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[eclectocrat]

Also I'm curious as to what people's opinion on people releasing high quality free games is?  Does this devalue games as much as a very cheap but only available for free game?  Strange as it seems in my mind I feel like a very cheap game is going to devalue games as a whole more so then just a free one.

I'm also curious about this. My game may not be considered 'high quality' yet, but I put a lot of work into it and am releasing it free on Windows and Mac. I'll explain my mindset, perhaps someone can critique it.

I'm somewhat inspired by the ideas of "Blue Ocean Strategy" and brand development. I think that blue ocean is about not fighting over a demographic, but simply broadening the demographic you are targeting. Many people may interpret this as diluting your vision, but I posit that it's not necessarily so. One way to target a broader demo is to release for many devices, another is to add editing and appeal to designers, another might be providing multiplayer options, etc, etc.

Brand development is about associating good things with a brand. Any successful product will generate a brand, but it's also possible to make it more of a feedback loop by creating expectation and interest, then deliver a piece of product, and generate more expectation and interest, all associated with a brand. Many franchises manage to do that, and a lot of indie's manage to inadvertently doing that through a combination of alpha funding and pure passion. At this point, anything with 'creator of dwarf fortress' is an automatic grab for many people. I never read the New York Times, but I read the article about the DF guys, because the DF brand is huge among roguelike/simultation fans and indie games fans in general.

So, while giving something away for free devalues a product, it can build the value of a brand, and expand the market for that brand, in turn opening up the possibility to increase the total revenue of future products. And since we're talking digital assets, increased revenue basically equates with increased profits.

That's the general theory, but I'm not confident that it's the best way to approach it, only one way.

[Christian Knudsen]

I think that's what most indie developers (at least the smaller teams) have done. They've built up a fan base and sharpened their own developer instincts by making and releasing games for free, then moved on to commercial titles at some point.

However, isn't Blue Ocean more about developing completely original ideas/products to avoid struggling in a crowded marketplace? I'd say indie games is a pretty crowded marketplace, so you should probably completely abandon indie games if you truly want to implement a Blue Ocean Strategy.

[nico]

eclectocrat I think you are spot on.

Indie games IS a crowded marketplace, but yet people still manage to be successful in it all the time.

I don't think the Blue Ocean strategy necessarily means creating a totally new marketplace. The way I interpreted the book is that most "blue oceans" can be found in any market simply by looking at what everybody else is doing, and purposely planning and trying something different. A very similar concept is the "purple cow" (from Seth Godin's book which IMHO is so good it should be read by anyone planning to publish anything, ever.)

I'd say DF, Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Desktop Dungeons and Aquaria just to mention a few of the top of my head, all fall well into this category of being entirely new in concept, and they have all been very successful. While the thousands of yet-another-generic-action-platformers have not.

[eclectocrat]

Could be, my understanding of blue ocean comes from articles I perused years ago...  

As far as I understood it, it was broad targeting of under-tapped markets instead of fighting in competitive markets.


EDIT: Hey, someone who read the book! That makes a lot of sense nico.

[Christian Knudsen]

Nico: I was mostly joking about leaving indie games altogether in order to implement the Blue Ocean Strategy. However, I disagree that the games you list are "entirely new in concept". Minecraft's concept was to make an Infiniminer clone. Super Meat Boy is a retro/hardcore platformer (based on a previous game, no less). Desktop Dungeons is a roguelike. I've left out DF and Aquaria as they are probably the most "new" in concept of the listed games. But I think DF's success owes a lot more to the developer's commitment to keep developing and expanding the depth of the game than being an entirely new concept (it's basically SimDwarves). And I'd argue that the success of Aquaria is at least as much because of its level of polish than its entirely new concept (the singing mechanic). This all really goes back to an older discussion of ideas versus execution, though...

[eclectocrat]

Plus innovation implies something radical to many people. I think that good execution can be considered innovative in some fields. Small changes can definitely be innovative. Not all innovations are as flashy as others. Sometimes combining unusual things in a good way is innovative. In those ways Desktop Dungeons is innovative.

[Klaim]

Could be, my understanding of blue ocean comes from articles I perused years ago...  

As far as I understood it, it was broad targeting of under-tapped markets instead of fighting in competitive markets.


EDIT: Hey, someone who read the book! That makes a lot of sense nico.

Maybe you're mixing Blue Ocean with The Long Tail, that is exactly what your describe. But in abstract substance it's almost the same idea : position yourself somewhere where you are alone providing what you're doing, by targetting niches OR by making something others couldn't achieve without you (artistically or technically).

[moi]

I think high quality freeware games do devaluate games alltogether.
That said there are not a lot of "high quality freeware", most high quality free games either don't get finished or are not so "high quality"
I know a dozen recent (in the last 5/6 years) high quality freeware games but not much more.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

what moi said is basically correct. the reason cave story was popular was that it was as good as a commercial game, but free. that's extremely rare, most freeware is nowhere near the quality of commercial games. so i think that releasing a game that's as good as a 15$ game for free devalues 15$ games, yes, it's just that it almost never happens because almost nobody can afford to make a game of that quality and then give it away for free

good games take thousands of hours of work, and people willing to do thousands of hours of work just for fame and not fortune are mostly limited to people who are a) under ~20 years old, and hence not usually experienced enough to make a good game, or b) have a well-paying job with lots of free time (like pixel), or c) the game is popular enough to make enough money just from donations (like dwarf fortress), or d) the game is open source and has hundreds of contributors who each spend a little time on it, with no one spending a crazy amount of time on it (like battle for wesnoth)

and remember that even cave story had to be improved and polished up before it was ready for commercial release. freeware can often be more "fun" than commercial games, but it almost never is more polished, or if it is it's often is very short with limited content (like legend of princess). i know some people like to say that fun is the most important thing, but polishing a game and just the sheer size of the game's content also matter, and do indirectly affect the fun (a game with good graphics and sound is often more fun than the same game with bad graphics and sound, and while a game that is over in an hour can be as fun as a game that lasts 30 hours, the amount of total fun you get out of them if you play through both games to the end is still lower)

that's not to say that freeware indie games can't be great, it just usually isn't as great on average as commercial indie games are. giving away 1000 low-quality flash games doesn't devalue the value of a high-quality flash game like the binding of isaac, because the quality difference between the average flash game and isaac is astronomical

[nico]

CK: I think that's kind of the point really - you don't HAVE to invent a totally, earth-shatteringly new genre to be innovative. As long as the result is unique, to the end user, it is innovative. The point is to make something that people actually notice, and REMEMBER, and to do that it has to be different.

Saying DD is "a roguelike", for example, is a gross simplification - it looks and plays is very different from most roguelikes, and because it has a friendlier interface it appeals to new people. I can't point to any other earlier game and say "Desktop Dungeons is just like that."

And the same goes for the other games. Minecraft being an infiniminer clone is not really that relevant - probably 99.9% of people who bought MC had never heard of infiniminer, so to its market it was entirely new.

[tametick]

However, I disagree that the games you list are "entirely new in concept". Minecraft's concept was to make an Infiniminer clone. Super Meat Boy is a retro/hardcore platformer (based on a previous game, no less). Desktop Dungeons is a roguelike.

Desktop Dungeons is not a roguelike, or at least not a traditional roguelike - it's a puzzle game/roguelike mix & I believe is one of the most innovative games of the past years.

Can you name a single game that plays even remotely like DD & came before it? Aquaria is closer to super mario than DD is to a typical roguelike.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think aquaria's closer to super metroid than super mario

[tametick]

i think aquaria's closer to super metroid than super mario

I'll trust you about that one, as I've never played any metroid game

I named SMB since I've actually played very few memorable platformers otherwise.

[Christian Knudsen]

Can you name a single game that plays even remotely like DD & came before it? Aquaria is closer to super mario than DD is to a typical roguelike.

So you're saying that a game with no platforming is closer to Super Mario than a game with randomly generated dungeons, monsters in said dungeons, turn based gameplay, selection of race and class for your character, chests with gold, shops to purchase weapons at, leveling up of your character, and permadeath is to a roguelike? Uhm, okay...

[tametick]

So you're saying that a game with no platforming is closer to Super Mario than a game with randomly generated dungeons, monsters in said dungeons, turn based gameplay, selection of race and class for your character, chests with gold, shops to purchase weapons at, leveling up of your character, and permadeath is to a roguelike? Uhm, okay...

So I take it you've either never played a roguelike or never played desktop dungeons?

Half of the items of your list are thematic and have nothing to do with the game mechanics, and the rest are shared by many other genres such as old-school RPGs, TBS & TBT games.

DD plays significantly differently from any other roguelike, to the point that if you're calling it a roguelike you might as well call nethack an RPG.

It is self-consciously inspired by roguelikes by taking all those base memes but makes a totally fresh and different experience out of them.

Honestly I don't know how to react to your statement that DD is not innovative because it is a roguelike - it suggests either trolling, severe brain damage or simply total unfamiliarity with the genre.

[dustin]

I'm with TameTick here, To me DD is much more a puzzle game with a dungeon crawling theme then it is a roguelike or dungeon crawler.  I can almost imagine it being a pencil and paper puzzle.

[Christian Knudsen]

Honestly I don't know how to react to your statement that DD is not innovative because it is a roguelike - it suggests either trolling, severe brain damage or simply total unfamiliarity with the genre.

When did I say it isn't innovative? I was objecting to another posting saying it's an "entirely new concept". But, hey, thanks for suggesting I have brain damage for not agreeing with you!

[tametick]

I'm sorry for the language I used, I just got really upset by your off hand remark saying "oh, desktop dungeons is just a roguelike".

It is IMO one of the most significant developments in computer games (indie or otherwise) of the past 2-3 year.

For me it sounds like someone in 1974 saying "oh, d&d is just a wargame".

[classicwinters]

I hard making a buck as a small guy, so as indie devs. It's a lot of work even in good times.

[eyeliner]

Isn't part of being Indie the independence towards monetary issues?

I don't really see indies having a hard time ahead. At most, consumers will become more selective dropping a dime less often. I hope this economic crisis brings forth new game making engines that are cheaper or free.