GBGamesThanks to the Game Development Society of DeVry DuPage, the video recap of the Chicago Game Developer Gathering is up, so if you missed the event, you can now un-miss it.
It is split into 10 separate videos, and you can see the first one below. I hope a single video can be released as well.
Wow, I sound weird. Maybe I should join Toastmasters.
The Chicago Game Developer Gathering has posted pictures and a recap of the event. There is also a new web forum.
UPDATE 4/1/2008
The forum, pictures and recap are live! We are wrapping up some editing of the video footage and will be posting that soon as well.
The forums already have a few threads in them, including links to games people want feedback on, info on how to start your own business, and a notice about a LAN party coming up.
Check all of it out at Chicago Game Developer Gathering website.
[tags] video games, game development, indie, business [/tags]
Last night’s panel was fun, and I think everyone got a lot out of it. My throat is a bit sore from doing so much talking. I think everyone should be glad the time was limited because I felt like I could have kept talking about video games and the business of making them for much longer.
It’s exciting to see so many students interested in game development as a career. When I was going to college, the game development curriculum was just getting launched, and game development was kind of the black sheep of software development. The feeling I always got was “You COULD work in games, but you can also get a REAL job”. Sure, some of my friends knew how cool it could be, but most people didn’t think of making video games as any more of a job than doodling in a notebook. Being interested in game development, I let it become nothing more than a hobby for a long time. At this event, you could feel the enthusiasm in the room after the formal panel was finished. These were people who wanted to make games.
The panel participants covered a wide range of topics. We touched on business, legal, and accounting concerns, such as what business entity to form and the importance of copyright, trademark, and patent laws. We talked about targeting niche markets and how to sell games to them. We talked about the problems with the video game industry as a whole, gender inclusive game design and development, and the market for people who don’t know that they play video games or might like to do so.
I learned later that the supposedly mundane topics focusing on legal and business matters were the most interesting to the students. I think this is great news. When I was first thinking about getting into the video game industry, I assumed I would have to work for a company like Nintendo. Later I figured I’d work at Midway or Konami (they used to have an office outside of Chicago). It was only recently that I realized that I could start my own company, and here was a room full of people who are contemplating doing so!
Since this event was such a success, it looks like the Chicago Game Developer Gathering will be a regular meetup. I think Chicago game developers need more opportunities to connect with each other. San Diego and San Francisco have healthy and active IGDA chapters, but Chicago’s game companies have always seemed unfriendly and less open. Hopefully the CGDG can help Chicago be the game development hub it can be.
This post is a reminder that the Chicago Game Developer Gathering is tonight. The panel of indie developers will discuss what it takes to start (and run) a business, how they create games, and what lessons they can share.
I’ll be joined on the panel with Mike Boeh of Retro64, Shawn Recinto of Immersive Realms, and Chauncy Hollingsworth of Zephyr Syndicate. When I participated in the conference call to talk about the panel, it’s obvious that everyone is excited about this event.
Hopefully you’re one of the many people who have registered for it, and I hope to see you there! If you’re not one of those people, I was told that there will be notes and photos up within a few days, and a video should be up a week or so later.
[tags]indie, video games, business[/tags]
Today is the two year anniversary since GBGames, LLC was officially formed! Time to think about what has happened in the past two years.
I announced the creation of the business back in 2006, and I’ve been rereading the comments from people simultaneously congratulating me and encouraging me to make something happen. So far, I’m still not making a profit, but this past year I’ve made twice as much income as the year before. It’s an improvement.
This year, I hope to make more money from my games than from my blog. I also hope to break even. Originally I felt good because my income easily paid for my web hosting and domain name, but the legal costs of forming an LLC and filing the annual reports totals $1000 over two years. My income hasn’t paid for half of that. Looking at it in this way, twice as much income as the year before sounds like it isn’t nearly enough improvement.
I need to get on the ball when it comes to product development. Two years to make a simple clone with a very slight twist is way too long. Since portals release about five to seven games each week, and non-portal games are also getting released fairly often, I can’t lag so much and expect to remain competitive.
More importantly, I need to focus on sales, whatever form it takes. Without sales, you’re sunk. I already knew this fact about business, but it hasn’t been as big a focus as it should have been.
I’m looking forward to another year, and hopefully a more productive and profitable one!
I’m really close to releasing v1.0 of Killer Kittens from Katis Minor, but I need beta testers to help me verify that there aren’t any show-stopping bugs.
I’ve asked a number of people, including a few friends. Unfortunately, it seems that I am having a hard time finding many, as only a few people have responded so far.
That’s where you may come in.
If you are a GNU/Linux user and are interested in trying out a pre-release version of my game, drop me a line using the contact form in About Me. I’d appreciate it if you could tell me as much about your system as possible, including Linux distribution, kernel version, and hardware specs (graphics card, processor, sound card, memory). Also, tell me about your tastes in video games, especially about the types of games you would like to see more often.
If you participate in beta testing, as a thank you, your name will appear in the credits of the game.
Rarely do major game developers and publishers make a cross-platform game, and those that do rarely release the game for all platforms at the same time. Usually if there is a Linux or Mac version of a game, it won’t be released for weeks, months, or even years after the Windows version.
Indie developers seem to follow suit. Introversion Software released Defcon for Windows in September of 2006, and there wasn’t a Linux version of the game until May of 2007. The Mac version was released a month earlier.
At least these games get released. Most developers focus on Windows exclusively. The thinking is that Windows has such a large market share that there is no need to focus on the smaller Mac and Linux user base.
Of course, indie developers have already found that the Mac users are starving for good games. Providing a Mac version can sometimes double your sales, according to the sales figures that some developers have released.
But why not Linux? Oddlabs created Tribal Trouble, and the sales figures were as follows:
Direct online sales: 1500
….. Windows: 460 (31%)
….. Mac OS X: 680 (47%)
….. Linux: 160 (11%)
….. Undefined: 200 (11%)
160 direct sales, while lower than either Windows or Mac sales, are nothing to sneeze at. The conversion rate for Linux was 1.1%, while for Windows it was 0.8%. The difference between having a Linux version of a game and not having one is clearly significant.
And Tribal Trouble is just one example. I know A Tale in the Desert is an MMO, but there were two Linux users for every Windows user subscribed to it at one point. I would love to see stats for Vendetta Online as well.
What about games that release a Linux client after the Windows version has been released? I imagine that sales would be much lower. After all, since there aren’t many games available for GNU/Linux, many gamers will continue to run a Windows machine specifically for games. If they can buy the game for Windows, why wait for the Linux version to be released?
And so publishers find no reason to support a completely new platform when they know that their customers will buy their games anyway. Those publishers who invest in a port after the original Windows release will of course be disappointed when the only people buying the Linux version of the game will be those who waited patiently. Linux users who play games on Windows aren’t going to buy the game a second time just because it is available on their OS of choice. I’m wondering how Defcon for Linux sold since it was released seven months after the Windows version. I would also love to see a comparison to Darwinia, since the time between the Windows release and the Linux release was a little over a week.
A lot of people point to the now-dead Loki Games as proof that there is no market for Linux games, but from what I was able to learn about Loki’s business, it didn’t close its doors due to lack of sales so much as bad business management. Having the owner of your company order tens of thousands of units over what could be sold is painful financially, but Loki: A promising plan gone terribly wrong also details a lot of the shadiness that contributed to the damage. It’s hard enough to be a success when running a business without someone sabotaging it.
Of course, why would I buy Quake 3 Arena (I actually do have the Loki Q3A tin, still unopened, that I found at a store after Loki was liquidated), Railroad Tycoon II, or any number of games for Linux when I was already playing them on Windows? Was Loki going to make original, exclusive games as well as ports? It didn’t seem like it was going to do so anytime soon.
So perhaps the problem isn’t so much that there aren’t any games for Linux. While there are fewer games, they exist. It’s just that most of them were bought and paid for when they were initially released on a different platform, and people don’t like spending money on the same product twice. At least with Quake 3 Arena, I can use the same CD to play on my Linux-based system as well as my Windows system. When I downloaded the full versions of Orbz and Dark Horizons:Lore Invasion from Garage Games, I could grab the Windows, Mac, or Linux versions without paying separately for each. Now compare the experience with buying The Sims for the Mac. If you already own the PC version and just bought a Mac? Tough. EA outsourced the port to another company, and that company handles Mac sales. It’s the same game, but you’re expected to treat it as if there are two separate games to pay for. Great for EA, but not so great for the customer. I know of one person who decided that paying for The Sims and all of the expansion packs a second time just to play it on her new computer was not worth it, and so she turned to not-so-legal channels instead.
Anyway, back to the existence of Linux games…where are they?
TuxGames and Linux Game Publishing are two online retailers that get mentioned often. It seems most of their catalog includes major publishers’ offerings, such as X3: Reunion and Unreal Tournament 3
LinuxGames.com is always announcing new games, but there is also a podcast, sometimes featuring icculus, a former Loki employee who makes a living porting games and game engines to Linux. The Linux Game Tome will announce new games as well, but the forums and irc channels are great places to talk about games, whether playing them or developing them.
And usually on these news sites you will find indie game developers mentioned almost as often as the open source games are. In fact, recently an update to Dark Horizons: Lore was in the news, sitting next to stories about Nvidia’s new 3D accelerated drivers and updates to Abuse and Battle for Wesnoth.
With over 30,000 registered IDs in the forums, even if not all of them are active, you have to wonder what the total market for Linux gamers looks like. Just 160 of them paid for a Real Time Strategy game about vikings and islanders. The creator of Dirk Dashing claimed that 33% of total sales were from the Linux version after it had been released for only 10 days.
What I am learning is that the Linux user base is actually very diverse, and there are a lot of people who use Linux simply because they don’t like Windows and want an alternative – at the end of the day, they don’t care about the ideals of the FSF or the GPL, they just want something safe and reliable that they can use. And they are very hungry for commercial-quality games!
…
While Linux may not be a viable platform for every kind of application, I think it is certainly viable for games. And I am so glad we tried a Linux version of one of our games – this has turned out to be a huge shot in the arm for our business!
Clearly the market exists, and it is significant. It may not be as significant as Windows or Mac, but it can be for some developers.
So forget about asking where the Linux gamers are. I think a better question should be: why aren’t there more games being made for Linux?
[tags] linux, video game, game development, tools, indie, business, sales [/tags]
Thanks to Slashdot, I saw the article at MadPenguin.org called Linux Gaming 2.0: Why More Linux Users Aren’t Gamers and immediately dove into it.
Never dive into shallow water head first.
I was really expecting to see an in-depth article on the subject. Instead, it seemed to be a very short advertisement for Garage Games and Torque. Back on Slashdot, ChuckyKibbles wrote a comment called
On Hobbyists Hocking GarageGames:
The reason I started using torque, years ago now, was its unrivalled cross-platformness.
Oh, how things change
He proceeded to list out the ways that GarageGames’ offerings, such as Torque Game Builder and Torque 2, went from fully supporting Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms to only really supporting Windows, with Mac and Linux offerings being afterthoughts or “community supported”.
I hadn’t heard about this development until now, and when I checked the system requirements for Torque Game Builder, sure enough, I saw: “Linux version is supported by the community.”
The Torque Game Engine itself looked promising since it listed actual system requirements, but then I saw: “NOTE: Linux is community supported. The last known version to run on Ubuntu was TGE 1.4.1. Using Linux requires expert knowledge of C++, the compilation process, and Linux itself. Please do not try to use Linux if you are new to the OS.” The current version of the engine is 1.5.
Considering games like Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion and Orbz were made to run on Linux-based systems AND used Torque, I was expecting Garage Games to provide a wealth of new cross-platform games. It seems now that the Linux versions of their engines and tools are considered marginal and essentially unsupported, it isn’t likely that new games will be available, and that’s too bad. To top it all off, if I were to decide to use Torque anyway, I have to pay for a product that isn’t fully functional, and if I want to change that, I’m paying for the privilege of getting it to work, and Garage Games gets to take advantage of that work. It doesn’t sound win-win to me.
I’m sure Garage Games has a reason for dropping Linux support, most likely to do with the combination of support costs and low income. Still, it’s sad to learn that Torque is no longer THE cross-platform game engine for indies to use.
Is there anything to take its place?
[tags] linux, video game, game development, tools, indie [/tags]
Since I wrote about piracy, there have been a few new articles brought to my attention, and I’m sure there will be more.
First, Better than Free by Kevin Kelly argued that since digital media is so easy to copy, copies are worthless. He offers eight “things that are better than free”: immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability.
If you want to watch a video about the topic, watch Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business by Wired’s Editor in Chief. The key quote: “Every industry that becomes digital eventually becomes free”.
Assuming that this market shift is true, you can expect the participants in the old market to want to keep things the way they were before, when copies were scarce and valuable. Hence, so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM), copy protection, lawsuits against fans, and proprietary hardware and protocols, none of which are adding value for the customer.
Of course, we can’t assume that the market will shift entirely to free copies. Still, there are business models based on making money from things besides the copies. It would be silly to dismiss them because you are afraid of change or don’t want to work harder to continue making money. That’s the free market at work, and you can join the RIAA/MPAA in complaining about how unfair change is, or you can adapt to the changes.
Of course, you could also challenge the idea that piracy is even that significant of a problem. Stardock’s Brad Wardell wrote about it in Piracy & PC Gaming:
Now, I don’t like piracy at all. It really bugs me when I see my game up on some torrent site just on the principle of the matter. And piracy certainly does cost sales. But arguing that piracy is the primary factor in lower sales of well made games? I don’t think so.
…
The reason why we don’t put copy protection on our games isn’t because we’re nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don’t like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don’t count. We know our customers could pirate our games if they want but choose to support our efforts. So we return the favor – we make the games they want and deliver them how they want it. This is also known as operating like every other industry outside the PC game industry.
Zing.
Thanks to PlayNoEvil for the link to Wardell’s article.
Since a Chicago Indie Game Developer Club meetup hasn’t happened in a long time, Shawn Recinto of Immersive Realms has taken it upon himself to organize one, but he apparently got a bit overzealous. Now it’s announced as a Chicago Game Developer Gathering, and it even has its own website at http://www.cgdg.org/. Go ahead. Check it out. It’s pretty snazzy!
But this meetup isn’t just a meetup anymore! It’s a panel of indies talking to budding game developers about how they got started, what they do on their projects, and what lessons to take away from it all.
Oh, and somehow I am on the panel, along with Mike Boeh of Retro64 and Shawn Recinto. The event will be moderated by DePaul University’s Joe Linhoff.
When:
Wednesday, March 26th 2008 from 6-8pm
Where:
924 at DePaul University’s CTI, 243 South Wabash AveRegistration Ends Monday, March 17th 2008
The agenda on the website gives an overview of the topics we’ll be discussing but I have a feeling that Q&A time is going to be more interesting. Want to attend? Be sure to register soon!
[tags]indie, video games, business[/tags]