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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 $8 million. Studios often need large development teams--usually 40 or more people--to meet their tight deadlines. They spend money to license everything from comic book heroes to graphics engines. They record A-list actors. And if they burn their own CDs or do their own marketing, costs can really soar."
Whats the definition of a 'hit' game anyways? Besides the Napoleon reference The article only talks about how much money is spent on games, not if they make money or anythin gelse, doesn't that get to the whole problem we're having now of games just looking good but (most) playing like crap?
I have no idea how large Popcap Games was back when they released it, but Bejeweled was a hit. In fact, a lot of their games have proven to be popular. Obviously they can't be thought of as an indie game studio now. And then there was that old puzzle game before it that was a huge smash hit created by that Pazhitnov guy in Russia . . . what was that again? I forget.
Studios often need large development teams--usually 40 or more people--to meet their tight deadlines.
And Napoleon Dynamite was shot by 3 guys?
StepMania seems to be a very popular game. There's an active modding community and a multiplayer add-on. Haven't played it myself but looking at some of the clips on youtube.com it looks very polished.
Must be great fun at a party.
We can't rate hit indie games by their fiscal gross alone. Some of the most popular games out there (Continuum, anyone?) are free.
Its not because you don't hear about a game in the mainstream game review site that they aren't hits. Its just a question of exposure. Take Hexic or Crystal Cave on XBox Live. They fare pretty well for games with 0$ in marketing budget.
Some games have a niche market and are quite recognized among players. Cave story, Tumiki Fighter or even some *band variant comes to mind.
In the end its only a question of marketing. Just like Open Source, suffers from a lack of "Open Source Marketing", Indie suffer from a lack of "Indie Marketing". But things are picking up IMHO.
The natural market for indie games is the PC, the structure of console gaming assumes large publishers; back in the day console games were either first party titles or arcade ports. In the 80s and 90s the majority of PC games were "indie" studios like Maxis, Id, and Sierra: small-staff affiars that occasionally produced mega-hit games, but also subsited quit well on sleepers and more nich titles.
This all changed after the indroduction of dedicated graphics processing and of online gaming, and the resulting arms race for whiz-bang excite-the-fanboys-with-screenshots features. The arcade culture moved online and onto PC gaming, and the idea of PC games being something that an adult might want to play on their office machine began to die. Megapublishers moved in, purchased the formerly independant studios, and homoginized the industry.
And now you have an absurd situation where Nintendo is seen as being some sort of guiding visionary for thinking that video games could be intertainment for people who aren't hard-core gamers, when, in fact, before recently, PC gaming had been serving a diverse audience for over 20 years.
Anyway, I'm of the opinion that video games have become much more narrow and catering to a specific audience, one that no longer includes me. I'm no luddite. I appreciate good graphics and advances in technology, however games that use all these new features in ways that actually interest me are few and far between, and I find myself looking toward abandonware for new (to me) games.
I have a kind of generic critique of capitalism as a mode of cultural production that relates to this. It seems that commercial art is best when it is part of an immature market. The genre of the summer blockbuster saw a lot more creativity and inventiveness in the 70s and 80s, while the parameters were still being explored. Once Hollywood figured out the basic formulas of that game (e.g. "Die Hard" is a reproducable success, "E.T." is not, etc.) creativity dropped through the floor and you start seeing more and more sequels, licensed adaptations, and such. I'm not saying that profit is incompatible with art, just that it doesn't scale infinitely, when the producers get too greedy and refuse to accept the risk of not having a hit, the fun dies out.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Very, very true... However, the big-shot movies don't learn anything from indie films like Napolean Dynamite and continue to overproduce movies that have a ridiculous budget. In a game though, the big-shot game developers can learn things from indie games like Spiderweb Software's: Avernum and Geneforge.
Studios often need large development teams--usually 40 or more people--to meet their tight deadlines.
Yeah, but indie developers usually don't have 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.
Again, you don't need to do this to make an indie game. Games on CD? Thats so 1999.
If you spend next to nothing to make a game, its easier to make a profit.
Take this guy for example.
The indie movies that are successful are those that manage to reach a wide audience. They get picked up for distribution (art house or even multiplex), advertised, reviewed, and otherwise get very similar treatment to studio movies. There are lots of indie movies that aren't successful and don't get this treatment, but it is a possibility. There are movies out there that everyone has seen and never realized that they were indie.
This is not true at all for indie games. There is no getting picked up by a distributor, getting reviewed, advertising or anything of the kind. They're either available for free from some site filled with indie games of dubious quality or they try to get sold by some new method (electronic delivery, serialized gaming, etc.). Its hard enough to be successful going against the flow in one aspect (indie vs large developer), and its even harder when you add a new distribution/payment scheme to that.
How am I supposed to find out which indie games are good? Without totally immersing myself into the scene, its next to impossible. Advertising, reviews and utilizing the existing distribution medium let people find independently produced things in the way that they're accustomed to finding establishment things.
Also: the game world does not have a clearly defined establishment in the same way that the movie world does. Just because EA is the behemoth now doesn't mean that they have the same kind of history as MGM (used to), and so being independent of them doesn't carry the same connotations in the consumer's mind.
First you seem to complain how developers are only interested in graphics and celebrity voice overs. Then you say how Tron 2.0 sucked and that it lacked - celebrity voice overs. Maybe you were kidding. FWIW, Tron 2.0 is considered to be a fairly good game, to quote the Eurogamer review: "It certainly isn't going to win any awards for pushing the envelope, but it's a damn sight better than most of the generic FPS tripe we've seen pass through the office over the last year or so."
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
That just doesn't happen in video games. The average PlayStation 2 game costs about $8 million.
That's called a "barrier to entry." It's a feature of the non-free market which is inaccessible to 99% of business in order to limit or abolish competition (see "insufficient huevos") and deny small business access to the capital markets.
Let's recap:
1. There is no free market
2. There is no competition
3. There is no access to capital
Not bad for a capitalistic free market based on competition, don't you think?
Cue Slashdot apologists for the Neo-Darwinian game show status-quo "get more marketable skills" economy.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
If a game is not available on the shelf at Walmart and Best Buy, it is very unlikely to be a hit. However, shelf space at Walmart and Best Buy is so limited that game publishers have to rent the shelf space. The publisher pays for shelf inches or an end-cap, and the retailer doesn't care so much if the game sells or not. The retailer makes money from shelf rent regardless.
Small developers and small distributors do not have the capital to pay Walmart $8M for a national role-out. Therefore there is no shelf space for the games. Therefore they don't sell well.
A manager at Vivendi once told me that they could sell 50K units of an empty box at Christmas because the parents have no idea which games are good. They buy them randomly, and having and end-cap and a pretty box will result in more sales than any amount of game play quality.
The problems with electronic distribution have still not been overcome: Separating the good from the boring, handling payment, limited bandwidth, and game magazines won't review or publicize unless the publisher advertises.
I'd speculate that the indie scene is far, far larger than it ever has been at any point up to now. In the 'good old days' a one-man bedroom project could rock the industry, but the industry was very very small at that time.
Today's indie scene is probably far larger than the whole computer games scene of 20 years ago. (I have no figures to back that up, BTW)
End of discussion.
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?
Most of today's hits are just new faces on existing game engines. They are only hits because companies spend a lot of money on marketing to convince people that the new game is really something better.
Sure, they may licence new comic book charecters. Or, for sports games, have the latest players names and stats. But, if the game play still is lousy, then ultimately the game is, too. Improving game play costs a lot of money. It's a lot cheaper to try and convince consumers that the product is better than to actually make it better.
This is no different than movie producers. Indie producers simply do not have the resources to market the film or pay high salaries for name recognition. Very often, their product, as an art form, is significantly better than what comes out of Hollywood, but without the marketing machine, it can't reach the critical mass need for public awareness.
Game producers are in the same boat. Just like indie film producers, all of the indie game producers resources go directly into improving the product and not the frills. So, indie game producers can and do produce games that are as good or better than what comes out of the commercial game houses, however, without the ability to market them, they can't reach critical mass, either.
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
It was probably shot in 3 to 5 weeks. Video games require you to carry those 40 people for months.
The real problem is not the number of people, but that there's no good way to make a low-budget video game. You can make a good movie for very little money by not spending $100 million on special effects and marketing. Video games don't work like that. If you don't spend the money on having good graphics artists, your game looks like crap.
You can sell a movie with a great story and no special effects. You can't sell a game with fantastic game play and crappy graphics and sound - those games were already sold 10-20 years ago.
paintball
How many copies do you need to turn over, or dollars do you need to make to be call "a hit". The http://www.liveforspeed.net/ racing game is an excellent sim, and pretty damn popular and uses a fairly unique bit-by-bit sales model.
Initially they produced Section 1, sold it cheaply which allowed further development, then produced Section 2... etc. etc.
By the time they finish, the racing public will have paid a total price similar to todays mass market games, but spread out over a year or two.
This may sound like Tin Foil Hat conspiracy, but I believe what is going on with the big game studios is more a result of sticking to what they know and minimizing risks. When you know that licensing a big name like spider-man guarantee's at least a minimal amount of sales, why risk even a minimal budget on something that you dont know is going to sell at all. Most big game companies seem to take the approach that the more "visible" the game the better the game will be. They arent really going after gamers they are going after TV watchers and Movie goers. The bonus for them is that if they can convince the public that they are the only option then they can continue to shovel out crap at will.
Small Indy devs are more interested in pushing the envelope and creating new things, things that are risky. If something takes off it gets noticed but if it flops...usually thats it..game over. Take Castle Wolfenstien and Doom that little indy company Id pushed a new way to interact in a game world that revolutionized the industry. Back then before the days of anti aliasing and pixel shading, a company could afford a couple of Jazz Jackrabbits and Commander Keens before they hit it big. Today you get one chance unless you develop it in you basement you arent going to get the infusion of capital to ever bring an original idea to fruition.
The flaw in the big studios logic is that for most people that play games regularly they care more about the game being fun and different more than if Joe Movie Star's voice is in it, or if its a licensed character. I cant remember the last really good game I played that had either a license or a popular voice, if it did it wasnt one that stood out enough to notice.
Still the notion that there are no hit indy games is just noise. You can look as small as bejeweled or as big as Homeworld or Freedom Force to see that small publishers do still exist, they just have to have a product thats good enough to drown out the noise around them trying to convince games that they dont exist. Of couse the ones that do break through usually get bought by the big fish so that they can pump out sequels while tying up the original developers to wallow in the stagnant waters they created.
Sadly, many of todays games could easily be made for 1/3rd their budgets if they would forget the voices (who cares) and forget the hours of lovely boring cut scenes that most games skip over in the first place. I love cinematics as much as anyone but give it a bit of a rest, if I wanted a freakin movie i'd buy a ticket and go see one.
Seriously, when was the latest "new idea" you saw with regards to gameplay?
Tetris? Lemmings? Command and Conquer? Sim City? Wolfenstein 3d? Elite?
Everything I can think of these days is a variation on the same general idea (other than flight/driving "sims" of course). The last truly interesting and original game concept was over 10 years ago...
Given that, the only real way to distinguish yourself as far as marketing goes, when limited to a fixed number of game themes, is by graphical or audio superiority. This costs money.
Sad really... if someone was to come up with an original (or even, not flogged to death in the past 5 years), entertaining gameplay idea, they'd do well...
Me? I'm waiting for a decent new 2d platformer to come out :D
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Umm... I think that game is a "truly interesting and original game concept" that has come out recently.
Other games that I find to be fun and amusing are games that move away from the conventional console controller. (Nintendo realizes this, and thus the Wii controller was designed)
Samba De Amigo, DDR, Guitar Hero, Donkey Konga... games like that have a very bright future.
With the new systems all having some sort of network for gameplay the doors are wide open for possibilities. I always thought that a team puzzle games would do very well, MMORPG's for the PC have that element, but on a gigantic scale. Something smaller and simpler could produce the same addicted frenzy.
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?
badanalogyguy? Is that you?
The actors are just one part of the creative pipeline for a film, and usually work on the film for about 1/10th of the total production time. I could just as easily say that indie games are easier because its easier for an artist to create assets for an indie game than it is for an indie filmmaker to write, cast, direct, produce, advertise and distribute a movie.
We should be comparing the indie game developer to an indie film director/producer; in which case, you see that they are about equivalent in difficulty, except that the indie filmmaker has to organize a lot of people whereas the indie game developer does not; indeed, he may be doing the entire game himself.
How about Geometry Wars on XBox Live?
Yes! Thank-you! Serious Sam is a great example of an upstart having a solid game.
Far-Cry is another that comes to my mind.
Before that, Presto Studio's. (Makers of Myst)
Maybe that problem is that these developers are only labled as an indie until their games blow up and become well known. Then we forget who they were.
What this article basically forgets is that the established studios are, in a sense, indie developers.
Consider that id, Eidos, Blizzard, Bioware, etc. are, essentially successful indie developers. In some cases -- e.g. 989/Verant -- a big company gets involved to bring what essentially started as an indie game (EverQuest) successfully to market.
I note that Snood is available for Gameboy DS -- that's an indie game.
The big game companies are analogous to movie studios. They try to pick winners at various stages of development (with similar degrees of success). A no-name independent developer might become interesting to a studio when they have a compelling alpha, while a big-game developer might essentially get backing for any hare-brained idea.
An innovative smash hit game essentially becomes a game genre. E.g. Wolfenstein 3D / DOOM created the 3d first person shooter genre. Having decided you're making a game in this genre, given there's pretty much no "script" (even a comparatively plot-heavy FPS such as Half Life has a laughable plot) so it all comes down to production values.
Unless you're being truly original, you're only going to compete with the big guys on production values. Independent movies can compete on the basis of writing (which doesn't cost a lot of money), acting (which needn't cost a lot of money), subject matter (...). By and large, these aren't seriously useful options for indie game developers -- so unless they're very original they're limited to competing on production values, and they'll lose.
OK, rambling. Will shut up now.
This is JUST WRONG!
ID software defined Indie Hits. And if that is not recent enough for you...
CounterStrike redefined Indie Hit.
The premise of the article is wrong. Yes it is hard to make a hit indie. But it happens, and happens with a vengence.