Throwing Himself On the Innovation Grenade

spidweb writes "A long-time Indie game developer writes on IGN.com about trying to make innovative games, and the occasionally painful consequences. From the article: 'Like all (or many, or some, or none at all) other game developers, I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness. So, to try to give my life a sense of meaning and accomplishment, I occasionally try to innovate. I really hate trying to do something new. Sure, it gives personal satisfaction. But you know what else is fulfilling? Staying in business. Not losing your house. And you can't pay for food with Creativity checks. But, every five years or so, I try to do something that isn't the standard material.'"

Comments

Hm

[argStyopa]

I feel his pain, but I'm not sure I buy his message.

"Innvoative" does not necessarily mean good.

I agree with him that a lot of cool indie games (Nethergate might be an example, King of Dragon Pass another similar one) get 'missed' because they simply don't have the exposure to the market stream - for this I largely blame the gaming press, who'd apparently rather review the umpteenth incarnation of the Sims or Civ or Generic First-Person Shooter X, than to invest their precious reviewers' time in exploring some of the indy games.

In Nethergate's particular case it DID get good press - but not very wide coverage.
* 4 Stars - Computer Games Online
* Computer Games Magazine RPG of the Year - Honorable Mention
* Vault Network Shareware RPG of the Year
so it's a damn shame that it didn't do better. It WAS a decent, if not stellar-quality game. You had one media outlet (CGO=CGM) giving it rave reviews and that's it. Where's PC Gamer? Where's Byte? It was a while ago: was Gamespot around? Gamespy?

In the end, I'd have to answer his questoin "Why didn't Nethergate do better?" with "You DID get pwned by the competition. Not for your excessive innovation, just that you were swamped by other great titles. 1998 was a good year for gamers, suckage for Indy developers."

For the /. audience, other games from 1998:
Thief:Dark Project,
RRTycoon2
Grim Fandango
Unreal
Baldur's Gate
Tribes
Starcraft
Half Life
Rainbow 6
Fallout 2

(holy crap was that a bad year to intro a new game)

Re:Hm

[KarmaticStylee]

That is another *really* good point to consider. I don't care whether you were innovative or not, screaming on the top of your lungs for people to buy your product, hell, giving it away for free--to stand out amongst the crowd of games released at that time was damn near impossible.

Re:Hm

[spidweb]

"Where's PC Gamer?"

PC Gamer has written nice reviews of my games, but that started 2-3 years later. It is a very good lesson for aspiring Indie developers. You have to have the tenacity of the cockroach. Editors WILL go out on a limb and writie about indie games, but you need to put games on their desk for quite a few years before they'll finally notice you.

I don't blame them for this, of course. It's entirely understandable.

Running your studio wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if you are independent and one unsuccessful game still wrecks your place!! The whole reason you run a studio as an independent developer/distributor is so you don't have to make the same stupid marketing/management mistakes as EA or Acclaim or Midway or any of the big giant studios out there. How is it that you run your place so close to the bone that you can't afford to make a slightly experimental game every now and then? Why don't you have your own community site to help promote all your games? Even tiny companies need to promote their work (MoonPod have banners on all the major game-related webcomics for example) (although i see the author is using articles as a way to advertise too, which is pretty clever! he even got onto slashdot...). What happens if the market tanks or a more talented developer moves into your niche? There is plenty of room to innovate, and many video game companies (heard of Nintendo?) actually require innovation in order for their business plan to succeed. 3M does the same in their industry. If you can't innovate without unreasonable risk then it is your fault, not the consumers or the publishers.

I am working on building a self-supporting indie studio right now, and there are plenty of very valid sources of income that can help support you and your studio while you develop innovative titles of your own. They're not my dream projects, but they are short and pay VERY well, and give me lots of free time to pursue my real goals. If you box yourself in, and continue to make titles that sell ok but not great, and you never build yourself a financial cushion so that you can experiment, well then shit man too bad! Don't whinge on the internet about how innovation just doesn't sell; if you're going to innovate, PLAN on it not selling, and build your business around that. Time, word of mouth, and creativity are all on your side here! Just because your first couple experiments didn't sell well, that's no reason to start bitchin and moanin. They might have been bad games; they might be ahead of their time; they might be too late.

Final thought: If the game had real historical content, why do you cringe at its possible Educational (TM) value? There is a market for educational software that badly needs exciting historical games. A man can only play Oregon Trail so many times, and try as it might, Oregon Trail will never be received as the new God of War, especially if its a shareware PC title :P look at your games' strengths, find your audience, target your niche, and help people find games they love!

One Comment From the Author

[spidweb]

Thank you all for the comments on my article ... very interesting reading.

I think that, if there is any point I'm trying to make, it's how terrifying trying to do something different is. I really do try to do new things with the RPG genre. But, when I do, I can picture in my mind the dollar bills flying out the window. If we care about games, we developers have to try to do new stuff. But, once I've taken my turn in the barrel, I let other people do it for a few years.

I love Nethergate, and I have every plan to make a v2.0 shinier, improved version in the next year or two.

But if the experience taught me anything, it is how hard it is to not have your next game be Previous Game [n + 1]. I am starting to get the itch to try to do something new. I hope I don't end up killing myself this time. :-)

Re:History doesn't sell? Say what?

[Cecil]

I think he was speaking a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but still, he does have a point.

Did the ad copy for Civ read "Learn history while commanding an empire!"? No it did not. When I think of a Civ game, my first thought is "That's a sweetass epic strategy game". The education just happens to be snuck in there. Many games have some educational aspects snuck in. They sell despite that, because no fuss is made about it during the sales pitch. Most people equate more educational with less fun. When playing most "somewhat educational" games, you find out about the educational bits afterwards. By then it's okay, because you already know the game is fun.

When you're trying to get someone to buy a game (or most anything else for that matter), education just doesn't sell. It never really has. Perhaps we should blame our education system for instilling us with a basic belief that education is not fun.