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Indie Game Devs Should Give Up
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."
All your game industry are belong to us.
You have no change to survive make your time.
Certainly didn't stop PopCap... ;)
If Indie companies want to compete with the big boys, dont try to do so as a "big boy" do so as an Indie. You dont need huge ammounts of funding to make games. If you have the talent and the ideas, then make games. Start small, self publish and re-invest in your company until it has grown until you can finance the projects you want to make. Have games you make, which you make money and hone your skills, be your stepping stones to a blockbuster, not VC funding.
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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Give up now! You cannot overcome the intertia of middle management! Twelve publishers passed on Harry Potter! Disney passed on Lord of the Rings! Skeptics always become middle managers and when they say "it'll never work" they are ALWAYS WRONG.
Once success is achieved the cynics and the skeptics sneer with open contempt at the new ideas and the people who build them. Nothing turns my stomach more than the entitlement attitude of tall dollars. The arrogance is so repulsive there are few words to describe it. Business builds walls around the "free market" and then tells everyone how fucking stupid they are for not being able to figure out how to be an "entrepreneur."
The fact is we, as a society, HATE ENTREPRENEURS and we do EVERYTHING WE CAN POSSIBLY DO to THWART and DEFEAT THEM. They're either "geeks" or "nerds" or circus acts on reality television after they got fired and laughed at on the other reality show.
It makes me fucking sick. Congratulations, gentlemen. The game industry sucks ass. You got exactly what you wanted.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.