Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Category: business

Game ‘downloaders’

I hear that a certain game portal is now not only giving away a game for FREE, but it actually gives you some vouchers for use at an online store with the ‘purchase’. Effectively they are PAYING you to have the game.

What generosity!

But of course, there is a catch. You HAVE to install the game by downloading their ‘game browser/downloader/client thing’

I understand why they do this. They want to get a foothold on your desktop / web-browser. They figure that if they bombard you with enough ads and promotions and pop-ups and reminders through the thing, that you will end up spending more money with them. It probably works. It’s probably good business. But I hate it, which is why I don’t do it

The ferengi businessman in me would love to do it, but the part of me that is actually a gamer, and someone who wants to entertain, rather than pester/nag people, stops me doing it.  Like most people who program computers, I’m always fixing friends and families PC’s, and its a rare day indeed that you find someone whose PC isn’t running a load of startup crapware/bloatware/adware that they didn’t want, use, need or remember even saying yes to. Even if I forget all sense of morals and trying to be the nice guy, I’d still be opposed to it, because anything that makes it annoying or ‘risky’ to download and buy a game is bad news in the long term for devs like me.

When you buy a game from me, or from people like me (sillysoft, puppygames, winter wolves etc), you just get a game installer. No crap that runs at startup and send you adverts, just a game. The game you bought.

Isn’t that how it should be? Imagine if everyone you bought a DVD from had their own stupid system of ‘launchers’ and ‘players’ that you needed to keep around while you owned them? You just want to buy a DVD, or in this case a game. Don’t put up with anything else :D

Stupidly good indie games bundle

So check this out. If you haven’t already got Democracy 2, because you thought it was a bit pricey , think again:

This is through Direct2Drive, who are a reseller for some of my games. If you bought those games separately, they would cost $77.75, and they are selling them as a bundle for $17.75, which is clearly mental. I must have been mad.

Even forgetting that I have a game in there, that’s a pretty impressive deal. If you haven’t seen a game play video of Cogs, it’s worth checking out (puzzle game done with amazing polish).

The deal ends on 9th August, so if you like the look of it, snap it up now :D.

Overgrowth and The Indie Attitude

I was chatting to Jeff from Wolfire a few weeks ago about their game overgrowth, and we started experimenting with ideas for cross-promoting our games. Since then I’ve been insanely busy, but I did get as far as putting this rather cool, and (to me) amusingly rabbit shaped spaceship (complete with Overgrowth logo) into GSB:

Why a rabbit? Well I think I should let Jeff himself describe what the rabbit connection is:

“Overgrowth takes place in the savage world of Lugaru where rabbits, wolves and other animals are forced to use paws, claws and medieval weaponry to engage each other in battle. Combining 3rd person adventure platforming with intricate melee combat, Overgrowth achieves a unique feel. Overgrowth also benefits from Wolfire’s brand new Phoenix Engine which has been built from the ground up to allow the use of cutting edge graphics, animation, and physics.”

Overgrowth certainly looks like an amazing game. I remember being impressed by the original Lugaru game, and OG looks like it will be a big hit.

The thing I find really interesting though, is the way in which our companies can do stuff like this, where we promote each others games, even stick content from one game in another, with the minimum of fuss. When I suggested we stick a rabbit ship in GSB to see how it could work, I didn’t need to get my lawyer to talk to wolfires lawyer. I didn’t need a strategic planning meeting with the head of corporate strategy, or have to justify to shareholders why we should help out what they would see as our competitors…

This is what I like about the Indie attitude.  Indie devs often share tips on game coding, getting decent contract work done, promoting websites and running forums, even the financial side of the best payment providers and who knows a decent accountant etc.

Can you imagine the head of EA giving the head of Activision tips on how to save on their bandwidth bill?

This is the indie attitude, and the indie advantage. We tend to take it for granted, because at the end of the day, me and jeff are two guys who love games and love making games. Somewhere along the line, the mainstream industry forgot that.

BBC interview

I had two people from the Spanish BBC website at my house this morning to interview me for a thing on digital piracy. It’s pretty cool to be interviewed at all, but it’s unfortunate that it’s about piracy. It all comes from the ‘talking with pirates’ blog event from last year. I don’t really want to be seen as ‘the piracy guy’. I’d much rather talk about game design, or other issues within the industry. They filmed an interview with me, and took some shaky cam footage of GSB. If it goes on-line I’ll post a link here. Maybe I’ll be dubbed in Spanish?

I saw the new star trek film 2 nights ago, and it was weird seeing tons of spaceship debris and escape pods. it’s like they have been playing my game :D Yet more inspiration to make the GSB visuals look good…