Slashdot Mirror
Return of the Independent Game Developer?
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."
I'm gonna plug the Independent Game Developer's Association
In my day we used to program with just zeros we didn't even have ones
We're a group of four developers working in SDL+Opengl1.4 + DirectX + QT ... trying to produce an industrial-strength multi-platform FPS game, and there are a few obstacles along the way that seperates us from the bigger companies:
(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.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
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.
One of the regular columns of Game Developers Magazine, is a feature called: "Game Postmorten". In this column, different game companies talked about their experiences writing some of their games.
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.
John
The drops of water don't know themselves to be a river; and yet the river flows.
Years ago, when gfx developers ruled the demoscene, content was not that important. Today, it's the other way around: developers can program whatever they want, if you don't have awesome 3D models, textures and sound, it will not draw the attention expected.
:). No, what's needed is a big pile of content: 3D models/textures, backgrounds, fonts, sounds, musicscores etc. etc.
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.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.