I've read the comments here with some interest, though I think they parrot a lot of conventional wisdom about DRM and piracy that is, at best, unproven. And is, most likely, quite wrong.
I never say DRM can be unbreakable. Of course. But I AM saying you can make a system where the prices are low enough and the protection is strong enough that it's not worth pirating. For example, XBox Live. And it works beautifully.
As for rights. I don't like having to put locks on the games/books/songs people own. But hey, in a democracy, we all get what the worst of us deserve. If DRM is the price we have to pay for creators to be able to afford to create, place the blame where it belongs. Pirates. I think there's room to worry about the rights of EVERYONE.
Finally, I've been getting the comment that people who pirate will never ever buy a game. I've never seen one bit of hard evidence to prove this. Not all people who pirate are identical. I promise you that if the price is low and the bother of pirating is high (again, XBox Live) some people will buy the game who might otherwise have stolen it.
Wow, dude. You sound pretty angry. I don't have much to say, except that, if my games were "shite" or "unoriginal", believe me. They wouldn't sell. Fortunately for me, Geneforge 4 is neither.
I only really posters to correct one misconception. Spiderweb's employees are not part-time. We have three full-time employees.
And we're not 15 years out of date. Do you know what games looked like in 1994? We're ten years, at most!:-)
A brief defense from the person who wrote the article.
The indenting in the selected code was not mine. It got screwed up somewhere between my machine and being posted on their site. I'll drop them a not and ask them to fix it.
As the person who actually wrote the article in question, I'd like to thank you for your comments and respond with a few of my own.
* To those who think it is all so obvious that I shouldn't have written about it:
No. You are wrong. Just wrong. Good programming practices do not just appear in peoples' heads as if by magic.
It's an introductory article. It's sold as an introductory article. And I am far more interested in being Right than I am scared of being Obvious.
* To those who have problems with suggesting using #define instead of const int
Meh. Yeah, you're probably right. But the important thing here is the CONCEPT of having your constants being defined in one central, easy to find place. Once a person has that down, he or she can define them however is desired.
* To those who accuse me of being a (gasp) inexperienced programming writer.
Yeah. So what? I never said I wasn't. I'm a game author. I've written over a dozen games. They all made money. That doesn't mean I am mister programming advice god.
But one, if you have a problem with it, yell at IBM, not me. They're the ones who had me write the piece.
Two. This is kind of ad hominem. Who cares how experienced I am or am not? I'm still right.
* I didn't read the article, but I'll say bad things about you because it means I'm awesome.
R0ck 0n d00d. First post!
* I liked the article. It might tell beginning programmers something actually useful.
I read peoples' comments on my article with great interest. Though they didn't, by and large, seem very useful.
My main point is that most RPGs are unnecessarily long. They pad out their length with busywork. They start you as a nobody instead of a hero, and force you to earn the right to do interesting things with menial and repetetive tasks. And you know something? It's still a valid point.
I'm not being a whiner. Sheesh. If computer games are worth playing, they're worth examining, breaking down, criticizing (if necessary), and improving.
People repeatedly told me to play other types of games. Guess what? I do. But I think it's worthwhile to say why.
There have been a few RPGs that trimmed the fat and the busywork and gave experiences with constant variety and excitement. KOTOR I-II. Baldur's Gate I-II. Planescape: Torment. Fallout 1-2. (So, what? Ten in 10 years?) These should be held up and applauded. But there are a lot of games beyond the top tier that padded out their length with filler and the constant chopping up of trash monsters. Heck, practically all MMORPGs are nothing but this.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an interesting case. It's very popular and a lot of people like it. But I spent most of my time wandering down interchangable corridors killing interchangable monsters. I don't think this game refutes my point.
When I look for a game now, I look for a game that wows me with 10-15 hours of kick ass A-list material and then lets me go. (God of War and Shadows of the COlossus are great examples). But the RPG genre seems to have grinding and filler in its DNA, so I'm staying away. Seems reasonable.
"There's a simple problem facing most indie games. They simply aren't very good. A few offer innovative concepts, but most are very derivative. The games also seriously lack polish. Often its poorly conceived controls, a sloppy interface or extremely amateurish artwork. The concept might be great, but the game in general is poorly executed."
This is a problem facing ALL games, by EVERYONE! If you would have written that paragraph and left out the word "indie", people would have read it and agreed with it without a second thought.
It is also beside the point of the article. The point of the article is that I wrote n games, all of comparable quality, and the standard fantasy games and the sequels did great, which the unique standalone title tanked.
I can come up with a long list of possible reasons why this happened, but the end lesson is always the same: The nail that stands up gets hammered down.
PC Gamer has written nice reviews of my games, but that started 2-3 years later. It is a very good lesson for aspiring Indie developers. You have to have the tenacity of the cockroach. Editors WILL go out on a limb and writie about indie games, but you need to put games on their desk for quite a few years before they'll finally notice you.
I don't blame them for this, of course. It's entirely understandable.
Thank you all for the comments on my article... very interesting reading.
I think that, if there is any point I'm trying to make, it's how terrifying trying to do something different is. I really do try to do new things with the RPG genre. But, when I do, I can picture in my mind the dollar bills flying out the window. If we care about games, we developers have to try to do new stuff. But, once I've taken my turn in the barrel, I let other people do it for a few years.
I love Nethergate, and I have every plan to make a v2.0 shinier, improved version in the next year or two.
But if the experience taught me anything, it is how hard it is to not have your next game be Previous Game [n + 1]. I am starting to get the itch to try to do something new. I hope I don't end up killing myself this time.:-)
For the last over a decade, my company has done quite well for itself self-publishing our role-playing games. (Spiderweb Software, http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ If you can pull it off, it's a great way to make a living. With electronic distribution and a huge profit margin, you don't have to sell too too many copies of your game to buy a house.
The problem is getting off the ground. Once you write your great game (oh, and it does have to be great), you have to get that first group of people to notice you. Then, hopefully, this core group will turn, through word-of-mouth, into an actual audience.
Once that very difficult thing is accomplished, you, like me, can live your basement-dwelling dream life.
The responses to my article weren't surprising. People have a lot emotionally invested in the whole "Indie idea."
I appreciate the examples of innovative games from Indies. Even if many of them came from the days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. SimCity and Doom are not relevant to a discussion about the world Today.
But I'm still right. A huge chunk of the really innovative stuff is coming from the big studios. I'm thinking of The Sims/Sims 2/Sims Online. (EA) The Movies. (Activision) Spore, if it works. (EA) Guild Wars. (NCSoft) And I didn't even mention any console games. (I should get 2 bonus points for not bringing up Katamari Damacy.)
Because of space limitations, I regret I couldn't mention Darwinia. (Incremental innovation in quality visuals.) Or Tale In the Desert. (Which is one valid argument against my point of view. I hope one day to see another.)
I'm not saying Indies suck. Obviously. I am one. But I am saying that people shouldn't fetishize them. They're people with small budgets and bills to pay. And that's why they write 50 retro-arcade games and puzzle clones for every one game with any claim to creativity. Because they have to.
I can't argue that the current mode of advertising is making the developer's money. However, I seriously believe that game developers are leaving a lot of money on the table by designing ads aimed solely at the hormonal male.
I've been making a pretty good living selling shareware role-playing games for the last 5 years. One thing I have always done is been very PC about my design. Half the available characters are female. Strong female NPCs. Minimal cheesecake.
I think I've been rewarded for this quite handsomely. I have a strong female fan-base. When I got two calls from southern housewives with several kids addicted to my games, _in_the_same_day_, it was very satisfying. Especially when they gave me their credit card numbers.
Women like computer games just as much as men. When they're given the chance. Anyone in this biz who dismisses this market by saying "Oh, well tits are just what sells." is missing out.
- Jeff Vogel Spiderweb Software, Inc. We make cool games.
Slashdot Mirror
I've read the comments here with some interest, though I think they parrot a lot of conventional wisdom about DRM and piracy that is, at best, unproven. And is, most likely, quite wrong.
I never say DRM can be unbreakable. Of course. But I AM saying you can make a system where the prices are low enough and the protection is strong enough that it's not worth pirating. For example, XBox Live. And it works beautifully.
As for rights. I don't like having to put locks on the games/books/songs people own. But hey, in a democracy, we all get what the worst of us deserve. If DRM is the price we have to pay for creators to be able to afford to create, place the blame where it belongs. Pirates. I think there's room to worry about the rights of EVERYONE.
Finally, I've been getting the comment that people who pirate will never ever buy a game. I've never seen one bit of hard evidence to prove this. Not all people who pirate are identical. I promise you that if the price is low and the bother of pirating is high (again, XBox Live) some people will buy the game who might otherwise have stolen it.
A note from the author.
Wow, dude. You sound pretty angry. I don't have much to say, except that, if my games were "shite" or "unoriginal", believe me. They wouldn't sell. Fortunately for me, Geneforge 4 is neither.
I only really posters to correct one misconception. Spiderweb's employees are not part-time. We have three full-time employees.
And we're not 15 years out of date. Do you know what games looked like in 1994? We're ten years, at most! :-)
A brief defense from the person who wrote the article.
:-)
The indenting in the selected code was not mine. It got screwed up somewhere between my machine and being posted on their site. I'll drop them a not and ask them to fix it.
No, I am not insane.
As the person who actually wrote the article in question, I'd like to thank you for your comments and respond with a few of my own.
* To those who think it is all so obvious that I shouldn't have written about it:
No. You are wrong. Just wrong. Good programming practices do not just appear in peoples' heads as if by magic.
It's an introductory article. It's sold as an introductory article. And I am far more interested in being Right than I am scared of being Obvious.
* To those who have problems with suggesting using #define instead of const int
Meh. Yeah, you're probably right. But the important thing here is the CONCEPT of having your constants being defined in one central, easy to find place. Once a person has that down, he or she can define them however is desired.
* To those who accuse me of being a (gasp) inexperienced programming writer.
Yeah. So what? I never said I wasn't. I'm a game author. I've written over a dozen games. They all made money. That doesn't mean I am mister programming advice god.
But one, if you have a problem with it, yell at IBM, not me. They're the ones who had me write the piece.
Two. This is kind of ad hominem. Who cares how experienced I am or am not? I'm still right.
* I didn't read the article, but I'll say bad things about you because it means I'm awesome.
R0ck 0n d00d. First post!
* I liked the article. It might tell beginning programmers something actually useful.
If anyone says this, thanks in advance.
You're damn right I have attention span issues! Like a business, a wife, and two kids. That's no good for anyone's attention span.
Ten hour games are truly awesome. I'm not in college anymore. I can't afford to spend 30 hours in newbie dungeons to prove I'm allowed to have fun.
I read peoples' comments on my article with great interest. Though they didn't, by and large, seem very useful.
My main point is that most RPGs are unnecessarily long. They pad out their length with busywork. They start you as a nobody instead of a hero, and force you to earn the right to do interesting things with menial and repetetive tasks. And you know something? It's still a valid point.
I'm not being a whiner. Sheesh. If computer games are worth playing, they're worth examining, breaking down, criticizing (if necessary), and improving.
People repeatedly told me to play other types of games. Guess what? I do. But I think it's worthwhile to say why.
There have been a few RPGs that trimmed the fat and the busywork and gave experiences with constant variety and excitement. KOTOR I-II. Baldur's Gate I-II. Planescape: Torment. Fallout 1-2. (So, what? Ten in 10 years?) These should be held up and applauded. But there are a lot of games beyond the top tier that padded out their length with filler and the constant chopping up of trash monsters. Heck, practically all MMORPGs are nothing but this.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an interesting case. It's very popular and a lot of people like it. But I spent most of my time wandering down interchangable corridors killing interchangable monsters. I don't think this game refutes my point.
When I look for a game now, I look for a game that wows me with 10-15 hours of kick ass A-list material and then lets me go. (God of War and Shadows of the COlossus are great examples). But the RPG genre seems to have grinding and filler in its DNA, so I'm staying away. Seems reasonable.
"There's a simple problem facing most indie games. They simply aren't very good. A few offer innovative concepts, but most are very derivative. The games also seriously lack polish. Often its poorly conceived controls, a sloppy interface or extremely amateurish artwork. The concept might be great, but the game in general is poorly executed."
This is a problem facing ALL games, by EVERYONE! If you would have written that paragraph and left out the word "indie", people would have read it and agreed with it without a second thought.
It is also beside the point of the article. The point of the article is that I wrote n games, all of comparable quality, and the standard fantasy games and the sequels did great, which the unique standalone title tanked.
I can come up with a long list of possible reasons why this happened, but the end lesson is always the same: The nail that stands up gets hammered down.
"Where's PC Gamer?"
PC Gamer has written nice reviews of my games, but that started 2-3 years later. It is a very good lesson for aspiring Indie developers. You have to have the tenacity of the cockroach. Editors WILL go out on a limb and writie about indie games, but you need to put games on their desk for quite a few years before they'll finally notice you.
I don't blame them for this, of course. It's entirely understandable.
Thank you all for the comments on my article ... very interesting reading.
:-)
I think that, if there is any point I'm trying to make, it's how terrifying trying to do something different is. I really do try to do new things with the RPG genre. But, when I do, I can picture in my mind the dollar bills flying out the window. If we care about games, we developers have to try to do new stuff. But, once I've taken my turn in the barrel, I let other people do it for a few years.
I love Nethergate, and I have every plan to make a v2.0 shinier, improved version in the next year or two.
But if the experience taught me anything, it is how hard it is to not have your next game be Previous Game [n + 1]. I am starting to get the itch to try to do something new. I hope I don't end up killing myself this time.
For the last over a decade, my company has done quite well for itself self-publishing our role-playing games. (Spiderweb Software, http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/ If you can pull it off, it's a great way to make a living. With electronic distribution and a huge profit margin, you don't have to sell too too many copies of your game to buy a house.
The problem is getting off the ground. Once you write your great game (oh, and it does have to be great), you have to get that first group of people to notice you. Then, hopefully, this core group will turn, through word-of-mouth, into an actual audience.
Once that very difficult thing is accomplished, you, like me, can live your basement-dwelling dream life.
Best of luck to Gamelab!
The responses to my article weren't surprising. People have a lot emotionally invested in the whole "Indie idea."
I appreciate the examples of innovative games from Indies. Even if many of them came from the days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. SimCity and Doom are not relevant to a discussion about the world Today.
But I'm still right. A huge chunk of the really innovative stuff is coming from the big studios. I'm thinking of The Sims/Sims 2/Sims Online. (EA) The Movies. (Activision) Spore, if it works. (EA) Guild Wars. (NCSoft) And I didn't even mention any console games. (I should get 2 bonus points for not bringing up Katamari Damacy.)
Because of space limitations, I regret I couldn't mention Darwinia. (Incremental innovation in quality visuals.) Or Tale In the Desert. (Which is one valid argument against my point of view. I hope one day to see another.)
I'm not saying Indies suck. Obviously. I am one. But I am saying that people shouldn't fetishize them. They're people with small budgets and bills to pay. And that's why they write 50 retro-arcade games and puzzle clones for every one game with any claim to creativity. Because they have to.
- Jeff Vogel
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/
I can't argue that the current mode of advertising is making the developer's money. However, I seriously believe that game developers are leaving a lot of money on the table by designing ads aimed solely at the hormonal male.
I've been making a pretty good living selling shareware role-playing games for the last 5 years. One thing I have always done is been very PC about my design. Half the available characters are female. Strong female NPCs. Minimal cheesecake.
I think I've been rewarded for this quite handsomely. I have a strong female fan-base. When I got two calls from southern housewives with several kids addicted to my games, _in_the_same_day_, it was very satisfying. Especially when they gave me their credit card numbers.
Women like computer games just as much as men. When they're given the chance. Anyone in this biz who dismisses this market by saying "Oh, well tits are just what sells." is missing out.
- Jeff Vogel
Spiderweb Software, Inc.
We make cool games.