2 ms·

I'm not conflating those things. You don't have to be Richard Garriott to be credible. Why even mention the guy? The only way you can be him is if you have dec

by pekk 13y ago

I'm not conflating those things. You don't have to be Richard Garriott to be credible. Why even mention the guy? The only way you can be him is if you have decades of published games, it's not useful advice for people who are relatively unknown.

eropple 13y ago
You don't have to be Garriott to be credible, but he is credible. Because he has a track record. If they do have a track record of building quality projects (and they say they do), they aren't substantiating it. See the problem? I don't have a shipped-product track record, so I'm going to have a playable vertical slice--not a complete game, not narrative-based, but a demonstration that our features are already working, that our game isn't just hype, and what we need a Kickstarter for is assets and content creation. Because I understand people do and should laugh at projects that handwave this stuff.
- rdl 13y ago
  What platform?
  - eropple 13y ago
    Windows/Mac/Linux, for now. Using libgdx on the JVM, so Android and iOS (via RoboVM) are pretty easy, but I'm using Rhino for a scripting layer and that might not play so nicely with RoboVM or Dalvik.
- cscurmudgeon 13y ago
  Echo this 100%. I am in the same boat. Anybody can put up pretty pictures. If the project fails, it brings disrepute to the whole indie gamedev community. Life is already too hard.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Life is incredibly easy for indie game devs today. There are markets; it's reasonably transparent; and you have insanely good tools available for free or cheap (Unity 3D for goodness' sake -- in 1997 we paid $5k to rent a rudimentary 3d game engine to build an alpha demo, and it was C++ or go f--k yourself. Serious engines cost six figures plus a significant percentage of back end. Something not nearly as good as Blender cost $5000/seat in 2005.) Because of this, competition is fierce. But competition is fierce for web developers too, and we all seem to be doing OK. Suck it up, build a playable alpha, and then look for funding.
    - eropple 13y ago
      One: this post is insanely douchey. Chill. Two: it's much harder for a game developer than a web developer. (I do both.) Game development is much, much more like doing a soup-to-nuts startup than it is "a web developer", the demand is in aggregate much lower than the supply, and with entire segments of the market you can't even seriously playtest something for viability until you've basically built the damn thing. (So if you don't care much about the social space or something easily done with a tool like Unity, I hope you like sunk costs.) I'm going to have spent over a full year building out a vertical slice of this game and I can do so because I both enjoy the genre and have that kind of time and money to throw around. There is no good way to compare "a web developer" and an indie game developer and you should kind of be embarrassed for trying to light up the guy you replied to when you haven't the foggiest.
      - fredsanford 13y ago
        How long have you worked as A) a game developer and B) a web developer? Purely curiosity.
      - Tloewald 13y ago
        "Life is already too hard" Indie game development is like starting your own rock band. It's a hit-driven business. If you aren't doing it for fun then do something else. And it's easier to make games and make money from them today than at any time in the past. If you fail, it's because your game sucked or you were insufficiently lucky. The odds are against you, but hey, you can always make a living as a web developer. I say this as someone who has developed and released multiple games soup-to-nuts and works as a web developer.

by pekk 13y ago

eropple 13y ago

You don't have to be Garriott to be credible, but he is credible. Because he has a track record. If they do have a track record of building quality projects (and they say they do), they aren't substantiating it. See the problem? I don't have a shipped-product track record, so I'm going to have a playable vertical slice--not a complete game, not narrative-based, but a demonstration that our features are already working, that our game isn't just hype, and what we need a Kickstarter for is assets and content creation. Because I understand people do and should laugh at projects that handwave this stuff.

rdl 13y ago
What platform?
- eropple 13y ago
  Windows/Mac/Linux, for now. Using libgdx on the JVM, so Android and iOS (via RoboVM) are pretty easy, but I'm using Rhino for a scripting layer and that might not play so nicely with RoboVM or Dalvik.
cscurmudgeon 13y ago
Echo this 100%. I am in the same boat. Anybody can put up pretty pictures. If the project fails, it brings disrepute to the whole indie gamedev community. Life is already too hard.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  Life is incredibly easy for indie game devs today. There are markets; it's reasonably transparent; and you have insanely good tools available for free or cheap (Unity 3D for goodness' sake -- in 1997 we paid $5k to rent a rudimentary 3d game engine to build an alpha demo, and it was C++ or go f--k yourself. Serious engines cost six figures plus a significant percentage of back end. Something not nearly as good as Blender cost $5000/seat in 2005.) Because of this, competition is fierce. But competition is fierce for web developers too, and we all seem to be doing OK. Suck it up, build a playable alpha, and then look for funding.
  - eropple 13y ago
    One: this post is insanely douchey. Chill. Two: it's much harder for a game developer than a web developer. (I do both.) Game development is much, much more like doing a soup-to-nuts startup than it is "a web developer", the demand is in aggregate much lower than the supply, and with entire segments of the market you can't even seriously playtest something for viability until you've basically built the damn thing. (So if you don't care much about the social space or something easily done with a tool like Unity, I hope you like sunk costs.) I'm going to have spent over a full year building out a vertical slice of this game and I can do so because I both enjoy the genre and have that kind of time and money to throw around. There is no good way to compare "a web developer" and an indie game developer and you should kind of be embarrassed for trying to light up the guy you replied to when you haven't the foggiest.
    - fredsanford 13y ago
      How long have you worked as A) a game developer and B) a web developer? Purely curiosity.
    - Tloewald 13y ago
      "Life is already too hard" Indie game development is like starting your own rock band. It's a hit-driven business. If you aren't doing it for fun then do something else. And it's easier to make games and make money from them today than at any time in the past. If you fail, it's because your game sucked or you were insufficiently lucky. The odds are against you, but hey, you can always make a living as a web developer. I say this as someone who has developed and released multiple games soup-to-nuts and works as a web developer.