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Logo uses joystick by liftarn
To play devil’s advocate, their incredible sales were absolutely up to luck. Like all things. But you’re right, people online are rarely worth listening to, unless you’d like the perspective of people who spend above average time on the internet. People without similar moorings to yours, and generally lacking the background that led you to your perspective and understanding. There are many benefits, and many downsides to polling the web.
Can I enquire how 15,000,000 copies sold was down to luck? They released a solid game with fun gameplay, great music, and an eye-catching art style. They priced the game competitively, even considering international pricing. All of this seems like choices that were made with intention, not the roll of a dice.
You could perhaps argue that there was luck in people seeing the games initial campaign on kickstarter, but I don’t think you can excuse the rest as ‘luck’.
Good question.
Luck is always an element of success. I’m confident there are other indie titles with similar levels of gameplay, music, and art style, with just as much passion poured in, that just never caught the viral wave. It’s a big world out there.
Obviously the dev set their project up well for that success, making it more likely, but it’s still a dice roll.
I’ve heard very successful movie/TV actors talk about seeing nobodies blow their minds in local theater productions, people who never got the stroke of luck required to make it big. Plenty of successful people forget that they owe no small part of their success to luck.
It's kinda like how you need to be really really really good to become the next Tailor Swift or Michael Jackson. But even IF you are really fucking amazing, you still need to be super fucking lucky, because there are millions of other people just as good, or maybe better.
You can be the best musician in history, but unless you know someone big in the industry, the likelyhood of ever actually becoming anything is about as high as winning the lottery.
Same thing with games.
I think it was Rami Ismail (maybe Bennet Foddy...) who described luck in the games industry as being a vital factor, but every time you make a game and put information out there about your games, you're re-rolling the dice. They played a great game, it's still a matter of getting the right rolls at the right time.
Getting lucky doesn't discount skill and hard work, but getting unlucky does, and the majority of talented people making great games have been unlucky.
There are plenty of solid indie games out there. If a friend wanted to quit his job and play bass guitar I’d tell him to slow down. The Redditors were harsh but, “don’t quit your day job” is applicable to 99.9% of devs who won’t make it big.
Jesus christ, reddit. Take it down one single notch maybe? Like, bro
I don't enjoy side-scrollers.
But I DO enjoy supporting people in the things they create.
Who cares if it's not my cuppa. Who cares if there's 10,000 similar things out there? And who cares if it doesn't land on any "TOP TEN" lists?
Is hollow knight my thing? Nope.
But it's rad as hell.