No Market For Unconventional Games

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pnutz

It Wandered In From the Wastes
There is really no market for "independent" games. For most every other artform--visual arts, theater, movies, music, etc.--there is more than one outlet to get one's product seen and sold enough to see at least a return on one's initial investment. This has become much worse in the last 5 years.

There is simply no independent game market. Games that aren't produced to be potential blockbusters or fill some predictable niche (Deer Hunter, etc.) have no place with the the handful of remaining publishers.

In films we are seeing the same trend. What once were studios created to make films that did not expect to make back 3x their initial investment (Mirimax, Lion's Gate...) are now owned by the big studios and are expected to make the next 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' or 'Pulp Fiction'.

To make games like Fallout 3--games made of a specific genre for a specific audience (no matter how good our taste is)--we need a real, productive, sizable independent game market. We can't rely on the current, more-profit-modivated-than-Hollywood game publishing system to produce games of niche quality, singular vision, or intellectual depth that we demand.

I'm really not sure how such a market would develop. I know several developers have published their own games, to mixed avail. What we would need is Babbages or EB having "Action" "Playstation 2" "Strategy" and "Independent" categories. The lesson from the film industry is that letting big publishers produce your independently produced games will make the industry capitalize on the "independent" genre.

Ugg, too much wine to continue expounding (FO3 cancelled, dog hit by semi, D in CMPS402, child screaming, morgage denied...)
Any ideas on how dev's could make money on their games (at least to cover employees/infrastructure/distribution) without Activision/EA/Atari/Vivendi --> EB/Babbages/Amazon/BestBuy?
 
The most obvious reply to this problem is to minimize costs. However, if not enough money is put into a project, it turns out to be crap. Not that crap is too much different from the stuff out there nowadays.

The film industry's independent films are still being produced. The only difference is that the films are truly independent, without even a small-studio budget to work with. The problem is that, more often than not, these films turn out to be crap, just based on the fact that they have small budgets.

The parallel between the film and gaming industries here is that both drool over the prospects of projects with humongous budgets, super graphics/special effects, and mediocre cinematics/gameplay. This results in most projects terminating in crap.

The few exceptions, for example maybe...Fallout and movies like...hmmm....Matrix? Lord of the Rings maybe? Equilibrium? you pick according to your taste in movies. The point is that the very few excpetions become milestones, and are supposed to be revered as legends, and that all products hereafter are supposed to strive for this level.

The problem with the gaming industry is that their returns per project, while costs are lower, are far lower than the gaming industry. I'm talking about % return. The one huge exception is the company Blizzard, where returns are staggering...although overhead is also very very costly for them. The gaming industry more often than not, is not going to see the 3x return on investment that the film industry sees.

The "independent" games made are so BAD, that they never see shelves. With games, there is either not enough money to make a project even half-way decent, or a large developer that does not want to risk a specific and small market demand. The funny thing is, that they don't even attempt to minimize costs, and go with a full team on every project of theirs. Granted, lower costs means an inferior product, but I think, that like the film industry, costs could be minimized on the side of special effects/graphics, and focus on gameplay on other essentials.

Sorry for the long message, it's just that I don't like where the gaming industry is headed at this point, and do not see a very healthy future.

By "healthy" I mean a market with innovation, creativity, and quality. The way it's looking right now, it seems to be going the way of cliched and rehashed stories, and utterly banal and boring gameplay. BUT LOOK AT THE GRAPHICS! OMG GFX PWN!
 
I don't really think lower production costs = crappier product. The audiovisual side of things is what suffers from a low budget. A low-budget production may still make a film with a deeply affecting story, memorable characters, intensely dramatic scenes, or other qualities of a good movie. A game with mediocre graphics and shoddy sound effects may still have great gameplay, a good story (if it's that kind of game), and be very replayable.

There are many aspects of game design that don't require a whole team. If your game's only strength is its addictive gameplay, you don't need an army of artists, modelers, level-builders, and sound-maker-peoples. Your team is a coder, a designer, an artist, and a sound-maker-person (not sure what the hell they're called). This, of course could be 1 person or 3 people splitting all of these responibilities, but the point is that to make a good game you shouldn't need to have the overhead that would require a publisher's investment.

Mindrover
I Was an Atomic Mutant
These games were made by a handful of people, quickly and independently. Mindrover received a 99%, A+, or Platinum from anyone who reviewed it. They couldn't get a single retailer to carry it, so they just sold it themselves and made (and are making) a profit.

Not all independent games have this advantage. Like you said, most indepentdent (and big studio) games and movies just suck. Either they apply to a niche audience which does not include you or they're trying to push an envelope instead of tell a fkking story.

To actually get games that don't fit into the categories of the week we need an actual market for independently made games, not success stories like Mindrover and The Sims.

You'd think after The Sims sold 300 billion copies that studios would be trying to make more innovative gameplay.

Softspoken V.P. : I think the success of The Sims shows us that our games need something different.

Idiot CEO : You're right! Expansion packs for The Sims! You're a genius, Johnson!

{Mods: this may be getting a little off of FO3,
feel free to move it}
 
pnutz said:
I don't really think lower production costs = crappier product. The audiovisual side of things is what suffers from a low budget. A low-budget production may still make a film with a deeply affecting story, memorable characters, intensely dramatic scenes, or other qualities of a good movie. A game with mediocre graphics and shoddy sound effects may still have great gameplay, a good story (if it's that kind of game), and be very replayable.

There are many aspects of game design that don't require a whole team. If your game's only strength is its addictive gameplay, you don't need an army of artists, modelers, level-builders, and sound-maker-peoples. Your team is a coder, a designer, an artist, and a sound-maker-person (not sure what the hell they're called). This, of course could be 1 person or 3 people splitting all of these responibilities, but the point is that to make a good game you shouldn't need to have the overhead that would require a publisher's investment.
Click to expand...

Yeah those are the points I was getting at. Maybe I wasn't too clear.

The thing about the small team/minimized costs is that the quality of the graphics/special effects shows, and that is what sells nowadays. I hate this. But the glitter and BANG! that games and movies put on the show nowadays far outweighs the story, and other tangibles that comprise the products. With movies, it is obvious that higher budget productions garner more hype, and revenue.

The thing about minizing costs is that there can still be a quality storyline, gameplayability, and feel and style to it. The only problem is.....studios don't feel that even a cost-effective investment is worth it. You would think it is common sense to produce a quality product for less money, to an already established consumer market (Fallout 3). What Interplay has done, I feel, is just a symptom of the industry today.

My feelings are, the way the industry (maybe both industries, maybe the entire entertainment industry itself?) is headed, it will be a long time until we see innovative and groundbreaking games like Fallout, or movies like Reservoir Dogs, which was a very low budget movie, yet commanded a cult for Tarantino.
 
actually there is a big market for independent games. In recent years indie development have really grow. There are many great games that are sold through net(man..I love those GarageGames titles), there are small publishers willing to publish niche games(like matrixgames, HPSim or Battlefront)..there are also some bigger publishers who are willing to publish a game that will sell max 30.000 copies(StrategyFirst does that..the same with JoWood).
Look at wargames and adventure games markets..those are in 90% supplied by independent developers or small publishers. of course..games like this won`t have DX9 shaders, normal mapping, photon-mapped lightmaps etc..but as games like CombatMission, AirBorneAssault, Starscape, Chain Reaction, Uplink or Dark fall have proven you can have AAA title with indie devs. And this market is growing quickly.
Of course..none of this game will sell millions of copies(well..RollerCoasterTycoon was made basically by one man :) )..but those games have 1-6 people teams, they don`ta have to give publishers most of income, they don`ta advertise..etc..basically even with 10.000 of copies sold they can easily survive and continue to make games.
 
Do you have any links to these games - the developers or retailers carrying them?

I'd appreciate.
 
I've been covering indie CRPGs since RPG Codex officially openned, so here's a brief list of the ones I've thought were great that haven't been mentioned:

Indie CRPGs that have made some news:

http://www.zero-sum.com <- One of the best CRPGs released last year and featured a very unique turn based combat system with a lot of depth.

http://www.pharaoh-productions.com/demise/news.php <- Demise, one of the better dungeon crawlers ever.

http://www.devilwhiskey.com/main.html <- Old school Bard's Tale like CRPG.

http://www.teudogar.com/home.htm <- Very Ultima-like, damned good CRPG. Just came out. I've been playing it for about a week now, and loving it.

Not truly a CPRG but worth mentionning:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ <- Escape Velocity Nova, one of the best damned space trader games ever made, Includes six major and unique plot arcs, depending on who you wish to side with. This game is actually so good, people have bought Macintoshes just to play it. Now there's a Windows version though.
 
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