[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: failure and determination

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:

Wed, May 25, 2005 at 12:14:21AM -0700 in <429425CD.5070901@indiegamedesign.com>,
Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com> spake:


Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
long a view you want to adopt. Historically speaking, I think we're in a position analogous to the film industry of the 1930's, where major studios had consolidated most of the power. I'm not interested in it, I refuse to deal with it; but the historical process is probably both necessary and inevitable. 'Necessary' because seemingly, huge piles of people have to suffer before the masses will move on. The individual sufferings of you, me, or Chris will never be cared about.



 During the Hollywood studio period, it was still possible to get
non-Hollywood films made and shown, even if in limited theatre runs.
There are no theatres for indie game designers today, and no producers
willing to finance them.



Well, but it is also possible to distribute one's own stuff on the web. I don't think things are impossible, just very difficult. Also, one is limited as to the scope of one's projects, until one finds a way to make the big bucks.

Just a beach bum conference with no program tracks wouldn't work,
either. No company would allow the employees to go on company time, and
the indies can't afford it without some guaranteed return in the form of
information.


I think there's a demographic that would go for it. What corporations want is of no interest. Not sure if I'd bill it as an indie conference, but one would certainly need an indie mentality to embrace the "new conference math." The math is, do you think spending $1000 on a conference really buys you anything? I think it doesn't buy squat, so instead, everyone spends their dough on luxuriant beach accomodations. I think I'd make the conference cost $100, with students maybe paying $40. That's enough to keep people 'nominally serious' about why they're attending. Very little pre-structured stuff would be bought for this money, although it could probably support a few small things. The main value would be getting a bunch of game developers together in one place for a big party, with maximum schmoozing.

Maybe it would work as an Open Source conference. Sort of a mentality that we really shouldn't be paying all this money for all this crap. A certain amount of volunteerism and crowd ownership of the conference might occur.

Hm, then again, maybe it is not necessary for the conference to be dirt cheap, just way cheaper than the GDC. I suppose I could study the conference price / performance landscape. I do think "the money should be spent on the hotel at the beach" is the right High Concept for the conference. Although, I suppose in the Pacific Northwest, renting cabins at somewhere like Lake Chelan would work better. I don't consider Ocean Shores to be a good beach. I have a strong Atlantic / South Carolina prejudice. Kiawah and Seabrook, those are beaches! But there's no game industry down there. Any good beaches in Texas? Otherwise I guess it's California.

Hm, I wonder if there are any Conference Planning jobs to be had in this town. I'm already the Cruise Director of SeaFunc, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc , and such a job would just be a logical / megalomaniacal extension of my business schmoozing ambitions. Might be better work than signature gathering.

The tech conference sea cruises are a good design. I haven't been on
one yet, but they have 5 days in an enclosed environment, occasional
stops at port to do some morning sightseeing and then back to the
conference, and reasonable prices including lodging and food. That'd
work for me.


Any particular examples of this?

Really, I feel like the only thing holding me back are my lousy tools. Some would say that's the whole rub. Maybe most would. But most never ship anything of consequence, so maybe it's all a matter of how "high road" you want to be about anything.



But that's the problem: you're working on your tools, but publishing
nothing. Is "nothing" all that good?

What's the comparo? Have you gotten independently wealthy from pursuing an alternate strategy yet? I think persistence in the face of adversity is probably worthwhile in the long haul. I have yet to find or devise the programming technology that "fits my brain." I think I'm getting closer though.

Would you have something done if
you'd just accepted the tools you have instead of the tools you want to
have?


I doubt it. One can deny one's nature only so far. At my core, I'm an ASM guy. Languages that don't allow me to perform C/ASM tricks readily, i.e. the things I've invested my entire career in, just aren't going to cut it for me. When choosing tools, I think it's important to know what's at one's psychological core, so that one doesn't live a life of frustration and denial. I think this is relevant to creating good IF tools. If something sucks beyond your willingness to bend, I think you need to be honest with yourself about it.

There may come a time when virtual machines are running so fast that nobody cares about their performance anymore. But we're far from there yet. I don't see that either Sun or Microsoft have even basic incentives for performance. The vast majority of their customers are doing business accounting software.

But you don't have to be Half-Life. Is no Ocean Mars release better
than a mediocre Ocean Mars release?


I'm not terribly tolerant of mediocrity. Which is a conundrum in technology, because at any given time, most things are mediocre. And all things will become mediocre as technology advances! So it's probably all about sliding time windows of excellence vs. mediocrity. How to ride the waves of innovation, so to speak.

Anyways, the things that have held me back on Ocean Mars are far from just technical. I've never quite pinned down the story, despite lotsa trying. I've had problems with the issue of 'realism', which has driven me to want to try more abstract games. I never did devise a satisfactory combat system. For a long time I had this guilt of "I must stick to Ocean Mars," in order to try to finish what I've started, but it's just not the best way for me to proceed as a game developer right now. I think it probably has too broad a scope, and I need to ship something much simpler to start with. I don't plan to abandon Ocean Mars, but I definitely am thinking about more 'doable' projects first. What I have actually made progress on, are the technical requirements of my AI approach. Even still, there's a lot of ad hoc design work to be done there, so I'm not worrying too hard about frameworks or engine reuse. By the time I understand the design requirements, I may end up rewriting all the code 6 times. That's what happened to me last time around, at any rate. Takes me about 6 tries to get something right.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
                         - anonymous entrepreneur