Indie developers spew rapid-fire rants

Even I think Apple's App Store is trash. It's filled with so much derivative, unoriginal content that it makes the iPhone/iPod touch a poor gaming platform. At least OpenFeint is a fun Xbox Live alternative...

Amusing thing now. Refene's game was removed from the iPhone store. He got no reason at all. A week after his rant at GDC or his experimental prices? Funny stuff, and an interesting result...

Heh, I liked the guy's tirade against the iPhone App Games.

I'll just agree with Refenes that the Appstore is just awful and how he said: "is fundamentally flawed." :)

lol wow these guys are pissed off. But some of their complaints are valid, like the one on the game media. I understand the game media is a business just the game industry itself. But lets be honest, its not like we can turn on Fox News or get the Daily News to get the latest info on the game industry. There are but so many sources of information gamers can turn to, so its not really necessary to have every article be only on the mainstream blockbusters to retain traffic. There are other games out there besides CoD, Mario and AC that can be given attention by the media.

so let me get this right, that guy Refenes jacked up the price of his product to absurdly high levels to "test" or "prove something"... yet its the present, his speech given, yet he still rips of consumers of HIS products, literally insulting and cheating the people who pay his bills... yet everyone else is the a-hole? Nice try buddy, try looking in the mirror sometime.

@dakan45 were you trying to make a point because nothing you wrote seemed to make any sense.

lol @ Refenes charging $349.99 for a game on the iPhone store. I work in a nightclub on saturdays and I can't tell you how many d-bags walk in with an iPhone and wearing Ed Hardy and think because they do they are cool. I can totally see some of these shmoes paying 350 bucks for a game just so they can say they bought it and try to rub it in someone's face. HAH!

@Bozanimal The takeaways are awful because I was trying to represent a good cross-section of the numerous gripes a dozen different people made during the hour-long rant session. And being a rant session, a tongue-in-cheek tradition of GDC, offering solutions isn't really expected. In a few cases, the takeaway recap consisted of absolutely everything said on the topic. As for Vella, his point was just that indie developers "win" because they work on what they enjoy and are part of a positive community instead of slaving away for "the man."

In order for "indie" to succeed in anything, whether it's video games, music, or whatever, it must offer an alternative of SUBJECTIVELY high quality material to the non-indie mainstream products. That means it has to truly be as good or better on paper, has to produce some respectable sales, and not just "good" in your little "indie is better!" bias brain. Video games are not like music or movies. With music, you find an unknown singer who can sway emotions like Norah Jones, rent a studio for an afternoon, and you may have hit gold, all for under a few hundred bucks. With video games you need programmers, directors, writers, light designers, level designers, character designers, musician, development kit, high-powered PCs and equipment, etc. There are no indie games out there that provide a better alternative to the mainstream stuff and there never will be (re-read above paragraph if you just had a brain fart). Name any indie game and I'll name a similar mainstream game that is light years ahead in quality.

@MooncalfReviews yeah stoped reading wend i read that.

I want to play Super Meat Boy.

"To prove his point, Refenes talked about his joke game Zits and Giggles. He put it on the store and it wasn't selling, so he jacked up the price to $15. Three people bought it, so he jacked the price up to $50. People still bought it. He began to check the game's sales sporadically, and jacked the price up every time people bought it. Currently it's selling for $349.99." Now THATS funny! dont let activision get wind of that marketing strategy!

@Bozanimal: Pretty much just Prodigy and Usenet I believe. Pretty sure those were the main forms of internet... everything back then. Geocities came after Keen was already finished. I'll never really have sympathy for a company that can't gather its own good press since, as you mentioned, plenty of the old companies got started that way. I mean seriously, Epic and id started this way, why can't you? And whoever says indie developers can't create anything as good as the big developers... you've got issues. Besides the aforementioned Torchlight and Trine, the guys behind The Maw and 'Splosion Man, Braid and Alien Hominid / Castle Crashers would like to have a word with you. Oh and the guys behind Portal came up with the game concept before starting to work at Valve - it's what got them the job.

"Zits and Giggles", hahhaahh

dakan45 Posted Mar 11, 2010 3:48 pm GMT Indie developers are weak. They can complain as much as they want but they never make a game like the big developers. Torchlight solid game, indie game. Trine, solid game indie game. Also most of these game company's were making the same style of small games years ago o.O

I kinda agree with Tommy Refenes though about the iPhone apps. I can't imagine doing an FADC on the iPhone. ;)

Indie developers think they are the resistance, not all game companies are suits sweating it out for guitar hero 55 you know...

@Rogue_Link You are talking about games like fallout 3 and and borderlands. They took 4-5 years. Also stalker took that long, and was not as big. They just lacked what the big developes have. Also last time i checked Batman Arkham asylum took what? 2 years? Also the pop trilogy was made in 1 year each. So no points were made, sorry you were wrong.

great post

@Dakan45 Are you kidding? You have no idea how hard it is to obtain the time and resources required in order to make a large title from big developers. The reason indie games are so small is because they don't want it to take 5-10 years to make one.

Indie developers are weak. They can complain as much as they want but they never make a game like the big developers.

Games are too long? They aren't long enough! To the storytelling point; not to be a douche or anything, but (even though I agree with the point), I still can't remember an indie game with a good storyline.

Its funny, an article discussing EA, Activision/Blizzard, Square Enix, or Capcom, would have you slamming them for being these huge companies who don't care about games and only the bottom line. Greedy Mega Corps. that remake and rehash the same games year after year with no new ideas or concern for gamers. Now, we are talking about simple, low budget games full of new ideas. Created by people trying to eck out an existance against these huge companies and you have nothing good to say about them either. Seems to me we have a case of wanting too much cake and still trying to eat it anyway. Also on a side note, I think that it wouldn't take much for these gaming sites and the gaming media at large to cover Indie games and Preview/Review them.

well magicalclick to "grasp the key points" which gamespot cleverly hides in the undecipherable "wall of text" you must go through it with your eyes and retrieve the data to your brain,this is called reading. Your welcome

But couldn't we have something more organized? I mean, I can't grasp the key points when they are all hidden in the wall of text. Maybe GS is too professional for me?

The gaming media does an inadequate job copyediting and covering the indie sector. Yeah because, ya know, every time some schmo who got together a bunch of friends to work on a game manages to release something the gaming media should take their time away from the gamut of other games to devote themselves to it. Admittedly the sites really could do to pay more attention to them but that's just whining, especially in a day and age where any developer worth his salt can drum up online support for his game. Seriously Snakes on a Plane did it and that was terrible. if their game is any good they can do the same without needing the mainstream media to bend down to help.

@melante That's the whole point, to waste time and get free meal. Usually they offer freebies in the events like this. I have been to one for envirnment and I choose the car industry meeting. Same thing, rant rant and more rant. Then, finally they went to a dinner party where you can see Terminator/Arnold on the stage. Too bad I left early because mine is free pass without food, and I was hungry LOL. I did saw his car with group of polices when I drove out, oh well.

well, they ranted about some problems: did they propose any possible solution? If not, it seems like a waste of time to me....

Um, so-called "rants" have been a staple of GDC for years. It's always on a different subject. It has nothing to do with GameSpot being biased towards indie games/developers. The rants are in place for developers to say what they think is wrong with the video game industry.

Ranting!!!

Yeah, I think this article is really weak. It asserts too much opinions on the title and I can't seem to understand the whole point of the article. Just bunch of wall of text with no meanings to them.

im here to rant how i have pay 80 points for games my dog could make!!!

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