3 ms·

At first I found this upsetting. But this is how games are. Good for him. His mission of taking the fun out of making games is really paying off. There are smal

by jfoutz 14y ago

At first I found this upsetting. But this is how games are. Good for him. His mission of taking the fun out of making games is really paying off. There are small, weird, indie games that can be fun to play, but there's no money in that. Millions of people play Call of Duty. He's making games tons of people love and making money doing it.

hkmurakami 14y ago
>His mission of taking the fun out of making games is really paying off. And the only other major players are the "addictive but not exactly fun" mould of social gaming companies :( (I have the pleasure of getting the double whammy of not only reading about the US-based social gaming companies like Zynga et al., but also the Japanese ones such as Gree/DeNA/etc X_X) Even the new Final Fantasy Tactics S game that was announced is a social game :( http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/50952/square-enix-is-teasing-final-fantasy-tactics-s http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/50952/square-enix-i...
adventured 14y ago
There's no money in Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program and Torchlight and countless others? Turns out there's a massive amount of profit to be had in successful indie games. The distribution channels are spectacular today, from the general Web to Steam to Amazon to Xbox Live etc.
- ROFISH 14y ago
  Not so much Xbox Live, they charge five figures for patches: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-fire-for-five-figure-xbox-360-patch-fee/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-... The unintended consequence of charging that much for patches is that simple updates just don't happen, and that everybody gets a lesser game as a result. As much as one would say "get it right the first time", everybody makes mistakes. Thus when it costs $10,000 to fix a save game issue, it's may be a business decision to not patch. Thus, for better games, being in that position shouldn't happen.
- rubinelli 14y ago
  But being successful isn't enough. For an indie game, making ten million in revenue is a dream come true. For Activision, a game with an expected revenue of 10 million isn't worth the distraction. It's like trying to pitch a CRM for taxidermists or a Haskel IDE to VC funds: it may be a great idea, but the market isn't big enough to interest them.
- daeken 14y ago
  This is a bit off-topic, but Kerbal Space Program is the best piece of software I've seen in the past 10 years, hands down. I've been playing it for the past few months and I'm absolutely hooked; it's Lego for space -- how can you go wrong?

by jfoutz 14y ago

hkmurakami 14y ago

>His mission of taking the fun out of making games is really paying off. And the only other major players are the "addictive but not exactly fun" mould of social gaming companies :( (I have the pleasure of getting the double whammy of not only reading about the US-based social gaming companies like Zynga et al., but also the Japanese ones such as Gree/DeNA/etc X_X) Even the new Final Fantasy Tactics S game that was announced is a social game :( http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/50952/square-enix-is-teasing-final-fantasy-tactics-s http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/50952/square-enix-i...

adventured 14y ago

There's no money in Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program and Torchlight and countless others? Turns out there's a massive amount of profit to be had in successful indie games. The distribution channels are spectacular today, from the general Web to Steam to Amazon to Xbox Live etc.

ROFISH 14y ago
Not so much Xbox Live, they charge five figures for patches: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-fire-for-five-figure-xbox-360-patch-fee/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under-... The unintended consequence of charging that much for patches is that simple updates just don't happen, and that everybody gets a lesser game as a result. As much as one would say "get it right the first time", everybody makes mistakes. Thus when it costs $10,000 to fix a save game issue, it's may be a business decision to not patch. Thus, for better games, being in that position shouldn't happen.
rubinelli 14y ago
But being successful isn't enough. For an indie game, making ten million in revenue is a dream come true. For Activision, a game with an expected revenue of 10 million isn't worth the distraction. It's like trying to pitch a CRM for taxidermists or a Haskel IDE to VC funds: it may be a great idea, but the market isn't big enough to interest them.
daeken 14y ago
This is a bit off-topic, but Kerbal Space Program is the best piece of software I've seen in the past 10 years, hands down. I've been playing it for the past few months and I'm absolutely hooked; it's Lego for space -- how can you go wrong?