A while back I spoke at an event to talk about what I truly believe in: every game development studio should be taking more risks to make truly great games. The event was awesome, and I’m happy I got to speak at it. Unfortunately I didn’t get to make a YouTube video out of it like I planned (the recording got messed up), so consider this blog post as a way to make up to that.

How can you benefit from risk?

I believe in sustainable game design. As such, I aim to have a game maintain a medium-sized player base over years, instead of a large one for just a couple of months.

Cash grab, brainrot, or other trend-type games are not sustainable design due to their inherent nature of being part of a trend. When you make a trend game, you open yourself up to the high possibility of losing your playerbase when the trend changes or a new trend game in the same category appears. As such, I choose to focus on making mechanically and stylistically unique games.

These higher risk games, when they succeed, stay successful. This means that playerbases of these sort of games do not get wiped out when trends change, and since the game isn’t a part of a trend, there can’t be a fresh new game of the same kind to wipe it out. In other words, when you make a mechanically and stylistically unique game, players will stay loyal to your game over others.

However, this design philsophy is higher-risk because you aren’t guaranteed an audience, nor do you know if it will make enough revenue. This higher risk scares off a lot of development studios, even the most talented and greatest, because there is a frightening high possibility of having your time and effort not work out and get wasted.

Why bother then?

After all, you could just constantly pump out trend games to maintain a revenue stream. And to be honest, there is merit behind that school of thought, especially since it sounds much more safe. I want to present a couple of example scenarios to you though.

Let’s say you have two games: Game A and Game B. Both games just started development at the same time, but Game A will finish in one month, while Game B will finish in six.

Game A (a trend game) releases and is well-received by the trend playerbase, peaking at ~100k concurrent players. However, the trend changes after the second month of it’s lifespan, and thus dies off almost entirely. Assuming healthy monetization, this game made anywhere between ~$2,000,000-$5,000,000. The unfortunate truth is that after the game dies, almost nobody will remember it, and it will never revive regardless of the number of updates.

Game B is a unique project, and not a trend game. After six months, it releases and is well-receieved by the new playerbase it discovered, peaking at ~20k concurrent players. However, when trends change, the playerbase doesn’t, and the game lasts a healthy five-or-so years with stable numbers, updating every so often to retain interest. Even after the game dies, people will remember the game fondly and may even revisit once in a while. It also strengthens your portfolio as a success story. Not only that, but with the same assumptions for monetization as before, this game would have made anywhere between ~17,500,000-$35,000,000.

Obviously this is just a thought experiment, but I am presenting it to sell the idea of sustainability over quick cash. Over the course of years, less total effort was spent, a better reputation was built, players were made happier, and in this example, the developer made around 8.75x more gross revenue.

Roblox is changing

Obviously this philosphy is applicable to any platform, but I’d like to put emphasis on how this is particularly important for Roblox.

Lately, Roblox has been pushing for more sustainable game design to keep the platform more stable and attractive. As such, Roblox has added new home recommendation signals to measure deeper interest in a game over a long period of time, which benefits non-trend games. Many trend games are now losing recommendations to these changes.

And now there is a gap in the playform waiting to be filled. This is your opportunity to do something big!

The less risk, the less payoff

Many developers forget how saturated the trend game market actually is. Because of this oversaturation, over 99% of trend games projects flop due to having too much competition and not standing out. Taking the risk by putting more care into a game has a higher success rate; as such, the risk is balanced by the reward. You don’t need a crazy hit, and even just a few thousand concurrent players over years can make a lot of money and build up hype.

There are ways to reasonably reduce the risk though.

One great way to reduce the risk is to spend 1-5 days putting together a minimum viable product and test it heavily. Simply put, if it’s not fun, don’t continue the project. There are always other ideas and you can come up with something else. MVPs do not need a lot of development time or effort because it’s simply just testing a game design idea, not fully fleshing it out.

Other than that, if you’re leading a project with many people, make sure you maintain strong leadership when guiding a team to ensure deadlines are met and things get done without increasing the scope or timeline.

Also, it seems common sense, but just ensure your game has strong parity with what the platform is looking for. This doesn’t mean you should make a copy of something else, but it does mean you should be aware of what you can get players to do.

This already has worked before, too

I previously produced and led for Slap Battles, which has been around for years, and is still kicking. It’s crazy to think that it just consistently has a five-figure player base for years, all because it started as a new thing and become something players were loyal too. Not only that, but big updates in the game still hit six-figure player counts!

Evade, 3008, and Doors are examples of games that have lasted years and sparingly need updates. They carved a corner of the internet for themselves, and players are happy to have something fun and unique to play.

There are other games I can think of too, like Piggy, Adopt Me, Riaals, Dead Rails, Build a Boat for Treasure, Fisch, and more. These games are huge, but did not need to copy a trend or play it safe to stick out.

My advice

Obviously, this is my blog, so I have opinions.

First, when designing and executing a game, think about the long term results. Prioritizing the short term can be deadly to your project.

Second, prioritize strong engagement over revenue. Revenue will follow long-term when your engagement is strong to begin with.

Third, be open to taking calculated risks, but don’t go in blind. Be sure to do plenty of research and testing. Remember, that MVP is important!

Finally, develop with the goal of making a fun game, not a money generator. Sure, if you make a money-generator-type-game, it might work, but for how long? I say that they almost never last. Making a fun game doesn’t have to be the top of charts. Making a fun game also doesn’t have to be optimized for an algorithm.

Just make fun games.