The journey is more important than the destination

Right off the bat, I must emphasize that the results of the market analysis should be taken with a considerable grain of salt. They are built on estimations on top of estimations. A positive market analysis is therefore by no means a guarantee for success. However, this does not take away from the worth of a market analysis as an exercise. Searching references games and creating the market analysis is a great opportunity to get to know your audience and discover the existing landscape. What games already exist in your genre? Which elements did players love? Which did they hate? Why did one game sell thousands of copies, while another was quickly forgotten? Researching these questions will help you avoid the pitfalls laid bare by the studios that came before you.

Explore, explore and explore some more

The biggest mistake indie developers make, is picking the most well known games in their genre. “I’m making a platformer, so I picked Celeste.”

*slaps you in the face*

Listen here you buffoon, just because Celeste is the pinnacle example of a platformer does not make it a good reference game. On the contrary. if you’ve heard of the game, then chances are that everyone has heard of it, and if everyone has heard of it, then I’m sorry to say this, but that game is way more successful than your game will ever be.

Additionally, there are certainly platformers that are much more in line with what you want to make. Exploration is key here. Don’t limit yourself to searching on Steam. Go on reddit, go to indie news sites, ask your friends for suggestions, anywhere where you are exposed to games beyond those games that everyone and their mother have played. Search for those games that have the same qualities your game has.

Just because Celeste is one of the most well-known platformers does not mean it’s a good reference game

Know thy limits

This is about feasibility. When you’ve found that perfect reference game, always look at the studio behind it. How many people worked on it? Did they already release other games? Was the studio founded by first-timers or did they already have many years of experience? If you’re a starting solo developer, don’t fool yourself into thinking you can make the same game a team of 4 experienced developers can make. Therefore, I would only pick games from studios whose resources are no more than 200% your own resources. If you’re a solo developer and you plan to develop your game in 2 years, then a game made by a team of 4 in 1 year is the limit. More people and/or time than that, and I would consider it beyond your capacity.

Look beyond your genre

You’ll probably start by searching for games by genre and tags. This is a fine place to start, especially since Steam makes it so easy to search on these. However, genre is far from the only reason why a gamer will choose a certain game. The art style, the music, the subject matter, whether their friends are playing it; these things can have as big of an impact on the buying decision of a player. Therefore, it is often better to think in terms of “what other games would my audience also play?”, rather than “what other games are most similar to my game?”. This is especially helpful for highly innovative games that don’t have clear comparables.

One example that illustrates this point is Spilled, a cozy game in which you control a boat. Dredge has a similar gameplay, but is set in a dark and gloomy world. Tiny Glade, on the other hand, is nothing like Spilled in terms of gameplay, but brings the player in the same serene state of mind. Either one can be a good reference game, but for very different reasons.

Spilled (left) and Dredge (middle) have similar gameplay. But in terms of atmosphere, Tiny Glade (right) is a far better match.

Pick winners and losers, no matter your budget

I realize this is the underlying theme throughout this post, but it is such an important point that it bears repeating: pick winners AND LOSERS. If you have a considerable budget, then it might be tempting to shrug off the worst selling games. However, there are more than enough examples of games with big budgets that absolutely tanked. Find them. Study them. Learn from them so you don’t make the same mistakes.

Leave the oldies for the retirement home

The gaming industry speeds along at a blistering pace. Releasing a game 10 years ago was very different from what it is today and it will be very different 10 years from now. Don’t be confident that you can recreate the success of an old title, even if your game is superior in every way. Limbo, for example, was a giant success when it was released 15 years ago, but there is no guarantee that it would be as successful if it was released today. I would recommend not picking games that were released more than 5 years ago.

Limbo was a huge success when it was released 15 years ago. However, there is no guarantee that a similar game would be as successful today.

Better too many than too few

The law of large numbers is your friend here. There are many factors that influence the success of a game, many of which have nothing to do with the game itself. Among Us, for example, was but a drop in a sea of forgotten games. Then Sodapoppin streamed it, raising it out of anonymity, which then snowballed into the phenomenon we know today. However, these factors are (largely) out of our control. The more reference games you have, the more all these invariances cancel each other out, leaving you with a true average representation of what your game can financially accomplish. So how many reference games do you need? Between 10 and 20 games should give you pretty reliable results.

Once you have your games, don’t be afraid to increase the weight of those games that best represent your project. But don’t go overboard. A weight of 10 is too much. A few games with a weight of 2 or 3 is reasonable. Just don’t use the weight as a way to artificially embellish the results. We’re not in the business of lying to ourselves.

Conclusion

tldr; don’t pick the most well-known and successful games. Research. Find recent games that appeal to the same audience you’re targeting.

In the future, Markan will be extended with an automatic recommendation system. The idea is that you provide some information about your studio and the game you are making, and the system will suggest reference games based on that information.

Huge thanks to Cassia Curran for helping with this article. If you need business advice, especially for VR/XR games, visit her website www.curran.games.