Game Dev

Rejected by 58 publishers, then made $750k

One developer just wrote an extremely interesting super detailed post on Reddit talking about their experience trying to get their game published. They reached out to 58 publishers in total, got 16 rejections, lots of silence and 3 low offers. In the end they self-published and the game has since grossed $750k in 5 months.

If you want to know about what publishers expect, what they can do for you and all the math involved in the revenue split then I highly recommend you read through the whole post. Nowadays getting a (good) publisher is really difficult, you need to have a very polished demo AND proof of interest. Reaching out as a first time studio with 0 wishlists is unlikely to yield results, but on the other hand if you have a strong demo and a large amount of wishlists you will get publishers reaching out to you.

They wanted funding and asked for a reasonable amount but only got low ball offers, some publishers offered funding while others only offered marketing. Revenue splits can be 50/50 or 30/70 or anything in between, these kinds of deals are always very custom.

There is another post that talks about the development of the game itself and the timeline from starting development (Feb 2024) to release (Mar 2025) which lead to making $480k in the first month.

The game is Do No Harm, a lovecraftian doctor simulator, definitely unique and it's awesome to see how it found so much success.

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Tech

AI getting closer to making games?

Google has just unveiled Genie 3, their latest AI model that creates interactive worlds! This is super impressive stuff! I made a video on Genie 2 when it came out and the improvements are pretty massive.

You can generate a world from a single text prompt and then walk around it while also taking actions. It also supports promptable events where you write a text prompt like "Spawn a dragon" and it suddenly appears in the world.

The most important things are how it is consistent, meaning you can take an action then look away and when you look back the world is in the same state. And how it's also generating in real-time in 720p over multiple minutes. On top of that you can combine it with agents that automatically can take actions in the world.

This is extremely impressive technology! Whenever a new update on an AI like this happens I always get a bunch of concerned comments from students who are questioning whether they should keep learning game development / programming or if there's no point since AI is going to take over the world.

My answer to that is quite simple: Don't worry. Simply because games are insanely complex pieces of tech, you need to be good at Programming, Art, Sound, Music, Game Design, UI, UX, etc; which means in order for an AI to get good enough to make a compelling game on its own, it basically needs to be Super AGI. And when Super AGI happens the world will change drastically, either into a Utopia or Dystopia, and we all will need to adapt to a very new reality. Therefore I don't worry about it and you shouldn't either. If/when that happens we will have bigger concerns.

Another big AI update this week was GPT5, I haven't yet researched it much but it seems to be another nice jump forward.

Gaming

Create a functioning organism in this game

One of my favorite genres (and one of the hottest genres on Steam) are Automation games. One developer is working on a fascinating game that allows you to build a fully functioning organism!

You have cells of various types, Skin, Nerve, Fat, Bone, Muscle. And by combining them you create functioning systems for breathing, digestion, etc. You need to sustain your organism by balancing it's need for food as well as reacting to viruses by building an immune system.

There is a Steam page and currently has 1000 wishlists. With such an interesting unique idea, if this game has a great demo with great gameplay then I can see this being a massive success!

Fun

1000-pixel physical wooden display 6 years in the making!

One developer has spent the past 6 years building a fun 1000-pixel display made of wood blocks. It's a very silly idea but mechanically very interesting!

The entire post talks about the research and all the attempts they tried in the past few years. Started off with stepper motors, a Raspberry Pi and some black/white balls. Then tried Nerf balls and finally wooden cubes. The rotation mechanism is also fascinating, it uses a glue stick that has the perfect dimensions to rotate each cube in the perfect position, genius!

Oh and of course it's connected to the internet and anyone can submit something to be drawn! It draws at a rate of 13 pixels per minute, meaning a full refresh every 76 minutes. That’s just a tiny bit slower than a 4k monitor updating at 240hz heh.