LGP Announces Game Development Project

michaelsimms writes "Linux Game Publishing is excited to announce our newest project to increase the appeal of Linux gaming. We are sponsoring the development of a from-scratch Linux title! We are looking for developers to work in a team to produce this game, and we will be publishing the game they make! If you are interested, please follow the link to our detailed announcement and within there you will find the rules, requirements, and application process. If you have wanted to get into the gaming industry, if you love playing games, and if you are a creative thinker, not afraid of a challenge and a bit of risk, then you need to take a look." I don't know whether to be happy about anything that promotes Linux gaming, or disappointed that people are being asked to work on a commercial project without a salary.

Comments

Good intentions, but a dumb method I think

[laetus]

Since they're not paying the developers (but are generously paying the publishing & distribution costs), why not open it up to a competition? Tell people, look, everyone can participate. The deadline for submitting your game is (DATE). After we receive all entries, we'll decide which is the killer Linux game and publish it.

Sounds better than simply, we're gonna choose 8 people and then let them come up with a game. Sometimes synergy in groups doesn't work that way.

Let individuals groups compete.

Re:Good intentions, but a dumb method I think

[e2d2]

Playing on your idea - what I would love to see is something similiar to Project Green light, where developers create game idea submissions, complete with specs, etc, and submit those ideas to a game development company, who in turn chooses one game idea to be developed. It would be great publicity for the game development house and great for the developer that lacks the funding/tools necessary to publish a good game. The developer could also come to work for the game development shop after the project if both parties agreed.

Of course on the other hand the game development companies might not have a lack of good ideas and this is all a waste. But I think it would be a great way to promote the development house to the development community and others. Plus it would be a good tool for recruitment, many game developers simply start out building their own maps or add-ons and get offered jobs, this is simply a spin on that.

Marketing

[The Bungi]

1) When the game is complete, LGP will publish your game. We will pay 100% of the costs to have it produced, marketed, and retailed worldwide.

Anyone have any idea of how effective LGP is at this? Does "worldwide" mean "HTTP downloads from around the world" or do they really have a shrink-wrapped, on the shelf capability?

I've sure as heck never seen a Linux-specific game on a shelf at Best Buy or some other place like that.

Because otherwise, well. The "we'll give you 70% of the revenue" is not so enticing. AFAIK the bulk of game sales is still through the retail channel, not online sales.

I'm genuinely interested - this looks like an Linux project that would be really worthwile to participate in (ie, it has a better than average possibility of turning a profit).

Re:No Salary?

[meshko]

Of course its a troll, but it's the troll inpsired by the editor ("... or disappointed that people are being asked to work on a commercial project without a salary") so I'll bite.

They say that if the game brings in profit, the developers will get it. I think this is completely fair. Of course I'm not sure if that can be called sponsorship, because the really contribution from the LGP only starts when the game is well on its way (they will help to find artists etc).
I beleive this is quite fare and makes sense. Finding good Open Source developers is possible. Finding good artists is harder. Organizing the development process in any professional kind of manner is hardes. If they will make sure that selected developers have a clue and really provide them with artists and QA -- they have a chance (unlike 99% of game projects on SourceForge, for example).
My opinion is that it's a good idea and really nice of them, but I think that chances of success are around 20%. Success being a released title, of course.

The cathedral, the bazaar and the committee

[dmorin]

This sounds like the worst kind of project management, honestly. Take a random sampling of developers, all with their own attitudes, skill sets, and motivations. It's like herding cats by default. Now choose a leader. How? During the first meeting? To steal from Cory Doctorow, what's the dude's whuffie? I don't know him from a hole in the wall. So the minute that I disagree with him I'm gonna get all tense and no longer be into it with the same passion that I would normally be. Sure, maybe there's a protocol for changing leaders, but all that means to me is that somebody in the group is going to want to change the leader *every single meeting*.

And what role does LGP play as far as leadership goes? If they see the team, leader and all, going down a path they don't like, can they pull rank? Then what? At any time can they keep the idea for the game, toss all 8 programmers, and bring in a fresh batch?

As I apply for jobs I find myself writing several times a day that a hacker who is passionate about what he's doing is 100x more productive than an average schmoe looking for a paycheck. Figure out a way to get a bunch of hackers together who are passionate about an idea *first*, and *then* keep them glued together with the paycheck. Not the other way around.

I think that if you want to do this, then find 8 friends that you trust and respect and then do the exact same thing -- name a company, think of an idea, and code the hell out of it. THEN, maybe, once you've got a demo, go talk to LGP.

I don't understand it

[NorthDude]

They are offering peoples the opportunity to write a game for Linux.
That's great in my opinion, even if the developers do not get paid.
I mean, no one ever got paid for creating Tux Racer? Are do they?

So, they don't get paid, but LPG offers to pay for the publishing AND the marketing.
In doing so, they encounter the risk of LOOSING money.
If the title do not sell well, THEY will lost money, not the developers.

BUT, they also state that they will give 70% of the money made out of selling the game and keep the remaining to pay for the afore mentionned publishing/marketing cost.
How can people see this as wrong is beyong my understanding.

Peoples work on project for free because they like it, for fun, to learn, etc. etc. and no one complains about it.
Now, a company offers those same people the chance to make money out of this work and all you can say is that they are bad?

As much as I like the free software community, at times I have much troubles understanding what all of you value so much.
Is it really "free speech" and "alternatives" or is it ONLY "free as in beer"?!?

That was expected

[fredrikj]

According to the text file they are looking for 8 programmers and 0 designers at this point. So, the programmers will have to do the design. No offence to programmers regarding their ability to design stuff, but, seriously, isn't this a bit typical for Linux-related projects? (I'm not trying to be flamebait)

Design is just as important as programming when it comes to games and should not be considered at first in the last stage of development. Mind, powerful game engines like Quake II are already open under the GPL, so it wouldn't even be necessary to code everything from scratch if you are lazy (or clever).

"A new kind of game"

[dmorin]

You know, I don't think this idea will work, and already posted why. Having said that, it did give me a reason to brainstorm about the "new kind of game" concept and I can't let a good idea go to waste... :)

What I want is a game that follows me places. Sometimes I'm at a terminal, sometimes I have a laptop (wired or not), sometimes a PDA, sometimes a cell phone. I want a game that takes advantage of as many of those as possible. A game that, when I'm not at one of those gadgets, has me thinking about what to do next time I am. A game that I can talk to my friends about, not in the past tense of "Dude, so I was playing Unreal last night..." but rather in the present, because the game is constantly going on and I'm using my friends' input as part of my strategy toward winning.

There was such a game going around in 2001, sponsored by EA, but I forget the name. While playing you would get various emails and phone messages giving you clues about the game's progression. But I guess 9/11 had something to do with it's cancellation. I never got a chance to join.

Anyway, that's the kind of game I'd be pushing were I to join this project. After all, where is Linux big? Servers, and embedded devices. If you go straight for the userinterface / graphics route, and don't end up at Windows, you're gonna die in the market. Come up with an innovative reason for why your game is a Linux game in the first place, and help the long term cause (getting more people onto Linux) rather than just providing a toy to the people who already have Linux (and know where to get all the free stuff anyway).

Re:Wrong Market?

[ThrasherTT]

Have you and/or your company review the success or lack thereof of the marketability of games created by the Game Developers' Conference's Indy Game Festival award winners? I would tend to think that those people that are active in the game development community would be interested in the GDC, and those that have free time to make games would be interested in working toward that sort of exposure. I don't know of a single game from the festival that was successfully marketed, perhaps you can prove me wrong?

Have you actually worked in the game development community in the past 5 years? When LGP says that justified tools will be purchased for the development team, does that include budget for the Quake 3 engine, for example? Or just a linux clone of Lithtech? My point is that the non-Linux market isn't going to tolerate less-than current technology, and current technology is expensive, whether you develop it from scratch or buy it outright. Which leads you back to the problem that the linux gaming market is small, perhaps infinitesimally so.

What in your business plan can you say makes LGP look more promising than Loki?

Re:The point of no salary or how to get flamed.

[ebooher]

Ok, look. I'm going to have to admit to being a little naive here and .... why is my rear end suddenly getting warmer, please put the flamethrowers down until *after* the post. I don't really understand why so many people are so caught up in complaining about this.

I don't play games, typically, so I'm not your average raving fanatic ready at all times with my tome of useless time line knowledge on the whole of the gaming industry. However, I know that it is big business, and I also know that manufacturers are beginning to look in the direction of the gaming developers as the next level of high line computing.

But did Id software start out, fully formed. Leaping from the bushes, games firmly in boxes hidden beneath trenchcoats ready to make nefarious deals? Psst. Buddy .... need a game? One of the great things about online forums is no one really knows how old anyone else is, until statements like the one I am about to make are made. Then one dates themselves. But, I remember a time back in the days of dinosaurs when we had these little programs called "Shareware." I seem to remember that the original Wolfenstein 3D was shareware. Wasn't it out before Doom and Quake? The first 3D shooter of the genre? Even though Doom was the biggie, and apparently built modern gaming as we know it. The ol' Wolf was pretty "bad" back then. For all the youngsters, "bad" is a term indicating something was really "rad," "hip," or "cool." Which are all terms to indicate "Good." God I hope "good" is still in Webster's Dictionary.

These games, you see, were on a floppy diskette. You could pick them up all over the place, flea markets, the gas station, the grocery store. I kid you not, you could buy Wolfenstein 3D from my local grocery store. Then there were other true Id favorites. Duke Nukem. Which had three parts, or seperate games, if memory serves. All of them shareware. Written by some really imaginative people in a garage somewhere. All they ever asked for was like $10 - $15 bucks for a game. You mail them a payment, and they send you a code to unlock all of the game, or send you the floppy with the full game already on it.

Don't you think that all of these "High line Gaming Developers who would Shape the industry and our world as we know it" had day jobs? All of them did, I'm sure of it. Even if there day job was coding another project (maybe even another game) They weren't feeding their families on this. They were using it for the exact same thing that I read out of this.

A chance.

Plain and simple. They wanted to be noticed, wanted their software to be used. Wanted their games to be played. And shareware was so much more than games, they had spreadsheet programs, comic book databases, you name it there was a shareware program that could do it. Oh wait .... that is kind of like the GNU/GPL/OpSo software today. Software all written for a chance to get noticed and have the opportunity to do something really really cool. By really imaginative people.

I can't help but read through all the posts that are saying things like "This sucks." or "You suck." or even "You want me to code you something for free so you can make money off of it." and think to myself. How disappointing. No vision in any of them. Not a single imaginative soul in the lot. You don't seem able to see things in the larger perspective. This isn't about working for free. Hell, it can be argued that all of us work for free. It is about attaching *your* name to a project. Giving *your* John Hancock to the world of gaming. Something that Rare and InfoGrams and Sega and hell even Microsoft might notice

This is about screaming I to the world. Well I say I damnit. Crazy script kiddies that don't know how to do anything that doesn't come with instructions. If you can't click next, next, next then you think you can't do it. You have to have it all spelled out for you because you as a world are afraid, you're all terrified of failing. This has nothing to do with money, it has everything to do with knowing the whole world is laughing at you. But you know what. Sign me up.

That's right. Sign me up. I don't know a thing about C, or C++. I know bash shell scripting, I'm a UNIX administrator. I know some PERL and a little BASIC. Go on, laugh at me. That's right. I used to code games in BASIC for the Commodore 64. Bring it on. Because I'm not afraid. Whether you think that you can, or that you can not, you are right! And I tell you I can. I'll learn C, I'll learn C++, put my name on the list. Bill it as Ed Booher's Optika World VII. But give me my chance!

Mr. DeVille, I'm ready for my close up.

The best part about OSS...

[SmirkingRevenge]

...is that the people who are generally writing the code, WANT to be writing it, not that they're being paid to do so.

Since this is a free project, why would you want to limit yourself to such a small group? When people are donating their time (and if they're any good they likely have "real" jobs for 70% of their day) for free there's no good reason to impose limits on group size. If you get 1 hour a day from everyone, EVERY DAY, then you will have gotten 7 hours a week from the group...that's less then 1 day of real-life work, and certainly much less then the 12 hour days many game devs put in.

Why not do something more like this (Using a traditional CRPG as an example)?

2-3 Producers, with a shared vision, who together could overlap enough to hopefully catch issues that'll derail/delay the project and help coordinate the dev teams.

2+ developers for every part of the system, a standard breakdown would be like:
3+ devs for the graphics engine
2+ for the scripting engine
1-2 for the asset management system (definitely needed when artists/sound/level/content makers get involved)
As many people as you can for the various editing tools that'll be released to the content guys.

8 people given 5 years at 1 hour a day may produce pong, or maybe even zork, but I wouldn't expect anything anyone would ever buy. Why limit yourself?