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Indie Game Devs Should Give Up

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the quite-a-cheery-story dept.

Red Herring is covering an indie game panel held this week at E3, at which Warren Spector essentially told independent game developers to just give up now. From the article: "Fellow panelists echoed Mr. Spector's sentiments, telling a room full of game company representatives, industry consultants, and members of the media that the path to entering the $7-billion market is fraught with more pitfalls than Tomb Raider. While opportunities do exist, small companies and startups find it difficult to secure funding and distribution for their work. They often have to deal with past projects that pigeonhole them and potentially hamper future expansion."

5 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. As always, terrible summary by JanusFury · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you actually RTFA, you see that he's specifically saying that indies shouldn't try to work with existing publishers like EA. He's not telling indies to give up entirely.

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  2. That's funny, the escapist seems to think... by merreborn · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...that indie game devs stand to make _more_ money than those working at game companies.

    http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/14

    Great article.

  3. Re:Warren Spector by Serapth · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um... Ultima Underground 1 and 2, System Shock 1 and 2, Theif 1 and 2 and 3(?), Deus Ex.

    This guy has deserved his reputation and by no means did his games suck. Hell, im not even sure he was involved in the Wing Commander games, that was Chris Roberts.

  4. Re:Stay small and build up by greatbob6 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Obviously you don't work in the industry in any way. I work for a small yet well known game company that has a pretty good track record so I know the industry a bit, and its not something you can just ease into. Now a days, you have to have a big budget to be able to make anything that competes with games the big publishers are putting out because making games is probably one of the most difficult and expensive areas in software development. And self publishing? There's a little more to it than just putting an executable up for download on a website...things like marketing to try to get people to buy your game and customer support and distribution... All of those things mean more and more expense.

  5. Re:Response from the indy dev's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Dear Mr Representative of indy devs everywhere

    Please RTFA

    Thanks,
    me.