Smaller Game Developers?

[pumbaa]

It seems that the buzz around gaming lately is that everything is getting more and more expensive to do. Development costs rise. Game costs rise. All this breeds an environment that makes publishers weary to try anthing new for fear that it might not sell. I don't claim to know much about the industry inside, but here what I'm wondering.

Why hasn't a publisher (or a console maker for that matter) make themselves out to be "indie" friendly? Lets take Nintendo for example. Why not create a small offshoot fund specifically for indie game development... again I may be talking out of my ass, but there has to be a feasable way to do this. Lots of smaller developers make fantastic games that go under the radar... so why not take advantage of this untapped creativity and welcome serious indie developers?

I don't see why this wouldn't make sense for ANY publisher... especially someone like Nintendo who is losing 3rd party support.

Just a thought.

[Pylis]

I might be wrong, but I thought Microsoft is willing to let pretty much anybody make a game on their console.

[evilmax17]

Alien Hominid.

It was cheap to make, indie-made, and well received.

[rockhero]

I'm not sure why you use Nintendo as an example (fanboy I'm guessing), but Nintendo is definitely the least likely company to do something like this.

The problem with consoles is that you need dev kits which are costly. That's why the vast majority of indie game companies are PC based. Check out Garage Games, they do something kind of like what you are suggesting.

[epobirs]

There already exists a farm team, so to speak, for game developers. It's called the PC.

Back when it first appeared it was the worst choice for those seeking to learn by doing. Machines like the Atari 800 had much more in common with arcade hardware while the PC barely supported color and had no real audio beyond the speaker for keyboard clicks and POST beeps. No hardware support for animation, no good large character/tile modes, a subsystem design that meant having to spend a lot of time shuffling data in and out of a frame buffer rather than just changing some memory pointers, etc. The PC had one thing that made all the rest of that moot. It didn't go away. Unstoppably entrenched in the business market the PC was the most stable platform ever. The same ever evolving nature that makes it such a pain to nail down when designing games is also why it has outlived everything else. I would never have believed it 17 years ago when the Amiga was the hot system and we were struggling to use the new VGA standard on a system that just wasn't fast enough to allow it to be properly exploited.

The ever evolving PC has in turn created subcategories that offer budding game designers and coders an open environment to experiment. Flash, Shockwave, Java, BREW on cellphones, etc. As John Carmack noted on his blog recently, there are still a lot of local quirks that prevent developers from ignoring hardware differences. http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/johnc/Recent%20Updates
But for someone just learning how to make things work and not pushing the envelope the quirks of individual systems can be overlooked. Writing your own Space Invaders variant is an unmatchable educational experience and so far below the capabilites of the most minimal modern platforms it has a pretty good chance of working as desired pretty much everywhere.

If you want to learn game programming without picking up bad habits, then Java is a pretty good place to start. It still remains for the real-time standards to be worked out before Java can handle more ambitious projects but it will do everything a beginner needs. There are some good products out there that let you start simpler, like this: http://www.clickteam.com/English/tgf.htm Those kinds of products are often overlooked because they get bad word of mouth from those who are shocked to discover there is real work involved no matter how much of it the tools do.

[epobirs]

I might be wrong, but I thought Microsoft is willing to let pretty much anybody make a game on their console.

They had a program to help wouldbe developers get their works seen by real publishers but it doesn't go much farther than that. Most people realized they can get all of the experience they need in the shareware market before turning Pro. If it was good enough for Id...

It would be cool to see something like the old Atari APX program. This was an amateur programming competition with quarterly stage and an annual final. The best entrants were made available for retail purchase. (Trivia moment: There is a scene in the movie 'True Stories' where a character has an armload of Atari 800 software, of which several are APX style boxes.) Many of the winners went on to professional careers in software, like Fernando Herrera, whose company First Star was named for the trophy given to the annual winners. First Star is best known for publishing the original Boulderdash.

Since Xbox games can be written entirely using the DirectX 8 API suite if one is willing to forego some performance, Microsoft is in a unique position for being able to sponsor a modern day version of the APX competition. You don't really need an Xbox SDK to write Xbox games to the extent they can be run on a PC of similar specs and made to run on the actual Xbox with little effort. The Exhibition disc series would be an effective way to deliver the winner to retail. The winners wouldn't get rich but they'd have a great item for their resumes.

[pumbaa]

I'm not sure why you use Nintendo as an example (fanboy I'm guessing), but Nintendo is definitely the least likely company to do something like this.

The problem with consoles is that you need dev kits which are costly. That's why the vast majority of indie game companies are PC based. Check out Garage Games, they do something kind of like what you are suggesting.

You guessed wrong. I used Nintendo simply because it seems like they are the company out of the big three that is lacking 3rd party support. Please don;t make hasty deiscions like that... the label gets thrown around a bit too easily.

I don't game on PC's... just doesn't appeal to me. I know that this exists in the PC world, I'm just wondering why a company can't set aside a few Dev kits specifically for indie developers. There could be a screening process so they don't go to waste. Again... maybe I'm just in the dark about the whole process... but it would seem to make sense from a creativity standpoint.

[epobirs]

You guessed wrong. I used Nintendo simply because it seems like they are the company out of the big three that is lacking 3rd party support. Please don;t make hasty deiscions like that... the label gets thrown around a bit too easily.

I don't game on PC's... just doesn't appeal to me. I know that this exists in the PC world, I'm just wondering why a company can't set aside a few Dev kits specifically for indie developers. There could be a screening process so they don't go to waste. Again... maybe I'm just in the dark about the whole process... but it would seem to make sense from a creativity standpoint.

Nintendo does engage in practices to encourage those who might be future employees for them or third parties. Digipen got started largely with Nintendo support and there are a few other university level programs focusing on interactive design Nintendo has sponsored. It isn't much different than the money Disney and other studios have pumped into schools like Cal Arts.

Handing out dev kits is a different story. There is a stack of NDAs involved which most people who aren't definitely planning to produce a product would not want to sign due to possible later entanglements, such as getting hired by Microsoft or Sony. There is also the issue of the personnel who support the dev kit recipients. These specialists don't grow on trees and a platform company doesn't want to unnnecessarily divide their time, especially when they might also be part of an inhouse development team.

The majority of PC games you see in the stores may not appeal to you but don't be fooled into thinking that is all that exists for the PC. For every successful console game there is a shareware knockoff on the PC. This is how people teach themselves how to do it and sometimes even turna profit in the process. Plenty of these also appear at retail. For example, before Crazy Taxi came to the home market on the Dreamcast there was a PC clone being sold in Europe that was pretty decent.

There is no substitute for experience. Beginning game developers don't need dev kits, they just need to hunker down and do the work. They have to cover a lot of ground before they should think of being involved in a console project where the capital investment is much higher due to the royalties on media production.

[epobirs]

You guessed wrong. I used Nintendo simply because it seems like they are the company out of the big three that is lacking 3rd party support. Please don;t make hasty deiscions like that... the label gets thrown around a bit too easily.

I don't game on PC's... just doesn't appeal to me. I know that this exists in the PC world, I'm just wondering why a company can't set aside a few Dev kits specifically for indie developers. There could be a screening process so they don't go to waste. Again... maybe I'm just in the dark about the whole process... but it would seem to make sense from a creativity standpoint.

Part of the problem is thinking there is any great difference between creating PC games and console games. A ggod programmer on the PC wouldn't look upon shifting into console any differently than he would from learning to produce games for the Mac. Some of the incidentals differ. PC/Mac developers have to deal with multiple versions of the platform while console developers have to give up some conveniences. The bulk of the task is identical.

There was a time when certains skills meant more in one arena than another. In the early 90's PCs were big frame buffers for handling bitmaps while consoles were all character mapped and relied heavily on hardware defined sprites. Nowadays the consoles are much more PC-like with the emphasis on high programmability in the hardware rather than a lot of dedicated fixed functions. Those coders who couldn't get the hang of anything after the 16-bit consoles now have the GBA as their last refuge. With all of the video hardware in the next generation being supplied by ATI and Nvidia the gap will be smaller than ever. The biggest difference on the console side will be the trend toward in order CPUs as opposed to the Out of Order CPUs currently dominant on PCs. This requires much higher code quality on the console side to allow high performance at low cost but that is just another reason why console developers should have a lot of PC experience to serve as credentials.

Indie developers don't need dev kits, they need publishers. The bulk of dev kits are purchased by publishers for their favored developers. If the publishers says they want a GameCube version of the project they provide a GC SDK. The developer then tries to hire an experienced GameCube guy or the existing personnel just take on learning what they need to make the game work on that platform. In the case of a new platform it's unavoidable since there are no experienced people to hire. By and large it is the publishers who have the direct relationship to the console companies as they're the ones coughing up those lucrative royalty payments.

[DenisDFat]

Skip, Saru Brunei.

[pumbaa]

Part of the problem is thinking there is any great difference between creating PC games and console games. A ggod programmer on the PC wouldn't look upon shifting into console any differently than he would from learning to produce games for the Mac. Some of the incidentals differ. PC/Mac developers have to deal with multiple versions of the platform while console developers have to give up some conveniences. The bulk of the task is identical.

There was a time when certains skills meant more in one arena than another. In the early 90's PCs were big frame buffers for handling bitmaps while consoles were all character mapped and relied heavily on hardware defined sprites. Nowadays the consoles are much more PC-like with the emphasis on high programmability in the hardware rather than a lot of dedicated fixed functions. Those coders who couldn't get the hang of anything after the 16-bit consoles now have the GBA as their last refuge. With all of the video hardware in the next generation being supplied by ATI and Nvidia the gap will be smaller than ever. The biggest difference on the console side will be the trend toward in order CPUs as opposed to the Out of Order CPUs currently dominant on PCs. This requires much higher code quality on the console side to allow high performance at low cost but that is just another reason why console developers should have a lot of PC experience to serve as credentials.

Indie developers don't need dev kits, they need publishers. The bulk of dev kits are purchased by publishers for their favored developers. If the publishers says they want a GameCube version of the project they provide a GC SDK. The developer then tries to hire an experienced GameCube guy or the existing personnel just take on learning what they need to make the game work on that platform. In the case of a new platform it's unavoidable since there are no experienced people to hire. By and large it is the publishers who have the direct relationship to the console companies as they're the ones coughing up those lucrative royalty payments.

Thanks... its making a bit more sense now. I blame the publishers ;). I forgot about Digipen... that makes a lot of sense. I guess it just boils down to barriers to entry. PC just makes much more sense because you don't have the multiple barriers to entry from the console market. This brings up another question for another post.... coming soon I suppose.


As for PC gaming... there just something about having a controller in my hand that appeals to me. Its a vicious cycle, my first computer wasn't very good so when i got to play my first games on it... they kind blew, so that in turn turned me off a bit to PC gaming, so when it came time to buy a PC... gaming wasnt even a factor, and so now my PC while quite decent... isn't anywhere near a gaming machine. I'll just stick with consoles... thanks ;).

[epobirs]

Thanks... its making a bit more sense now. I blame the publishers ;). I forgot about Digipen... that makes a lot of sense. I guess it just boils down to barriers to entry. PC just makes much more sense because you don't have the multiple barriers to entry from the console market. This brings up another question for another post.... coming soon I suppose.


As for PC gaming... there just something about having a controller in my hand that appeals to me. Its a vicious cycle, my first computer wasn't very good so when i got to play my first games on it... they kind blew, so that in turn turned me off a bit to PC gaming, so when it came time to buy a PC... gaming wasnt even a factor, and so now my PC while quite decent... isn't anywhere near a gaming machine. I'll just stick with consoles... thanks ;).

Pick up a PC controller that has a familiar configuration. The Gravis Game Pad, for instance, is a USB clone of the original Playstation controller. (You can also get USB adapters to use most console controllers.) You'd be surprised how many great clones of old classics are out there and even games with some unique ideas that run on a fairly low end system. In those cases where a controller isn't supported there is a nifty freeware program called JoyToKey that lets you map gamepad inputs to keyboard entries. You'll be amazed at the massive amount of stuff out there in the bargain bins. The Gravis is also pretty well suited for use with emulators, too.

I'm not comfortable with mouse and keyboard for action games but if I had to give up all of my consoles I could still have a lot of arcade game fun on a PC. It also give you a chance to explore those DIY tools.