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Why There Are No Hit Indie Games
Slate is running an article on why indie games are still such small potatoes in today's game industry. From the article: "In today's movie business, it's possible for an indie film like Napoleon Dynamite to become a sensation. Saw, which cost a mere $1.2 million, grossed 100 times that amount. That just doesn't happen in video games. The average PlayStation 2 game costs about $8 million. Studios often need large development teams--usually 40 or more people--to meet their tight deadlines. They spend money to license everything from comic book heroes to graphics engines. They record A-list actors. And if they burn their own CDs or do their own marketing, costs can really soar."
No Hit Indie Games ON A CONSOLE.
PC, anything and everything goes. Gaia, YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates, anything PopCap seems to touch . . . Hell, anyone up for running through Exmortis or the Viridian Room, anyone?
Well 'Indie' is perhaps not really the model we want to be thinking about but rather 'open source'. A collaborative and distributed 'game houses' will emerge in time. So far all the attempts at open-source games have seemed somewhat behind the very big companies.
However, if you read between the lines of the fine article, you will know that there are some types of game which would suit the open-source model and some that won't.
Good example - A sports game - the rules of Soccer or Ice-hockey do not change much, so this would suit the open-source model. The game would be naff to start with but as more people play it then more people would want to improve it, and over time would emerge into a great game.
Bad example - A film tie-in - this would probably never work as by the time the game is at a playable state, everyone has long forgotton the film. However some open-source game engines might develop that allow for quick and easy re-theming.
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Games are very cheap to make. What you mean is 3D games with the latest graphics tech. Thats a totally different situation. A good game is a good game, even if its *shock* a 2D one. If you accept from the start that you are going to make a 2D game, youll be suprised at how cheaply and quickly you can make something fun and popular. At least thats my experience from making these two:
http://www.starshiptycoon.com/
http://www.democracygame.com/
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Developing and publishing a successful, mainstream home console game is a massive undertaking, in terms of both funding and staffing. Hundreds, even thousands of people; millions upon millions of dollars. Many smaller, more innovative development houses are left out in the cold, or relegated to cheaper platforms, like GameBoy Advance.
It's a problem upon which Nintendo has set its sights this time around. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo Corporation's (ex-developer) President has repeatedly stressed how disappointed by the current state of game creation.
Not much is known for sure at this time, but many are speculating that it will be easy to build and sell games for Nintendo's Virtual Console service. Several sources have also speculated that a Wii Developer Kit will cost about US$2,000.00. Now if Nintendo could only somehow help with the other costs of marketing and publishing a new console game, it could bring a lot of cool games to a lackluster industry.
But this isn't the first time this has come up. For example, at GDC this year there was something called Project DarkStar from Sun that aims to level the play field by providing the infrastructure (software and hardware, I think) for people developing MMORPGs in return for a cut of the action -- if the game doesn't make money, then it's free; if the game makes money, then the game developer pays a cut. Intriguing model. They had some nice demos. If it pans out then I think there could be a lot of new, imaginative, risky games that start to appear.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I was thinking "Darwinia". Take a look at the Steam (Gasp shock horror proprietary lock-in yadda yadda) games list and it's definately got a fair few which are close to being hits in their own sphere. Rag Doll Kung Fu, for example.
..." line, for example Bullfrog with Theme Park/Theme Hospital/Dungeon Keeper
The reason there are no hit indie games in a wider scope is because they don't have anything to draw people's attention. People just don't buy games unless they:
a. Have a good history of games with that same name, for example the UT series, The Sims, Half-Life, Halo.
b. Come from a studio with a reputation who can market the "From the makers of
c. Are associated with a film, and are hence buoyed by its marketing budget.
This rule becomes more true as you move towards consoles, since there is no way to grab an indie game demo on a quick download for your 360, and hence there is no development for consoles. In a similar vein, this influences buying decisions on PCs, leading to a lack of people willing to try other things because their console gaming buddies have never heard of it.
(Shameless plug) Encourage people to look at mods to bring them back into the 'give it a go' way of thinking. http://www.moddb.com/ is a good starting place, or just Google for "Mods [game]".
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
How about Geometry Wars on XBox Live?
Going out on a limb here, but I think the general audience of independant movies would be somewhat more into cultural things than cheap thrills.
I don't really think there's an equivalent audience for independant games, at best this potential audience would probably spend most of their money on more cultural activities.
Unless independant studios can make games which have significant gameplay values to become widely accepted as an art-form, I just don't think there is any audience to justify bigger budgets.
Those popcap games are surely great fun (I play some of them myself regularly), but they don't engage the player in at a level the cultural arts do. I hope they someday will, but right now they don't.
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