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The art assets for CS:S alone are quite a chunk of money to produce. Sure, we have great tools, and computers are cheap - but the artists working on assets aren

by groby_b 15y ago

The art assets for CS:S alone are quite a chunk of money to produce. Sure, we have great tools, and computers are cheap - but the artists working on assets aren't. And the number of assets, plus the work that goes into it, is _insane_. As for the "all you need part" - I've friends who've gone indie, and it's a _very_ painful route, with far from guaranteed success. Have you actually tried it?

angersock 15y ago
So, notice that I said Counterstrike (the original Half-Life mod), not CS:S--mostly made by two dudes at the start. Note also that we need to solve the art asset production problem--look at sites like cgtextures or similar for stabs at this. Look at procedural content and better tools like Unity. Those are some examples of how we can make assets cheaper and artists' lives easier. As for trying to be an indie... job in progress (check my profile).
- groby_b 15y ago
  Even those two dudes took about two years. And they had support from Valve from Beta4 on. As for cgtextures, it's a useless site for a high-polish game - the textures are inconsistent in style and quality. (And that's what causes the real cost, polish). Believe me, I've looked at procedural content for a long time, and it's still a far cry from ready. What we might see fairly soon is human-assisted procedural content, especially for all those areas of the game that are just there for ambience, not for actual gameplay. Even then, it's a large amount. But then again, you'll find out all that for yourself :) (Good luck with that venture!)
  - angersock 15y ago
    (Thanks! We're banking pretty heavily on assisted procedural content!) I'm genuinely curious how much "polish" is actually needed and required by gamers. My theory is that publishers have push the market to the point where games are very similar (not a bad thing in and of itself, but not inaccurate either) and so the differentiating factor for driving sales and advertising is visuals. That being the case, the increasingly far end of the tail of visual fidelity is being mined heavily, and "polish" is getting more and more and more expensive. So, I think that you can get by on pretty solid gameplay and alright polish without needing to get a publisher to fund you--after all, it was their business model that made it so expensive to start with. Does that seem like a reasonable conclusion?
    - groby_b 15y ago
      It's a possible conclusion. I wouldn't bet on it. Pretty much everywhere, the only two things that get eyeballs in significant amounts are novelty or polish. I mean, look at FB games - the company that's taking the market is rather unoriginal, but polishes the heck out of every game they ship. They just found a way of doing that that is less asset intensive than "visual fidelity". If you've found another way to make that work, you're set. But you pretty much by definition need to make an entirely different kind of game.

by groby_b 15y ago

angersock 15y ago

So, notice that I said Counterstrike (the original Half-Life mod), not CS:S--mostly made by two dudes at the start. Note also that we need to solve the art asset production problem--look at sites like cgtextures or similar for stabs at this. Look at procedural content and better tools like Unity. Those are some examples of how we can make assets cheaper and artists' lives easier. As for trying to be an indie... job in progress (check my profile).

groby_b 15y ago
Even those two dudes took about two years. And they had support from Valve from Beta4 on. As for cgtextures, it's a useless site for a high-polish game - the textures are inconsistent in style and quality. (And that's what causes the real cost, polish). Believe me, I've looked at procedural content for a long time, and it's still a far cry from ready. What we might see fairly soon is human-assisted procedural content, especially for all those areas of the game that are just there for ambience, not for actual gameplay. Even then, it's a large amount. But then again, you'll find out all that for yourself :) (Good luck with that venture!)
- angersock 15y ago
  (Thanks! We're banking pretty heavily on assisted procedural content!) I'm genuinely curious how much "polish" is actually needed and required by gamers. My theory is that publishers have push the market to the point where games are very similar (not a bad thing in and of itself, but not inaccurate either) and so the differentiating factor for driving sales and advertising is visuals. That being the case, the increasingly far end of the tail of visual fidelity is being mined heavily, and "polish" is getting more and more and more expensive. So, I think that you can get by on pretty solid gameplay and alright polish without needing to get a publisher to fund you--after all, it was their business model that made it so expensive to start with. Does that seem like a reasonable conclusion?
  - groby_b 15y ago
    It's a possible conclusion. I wouldn't bet on it. Pretty much everywhere, the only two things that get eyeballs in significant amounts are novelty or polish. I mean, look at FB games - the company that's taking the market is rather unoriginal, but polishes the heck out of every game they ship. They just found a way of doing that that is less asset intensive than "visual fidelity". If you've found another way to make that work, you're set. But you pretty much by definition need to make an entirely different kind of game.