Subject: Re: [stella] Why write for the 2600 From: Rob <kudla@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 21:09:43 -0400 |
At 01:06 AM 9/25/00 -0700, Glenn Saunders wrote: >What do you all think of this? Must the game industry scale upwards in >budgets and development effort or is there room for a Blair Witch subgenre >to be profitable? I mean, take a look at Square between Final Fantasy VI I believe that the "one man one game" subgenre hasn't changed at all from the way it was 20 years ago. Its practitioners are probably much greater in number now since computers are so much more pervasive now. People are always going to get neat ideas for games and write them, whether or not they expect to make money; it's just that 20 years ago, one guy could come up with a game that was utterly state of the art. Now the state of the art is a little more.... expansive, not to mention expensive. Of course, the state of the art and innovative, entertaining gaming are hardly ever joined at the hip anymore either, just as the big movie studios rarely make the most innovative, entertaining films. >and today. They are the poster boys of out of control game projects. If >this is what gamers EXPECT, then I think we might see a point in the near >future where it is theoretically impossible for game companies to recoup >their development funds. I'm starting to sense that you might not grasp some people's motivations for developing games, especially the kind we're talking about here. A good game, nicely presented, will sell itself appropriately. That is to say, some new original game akin to Tetris is not necessarily going to be able to sell for 60 bucks, but you might be able to attract eyeballs if you put it on your site or throw a "sponsored by" ad in it. But how much "development funds" are required to write a "neoclassic" type of game in Shockwave? And does one guy hacking out games on the weekend count as a game company? I'm thinking of something like a Bomberman or Chu Chu Rocket, something "new" and fairly original where the work goes into dreaming up the concept to begin with but it's simple to implement as long as you can do it in an eye-catching fashion. And the truth is, most of the people developing this sort of game never hope to recoup their "development funds", nor hold out any hope of being "profitable". For example, a number of us allow Hozer Video to make carts of our projects. I don't take a cut from mine, being that they're just one demo and two hacks, but for those who do... does anyone really feel like it's been an "unprofitable" experience? Like you haven't "recouped your expenses"? Probably the idea just hasn't occurred to you because it wasn't your motivation in the first place. The same goes for a lot of the musicians on mp3.com, as well as those who don't bother to avail themselves of mp3.com (like myself.) I think that your real competition (or rather, that of your putative audience) will turn out to be not Square and id (per se) and Eidos, but the hundreds of people who are willing to make compelling little games on their own time and release them as free-binary or open source. These are the games that don't need a marketing department to spread, because people can just email them to one another like that foolish "frog in a blender" thing. I don't know if a portal exists for that sort of thing, but I hear of them all the time via email and sites like linuxgames.com - I'm sure something similar exists for Windows. Remember the "Skunny the Squirrel" line of free-binary DOS games in the early 90's? At the time you'd get that kind of game from shareware vendors at computer shows more likely than the net, but that kind of author is still out there in droves and developing for every platform. Now, though, he usually has a web page with screenshots. I'm always downloading open source games, and they aren't always of the "bad knockoff of Pacman" mold. Yesterday I downloaded a pretty neat platform scroller called LOSER Corps. from http://loser.netpedia.net. It was designed by more than one guy, but I'd put it at about the same level as, say, Jazz Jackrabbit II from a couple years back. Even has net play. Naturally, there are a lot more where that came from. And of course none of this takes into account the largely illegal side of emulation, namely the increasingly organized ROM-swapping that goes on for every system from RCA Studio II right up through the N64. Even id has released the Doom and Quake sources, and there are endless variations on those two games downloadable by anyone for nothing. All of these would be your competitors, and they have a real leg up on you if you're hoping to actually get money for "neoclassic" games. It's akin to mp3.com's problem where they're competing with all the illegal mp3 swappers, only some of your competitors would actually be legal. I know you've always been very aware of products and deals and marketability, but I think many or most of us who have been gaming and even writing games for the last couple of decades, especially for the old machines, are a lot more concerned with just writing a cool game (i.e. the play's the thing) than building market share with it. I've got a really good day job. It has nothing to do with games. This stuff is what I do for fun. I can only assume that's true for the people with actual talent around here as well. So, how about this: you could just aim the site at small-time game developers whether they have commercial aspirations or not, and base your business model on ad revenue from tool makers and other companies aimed at that kind of market. It's not even that dissimilar an idea from the mp3.com model - I know personally at least a dozen artists who do use mp3.com, and most of them are more interested in exposure and taking part in the community of musicians than selling CD's, even though one or two have also made money from their presence there. It also seems to work for non-game-related developer sites like 15seconds.com and sourceforge.net. If there are no game-specific portals like that out there, it looks like you've got a niche to fill. I'd sure be interested. Sorry to go all Dennis Miller on you like that. I certainly go on at times. Rob kudla@xxxxxxxxx ... http://kudla.org/raindog ... Rob -- Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
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Re: [stella] Why write for the 2600, Ruffin Bailey | Thread | Re: [stella] Why write for the 2600, Andrew Davie |
RE: [stella] Why write for the 2600, Glenn Saunders | Date | Re: [stella] Why write for the 2600, Andrew Davie |
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