[benzor]

I work in the games industry. There are plenty of problems to go around, but I'll pick just one:

Discoverability

In the "good old days" where 2 people could make a video game, odds are that just shipping something guaranteed you'd make money. But that's no the case anymore now that 1000+ apps come out every day on iOS / Google Play. Of course most of those are crap. But you could be making a great game that caters well to a particular audience or niche, and yet you might still fail just because no one can find it or really just be aware of its existence.

The "simple" answer to this is marketing. Hustle your way to some visibility, partner up with some publishers or some platforms holders, and get as many eyeballs in front of your game as possible. However this effort is very close to being "zero-sum." Either you win and get your promo art banner at the top of the app store, or someone else does, but you can't both get it. It's less obvious when it comes to PR and having articles or game review written about you, but it's still there: with so much noise now on the internet, it's hard to generate a meaningful signal.

The harder solution is being tackled by the app stores themselves. Steam, iOS, etc. have all been improving the way games are presented in their stores. There's more focus on specific genre features, more flash sales, more suggestions based on what you already play. It's a decent effort but I don't think it's enough yet.

What can we do about it? Not sure. Algorithms that try to discover what you might like based on your previous purchases are nice and all, but most of my favourite gaming experiences were surprises that came out of genres I didn't expect (e.g. Rocket League), so this can only go so far.

[danschuller]

Also the games industry - I'd add soaring content costs for "AAA" games. Trees, crates, terrain, clothing, props from cups to cars etc. etc. these things take and cost a lot to make and the required fidelity only ever increases. It's unsustainable.

Interesting stuff with scanning real world items and photogrammery but these techniques aren't widely used yet.

Marketplaces for models don't tend to solve this because quality isn't consistent and unique content is preferred.

[faitswulff]

I would say that discoverability is a problem that games share with pretty much every form of media in the internet age. I've been thinking that one possible solution is to use less technology - organize local meetups and user tests, build a local community. BitBash in Chicago is an example of this, albeit on an annual basis: https://bitbashchicago.com/

[jamesrcole]

FWIW, it was an issue with books before the internet was big. So many novels are written each year. It's long been difficult to know how to find novels that you might like outside of the bigger works.

[egypturnash]

I make comics, put 'em on the web for free, and occasionally print books. I was gonna say I have pretty much the same problem as you do.

And hell, you and I are competing for the same resource: people's time and attention to give to our little package of artistic effort.

So far the solution in comics seems to be "oh i know i'll make another damn portal, or another damn hosting site", which I'm pretty meh on.

[erik]

I've seen several attempts to do the same thing with games. Introduce another site, or another portal, and hope to drive discoverability through it. But the audience has no incentive to visit your portal.

In games, Steam and the app stores are so critical because they have a massive audience that already have accounts that can make payments with minimum friction.

[Artlav]

This is painfully familiar. Even worse for free games that can't be put on Steam, stores and similar places.

20 years ago just having a website and word of mouth was enough to get a players club going.