Hi all,

The Game Tunnel GOTY was posted by someone to slashdot.org (http://games.slashdot.org/) In addition to causing undo stress to the website with unreasonable amounts of traffic, there is an interesting set of responses to the post on slashdot.

Always goes back to "what is an Indie" comments, which I think are always worthwhile in considering. I've been thinking about writing another article on the subject as it so intrigues me, and I still think that the future of indie gaming is in providing something that mainstream gaming does not offer. Currently however, it seems a lot of indie developers are trying to offer the same types of games that mainstream has, which in my mind is a bad choice.

Take a look:
http://games.slashdot.org/

Congrats on getting slashdotted! While that can bring most servers to their knees, that's some GREAT exposure.

Olá cyrus! Tudo bem? :) (I hope you can still understand portuguese after all those years...)

You're doing a great job with Game Tunnel! I hope you achieve all your goals for 2004 and that the GOTY 2004 will be even better than 2003.
BTW, "The best Arkanoid game" award will not be removed, right? I'm making an Arkanoid clone, that's why... :D

Interesting... there's actually quite a lot of hostility among the comments!

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Interesting... there's actually quite a lot of hostility among the comments!

That's Slashdot for ya :) I've learned to ignore the haters.. and hate mail for that matter, hehe.

It's interesting what they chose to attack though. ie:

Indie developers like to think they're so much more creative than the mainstream but most indie games are deriviative as hell.

Indie developers are often a bunch of clueless amateurs who produce shoddy, substandard work and expect you to pay them for it.

Indie games are mostly just a bunch of simple puzzle games.

Indie games look like they're 10 years behind the times.


Now, like it or not that is a window into a very real public perception of indie games from people that aren't "inside" the scene. It's not a very flattering perception. And although there are many exceptions you could name (since we are more familiar with what's out there) - it's still not without a grain of truth.

It's sad though, because who could begrudge anyone for simply having a go at doing their own thing? Which is what independent development is really about.

Well Said.


I think they are certainly issues that need to be addressed in some way. Not on slashdot, but in general. Indies tend to either be completely original, but with poor graphics, or more of a mainstream like game with good graphics.

I think it still comes down to determining the market. That is to say, if you want to do it for a living, you have to see if people would buy it before you make it. Garage Games seems to be heavy on making indie more mainstream by making indie games more like mainstream games. It's an interesting road to take. The influx of new developers seems to think along the same lines. I'm interested to see where it goes.

- Anthony Flack -
Indie developers like to think they're so much more creative than the mainstream but most indie games are deriviative as hell.
Indie developers are often a bunch of clueless amateurs who produce shoddy, substandard work and expect you to pay them for it.
Indie games are mostly just a bunch of simple puzzle games.
Indie games look like they're 10 years behind the times.

That is so funny, because if you replace "Indie" with "open source", you pretty much sum up the slashdot crowd.

All I know is that it was a big crowd. It might be what you consider the "non-paying" crowd, as I only got a couple of affiliate sales on the day, which is quite low for 40,000+ hits.

As has been mentioned before there are different kinds of traffic and not all traffic is equal. Hopefully those running ads on my site fared ok.

It seems that the comments on slashdot in general reflect an IGF impression of what it means to be an Indie, as opposed to the "if i can just make enough to pay my bills" that characterize a lot of members of this forum.

the IGF tries to glorify Indie games, and hold them up as the last bastion of innovation. This both hurts and helps Indie game developers. For one, it brings good press and exposure to the retail alternative. However it also sets a precedent that all Indie games are innovative and new concepts. It seems many of the negative comments on /. were made from that perspective.

The truth is, well designed; well balanced innovative gameplay is as difficult to create as a 3D engine.

Well, you could look at it from the opposite perspective.

The extremely low barrier to entry results in a lot of slap-dash, shoddy clone games flood the market, and that's the impression a lot of people get when they think about indie games. It's given us a bad rep... and that is NOT going to go away on its own. I wouldn't want it to. That's the beauty of it --- anybody can play.

But Game Tunnel's coverage may help change the reputation, if not the actual content. 95% of everything MAY be crap... but if we can hold a public spotlight on that 5%, it will make all the difference.

The truth is, well designed; well balanced innovative gameplay is as difficult to create as a 3D engine.
Amen, brother!

as if 95% of non-indie games aren't crap?

Well, yeah, but then it's put in pretty perfumed boxes so nobody can tell the difference :)

In all seriousness, though - the barrier to entry at retail is much higher, and the filters that are put in place at the retail level would prevent MUCH of that 95% from ever seeing the light of day. The problem is, the same filters prevent some of the really good stuff from ever making it onto the store shelves, too.

How they let Trespasser through, though, I'll never know...

That's dead right. Realistically, there are far more stinkers among the indie games, and they stink far more than a retail stinker ever could. But the low (virtually nonexistent) entry barrier is fundamental to the indie "thing", and that goes with the territory.

So go Gametunnel, we really do need to celebrate the best of the indie bunch and help the cream to rise in the public eye (er, that's a strange sounding metaphor, but you know...) It would benifit all of us to promote the idea that there are some real diamonds in the indie rough.

The truth is, well designed; well balanced innovative gameplay is as difficult to create as a 3D engine.

Actually, I don't think you go nearly far enough! A 3d engine is just technical work; it takes time and effort, but everything you need to know is well documented and if you follow procedure you'll do it okay. Whereas well designed, well balanced innovative gameplay is something even long-time pros struggle with, something we all have sleepless nights over no doubt. I would say that well designed, well balanced innovative gameplay is trickier than everything else put together!

Bah, a well-designed, well-suited-for-the-game 3D engine is a thing of beauty! :) Both inside the code AND in the final results. It's becoming less necessary nowadays... a halfway decent 3D engine and a modern 3D card can pretty much tackle whatever you throw at it if you don't go too nuts with things like transparency.

As to design --- I don't know. In a lot of ways, to me it's like sculpture. You just keep chipping away at it, playtest after playtest. The key is keeping an open mind, and not getting too jaded during development that you lose your judgement.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Now, like it or not that is a window into a very real public perception of indie games from people that aren't "inside" the scene.
You gotta remember: these are *slashdotters* we're talking about here. They're technocrats that like to find things to bitch about, and more often than not, there is a certain ideology that taints what they say. Commercial Windows software BAD. Open source Linux software GOOD. Cranky critters, they are.

-Erik

Right, but that just makes them bluntly say what it is that they observed. The point is that these perceptions did not come out of thin air.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Right, but that just makes them bluntly say what it is that they observed. The point is that these perceptions did not come out of thin air.

No offense to Slashdot or anything (since they're cool when it comes to linking us), but Slashdotters are known for that kind of thing. There's a difference between speaking ones mind ("The Platypus demo I downloaded from the Idigicon website was a horrible experience because of all the hasstle I had to go through to get it up and running") and being your stereotypical Slashdotter that attacks things because they read this one thing on this one site one time so now they're an expert ("All indie games are just puzzle games, just look at the Dexterity website!").

Dan's post about their impression being molded by the IGF is dead on as far as I'm concerned. Their press releases have a way of coming across as absurd elitism, while some of their choices are just bad (Bad Milk anyone?).

That said, some of the comments in the thread were interesting, and others were pointless. I did find it interesting that one person attacked GT for not having Puzzle Pirates included in the awards. But, PP was released after the release cut-off date. Unfortunately, I didn't see that mentioned anyone in the GOTY awards, it was only mentioned in the retrospective. I can also understand some of the other shots people took at the awards. Such as they were mostly action and puzzle games, that some very over rated games were even included in the nominees, or that no traditional adventure games were even in the adventure category. I'm not attacking Russell or GT(I can only hope that the DIY awards are half as interesting to read), just giving my informed opinion of how I see things, which is more than most slashdotters do, it just so happens that some of the people in the thread hit their mark while shooting blindly.

Hey, I thought Bad Milk was very interesting and unusual. It's true it came across like one of those bad film student imitations of David Lynch, mostly because of the terrible voice acting. But I enjoyed the demo I played (and actually didn't mind the idea of a game reminding me of a weird art student film although I'm sure the studenty part was unintentional). I don't know what the full version is like but from what I saw I certainly think it deserved to be recognised. It was enigmatic, original and had a strong vibe to it. I wish more games took those kinds of chances.

I also respect the way the IGF champions the risky and unusual. I don't know how they actually come across (smug and arrogant? not good) - but this is absolutely the kind of territory that makes me take interest when most games just make me yawn. I only wish that more people had more experimental tastes - so often the most interesting stuff will never find favour with the general public. But heck, I've given up on trying to understand people's tastes - no wonder big developers choose to focus on making things look more realistic rather than artistic - anyone can "get" that.

Hey now... :)

I did post the whole cut-off piece...perhaps should have just put it in a different article. I put it in the first GOTY article...I guess I assumed people would start at the beginning?

http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-viewarticle-13.html

On the opinions...everybody has their own. Since the awards came from a compilation of 4 people I felt much more comfortable that they reflected more of the public than they would have if I had done them alone. I can tell you that only about half of the games I voted top in category ended top in their category. My list for the top 10 was very different than the final list.

Next year I hope to maybe include 6-8 people in the determining of the games. The broader view helps to normalize things. Still I recognize that even if I had 8,000 people in on determining the finalists that there would still be people who disagreed with the end results.

So my basic feeling has just been that we did amazingly well. No-one can appreciate the ammount of time it took to do what we did. My hope that it would make some bit of stir and cause people to become more aware of indie games. So the goal was met :).