People really have no ideas on game development.

You're not wrong in your first paragraph. There is a lot of crap out there.

Your second paragraph was hilarious, though. Get a few years' experience, and you'll understand why I think so.

2 minutes ago, JTippetts said:

Your second paragraph was hilarious, though.

Really? Can you count the proportion of AAA games or innovative games found on itch.io compared to mediocre games?

14 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Something few developers have done on the hobbyist / indie stage.

There are reasons why few indie/hobbyist developers make AAA kind of games.

They require a ton of experience and skill in a high number of areas. They require a ton of content. They require a ton of polish, tweaking and adjusting.

Essentially, they require a budget and time-scale which is not possible to achieve for indie/hobbyist developers.

Take a look at any recent-ish AAA game, and look at the credits list for amount of people working on the game. Do a quick search for how many years the game was in production for. Do the math.

If you think you can compete with AAA games on their terms, you are simply incorrect. You do not have the experience and skill in all required areas, you do not have the budget, and you do not have the time.

That isn't to say you can't make anything better than the cheap horrible games you described in the first paragraph, but you will not be making a AAA game as a hobby/indie developer. You need more realistic expectations.

Alternatively, you might be saying "oh but I didn't mean those AAA games" -- well then you're most likely not talking about actual AAA games. Just high-end indie games, which is a completely different ballpark.

5 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Can you count the proportion of AAA games or innovative games found on itch.io compared to mediocre games?

Only one out of 1 games is good. But this isn't new, it always have been like so i think. (Nothing wrong with making a Mario clone for learning, but there is something wrong with current lack of innovation.)

Exceptions are times when new tech rises (e.g. when 3D became standard), or when new genres come up. Then more games are good, inspiration and motivation are higher.

18 minutes ago, sprotz said:

For me I have brilliant Ideas that I have got planned for 28 games I intend to develop.

How do they differ from the current average?

28 is too much - i would try to combine good ideas to reduce that number.

16 minutes ago, sprotz said:

I've seen all kinds of games people develop and post on app stores and indie game sites. What I noted is the lack of original ideas and innovation. Lots of games that look that they are developed by seven year olds, too many 2D side scroller mario clones, too many sonic clones, and a lot of stolen assets or plainly drawn graphics. Few games have original characters but they are also 2d side scrollers with exact mario style gameplay. For the few 3d games, most are FPS zombie shooters, also with stolen assets, many models with no animation. I see a lot of android games with the "made with unity" logo at the start. Obvious glitches and poor mechanics that the developers don't bother fixing, and a whole lot of ads.

I mostly agree with you there

We need more variety - good variety I mean.

I'm not particularly against 2D games, but they're so predominant that it gets kind of stale ,I guess. It all depends on the execution.

17 minutes ago, sprotz said:

For me I have brilliant Ideas that I have got planned for 28 games I intend to develop. Most of them will be 3D and many will be AAA kind of games. Something few developers have done on the hobbyist / indie stage.

This on the other hand sounded much like those "seven years old" you mentioned - too arrogant and egotistical. Take a step back and, as previously stated, get some experience and you shall (hopefully) understand.

Not that you can't have excellent ideas! Just be a little more mindful of how you talk about them.

Then again, perhaps you were just being sarcastic - sometimes I fail to notice those things in the internet.

11 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Can you count the proportion of AAA games or innovative games found on itch.io compared to mediocre games?

There are no AAA games on itch.io.

AAA, by the definition accepted by the majority of game developers etc., means multi-digit-million dollar budget.

28 minutes ago, sprotz said:

For me I have brilliant Ideas ... and many will be AAA kind of games. Something few developers have done on the hobbyist / indie stage.

AAA games cost $10M+ to make, by definition. So, you've got $20M+ investment already? That means you're not at the hobbyist / indie stage any more.

By definition of AAA, I don't mean multi million dollar games but I mean high end, professional quality games that are long and complete games developed by hobbyists. I am not being sarcastic. I am saying I can develop a 3d GTA style game with 100 missions because I have all the time in the world. And I only need a small budget to do it. This game is planned by the way, it will be set in 3 cities. I know it takes a long time to develop games. It took me 4 months to develop one game and I was working round the clock.

But I have the ambition, fierce determination and the desire to develop "AAA" games with all the time I have. Should I mention details on all the other 27 planned games?

3 minutes ago, sprotz said:

I am saying I can develop a 3d GTA style game with 100 missions because I have all the time in the world.

You alone can not even create a single cut scene we see in GTA. Or do you have motion capture rig, and you're an actor and director, and you can edit all that animation, rig and model characters, etc... It's impossible for a single person.

Further, making another GTA... where's the innovation and new idea here? You want to make a GTA clone with some minor details changed? That's what everybody would like to do, it's NO new idea. Rockstar can do it better than you.

7 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Should I mention details on all the other 27 planned game?

Yep, please! GTA really is no good start

If you truly have "all the time in the world", you could indeed pull it off.

But that is precisely the main problem you'd face. If you want to use a small budget, that means most likely working alone or with a very small team, which will inevitably slow down the production.

Sure, you may be willing to invest 10 or 20 years in your project, but by the time you are done, the industry moved on, trends changed, your graphics are outdated, etc... it may even be that someone else beat you to the punch and made something really similar but much quicker.

Well, that's just my take on it. Despite all the cheap/free tools available nowadays that massively speed things up, creating a game is still quite a laborious process.

16 minutes ago, sprotz said:

But I have the ambition, fierce determination and the desire to develop "AAA" games with all the time I have. Should I mention details on all the other 27 planned games?

And the AAA studios have the money to hire hundreds of people with ambition, fierce determination, desire to develop games, and years of experience behind them.

Also, ideas are mostly worthless, execution and implementation is what matters.

4 minutes ago, JoeJ said:

You alone can not even create a single cut scene we see in GTA. Or do you have motion capture rig,

You don't need a motion capture rig, anyone can do it from something as simple as animated gifs (trace animations from photos). You can be an actor and director and move the in game camera easily. Isn't this how Gangstar Rio was made?

Among the games I have planned:

• A 3D Airline tycoon game similar to "Aviation empire for Android", except this one will have multiple airlines. No game like this exists yet.
• Sim country where you take over a country as president and turn it from a poor third world country to a developed country, with 2d isometric or 3d graphics.
• A football manager / striker career hybrid
• 3D platformer that is dexter's laboratory themed

and many more...

Planning one at a time is enough. Get building!

Also, for what it's worth, GTA V has about 1000 to 2000 man-years worth of work gone into it. It's not the kind of thing that a solo dev can produce right now. If you think these kinds of products can feasibly be made without hundreds of hands toiling on them for years, then the title of the thread is very apt!

17 minutes ago, Lactose said:

Also, ideas are mostly worthless, execution and implementation is what matters.

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This!

10 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Among the games I have planned:

Disregarding how many games you have thought of or planned -- how many games have you actually made so far?

16 minutes ago, sprotz said:

You don't need a motion capture rig, anyone can do it from something as simple as animated gifs (trace animations from photos).

It doesn't work, the animation looks like the character is ice skating. The reason is that there is no subtle muscle movement or any kind of indication of impact and reaction.

Take Blender and try it, see if you can do it.

22 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Isn't this how Gangstar Rio was made?

Gangstar Rio was made by Gameloft. A small team of experienced game developers.

If it was that simple, there would be billions of high quality games. No one wants to make a bad game.

These low quality games you mention are from developers who think it is going to be simple to make games, but forget that the developers who make games have years of experience.

According to the statistics of 2017, the average successful indie developer has 12 years of game development experience.

11 minutes ago, sprotz said:

You don't need a motion capture rig, anyone can do it from something as simple as animated gifs

So you show gif's instead high tech? Ok, this can work. You no longer compete with AAA, but of course you can create fun or even art.

2 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Among the games I have planned:

• A 3D Airline tycoon game similar to "Aviation empire for Android", except this one will have multiple airlines. No game like this exists yet.
• Sim country where you take over a country as president and turn it from a poor third world country to a developed country, with 2d isometric or 3d graphics.
• A football manager / striker career hybrid
• 3D platformer that is dexter's laboratory themed

Not a single 'new' idea. Just variations of existing ones.

I don't want to sound demotivating, but likely you won't stand out of the crowd as much as you hope. The people you criticize have the same kind of ideas, and they invest a lot of time as well.

You cook with the same water like everyone else does, but you seem to be too young / excited / naive to see it yet. Nothing wrong with that, but don't have too high or unrealistic expectations.

10 minutes ago, Hodgman said:

Also, for what it's worth, GTA V has about 1000 to 2000 man-years worth of work gone into it.

Well, GTA V is a very complex game with a highly detailed world, lots of dialogue and licensed content.

My GTA style game will not be GTA V, more like the gangstar series, far less complex but so much fun and functional.

4 minutes ago, Lactose said:

how many games have you actually made so far?

I made 3. I actually made two GTA style games each taking 4 months to complete, but they are quite incomplete (no missions)