I tried my luck at the Great Canadian Video Game Competition but my project wasn’t selected for funding. I suspect that my lack of a team was the main reason — chicken and egg problem, that: you need money to pay a team, and you need a team to get money.
So there I am, with the most kick-ass game design I’ve ever come up with, but nothing to do with it. Too bad there’s no way to sell game designs to developers and publishers (why that is, I’ll never understand).
Oh well, I guess I’ll put my “Will Design For Food” sign back up.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:36 am
The first game I ever designed and created was a full 3D hidden wireframe portal based shooter when I was in school about. That would be about 24 years ago; ten years before Doom. Fast forward, I’m not in a sweat over working for another developer or begging for a publishing deal. My current project is self-funded. Simply, you can spend your life hoping to be pulled out of a hole or arguing yourself into one. Myself, I’m turning talk into action. It’s a ruinously ambitious project but worth taking a crack at.
Seeing the big boys release games with emotiontronics, normal mapping, and large areas has blown a leg off, and some of the ongoing developments are making me sweat, but I’m confident enough about the core of my tech and creativity to think I have something to offer in spite of being up against 100 man teams and multi-squillion budgets. The reason, here, is any fool can throw tech and pixels at the wall. Doing a great game takes insight, experience, and character, not short-cuts. It’s something you earn the hard way.
So, nobody wanted to develop or publish your design. That’s a reality but it can be saying many things. It could be that you’re not one of them, or your design is rubbish. Then again, your own character and design style may have a spark they’re to dumb to see. You could take it as a knockback, or as a fantastic opportunity to seize the initiative. What you perceive is determined by how you think and feel. This can change. A little play and experimentation can help that along. It eases the shock of getting in gear.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
You’re absolutely right, Charles. While I’m definitely unhappy that this opportunity didn’t work, I don’t take it personally as a reflection to my ability as a designer. There’s too much at play to have such a simplistic view: maybe the fact the company was all new scared them, maybe they didn’t like the genre, maybe the pitch didn’t convey the idea behind the game properly, etc.
What frustrates me is that I don’t get to live up to my potential. I really wish I could find a job in which I can do as good as I can, rather than as good as I’m allowed to. I know what I could achieve, but I don’t have the means to achieve it — that’s annoying…
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I hear what you’re saying in a been there done that sort of way. As you suggest, looking at issues from alternative positions and not pushing too hard can be useful. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes some ballpark comments in a Q&A published in The Independent.
In another item, Matthieu Ricard, a former French academic turned Buddhist monk, has a few things to say about happiness. This, like success, is something we all crave but find elusive. It can be difficult at times but, I think, achievement is more a matter of will than resources.
You’ve got knowledge and skill, resources to build something are free or cheap, and if you’ve got the time and will, all that remains is action. Doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s something. Anything. Past record and sales pitches don’t match the power of a live demo. What could you do, here?
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I haven’t given up on my project and will probably work on a demo. Right now I have to shift my focus to finding a job as my cash reserves are slowly melting away. Once I get some stability back in my life, I’ll get back to that project to make a playable version.
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Cash reserves. You’ve got cash? Jeez. Haven’t seen that stuff in a while. I just exist to pay bills and bank charges. Never see the stuff. *sniff*
Nah, seriously, it’s a plan. I’m not going to knock it. These things happen and tough choices have to be made. It’s all good experience.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:21 am
Hi, Pag. You should know how maixs was created - Will Wright can’t sell his idea to anybody, so he had to start his own business with a programmer who belive in his idea. Nowadays it is much harder to get in the business since the bar is really high. Maybe XBOX live Arcade a good idea to try?
February 6th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I’d love to work on a XBLA title. The question, really, is money. Even a really small project — with me and one artist for one year — would cost at least $75K to make. Realistically you’d probably need more. If I had that money I’d do it, but I don’t…
What I’d need is the Steve Jobs I could be the Wozniak to: somebody really charismatic, able to raise money, sell the game and handle the business while I focus on making insanely awesome games.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:43 am
I’m an INTJ personality type, just like Steve Jobs and, trust me, you don’t want someone like me around. It’s like having someone put a gun to your head and your balls in a vice at the same time.
I seriously think you need to switch from design and marketing, to a build and ship mentality. You want to be a Wozniak? He used commodity parts, worked around problems, and produced something that worked.
My impression, which could be wrong, is your ambition and situation is screwing you up. Letting go will help you focus on the job. Use proxy art in the meantime, and uprate it when the situation demands.
Here’s a challenge: build me a playable game in 1 week.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Hey, I’m an INTJ too so I see no problem with us…
And just so you know, I have worked as an indie developer previously, shipping two shareware games all by myself. I could certainly do it again, but it didn’t work financially last time and I don’t see why it would work this time if I don’t change my approach. My problem isn’t really making a game, it’s making a living, so that’s what I focus on right now.
The lone wolf approach — which is how Woz basically worked — works in the infancy of a new field. If you’re the first to come up with something revolutionary, it doesn’t matter that you’re alone with no money because you’ve got no competition. It’s the same reason why lone-wolf game developers used to have success: competition was low, so they could compete on their skill alone.
Sadly — and trust me, I wish it were different — competition has kept climbing in gaming. Even some casual games have budgets over $700k nowadays. Even assuming I’m able to do a job 10 times better than them, I’d still need $70k to compete.
I wish I could do art just for art’s sake, but I also wish I could avoid the starving artist path…
February 7th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Well, that’s interesting Pierre. I did wonder.
What you say is true but one of many perspectives. I have a game plan and, so far, it’s been on the ball. Things have changed since I started but that’s as much a good thing as it is a bad thing. The challenges and pitfalls remain considerable but I’m more than persuaded that I’m on the right path. The mountains of AAA developers and lakes of begging artists are mere distractions, shadows in the mist trying to frighten or demoralise me. I laugh at them.
I had a situation due to someone breaking a contract. This led to a world of pain that left a few scars but it taught me a lot about how things work. The games industry, politics, and life are metaphors of each other. What is true in one is true in the other. What is true yesterday is true today. What is true there is true here. The one constant is me. By developing better ways better results naturally follow, in their own time, and of their own accord.
It’s not much but helps me deal with these issues.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I wish you luck with your project, Charles!
February 7th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Well, thanks Pierre. I think, we all need that sometimes, whether it’s to change ourselves, the situation, or both. I could bore on but that would ruin the moment. Better we bask in the glow and enjoy it, like a good tea ceremony.
Hazaah!
February 12th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Hi Pag, if you want create a game at low cost you may take a look at outsourcing. I can easily find different level of artists according to your demand. You know, many of the AAA games’ art and model are made here - Shanghai now. Low cost reduce the financial burden and risk to the minimum level that you could not imagine of. The only drawback is hard to cmmunicate and find the right partner.
For now I think you’d better focus on what your resource allow you to do. I had thought of start a handheld game company similar to Humagade but with 1/5 of cost like few other guys already did. But I don’t have the 70K US$ so I have to take the project manager job which I currently worked on. Unless you can persuade key investors that your’ll be succesfull for sure no venture capital will throw money at you. Oh, just remembered perhaps that VC only would step in when your business have a working team and a positve growth.
February 12th, 2007 at 11:23 am
You make $70k in China? You’re rich
Outsourcing could work — even more locally there’s a number of studios doing. I think the Hollywood model, where a small core team hires everybody else as freelancers, would work very well for making games. That said, the problem is still seed money. But hey, I’m still young and I have plenty of time to make that dream come true!
And as an update, I got a few interviews so things are looking up
February 12th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Leo proposes a good solution. I work in a similar way, keeping as much in-house as possible for quality control and communication reasons. My philosophy builds from there as resources and opportunity permit. However, I do limit myself to working within my limits, which avoids interference and liabilities. It may be a slower way of doing things but it has benefits in the long-term.