gamebunny:
Looking
at the positive side of things – what is the best thing about
being a smaller company and/or indie developer?
Stephanie Shaver
(HERO'S JOURNEY):
A few days ago I'd have told you maneuverability, but Monday and
Tuesday we had another small company show up to look at HeroEngine.
To make a long story short, we all had a hell of a good time
together, and it reminded me of something I sometimes forget...the
camaraderie.
I can talk to and
interact with anyone and everyone in my company about what they do.
If a tree doesn't look right, I can probably find the artist who
changed it and, if he isn't under crushing deadlines, get him to fix
it. We socialize together, some of us live together, and we're a
very tight-knit group. Some people are extremely comfortable with
this. Some move on. It's not for everyone. But for the few of us who
like it, it's a very enjoyable experience.
It's also a form of maneuverability, so I guess that is my answer
after all.
Daniel McMillan
(FRONTIER 1859):
A little extra creative freedom, hiring lots of women developers,
and a potential Monthly Revenue Sharing Plan.
Christophe Watkins
(FALLEN EARTH):
I
think the best thing about being small is that we have great
flexibility. We can go in any direction we want, add whatever
features we want, follow whatever storyline we like, and then
quickly discard whatever we don’t think is working. We can be very
adaptive and ground breaking when we want to be. We have had a
number of great features that have evolved during the process.
Brian 'Psychochild'
Green (MERIDIAN
59):
In a word: freedom. If you
aren’t doing what you want, you’re wasting your time as an indie
developer and would be better collecting a stable paycheck at a more
stable company. Of course, you
have less resources at your disposal to realize your dream in your
game, so there’s always trade-offs.
You just have to realize that there are limits to your
ambitions.
For
example, I enjoy focusing on the PvP aspects of Meridian 59,
something that few other games dare to focus on.
I really enjoy balancing the gameplay to make sure there are
plenty of options in the game. I
also work hard to close loopholes in the game that give unfair
advantages to some people. It’s
very challenging, but it’s really fun; I also enjoy getting in and
playing my own game when I get a chance.
Sure, the PvP focus means the game will always be a niche
product, but it’s nice to be able to do something different than
trying to make a clone of the market leader.
gamebunny:
How
important is having gorgeous graphics? Can you get by without them
in today’s market?
Stephanie Shaver
(HERO'S JOURNEY):
I'm going to be honest here: I think the graphics of most MMOs are
flat, jagged, and ugly. However, the same games that I think look
uglier than a chimpanzee in high heels and a prom dress have also
made enough money to buy a small island kingdom in the pacific, so
what do I know?
I
think more important in an MMO is consistency. You have to
present a united, consistent front when you're building your game.
People will pick up on that. They may not realize it's
happening, but they will.
Daniel McMillan
(FRONTIER 1859):
I think that all games should have the best graphics possible with
regard to their theme and frame-rate.
Christophe Watkins
(FALLEN EARTH):
I
don’t know if gorgeous is the right word, but there’s definitely
a lower limit to what players will accept. And that lower limit is
pretty darn high. I think you need great graphics to get players to
try your game long enough to get hooked on the gameplay. So yes, you
need great artwork; otherwise people won’t even give you a chance.
That being said, there are still a couple of hundred thousand
players of the original EQ that continue to play it even though the
artwork is dated.
Brian 'Psychochild'
Green (MERIDIAN
59):
It’s a simple fact: your game will be judged by the graphics.
People will say, “Gameplay is more important than
graphics!” but few people really act on this statement.
Most people are used to judging the merit of a game based on
screenshots on the back of a box, and many are turned off by
graphics that don’t look superb. A
game with poor graphics in a store usually means that the game was
shoveled out the door with poor quality.
Unfortunately, this means that there are many people who deny
themselves a quality, fun indie game because the graphics are not as
pretty as in other games. In
indie games the graphics usually reflect a choice to focus limited
resources more on gameplay. Really,
once people are honest with themselves, the graphics really do not
matter once you get into the meat of the game.
Even an extremely pretty game like World of Warcraft
eventually lost the novelty that made the graphics so awesome.
Eventually the graphics became commonplace and are not a
determination in the enjoyment of the game.
For
indie games, this can be a large challenge to overcome the stigma.
Programmers are always willing to help out, but quality art
requires a real budget, and finding quality artists can be a
challenge. The costs to
implement a new fully 3D engine in a game like Meridian 59 to
replace the 2.5D engine wouldn’t necessarily bankrupt the company;
we were able to rewrite the rendering engine with some cheap help
from a great developer. The cost to replace all the existing art
with 3D models, animation, skins, etc, would likely cost more than
the game has made in the past 4 years.
And while it’s nice for people to volunteer to add to the
game, most volunteers don’t have the skills and abilities
necessary to produce the level of quality people expect from modern
games; the few that are able to do quality work probably won’t be
giving it away for free for very long.
gamebunny:
There’s
a 10-ton-gorilla of an MMO called World of Warcraft which currently
dominates the North American MMO market. Your thoughts please on
Blizzard’s mega-successful game - Is it good for the industry as a
whole? Has it set a new bar which must reached by all future MMOs?
Stephanie Shaver
(HERO'S JOURNEY):
WoW is awesome for the industry, the same way Harry Potter and Peter
Jackson opened the floodgates for fantasy in cinema. WoW has made a
new wave of MMO players out of people who previously did not play
those games. Those players are potential customers and playmates.
Blizzard did with WoW
what it does with every product: it took a game style, and improved
on the game mechanics. Everything WoW has done has been done in
other games. The key is that WoW said, "Hey, that thing where
you sit around staring at a spellbook for five minutes? Yeah, that's
dumb and boring. Let's not do that."
We'll never have the
advertising budget they have. We don't have their rabid fanbase. We
don't have Scott Kurtz and the Penny Arcade dudes calling us up at
3 A.M.
and breathing heavy into the phone receiver. But we do have an
intense desire to make a fun, easy to play game. So long as we get
the word out and stay true to our design philosophy, we'll do all
right.
Of
course, we wouldn't mind WoW's numbers....
Daniel McMillan
(FRONTIER 1859):
Blizzard took everything that worked in EQ and DAOC and glorified it
with gorgeous graphics and simplistic control. (My own household has
a level 60, and three near level 30 alts). It's simply a great game
for a new generation of players, and the grind is more reasonable
than any before it.
Is it good for the
industry as a whole? Let me do a little biz-math for you.
There are 40 million broadband users in the US alone (and growing)
and then there are at least that many in the UK, plus the Asian
market is at least 120 Million. This does not include Germany,
Spain, France, New Zealand, Russia and the Netherlands (where many
of our visitors come from). Therefore, "WoW" - while
having set new records is still a mere scratch on the surface when
you realize the market - but personally, I think It's great because
it is garnering many next-generation of players around the world who
will eventually be looking for a new fix.
Christophe Watkins
(FALLEN EARTH):
There’s no doubt World
of Warcraft is good for the industry as a whole. It has convincingly
answered the question: “if everyone is playing EQ, is there anyone
left to play any other game?” There are 6 million more people
playing online games than there were when we started so we are
thrilled that Warcraft is out there.
Warcraft has raised the bar that needs to be reached. But if you
look at the MMO’s in development, it’s fairly clear that people
are not just trying to make a bunch of Warcraft clones. There are
plenty of innovative developers out there simply working on their
own thing. There are so many ways to do MMO’s with regard to
gameplay, role-playing, community, art style, and genre that even
though Warcraft has raised bars for online games, other games may be
so different that some of those bars become obscured by innovations
in other areas. In the end, it’ll be up to players to decide if
the new games cut the mustard or if they just don’t have what it
takes for the Warcraft players or the console players, or even the
never-been-gamers to try something new.
Brian 'Psychochild'
Green (MERIDIAN
59):
It’s funny that people always seem to think that there’s only
one market in online games. It’s
like saying that all restaurants are competing with each other.
Why open a restaurant when McDonald’s serves billions and
billions of people every day? Well,
sometimes people want something more than a burger.
I’m sure the largest McDonald’s restaurant serves more
customers in one day than the sushi shop down the street sees in a
week. Yet, when I want good
sushi I go to the sushi restaurant, not to McDonald’s.
Don’t
get me wrong, WoW is a great game and I enjoyed it myself for
several months. I’m happy
that the game has enjoyed tremendous success worldwide.
But, when I want pulse-pounding, adrenaline-soaked PvP that
doesn’t rely on a static class system for balance, I prefer to go
play Meridian 59. And,
that’s the whole point of an indie game: to offer something that
the more “mass-market” games can’t or won’t offer.
If your indie game can’t offer something unique, then
there’s little point in hoping for it to succeed commercially.
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