Independent games

Independent Games – Kreativität jenseits ökonomischer Zwänge? Gastvortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung “Kunst und Spiel” am 8. November 2010

Dr. Julian Kücklich, playability.de

1. Ursprünge2. Technik

3. Ökonomie4. Kultur

5. Ästhetik



5. Ästhetik

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Shareware &Modding

Festivals

Bedroom coders

Digitale Distribution

Amateure

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Shareware& Modding

Festivals

Amateure

Bedroom coders


The military-industrial complex

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Shareware

Festivals

Bedroom coders


Amateure

Kommerzialisierung

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Shareware

Festivals

Bedroom coders


Amateure

Publisher

Hardwarehersteller

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Shareware &Modding

Festivals

Bedroom coders


Amateure

Professionalisierung & Risikominimierung EULAs

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Shareware &Modding

Festivals

Bedroom coders


Amateure

Marketing & Distribution

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Hacker culture

Festivals

Bedroom coders


Amateure

World of Goo? I’m sure it’s fun, and the reviewers certainly loved it, but surprised to see up so high. […] I scrolled quickly all the way to the number one spot…Huh? WTF?? As in WHERE THE HELL IS FIFA 09???

“The industry big-wig's indignant, self-righteous incredulity“

- 2D Boy



5. Ästhetik

+ Offene Architektur

+ Einfache Entwicklung

– Geringes Marktpotenzial

– Proprietäre Architektur

– Schwierige Entwicklung

+ Großes Marktpotenzial

– Publisher-Abhängigkeit

– Einzelhändler-Abhängigkeit

+ Große Reichweite

+ Zugänglichkeit

+ Direktes Spielerfeedback

– Geringe Reichweite

– Hohe Kosten

– Hohe Komplexität

+ 3D-Grafik

+ Plattformunabhängig

+ Browserkompatibel

– 2D-Grafik

2. Technik

4. Kultur

5. Ästhetik

1. Ursprünge

3. Ökonomie

Piracy

Used Games

Retailer Margin

Returns

Distribution

Platform Royalty

Publisher Gross Margin

Potential Spend 84$

Actual Spend 72$

Retail Price 60$

Wholesale 45$

Publisher Margin 27$

27$

7$

4$

7$

15$

12$

12$

Development Cost: 30 million $

Arcen Games: AI WarFrom: Chris Park (Arcen Games)

To: Graham Smith (PC Gamer)

Re: AI War and the hidden cost of indie games

Hi Graham, Regarding the figures on costs and income, that’s a bit of a tricky topic — not because I’m unwilling to discuss it, but because the best answer is “depends on how you look at it.” For two reasons: First, that there was a lot of free labor on my part […] Secondly, […] we had three guys who were doing all of their work purely for royalties […]

I suppose I’d say that Arcen invested about $80k directly into AI War, plus about another $70k of unpaid time on my part, and we then made about $180k on it before taxes and expenses. That had still been counting up until recently. It was a very successful game, and only becoming more so, financially speaking.

And then of course there is taxes. For 2010 the payments so far have been about $32k, with another $7k due later in the year.

All in all, that leaves us with about $15k sitting in our bank account at the moment, whereas I’d at one time had our buffer up to $60k, and in general had kept it north of $30k since last October, until everything fell apart.

“[T]he game has earned approximately $34,000 so far […]. Minus FlashGameLicense and the SteamBirds Team, that puts $15,000 in my pocket for one month of full-time work. Even if you spread it out across my full schedule -- around five months to date -- that’s still $3,000 per month, a decent salary.”

$25,000 from ArmorGames

$2,000 Bonus Content

$5,000 Secondary Licensing

$1,000 Ad Revenue

“A WiiWare email promotion from Nintendo sold 25,000 copies of the game, a Steam 75% off sale helped push 42,000 copies in one weekend, and the MacHeist 3 promotion helped sell 88,000 copies in 2 weeks.”

“Ron Carmel said that, […] things didn't work out quite as expected. He noted that the Steam sale (75% off) had no effect on 2D Boy's website sales, even though the game was four times as expensive there.”

52%

15%

25%

2. Technik

5. Ästhetik

1. Ursprünge

4. Kultur3. Ökonomie

UBM TechWeb […] established the Independent Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers.

We wanted to create a similar event to Sundance for independent game developers - and that's just what we've succeeded in doing with [IGF], which has awarded hundred of thousands of dollars in cash prizes (and brought major exposure and a much higher profile) to a multitude of indie and student game developers who enter.

IndieCade supports independent game development and organizes a series of international events showcasing the future of independent games. It encourages, publicizes, and cultivates innovation and artistry in interactive media, helping to create a public perception of games as rich, diverse, artistic, and culturally significant. IndieCade's events and related production and publication programs are designed to bring visibility to and facilitate the production of new works within the emerging independent game movement.

The Experimental Gameplay Project began as a student pitched project at […] Carnegie Mellon University. The project started in Spring 2005 with the goal of discovering and rapidly prototyping as many new forms of gameplay as possible. A team of four grad students, we locked ourselves in a room for a semester with three rules: 1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc

Kyle Gabler, 2D Boy

Petri Purho

“Babycastles is a DIY arcade space with a rotating set of independent games curated by local artists and game designers. The space is usually set up for play during shows at Silent Barn, but they'll turn the machines on and let you play if you come by any time they're around.” (rhizome.org)

2. Technik1. Ursprünge

3. Ökonomie

5. Ästhetik

4. Kultur

Here's a thought for you: what if, like fossil fuels, innovation is a finite resource? […] As with exploiting the oil sands, there will be technological achievements that open up bursts of new innovation […]. But each burst will exhaust itself in time.

So before we run out of new shiny things, we need to build a better model of what a game should be. A sustainable model. - Jonathan Blow

Let's face it: Games, in general, suck. Most are repetitive and shallow. Most eat up precious moments of our lives without giving us anything more than idle entertainment in return. The really good games, the ones that we would only be half-embarrassed to show Roger Ebert as art samples, are few and far between - maybe one game per console generation, if that. This is hardly what we would recognize as an "art-full" medium. - Jason Rohrer

To make games that are works of art, we should be taking the exact opposite approach. We should figure out what we want to express with our games and then devise game mechanics that best communicates that message. The heart of our games, the gameplay, should be our primary vehicle for expression.

Games are not valued by their truth (in fact, most people still believe they should be measured by how “fun” they are). But like in literature, you may find a grain of truth in them.

This, I believe, is the ultimate goal to games: to make other realities in which you can find yourself.

- Daniel Benmergui

Heather Kelley of the Montreal-based development collective, Kokoromi, will be coming by the NYU Game Center on Friday, April 23rd at 6pm to talk about their now four year old game competition, Gamma.Kokoromi was formed by a rare union of gamemakers and curators to promote games as an art form and expressive medium, worldwide. Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Kokoromi produces events, develops games, and hosts a blog at www.kokoromi.org.Kokoromi is perhaps best known for creating Gamma, the annual “new arcade” event. The Gamma showcases, which are free for anyone to enter, present independent designers with constraint-based challenges and a public play environment that push the boundaries of game-making.

I wanted to build something confrontational, that would engage players to give thought to what they are doing both in and out of game. The result is Loved – a short story in the form of a flash platformer.

- Alexander Ozias

Based on Valve’s latest hit, Portal: The Flash Version brings it all up in 2d! Portal: The Flash Version includes over 40 challenging, portals thinking levels, which features almost every feature the real game does, in 2d. (We Create Stuff)

Molleindustria aims to reappropriate video games as a popular form of mass communication. Our objective is to investigate the persuasive potentials of the medium by subverting mainstream video gaming clichè (and possibly have fun in the process).

- Paolo Pedercini

2. Technik1. Ursprünge

3. Ökonomie

Fragen?

4. Kultur

5. Ästhetik

Entertainment & Humor

Independent games