when dunkey announced his publishing thing i poked fun at his announcement for being generally unhinged sounding from the perspective of a developer. a lot of "i know what makes good games" instead of any demonstrated knowledge of the kinds of services publishers actually provide. i got a lot of attention from people who hate dunkey, who then got very mad at me when it turned out i don't hate dunkey, and a lot of attention from people who LOVE dunkey, and took my lol's as a personal attack. i had some interesting conversations with other developers but mostly tuned out of it when twitter creeps decided to make it a whole thing. two years later some name searching reveals i am apparently still living rent free in the heads of some nobody randos, which, lol. lmao.
anyway, animal well is out, i hear it's fantastic, and just glancing at some surface level stuff, it looks like big mode did actually know what they were doing as far as stuff like a cross platform launch, localization, nice booths at events, and reaching the press. it's great to see! contrary to what some may think, i am not a bitter hater who wants to see an indie dev and internet funnyman fail.
but i was thinking about that initial video, why it was so laughable to me as a developer, and i had an "oh, of course, you dufus" moment of realizing because it was not made for developers. why would dunkey choose his direct line to a giant audience of gamers to demonstrate his services to a developer? that would be a complete waste.
i speculated on what dunkey's process for "only publishing the best games" would be, and figured he would probably find a game years in development and help it across the finish line. it sounds like animal well was in development for something like 5 years before big mode picked it up, so yeah. but i was wondering, what dev invested in their 5 year project would sign based on that video?? and most likely, there was probably a different, private, much more competent conversation where it actually counted: with the developer.
the thing i am now smacking myself in the forehead over is that the big mode announcement video was 100% marketing aimed at the massive audience of people who would be buying the game, not the one guy who would be making it. of course. duh. "i know what good games are, you know i recognize the best games, i would have published celeste if i could have, get ready to open your wallet and be delighted at whatever i put in front of you" makes so much fucking sense once i stop thinking about it like a developer and start thinking about it like a dunkey subscriber superfan who comes to the channel to learn about cool new games. He was selling his first game before there was even a game to sell by anchoring it to titles like Sonic Mania and Celeste, which i still think is ethically repugnant, but damn if it hasn't been effective.
and this is why dunkey is better at marketing than me. so i guess, mea culpa, dunkey.
