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

[Ginger Lord]

Weakest review he's done, no real points beyond stuff he can't do stopping him in the game.

He didn't even mention the worst bit about GH3 is the completely random annoying Boss battles, now those break the game.

[Skjalg]

yeah the boss battles were weird.

Maybe we should all save up cash and invest in the gamecore studio, completely without publishers!

viva la revolucion

[zaphod]

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.

[SnipaMasta]

Would you say that about all games/franchises that have great sales? If you worked at Bungie would you tell people "don't buy Halo 3 because our franchise has already been successful enough" ? Or is there something about Guitar Hero you just don't like? ...or don't like anymore?

I don't mean to single you out, because a lot of us have had these thoughts about publishers "milking it." Would you feel the same way about a publisher milking what you've developed? What if you work at Infinity Ward? Would you complain about strong CoD4 sales?

I don't work in the industry. But if I did, yes I would - and I wouldn't work for a development studio that pushes out title after title of effectively the same game.

[Taylor]

I do notice in Japan they are a lot more open to independent developers than over here, and the quality of the games isn’t by any means superior. I think most of this is thanks to events like Comiket, and their prevailing arcade culture. Though the really successful ones (like, say, Team Shanghai Alice (which is one guy)) really owe a lot to unpredictable crazed fan snowball effects.

But even if there was an equivalent to the gaming side of Comiket here in the west I’m not sure how well it would do. Western gamers (speaking generaly here) like the triple A massive titles and little else, the sales drop dramatically after the top few.

It's something I hope would've changed with distribution methods like Steam, though they're still very much out of the limelight.

Edit: And I have my own little project going But I really can't code to save my life. There's more chance I'll accidently turn my computer into a killing machine that first takes vengence on its master than actually finish it.

[zaphod]

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.

[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.

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

[zaphod]

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.

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.

[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.

People who own a console typically go for the 'AAA' titles. Mostly because that's about 70% of the games available for them. My Brother got a 360 on Monday - and so far he's bought Bioshock, Halo 3, Assasins Creed and Call Of Duty 3. Obviously there are slightly more niche titles - I mean, White Gold's getting released on the 360 as well as Postal 3 - but most games sold are probably on the larger titles. Halo is definitely the Xbox's 'main' game.

Also, the way I took the 50% thing (although I only skimmed your post, sorry if I confused things here):

"The hardcore gamers that eat up the huge budget AAA console titles that pervade the game industry are actually a fraction"

"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. "

[Taylor]

I did mean “hardcore” gamers, I’m aware most people playing games don’t even have dedicated PC’s or Consoles for that purpose. The context was (intended to be) a regular convention for pushing and peddling independent games, like the Japanese Comiket where there’s a whole section devoted to Dōjinsoft – obviously your average “casual” isn’t going to attend one of those. I appreciate it was a bit of a mangled post though (mine usually are).

As for the rapid decline in sales after the hyped AAA titles, there was a link on Devbump by Ralph Koster doom saying again much better than I could. The stores only really devote themselves to the top, new releases and don’t really stock anything below that so they don’t get much exposure and slip through the net. This is exclusively within your “hardcore,” of course.

So yeah, just getting our wires crossed.

Though I must say I really hate these hardcore and casual labels, they’re horribly black and white for such a diverse thing and that’s why I threw inverted commas all over the shop. Your casual seems to imply people who don’t own dedicated games machines and just stick to stuff like Pop Cap, whereas ‘hardcore’ basically encompasses all else – which makes sense. But then you’ve got games like World of Warcraft who are known as being “casual friendly,” often attributing to their success, despite still being far apart from the likes of Peggle and requiring dedicated game rigs, broadband internet and monthly subscriptions.

To me it’s much more about the design philosophy of the game rather than the playerbase and would mark most AAA titles as being ‘casual.’ A hardcore game to my mind are things like

who have the older game design approach where, for example, the reward from the game is a sense of accomplishment. Whereas casual games are the ones where the designer has decided seeing a game over screen will make he player cry and instead the rewards are more material or staged things like character feedback, vistas or cinematics.

But since these labels vary drastically through all the ranks of gamers they seem pretty arbitrary.

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

[zaphod]

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.

[FrieChamp]

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.

First of all ^^^ I absolutely agree, the prospects are getting better for indie developers every day and it is something all of us should be happy about. Secondly "negligible" was a bad choice of word, I didn't mean to come across as "down looking" and judging from your quick list - there are certainly a lot more indie devs out there than I know about. However their impact on the AAA games market as of today, I dare to say, is "very small". And I say "AAA games market", because you raised an interesting point - the games market is a lot bigger than us hardcore gamers generally perceive. I would just wish, that indie developers could compete in this segment with titles from EA, Activision etc. simply to drive the innovation process more than they currently do.

Btw. I've been following Charlie Cleveland's blog for a long time and now read the UW blog, as well as listen to their podcast. Very interesting stuff.

[dux]

I didn't count on you intellectual types turning this into a thinking mans thread.

[Taylor]

It’s basically a big Japanese nerdfest held twice a year where they all stockpile into some giant rooms and go around buying stuff. I’m not going to lie though; the manga and cosplay side of it is much bigger. I mainly know about it because I follow and play a lot of the indie shooters and many of them showcase and sell at these events.