Hello everyone, I'm new here. There are a lot of general things I'd love to chat about, and lots of game design specifics I'd love to talk about too, but just for now, I'd like to ask a couple of things. Does anyone know how successful single player RPG's are these days? I know that Oblivion was extremely successful, and I know that the NWN games did well too. But what about Gothic 2, Gothic 3, and Two Worlds? Is there anywhere I can find how much they cost, and how much they made? If not, does anyone have a general idea? Also, any information about the companies that made these games I would love too, ie, how many staff they have etc. (Gothic is/was "Piranha Bytes" and Two Worlds is "Reality Pump".) I'm a big fan of RPG's and I plan on making one some day. Back when I first started playing games, an RPG could be made completely by one person. Since then, they have got bigger and bigger and more complex, and have needed bigger teams to make. Oblivion is obviously a huge juggernaut of a game, but Gothic and Two Worlds are smaller companies I think, and I would be very interested to know how well they do. Lastly, how do you all feel about games like these, (and these games specifically)? Do you think the single player RPG genre is a dying breed, as more focus is put on MMORPG's? Do you think FPS's and casual Racing/Sports games are the big sellers these days, perhaps due to the increasing console audience, and RPG's are getting less and less of the pie each year? Or do you think single player RPG's are strong as ever? Thanks in advance :) [Edited by - vchile on April 13, 2009 10:05:31 PM]

That's an awful number of questions. May I be right in thinking your real question is "Is it a waste of time to develop single player RPGs?" The answer to which is "it depends, but it isn't a waste of time if you have the right expectations."

For your question to how much it costs to develop a game like Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights or the Gothic series, it's more a case of the answer being irrelevant. It costs multiple millions of dollars to develop any game with a large team in salaries alone. You need publisher funding for anything on that scale. To get that funding, you need experience, and to get that, you need to join up with an existing development house and work for several years. The Sloperama articles can help you with how to make your first steps in the game industry if you haven't read them. Once you've got the ability to make a publisher listen, you'll have a better idea of what you need to ask for. [wink]

However, you can still make RPGs with a small team. You almost certainly shouldn't be aiming for anything along the same scale as what the big publisher bankrolled teams can make (i.e. no Morrowind or Oblivion), but at a small scale it's still doable. Check out Spiderweb Software or the games for sale at Amaranth's storefront. I'm pretty sure Cute Knight was made by a single developer, or at least spearheaded by one. Of course, "successful" is a relative term, but if you're prepared to spend years at it and are savvy enough to make shrewd business decisions you can make an indie RPG company work. Spiderweb has been successful for years now.

As for whether single player RPGs are a dying breed, the answer is it doesn't really matter as long you have enough players to support you. There'll be enough single player RPG fans to keep the genre alive (for indie budgets at least) for forever.

Thanks, really useful links.

There are some RPG's I've played that were made by 3 people or less, which cost just a matter of $20,000 or so. One of them was an MMORPG in fact, and it was really successful. (By successful I mean they at least doubled their money and have enough people wanting a sequel, etc.) The lead guy was the designer and programmer, his wife did all the dialogue and quests, and they hired/had help from a third guy who was an animator.

Unfortunately, one of these games got pirated heavily and the developers originally planned to make a sequel, but since decided it wasn't worth it.

Some genres just don't really last. Flight Sims used to be the bread and butter of PC gaming, but just aren't many about any more. There is MS's game, but besides that, very few. Unlike FPS's and even RPG's where there are dozens every year.

For small teams, niche can be a big benefit. You don't need to make nearly as many sales to survive, so you don't have to go after the mass market. Instead you can go after the small pockets of gamers who want something special and different, whether it's a hardcore flight sim, a graphical adventure game or an old school RPG.

Conversely, it's a mistake to go after the same markets as the big publisher funded teams. For example, a small team starting a business making flashy but standard deathmatch multiplayer FPS is (generally speaking) not a good idea. You'll be up against the established dev houses who are very good at making this type of game, aiming for players who would rather be playing the games from those big dev houses, except you've got less people, less funding and less experience.

Of course, there's such a thing as being too niche if you make a game so bizarre that it can only be loved by you. But I don't think any broad categories of games - like single player RPGs of any stripe - will ever get to that.

Thanks :) More good thoughts.

Another thought... if you want to make the most money out of your single player rpg, you should probably target as many platforms as possible, or focus on a platform that will get you a lot of possible customers.

My advice would be to aim for an iphone game. There aren't many good iphone single player RPGs (that I know of at least), and you have the possibility of reaching millions of customers and you don't even have to worry about setting up your own store or worry about people cracking/distributing your game for free.

The only downside to iphone is it's hardware limitations and those are being addressed for the most part in the next iphone release. Another good thing about doing it on the iphone is that you can make your game simpler like when you "first started playing games" which means one person could definitely make it. You don't need to push the hardware and make uber 3D gorgeous levels with bloom effects and million poly meshes.

Otherwise, target at least PC/Mac, as you can still sell these on a website and you don't need physical packaging and whatnot, so you'll save a lot on costs.

Thanks! Some good ideas there.

SpiderWeb's CEO posts a lot of informations on his blog about how he sets his pricing and how much he has to sell before becoming profitable :

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/03/so-heres-how-many-games-i-sell.html

He is doing single-player RPGs for a living. You should check it out.

For what it's worth, I completely avoid multiplayer RPGs. Most real people make lousy characters in game settings. Even the most detailed and beautifully crafted imaginary setting ever conceived can have its solidity cracked to pieces in seconds by a random goofy kid pretending to be a dwarf.

It's not the kind of atmosphere I can get into. I'd much rather interact with creatively simulated characters. Characters who feel like they belong there, who don't whine when they run out of ammo, and don't disconnect when things get tough. So yeah, I like single player RPGs. Far more than the other variety.

Quote:

Original post by Konidias The only downside to iphone is it's hardware limitations

That, and that everyone thinks your game is overpriced if you charge more than a dollar. I think the top-end price is about five bucks, and even then you'll get people complaining about the price. The iPhone looks like a viable market for very small and simple, disposable games, but you can't charge enough to make it viable for single player RPGs in my opinion.

The aforementioned Jeff Vogel blog has an article on this. And unlike me, he's got the single player RPG developer cred to back his words up. [wink]