Developers in Exile

[blacklily8]

I found this paper (http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Oliver.pdf) on indepedent game development that I thought might prove fruitful for discussion on this forum. Unfortunately, the file is a PDF, but I hope this file format will not prevent you from reaping some benefit from the author's insight.


This paper however seeks to take the term independence to its maxim; re-potentialising the term ‘Independent Game’ so that it may include game development practices that are independent from the restrictive mass-market rationales of the industry itself.

You can probably tell from reading this quotation that this article is well worth reading. Enjoy!

[Shane R. Monroe]

Enjoy it without the need for PDF ...

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:9PJ0awE9tlYJ:hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Oliver.pdf+hypertext+rmit+Oliver.pdf&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[HunterSD]

In my opinion, this is longwinded, overly philosophical, filled with inaccuracies and really misses the point of 'independant game developers'.

[blacklily8]

Explain?

[HunterSD]

Specifically,

Much of what he discusses in the earlier sections of the document are 'fluff', already well known and accepted, and absolutely nothing new. The overly philosophical nature of the paper does little to aid in getting the author's point across, and make it both annoying an irritating to read, especially when he is covering such elementary ground. Of course, that can be excused due to the chance that somebody not familiar with indie development reads the paper, but what interest would they have in what the paper is trying to say anyway?

The author's main thesis tries to establish a link between open source software and indie development. In this broadest sense this could be seen as a valid link - being independent of proprietary libraries which could see the developer being at the mercy of the library developers - however, the law of diminishing returns applies to reaching this level of independence. There are some excellent open software applications and libraries, however, they are few and far between.

When you self fund the development of your game, you are putting your own financial situation on the line in order to create the product that you want to create. There are no publishers to tell you what, and perhaps more importantly, what not to do. It becomes your responsibility to develop a successful title, and (when in an indie situation) the best way to do this is to ensure the quality of the title. If the game is not successful, there are usually serious financial ramifications.

Going to the next step and relying entirely on open source software and libraries is, quite frankly, suicide. In all bar a few cases, the 'industry standard' is proprietary, and ignoring the industry standard is guaranteed to break compatibility. Case in point - DirectX and OpenGL. I don't care how you slice it - DirectX is the industry standard, and is far more compatible and accepted than (the superior) OpenGL is. Your end user won't care if your game is DirectX or OpenGL - they will only care if it works. The end user is who pays your bills - and remember, it's your financial future on the line.

Does the end user matter? Why shouldn't authors of computer games suffer in the same way that so many classical (and modern day artists) suffered, completely ignoring their financial situation and developing their game, thus making them completely independent of anything?

My answer is the end user does matter, and I don't think that even the author of the paper will disagree with me on that. He develops for Windows!

And finally, Developers in Exile? Mark my words. Its initials could not be more appropriate - it will be killed off before it even gets going.

[blacklily8]

I emailed the author of the paper and invited him to discuss his ideas with us. Hopefully, he'll have time to read these excellent responses and offer us more commentary. :D


Going to the next step and relying entirely on open source software and libraries is, quite frankly, suicide. In all bar a few cases, the 'industry standard' is proprietary, and ignoring the industry standard is guaranteed to break compatibility. Case in point - DirectX and OpenGL. I don't care how you slice it - DirectX is the industry standard, and is far more compatible and accepted than (the superior) OpenGL is. Your end user won't care if your game is DirectX or OpenGL - they will only care if it works. The end user is who pays your bills - and remember, it's your financial future on the line.

These are good points. If game makers are relying on their games to earn their living (or bring them revenue), they would not want to do everything in their power to ensure their product is widely accessible. However, is it fair to assume that most end users would be unwilling or unable to use OpenGL? SG's website claims it is already an "industry standard":

OpenGL is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics applications. Since its introduction in 1992, OpenGL has become the industry's most widely used and supported 2D and 3D graphics application programming interface (API), bringing thousands of applications to a wide variety of computer platforms.
What do you make of this?

[HunterSD]

OpenGL is indeed an industry standard, and when you have downloaded and installed the appropriate drivers, OpenGL will run flawlessly on a very large variety of video cards.

The trouble is that Microsoft wants DirectX to rule the world, and they are trying their very hardest in order to promote it. So much so, in fact, that they religiously include the latest version of DirectX with Windows and sometimes even the service packs, and yet, in the huge, bloated, 'filled with AOL crap' Windows XP (non-Professional) installation, they did not include hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers. Even 2D games will not run very well on the drivers that Microsoft included (but they will run, which is almost worse then the game not running at all).

The driver download is not insignificant either. OpenGL drivers, once you have found those suitable for your card (it depends on the card, unlike the DirectX one size fits all approach), are a 6-8 megabyte download, which is very large.

In comparison, my complete shareware game is 2.02mb. If I were to require an 8mb OpenGL download, at worst, my game would require a 10.02 megabyte download - 500% of the original size. Of course, it requires DirectX 7.0a, however, this has been included with Windows since (I believe?) Windows 98 (perhaps SE) and it has an incredibly wide installation base. It's not all bad news, though. Updating to the latest Detonator or Catalyst drivers will install OpenGL drivers automatically.

If you want your game to work on as wide of a range of systems as possible, however, DirectX is the way to go. And I hate that, but that's the way it is.

I would love for the author to start contributing to this discussion; however, I will be away for a week (leavers week - I just finished high school!), so don't expect any replies until then!

[julian]

here in sweden we make games for commercial applications using OSS. OSS is not linux, and it is not anti-business.

we compile for windows, OSX and linux, though sure our devel environment is primarily linux. going OS has *radically* cut down our studio costs, means we have a distributed team of contributors doing ports for us and our ideas are bug fixed and improved upon in our sleep. as far as a business model is concerned, OSS works very well for a use-value vs a sale-value based business enterprise. the genre priveledged most of all here is the MMORPG, where by the engine is given away freely, and also the game-data, although copyright [re: quake2]. the user then pays a subscription to access the play on the game servers. http://ryzom.com does exactly this. their are many business models in practice that benefit from a strictly OS development agenda, and at the conference i was at last weekend, it emerged that at least in denmark, many game companies develop OSS for use in their AAA products. one of the speakers was from http://www.iavgames.com/company/

the reason whymore and more game developers are going opensource is that they want to break from reliance on tools that define the kinds of games being made, avoid expensive licensing models and large studio budget outlays. secondly, they are sick of reinventing the wheel. i can't tell you enough how boring it is to write a COM layer *again* in order for it to be compliant with the object management system of your given proprietary libraries. also it takes stupid amounts of time.

the grass roots of this industry has all but died. there are nearly 1/5000th the teams around now there were even 2 years ago, most have bought up by aggressive aquisition strategies or their assets traded off at stock value by publishers that badly timed their marketing strategies. to actually have an opportunity to make games without needing the kind of seed capital fit for a hollywood film is hard to find these days. in fact no publisher will look twice at a company that wants to ship less that 100,000 units, which in fact may be enough to cover costs for an 'independent' team. remember the amiga days? i miss them..

small teams relying on expensive proprietary tools find themselves in a shitty dependency on the target markets and hit value defined by an agressive 'entertainment industry'. having freedom to inexpensively access and develop tools without reliance on 'strategic partnerships' with monopolistic marketeers and brokers is the only way small teams can sustain their flesh and their practice currently.

cheers,

julian

[julian]

errm i meant 1/500th of the teams that were around 2 years ago!

it's not *that* bad..

julian

[Shane R. Monroe]

Let me ask you this .. would you guys be interested in having really real indie developers (professionals that are making a living doing it) talk about this stuff on the show?

I can definitely secure people to do this.

[Fredrik]

I think that would be really interesting :)

[blacklily8]

I agree. I'd love to hear from these developers--are they just building properties hoping that Microsoft will buy them out eventually--or do they have integrity? Also, what are their methodologies towards creating games? Do they "clone" existing properties or do they strive for originality?

[Shane R. Monroe]

I will arrange an interview. The guy I'm looking at is QUITE anti-big business and anti-establishment and believe that one man show is the only way to do a game right ...

I'll set it up .. you guys will love it. Post potential questions here!


I agree. I'd love to hear from these developers--are they just building properties hoping that Microsoft will buy them out eventually--or do they have integrity? Also, what are their methodologies towards creating games? Do they "clone" existing properties or do they strive for originality?