Masochistic Devel's

JWilly commented:

Of course, then one looks at the latest Bruce Woodcock data on the combat-sim genre's share of MMOLG subscriptions (as opposed to fantasy, sci-fi/superhero and social genres) being only 0.3%, and the idea of targeting an underserved sub-segment of that 0.3% seems kind of masochistic.

Oh, well.

I think it is more a question of costs of creation, maintenance, and on-going development. If you can keep the costs down, much smaller subscriber bases can be profitable.

When you compete in the same 'attention space' as the behom-o-crafts, you're not going to hit the top of Bruce's chart. But those charts don't show profit.

Think about hollywood movies and their opening weekend box office gross: if you're not number 1, you're viewed as a failure. Look at Clerks II which just came out. According to Mr. Smith, the movie cost $5 million to make and grossed $10 million on opening weekend (marketing costs not in that, but still, the point is there).

He explains that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was the model for his latest release. It generated $30 million in box office, but $36 million in DVD sales. You've just got to "plug lower numbers in the equation", as Mr. Smith says. A comparable result with Clerks II will allow Mr. Smith to keep making his movies for a long time - without requiring significant distributor investment.

A similar principle can be adopted in gaming, and I suspect that it is in casual games.

Create a game that will be successful and viable at 5,000 annual subscribers. Your annual gross revenue would be $600,000 [5000 x $10/month x 12 months/year]. With a planned minimum lifetime of 2 years, (hopefully longer but let's be conservative at this point): $1.2 million.

That has to fund: pre-launch dev, post-launch maintenance, and post-launch dev. Pre-launch dev time is hard to predict precisely, but let's say 18 months, for a total time horizon of 42 months. Since you want to take some money off the table, you need to do everything for an even million, giving you a return of 20% if all those numbers play out. In an oversimplistic view, that would give you a monthly budget of $23,000/month, or $285,000/year.

Can you create, maintain and continue to develop a game for $285,000/year?

Yes, you can. But this does describe the shape of the world of what you can afford to spend money on. It would have to be a very small staff and a small game, but if you accidentally end up with 7,000 or 10,000 subscribers, then things start to get very profitable.

It may not be the game you're dreaming of, but it is viable and can be successful. A gaming example, though non-MMO, is Combat Missions. Made by a small team, they made the game they wanted to make, and 'published' it themselves via mail order. When I first heard about this game in 2000 I think, I bought 4 copies for myself, my brother and friends. I spoke once to one of them (memory fails me), because I was curious about how effective the mail-order system had been for them. While I couldn't get any details, it was very clear that they were very happy with the results.

Illuminated Elders

Lessons from the Old School
by Steve Jackson, Viewer of Fnords, Illuminator

Evil Stevie! If you don't know who Steve Jackson is...you should. Illuminati, Car Wars, Ogre, GURPS, Killer, Toon...you wouldn't have heard of these without Steve Jackson Games (and note Mr. Costikyan and Mr. Spector, the two keynote speakers, co-authored Toon - read it and understand why your game does not need to be as complex as you think it does).

Disclaimer: I'm an SJG fanboi and receive royalties from them for GURPS Traveller: Far Trader, which I freely admit to beng a junior partner on.

No power points here. Mr. Jackson even did it without the microphone that other speakers had used. He used a Mac laptop to track his outline, and did an excellent job of incorporating audience comments and questions into the discussion.

The point of this presentation is in the title: lessons that computer games can learn from non-computer or 'unplugged' games.

Digital games make the same mistakes of unplugged games, particularly in design and financial aspects. However, they are making mistakes that unplugged games have already solved!

There are, of course, huge differences between digital an non-digitial games. Sales of paper games are around two orders of magnitude less than digital. And paper game teams are always very small, and can be as small as one individual. However, the significance of these differences diminishes in the context of indie digital games.

I think the most important point Mr. Jackson made regarded playtesting. Previous speakers had stressed the point that when designing your game, it must be fun! "Well, duh," said Mr. Jackson. But he elaborated, "If the game is supposed to be fun - then test for that!" His fear is that digital game companies don't test for fun, and audience comments, including my own, reinforced that conclusion. I remarked that most game companies I'm aware of do not even use the term "playtest", only "QA", and often their ownly interface with developers is through bugzilla emails. This, and other similar comments, neither pleased nor suprised Mr. Jackson.

There were other valuable points, which people forget all too often:

"Do not apologize for size. A hummingbird is just as neat as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. But giant publishers can't do small."

"Originality is overrated" when trying to make a monster hit. "Bit hits are not original - they are extremely well executed."

This reinforces Mr. Pedersen's recounting of the history of top selling games from the day before.

Mr. Spector mentioned that at Junction Point, he reports they have a test every Thursday at 2PM and the whole staff must watch it, or the video of it. Whatever they have, they test as soon as they can, whether it is 30 seconds or 5 minutes. However, "it is stupid to make decisions based only on users tests because gamers only know what they have liked in the past." Mr. Jackson responded that playtest feedback "is not gold - it needs to be filtered and interpreted."

Mr. Spector then asked why Mr. Jackson hadn't done more in the digital realm. "Torque made my head hurt," answered Mr. Jackson. Mr. Spector went on to explain many of the tools for making games are much easier to use now, such as the Aurora engine of NeverWinter Nights, saying "A Steve Jackson Neverwinter Nights Module would be great!", at which there were many approval sounds from the audience.

As the discussion concluded, there were cries for other digital realizations of classic SJG games, such as "Ogre on mobile phones," which was requested by Don Gilman.

Promises, Promises

The Promise of Indie Games
Roundtable with

• Billy Cain: Critical Mass Interactive
• Raphael Colantonio: Arkane Studios
• Shannon Cusick: Orbis Games
• Paul Trowe: Pulse Interactive
  

A casual roundtable that started slow but picked up some steam. Difficult to recount the ebb and flow of the discussion. There were some points to draw from it though. Mr. Trowe with much experience within different major publishers, remarked that working for publishers is a great way to "make millions of dollars for someone else, if you're lucky enough to get there in the first place."

Everyone on the panel commented that success as an indie requires you to learn how to do a lot of business stuff to be viable. Reading contracts and understanding them, learning about payroll and teaching yourself QuickBooks (with a licensed copy, naturally). If you make your own game company, you're becoming just as much a 'businessman' as a 'game developer', and perhaps more so.

Ms. Cusick, who has created Virtual Horse Ranch with just two other people commented that one of her goals is to replace herself as CEO of her own company so that she can focus on the games and less the payroll, reports, etc. This is actually a pretty enlightened decision and one major innovators in other businesses have done over the years.

Mr. Colantonio explained that you have to read the contracts because you can understand a lot more of it than you think if you focus on it, which is a good point, I think.

I don't mean to ignore Mr. Cain, he had several good points and information, but my note taking was rather weak at this point.

In-Spector Veritas

'Just Live': the Importance of Indie Development
(Or 'Why you shouldn't follow Greg Costikyan, Part II')
by Warren Spector

Executive producer of of Deus Ex, which I confess, I never got past the training level of - I think it was a bug of some sort which frustrated me to the FTG ("'Forget' This Game") point. But I'm a fan of many of the other games he has worked on, particularly Thief, Ultima VII: Serpent Isle and Underword. Yeah...maybe I'll just go install Deus Ex and give it another shot right now.

Mr. Spector (dibs! on "Mister Spector" for a supervillain name), had a power point, which is to be expected, and there were a lot of points on it, but he flew over those faster than Mr. Costikyan speaks. But that was fine. By this time, the points were more reinforcing key points than introducing them to the uninfected.

Important to note is that Mr. Spector, like Mr. Walton, is a self-described non-independent. His current game company is Junction Point Studios working on we know not what.

Quick points:

• Gaming Must Change
• Need something new
• Need alternatives
• Won't be easy
• Won't come from the mainstream
• Will come from the margins
  

Mainstream products rarely have any significant impact on innovation [except perhaps to stifle it?]. Agents of change are the avant garde.

EA exec. in 1992: "The future is in big budget blockbusters."
Mr. Spector: "He was right."

"20 years ago it was cooler. No one knew what they were doing but they all thought they had the answer. There were small teams. There were no genres." [That last terms be an error, my handwriting isn't always discernible].

Calling on his film history education, Mr. Spector pointed out that most media follows this trend. In the first 15 years, stuff is created, but then it is conventionalized and made factory style. Next, perceived threats from other media (such as television in the context of film). But then, eventually, the rise of the independents occurs when the cost of creation drops.

An independent movie is one written and produced without studio interference with a very limited budgets and is usually character or personally driven. For games, the developer is essentially the sole creator and financer and there is no external control.

Goals of being an independent:

• Own your own work
• Create you own goals
• Do what you want
• Reach your own audience
  

"Commercial success cannot be the driving force." If you aren't motivated to change things, you don't have a vision, and you don't hear the 'call to arms' (aren't willing to battle for you game', then the indie movement isn't right for you.

In response to Mr. Walton's statement the previous day that "it is a waste of time to make a game that no one plays", Mr. Spector argued that this isn't true. In the case of Facade, it is important because of its ideas and these will influence other games, which will be commercially successful.

"You should want to write your own manifesto. You should want to destroy something."

The mainstream isn't evil - it is misguided.
Mainstream publishers are usually driven to the answer of the question: "Will this generate maximum profit?" But sometimes, the question is a little different: "Will we lose this prima donna if we don't keep him happy?"

Taking a a few lines from George Bernard Shaw, Mr. Spector reminds us that 'Unreasonable people adapt the world to themselves, so progress needs unreasonable people.'

Indie games may be at a crossroads, about to make the same mistakes as the mainstream with 'virtual shelfspace' in the form of 'Top 10 Games' lists on game aggregation sites.

To succeed in indie games, you need to make a new obligation to the medium and to yourself and your company. You need to make enough to make your next game, and feed yourself first.

You might need to go into Survival Mode: do some ports, build an Adver game, make a deal with the devil, build your resume. But be subversive, sneak in something new. Play in your free time and plan your escape.

Then there was a lengthy quote from Aleister Crowley and becoming a Devil about acting on standards your form within, rather on those forced upon you from without, but I think you get the point.

Remember 4 out of 5 games fail.

Become a serial con artist to get people to give you money, time, labor, etc.

Recommended Reading:
Organizing Genius
Peopleware
The Timeless Way of Building

Pwned by 'Poon

War Stories From Texas Garage Startups
(or "How to get screwed by publishers")
by Don Gilman

Mr. Gilman has been scuh-rewed by publishers in significant and life-lesson-teaching ways. He made the computer game version of Harpoon, which was originally a board game by Larry Bond (the oft-unmentioned co-author of Red Storm Rising).

His day job is not games, it is a bit more important than that. His team is working on the Texas Energy and Emissions Calculator, which is designed to help governments and builders save energy costs on buildings. If you consider how much available energy goes to power buildings that are empty for half the day, you'll see that is very valuable research.

You can read the twists and turns of Harpoon's history here. Harpoon is most recently available through Matrix Games, who also makes Battleground Europe (my employer) available. He decided on them after first sending out a Request For Proposals to various publishers with the following three important statements:

• We don't trust anyone
• First contract will be of *very* short duration
• We will have guillotine clauses in the contract if you are ever late with, or cause any hold up in, payments.
  

"If you don't pay on time, you loose the right to carry the product immediately upon notification - with no recourse." [sic] [The "loose" thing may be intentional, I've noticed a lot of wargamers and fake-fighter pilots do use that spelling on purpose.]

Advanced Gaming Systems is now developing Harpoon on a 'cash-flow' basis. What has happened is that some clients of Harpoon Professional, like the Australian Department of Defense, request a certain feature to be added that will help them use the game and they pay for it. But AGS structures the agreements that anything they develop they get to keep the rights to and can keep in the game. So what is happening is that different military companies and agencies (the only ones that can purchase Harpoon 3 Professional) end up providing the investment needed to continue developing the game. Ultimately, Mr. Gilman hopes that this will allow AGS to package a true Harpoon 4 without the entanglements of an invested publisher.

With Harpoon's long existence, Mr. Gilman pointed out several things which help keep the game alive, and really help a small team and a community achieve more than they might be done otherwise. Collaboration tools such as Wikis and bug tracking software like Mantis, allow non-devs to contribute greatly. As do configuration tools that allow players to 'mod' you game. The work of two moders was very significant in keeping Harpoon a viable project.

Other main points of his were to keep your day job and realize that the tortoise wins.

Recommended Reading:
How to Win Friends and Influence People
E-Myth Revisited
E-Myth Manager

Triggers and Retreads

Designing Great Games
(or "How many indie game folk does it take to plug in a projector?")
by Roger Pedersen

This was less than exciting. Awkward start, awkward finish. For 90% of the presentation, Mr. Pedersen simply read his powerpoint slides in his Donald Trump-like accent. But to be fair, he appeared somewhat tired and perhaps under the weather. Nonetheless, Mr. Pedersen made several good points and food for thought if you could focus on what he was saying.

After pointing out that best selling games for many years have been retreaded sequels of existing games and licenses, he recounts conversations with famous game innovators on what makes a great game. The concensus was replayability.

Then he spoke to how you can enhance replayability within a game with what at first seemed a routine example, but given more thought, is actually an excellent point.

Say you have an action game and there is a coffin or something with a zombie in it. The first time you play, when you touch the coffin, the zombie rises and you shoot the zombie's head off with your shotgun. A simple thing: trigger -> event. But if you give the same event multiple triggers, replay is enhanced. The second time through the game, the zombie might be triggered after you leave the room, or only if you touch the other side, or perhaps even before you enter the room, etc. Thus, the game environment appears to be much more dynamic. This makes it much harder for the player to train himself to the optimal, and eventually boring, path to completing the game.

Mr. Pedersen also discussed designing games for specific conditions and markets, providing the example of a game he is working on to teach women internet users how to make mixed drinks of all varieties through playing a 'Coyote Ugly' styled game. The focus on appealing to women because a huge percentage of people on the internet are women (and he wanted to teach more women how to make drinks).

He also stressed the importance of playtesting the game by observing players who haven't been trained to play the game they way you think they should, a point reinforced my most of the speakers at the conference - I think they mean it.

Penis Monsters

Techniques of Procedurally Generated Content
by Tom Roberston

A general overview of the applicability of procedural content generation systems to gaming other than terrain creation, which is extensively covered on the internet.

ProcGen (apologies for the concatenation but I'm tired of typing the whole phrase out) is good for:

• lots and lots of fairly similar things
• objects when you don't have an artist
• user created objects (it is a creativity multiplier/amplifier)
• futuristic or alien appearing objects
• lightening the workload
• reducing data footprint
  

It is NOT good for:

• unique or interesting content
• replacing artists
• humans, especially human faces
• specific objects from the past or present (like a '57 Chevy)
• simple, known-quality objects
  

Basic Concepts of ProcGen content:

• Bilateral symmetry is required
• The Uncanny Valley is dangerous (things that look almost human are very troubling to humans). The stuffed animal look is about the sweet spot on the likeability scale.
  

"You're guaranteed to get penis monsters if you give [a creature generator] to users."

ProcGen won't work the way you expect. Is that OK?

Generating Stories?

There was a brief discussion about generated stories. Mr. Robertson mentioned that if a computer algorhythym gets good at generating stories, isn't that getting close to sentience?

[I don't think so, at all, but then, it depends on how you generate stories. I think what is meant by procedurally generated stories is closer to generated plots, which seems more tenable, particularly given such works as the Thirty Six Dramatic Situations, by Georges Polti (which happens to be on my bookshelf). It isn't exactly a very accessible book, but it is somewhat interesting. I think 76 Patrons and 101 Patrons give some ideas on how plot generators can create interesting, or at least viable, plots.

Disclaimer, I was a contributor to 101 Patrons and also 101 Religions (Beware Monadin and also the Battle Chaplains!). I think I need to pick up 101 Plots.]

Brain Sucking

Winning as an Independent Developer
by Gordon Walton (a non-independent developer)

Mr. Walton presented some valuable insight from a non-independent view point.

The differences in the game markets:

• PC/MMO: low cost of entry, downloadable/viral distribution
• Next Gen console: *brutal* resource and expertise requirements
• Web Games: low cost of entry, ideal for viral distribution/marketing, but fierce competition
• Handheld/Mobile: low cost of entry, but First Party distributors/manufacturers and fierce competition.
  

"There are easier ways too make money than games."

You must iterate when making a game. Find people who think your game sucks and listen to them.

"Every great game is an unreasonable proposition."

"Do crazy things". Publishers have filters they apply when looking at game proposals.

"Can it be marketed?" is one of the most important questions. "If we don't know how to sell it - next!"

"Know how to con other people into doing stuff - very important."

"You've revealed the secret that dare not be spoken!" - Warren Spector.

Specific advice (Take aways):

• read Blue Ocean Strategy
  
• read Secret of Word of Mouth Marketing
• Shotgun development approach (My handwrititng is unclear here). Make games that are fun. ("Well, duh," says Steve Jackson the next day in his presentation).
• build a like-minded team
• Don't be an asshole. Play well with others
• Educate yourself on marketing and business
• Just do it. Make a game.
• Focus on your 'super powers', but eliminate/minimize your weaknesses so they don't cripple you.
• Make your own playing field.
• You'll win big or die.
  

For appealing/marketing to non-Western/Anglo cultures: read The Geography of Thought

Steve Jackson asked, what changes in the next 10 years, particularly with regard to internet's effect on gaming. Mr. Walton explained that bandwidth isn't the problem, latency is. Someone in the audience commented, "You'll be wired into a game all the time."

Mr. Walton: "We compete for people's free time. Our job is to suck every cycle we can out of every brain that we can."

Music/Sound is the most cost effective way to grab a player.
GW is looking for a book that doesn't exist: "The history of martial music and its impact on militancy."

"We do this to mess with people's heads."

"We humans are story creatures. Gaming is more than story. It is the about the illusion of creation/control."

I think the most significant point in Mr. Walton's presentation is that if you try to do battle with the big publishers on their terrain, against their weapons, you're dead before you know it.

Genre Generation

Games, Genres and Why Independent Games are Vital
by Greg Costikyan

I'm a fan of Mr. Costikyan's and think most people interested in game design should read just about everything here: http://www.costik.com/writing.html . Fair warning: this may color your thinking about games forever more.

As Mr. Costikyan says in his own blog about the subject, his talk was mostly a combination of things he's said before.

You can read Mr. Costikyan's Power Point presentation yourself. But I'll highlight a few points.

Mr. Costikyan speaks very quickly but very calmly. Pay attention or you just missed his explanation of exactly how badly you are screwed, indie game maker. He also has a deep and thorough knowledge of this history of games.

Genres in other media are defined by different things.

• Novels - themes (sci-fi, western, mystery, etc.)
• Music - nature of the sound (choral, emo, drums & bass, gangsta, the Blues)*
• Film - emotion (horror, romance, comedy)
  

* [I think the point he's made here is essentially right, but there is more than that going on. The blues isn't about the nature of the sound, it is about the structure of the music, following the "1 4 5" chord structure. I think music lends itself to multiple genres, for instance, there is a difference between Mississippi Delta Blues and Chicago (electic guitar) blues, just as there is a difference between big band swing and 'hard bop'. But this is quibbling. I don't know what "emo" means]

Game genres are best defined by their primary game mechanics. Thus, the "shmup" ("SHoot 'eM UP" - often in a space setting). Creating new game genre/game mechanics creates a whole new category of game. Innovation in games is led by new styles of play - this creates new audiences.

Nothing new in video games since 1996 (Rhythm games, Parappa the Rapper.)

There are many comparisons between Hollywood and the video game industry, but with rare exception, gaming doesn't have stars that can drive production of certain movies.

What's the future of gaming?
Genres will narrow, budgets will rise.
New titles need "sales velocity" to be successful in retail distribution and you've only got a two-week window.

"The game you've been working on for three years, if they don't nail the marketing right, you're fucked."

If you're trying to make a game of the type that the big guys do (FPS, RTS, etc), you're dead.

What to do? The things that EA are not.

What aren't they doing?

• Adventure
• Wargaming
• Sim/Tycoon style
• Non-FPS shooters
• 4X
• Shmups
• Tunr-based Strategy (Lase Squad Nemesis)
• Sports Management
  

Some old style games have no current analogy:

• Balance of Power
• 7 Cities of Gold
• MULE

Examples and Areas of Genre Creation:

• Technology Improves
• Physics
• AI
• Social Networking (Which current MMOs don't do really)
• Cross platform/marketing ubiquity
• Proceduraly generated content
• Subject Matter (SimCity, city management, etc.; however - marketing challenges)
• Business Channel (Magic the Gathering sold in comic book stores)
• Cominations (Dune II combined already existing game play elements into the first true RTS)
• UI (the Eye Toy)
• Evoked Emotion (Cloud)
• Actvitity (Crawford 'verbs are the allowed activities'; Play With Fire = "to burn")
• Mathematical Ideas (Scram)
  

Most experiments will fail. So fail cheaply and experiment a lot.

State of Manifesto Games: About to launch, probably in the next few weeks.

Recommended Reading:
Blue Ocean Strategy
Patterns in Game Design

Texas Indie Con

Last weekend, I went down to Austin for the first Texas Independent Games Conference.

Overall this event was very casual. Rantish thoughts expressed were calm and relaxed - war-weary veterans explaining the lay of the land. Fatigue? Resignation? Imperturbable calmness in the face of troubles?

Many things were repeated between the two keynotes and other major presentations. And they all said so.

I'm going to post my notes and comments from the sessions I attended, one per post. I hope it is clear when a comment is mine and not the speaker's.