Friday, April 21, 2006
Indie Revolution or Evolution?
Things are changing in the games industry, very quickly. This is being met with an attitude of doom and gloom by some of the "big business" of game development - and with joy and anticipation (and nervousness) on the part of many others, including the indie community.
Raph Koster is predicting an "extinction level event" for the traditional games industry model.
Earnest Adams, a long-time member of the traditional video game industry, is meeting the massive changes taking place with cheerfulness and enthusiasm, telling game developers that the future is looking very bright. But different.
Forbes magazine is talking about indie games. And I hear Rolling Stone is about to run an article about indie games soon. Both are focusing on XBLA downloadable content - but that counts.
Greg Costikyan and Johnny Wilson and company are putting together Manifesto Games, an indie portal / publisher with an emphasis on non-casual indie games. And of course, in the casual sector, the battle of the behemoths have been heating up with serious money being thrown around for a couple of years.
Ubisoft just dumped their DRM provider that tied the game to the media in a way that broke customer machines. By comparison, successful indie developer Stardock just released a hit game with NO COPY PROTECTION whatsoever, divorcing bits from atoms even further. Because it's not the CD / DVD that's important - it's the CONTENT. That's what people are paying for. That's what people expect to have access to when they plunk down their hard-earned money for a game (or movie, or song...). And of course, much of the talk this year has been about Valve's experiments with Steam, a proprietary channel to bring content straight from the developer to the consumer without going through a middleman.
Jay Moore's recent Open Letter to the GG Community explains how much he was in demand at GDC this year. I was there when they had the first IGF at the Game Developers Conference (I think it was still called the "Computer Game Developer's Conference" then --- and then the console guys took over).The attitude towards the IGF (one that I held, too, I admit...) was a little snobbish and condescending. Sort of like, "Oh, hey, let's hold a competition to find some hot up-and-coming developers to hire away so they can do some REAL games." Now it's not a joke anymore (or so I hear - I haven't been to GDC in years, but I am planning on hitting the Indie Games Con in October if I can possibly swing it). Oh, and CASUAL GAMES! Please! That seemed like the place where game developers went to DIE a decade ago. Now a bunch of investors are DYING to get a piece of that action!
And of course, everyone and their grandmother is talking about the surprise hit of the next generation of consoles, the XBox 360's LiveArcade service. Which includes a bunch of little indie games. And it's no small irony that the champion of indie games is turning out to be Microsoft.
The thing is, as much as I like to champion the indie community (and maybe feel some pride in my own insignificant contributrions to it), these things are not happening out of some sheer force of will in a revolutionary act to overthrow the yoke of oppression. Far from it. These things have been evolving for YEARS now. Technology has been improving, the need has been growing, and it's just that the two are now meeting to create more opportunities than ever. We've seen it before ... when Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem 3D embarassed some big publishers with their quality, or even back when guys like Richard Garriott put a game disk and photocopied instructions in a Zip-Loc bag for sale at a local computer store.
There are two ways to deal with change. You can be like the RIAA, frantically trying to use every trick in the book to fight the tide of change and turn back the clock. Or you could be one of those guys that looks for the opportunity in these changes. The opportunity is both as a game developer AND as a game player.
I'd rather number myself among the guys looking for the opportunity. Because if it's "only" a revolution, trying to turn back the clock might succeed. But if it's truly evolutionary forces at work, it's pretty much unstoppable, and you either evolve or die.
Go indie!
Labels: Indie Evangelism
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:51 PM (Permalink)
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"There are two ways to deal with change. You can be like the RIAA, frantically trying to use every trick in the book to fight the tide of change and turn back the clock. Or you could be one of those guys that looks for the opportunity in these changes."
There are three ways.
The third way is to stop thinking in terms of how to turn a buck, and instead focus on making something important.
What you're talking about is neither a grandiose revolution - because it has no expressed cause celebre, and it's not some 'The times they are a changin' aspirational evolution which the blogging community has taken dear to its heart as some sort of touchstone of a movement.
What you're looking at is simple market dynamics in operation. It is of no significance in the greater scheme of things which formats games appear on, nor which distribution methods, nor any of that. The names and the devices change, but the basic content is still the same set of memes that they've been for 25 years.
If we ever get beyond that, then we can start talking about revolution and evolution.
There are three ways.
The third way is to stop thinking in terms of how to turn a buck, and instead focus on making something important.
What you're talking about is neither a grandiose revolution - because it has no expressed cause celebre, and it's not some 'The times they are a changin' aspirational evolution which the blogging community has taken dear to its heart as some sort of touchstone of a movement.
What you're looking at is simple market dynamics in operation. It is of no significance in the greater scheme of things which formats games appear on, nor which distribution methods, nor any of that. The names and the devices change, but the basic content is still the same set of memes that they've been for 25 years.
If we ever get beyond that, then we can start talking about revolution and evolution.
# posted by 
: April 24, 2006 4:14 AM
: April 24, 2006 4:14 AM
Good points. And I'd say that attitude is pretty much what I think being "indie" is all about. I wish I had more of it!
But there's that cynic in me that realized that whatever starts out as a visionary revolution and hope for a better world ALWAYS becomes exploited (if not dominated) by the money-men as soon as it starts gaining steam. I don't think it is always a corrupting influence, but it's at least a bias.
It didn't take long for Rock & Roll to become commercialized.
But Shakespeare's works were not done for altruism, either. If he and his troupe were never in danger of starving, would we have his magnificent plays today? I don't know.
So even if we did manage to go beyond the same memes that have dominated gaming for 10-25 years, would it simply be replacing old for new? If Chris Crawford manages to get true "Interactive Storytelling" viable and successful tomorrow, would we be complaining about how we're in the I.S. rut ten years from now, and pine for the days of First Person Shooters?
But the opportunities I hope for and hope to see out of this evolution / revolution / turning of the wheel / market dynamics in action include the chance that we can see some more interesting things emerge.
We've been seeing games that teach (AS GAMES, not just flashcards with game dressing). We're seeing videogames-as-propaganda. We're seeing some people making a concentrated effort at "experimental gameplay." We're seeing tools that put game design and development in the hands of the less technically elite. And we're seeing the opportunities for these kinds of things to gain more exposure to a wider audience than ever before.
So there's the optimist in me creeping his way out of the cynical half-empty glass. I don't see an easy path. But I do see opportunity. Opportunity to have some fun!
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But there's that cynic in me that realized that whatever starts out as a visionary revolution and hope for a better world ALWAYS becomes exploited (if not dominated) by the money-men as soon as it starts gaining steam. I don't think it is always a corrupting influence, but it's at least a bias.
It didn't take long for Rock & Roll to become commercialized.
But Shakespeare's works were not done for altruism, either. If he and his troupe were never in danger of starving, would we have his magnificent plays today? I don't know.
So even if we did manage to go beyond the same memes that have dominated gaming for 10-25 years, would it simply be replacing old for new? If Chris Crawford manages to get true "Interactive Storytelling" viable and successful tomorrow, would we be complaining about how we're in the I.S. rut ten years from now, and pine for the days of First Person Shooters?
But the opportunities I hope for and hope to see out of this evolution / revolution / turning of the wheel / market dynamics in action include the chance that we can see some more interesting things emerge.
We've been seeing games that teach (AS GAMES, not just flashcards with game dressing). We're seeing videogames-as-propaganda. We're seeing some people making a concentrated effort at "experimental gameplay." We're seeing tools that put game design and development in the hands of the less technically elite. And we're seeing the opportunities for these kinds of things to gain more exposure to a wider audience than ever before.
So there's the optimist in me creeping his way out of the cynical half-empty glass. I don't see an easy path. But I do see opportunity. Opportunity to have some fun!
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