Wednesday, January 18, 2006
January Utah Indie Game Dev Meeting
I just got back from the Utah Indie Game Dev Meeting (we don't really have an official name for it). It was the largest one yet. The meeting was great fun and extremely enlightening as usual. Some of the highlights for me:
* I can't remember his name, but one of the guys there tonight has been writing videogames since the late 70's - we was with Sierra for a while, and worked with Al Lowe on the Leisure Suit Larry series. We had a discussion about humor in games. I lamented that I'd made the humor in Void War so subtle --- a comment from the room was that "Subtle in games is a jackhammer to an infant's skull." You've GOT to go broad.
* I saw some really impressive-looking games in development. Ninjabee showed an upcoming title that looks HOT, but Steve asked us not to talk about it. We saw some games which have evolved quite a bit since our first meeting last summer. There were also some new ones. I left feeling simultaneously inspired and inadequate. These games are looking GOOD.
* Russell Carroll of Game Tunnel was there - as usual, he was a source of PRICELESS insight into the indie games industry. We got into yet another discussion of "what is an indie?" The question is getting harder and harder to answer. You've got so-called "indie" games that are nevertheless receiving funding from BIG BIG publishers - especially considering the PHENOMINAL success of the XBox Live Arcade for the 360. Indie is really a spectrum. You've got a couple of guys working out of their basements on a game for now pay, releasing it on their own website for sale --- those guys are clearly indies. Then you have a big studio that does exclusively contract work for big publishers --- they are clearly NOT indies (even though they aren't owned by a single publisher). But somewhere in-between you have a grey area that's going to make things difficult to call. What of companies (like the makers of the 360's Geometry Wars) that are "big budget" makers of most certainly NON-indie games for major publishers put some money and resources into a few smaller, downloadable games. Does that make them "indie?" What about the guys like Ninjabee, who do their own thing - doing it the indie way - in-between publisher contracts? What about the very narrow perception that "indie" games are strictly casual, match-three style games for casual players? The waters are only going to get muddier as time goes on.
* The group tonight was once again a huge cross-section of indie developers. You had some newbies (including the guy who organized the event in the first place, Greg Squire) who have yet to release their first title. And then you had guys who have been in the games industry for YEARS who are doing the "indie thing."
* Based upon the quality of the demos, these guys are certainly doing their best to create games that would have been utterly polished, top-shelf products a decade ago (or even completely IMPOSSIBLE a decade ago). The bar is raising, even for indies. This does get a little scary, as Russell was talking about what a small percentage of games that cross his desk every month even GET a review. There are TONS of indie games coming out all the time - and only a tiny percentage of them actually go anywhere. It's a tough market.
Anyway - those are some bits that flow to my sleep-deprived brain at the moment. I'm gonna get some rest, and plan out how I'm gonna deliver some KILLER INDIE GAMES in the near future :)
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:19 PM (Permalink)
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Here in MA, we have the Boston Postmortem Game Developer's Gathering, which I've found invaluable for the monthly talks, the info, and the ability to make industry connections. (Though having said that, I admit that I missed yesterday's event in order to get some design work done.)
In April of last year, I participated in a panel discussion with a few other local independents. It was interesting to see how they conducted business; their approaches were often different from our own. Here's my favorite clip (WMV, 0.7MB) from that. The moderator had asked about our biggest mistakes. I seem to be good at making new ones all the time.
It sounds like there's a lot of folks showing off their in-progress stuff at the Utah meeting. I wish we had more of that here. I always take my laptop and give The Spiel and try to get feedback, but I seem to be in the minority. It may just be that the Boston Postmortem is geared towards bigger studios more than independents.
In April of last year, I participated in a panel discussion with a few other local independents. It was interesting to see how they conducted business; their approaches were often different from our own. Here's my favorite clip (WMV, 0.7MB) from that. The moderator had asked about our biggest mistakes. I seem to be good at making new ones all the time.
It sounds like there's a lot of folks showing off their in-progress stuff at the Utah meeting. I wish we had more of that here. I always take my laptop and give The Spiel and try to get feedback, but I seem to be in the minority. It may just be that the Boston Postmortem is geared towards bigger studios more than independents.
Was that YOU answering the question on the panel? :) I love that.
I think we may need to get more structured with the Utah indie meet in the future. Maybe have a couple of short, 10-minute talks about some aspect of the indie games business, and maybe a little more structured demo time. Though really the biggest problem was that we'd grown and it was getting crowded in Ninjabee's offices, so some natural spillover occured.
We are also only doing it once per quarter, rather than every month. It seemed easier for everyone to make it and have something interesting to show after that time.
Me - I've got TWO demos to try and work on for next time. How fun for me. REALLY.
So how many of the bigger studios do you have in MA? Or maybe you just need to start an indie chapter spin-off or something? I get really thrilled hearing about these little grass-roots meetings, as that's part of the whole indie ideal, and I remember that this is EXACTLY how the now-huge Game Developer's Conference started.
I think we may need to get more structured with the Utah indie meet in the future. Maybe have a couple of short, 10-minute talks about some aspect of the indie games business, and maybe a little more structured demo time. Though really the biggest problem was that we'd grown and it was getting crowded in Ninjabee's offices, so some natural spillover occured.
We are also only doing it once per quarter, rather than every month. It seemed easier for everyone to make it and have something interesting to show after that time.
Me - I've got TWO demos to try and work on for next time. How fun for me. REALLY.
So how many of the bigger studios do you have in MA? Or maybe you just need to start an indie chapter spin-off or something? I get really thrilled hearing about these little grass-roots meetings, as that's part of the whole indie ideal, and I remember that this is EXACTLY how the now-huge Game Developer's Conference started.
Was that YOU answering the question on the panel?
Yep! And I still feel like a maroon for taking all those players for granted.
So how many of the bigger studios do you have in MA?
The Boston Postmortem keeps a casual list of the various companies that have set up shop around here. We have Turbine, Harmonix, and Irrational, to name a few. Perhaps there's a Rockstar Quahog that I don't know about.
One thing that always catches me by surprise is when I find that a local company I'm not familiar with is responsible for a well-known title (e.g., Empire Earth II, Caesar IV). I'm guessing that folks identify most popular titles with their publishers.
Or maybe you just need to start an indie chapter spin-off or something?
You know, I would like to see more in-person discussion about independent game issues around these parts. I always get something out of chatting with someone from a small studio. It also sets the bar for how hard I should be pushing my own company.
Yep! And I still feel like a maroon for taking all those players for granted.
So how many of the bigger studios do you have in MA?
The Boston Postmortem keeps a casual list of the various companies that have set up shop around here. We have Turbine, Harmonix, and Irrational, to name a few. Perhaps there's a Rockstar Quahog that I don't know about.
One thing that always catches me by surprise is when I find that a local company I'm not familiar with is responsible for a well-known title (e.g., Empire Earth II, Caesar IV). I'm guessing that folks identify most popular titles with their publishers.
Or maybe you just need to start an indie chapter spin-off or something?
You know, I would like to see more in-person discussion about independent game issues around these parts. I always get something out of chatting with someone from a small studio. It also sets the bar for how hard I should be pushing my own company.
It's interesting to talk about the spectrum of indies, what is indie and what is not. Let's just muddy the waters a bit more.
I worked for a few years at what has now become Indie-Built Games which actually has nothing to do with indies. They came up with that name while it was still a Microsoft internal group, and was working on internally developed Xbox titles. I suppose the tennis game was at least developed by an external company and just managed through the studio.
Some of us tried to explain to management that it would be seen as more than a reference to single-participant-per-team sports. The deciding factor was probably that there was no group or individual that could claim legal rights to the name, so it was lawsuit-proof.
I worked for a few years at what has now become Indie-Built Games which actually has nothing to do with indies. They came up with that name while it was still a Microsoft internal group, and was working on internally developed Xbox titles. I suppose the tennis game was at least developed by an external company and just managed through the studio.
Some of us tried to explain to management that it would be seen as more than a reference to single-participant-per-team sports. The deciding factor was probably that there was no group or individual that could claim legal rights to the name, so it was lawsuit-proof.
I remember that "incident." It annoyed me as well. I don't know if the success of the casual games industry or the increase in attention the IGF is getting, or the exodus of industry pros to form their own independent studio, but it looks like the concept of "indie developers" is ceasing to be a joke and is starting to sound "cool" in the game dev industry as a whole. It's hard to tell, because I've been an "outsider" for a few years now. But are we heading to a point in the not-too-distant future where, like in movies, it is "trendy" or "cool" to work on an independent game?
BTW, I like Dan MacDonald's definition of "indie" - it's a game that is produced without a "controlling interest" influencing the development. Although I think that's still somewhat inadequate. It would disqualify Minions of Mirth, as I understand they did receive some funding from an investor to finish their job. But I don't think said investor was involved in the industry whatsoever, and I don't know if he used his money to influence the design at all. It was also well within the "indie budget" scale of things - we're not talking millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars here.
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BTW, I like Dan MacDonald's definition of "indie" - it's a game that is produced without a "controlling interest" influencing the development. Although I think that's still somewhat inadequate. It would disqualify Minions of Mirth, as I understand they did receive some funding from an investor to finish their job. But I don't think said investor was involved in the industry whatsoever, and I don't know if he used his money to influence the design at all. It was also well within the "indie budget" scale of things - we're not talking millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of dollars here.
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