I left the commercial games industry in February 2009 after, in all honesty, probably the most miserable period of my life. I didn’t leave voluntarily because, in all honesty, even getting paid for something you’ve grown to despise trumps not getting paid at all so I had no intentions of jumping ship. I wasn’t exactly pushed per se, but the fact that I wasn’t kept on to be part of the company that sprang up immediately after the company I worked for exploded, meant that I had effectively been fired. But fired in a manner which meant I got to claim statutory redundancy.
So that was nice. Not terribly surprising, though – I was hardly a model employee during those last few months of my stay. There’s a certain trouble you see, a rather delicate dance you have to perform if you want to be successful at the sort of place that, while it doesn’t make anything particularly amazing, is chock full of people who would be perfectly capable of amazingness given the right circumstance but constrained by a small number of utterly useless, yet bafflingly well-regarded people.
The trick is, to be vocal and passionate… but only a bit. Definitely not too much, and especially not if your passion is focussed on what isn’t working, because no-one that matters will care about the why unless the why is to do with somebody disposable. They might enquire earnestly the first time but the second time, after they’ve failed to address it, they’ll care less. And certainly five years later when the same problems are popping up they’ll really not want to hear them and will probably tell you to change the record or just yawn off your arguments as “that thing you do”.
So despite the fact that in between these moments of heated outrage you are, you know, actually rather good at what you do and (if you’ll forgive the blowing of one’s own trumpet) certainly beneficial to the project, when the opportunity arises you’ll be quietly let go. A bit like that bit in Titanic – morning dawns and there’s an empty space where Leonard Di Cappuccino used to be. Except in this circumstance, nobody is crying in the audience.
So, that was that. Forced into the indie business way sooner than I had intended. Fortunately for me, Lemmy had found himself in a similar position – indie games were always something we intended to do at some point, so it was either now or try and get a job somewhere else.
Had we had gone for the second option, perhaps I would have found myself at a great developer, one which would have immediately quashed all my frustrations. There are plenty of commercial games I love, and plenty of industry figureheads I hugely respect. Maybe working for them would be different. I have to rather hold on to that hope or it would utterly crush whatever remains of my love of the industry.
But in the indie scene I find myself and now I’m here, I discover that the gulf between ‘commercial’ and ‘indie’ is not as wide as I had expected. There are indie games out-selling commercial games, and suddenly you realise that gamers aren’t just some hypothetical statistic but actual real people who don’t really give a damn who made a game, providing that the game is completely brilliant. It sounds daft to say that, but in the commercial industry as an artist or programmer (even if you’re senior or a lead), you really are massively divorced from the people who actually play the thing you make. At least in my experience, anyway.
And so you find yourself able to actually have a dialogue with the people that may buy, or have bought, your game without having to send off your responses for approval or find someone else responding on your behalf with a slightly warped version of what it was you said. And then you start to wonder why in the commercial industry there tends to be so little communication with gamers because, you know, they’ve got quite a lot of stuff to say.
For example, there is a thread on our forums concerning the way our game was going to handle the player’s mental health. Me, Lemmy, and Nick have our own ideas about this, of course, but as it transpired some of our posters were qualified in this very area. Who better to discuss this with, if not 1) people who know one hell of a lot more about the intricacies than you possibly could with just your own game-based ideas and access to Google and 2) people who like the sound of your game?
When I remember games that I used to play on my C64, I typically remember them with fabulous graphics. It’s usually a massive disappointment to see them later and discover all that atmosphere was just a smudgy blob scrolling around making unconvincingly loud footsteps sounds. But your mind filled in the gaps. There’s something to be said for really simplistic graphics – the more you leave up to the player, the richer their experience. Games like Dwarf Fortress or Minecraft demonstrate that unequivocally. So really, what do you gain from having Hollywood stars doing your voices, or actors mo-capping animations? You get wonderful-looking visuals and exciting cutscenes, of course, but we’re not in the business of making films, we’re making games – an industry born as much (or more) from table-top adventurers than table-tennis players. The cross-over between games and films is not a new phenomenon but rather than being an inevitable evolution feels more like species divergence. In the future there’ll be a term for each (and not a rubbish term, like ‘interactive movie’).
When that happens, one of those types will be a game and one will be something else. Something probably cool and exciting, but not a game. When it comes down to it, a game is just a set of rules and a playfield. You can dress it up with swanky graphics, but the more you force the direction, the more complicated the rules or constrained the playfield, the less gamey it becomes. And eventually, no matter how exciting you make your presentation, everyone will just want to play Pacman.
“actual real people who don’t really give a damn who made a game”
Obviously you have not met many indie elitists yet.
😀 I’d like to think that they’re the minority – evidence suggests that thus far – but perhaps I’ll be proved wrong in time 😉
You find a lot of creativity in the indie game maerkt; the sort of creativity that you won’t, nay can’t find in the mainstream. You can’t find it for precisely the reason you mentioned in your post; there’s too much creative control, too many focus groups, and too much push for sales. I tend to get going about indie games for the same reason that I get going about Open Source software there’s so much potential there! There are so many things that Microsoft does, so many ways they dumb down their products in order to create more sales (for example, in the base version of MS Server 2008 the included backup utility is dumbed down to the point of uselessness but, oh lookie here, we have an upgrade that actually give you the functions you need! It’s extra, of course, but you want it work now, right?) they do that because they want the money first and the working product second. That’s fine, that’s kind of why they are in business in the first place. But, now you have this other group of people, the open source community, who make software for it’s own sake. Whether they are in it for the recognition, the experience, or because they’re obsessed and they just can’t stop coding, these people put the working product first; there’s no money involved to get in the way of the vision. And that’s what I find so appealing about indie games. They aren’t in it for the money, they’re in it because they want to be. And that creates an end result with a whole different air about it. Don’t get me wrong, some of the best games of all time have come out of corporations. But, now, as the industry begins to suffer (IMO) a creative stagnation wrought of its own nervous tic about sales, the indie scene is where you might find a lot more creativity, and a little more nostalgia. And for a LOT less money. I think it’s pretty cool that XBOX has opened up to this with it’s game maerktplace (Wii as well?), so that it’s not all just shunted to the PC scene. That’s why when people are all like, man, I have this GREAT idea for a game I always recommend indie over trying to go to the big corporations because if they DO like the idea, then you might lose creative control, and that was half of what you wanted in the first place. Whereas if you get a group of open source code monkeys and fans together, then you can keep them in line behind the project you were after in the first place. What do they get out of it? Some get simply the satisfaction of coding and gaming, because that’s what they do. Others get an official spot in the credits, and a nice addition to a fledgling resume. Open Source/Indie 4 life! (except WoW gotta have my WoW XD)
you guys sure blog a lot for some blokes who we’ve paid to dev a game…
I can splurge out about 500 pages in an hour, if it’s on something that I care about. Buy me a beer, and I’ll rant your face off to demonstrate 😉
Also, you have read what I post, haven’t you? It’s all bollocks. 😉
Well I too funded the project (and with more than 5 pounds) and I hereby declare that my money is to be used for frivolities like blog posts, packets of crisps and everything else that may look vaguely like it will delight and amuse the developers.
For it is our believe as investor in cutting edge gaming (since 1432) that only a happy developer cushioned in warm fuzzy feelings right on the verge of exstasy is a good developer.
Furthermore I enjoy to listen to the thoughts of the developers on what ever topics may cross their minds.
So now David you sleep peacfully again knowing that your funds are exclusively used for game development.
(And please send me a note about how much it would cost to buy you a decent pair of manners)
You know, it does not sound like you spend engouh time with your son, or at least don’t play engouh video games with him! I would suggest to play video games with him once in a while, just to spend some time in his world to understand what he is talking about. And then you would not have to ask questions of strangers about your son’s feelings and thoughts. To answer your question though, most people that I know play games without cheats to begin with. Then, later on, when the game has been passed or played all the way through to the end, then you use cheats to open a new dimension of the game. Most games you spend at least half the time collecting stuff and looking for things. But when you have cheats on, you are just playing. It’s like having to cook something, you have to go out and find the ingredients for your recipe, and then you have to gather the utensils for preparing the ingredients. While that is just as entertaining, it is just as interesting, if not more, to be able to cook or prepare something right away. Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?!
You do yourself a disservice taking this sort of shit to heart.
Anyone who believes they’ve the right to judge your weeks worth of efforts and all your waking moments is a useless tosspot who’s failed to understand that they’re wasting time complaining about their inability to waste time playing. They’ve failed to understand that they’ve agreed to wait, and taken it upon themselves to express their lack of understanding as insult to you.
You took on this project because you were passionate about it. That passion is what’ll keep you going, even when random self-entitled arseholes aren’t staring over your shoulder.
tldr; Five quid is not license to your every waking moment. Ever. Guard your passion with your f’ing life, mate. It’ll keep you breathing.
debolb25738 on October 20, 2011 The hills have eyes 1 because it would be freaky and the game would be about you killing those monsters or you being the monster and attacking people.t( )
Being slightly less tactful than Binky. If you count, you’ll discover we’ve made like 1-2 blogposts in a week, which probably amounts to 30 mins of time in a week.
We’re working around the clock on this game and frankly you can have your money back if you’re going to be that testy about us doing anything but working on the game.
Is this a blogpost you’re happier with?
http://www.theindiestone.com/lemmy/index.php/2011/04/15/project-zomboid-information-blackout/
I’d just like to take a moment to apologize on behalf of “david”s everywhere. See, us Davids have a long tradition of being generally well-to-do people. Our society will make sure to strip the above poster of his title, once forced name-changes become legal.
I like when devs share with the community about their progress, and that’s one of the great quality of indie dev… Also I’m always interested to know where they are going with their game, how they deal with the problems they bump into…
Good luck guys
Cheers BQt31 🙂
What an arsehole. Just to make certain, I’m referring to David’s stultifyingly retarded comment.
cgvmictionoaner on October 20, 2011 I think Saving Private Ryan should be a video game and it would be like world at but much much better. It would be a great first person shooter and it would have more weapons
great now theyre not posting anything anymore way to go jackass
stfu. do you honestly dont want them to tell you about updates. cause they stopped you ass wipe >.<.
…did you actually read the blog post? One of the things he reiterates is the sense of community that surrounds indie games, and how the devs get to talk to the fans and vice versa. IT makes for a better game. If the fans know what’s going on, they can say they love or hate it, and the devs can tweak stuff that makes it a better game for everyone. The blogs are wonderful for that. Even when they’re not about the game, they’re wonderfully informative, fun to read, and quite frankly, really interesting. I had fun just thinking up stories to go along with the description in Lemmy’s last blog on the game ending. The game is coming along wonderfully, I can personally attest to that, having played a few bits and pieces. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Remember, this isn’t a giant corporation full of code monkeys churning out games, this is three guys in a flat doing what they love.
If you want to throw money at a game and then have an information black hole until the game gets shoveled at you, go pre-order CoD 9 or something of that ilk. 🙂
<3
>.<
Whoops. That was supposed to be a response to Mr David up there, but I clicked the wrong box 😛
Love you guys ^.^
Hey guys don’t get annoyed at that whiners. People are going to complain regardless, especially when the game is good. If people aren’t bitching about something then there is something wrong, or 99.9% right. Which in this case I think it is neither – just some troll trying to get attention.
Glad to know more about the team, you guys are innovators in the industry by my standards. As long as you love what you are doing! I back the project 100%
Thanks for keeping things up-to-date and fresh!
Cheers!
I highly doubt he’s a troll, just some guy who thinks he owns a piece of the dev team and is annoyed. Not that he’s justified in the least, but the word troll gets bandied about too much sometimes. On some forums, accusing someone of being a troll is considered trolling, or at least is against the rules of conduct.
Never assume maliciousness when stupidity is a suitable explanation.
Aww hells yes. My thread was mentioned! This validates my life!
🙂 <3
I hope you guys aren’t actually blacking us out from information 🙁
David was trolling for some attention and obviously didn’t do any research and if he did he would realize you guys are pumping your heart and soul into this project.
Keep up the good work!
Rancorist
🙂 No, we’re not going to stop talking about things anytime soon. It’s just Lemmy gets awfully sarcastic when something rubs him up the wrong way 😉
Haha well I don’t blame him in the slightest. Phew, thats a load off my chest.
If there is anyway I can help in this project for example testing the game 😉 then I’m right here.
Haha just kidding with you, keep up the good work!
Rancorist
Nothing like sneaking a few min free of work just to poke at Project Zomboid and see what news have come about, a precious golden moment near the end of the day to go that extra mile. *wipes a tear away* ..Thank you for that extra mileage – And for still being cheaper than gas.
On a more serious note – Is there anything you guys need outside of dosh to ensure the survival, continuation and completion of this project?
I’d be a lot more use if there was 3D modelling involved, if there’s anything one can do, I’d be happy to pitch in.
wasp, aiwlolng it to believe it might win and thus causing it to sabotage its own efforts.It’s the perfect essence of the two of you and a great way to re-imagine MMO combat. I like your niche so far. 🙂
Hey guys, i for one love the fact you guys post. its something you dont get with most devs out there (indie or com) im a huge indie guy (even trying to work on my own things) and ive always supported starting companies. weather its buying a game here to fund another, or dropping 300 bucks on stupid in game items to help a small company grow.
personally i think most games have troubles because the devs and community are on different pages, i feel you guys are doing it just right. you dont just post about what pizza your eating, you give us both the player level posts, the inspirations behind your game, and the technical, how things work posts. i read them all, it fuels me for the game. because when its done ill have not just helped it along with some cash, or reporting bugs. and i wont just have been there from its first showings. but i feel a personal connection with he game and the devs. i wasnt just there, but i was apart of it.
so keep it up guys!!
I’m rooting for this game is the best of all time!
why is an amazing game (I am Brazilian and I used the google translator. if you have any error of English is not my fault) Good luck to you and your amazing game
Wow, way to be professional. I can’t believe i gave money to people who can be so unprofessional and actually point out someone in the community because they annoy you when you know idiots will answer him.
But at least we now know who are immature or idiots, the people who respond to him, that includes developers and those who paid for the game.
And in this instance espeically the developers.