Жанры с нулевым спросом: почему делают игры, в которые никто не будет играть

Summary

The lecture argues that game design should be grounded in references and market realities. Successful use of references means understanding and reinterpreting a game’s underlying system—not merely copying its surface features.

1. The market is the real “exam”

• A developer ultimately learns whether a game works when it reaches the market and players respond.
• Designing without references is risky. Other games, films, history, and art can provide useful structures, archetypes, mechanics, and starting points.
• The goal is not to copy a reference wholesale, but to understand what makes it work and decide what to do differently.

2. Evaluate both demand and development cost

The speaker suggests considering two broad questions:

• How much interest is there in the genre?
• How costly will the game be to make?

Development cost includes more than money. It also includes time, health, relationships, age, burnout risk, and opportunities forgone by working on one project instead of another. These costs are especially important for solo developers and small teams.

A genre without a recent hit could indicate either:

• An opening in the market, with renewed player interest; or
• A genuinely dormant genre with too few interested players.

The absence of recent releases alone does not prove that a genre is a good opportunity. Developers must assess both demand and feasibility.

3. Reference the system, not just the appearance

Using Vampire Survivors as an example, the speaker distinguishes its underlying game structure from its distinctive content.

• Its basic system includes timed runs, movement and controls, upgrades, chests, progression, and meta-progression.
• Simply copying its weapons, characters, art, or setting is shallow imitation.
• Copying a game’s core mechanics can be a starting point, but the new game needs its own interpretation and ideas.

The speaker considers copying a reference’s weapons and other recognizable surface details particularly weak: players will readily recognize the source without seeing much that is new.

4. Genre capacity depends on how many distinct interpretations it supports

In the speaker’s framework, a genre’s “capacity” is the number of genuinely distinct games that can be built from its underlying system.

• Changing only the setting or visual skin usually creates another version of the same idea, not a meaningfully new interpretation.
• A stronger reinterpretation changes multiple dimensions, such as mechanics, progression, weapons, characters, metaphors, or the space in which the game is played.
• The speaker points to Brotato and Megabonk as examples of games that add distinctive ideas rather than relying only on a new coat of paint. In Megabonk, for instance, the 3D space and ability to jump over crowds change the experience.
• Some genres may have few apparent variations because many obvious possibilities have already been explored. The speaker uses 2D platformers as an example.
• Other genres may have demand but little supply because they are difficult or expensive to execute. A tavern-simulation idea, for example, may have been imaginable for a long time but required more research and better-developed systems to work well.

5. A practical test for whether a reference has become too derivative

The speaker sketches a rough hierarchy using Slay the Spire as an example. The categories are a thinking aid, not a scientific classification:

• Generic foundations: Familiar elements such as health and block. Including these does not, by itself, make a game distinctive.
• Recognizable system components: Elements such as statuses, enemies, characters, relics, consumables, elites, and shops. These may make a game resemble its reference more clearly.
• Specific mechanics and effects: Reproducing particular relic effects or familiar interactions brings a design closer to the reference.
• Highly specific events and choices: Reusing memorable, recognizable events or decisions is especially likely to feel copied.

The more specific and recognizable the borrowed material is, the greater the risk that the new game will feel like a secondary version of its reference. Developers should identify the function an element serves and create a different way to deliver that experience.

6. Novelty should change how the game is played

• A new feature matters when it creates new interactions, not simply because it is different.
• The speaker uses the mushroom in Super Mario as an example of a mode change: it changes how the player interacts with enemies rather than merely changing the character’s appearance.
• Adding the same mode to another platformer would not be very novel. A stronger design would build a different mode around interactions that are interesting within that game’s own system.
• New themes and metaphors can also create new interactions. For example, a card is a game component; representing it as a sword attack or another thematic action can change how players understand it, even if the underlying structure is similar.

7. Make upgrades and choices interact

The speaker warns against copying familiar upgrade choices without copying the systems that make them meaningful.

• A choice among three bonuses is not inherently interesting. It needs to connect to meaningful strategies or build paths.
• In a more systemic game, an upgrade can trigger a chain of effects. For example, increasing damage may speed up clearing enemies, enable more pickups, and strengthen other weapons.
• In contrast, a simple bonus that does not affect other parts of the game may feel flat.
• Good design often comes from interconnected systems, where changes in one part produce effects elsewhere. The aim is not merely to reproduce a familiar upgrade screen, but to create the relationships that make its choices matter.

8. The central lesson

The speaker’s main advice is to study references deeply, assess a project’s likely cost and audience, and introduce enough meaningful ideas to give the game its own identity. Familiar mechanics can be valuable, but copying them without understanding their role tends to reproduce the surface of an experience rather than the reasons it was enjoyable.

Speakers and sources featured

• Main speaker: XK / xkoster — Leads the game-design lecture and discusses his experience as a developer.
• Audience and chat participants — Appear through questions and comments read or answered during the stream.
• Unattributed quoted passage about game development — Portrays development as a dark, painful process that can consume a creator’s life; the subtitles do not reliably identify its author or book.
• Krizhan Zhukovsky — Mentioned by the speaker as a marketer whose perspective differs from that of a game developer.
• Games used as examples or references: Vampire Survivors, Crimsonland, Magic Survival (the title is unclear in the auto-generated subtitles), Brotato, Megabonk, Slay the Spire, Super Mario, and GTA V. The lecture also refers more generally to 2D platformers, RTS games, and tavern simulators.