Minecraft Breakdown

Minecraft is perhaps the most successful indie game to date and has sold over 4,000,000 copies and more impressively has had no marketing campaign whatsoever.

Gameplay

Simple concept

The gameplay in Minecraft is again rather simple and focuses mainly on, surprise, surprise, and mining and crafting.  The game has no actual direction, which can often be a game’s undoing.  In this case however, it is the games main selling point.  The players are free to do as they please and at the same time create their own personal experience.   The sheer level of freedom and customisation is staggering and this is without a shadow of a doubt the games main selling point.

Crafting is the other half of Minecraft and brings more complex aspects of the gameplay to light.  This feature will appeal to the more traditional gamers such as RPG fans.  Players are able to combine items to make items that can enhance their in game experience.  Both sides of the gameplay work in parallel with each other to ultimately create a simple yet incredibly addictive experience.

Reward System

The player is rewarded in Minecraft for exploration.  These rewards come in the form of mining ores and items which ultimately enhance the gameplay experience.  The reward system builds upon the foundation of the gameplay to make an incredibly rewarding experience on many levels.

Variation

Variation in Minecraft exists in many forms. The main form of variation is the games ability to generate completely unique terrain.  This ensures that each play-through experience will vary to some degree.  Of course the crafting capabilities also contribute to the variation, allowing the player to craft armour and weaponry.  There is also a feature which allows players to customise their own textures for their characters.

Taking all this into consideration it is clear that variation plays a big role in keeping minecraft fun and interesting to the masses.

Aesthetic

The aesthetic of Minecraft is a huge factor in its appeal.  The game features a pixelated visual style that plays off the old games from the 8-bit era.  This prompts nostalgia for many potential consumers and in turn may generate sales on that factor alone.

Pricing

Minecraft has varied in prices from its initial alpha release up to its current full release.  This has allowed the game to be bought for a budget price before completion.  This may be one of the reasons that this game has made such an impact and been generating interest all around the world. The alpha was £5 (approximately), the beta £8 (approximately), and the full game is £16.95.

Angry Birds Breakdown

Angry Birds has stormed the indie games sales charts since its release on December 10^th 2009.  But what has made this game so incredibly popular?  I am now going to breakdown Angry Birds properties and uncover why it appeals to so many people.  Angry Birds has taken a simplistic concept and bolstered it in all the right areas to be as effective as it is.

Gameplay

The gameplay will now be analysed and picked apart in an attempt to uncover the contributing factors to the games success.

Simple concept

The games concept in essence, is aiming, and firing.  This helps to make the game almost innately easy to learn to play to all consumers.  Keeping a simple concept and doing it well can be extremely effective and this game pays dividends to this theory.

Short levels

The levels are short and snappy.  This ties in well with its chosen platforms, the mobile phone market.  With the levels being so short, people are able to play in short bursts in and around their busy lifestyles.  This makes the playability of the title much more appealing to people of all varieties of lifestyle.

Reward System

The game never fails to reward the player for doing well.  This is something that gives the player a feeling of satisfaction when playing and furthers their urge to play more.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, the player can receive poor results to persuade them to try harder and keep on improving their skill via playing.

Variation

Although the gameplay is simple, there are enough variations in the gameplay to keep the game feeling new and most importantly, unique.   The player can unlock the use of different types of bird with different abilities throughout the course of the game.  For example, there are bomb birds, fast birds, basic birds and more to use during gameplay.  This variation is perhaps the lynchpin of the Angry Birds fun gameplay.

Aesthetic

The aesthetics are smooth and sleek.  All assets are created with a simple yet effective cartoon themed flair.  The environments are different and smooth and the characters are funny, unique and interesting.

Pricing

The price is a huge factor in indie games success and Angry Birds is no different.  The game is sold for a price of £0.69 on the iStore, making it extremely easy to purchase.  It is also free on the android service.  This could lead to people telling their friends using an iPhone, prompting them to make the purchase they otherwise wouldn’t.

Research - Indie Games Pricing

The article outlines many interesting views on what effects the sales of indie titles.  The general content of the article explains the impact that discounts have on getting a game noticed. 

"With Steam, our first sale was 25 percent off, and it generated around three times the daily revenue while it was going on," explained Ron Carmel, co-founder of World of Goo developer 2D Boy. 

This quote outlines that dropping a games price by as much as 25% can help generate much more revenue on a daily basis.

This following extract from the article goes on to explain how a game on the iStore was boosted into the 2nd best selling app simply by dropping its price from$2.99 to $0.99.

One of the more recent success stories is a game called Trainyard. The puzzle game quickly skyrocketed up the App Store charts back in October thanks to a combination of factors. Trainyard was Apple's featured game for a week and even managed to climb into the top 50 paid apps chart. With the increased visibility, sole developer Matt Rix decided to reduce the price on the game, dropping it from $2.99 to $0.99. Two days after lowering the price, Trainyard became the second best selling paid app, even temporarily overtaking the indomitable Angry Birds.

Ultimately  I believe that pricing can make or brake an indie titles success and this must hgave some form of negative impact on the gross revenue .  However the size of the development teams in comparison to those making triple A titles means that although units are not sold for the same price, each employee receives more of a share.

Article - Pre Report

The article seems to focus on a few main factors including:

• Indie games struggle for getting noticed
• Pricing and its effect on sales

My next post will be a analytical report detailing my findings on the article.

Article Found

I have found an article that outlines some negative factors to indie games.  After some thorough research into the article I shall divulge my findings.

Link - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/12/low-prices-low-expectations-ars-looks-at-indie-game-pricing.ars

Point of Research

I have just stumbbled across another reason indie games are desired by the public whilst searching for negative elements.  I am simply making a note of this subject in my blog in order to refer to it at a later time/date.

• Nostalgia
• Fast paced busy style of modern life

Just a Little Something

I have looked around on the internet in a general fashion and found some interesting quotations.  One of which is below:

"I believe - fiercely and with passion - that the independent video game scene is in the midst of a startling rise to prominence. Why? Because innovative artistic games made by small teams finally have the ability to be easily played and enjoyed by gamers. Viva la indie revolution!"
- Simon Carless (Chairman, IGF)

Link - http://www.indiegames.com/what.php

This quote, in essence, sums up my findings so far and has also lead to a new direction for my research to adopt.  As I have found countless positive elements about indies prominence in the market, I believe it is important to explore some negative contributors.  This will help me cover both sides of an analytical argument later on when producing my final piece of text.