Indie Devs--what's up with that! (lately)

[Stephen Zepp]

Schild asked me to set up an "Indie Game Dev" thread here in the forums, as a catch-all for info that I get during day to day working with Indies. To kick it off, I'm simply going to cut/paste some info from the "other" thread that may be interesting. The main reason for the following two posts was the general sense that Indies aren't getting much big time exposure, and that new publishing/distribution models are desparately needed to beat down the trend of what we see now coming out of the big studios.

Disclaimer: Unless I specifically say "this is a GarageGames position", everything in this thread is my own personal thoughts and information I've gathered from working in the indie dev world. I'm very vocal and opinionated (as most know by now!), and I will be severely hampered in the future about what I can talk about if things start showing up in blogs, etc. as being official word from GG when it's not.

<snipped from a different thread>

Speaking of Indies, more hype, more buzz, more interest, and more money...we just got finished with the Indie Game Convention this past weekend, and I wanted to say just a couple of things:

1) We officially announced the first "Indie" game available for XBox 360: Marble Blast Ultra. All comments about Marble Blast aside (FYI, the major addition was multi-player) good or bad, I thought it was pretty amazing that Microsoft themselves brought the very first playable XBox 360's in North America available to the public to an Indie games conference. The buzz is at the corporate level, and it's going to filter down, and hopefully sideways as well as sites like this become more and more aware of various Indie efforts. I want to say that again: the first publically playable XBox 360's in North America  were at a convention for Indie Game developers.... Amsterdamn X05 beat us by about a week.

2) We saw some pretty damned amazing innovation at the conference (much in rough demo form, but some extremely polished)--including the winner of the "Most Innovative" category, a game called "Facade". This was literally cartoon graphics, but the gameplay mechanic was carried off very well: The precept is that you as the player have caused an argument between a couple, and you must convince them to get back together. Sounds hokey, but it honestly got some amazing playtime as people tried it out, and became extremely addicting to both male and female players alike very quickly. It's obviously targetted at the female casual gamer market, but it was amazingly innovative and addictive.

3) NCSoft (Steve Snow, Publisher rep for Auto Assault), Microsoft (Greg Canessa, Microsoft Casual Games and Katie Stone (EDIT: Sorry, she's not REALLY married to Steve Snow!), XBox Live Arcade Program Manager), GDC (Chris Crawford), Popcap (James Gwertzman), Ageia (Tom Lassanske), and Oberon (Dave Nixon) all had speakers at the conference, and spent quite a bit of time looking at the casual game and serious-but-indie game offerings that were demo-ed at the show.

Late breaking news: I just found out today that Nintendo was also there undercover (only way we found out is when the guy was asked for a business card), and he was asking questions that in retrospect made it apparent they were looking for quality Indie titles as well for porting purposes. This is my opinion--he never came out and said that.

Ironically, the biggest challenge IMO now is for the "indie movement" to avoid being swallowed up by the big names as it becomes more prevalent--the money the people listed above represent is extremely attractive to the indie developers that are starving themsleves and their families trying to make innovative games.

On a personal note, the most amazing thing I saw at the conference was from a commercial developer using the Torque Shader Engine: on a contract from NASA, they captured real terrain data from Mars (yes, the planet), imported it into the engine, and had a demo of one of the Mars Rovers running around the terrain (controllable). Was simply breathtaking for me.

Wik & The Fable of Souls (this years IGF winner), Mutant Storm, a complete and total port of Joust (yes, the old arcade game Joust), and Geometry Wars were also announced this week for XBox 360 Arcade. Joust got a bit of retro loving at IGC, and Geometry Wars was pretty popular as well.

Gamasutra has released the first two feature articles about IndieGamesCon, including some text bites from some of the big (and little!) players.

Also in related news to Indies making it: Andy Schatz, an ex-game dev pro turned indie (and quite young as well, I'm guessing mid-late 20's) just announced last week a  world wide publishing/distribution deal for his game Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa with MumboJumbo for release in Q1 2006. Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa will be available on both PC and the Mac in both online and retail distribution channels, and was developed using the Torque Game Engine v1.3 and associated products.

PS: Be on the lookout for "Tube Twist" in the next couple of months...

PPS: We had some amazing press there as well, from many of the large print mags to gamasutra freelance journalists to PCGamer. You can listen to an interview with Jay Moore (Marketing Evangelist for GarageGames) on the PCGamer Podcast. It's long, but you get to hear Jay about about minute 13 or so.

[Stephen Zepp]

This just out:

BusinessWeek:online--Indie Gamers Hit the Right BUttons.

Article about Andy Schatz again and Wildlife Tycoon:Venture Africa.

Personal observation: Andy was extremely well served by both his resume and his contacts he made while at TKO, so obviously your milage may vary, but once the paths are blazed they will become much easier to walk for the rest of us!

[dusematic]

I like this.  Nintendo undercover?  Cute.  They've got gumption.

[Stephen Zepp]

I wanted to keep things consolidated, so even though we already have a Minions of Mirth thread elsewhere, I'll post this release here:

Minions of Mirth announces first dedicated server, and zero subscription fee. (link requires free registration at GG)

Please note that MoM is just now in an open beta state, which does require purchasing the current version of the game ($25). The demo is free, and provides an excellent snapshot of gameplay and capabilities.

The first Minions of Mirth - MMORPG dedicated server is up!!!  It's an AMD 3000+ with 2 gigs of RAM and a 100mbps upstream. 

The MMORPG portion is included with game's purchase.  There is NO MONTHLY SERVICE FEE!!! 

Windows Demo Installer
http://www.prairiegames.com/MoMDemoInstaller.exe

OSX Demo Installer
http://www.prairiegames.com/MoMDemo_OSX.tar.gz

You can play the demo on our dedicated server :)  The game is also fully playable in single player and you can even host and mod your own persistent worlds!

MoM is available for pre-order at just $25.  Pre-ordering the game gets you access to the beta version which features 2 hours of original music, the Minions of Darkness realm, more races, more classes, more zones, more loot, and more fun!!! 

The gold version will be available on December 15th.  You can pre-order with PayPal, and we'll be setting up a merchant account soon.  (Note that you don't need to have a PayPal account to order through PayPal with a credit card)

Come and check out everyone's favorite game engine pulling off an indie styled MMORPG!!!! :)

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games

Some night shots from the beta.... a little dark on a white background, but hey!

[Nija]

You should probably have a publically accessable subforum that people can access without requiring accts. Link doesn't work without an acct.

[Stephen Zepp]

You should probably have a publically accessable subforum that people can access without requiring accts. Link doesn't work without an acct.

Bah, I had forgotten that GG requires accounts for ID purposes (even on the public forums), sorry...links shortly.

EDIT: text of release posted inline via quote, and some screenies.

[stray]

That skeleton kind of has the body and head shape of Homer Simpson.

[Krakrok]

Couple things.

Character graphics are a big barrier for indie's (at least they were for me when I was messing around with game dev). If Will Wright really wanted to make a difference he'd take his Spore procedural character technology and package it as some kind of middleware ala SpeedTree ($5k a pop?).

Secondly, I think that the model Mount & Blade is using (get the game to around 0.50 and then start selling "alpha" copies) is probably a pretty good model for indies. It gets the endgame money to the indie over a period of time verses running on your own cash and hoping for a big payoff at 1.0 release time. It really makes a difference to be reinforced by feedback (and cash) towards completing and polishing up a 1.0 product.

Lastly, indie dev's shouldn't stop at a v1.0. Commercial PC/console games really don't have much choice other than releasing patchs and possibly starting on a sequal. Indie's have the flexibility (especially with the payment over time model) to improve their games past 1.0. Not like this is a new business model or idea though as shareware has been doing this for 25 years.

[Furiously]

Lastly, indie dev's shouldn't stop at a v1.0. Commercial PC/console games really don't have much choice other than releasing patchs and possibly starting on a sequal. Indie's have the flexibility (especially with the payment over time model) to improve their games past 1.0. Not like this is a new business model or idea though as shareware has been doing this for 25 years.

I don't mean this sarcasticly. Serek Dmart really proved this type of system works.

[HRose]

That art is digestible and actually not bad. If you move a little to a more personal style than a random generic feel it could even be better.

The real problem is the photo used for the face. That really breaks the impact that the model has.

[stray]

Really, it's not that big of a deal, but I thought I'd put two things side by side (just in case you think my statement doesn't make any sense, and I'm only here to troll):

[Pococurante]

Late breaking news: I just found out today that Nintendo was also there undercover (only way we found out is when the guy was asked for a business card), and he was asking questions that in retrospect made it apparent they were looking for quality Indie titles as well for porting purposes. This is my opinion--he never came out and said that.

Ironically, the biggest challenge IMO now is for the "indie movement" to avoid being swallowed up by the big names as it becomes more prevalent--the money the people listed above represent is extremely attractive to the indie developers that are starving themsleves and their families trying to make innovative games.

Indies are supposed to be gobbled up - that's their niche in the foodchain and our hope is that all those tons of new-DNA indie krill will prompt a genetic mutation in the Big House whales.  But seriously this is how every sector operates - it's a good sign and means the electronic MMO sub-industry has matured.

[Stephen Zepp]

Late breaking news: I just found out today that Nintendo was also there undercover (only way we found out is when the guy was asked for a business card), and he was asking questions that in retrospect made it apparent they were looking for quality Indie titles as well for porting purposes. This is my opinion--he never came out and said that.

Ironically, the biggest challenge IMO now is for the "indie movement" to avoid being swallowed up by the big names as it becomes more prevalent--the money the people listed above represent is extremely attractive to the indie developers that are starving themsleves and their families trying to make innovative games.

Indies are supposed to be gobbled up - that's their niche in the foodchain and our hope is that all those tons of new-DNA indie krill will prompt a genetic mutation in the Big House whales.  But seriously this is how every sector operates - it's a good sign and means the electronic MMO sub-industry has matured.

Personally I'm hoping that it doesn't happen that way...because I'm pretty sure we as a community all agree that once the Big Boys (tm) get involved, the very things that we do like about Indie projects will dissapear in the sheer size and commercialization of the projects. I'm not disagreeing with you that it's the common expectation, just that I hope the Indies can dig in and resist a lot more than in the past given the exposure that is building and growing.

[HaemishM]

I do not agree that just being swallowed up by the Big Boyz destroys an indie devs creativity. I think it's very dependent on the Big Boy who swallows. For instance, yes if your dev studio is swallowed up by EA, you can go have one last fling with innovation because you will never be allowed to see her again. Also, look forward to being shut down in a few years anyway and absorbed into the Borg.

But for instance, Lionhead has a deal with Activision to publish their games, and they have been one of the most innovative (if hit and miss) studios around. Sure, they didn't get bought out by Activision, but really, if you are looking to sell your indie dev house to a publisher, you don't give a fuck about innovation anyway.

[Stephen Zepp]

Back to using this thread as a general announcement style:

(Not an online article, just a small info note) Forbes Magazine talks about opportunities for Indie Developers on XBox 360.

Account required I think at GG.

Basically, just a real quick overview of the exposure itself: IMO when Forbes magazine does a print article about Indie Dev's, the exposure is getting big...

[HaemishM]

It's big because it's involving the 360. I'm pretty sure it was advertorial to try to promote the X-Box Live Marketplace by saying "LOOK! CONTENT!"

[Stephen Zepp]

It's big because it's involving the 360. I'm pretty sure it was advertorial to try to promote the X-Box Live Marketplace by saying "LOOK! CONTENT!"

Not disagreeing with you at all, but the very fact that the term "indie" is being used in an article in Forbes magazine gives a direct indication of indie development exposure to big business...which is one of the reasons for this thread (kind of anyway!): the "indie movement" isn't visible only to indie gamers.