Viva La Resolution
And I ain't in it for the power,And I ain't in it for my healthI ain't in it for the glory of anything at allAnd I sure ain't in it for the wealth
--- Meatloaf, “Wasted Youth / Everything Louder than Everything Else”

A couple of nights ago I read George “The Fat Man” Sanger’s story behind the song “Viva La Resolution.” You can see it here:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6949

It got me thinking a little bit. Part of the reason I decided to make my (semi-)graceful exit from the games industry in the first place was to get out of the world where creativity was constrained by bean counters, and where original titles were only considered after there were no franchises remaining worth a sequel. It turns out that doing games on the side, with very limited budgets and resources, is much harder than it sounds.

After a couple of years of puttering around, I finally got serious and created the game I really wanted to create. The trouble with “dream games” is that they may sparkle and shine on the showroom floor of your mind, but they don’t transition easily into reality, nor do they do it without significant changes and compromises – particularly on the very limited resources of a part-time indie development effort. I started without a plan and not much of a clue, without any amount of market research or serious thought to marketing or sales. It was a hobby that transitioned into a commercial venture halfway through development.

Just as the song says – I didn’t do it for the dollar bills. I’m quite proud of Void War, warts and all, and it’s every bit as fun in multiplayer that I hoped it would be. My biggest regret is I didn’t put enough into the game to facilitate matchmaking and allow people to play together more easily. But it was the game I wanted to make, and with a bit of help from friends I did it. The feeling of satisfaction of seeing it “done” was surpassed only by the satisfaction of seeing sales come in and realizing that the game was enjoyed by others enough for them to shell out their hard-earned dollars for it.

But I definitely want to do better. So now I’m a little bit older and wiser from the experience, and I find myself hanging out on discussion boards and reading books to get an education on things like conversion rates, customer retention, marketing strategies, contract negotiation, and all the other crap that never really had anything to do with the purity of MAKING GAMES. My current project isn’t any kind of long-term dream of mine, and I’ve made lots of changes and compromises in an effort to make it more accessible to potential customers. And so now I listen to Sanger’s song, and I wonder if I can rectify the love of making games with the realities of trying to run a business?

I heard a quote by John Mellencamp a few years ago about performing his older music in his live performances. He said that a lot of artists are resentful of having to perform their old hits, songs that they are quite sick of, when they have so much newer, better material they’d rather perform. But his attitude was that he is an entertainer – the audience pays their money for them to perform a service for them, and he’s happy to give them what they want.

I think that attitude reflects where I should be, mentally, as a game developer. Making money and expressing oneself, pushing the boundaries of game design… those are all cool fringe benefits that come from a job well done, but those aren’t my focus – nor should they be. But as weird as it sounds, I am starting to understand game development as a service industry. As a game developer, it’s my job to give something to my audience that they’ll enjoy and value. Call me idealistic, but I can’t imagine how success can’t follow from that.

So that’s MY resolution. Viva La Resolution!

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:08 PM (Permalink)