I want to hear, anyways. I like people's thoughts even if these are way
philosophical etc.. Especially yours were always an interesting line to
follow. Well, I think this thread could be a more colorful place if people
would also share their minds on things which aren't quite down to earth or can
be applied immediately to games or the universe for that matter. I think, it
should be possible in here to write down some pressing thoughts without being
called by reality right at the spot.
Thanks! Honestly the main reason I ditched my post is that I realized it wasn't very cohesive. I was ranting about two almost completely unrelated things without really separating them out, they both just happened to be pet peeves of mine triggered at the same time. Plus, it had nothing to do with piracy which is what everyone else is debating about right now (my opinions on that subject match MrNyarlathotep's). I'll try to recall what I was ranting about here...
Rant #1: RPG mechanics being put into every game under the sun these days. I mean, I get it, RPG elements are great, having your character get more powerful is satisfying, having quests and side-quests and deep story is compelling. However, as a gamer I'm getting a little tired of every game going this route, and as a developer, I went out of my way to avoid it in my own Volgarr game. There are downsides to RPG elements you know, such as grinding, or inverse difficulty curve (game is harder at the beginning and easier at the end since you level up).
Also, often RPG elements are used to add unnecessary length and complexity to a game just to make it seem like its more of a "good deal" by the messed-up measurement of comparing cost to "hours of play" when judging the worth of a game (something perpetuated by many reviewers unfortunately). To me, if you take a 5 hour action game and stretch it out to 30+ hours by adding RPG elements, I'd rather just play the original 5 hour action game. I've grinded enough, messed with sorting through my inventory enough, and had enough poorly written game stories in my life that I just would rather stick to the meat of the game.
An example I gave is Star Fox 64 and how it was a straight-forward simple romp and yet is typically considered the best game in its series (with the second best being the game right before it which was the same way). All the later games tried to complexify the series in various ways to give it more depth but were never as well liked. It seems no one that later worked on that series could bring themselves to stick to just having you shoot enemies down a linear tube for most the game and focus on polishing that experience as much as possible, they all felt compelled to do more with it, not believing that maybe there are still gamers out there that don't want that extra stuff and just want to shoot things in a tube but with new enemies, bosses, and levels!
Now even games like death match first-person shooters have RPG elements in them. I'm not really into the genre much anyway, but still, bugs me that I can't just use my raw skill and go on to an online match and shoot some other players, I'm restricted in what I can do until I put in my time and level up and get access to everything first. WTF?
Rant #2: Game design decisions based on marketability. This was only somewhat related in the idea that one should seriously consider having RPG elements in their game, even in a genre that traditionally rarely did (but had great success with the ones that did, to be fair) like a belt scroller (aka beat-em-up) because that would make it more marketable. Now, if you just really like the idea of an RPG+belt scroller game (like River City Ransom, which was awesome, so that's cool), then go for it! But if you really just want to make Final Fight or Streets of Rage, then that's fine too!
My philosophy is that if you find something appealing, chances are there's hundreds of thousands of people out there that would also find it appealing, the trick is just to find them and let them know that what they want exists. True, there may be a much larger segment that would find something else even more appealing, but you have to ask yourself what your goals are with making an indie game. Are you trying to get rich? Well, I've got news for you - extremely unlikely to happen, you are far better off choosing a different career path. Are you making a game because you have an idea for a game and you want to see that game exist? Great! Then don't compromise your vision by considering marketing in the design of the game itself!
If you follow what the market demands, that just puts you in direct competition with other developers that likely have much more resources than you do. Far better to pursue a smaller niche that isn't being as well-served, I say. While its true that if you are doing a retro-style game you aren't being exactly original anyway, you might still be unique and rare in today's market if everyone else has moved on to a different way of making that style of game. I.e., if everyone is making belt-scroller+RPG, and you are making belt-scroller sans RPG, you might have a smaller target audience but also potentially more passionate one that isn't being as well-served, and have less direct competition for that sub-market. Of course, if the game you are passionate about making happens to be in line with the market demand anyway, don't let competition stop you, just focus on making it uniquely yours and as polished as possible.
Either way, I just don't think you should be thinking about marketability in your game design decisions. That's the line of thinking that drove me to quit my cushy high-paying job when my company was taken over by a freemium games company. I became indie to get away from having every game design decision tie into profits somehow. I say make the game you want to make, and then figure out how to let people know about it. Assume there are enough people out there that would find the same thing appealing that you do, and concentrate on serving that audience as best you can with as much quality and polish as you can, and on figuring out how to get the word out. Don't compromise your game design to seek a "broader audience" - that's what the non-indie game devs do, and again they have way more resources, you'll never compete with them.
You may even upset a lot of people -- I get messages all the time telling me if I just changed certain aspects of Volgarr (like adding an easy mode) it would increase its broad appeal and get me more sales, and I ignore them, because I know that if I made those changes, yes it may increase the mass appeal of the game, but it would also make it just like so many other games and ruin the appeal for the particular niche market that doesn't want those things and is sick of those things being in so many other games and appreciate that mine doesn't do that! Again, if the goal was to make money, I'd make far more doing something else entirely, plus, broader appeal doesn't necessarily make more money because you then increase how many other games you are competing with in the same space, so there's every possibility that giving in to these suggestions would have decreased my profits rather than increased them anyway.
That doesn't mean you should completely ignore feedback of course, just try to filter most of it out. Look at each piece of feedback and consider if it serves the greater vision of the game (maybe even consider writing down exactly what the core pillar goals of the game are for you to help remind yourself and keep on track). Games designed "by committee" from listening to too much feedback may be inoffensive and not generate hate (like Volgarr did... such hate, especially from the XB1 release, wow...), but at the same time they end up being ho-hum mediocre affairs that don't ignite passion in anyone. Making a focus-group-style game that targets the mass market is extremely unlikely to be successful from an indie dev due to competition, and also very unlikely to be satisfying to the dev that made it (unless their goal was more centered around a particular art style or just the raw joy of programming and the game's design wasn't an important part of the development experience anyway).
...
Anyway hope that doesn't offend anyway.
If you may read my little paragraph again, you may find out that I'm 
