Friday Facts #104 - Deadlines ahead

[cpy]

Fallout 4, Anno, The Crew, someone buy me a time machine
Because i sank way too much time in factorio already.

[Darthlawsuit]

But November is always when the most anticipated games come out, it's quite literally the worst month for indie devs (no indies come out this year either). Looking at the list this year - Need for Speed, Anno 2205, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void, Fallout 4, Football Manager, Star Wars Battlefront, The Crew Wild Run, Assassin's Creed Syndicate. MGSV was set to release in November as well but Konami sux and egwbčššvčrlmbočbn

Fairly enough you may not expect Factorio crowd to be all over those games, but Fallout 4 is Fallout 4. Also, Anno.

It's not a bad idea if you want a more subtle launch in the background of an absolute madness, but you sound the exact opposite

Oh wow. Thanks for the information. We haven't really thought of that . That might actually force us to reconsider our plans (our backup plan was releasing after New Year's).

If you release before steams winter sale and factorio isn't on sale then no one will see or buy it. I personally look exclusively for the 50%-75% offs during that time and don't notice anything else. Its a horrible time to release a game when your not discounting it. Even though peoples wallets will be empty I'd say release after the winter sale so people can actually see your game and they can use any gift cards they might have to buy factorio. Otherwise your release will be overshadowed by big name games and large discounts.

[DerivePi]

Sell it for a new release sale of 50% off of $49.99. Christmas is a great time to build up buzz on a new game. Think of the ordinary kids talking about Fallout 10 when they go back to school and then the smart kid starts telling his friends about this new fresh game that has a different take on gaming.

[Peter34]

I think people are stupid if they assume that Factorio is in competition with games like Infinifactory or that pharmacy game whose name I've temporarily forgotten. The two later are in a completely different genre from the one Factorio is in, and it's perfectly possible to like Factorio while having zero interest in the other two, or the other way around.

It's like equating "7 Days to Die" with Minecraft because both are voxel-based games. OK, those two games actually are in the same genre, survival-crafting, but they're still very different from each other, not just as different as Factorio is from the earlier mentioned puzzle games.

Or like fixating obsessively on a computer strategy game using hexes and therefore equating it with Civiliation 5, just based on that superficial design element. It's not as if Firaxis invented hexes. Hexmaps have been used by roleplayers for many decades.

One shouldn't concern one-self with the whims and follies of stupid people.

[Peter34]

It's not a bad idea if you want a more subtle launch in the background of an absolute madness, but you sound the exact opposite

Factorio is already very, very out on Youtube, with numerous Let's Play videos, including the recent series by Kage848, and the abandoned series by Direwolf20 (which IIRC got a lot of views) and many others.

The main message, the "sound bite", to get across, is that Factorio is a game in the survival crafting genre, but that it differs from the competitors in that it's about the player needing to do as little work as possible. The success criterion literally is laziness: To get your machines to do as much of the work for you as possible.

Whereas all the other survival crafting genre games are about grinding, grinding and grinding some more to gather resources. E.g. 7 Days to Die, or Planet Explorers, or even Space Engineers. Grind, grind, grind. Work, work, work. I like 7D2D a lot but it can be a but like a Protestantism simulation sometimes. Factorio is a game for thinkers rather than for workers.

[Peter34]

Also, Factorio does not fill the niche. It creates the niche.

This is very true. Factorio is the first game of its kind. The first game about setting up a very complex automated factory

[indjev99]

The new technology icons are amazing. And id that is the first version, I just can't imagine how awesome the final ones will be.

[DjTeo]

I took a quick view of the competition you spoke of, I have one thing to say, Factorio has multiplayer and its easy to learn.

[Drury]

But November is always when the most anticipated games come out, it's quite literally the worst month for indie devs (no indies come out this year either). Looking at the list this year - Need for Speed, Anno 2205, Call of Duty Black Ops 3, Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void, Fallout 4, Football Manager, Star Wars Battlefront, The Crew Wild Run, Assassin's Creed Syndicate. MGSV was set to release in November as well but Konami sux and egwbčššvčrlmbočbn

Fairly enough you may not expect Factorio crowd to be all over those games, but Fallout 4 is Fallout 4. Also, Anno.

It's not a bad idea if you want a more subtle launch in the background of an absolute madness, but you sound the exact opposite

Oh wow. Thanks for the information. We haven't really thought of that . That might actually force us to reconsider our plans (our backup plan was releasing after New Year's).

If you release before steams winter sale and factorio isn't on sale then no one will see or buy it. I personally look exclusively for the 50%-75% offs during that time and don't notice anything else. Its a horrible time to release a game when your not discounting it. Even though peoples wallets will be empty I'd say release after the winter sale so people can actually see your game and they can use any gift cards they might have to buy factorio. Otherwise your release will be overshadowed by big name games and large discounts.

Well yeah tomas did say they plan on avoiding the sale and release afterwards. Smart choice.

Sell it for a new release sale of 50% off of $49.99. Christmas is a great time to build up buzz on a new game. Think of the ordinary kids talking about Fallout 10 when they go back to school and then the smart kid starts telling his friends about this new fresh game that has a different take on gaming.

Then the kid gets beat up

Factorio is a niche thing, and mostly it's not for kids. Of course there's the odd one here and there, but generally the game attracts an older audience. Young adults through adults.

Furthermore, Fallout 4 is bound to be pretty good, no reason to be so reserved. I refuse to believe Albert didn't take from the series' aesthetic and themes when designing Factorio.

Anyway - artificially raising the price to get people to pay regular full price with a sale sticker tacked on is a terrible business tactic. Of course, money goes first in business, but there's such a thing as reputation and respect. Indie developers rely on it more than i.e. Rockstar which pulled it off with GTA just fine. If you're indie, you piss off the few people that buy your game, they spread news that you're a greedy bastard and nobody else buys it ever. Unless you go ballistic like Phil Fish and get free media coverage, that is.

Bah. Black magic, that. I wouldn't expect or want Wube to go down that rabbit hole.

[Drury]

Also, Factorio does not fill the niche. It creates the niche.

This is very true. Factorio is the first game of its kind. The first game about setting up a very complex automated factory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUxz5StP3AM

I'm very sorry to announce I plan on having a FLAMEWAR here, because right here you just sound to me like the guys who claim that Call of Duty invented first person shooter.

[Jonathan88]

Factorio is a niche thing, and mostly it's not for kids. Of course there's the odd one here and there, but generally the game attracts an older audience. Young adults through adults.

I don't know why 'kids' wouldn't like it. Being a 'kid', this is my favourite game. Yes, most of them just play Call of Duty the entire time but there are also a lot of more thoughtful ones to which Factorio would appeal.

Factorio is already very, very out on Youtube, with numerous Let's Play videos, including the recent series by Kage848, and the abandoned series by Direwolf20 (which IIRC got a lot of views) and many others.

Not to forget AMASS ( https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... lWSVGFr9PD ) and other series by Mangled Pork (Bentham) like 'Railworld' and 'Living with Biters' ( https://www.youtube.com/user/MangledPork )
I would thoroughly recommend watching these!

[Drury]

Well I did say there are the odd ones out. And you said it yourself, you're a minority.

About Youtube - yes, more power to them, but it's hard to argue there's more incentive among general gamers to buy Need for Speed over Factorio. Or Call of Duty. Or Starcraft 2 expansion. Or Fallout 4. Or Assassin's Creed. Et cetera.

I know I'm not going to play Factorio in November, and I got myself the highest tier. I just can't miss out on those great games, I'm sorry.

/especially sorry if you yourself couldn't care less about them due to your limited taste

[Xinayder]

Is it just me, or is the blog post off by 5 months or so?

Posted by Tomas on 2015-18-04, all posts

[Drury]

Is it just me, or is the blog post off by 5 months or so?

Posted by Tomas on 2015-18-04, all posts

Fallout 4, Anno, The Crew, someone buy me a time machine
Because i sank way too much time in factorio already.

Well it seems you came to the right place to ask.

[rkfg]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUxz5StP3AM

I'm very sorry to announce I plan on having a FLAMEWAR here, because right here you just sound to me like the guys who claim that Call of Duty invented first person shooter.

That was already mentioned before, Factorio isn't a puzzle game like SpaceChem, Infinifactory, Big Pharma (I heard this one is pretty random, you mix some resources and get something else and you don't know what you'd get in advance) etc. It's a factory optimization game with one clear final goal and a completely unrestricted solution space. You're not required to obey any rules, you may almost always make everything by hand (except things that are made in factories and liquids) but it just takes too much time so you start optimizing and automating things. I haven't seen such motivation before. You may as well optimize your solutions in Infinifactory but you're still restricted by the map size and you still have to complete levels to progress. Factorio doesn't enforce anything, it gives you tools and then you're on your own. Of course, it has similarities with SpaceChem but Zachtronics games are all about visual parallel programming while Factorio is about scaling and optimizing the production lines. It's not enough to just produce something, it's how you produce it thousands of times.

[Brambor]

Hi, I noticed one mistake in FFF #104: you have there horridly instead of horribly.
Great job! New icons look awesome!

[daniel34]

Hi, I noticed one mistake in FFF #104: you have there horridly instead of horribly.
Great job! New icons look awesome!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/horridly
"Horrid" and "horrible" originally had different meanings, but have become almost synonymous over the years.

However, under Python intermezzo your company is called Wube softare.

[Marconos]

Looking good. If you do push the steam release back make sure to not stop with 0.13. Would just allow you to release with more content. Picking the right time to go live is so important.

Good luck, lovin the game.

[Peter34]

Also, Factorio does not fill the niche. It creates the niche.

This is very true. Factorio is the first game of its kind. The first game about setting up a very complex automated factory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUxz5StP3AM

I'm very sorry to announce I plan on having a FLAMEWAR here, because right here you just sound to me like the guys who claim that Call of Duty invented first person shooter.

I repeat, setting up a complex automated factory.

SpaceChem appears to be based around a very tiny grid.

Also, it's my impression that SpaceChem is based around small mission-based puzzles, unlike Factorio's "end goal"-based game play, which is all long-term, with games lasting for dozens of hours, and where you really only have to do 3 things, and are let free to figure out how:
1. Automate the production of magic science potions so that you can climb the Tech Tree.
2. Build and utilize defensive structures to protect your base against attack.
3. Actually finish the game by building the Silo and launching one Sattelite by Rocket.

Therefore, Factorio is the first game of its kind.

[Peter34]

Looking good. If you do push the steam release back make sure to not stop with 0.13. Would just allow you to release with more content. Picking the right time to go live is so important.

Yes, I sure hope the devs won't just stop once they reach the design goals for their "Steam release" and then decide to take a several-months-long break because the Steam release was delayed.