Return of the Independent Game Developer? 164
chromatic writes "Several of the trends that make open source development possible are affecting other programming worlds. I've written an article about independent game development. Perhaps the gaming industry is ready for the craftsman-team approach."
Aiiiight (Score:5, Informative)
Return? (Score:2, Insightful)
sad news for U (Score:1)
Re:sad news for U (Score:1, Troll)
Better games acoming... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully we will see an infusion of new ideas and styles like Carmagedon was when it came out....
Nope. (Score:2)
Sadly, indie game developers are just as bad about this, if not worse. At least you don't see commercial developers writing Yet Another Arkanoid and such.
Elemental (Score:2, Interesting)
Its not that easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody wants to do the bitch work... all the hardest stuff to get started. They just wanna join in and help after it gets goin.
I'm no coding wizard, i can do enough to get by... I write the working shit code and the people too lazy to help at first fix it. Maybe it works better than i thought.
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:2, Insightful)
I sometimes do it, but when you get home around 7 PM and leave the hous around 8 AM, then there isn't much time left. That is if you have a real life
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahhh, young grasshopper, it sounds like you don't want to do the 'bitch' work either. You have obviously not learned the lesson of Mozilla. Go and learn [jwz.org].
To summerize, the point is that until you have something that builds and mostly works, there's no point in shopping it around for opensource help -- people want to be able to build something, use it, make a small change (like changing the splash screen to have their name on it) and then build and use it with their change. That's what sucks your helpers in -- immediate, positive feedback. Until you can get the project (by yourself or with a motivated small group of people) you are better off by yourself, since you'll only get armchair quarterbacking until then.
First you have to build it! (Score:3, Insightful)
>
> Ahhh, young grasshopper, it sounds like you don't want to do the 'bitch' work either.
> [
>
And therein lies a key problem. (Comments not directed at the original author.) Xdroop, you nailed it on the head. You see so many people who want to be an Instant Producer(tm) w/ no experience or budget. Usually goes something like, "I have this GREAT game idea, all I need is volunteers - a programmer or two, some artists, and..."
In other words, "I scribbled this on a napkin and now I want others to make it happen."
DoD sims were my mainstay prior to taking the leap. I was as a one-person start-up that crumbled just prior to beta release due to divorce. (DOH!) But I built the project from the ground up with OOD/reuse/robustness in mind, cross-platform, OpenGL, networking, etc. Took my time to do it right. My kids were enthusiastic beta testers, found more bugs than any team of grown-ups ever could.
I still have the project and will resurrect it some day (solo, thank you). But if I really wanted to, I have enough that I could release the design docs (technical and gameplay), business plan, and commented source to a prospective team and they could see that it works, review it, play with it, and decide if it was right for them to join a team.
If instead I'd gotten on an IRC channel/Usenet group and said, "I've got this great idea for a realtime cross-platform 3D networked series of games, all I need is...". That's like standing up in the middle of a shopping mall and hollering, "I'm looking to get laid by a gorgeous model, all I need is..." Your odds are about the same.
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:2, Informative)
I have been working on some projects and I find that after the initial entheusiasm has worn off in the team, the project would gather dust.
However, im working on it alone for now and will "release" it for the public when its of alpha quality
The right tools / Languages (Score:1)
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem you're probably having is that the people you're looking for are already working on their own game (or game engine). You might have more success looking for an engine that already does enough of what you want that you can tweak it a bit and have something up and running to get people interested.
Humans pride themselves by cheesing off others (Score:3, Informative)
http://nehe.gamedev.net
http://www.gametutorials.com
nehe's will get you started with the basics and game tutorials' is for the collision detection.
www.gamasutra.org or
I've been working on my game for about a year. I had to learn Blender and python but it only took me 3 months to catch on and have a exporting script where I could load the models in my game. To be honest, Unemployment was a real angel in disguise. I could stay up all day and all night coding on my game. Now that I have a job I don't have the time I once did to acomplish the large factors that make up a game's design. World transversal, Model loading, Collision systems.
But I will say this, It is totally possible to develop a game on your own and without expensive propriatary products. They did it alot in the 80's with the exception of the propiratary products....
--got milk?
Re:Humans pride themselves by cheesing off others (Score:2)
Less than 20% of the work involved in writing a game is about "graphics algorithms." The point of the original article, BTW, was that indies could use the practically free Torque engine for graphics
Re:Its not that easy... (Score:3, Informative)
Subtle, but important difference and in line with what the poster above you said about people not wanting to contribute until the ball is already rolling.
Did they ever die? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a big gamer, but in the Mac world some of the best known, and highly regarded game developers are small. One example is Pangea Software whose games are shipped on all iMacs. It's a one man outfit (although he hires out graphics and music).
Re:Did they ever die? (Score:1)
Re:Did they ever die? (Score:2, Interesting)
Take the Pangea (Brian Greenstone) example - I don't necessarily love his games (they're good but generally not hugely gripping), but the lack isn't in those areas that money can contribute to. Gameplay is either there or it's not, like real emotional, intellectual or artistic value in a film. Money won't help here, and usually it hurts by raising the stakes too high and making people and projects inflexible. Classic games succeeded because they were *just games* - they didn't have stockholders to answer to.
However, the apparent dominance of big industry in movies doesn't mean there aren't lots and lots of interesting indie films being produced - there are and always have been. Moreover, the film industry pretty much recognises that it's forever creatively bankrupt and looks to indie stock for new ideas. This is even easier in games, where the cost of entry is lower. There is a baseline cost to making a film even when shot on DV, but the baseline cost of game production is just the use of computing machinery similar to that required to play the game (which shouldn't overreach anyway if you want a decent audience).
It's also not true that game innovation ever went away. Lots of games in recent years have been done in Java or Flash or otherwise made available via a browser, and some are even huge hits, though you might not recognise them (ever played Popcap's"Diamond Mine"?). They just tend to get lost in all the dross, and especially to fly under your radar if yourOf course, in film the indie players are inevitably co-opted and end up just producing more pap (again, excess of money contributes to this). Not to overstretch an analogy.
Our list (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) Artists. We can only go so far with our limited time and budgets with blender, (to a limited extent, with demo versions of truspace, 3dsmax..)
(2) Programming man-hours. I spent a month building a truspace object importer, that also optimises the polygons and faces. We tried Polytrans, but we still have to use our little (will be GPL) prog for optimisation and correction purposes. We now need importing filters for several other file types but dont have the time to program it.
(3) SDKs. Playstation, gamecube, Xbox development kits are out-of-reach for us, unless we've already sold a couple of games. These kits are priced for companies that can pay.
(4) Investment. We'll need to feed ourselves for a few months while we develop. This hasnt been possible and the development work has taken a back-seat to our jobs/studies. I'm sure many cottage-industry developers can relate to this, despite the open possibilities and chances in the market for ideas.
I'm sure people can come up with more problems but we've discovered these to be the biggest ones ensuring the market belongs to the relatively few larger companies. Theres sure is skill out there, and so are ideas. I can just hope the opensource spirit enters the game-developer circles, and sourceforge gets packed with high-quality competing games that has revolutionised servers and operating systems.
Re:Our list (Score:1)
Money buys you artist
Money provides you with (extra) programmers if needed
Money buys you SDK's
And well, investments kinda speak for themselves
And the problem is, when lots of money is involved, the independancy is lost for 90% of the cases.
Re:Our list (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Our list (Score:1)
There's one more obstacle that, while it doesn't separate you from the big companies, will be a large obstacle... Originality. How do you expect to compete by doing the exact same thing as everyone else, but with less resources.
Why don't you try makeing a NEW type of game? It could very well cost less resources and still be a better game.
Re:Our list (Score:1)
The matrix? (Score:5, Interesting)
The open source model would apply, with people taking already existing programs and modifying them, to make the world richer and richer. The world (the construct?) would be an enormous continous space, with parts being fantasy, parts futuristic sci-fi cities, and other parts being similar to the real world.
Once a "critical mass" of programs had been achieved, it would become possible for people to create their own games in this virtual world. I love playing Supreme Snowboarding, it's a bit old now, and pretty simple, but I love the feeling of speed you get as you board down the course. Perhaps that world could be a virtual ski resort - some people could play "Sim Ski Resort", I could play snowboarding, and 007-wannabes could use it as a virtual film set. We'd all play together in this huge virtual world, adapting it to create new games and scenarios as we saw fit.
Of course, there are lots of practical design problems here. How to make a programming language that is simple enough to be understood by people without lots of prior programming experience. How to build a world that doesn't get killed by latency. Can you even simulate the natural world using only mathematics etc? I think so - look at some of the GIMP filters for instance.
It's just a pipe dream of course. I for one don't plan on attempting it anytime soon. I think WorldForge are trying something similar though.
Re:The matrix? (Score:1)
you start of with a simple world and creatures that have simple senses and then add more complex elements, litrally evolving you AI system.
It's like giving a child a calculator to add up the shopping list, then replacing it with an abacus, and finally a pen an paper (once they've worked out how to add up!).
You could start with water thats just flat and wet and hurts a bit. then give it some depth, and viscosity, then make it freeze over in winter etc...
Re:The matrix? (Score:3, Interesting)
The second hurdle is monetizing a world like this to provide impetus toward development. You could provide the world itslef as an open source playground, but the really nice artwork (textures, models, etc) and interactive elements (scripts, epic quests, etc) would be in packaged SDKs. You'd have to have some sort of monetizing here in order to support the bandwidth requirements.
The final hurdle is to manage adoption and pricing in such a manner that your pipe dream doesn't fold the minute the first player logs in.
On a small scale, I'm reminded of InterMUD and privatized mudlibs. You can download something like LimaMUD for free, stick it on top of MudOS and start developing. Support is nearly non-existant, and you have to develop 80% of the content yourself before you open the doors. However, you can license one of the old well-developed Mudlibs (like Nightmare, for example) and get yourself the majority of the way to the finish line.
The obvious differences between the above and your pipe dream are scale and graphical implementation.
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
JohnFlux
Re:The matrix? (Score:1)
If we can build an operating system as a community, why not a world?
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
Can you even simulate the natural world using only mathematics etc? I think so - look at some of the GIMP filters for instance.
Err, yeah. The natural world IS mathematics. That's the ONLY tool we have to understand and model it.
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Depends on your particular philosophy, which is the reason that I said the only TOOL.
Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how it will turn out. Assume everybody will come and throw a stone soup party on the engine. A few months later you're already getting 0.25fps, and everyone is pointing fingers. You have to pick and choose, or give up. Well, picking and choosing is what everyone is already doing, and moreover they set out from the start to do it, so...
With a very, very well managed project - I almost think of a couple people working full-time on managing it, you can go farther than a few months, and maybe do some interesting things, but at the end of the day, you won't get to the destination you're imagining for another few years at least.
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
If the marketdroids ever get in, then every other entitiy in the Matrix will have annoying 3d-monkeys clinging to them saying "punch me to buy...". Can you imagine how annoying it will be to have a carefully crafted scene with your top 5 pr0n entities, all starting to make sweet love to you down by the fire.... and then the damn monkeys start popping out of them and jabbering for you to buy more bandwidth.
It's much more difficult than you think (Score:2)
Anyway, about 6-7 years ago, a few folks that I knew started working on a mud, with the basic concept that there were two types of people who wrote for muds -- the ones who were creative, and had no idea how to code, and the coders, who couldn't come up with something artistic to save their life. Our goal was to come up with basic system that would accept templates and configuration files so that the artistic folks would never have to write any real code. [eg, I want an orc, a bit bigger than normal, barehanded, and generate the armour randomly]
The only way to ensure that everything would work well down the road was for everything to inherit correctly, and to do that, you'd have to figure out how you were going to organize your generic objects so they could be maintained in the long run. But well, we didn't have all of the properties that we were going to use in place, as I was in the process of rewriting the combat system, so no armour/weapons/attacks could be written, and got sidetracked from work and nothing ever happened.
I still think it's a good idea, but it's a major undertaking [and hell, we weren't even dealing with graphics back in those days]. You'd need to keep the back end fairly tightly controled, so that you don't cause odd interactions when people make new properties. I'd think that you'd gain the most benefit by keeping the core engine tightly controlled, having a screening process for the inclusion of new inheritables, and releating it to the public for creating worlds (basically, collections of objects). Otherwise, you'd end up with 'well, this object only works if you use Bob's distribution, and apply the patches from Dave and John' situations, which makes it very difficult to support in the long run.
Oh...and after taking 4 years of civil engineering courses, I can tell you that sand is most definately not a liquid, although it can behave like a fluid in times of liquefaction [washington.edu], as can all soils with a high enough moisture content and sudden shock. I'd also say that sand is a property of desert (sandy, rocky or ice composition), and viscosity is a property of fluids. This is part of the difficulty in modeling how items inherit properties, and why you need to worry about it before you get too far into the project
Squeak (Score:2)
Re:The matrix? (Score:1)
Watch the movie Pi - the guy in it has a theory that anything in the world can be represented mathematically
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
Um, that's called physics.
What about text adventure games? (Score:2)
The only problem is, even with these, it's very very hard to write a consistent and bug-free model of the world, simply because there are so many states for a text adventure game to get itself into. Then you have players who do crazy things in them, deliberately looking for bugs. Still, they're very flexible and it can be a lot of fun to use them.
Inform (and its standard libraries) is currently on something like release 6.10, so it's very stable and likely won't be changed at all in the coming years. TADS is currently on version 2, but work on TADS 3 is advancing well.
Re:Die. (Score:1)
didn't you know that, more prozak please.
Re:The matrix? (Score:2)
Bring back Jeff Minter (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bring back Jeff Minter (Score:1)
What will save game companies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Essentially what happens is a game company lanches with a hot idea, a sexy game everyone has to have and a console maker feels they have to have, too. All is right with the world and there's money in the coffers. Then after a few games, or extentions of the first successful title, it's a scramble. Take anything, a dead horse which can spare a little more hide for whipping, and dress it up. Reviews say it stinks, nothing like their glory days, etc. The only company which seems to be eluding this downfall is EA, but in my book they're still rehashing old titles every year, 2002 football, 2003 football, etc.
It's not really unlike what happens with rock bands. The great songs they've played in clubs and garages for years are finely honed, they cut an album, it's hot, they're stars. Then the sophomore jinx kicks in and they release a mediocre second album and disappear.
What boggles my mind is the wealth of original ideas explored back in the day on C64, Apple][ and Atari 65xx processors. Almost all were designed by some guy in his basement, submitted to the emerging game companies, and sold 10,000-30,000 copies. You rarely hear their names anymore, but that's like the band analogy, they had one great idea. Imagine mining those things, finding the owners to get that stamp of approval (to keep the lawyers out of it later) and do a new release. I know a lot of those games still kick ass in emulators. Imagine what a Gavin Camp could do with them, with OpenGL, etc.
Re:What will save game companies? (Score:2, Informative)
Yea, they are doing that, but have you played them? Football, is football, so the actual game isn't going to change, but there are inmprovemnets in the graphics, extras, etc. It really makes a difference. Playing the old game isnt nearly as much fun as the news one. You may be right someday, but for now I love the newest releases of thier football (sports) games.
Re:What will save game companies? (Score:2)
I think you have clouded vision... or don't play many games. Many game companies have put out consistently good work for years... id, Raven, Blizzard. Some have declined... Maxis perhaps, maybe Epic if you're not an Unreal Tournament fan. Many have released several great games then gone under, like Looking Glass. But I can't think of many companies that used to put out great games, but only put out crap now... except for EA!
What baffles me is why you think EA has not 'declined', since they went from releasing a wide variety of great games in the late 80s and early 90s to releasing rehash after rehash of sports sim today... they haven't made a game with something new in it for nearly 5 years. They bought and then destroyed Origin, one of my favorite developers of all time.
Re:What will save game companies? (Score:2)
Independant doesn't mean cheap.. (Score:4, Interesting)
a return to the good old days. (Score:1, Interesting)
Does anyone else remember when games came in cardboard folders that on the insert had a picture of the development team dressed up to fit the theme of the game? Nowadays, they would need a full sized yearbook to do that.
It's alive....ALIVE! (Score:3, Interesting)
This also has surpassed the programmers expectations. It also can lead to an interesting point that sometimes the developers do not want to spend so much time supporting/developing for the game. Sure the fans help, and it is the fans that make their material free to use. There are plenty of talented CGI people and programmers, they just don't want to devote their entire life for peanuts and a divorce.
I personally always look at the "other" games. The ones made by a common Jane/Joe. It is kinda of like going to the old theater on campus and seeing what the no-name director/artist can do. Sure graphics is great, but so is the game play. For instance look at Neverwinter Nights. The capabilities are amazing, not to try to sell it, but you can pretty much add anything you want to your modules, sound, graphics, tile sets, scripts, and even more. Granted to really cruddy part is the the tool-set is for Windows only. Just think of is a a fact that this game was in development for 3-4 years before Linux started entering the scene. Any how the main point is that most of the games that live so longer are due to the fans. They are the ones creating the materials and keeping it going. The businesspeople have already made their money so they could careless about the continuing life-unless they see a sequel out of it.
Read the Game Postmortens (Score:5, Informative)
You'll notice that more and more games are resembling big hollywood productions, with multi-year engaments, and dozens of contributors. This has come about because users expect photo-realistic graphics, and true-to-real physics engines. A small group of developers have little chance of having this resources at hand.
For an example, check the Postmorten for Dungeon Siege Here [gamasutra.com].
John
Re:Read the Game Postmortens (Score:2, Insightful)
In 1993 we started to see the 3d fps dominate the market, but one of the best games was UFO (or Xcom-Ufo defense) from microprose, a turn-based strategy game with so-so graphics but a incredibly addicting (and good) gameplay. I almost failed at colleges exams because I couldn't stop playing
Re:Read the Game Postmortens (Score:1)
Ask anyone that has played the game how it compares with EQ, DAOC, UO, etc.
Re:Read the Game Postmortens (Score:2)
First, this is not new. Games have been requiring huge teams for six or more years now. Even many games from the 1980s were developed by teams of 5 or more.
Second, it's not about the "photorealistic graphics" (Why do so many people have the misconception that 90% of the work has to do with the graphics engine?). It's that games have become very large, requiring dozens of huge levels, 75 or more character models, and *thousands* of animations. Creating one level can easily take a month or more. Now multiply that by 30, and that's just the level art budget.
game development similar to movie costs? (Score:2)
How is this different? (Score:4, Informative)
Publishers currently handle the printing of the manuals, the stuffing of retail boxes, distribution, advertising, and money. According to the article on Garage Games, the Independents would still be outsourcing printing and stuffing. They gloss over the problem of distribution, but imply that the independent would be well served by their services. Advertising they claim is a pittiance, though that could be simply because it is executed so badly by the major distributers. And finally MONEY... The article implies that every independent can become an Ambrosia [ambrosiasw.com] if they just aim at an underrepresented market, but this, quite frankly, is unrealistic. Despite what the article says, you cannot hire real artists, sound personnel, video editors, coders, and testers for six months for 5,000 dollars. That budget should be more like 200,000... and that would be a lean and mean 4 person crew. If you can convince everyone to work pro-bono and can find a spare pair of rooms in someone's house, that will offset most of the costs but will put the talent into an even worse position than they started out in.
The dream of relaiming IP from the publisher, as well as creative control, is an alluring one. But the fact is the publisher serves several vital roles in this industry, most of which are underappreciated by veterans who have had several great ideas and a lot of bad projects canned by the major houses. What climate has changed? What power shifted to the independents? Doesn't the lowered entry barriers into game development, as mentioned in the article, make publishers a relatively rarer and therefore more powerful entity?
-C
Re:How is this different? (Score:1)
There is a very large gap between the little Flash games that exist everywhere online and the titles that are being produced at the large publishers, and this gap can be filled with the smaller-scoped, but no-less-interesting games that many people want. I too want to see a bunch of interesting titles like we had on the old Atari or C64 computers. I'm tired of the same rehashed junk we are forcefed.
We have spoken at length with Jeff Tunnell and the GarageGames crew, so we understand where they are coming from possibly better than the writer of this article. They do not believe you can crank out a AAA title for $5000. More importantly, they do not believe that you should even attempt such a thing - you CAN NOT compete with the big publishers. However, you don't have to. You can get together a group of like-minded people and crank out smaller-scoped games with a reasonable level of quality and make a few bucks if you work at it. You are most likely not going to sell 10's of thousands of copies of any given game, so don't plan on making a mint. Set your lifestyle right so that you can afford to work on your games and in time you just might succeed as an indie.
We are doing just that and (shameless plug) we have released our first game Orbz [garagegames.com]. It is a fun multi-player game that uses the Torque engine. We had one full-time programmer, two part-time programmers, one full-time level designer/artist, and one part-time sound engineer, and the entire development time from conception to delivery was 14 weeks. We are finishing up the Linux and Mac builds as we speak and they should be released sometime in January. Not too bad for a little indie, and how many AAA titles do you know that get almost simultaneous Linux, Mac, and Windows releases?
Dave Myers
Re:How is this different? (Score:2)
The difference is that now anyone *CAN* get published without having to win over a major publisher who has their own agenda and tend to be risk averse. More about this later...
Publishers currently handle the printing of the manuals, the stuffing of retail boxes, distribution, advertising, and money. According to the article on Garage Games, the Independents would still be outsourcing printing and stuffing.
This is basically what the indie studio needs. Someone to handle the physical production of the packaging.
They gloss over the problem of distribution, but imply that the independent would be well served by their services.
I'm not really sure about this one either.
Advertising they claim is a pittiance, though that could be simply because it is executed so badly by the major distributers.
So to an extent, advertising is a bit of a non factor when creating a game. Chalk another one up for indie studios.
And finally MONEY... The article implies that every independent can become an Ambrosia [ambrosiasw.com] if they just aim at an underrepresented market, but this, quite frankly, is unrealistic. Despite what the article says, you cannot hire real artists, sound personnel, video editors, coders, and testers for six months for 5,000 dollars. That budget should be more like 200,000... and that would be a lean and mean 4 person crew. If you can convince everyone to work pro-bono and can find a spare pair of rooms in someone's house, that will offset most of the costs but will put the talent into an even worse position than they started out in.
I think you're missing the point a bit in that no one is suggesting that people quit their day jobs, hire 1/2 a dozen people and form an indie studio. I always felt that Torque was reaching out more to the hobby game developer. Torque and GarageGames could prove to be a training ground for people to hone and develop their skills. Of course most game coder/artist hobbyist's dream is to become the next Ambrosia and strike it big, but most realize that's unlikely to happen. Still though for the few who do move on to develop games professionally they'll be much better off having gone through creating a game and possibly having it published in a low scale fashion such as GarageGames offers.
The dream of relaiming IP from the publisher, as well as creative control, is an alluring one. But the fact is the publisher serves several vital roles in this industry, most of which are underappreciated by veterans who have had several great ideas and a lot of bad projects canned by the major houses.
Of course there will always be a large place for publishers. The world needs huge budget AAA titles like Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Seige, etc. I also have a strong feeling that a signifigant segment of the gaming community would also be drawn low budget games with original concepts and innovative game play. This is the niche that GarageGames is attempting to fill. IMO there is a reason that the games of yesteryear were so fresh and inventive. Game creation had not yet become the big business it is today and hence game developers had a lot more discretion about what wen t into their games. Today we mainly see a market where 90% of the games are merely variations on a theme covered in ever more beautiful wrappings. This is because big name titles cost tremendous amounts of money to produce which makes the publisher very risk averse. I'd like to see a little more variety in games and I think GarageGames is a step in the right direction. The tools to create great looking and playing games have never been more accessible to hobbyists than they are today. This makes for fertile ground in which to plant an indie gaming scene. Everyone, always draws parallel's from the Gaming to the Music/Movie biz yet the the later two have vibrant indie scenes. Shouldn't the gaming biz have an equally or even more vibrant indie scene as well? I think so.
What climate has changed? What power shifted to the independents? Doesn't the lowered entry barriers into game development, as mentioned in the article, make publishers a relatively rarer and therefore more powerful entity?
Publishers very rare indeed until GarageGames stepped in. Now anyone who can create a game that people enjoy playing and generate sales can get published. Granted, those are no two mean tasks but its a heck of a lot easier than the following traditional steps:
* Create your tech demo
* Shop your game to publishers after creating a tech demo
* Find a publish that is willing to strike a deal
* Hire lawyers and haggle terms
* Negotiate/Accept publishers game requirements, deadlines etc.
* Create your game
* Develop hype and a community around your game
* Release game and hope it sells!
Garage Games eliminates almost 1/2 the steps involved. I hope I don't come off sounding too much like a GG cheerleader (I don't even own a copy of Tribes2 or Torque) but I can certainly see how they're really giving indie developers a big helping hand.
-Jason
in a nutshell (Score:2)
As I see it (disclaimer: I am the project leader of an indy game [lemuria.org]), the games industry may well be where the music industry is already: Small unknowns creating new ideas that the big publishers than dumb down for the mainstream and rehash for a couple of years until they've found the next trend.
Alright, just what we need! (Score:4, Funny)
Fortunately the Open Source community rides to the rescue once again to drive back the night. If there's one thing the OS community is known for its bad interfaces and horrible graphics. I have no doubt that right now a crack team of 3l33t h4x0rz are working on the very first 16-bit version of Tomb Raider, Daikaitana and Halo. Once they get all the bugs out and do some serious regression testing those games should be down to 8-bit and by the time they're proud enough of their work to offer it as a come one come all beta those games should be purring along at 4-bit goodness.
They'll probably call their gaming platform the "Emulator-Within-An-Emulator-Within-An-Emulator-B
or EWAEWAEB for short. EWAEWAEB will revolutionize the video gaming world. Founding and core EWAEWAEB developers will be asked to go on the G4 Video Game Channel on Cable TV for endless interviews on how they pulled the rug from under the established gaming powers and saved the day for all of us.
Its truly good to know that there are still some people dedicated to REAL gaming in the world and not just sell outs who have a perverted blood lust for the blasphemous "realism" in today's games.
It's the Content, Stupid (tm) (Score:5, Insightful)
The same goes for games. A 3D engine/2D tile engine is one thing, but what will you show with that engine? The programmer art cooked up by the developer? I hope not
So I don't see the 'independent game developer' as a valuable jobdescription. What's needed for development of a good game is a complete team, with of course one or 2 developers but above all: a couple of contentproducers with excellent skills.
Re:It's the Content, Stupid (tm) (Score:1)
In fact, if done from a first person perspective, Sim Nation could become the killer app for 3-D goggles. Snowcrash, anyone?
Re:It's the Content, Stupid (tm) (Score:2)
It's much like how computer art started with programmers writing programs that produced single pictures, but then programs like Photoshop got written, and now people who don't know how to write an image file, let alone generate the pictures they want with code, can do computer art.
Of course, on the other side, there are always abstract games like Tetris or (to a certain extent) The Sims, where there is a lot of programming and only a little art.
Independent game developers do well whenever there are few enough hard parts to writing a game that a single person (or a few people) can have all of the necessary skills. Originally, the necessary skills were different, and then there were too many skills needed, but now the necessary skill set is shrinking to the content producers.
Gaming Industry Ready? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gaming Industry Ready? (Score:1)
Re:Gaming Industry Ready? (Score:1)
Re:Gaming Industry Ready? (Score:1)
Waitaminute...
Halo's not a sequel.
Re:Gaming Industry Ready? (Score:2)
What I did (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a bad article.... (Score:2)
As well, the notion that developers write software to scratch their own itches may not translate well into games
Speaking of my case in particular, and I'm sure there are many out there like me, I love writing code in general. It's not so much the "pragmatic utilities" as it is doing something cool with the machine, whether it's a compiler, or a game, or writing stuff to run on the dreamcast.
Open Source Game Development HOW-TO (Score:2, Funny)
As everyone knows, Open Source software is the wave of the future. With the market share of GNU/Linux and *BSD increasing every day, interest in Open Source Software is at an all time high.
Developing games within the Open Source model benefits everyone. People can take your code, improve it and then release it back to the community. This cycle continues and leads to the creation of far more stable software than the 'Closed Source' shops can ever hope to create.
So you're itching to create that Doom 3 killer but don't know where to start? Read on!
2. First Steps
The most important thing that any Open Source project needs is a SourceForge.net page. There are tens of thousands of successful Open Source projects on SourceForge.net; the support you receive here will be invaluable.
OK, so you've registered your SourceForge.net project and set the status to '0: Pre-Thinking About It', what's next?
3. Don't Waste Time!
Now you need to set up your SourceForge.net homepage. Keep it plain and simple - don't use too many HTML tags, just knock something up in VI. Website editors like FrontPage and DreamWeaver just create bloated eye-candy - you need to get your message to the masses!
4. Ask For Help
Since you probably can't program at all you'll need to try and find some people who think they can. If your project is a game you'll probably need an artist too. Ask for help on your new SourceForge.net pages. Here is an example to get you started:
Thousands of talented programmers and artists hang out at SourceForge.net ready to devote their time to projects so you should get a team together in no time!5. The A-Team
So now you have your team together you are ready to change your projects status to '1: Pre-Bickering'. You will need to discuss your ideas with your team mates and see what value they can add to the project. You could use an Instant Messaging program like MSN for this, but since you run Linux you'll have to stick to e-mail.
Don't forget that YOU are in charge! If your team doesn't like the idea of giant robotic spiders just delete them from the project and move on. Someone else can fill their place and this is the beauty of Open Source development. The code might end up a bit messy and the graphics inconsistant - but it's still 'Free as in Speech'!
6. Getting Down To It
Now that you've found a team of right thinking people you're ready to start development. Be prepared for some delays though. Programming is a craft and can take years to learn. Your programmer may be a bit rusty but will probably be writing "hello world" programs after school in no time.
Closed Source games like Doom 3 use the graphics card to do all the hard stuff anyhow, so your programmer will just have to get the NVidia 'API' and it will be plain sailing! Giant robot spiders, here we come!
7. The Outcome
So it's been a few years, you still have no files released or in CVS. Your programmer can't get enough time on the PC because his mother won't let him use it after 8pm. Your artist has run off with a Thai She-Male. Your project is still at '1: Pre-Bickering'...
Congratulations! You now have a successful Open Source project on SourceForge.net! Pat yourself on the back, think up another idea and do it all again! See how simple it is?
Cease and Desist (Score:1, Funny)
We therefore request that you either:
A. Discontinuing the free disemination of our process
B. Obtain a license (only $10,000/year) which will allow you to post this information on
You have been warned.
Re:Open Source Game Development HOW-TO (Score:1)
Thanks for writing this summary on getting started on open source game development. The slashdot's mod's low score was totally off-base IMHO. It was exactly what I was looking for. We are thinking seriously about releasing our game code for 4 reasons:
1. Speed of implementing new ideas
2. Share the learning we've done (and it's been expensive!)
3. Leverage many programming brains instead of just a few
4. Keep the costs down so we can keep developing!
Your posting is a help. If you have any suggestions (directly related to our game --> http://www.officepolitics.com ) please email me.
Open Source Zelda (Score:2, Interesting)
This project was started by Nehe [gamedev.net] (of famed OpenGL tutorials) and he maintains posting the stable milestone check-ins. Even if you aren't interested in OSZ, check out his site...his tutorials are the best on the web, IMHO.
The idea is to re-create the original 8-bit Zelda which Nintendo released in the mid-80's, but for it to have an open architecture so that other developers may reuse the engine for similar games. The code is also highly OO, and well documented in the hopes that those interested in knowing how to create a game (or apply OO design) can glen some knowledge from other developers' work.
It's Win32 now, but we have had interest from a developer in the BaltoLUG [baltolug.org] who may begin a Linux port. Anyone is welcome to attempt this, branch it, or do whatever they want with the code (under the GPL). =)
Problems with Indy development. (Score:1, Interesting)
There's the problem with open source games. No one wants to do the bull work for free. There's plenty of artists and musicians out there who would just love to do stuff for any given game, but the point is - they're all useless until you have an engine and accompanying code written to *use* their work.
There's plenty of people who would want to write sexy code, level editors and such. That's great, and useless, without an actual game.
There's boatloads of folk who would take care of all the minute details for you. Great, anyone want to help out with the boring dirty work? Nope.
Solutions to this aren't easy, but they're not terribly hard. For example, iD has released various bits of source that can take care of the 'hard' stuff. True, it's GPL, and thus, if you distributed the game, people would easily find ways to cheat and such since they'd have yer source.
Suck it up and make your game able to be played between friends who can trust each other. Realize it won't become the next Counter-Strike. (Which, in itself, is a constant battle between cheating and developers of anti-cheating software.)
You're in this to make games, not get rich, right?
If you're in it solely to get rich, suck it up, throw proposals around, get some venture capital, and *hire* people. If you're in it for the purposes of doing it, or for popularity, open source gaming development could be a good option.
I can't count the number of hours I've lost to FreeCiv, conquering the world in the name of the Lidless Eye.
One reason (Score:2, Insightful)
However, there is one problem. Independent film succeeds because the equipment necessary to create a modern film is difficult, but not impossible to come by. And those who are truly going to make a quality movie can obtain it.
In order to make a modern video game with the latest in graphics, sound, etc. You need the dev kits and the info that the "real" game companies get. John Carmack at Id had GeForce3's before anyone else so he could make Doom 3. The guys who made Metroid prime had GameCube kits before there were GameCubes. Even if I had the money I doubt I could acquire a GameCube developement box. But if you're strictly talking PC here, just think of DirectX9. It's out, but there's no SDK, yet. But you know what? I bet you all the fancy games under developement right now know what's up with DX9 and they have NDAs not to tell us.
Independent games are really cool. But they will always be a step behind commercial games because they don't have access to the latest and greatest technology. It takes years to make a game and unless you have graphics hardware that is as good as what consumers will have in 2 years your game wont be top of the line, graphics wise. Not to say that graphics are a necessity, Moonbase Commander rules.
Re:One reason (Score:1)
baby steps (Score:2)
Just as we have an open source operating system that we can use and manipulate however we choose, it would be an incredible advantage to have a few open source base gaming engines that could be used or manipulated.
Or maybe that's unrealistic...I don't know.
Re:baby steps (Score:2)
World Forge doesn't look to be very far along. I haven't looked at Cube 3D yet. But I was impressed with Crystal Space. From the cursory look I gave it, I'd say it's between Quake and Quake 2 in terms of technology (but I might be horribley wrong). There are different types of renderers (playing a game in ASCII mode would be fun), and quite a list of features. Take a look at the screenshots to see what it's capable of - impressive, I thought.
It's LGPL, which if I understand correctly means that it can be used in proprietary commercial products. That, I think, is intriguing. That could enable very small-time developers to make simple games and sell them for cheap. (If my understanding of the LGPL is wrong, someone correct me.)
Starshatter is impressive (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a pretty stable beta available for download at the site.
"Starshatter is a military space combat simulation set in the far future. Unlike most space sims, Starshatter allows you to directly command a wide variety of ships, from small atmospheric and space-based fighters, to giant cruisers and fleet carriers. Starshatter will take you through the ultimate space combat experience, from planet surface to interstellar space, with several dynamic campaigns set in a persistent simulated universe.
Starshatter is currently in development, and is expected to begin beta testing this summer for a general release later in 2002. Several functional public demos have been released, check the downloads page for more information.
The game is independently developed and funded by one person: John DiCamillo. This represents a return to the old days of PC game development with a small studio producing an entire original game from scratch."
Not the way the industry works (Score:1)
chromatic seems to presume that the primary problem in developing a game is determining which scripting language to use. That's like saying that the primary problem in making a movie is determining which camera to shoot with... it is a valid technical concern but there are about 300 other technical, artistic, and business concerns that are more relevant.
chromatic suggests that you can make a game that sells 20k units and costs $5k to make. Again, check your sources. More experienced studios than chromatic have desperately tried to perfect the cheapo game... guess what, people: consumers don't give a shit about your cheesy-ass Tetris clone. You'll be in the hole for the cost of the media, and Best Buy and Wal-Mart will laugh loudly when you ask to get shelf space from them.
This guy chromatic has clearly never worked on a real videogame project and has no knowledge of the current nature of the business. Caveat emptor Slashdot.
Re:Not the way the industry works (Score:2)
Re:Not the way the industry works (Score:2)
I think you're mischaracterizing the piece; I may have done a poor job of communicating.
Regarding scripting, I said that choosing to build or to buy an engine is one of the most important considerations. From there, I segued into scripting languages and considerations. It's a trend that I've seen and that came up repeatedly at the conference. Having reusable engines with highly-scriptable components can make it much easier for indies to gain a foothold. That's worth considering both for the people who make the engines and for the people who use them.
As well, the figures of 25,000 units and $5000 cash are by no means a guarantee. Those are rough estimates, intended to contrast multi-million dollar projects that sell hundreds of thousands of boxes. (I can't find the exact figures Tunnel used, but you're right that $5000 worth of work isn't very much.)
I'm not sure where you picked up the idea that Wal-Mart or Best Buy will ever pick up an indie game. That's certainly not something I intended to convey -- see the paragraph that explains how Wal-Mart takes a small percentage of any publisher's catalog. That's why I discussed that indie developers will have to find or make their own distribution channels, such as Internet-only or CD-on-demand services.
OS Music (Score:3, Informative)
It's interesting, because I think in many ways, OS music composition still reflects the more early (idealistic?) days of OS programming. The entry price to make good sounding music is still steep. There's no OS DAW that I know of that can do what you need one to do, and music production still relies heavily on hardware, both to mix sound and to generate sound (thought this is changing!). So the people you get donating the stuff they write without a thought to recouping the monetary investment they've made are passionate about music and the community. Sharing the music is its own reward, as it were.
And there's demand. Now a person starting up an OS project has to have a muse. They have to have an idea that hasn't been done. But back in the early days of GNU, it wasn't so much of a question. It was like "We don't cp or ls yet. Work on that." or "emacs doesn't read email yet. Clearly it must before it can be considered complete."
That's still the state of things in OS music -- there's still that need. The community provides the inspiration for you and you just bang out a(n elegant and awe-inspiring) musical representation of it. I know many digital composers that, when hard up for new ideas for their own stuff, take gratis commissions or other free work just to get the juices flowing.
At any rate, if your game needs music, drop me a line. I may be able to hook you up. skiaatskiadotnet
Dreamcast (Score:2)
For all you people complaining about not being able to "get into consoles", may I humbly suggest a Dreamcast?
You can find a fully free SDK here [sf.net], a thriving homebrew community here [consolevision.com], and there are already hundreds of homebrew games out there, many of them with source code.
A top of the line dev station will run you about $200 -- $50 for a used DC console, ~$15 for a serial cable, ~$135 for a BBA (100mbps ethernet), and a Cygwin install if you use Windows.
We're [cagames.com] also working on opening up a market again with various others [dreamcast-petition.com] which, if not as large as the PS2 or GameCube, would certainly qualify as one of Garage Games' "niche markets". There are millions of DCs out there, about 90% of which can run games burned on CDR or pressed on a CD with no modifications.
So what are you waiting for? :)
Or GBA (Score:2)
The Game Boy Advance has a homebrew scene about it as well. You can get a full dev kit for $200: $70 for a GBA, $30 for an MBV2 cable (used to test small programs), $80 for a flash cartridge (used to test large programs), and $20 for a month of Internet access (used to download the tools from gbadev.org [gbadev.org]).
Many a game hobbyist's dream... BUT... (Score:4, Insightful)
and PC games, and love the idea of making my own game, even if it is just for fun.
Many game players (at least among those with some computer knowledge) dream that they could make a game of their own.
However, there is actually quite a bit of work to go into a game, besides just programming. Unless it is a text only game, you need art and music. You also have to come up with the concepts and story for your game, as well as the "rules" for the game itself (for example, if you want to make an RPG, you need to figure out all the stats, etc. that you'll need).
If you are making the game for fun, it is doable. It doesn't really matter if the game ends up looking like a Super NES game. As long
as you enjoy the end product.
But then there are those who might try to start making games professionally. It seems that starting from scratch will only get more difficult as time goes on to make a game that will sell.
In the early to mid 80s, if you could code well, you could probably make a text adventure game by yourself and have a shot at actually selling it if it was good / interesting, especially if it was well liked by other computer geeks.
Unfortunately, things have changed. The top selling PC games nowadays were made with many people. To make a similar game you not only need programmers, but you need 3D artists and someone to make an entire music score. You might need voice actors, and someone to "direct" the cutscenes. Finally, you need to market the game to an audience of the lowest common denominator.
Such a game would be quite hard for someone starting out to produce and then break into the business with. Even if someone can manage to make a good game, they still have to get it out there.
I have my doubts - at least for now (Score:2)
Then there is the way in which the console makers (2/3rds of the market says the article - and they are getting bigger) are acting to lock up their machines. You have to bow down to the Great God Microsoft to get something to run on the Xbox for instance.
And then...well it all comes back to the first part. Sure you might be able to make a little bit of money from a closed software game but to really hit the big time you need big bucks marketing.
The alternative - of destroying the commercial market through free software - the way in which Linux gives BillG nightmares - is stopped by point 2 (for now).
eXistenZ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know how many of you have seen this movie [imdb.com] but I thought it was interesting when they mention while driving along that the countryside is full of game developers.
I'd like to see game development take that sort of direction where programmers, designers, artists, musicians, etc. start gathering in random locales, especially those outside the big cities. It's discouraging for those who are looking to get into game development to think that their options for living are limited to Seattle, LA, and Texas. The net certainly makes this sort of do-it-wherever business possible.
Chess is still a game? (Score:1)
Uplink (Score:2)
Gerv
Based on the wrong premise (Score:2)
On another note, indie game development won't really take off until it has some kind of real soul behind it, not just the blatant me-tooism that's been fueling hobbyist development (clones of Boulder Dash, clones of Arkanoid, clones of Tetris, etc).
Re:I used to like writing programs (Score:5, Funny)
In my day we used to program with just zeros we didn't even have ones
Re:I used to like writing programs (Score:1)
Re:I used to like writing programs (Score:2)
Quoting GrandPa Simpson..."We used to tie an onion to our belt"
Re:Then Homer Says... (Score:1)
Re:I used to like writing programs (Score:1)
Re:I used to like writing programs (Score:2)
Re:DEREK SMART!!1! (Score:1)