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Manifesto Games is Live
Conspiracy_Of_Doves writes "As reported before, Greg Costikyan, author of the Scratchware Manifesto has had a business plan in the works for a while now to do an end run around the PC Gaming industry and get indie games to the masses. Wait no more. Manifesto Games is officially GO! PC gamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your retail chains!"
Not necessarily
How many people would it take to make the next Geometry Wars? or bring back a fresh but old-school gameplay platformer, or 2D fighter? Not to mention there's a huge gap between your WoWs and your Solitares. Bigger companies are testing how high they can push up the high end and almsot completely neglecting the low. Indie devs tend to start at the low and work their way up, but without at least a foothold at the bottom of the spectrum you'll never see that middle ground start to materialize.
Indy developers aren't always anti-establishment but most often just some programers having fun in the spirit of the art in their spare time... and IMO we need more people like that in the game industry
Collector's Edition
Hrm.. I dunno.. I took a look at some of the games on the site and they look pretty interesting. I agree, there's no WoW there, but maybe a low end Starcraft, or a decent RPG... Don't count them out yet, some of those games may be more fun that the average "big budget" games being pumped out..
Look at something as simple as tetris.. How many years has it been? There are still variations coming out that people are more than willing to pay for.. Lumines anyone?
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
Tetris...
Sorry, but I had to say it. A game can be something else than an ultra realistic world simulation in many polygons and big textures, and still be fun. In my book that is even a pro, and there are more people like me; and they are casual players - the group that the market desperately wants to target, you will never get casuals to play EQ or WoW - possibly FF, but not for long - and at a friends place.
So, is it possible to do something like tetris on 5 people, get it really polished - and do the QA? Yes, it's a question of getting a good enough idea - and to actually develop it. And making a clone of something old is not it. Second question, will a startup do that? Not in 1000 years.
But if there are 1000 startups...
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
I'm a game developer. What exactly is Manifesto supposed to do for me? He's obviously not going to put my game in a box and sell it retail. He's not going to get me a development kit for the major consoles. (As you know, only large-scale publishers can purchase those dev kits, at any price.) He's basically going to sell my game for me online, and take a cut. Gee, thanks pal. I can accept PayPal on my own, thank-you-very-much.
The Manifesto Manifesto is nothing but a list of complaints, not a list of services that Manifesto offers.
But then, suppose I'm intrigued, so I want to sign up and sell my game through Manifesto. How do I do that? The "Help" page is busted.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
If an Indie game developer tries to make a game to stand up against the "WoWs, FFs, and EQs of the world" their efforts WILL suck in comparison. Successful Indie developers (which I define as those that make at least a comfortable living making their games) don't try to compete at that level. They take a unique idea with a unique approach, or more often, try to appeal to the casual gamer (or they do both). The biggest problem for a decent Indie game is cutting through the noise of lesser works when you have something truly special.
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"