The big publishers are focused on a couple of things currently. First is licensing properties and making games using those properties. Second is producing sequels of games that have done well in the past.
There is a large gap between freeware games and these large budget titles that an indie developer can actually compete successfully in. They might have to use online distribution to get to their customers, but those customers ARE out there - I can attest to that. There are many gamers out there that are looking for something different than what the big publishers are producing, and indie developers are filling that void.
It's not all doom and gloom - don't count us indies out so quickly.
There is a very interesting game I personally enjoy by Chronic Logic called Triptych that is quite innovative in my opinion. Kind of like bubble-popping Tetris, but with physics thrown in. They also have a popular bridge-building game called Pontifex II that you might find interesting. Definitely different than most indie games.
And of course there are the games at GarageGames, including our title Orbz - oh yeah, plugging away;) . I challenge you to find a game quite like Orbz out there - it is definitely not a knock-off.
I don't believe these games are necessarily dying out just because there are multiplayer games out there. They are dying out because they are a bit expensive to produce versus the number of units it will likely sell. The big publishers are not satisfied with 100k units sold for a title anymore, so who knows when we'll see another King's Quest series.
In terms of why would anyone want to play this kind of game, I view these games as a story or a world to be discovered. I also don't necessarily want to play with human players or grind out another level on a more-dynamic game like Everquest. Sometimes I just want to sit down with a good book, and this is a pretty close equivalent.
And while it would be interesting if these types of games were replayable in some significant way, I am more than happy to plunk down $30 for 30 hours worth of entertainment from a title. If one of these games gives me that much for my money, I'm pretty pleased.
Although the parent comment comes off as a troll a bit, the question is actually an interesting one I think. Sometime during the last decade there has been a shift in what we consider shareware. It is now pretty commonplace to move beyond simple nag screens in shareware - especially games.
The definition of shareware as per the ASP is "a marketing method, not a type of software or even strictly just a distribution method." So you could say that although there has been a shift to more than nag screens, the basic definition of shareware is still the same, and it differs from box products with demos (for instance) because it is more than the demo. It is a marketing tool, a distribution tool, and (hopefully) a pretty functional version of the product that you can evaluate.
Speak of the devil, the demos are now posted to Fileplanet for both the Linux and Mac versions of the game.
Now if they'd just activate the button that allows you to actually BUY the game.;)
Orbz 2.0 for Linux will be out any minute now
on
Linux Gaming after Loki
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· Score: 3, Interesting
21-6 Productions is one of the studios developing games with the Torque Game Engine offered by GarageGames. It's a bit of a shameless plug, but today is the launch day for our title Orbz 2.0, which is being released for Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously, along with a demo for each platform.
We really believe in developing fun and interesting games for both the Linux and Mac platforms. We don't just believe in doing so just because it's "the right thing", but also because there is money to be made. The article mentions Marble Blast, another TGE-powered title, and the Mac and Linux sales have been substantial. Certainly nothing for a small, independently-financed game studio such as ours to turn our noses up at.
The fact is that most (and I mean 99.9999%) of indie game studios will never have the money or muscle to compete with the big published games. So why try? Why not take a different approach? Why not simply try to produce a few smaller titles and incrementally build up enough of a revenue stream that you can pay your bills? Sell them ESD, but always be on the lookout for partners that will (a) allow you to keep your IP and (b) can get you in front of an increasingly-larger audience (like OEM deals, bargain box retail opportunities, and magazine cover disks).
This is what our studio is attempting to do, and though it's too early to tell how successful we'll be, we believe it's the best route to a self-sufficient indie studio. Successes like Popcap and GameHouse are inspiring, and give one roadmap to being self-sufficient. Another good example is Small Rockets.
In our case we are working very closely with GarageGames as our primary publisher/distributor. Between their help teaching us how to handle PR and marketing, their willingness to give advice on how to be successful, and our own attempts at networking, we think we will be a successful indie in the not-too-distant future. A good example of such cooperation was last week's MacWorld in San Francisco, where we helped run an arcade station for GG showing their title Marble Blast and our title Orbz (small, shameless plug). By joining them in SF for a few days, we were rewarded by making several contacts for future game development work and possible OEM deals.
This is how indies can "compete" with the big publishers.
We at 21-6 believe that the current state of things will change, not necessarily that they have changed. By having technology such as GarageGames' Torque engine available at a reasonable cost, the game developers are allowed to focus on game play and might therefore come up with something a little more interesting than that next ultra-realistic FPS that one of the Big Three publishers is pushing at us.
There is a very large gap between the little Flash games that exist everywhere online and the titles that are being produced at the large publishers, and this gap can be filled with the smaller-scoped, but no-less-interesting games that many people want. I too want to see a bunch of interesting titles like we had on the old Atari or C64 computers. I'm tired of the same rehashed junk we are forcefed.
We have spoken at length with Jeff Tunnell and the GarageGames crew, so we understand where they are coming from possibly better than the writer of this article. They do not believe you can crank out a AAA title for $5000. More importantly, they do not believe that you should even attempt such a thing - you CAN NOT compete with the big publishers. However, you don't have to. You can get together a group of like-minded people and crank out smaller-scoped games with a reasonable level of quality and make a few bucks if you work at it. You are most likely not going to sell 10's of thousands of copies of any given game, so don't plan on making a mint. Set your lifestyle right so that you can afford to work on your games and in time you just might succeed as an indie.
We are doing just that and (shameless plug) we have released our first game Orbz. It is a fun multi-player game that uses the Torque engine. We had one full-time programmer, two part-time programmers, one full-time level designer/artist, and one part-time sound engineer, and the entire development time from conception to delivery was 14 weeks. We are finishing up the Linux and Mac builds as we speak and they should be released sometime in January. Not too bad for a little indie, and how many AAA titles do you know that get almost simultaneous Linux, Mac, and Windows releases?
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of things here of my own:
The big publishers are focused on a couple of things currently. First is licensing properties and making games using those properties. Second is producing sequels of games that have done well in the past.
There is a large gap between freeware games and these large budget titles that an indie developer can actually compete successfully in. They might have to use online distribution to get to their customers, but those customers ARE out there - I can attest to that. There are many gamers out there that are looking for something different than what the big publishers are producing, and indie developers are filling that void.
It's not all doom and gloom - don't count us indies out so quickly.
;) . I challenge you to find a game quite like Orbz out there - it is definitely not a knock-off.
There is a very interesting game I personally enjoy by Chronic Logic called Triptych that is quite innovative in my opinion. Kind of like bubble-popping Tetris, but with physics thrown in. They also have a popular bridge-building game called Pontifex II that you might find interesting. Definitely different than most indie games.
And of course there are the games at GarageGames, including our title Orbz - oh yeah, plugging away
I don't believe these games are necessarily dying out just because there are multiplayer games out there. They are dying out because they are a bit expensive to produce versus the number of units it will likely sell. The big publishers are not satisfied with 100k units sold for a title anymore, so who knows when we'll see another King's Quest series.
In terms of why would anyone want to play this kind of game, I view these games as a story or a world to be discovered. I also don't necessarily want to play with human players or grind out another level on a more-dynamic game like Everquest. Sometimes I just want to sit down with a good book, and this is a pretty close equivalent.
And while it would be interesting if these types of games were replayable in some significant way, I am more than happy to plunk down $30 for 30 hours worth of entertainment from a title. If one of these games gives me that much for my money, I'm pretty pleased.
Although the parent comment comes off as a troll a bit, the question is actually an interesting one I think. Sometime during the last decade there has been a shift in what we consider shareware. It is now pretty commonplace to move beyond simple nag screens in shareware - especially games.
The definition of shareware as per the ASP is "a marketing method, not a type of software or even strictly just a distribution method." So you could say that although there has been a shift to more than nag screens, the basic definition of shareware is still the same, and it differs from box products with demos (for instance) because it is more than the demo. It is a marketing tool, a distribution tool, and (hopefully) a pretty functional version of the product that you can evaluate.
Speak of the devil, the demos are now posted to Fileplanet for both the Linux and Mac versions of the game.
;)
Now if they'd just activate the button that allows you to actually BUY the game.
21-6 Productions is one of the studios developing games with the Torque Game Engine offered by GarageGames. It's a bit of a shameless plug, but today is the launch day for our title Orbz 2.0, which is being released for Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously, along with a demo for each platform.
We really believe in developing fun and interesting games for both the Linux and Mac platforms. We don't just believe in doing so just because it's "the right thing", but also because there is money to be made. The article mentions Marble Blast, another TGE-powered title, and the Mac and Linux sales have been substantial. Certainly nothing for a small, independently-financed game studio such as ours to turn our noses up at.
This is what our studio is attempting to do, and though it's too early to tell how successful we'll be, we believe it's the best route to a self-sufficient indie studio. Successes like Popcap and GameHouse are inspiring, and give one roadmap to being self-sufficient. Another good example is Small Rockets.
In our case we are working very closely with GarageGames as our primary publisher/distributor. Between their help teaching us how to handle PR and marketing, their willingness to give advice on how to be successful, and our own attempts at networking, we think we will be a successful indie in the not-too-distant future. A good example of such cooperation was last week's MacWorld in San Francisco, where we helped run an arcade station for GG showing their title Marble Blast and our title Orbz (small, shameless plug). By joining them in SF for a few days, we were rewarded by making several contacts for future game development work and possible OEM deals.
This is how indies can "compete" with the big publishers.
Dave Myers
21-6 Productions, Inc.
There is a very large gap between the little Flash games that exist everywhere online and the titles that are being produced at the large publishers, and this gap can be filled with the smaller-scoped, but no-less-interesting games that many people want. I too want to see a bunch of interesting titles like we had on the old Atari or C64 computers. I'm tired of the same rehashed junk we are forcefed.
We have spoken at length with Jeff Tunnell and the GarageGames crew, so we understand where they are coming from possibly better than the writer of this article. They do not believe you can crank out a AAA title for $5000. More importantly, they do not believe that you should even attempt such a thing - you CAN NOT compete with the big publishers. However, you don't have to. You can get together a group of like-minded people and crank out smaller-scoped games with a reasonable level of quality and make a few bucks if you work at it. You are most likely not going to sell 10's of thousands of copies of any given game, so don't plan on making a mint. Set your lifestyle right so that you can afford to work on your games and in time you just might succeed as an indie.
We are doing just that and (shameless plug) we have released our first game Orbz. It is a fun multi-player game that uses the Torque engine. We had one full-time programmer, two part-time programmers, one full-time level designer/artist, and one part-time sound engineer, and the entire development time from conception to delivery was 14 weeks. We are finishing up the Linux and Mac builds as we speak and they should be released sometime in January. Not too bad for a little indie, and how many AAA titles do you know that get almost simultaneous Linux, Mac, and Windows releases?
Dave Myers