Hello! My name is Mike Mika. I am the Creative Director for Digital Eclipse
Software, Inc. I just had to butt after Glenn's remarks. He is so on target
with this, it is scary. I can give you an example from myself, then as a
company. First, I have been making games for many years, starting on
Commodore 64, then Amiga, Jaguar, then PC, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, etc...
I am a homegrown homebrew game maker. It wasn't until the Game Boy Color
that I finally got a real cash return on my work. I started with a homebrew
game called Yars Revenge. Simple, simple, simple. I then reworked it a bit,
polished it, and contacted Telegames to see if they were interested in
publishing it. They were. I also started on another game for Titus
Software, on spec (In other words, on my dime). This was a little bigger. A
platform game with a cute character that hops around and collects stuff,
etc. That didn't get published, but I now had two Game Boy games under my
belt. They were far less than the kind of games I always started on Jaguar,
Amiga, etc, but they were within the scope of my abilities, and I knew when
to cut my losses, and finish polishing the game. Because of those two
games, I then got the gig from Digital Eclipse, doing NFL Blitz (Sorry!),
KLAX, TARZAN, LITTLE NICKY, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and numerous other
projects that I contributed to. I kept working my way up. Now... Digital
Eclipse. Some of you may know us. We started with emulation (PC, Mac, PSX,
etc), then moved to Game Boy (Ports, then original design for established
IPs), and now we are moving into Game Cube, PS2 and XBox, with original
concepts that are all our own, with the support of several major
publishers. It was the long hard road, but it pays off. There is still room
for starting small. Also, be open. Do not make allegiances. Work with any
and every publisher (You learn from the variety!). Do not try to make your
epic game first. YOU WILL FAIL. Learn as you go. If you are just now making
the attempt to get your first game published, don't expect your first hit
(Realistically) until 3 games later. By then, you may have some stride, but
even that is optimistic. Some of us get lucky, and strike it sooner. That
would be about 4 years of professional work before you make a mark. I had
been making games since I was 8 years old. It took me 12 years to figure
out the formula. Listen to Glenn, listen to me. Start small. The best you
can do to begin with is find a publisher who wants to port games from one
console or arcade game to another. This will get your feet wet and you
don't have to design a thing at first, which is good. No matter how smart
or good your design is, put it away for a while. When you come back to it,
you will have an objective opinion of it and you will have matured a bit
more, understanding the business side of things. This is good.
Business side.. That's 300 e-mails worth of talking. But, it is important
you understand it if you want to make hits. We can get criticized for games
we release, but if they were focus tested well and you do just enough, it
becomes a hit. Tarzan for Game Boy Color has sold over 1.2 million units,
yet I can read e-mails complaining that it is nothing more than Pac-Man
meets Pitfall... EXACTLY. What's wrong with that? Do not flush your ideals
down the crapper, just be ready to take the long road to understanding, and
one day you'll figure out how to find the compromise and succeed. This is
also a business. You have to make concessions in order to survive, that is,
if you want to live off of making games, be ready to work with a marketing
division and their insane ideas, and be ready to listen to them. The minute
you make enemies with them, you're in trouble. You have to learn hwo to get
them to understand what you want to do, etc.. Ah well, I could go into
details forever! If any of you have any questions, e-mail me. I've had the
privilege to work with a lot of companies, like Atari, Midway, Hasbro, Ubi
Soft, Capcom, Nintendo, Activision, 3DO, EA, Universal Interactive, etc.
Listen to Glenn!
Mike
At 01:55 PM 4/14/01 -0700, you wrote:
Check out this link:
http://www.lupinegames.com/articles/path_to_dev.html
I've been trying to explain to people for some time why writing 2600 games
makes sense today, and I think this article helps to show why.
Although it isn't saying you should write your game for a classic
platform, it does say to write classic styled games. I wish it pointed
out the need to try something original, as the world doesn't need yet
another breakout or Tetris clone, but there is a difference between
developing game programming rather than game design skills, I guess.
I have a friend of mine who would like to be a game programmer but he
wants to write an Everquest clone and I keep telling him "try something
minimalistic that one person can pull off" and he just can't accept
that. He likes the big budget immersive games but it's not viable for an
individual to pull off.
For anyone who wants to finish a game themselves, they've got to stick to
classic style minimalistic game worlds. When you're done with the game, I
think you're probably going to get a better reception of the game is on a
classic platform rather than the PC. The expectations are so different...
--Glenn
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