Posts by zaphod

  • go-kart model

    these new forum buttons confuse me

    anyway, I decided to pick up WoW again, so as a result I am putting the project on hold for the foreseeable future . . .

    just kidding! I have been busting my balls becoming a css guru in order to code up our gui's. I have almost finished a tabbed menu for browsing and choosing different karts / hats / wheels / etc. I just have to finish polishing it up and then I will post a working version, which will work the same way in the engine as it does in your browser which is cool.

    Also, for some reason when I first tried posting a reply it sent me back to my first post . . . haha I'm kind of embarrassed of the images I first posted to start this whole project X(

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    Quote from Taylor

    This seems too thought provoking for a topic called "Tonguing another mans balls."

    lol

    Snipa I will agree with you that consoles are targeted towards "hardcore" gamers, and the people that play consoles I would probably label as such. That being said I don't think consoles ARE the game industry, there are still other channels for games to exist. Also, you see the console manufacturers realizing this and trying to reach less hardcore gamers with XBLA and all the other digital distribution game services.

    What I was saying before was that if it was true that ~%50 of the overall game playing populace are female, then the typical AAA game is cutting out 50% of the market in one fell swoop, being as they usually are male-targeted games. I am assuming that they have an even smaller target audience after that fact since not every male that is a gamer also likes to buy games like bioshock, crysis, and gears.

    Taylor, is there anyplace to read in non japan-o-phile terms what Comiket and all this japanese specific indie stuff is? It sounds interesting but I have no clue what you are talking about.

    Also, I didn't mean to go nuts and start posting all these stats and talking about percentages and stuff, my main contention is that there is plenty of space in the western game market for indies to exist, and it is growing every day. I believe there is a market for independent games which is only now starting to be tapped with the advent of all kinds of technology that is closing the gap for developers to get their games directly into the hands of their audience.

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    Quote from SnipaMasta

    He obviously means gamers in the sense of non-casual. Not "Hardcore", just people who own consoles. Or that play those types of game on the PC.

    This is exactly the supposition that I think is very shortsighted. There is no line in the sand where everyone is off playing peggle and zuma on one side, and on the other side is everyone fragging each other in halo and tweaking their SLI setup to play crysis. Just because you do not play many "hardcore" games does not mean you only play popcap and flash games. There are so many games that cover a broad spectrum between the two. And there is a lot there that Indie games can target.

    Quote from SnipaMasta

    Also, saying that 50% is a fraction of the market is slightly misleading.

    no, 50% is not a fraction of the market - are you suggesting that every male gamer in the market is only interested in AAA games?

    Also, I hope I don't sound hostile or combative, it's just an issue very close to my heart.

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    Quote from Taylor

    Western gamers (speaking generaly here) like the triple A massive titles and little else, the sales drop dramatically after the top few.

    I really see no evidence for this, if by western gamers you mean hardcore western gamers then I might be able to see that, but the average gamer in the west does not play gears or halo. The hardcore gamers that eat up the huge budget AAA console titles that pervade the game industry are actually a fraction of the wider game market.

    I see a lot of game developers views of what the game market is shrink and shrink the longer they are focused on AAA development.

    These studies all vary a bit, but they get the point across:

    http://www.theesa.com/archives/files/Es ... 202006.pdf

    http://www.gamersgame.com/cgi-bin/ggblo ... log=927061

    http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stori ... 115&EDATE=

    if you average all of them together I would say that gamers are around 50% women if not a little less, so right off the bat most AAA big budget games are marketing towards only half of the total game playing populace.

    other stats worth quoting:

    What Kind of Games Are Played Online Most Often? (ESA study)

    52.0% Puzzle/Board/GameShow/Trivia/Card

    7.0% Persistent Multi-Player Universe

    I'm not saying that everyone should be clamoring to make Puzzle or Trivia games, but that is just an indication that the average online gamer does not play WoW. In any case, I have seen many reports stating Runescape has more players than WoW, so the AAA logic doesn't hold up there either. AAA games really cater most to hardcore gamers, and in turn - they spend a buttload on AAA games. But I do not think numerically they are the largest audience.

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    Quote from FrieChamp

    Yea I've been wondering for a while already why there is such a negligibly small number of independent studios in games development. It's usually just one or two guys in their basement, selling their game for a few bucks or even give it out for free. The only "famous" exception are the guys from Introversion who created Darwinia and Defcon (and publicly proclaimed "fuck publishers!"). Look at movies or the music business, there is a huge number of labels and production houses that create content (or art if you will) way outside of mainstream, but still create medium to good quality stuff, which often establishes a big enough fan/consumer base.

    There are plenty more than Introversion, they just happen to be the ones that are publicized a lot. There are many more that you will never hear about in magazines or gaming websites.

    http://unknownworlds.com/

    http://www.bit-blot.com/

    http://taleworlds.com/

    http://www.moonpod.com/

    http://www.2dboy.com/

    http://crypticsea.blogspot.com/

    http://www.jagex.com/

    http://www.soldat.pl/

    http://www.threerings.net/

    those are some just right off the top of my head, all doing a wide variety of different games, and all with a wide variety of success.

    I firmly believe that every new day is the best day to make it as an independent game developer, the tools, the distribution, and the market are getting better every single day. There is a very large and growing independent game movement, and though it is being mentioned more and more frequently in regular gaming news channels, they are easily drowned out by the heavy handed marketing of the traditional game industry. Indie developers certainly aren't the most visible group, but there is for sure more than a "negligible" number of them.

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    Quote from Taylor

    when inside the industry we’re are still very much at the beg and call of the publishers/studios.

    Quote from Taylor

    when inside the industry we’re are still very much at the beg and call of the publishers/studios.

    Quote from Taylor

    when inside the industry we’re are still very much at the beg and call of the publishers/studios.

    you know you don't have to be inside the "industry" to make games. Don't let people in suits control your creative talent!!!

    viva la revolucion!

  • AC ZP Review & Indie Games aka "Tonguing an...&quot

    thread did not deliver

    On the front page of mapcore, the topics listing looks like this:

    Topic: Tonguing another mans balls.

    Topic: Any fix to this?

    *edit* on the subject of "milking it"

    Quote

    From a business point of view it makes perfect sense

    this is really all anybody needs to understand. These companies exist to make money for stockholders, and milking something is simply doing their job to the best of their ability. If you are looking for companies to approach making games with some other loftier ideals than stock value I would look somewhere else.

  • go-kart model

    I'm kinda disappointed, I tried to play that game but when I tried to log in, it just leaves a blank screen. Maybe it's not actually running yet.

    anyway, I did a few wheel variations just to have for testing wheel swapping. I also added some color to be user customizable. (in this case it's set to a yellow color)

    [Blocked Image: http://nimblebit.com/wheels.png]

    I think next I'm going to try mocking up some html for what some parts of the UI might look like.

  • go-kart model

    ah thanks for the link! I had seen screenshots of this but I never heard it was actually out. It seems like a more visually polished Kart Rider clone, so free to play mmo style with people paying for accessories.

    We are kind of leaning away from that model right now, and more towards the kind of game you would find on steam, with user-run servers that people join to race. The kind of persistence setup and management of users that goes into running an mmo sort of operation could easily be over our heads.

    Also, at least in Kart Rider - both of us found the actual game play mechanics and item design to be very lacking. I am anxious to finish downloading this one to take some notes on it.