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Throwing Himself On the Innovation Grenade

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the kaboom dept.

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.'"

1 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Hm by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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)

    --
    -Styopa