Indeed, you have to look for niches -- and find the ones that are in
1) high demand (not just high demand in general -- high demand for new/better content by a new entrant);
2) low supply;
3) well paying customers.
I'm sure despite the flood those will still exist, as long as there's still a good amount of differentiation between people's preferences. A niche is a small subset of in the space of products that a small subset of customers have strong preference to. This needs preference differentiation.
This preference difference could be toward many features: cultural setting, story style, gameplay style, aesthetic style, etc.
There's perhaps a combinatorial advantage here: if sensitivity varies significantly across many of those parameters, just choose any unexplored subset, optimizing for 1/2/3 -- there are exponentially many in the number of distinguishing features (if you browse Steam tags you see this is potentially a very large number!).
Making the games you want to play is actually not great advice. You need to find a niche and hit it hard.
Maybe that used to be metroidvania, but that's long over. Visual novels have been on the rise for a while, so are rougelikes and card games, but those are saturated now. You want to get in before the big streamers and reddit frontpage and ride the wave.
Who knew a Harvest Moon clone would be the biggest indie success of its year? Maybe we can systematically analyze old games to identify overlooked gems and valuable revivals.
>Making the games you want to play is actually not great advice.
I don't think it's bad advice, though. If you treat genre and its elements as only means to an end, you wind up with exactly the trends that oversaturate the indie market now, because everyone is trying to "find a niche and hit it hard." Games are entertainment.
I think you should at least learn to want to play the game you're making. At the very least, you should know why the customer would want to play it. Ticking off boxes hoping to find combinatorial success isn't enough... that "battle royale farming simulator" still needs to be entertaining, or at least capture interest.
> Making the games you want to play is actually not great advice. You need to find a niche and hit it hard.
I'd say you need both: you need to want to do a game you'd want to play, because you'd have an easier time recognizing if you're doing something that would appeal to at least one person. And if it's in a niche, you'll have a better chance to get coverage and buyers. But if you just try to hit a niche hard without knowing what makes the games in that niche good, you'll have a hard time making something that'll interest players.
I disagree with that, but it's just my opinion. I think artists must move beyond their own taste. A sushi chef doesn't really have to like squid.
I think using your own taste is a crutch. If you get good at it, you should be able to know it's good regardless of your own feelings.
We see this when game developers are shuffled around and work on ones that are completely different from their passion projects. The good ones still excell.
Even if one is good enough to recognise a good game regardless of one's feelings, I'd say it would be harder to work on a game type that doesn't appeal the artist. I hope that even if a sushi chef doesn't like squid, he like some of the sushi he'll be making.
But you are actually competing with the whole developed world. There may be localised tastes or patterns to follow but your competition is from the whole world.
