3 ms·
The problem is that the best indie games communities in my experience were those that revolved around free games. Newgrounds, wc3/sc custom maps, etc. Every now
by setr 7y ago
The problem is that the best indie games communities in my experience were those that revolved around free games. Newgrounds, wc3/sc custom maps, etc. Every now and then someone would run off and get a job based on their games, or turn a decent profit from adverts or selling the game, but it was largely a non-monetary enterprise. The monetary incentive was mostly along the line of a vague hope of working at a AAA shop down the line.
And those communities succeeded, and produce interesting games/genres, primarily due to the lack of barrier to entry (in the sense that you eg bought doom & sc for the game, and then realized there was an editor attached that came free)
Annoyingly, they never learned to share their source code and assets, but otherwise.
Today indie gamedev has become more and more a minaturized version of the AAA industry, and that's a terrible shame.
- FussyZeus 7y ago> The problem is that the best indie games communities in my experience were those that revolved around free games. Apple is not opposed to free games. > Today indie gamedev has become more and more a minaturized version of the AAA industry, and that's a terrible shame. I'm sorry but this comparison is ludicrously hyperbolic. Firstly because the Mac is hardly the platform for free and open gaming, relative to the topic at hand because the Mac itself has a high barrier to entry, being so damn expensive just for the hardware, and secondly because the total expenditure, if you wanted to publish, not develop because ANYONE can develop on a Mac for precisely no money, to publish a game for free is $100 for the dev license. And, additionally, I see no reason the games couldn't be distributed as source code for free for people to build and run themselves. Is it as elegant as App Store? No, obviously, but that's what the $100 is paying for. I'm sorry I just don't see why this is a problem. Mac has always been a bit of an exclusive platform, which makes it both of higher quality, but also does indeed introduce barriers to entry. If those barriers are too much for you, then don't do it, you're still spoiled for choice for distribution channels that aren't the Mac App Store.