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Geek Culture / any hope when even the succesfull quit?

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Me!
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 10:26
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reading this, even after the guy made just one popular game the big boys started thinking "sequel" and "more money" , of course they have no reason to do things differently as long as the kiddies keep paying out, me?, I vote with my wallet, I won`t buy anything from Sony, EA or Valve atm, they are gonna have to change some before I consider giving them my money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4392964.stm




if there is one thing I can NOT tolerate, it`s intolerant people.
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Tinkergirl
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 11:12
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*sobs*

It's so true. It's so, so very sad but true.

That man is a veritable gaming hero, and it's nice that a news story finally starts to highlight the catch 22 of the games industry.

We're all held hostage by marketing and publishing and sales figures.

That's why the indi scene is so very important.
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BatVink
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 11:14
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Sounds sweet to me. I love programming, but I want to do something different at some point in my life.

Quote: " normal playground is flat but I want an undulating one, with bumps"

And in the UK, the powers that be spend their lives makes playgrounds as boring as possible in the interests of safety. You only have to cross teh English channel and playgrounds are so different. The odd bump and scratch never did me any lasting harm as a kid. The guy that broke his leg on the roundabout might say different though...

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 11:30
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I'm not so sure the indie scene is any different. They all just want to make money too, they just don't want to give any of it to a publisher, or they produce games that aren't worthy of publishing

I see as precious little innovation in the indie scene as I see in the commercial one. Occasional boughts of brilliance, swamped by piles of re-hashed mediocre ideas.

I think the problem is far deeper rooted than most people appreciate. It's as if all this powerful technology has made everyone take a step backward or something. I can't see it changing anytime soon.

Part of the problem is that games are still too difficult to make. Palettes of millions of colours, ultra-high resolutions, shader effects, 3D models, texturing, AI, environmental audio, orchestral soundtracks, network gaming, MMO, squad tactics, mocap, physics, etc, etc, etc! All of these things do not help. Yet without them, people scoff. There's a cruel irony there somewhere.

Tis a sad state of affairs indeed.

I don't want to "hark on" about the "good old days", but by God when the hardware limited the developers beyond all possible constraints, their imaginations opened up and flourished like never before. Where has that gone?!

Fat kids always win at see-saw.

The world is full of idiots. But an unusually high percentage seem to appear on my TV screen.
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Van B
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 12:54
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Quote: "by God when the hardware limited the developers beyond all possible constraints, their imaginations opened up and flourished like never before. Where has that gone?!"


Exactly!

I remember a competitive undertone that has basically dies over the last 10 years. Like graphics for example, when your machine can only display 16 colours, you look into ways of improving matters and often breaking records too. Breaking records like the number of colours on screen, or the biggest sprites, fastest scrolling etc etc, that positive competitive attitude is deformed into a marketing tool, it did'nt start out like that. At least here there is some competitive undertones, like this years spate of shooters, all of them having a lot of effort spent on them, there's not a turkey in the whole bunch thanks to nobody wanting to be the turkey .

Personally I hope that hobbyist game development gets a lot more popular - I don't want a team to work with but it would be nice to have some 3D people know what the heck I'm mangling on about sometimes. It could get really good, people should already be pissed at the games that are being released commercially, there's fun to be had for free all over the internet - that sideline of quality games has little exposure. I ask people to have a guess at how many downloads Stoked has, nobody ever guessed 20k+, and it's not even that much considering some of the DB stuff that's made it to magazine CD's.

A lot of pro's are taking their own ideas places outside of the confines of whatever company they make games for. Like look for Ragdoll Kung-Fu, damn that looks like a fun game, and written in someones spare time too. Frankly I'm more interested in the strange ideas people have than the sellable ones.

This is largely why I'm starting to look forward to the new Nintendo console than the new XBox, I want games to make me stop and think, or laugh, or anything as opposed to feeling ripped off like I do 90% of the time when playing the games I buy.

Best game this year across the board for me has to be Resident Evil 4, no contest at all from anything on XBox and PS2. The guys making that obviously care a great deal about longetivity and gameplay, shame EA's brain does'nt work like that anymore.


Van-B

Put those fiery biscuits away!
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TDP Enterprises
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 13:56
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what ever happened to the idea of getting some venture capatilists together, and starting your own company??? No one says you cant start one of these big-wig companys, we all know it wont be huge, but if your first game sells a couple hundered thousand copies and you make lets say $20 on each of those, you should be sitting pretty good, all of these companies started small

"You can't expect to weild supreme executive power just because some watery t**t throws a bl***y sword at you..."
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Van B
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 14:11
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All of these companies started small 20 years ago when everyone was small. Nowadays you'd need millions just to pay your basic staff, it's just not feasible to compete with even the small boys these days.

The best we can hope is that the right eyes fall on your work and someone contacts you regarding it - that's a real long shot, but at least it's still in range.


Van-B

Put those fiery biscuits away!
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Tinkergirl
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 14:43
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I've got to the slightly jaded stage - I don't care how many polygons you're pushing, or what big name actors you have doing your voice overs. Doom 4? Yawn. Quake 4? Boooring. Half Life 2? *shrugs* Could try harder. And don't get me started on the death of innovation that is the current RPG market

To me, the best games in recent times that I've either played or watched played were (in no particular order)

Katamari Damaci (import)
Darwinia
EyeToy
Shadow of the Collosus

It deeply saddens me that so many indi or amature games makers just want to hash together a game based on an existing IP or product. Cries of "A game like Final Fantasy!" or "An ace Doom-like game!!" or even "Grand Theft Auto with fairies!!!" are just depressing.

Props to all the really novel game makers, here and elsewhere.
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Me!
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 16:45
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amen! one of the reasons I stuck with programming is that as a last resort I can make something myself, it may suck, but at least it isn`t generic, then again I must be easily pleased, tinkergirls grand theft auto with fairies sounds like possible (insane) fun to me, maybe it`s not so much that games are derivative as they are badly reskinned rehashes of the original, corned beef is corned beef no matter how you serve it, now if they produce some roast beef or a steak and kidney pie (to stretch a metaphore), then your talking.



ps does anyone know how to stop winderz pestering you for a reboot once it`s updated, I`m encoding some video and it keeps threatening to reboot the ruddy PC every 5 minutes , it must have picked a update up online just now, bluddy M$

if there is one thing I can NOT tolerate, it`s intolerant people.
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Jeku
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 17:56
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With Xbox Live's arcade section, I wonder if there will be a new spark to indie creativity? I wonder if Microsoft will open their doors to smaller companies, and allow small payments to transfer for games--- for say $5-15 a piece? MS will get their share, of course, but imagine the opportunities of having your game on the Xbox 360.

Who knows? Some Garage Games published titles will be on the Xbox Live arcade.

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David R
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 19:18
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Quote: "I wonder if Microsoft will open their doors to smaller companies"


I somewhat doubt that. M$ have no heart I tell you!


See details at http://lightningstudios.95mb.com/sig/buildDetails.txt
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TKF15H
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Posted: 10th Nov 2005 20:23
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Console companies earn money mostly from the games, rather than the system itself, so the idea of selling indi games is a good move.
Programming it will be a headache though, as triple-core hardware is not something we are used to.

WarBasic Scripting engine for DarkBasicPro
DC emulator code size: 14.3MB, 553,214 lines
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