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[Theophilus]

, or that he knows some secret handshake on some secret mailing list?

it's official, there IS a secret handshake

[Matthew]

- I'm (personally) not a member of the invite-only design forum you mention.

this is partially untrue; we are both on one together. but it's not a forum, it's more of an email group, and it's not about design, it's about business; i think he just said forum but meant secret groups in general

i don't really have any problem with secret groups like these, it's just when those groups get special favors that it becomes a problem. for instance, if something like the humble bundle were only open to members of such a group, that'd be a problem (although as far as i know that's not the case)

"If" indeed!

And I didn't mean to imply that I'm not on any private/secret/whatever lists, just that I'm not on all of them; nobody is.  Everyone is an outsider to some community/group or another, and people cross in and out of these things all the time.  Generally speaking, "inside" is never as exclusive or powerful or influential as someone imagines.  It's usually just...people.  Sometimes they're excited/happy/driven people, but they're still just people.  Phubans could probably speak to this with his before/after TIGJam expectations and experiences...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@mattheww - yeah i don't think it's all *that* important; as phubans implied, it's possible to succeed without being an insider; look at notch for instance; he succeeded largely without external help. it varies from case to case

there are people who would not have succeeded without connections, and people who succeed without them, and people whose games can't succeed even with all the best connections because they aren't very good at making games, etc. etc.

you didn't reply to the indie fund part of my post, though (but that was an edit, so you may have missed it). from what i remember, manual evaluation of submissions to the indie fund was judged to be more effort than it was worth, so it reverted back to invite-only? of course you don't need the indie game fund to succeed either, most games succeed without it, but it's hard to argue that absolutely no nepotism exists when the indie game fund exists and is invite-only: http://indie-fund.com/apply/

[Glaiel-Gamer]

The thing that bugs me about all the indie-elite arguments is that people seem to think it's IMPOSSIBLE to join one of the so-called "elite groups".

All you really have to do is go to any event, and talk to someone. Make friends with people, none of the 'elites' are trying to "shut down the little man", they just aren't *actively* seeking out lesser knowns to build connections (with a few exceptions), so the responsibility is on YOU to approach THEM, not the other way around.

Yeah, connections are hugely important for general success, any counterexamples here are an exception and not the rule, but making connections is easy. Go to events and talk to people and make friends.

Also make good games.


Secondly, I already posted a list of IGF nominees from 'unknowns' (it's about half of them), so to even claim that *only* "elites" get nominated is pretty false, or at the very least a huge misleading exaggeration.

[Dragonmaw]

All of those games were secretly planned, developed, and controlled by me. Including Fez. I am the power behind Phil Fish 

[Manuel Magalhães]

Are you two made of trixels?

[TeeGee]

Yeah, connections are hugely important for general success, any counterexamples here are an exception and not the rule, but making connections is easy. Go to events and talk to people and make friends.

I generally agree, but remember that not everyone lives in the USA or Canada where the said events take place.

[Matthew]

RE:  Indie Fund

Nepotism is reward based on relationship, regardless of merit.  It's a strong word, and I think you're swinging it around a bit recklessly here.

Yes, we did remove the public submission form from Indie Fund.  We had 400+ submissions, which everyone looked at (and we emailed everyone directly regarding their entry, taking turns every month).  It was a huge amount of work.  Q.U.B.E. was the solitary result, although it has definitely been a success.  It's super inefficient for us, though, especially considering how little time we have available.

We aren't saying you need a relationship with us for funding.  We're saying you need enough merit to catch our attention through some means or another.  There are a TON of ways to do this.  The IGF is one avenue, surely, but there are direct ways (Gunpoint is a really good example--the game pops up on everyone's radar because it's rad, and with something like that we'll shoot an email inquiring about their funding situation).  Really, all you need to do is somehow pop up on one of our RSS readers/Twitter/whatever, and a fund member will elevate your title internally for discussion.

Put another way, we're just letting other organizations discover merit first (blogs, festivals, etc), rather than dredging hundreds of submissions ourselves...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

All you really have to do is go to any event, and talk to someone.

as teegee said, this is only really feasible for people in the US, and people in california in specific. there are very few events on the east coast, and even fewer in places like poland, australia, indonesia, russia, etc. how many indie events are there in new jersey (where i am), for instance? i can't really recall any

@mattheww - understandable, but couldn't the application process simply have been re-arranged so that it takes less time? for instance, ask all applicants to submit a video of their game no longer than five minutes, and no other information; the video would have to be mostly gameplay (rather than cutscenes/hype/etc.). if you liked the video, you'd then contact them for more info about it. that way it'd only take 5 minutes per applicant. at that length, 400 applicants would take about 30 hours to go through, which isn't that huge of a time sink

[Chris Bell]

Not to distract from the current conversation...but I'd just like to say "Hi". I rarely come to these forums but will make it a point to be more active since I find this community to be incredibly important.

Some of you I know, most I do not. I'm Chris Bell. A creator of Nuovo nominated "WAY" (and IndieCade Dev's Choice). I also design at thatgamecompany. Anyways, I would just like to show my appreciation to everyone here. I'm incredibly inspired by so much of your hard work.

For what it's worth, I would not consider myself part of some secret society or inner-circle. I was as outside looking in as I was without a game to show for myself, and rightfully so. Certainly joining thatgamecompany blurred that circle, but I would like to believe WAY stands on its own merits, and played a hand in why I was hired at thatgamecompany in the first place.

Personally, I'm just incredibly grateful to have people recognizing, enjoying, and playing my game in whatever capacity...especially since it went unplayed for nearly 1 year after having to stop work on it to work on Journey (which thatgamecompany announced late into my team's 9 weeks making WAY)...a year that had me doubting whether it was as interesting as I personally believed it to be.

Anyhow, feel free to download and play. As it stands it is very much a prototype. There is much to improve on. Oh, and it's best with a stranger.

<3

Also, thank you for caring so damn much about games.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

If you want your game development to be a serious profession, the cost of going to gdc is an extremely justifiable expense, and pretty fucking cheap related to what you can get out of it.

Other countries governments will give grant money to travel, I know a few people who use this to go to EVERYTHING.

[Falsen]

When do the developers get the feedback for their games?

Sometime after GDC.

Source: Link

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i agree that it's a justifiable expense, it's just not one that everyone can afford. a gdc ticket is something like $600, plane travel varies by location but for me it'd be about $300 for round trip, taking buses / subways to and from the airports would be about $50, and hotels would be about $300 for a weekend -- for a total of about $1250. i don't doubt that it'd be worth that much in what i get out of it, but i've rarely had $1250 saved up as cash to burn, and if i did, i'd probably rather just buy a better computer instead of the 5 year old one that i use now

[Dragonmaw]

PS: Dragonmaw for admin

[Matthew]

@mattheww - understandable, but couldn't the application process simply have been re-arranged so that it takes less time? for instance, ask all applicants to submit a video of their game no longer than five minutes, and no other information; the video would have to be mostly gameplay (rather than cutscenes/hype/etc.). if you liked the video, you'd then contact them for more info about it. that way it'd only take 5 minutes per applicant. at that length, 400 applicants would take about 30 hours to go through, which isn't that huge of a time sink

30 hours times 7 people, so 350 hours total.  Is that the best use of our time?   We don't think so--and believe me, we think/discuss these things quite a bit--so we're changing our process to test that hypothesis.  Maybe we'll open another submission process later, but for now we're going to rely on the Internet as our submission process.  It's public, responsive, and easy to monitor.

Anyway, Indie Fund specifics are derailing.  Feel free to email/PM me if you want more details!

And RE:  GDC costs--you can volunteer, and scrape together for CA housing or a shared hostel or simply couch surf.  If you can't pull off GDC you simply don't care enough to make it happen.  I'm sorry, but it's the truth.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

If you can't pull off GDC you simply don't care enough to make it happen.  I'm sorry, but it's the truth.

seconding this

[deathtotheweird]

sounds like rich kid talk to me, go fuck yourselves.

not every one is in a position to put down that kind of dough, as much as they want to. and to say they can't do it because they don't care enough is highly presumptuous.

reminded me of that cunt michael rose who said 100 dollars (talking about the igf fee) is nothing. you three are fucking idiots.

edit: paul eres works every day on his game, it's a labor of love by the very definition. and for you rich cunts to go around saying he doesn't care becuase he can't afford it, is very fucking offensive. eat a thousand cocks, I mean that. fucking pricks.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

30*7 is 210, not 350. and you wouldn't necessarily have to have everyone see every video, you could divide them up, so it'd be 400/7*5 = 285 minutes per person, over the course of what -- a year (assuming the 400 applicants were per year)? that's kind of negligible. they'd then suggest the ones they liked to the rest of the group. i do see your point but i do think it is worth that amount of time to help a good game get made that would not otherwise be made, especially considering that's the purpose of the organization in the first place

and i agree that people who don't go to the gdc don't care enough to make it happen in relation to the other things they care about (like food and rent and making games and so on). it is true that it's always possible, but the point is opportunity cost: what else would a person have to give up to go to the gdc? for some people they wouldn't have to give up much, for other people they might have to give up much more

and this too is where the connections thing comes into play: a lot of people i know who go to gdc got extra passes from friends, stayed with local friends, etc. -- so on the one hand it's 'if you want to be part of the insiders group, go to the gdc' and on the other hand it's 'if you want to be able to afford the gdc, use the insiders group'

@allen - hahaha

[Dragonmaw]

This will be my 5th missed GDC since I started work in the game industry. I have judged for the IGF three times and still can't get the money to go to GDC and meet the people I talk to regularly

P. sad.

[phubans]

I've been at GDC for the past 4 years and every time I've gone for free; there's always extra expo passes floating around that people are willing to give away, in fact, one day during GDC I found a few just laying around on Market Street.

However, I think it's a little unfair to say people who can't make it due to financial reasons aren't trying hard enough. The passes themselves are affordable enough, but travel and lodging expenses could easily bring the total expense to over $1000, especially for internationals.

That said, I don't think the low-level passes are even really worth paying for. The best experiences during GDC week for me weren't at GDC itself, but all the parties that happen around outside of the convention.