At any given time, there's about 400 million people playing game on the planet. Of those people, only 14% play NEW games released within 12 months.

It used to be 30% 10 years ago. Now it's less for a variety of factors, but one of them is less people have the income and budget they used to.

You are in that 14%.

Which is great - but the games you buy as part of that 14% are based on your taste. Not if they are exceptionally good, only if they are exceptionally good to you.

So making games that are "exceptionally good" for an audience isn't easy because your audience doesn't even know what they want beyond a genre. I'm sure you could tell me about the games you like and prefer to play, possibly even a genre of games you love.

But if I asked you to tell me what game COULD be exceptionally good in that genre, you might not have an answer. Just other games to compare it to. And if you do have an answer, there's no telling if it would actually be popular with a bigger audience that genre enjoys.

Making "exceptional games" isn't a bar to be crossed that makes a game money. Rather a game is "exceptional" once it finds an audience that feels that way about it. Games that have broad appeal have broad audiences like Call of Duty who all feel that game is exceptional too. Many who play it would argue which one in the series was the most "exceptional" and wouldn't have a great answer for what to make as a better version of that game.

People like what they play, and exceptional games are only exceptional to the audience that plays them. So it's not so much about making something exceptional, but making something that has an audience that thinks it's exceptional.

And finding that audience is the hard part. Especially when only 14% of people who plays games are even looking at what you've made.

But it's not impossible. Just difficult these days.