experience publishing on Steam.

You always have a choice. A bad one, maybe. One that you perhaps can’t see. But you always have a choice.

For example, I could have rushed my game to market by using AI and other tricks. Generate all the assets, music, code, whatever. Lie and bluff on the store page and pray this cobbled-together game holds up under scrutiny. I could have done that and released something right at the peak of the incremental hype.

But it would have been a bad game. Profit would not have been guaranteed—for markets are fickle and the future unclear—but making something bad and shameful would be guaranteed.

All the evidence I’ve seen supports the fact that good games will eventually prevail and have a long tail. When I launch my game, it’ll probably do … meh. But I’ll have launched a good game that I believe will stand the test of time and keep bringing in players in the long run.

So that’s number one. When choices are presented, and you feel like you’re “too late” chasing a trend, or entering an “oversaturated market” … then stop caring about the market. Focus solely on making a good game.

To help with that …

Fact #2: Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy

So, every day I’d wake up early, go for a run, work for hours to get the game done, and then try and relax at night before going to bed.

No, wait, when I say “relax”, I meant checking Steam and subreddits and sales figures and looking at the market for incremental games becoming more and more saturated.

After a week or two of doing this, I caught myself spiraling. I suddenly realized how much it worsened my mood, drained my energy, and made me less excited to work on my own game tomorrow.

Not because of jealousy. In fact, I saw a lot of ugly bad slop games that made me think “if those sell, mine should surely”, and I saw a lot of games fail instead of succeed. (On top of that, jealousy is an emotion I have never really understood or felt, but I understand the concept of it :p)

It was quite fun to see all the ideas people came up with. It was very inspiring even. I’d usually have three more ideas for (mostly incremental-adjacent) games as I went to bed. That was actually part of the reason it was so draining. To a creative mind, getting inspired happens all day, every day, so if I consciously look for inspiration for an hour before bed I am actually overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by how many things you can do with an incremental game, overwhelmed by new ideas and possible avenues to go down, and that’s draining.

But the other reason it was bad for my mood was that simple nagging feeling of …

“I’m too late.”
“They have great ideas too, how will I stand out?”
“Dang, someone already thought of a similar core loop as I did, and they’re releasing earlier / have prettier graphics / whatever.”

In the world of writing we like to say “eyes on your own paper”. I told myself the same thing here and stopped checking Steam, and statistics, and trends, and all the new releases (in all genres, really, but mostly the ones I was working in then).

Eyes on my own paper.

All I can do is make the game in front of me. Stick to a plan for a few more weeks, release my first Steam game, and then we’ll see. Comparing myself to others has no positive results. Inspiration happens automatically by just being active (living, making/playing games, asking others to playtest my game)—if I actively go looking for it, I’m just overwhelmed.

And if someone had similar ideas as me, then my game will still be very different from theirs. Precisely because I did not look at theirs and just focused on making my own thing as good as possible. As the incremental games flooded in, many of them shared their core loop, but their execution could be wildly different. When that happens, gamers don’t mind the similarities, and game developers tend to not make it an issue either.

So that’s number two. There’s a time for prototyping, for getting inspired, for looking around. That time is at the start of a new project. Gathering ideas, seeing what’s out there, what’s already been done, checking the possible market for your game. Once you’ve solidified your idea and validated its prototype, then I’d say stop comparing and eyes on your own paper.

Fact #3: It’s All Cycles, Always Has Been

I wrote another article about why incremental games are such a good thing to make and so easily addictive to play. One of the points made was that those old Flash games, the ones my generation loved and played to death, were almost all incremental games. Perhaps with some different theme, a twist, more or less polish, but most of them are the same genre and core idea. That is exactly why they were so easy to pick up and play, so addictive.

Then they went away for some 5 or 10 years.

And now they’re back. And people are pretending “incremental games” are like this new invention.

It’s a cycle. Once you get old enough, you start to realize everything is a cycle. You feel wise—and you feel old :p

Everything comes and goes. I’ve actually seen, from close range, how some of those Flash games have been revived (as HTML5, Mobile, or Steam games) in the last ~5 years. They went away, people started to miss them and crave them, they came back in slightly different from. Incremental games have always been there, and they will be popular once more in the future.

The only thing that happens each cycle is that the ideas evolve and the baseline grows.

Usually, the game responsible for the new cycle—the new resurgence of interest—is a game that evolves it in some way. Just one or two smart twists. Some unique take on the concept. And boom, people are interested and the genre is revived.

Furthermore, people who already liked the genre are still there, of course. They’re still around. So you get this old audience, and a new audience, which means the audience only grows.

Even if my game drowns in a sea of incremental games, I know three things.

Interest for for them is higher now than it was a few years ago. So it’s still a good time to release one.
The interest will come back in the future.
If I can evolve the genre in some way, I can circumvent the problem.

That last part is the most important bit. Once I saw this oversaturation happening, I looked critically at my ideas (some 50+ of them) and asked myself: “Which of these are actually innovative? Which of these are not really incremental but more of a mixture with different genres?”

Which brings me to …

Fact #4: News Will Forever Sell

I once heard someone say this, long ago. It bounces through my head often. The one thing that will always sell, is the news.

Humans are hard-wired to crave new stuff. New information. New events. New solutions. Doesn’t even have to be interesting on its own, or delivered in a good way. Humans just want new information.

And so, when in doubt, I’ve always tried to at least make something new. Do at least one thing that’s never been done before. Add one thing that clearly makes this project stand out and “deserve to exist”. One thing that makes it irreplaceable, unswappable with something that already exists.

When I have all these ideas for incremental games,

25% of them are just “not that good”. I write them down anyways, see if I can “evolve” them after a good night’s sleep, but I usually can’t and just discard them.
25% of them are really unique and interesting and I immediately know “this might be a good one”.
50% of them are good ideas, but similar to everything that already exists. Those ideas are usually literally “Hey we can make THAT POPULAR GAME, but with THIS ONE CHANGE”. While that’s a great starting point for ideation, stopping there will lead to making a game that basically already exists.

I discarded those 50% “good ideas” too and focused only on the new stuff. Any idea that challenged me to push the incremental genre in a completely new direction. Any idea that mixed it with roguelikes, or arcade games, or something that is not oversaturated or done to death yet.

This still left me with 15+ ideas, by the way. I told you that getting inspired or getting ideas is not the problem here :p

But they were ideas for which I could motivate myself. Ideas that had a clear reason to exist, because they did not enter the oversaturated market, but snuck into a different market through a side door. Ideas that would not make me feel like I’m doing the same as everyone else, and thus, probably, getting the same mediocre results as everyone else once the public tires of incremental games.

An Example To Help You Remember

I will give one very specific example for all of this. I feel safe doing so because I tend to execute ideas in very unexpected ways, so I don’t mind others using the exact same idea. Our final products will differ wildly anyway! And because I can honestly say it’s really hard to make them and I don’t expect many to follow my lead.

One of the first ideas I had for making an incremental game was one about saving Pompeii. (It’s a long story as to why my brain ended up here first.) A game about sacrificing stuff to a volcano to stop it from erupting. You win the game when you can finally save Pompeii. When you are finally strong enough to satisfy the volcano and keep your temples alive.

When I thought of this, honestly, I thought similar games would already exist. Surely throwing stuff into a volcano is a silly thing games already did, right? Surely Pompeii, or “preventing catastrophe”, is such a classic story that game developers have used it? But no, they had not.

As I saw other games releasing, I noticed that most of them were passive and endless. If they did have a clear ending or objective, it was some abstract objective like just reaching a specific number.

That’s when I realized: this is my unique perspective, this is my new thing. Rather quickly the idea exploded into three ideas. Three incremental games about “preventing a famous catastrophe”: Pompeii, Atlantis, Dinosaurs. (I guess you could continue with Titanic and stuff, but this was enough for now.)

They would have a clear theme instead of being so abstract or simplistic.
They would have a clear goal that is satisfying to work towards and achieve.
They easily give opportunities for unique upgrades/progression. Because you’re not just increasing numbers, or always “getting stronger”, but there are actually unique levers to pull in such situations (that won’t exist/work in any other game).
They are way more active and action-oriented by their very nature. What other incremental games have exploding volcanoes and sheep flying through the air?

I had many other ideas. Incremental games about breeding/eggs, breaking into banks, mining, climbing, cooking, and so forth. But the majority of them just wasn’t really new or evolving the genre, or they were pretty close to someone else (and I was quite sure I could not do it better).

In my sea of ideas, this “trilogy of catastrophe” stood out as it passed all my tests.

They are marketable: save the world from a classic well-known catastrophe, who doesn’t want that?
They can play into different genres and different cycles of trends/hype. (For example, they would appeal to people who want more active play, or folklore enthusiasts, and they could even be used educationally.)
Their core idea is a new twist to evolve the genre.

And yes, you can be too new or experimental. You can stray too far from a genre or from what players know and expect. All the positives I’ve just listed can easily become negatives if players just don’t understand or don’t resonate with it. What? The game just ends when I beat the challenge once? I can’t keep playing and make numbers even higher!? What a sham! You clearly don’t understand the genre!

I’ve seen this happen with my work several times. I believe I made some pretty great inventions and new products, telling myself people would love this new twist or unique mix of genres as I worked on it. Most of the time, though, people just did not understand, or I had changed the thing they wanted too much.

That’s why I like the phrase evolving the genre more than any other. You take a beloved set of mechanics that make up a genre, and you evolve one or two. That’s much better and safer than coming up with a completely brand-new set of mechanics and likely ending up too far from every audience.

Better be safe and sorry there, I must say. Because if you’re “too safe”, well, you can just evolve it again. If your current project changed too little, you can take that information and that work, and change one more thing. Tiny step by tiny step, you will land on the right balance between familiar and new.

If you go all out and create some entirely new game genre out of nothing … it’s pretty impossible to back down from that and bring the idea into more familiar ground.

Fact #5: There Will Be Those With Passion

This is maybe the hardest one or the most controversial one. But it’s another realization that helped me out, so maybe it will help you too.

When you see a trend—a type of game selling well, some developers earning easily—it’s tempting to think “dang it, let’s just make one of those games to get some money”. Especially when, like me, you’re desperately in search of an income and your current work isn’t doing enough.

But remember this.

There will be others making a similar game to yours, and they WILL have passion for it.

There will be others making something in the same genre. There will be others having a similar theme, or core loop, or release date, or art style. (I mean, you even have this weird moment right now with like 20 frog-themed games coming out, with absolutely no reason for frogs being this popular except coincidence.)

They will do it because they love the genre or they love their dream project.

You are making one begrudgingly, without a care for quality, because you want quick money.

Guess which one will win.

Yep.

This was a bit of a cold shower moment, but a nice one too. It made me see that, yes, many of those incremental game ideas of mine are good … but I still should not make them. Because they’re not so new/unique that nobody else is making something similar. And those other people will have more time, more passion, more expertise.

They are the ideas that I know “will probably sell something” or “should have an audience”, but which aren’t really my favorite ideas or in line with my skills. They’re the ideas about which my monkey brain says “could be QUICK MONEY!?”, but my heart says “but I’m not REALLY interested in that theme/genre/challenge …”

I’ve learned to never pursue those ideas. You’ll make them with lead in your shoes, others will make them while flying high, and their version will outshine and outsell anything you will do.

So either pick the idea that you are passionate about, or pick one so unique that absolutely nobody else is doing it. If possible, find that perfect mixture. Allow the idea to be a bit safer and to have some competition, as long as you are passionate about making that idea as good as possible.

We have seen this several times. Very similar games releasing at very similar moments, a coincidence mostly. And both of them succeeding because both developers loved the idea and cared for it.

The usual cake situation. Game developers are afraid their idea isn’t unique enough, while in reality gamers are just happy that they now have two cakes to eat.

Conclusion

Those were my thoughts about inspiration, oversaturation, and the wild west of developing video games right now.

The market is huge. The number of developers is also huge. So many games coming out, often following the same trends and thus fishing in the same pool.

I decided to jump in on one to get my first game on Steam (learn, experience, get started), hoping to earn money for a next game, and because my schedule and options and stuff just happened to line up.

I became a bit demotivated halfway through as I saw just how fierce the competition was and how oversaturated that specific niche was becoming.

I tried to pivot my ideas into new and different areas, and otherwise reminded myself to just focus on making a good game and ignoring the market and all those comparisons. I finished that first game and am a good chunk of the way towards finishing my next releases.

Hopefully this helped someone,

Tiamo / Pandaqi