I think it's going to get harder and harder for people to make competitive casual games unfortunately. Basically 3 years ago Xmas Bonus would have look RAD, but last year it just look OK, and this year it definitely looks dated.
So what if you don't have much art skill or much money? All you can do is make a game that looks like Xmas Bonus OR try to convince someone goodto do the art for royalties (not easy). And if it looks like Xmas Bonus, unless it's radical, got something really new, it won't sell very well (still may not sell even if it is radical!), and then you'll be put off making another one and have no money to reinvest. But at least you'll have another "practice" game under your belt to hopefully attract more royalty-based team members...
It's like a few years ago Indie games were more one man band things, like the old 8-bit days. But now they've gone all sophisticated (well in the graphics/sound/polish department) and require small teams to make so it's harder to compete. Don't want to put people off, but I see it going more that way as the customers and portals now demand polish - it's just a hard fact. So maybe it's best to either a) code games for fun (that's what I started doing originally, hmm) or b) actually get some investment from somewhere and do it properly. Or I guess c) build up with mini-games and get people at low cost or on royalties, but this could take a while... of wait there's d) join an existing team based on your merits or get headhunted/hired (but again this requires some kind of track record). So it all comes down to FINISHING something even if it's not great. And then doing it again, but better and so on...
So what if you don't have much art skill or much money? All you can do is make a game that looks like Xmas Bonus OR try to convince someone goodto do the art for royalties (not easy). And if it looks like Xmas Bonus, unless it's radical, got something really new, it won't sell very well (still may not sell even if it is radical!), and then you'll be put off making another one and have no money to reinvest. But at least you'll have another "practice" game under your belt to hopefully attract more royalty-based team members...
It's like a few years ago Indie games were more one man band things, like the old 8-bit days. But now they've gone all sophisticated (well in the graphics/sound/polish department) and require small teams to make so it's harder to compete. Don't want to put people off, but I see it going more that way as the customers and portals now demand polish - it's just a hard fact. So maybe it's best to either a) code games for fun (that's what I started doing originally, hmm) or b) actually get some investment from somewhere and do it properly. Or I guess c) build up with mini-games and get people at low cost or on royalties, but this could take a while... of wait there's d) join an existing team based on your merits or get headhunted/hired (but again this requires some kind of track record). So it all comes down to FINISHING something even if it's not great. And then doing it again, but better and so on...