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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@Lyx - echoing a bit of what derek said, another thing is that not only do you wish fish to have perfect integrity (by not putting concerns of living over concerns of the fairness of making the game available to as many people as possible at once), but you're also expecting him to be a short of hyper-genius, who can create a new model of making money with games with his first game, as well as a totally new style of game.

so i think that's the problem a lot of people (such as those you call kindergarteners) have with your objections -- it just isn't very reasonable to expect someone to be capable of all that. i.e. if the alternatives are succeeding with a plan as grand as that or lack of integrity, then almost nobody is capable of acting with integrity; but i don't think only one-in-a-million geniuses are capable of integrity, shouldn't it be something that regular folk who can draw okay and program okay and think okay but aren't exceptional at those are also be capable of?

[moi]

I hope the next generation of consoles has an iPhone-style distribution system, business model and revenue share. That would be indie paradise. And it's not totally unthinkable, the way things are heading (PSN, XBLA, WiiWare, PSPGO, DSiWare, etc)

Yeah and you'll get 10% on $0.99 games, that's the future

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i do not think it would be indie paradise to have iphone-style distribution (i.e. everything being sold through some other company rather than selling direct to consumers on your own site). to me, the point of being independent is dealing with customers directly, selling things to customers, doing customer service on your own, with a one-to-one relationship. middlemen just get in the way. sometimes they can help you get a slightly larger audience, but for me the focus should always primarily be on direct sales to people off your own site.

if you don't do that primarily, you aren't really financially independent of those other parties. if you don't have your own customers, and rely on some other company's audience, they could refuse to publish one of your games and you'd be broke. in effect they still can control you every bit as if you were a dev team for apple.

[fish]

id rather be creatively independent than financially independent.
which i am.
and ill be financially independent after fez.

im gonna be double-indie, suckers.

 

[Super Joe]

im dying

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

too much stevia water, super joe -- all that cold fusion happening in your guts is catching up to you

[Jrsquee]

congrats on the xbla deal, fish
can't wait for the game

[Alec]

2.  There is a platform-independent middleware solution for "3D renderers".  It's called OpenGL, and it works great, and loads of "big" games are made with it.  There are also cross-platform middlewares for sound and user input... like SDL (which probably does not work on XB360, but IO and low-level sound are a pretty small part of any code base).  So, you don't have to spend any time "developing a platform-independent" framework yourself.  Derek can tell us about Aquaria's cross-platform dev... I'm guessing it was OpenGL as well.

Hi, programmer of Aquaria here.

Graphics: OpenGL
Input/Window Management: SDL
Audio: FMOD
Scripting: LUA
other assorted libraries: GLPNG, GLFont2

Point being: Yes, you can make a cross platform engine using existing components. You don't have to write everything from scratch.

[Gold Cray]

GLPNG

THANK YOU.

[Alec]

GLPNG

THANK YOU.

?

[Gold Cray]

I was having some issues with SDL, SDL_image, and pngs.

Except that glpng loads them nicely, but introduces a lot of weird distortion.

[Alec]

Except that glpng loads them nicely, but introduces a lot of weird distortion.

Hmm, what kind of distortion?

If you're using OpenGL, your textures should generally be in dimensions of power of 2. I think by default glpng might try to make the texture fit power of 2 width/height.

i.e. 256x256, 512x64, etc

I could be wrong though.

[Gold Cray]

Except that glpng loads them nicely, but introduces a lot of weird distortion.

Hmm, what kind of distortion?

If you're using OpenGL, your textures should generally be in dimensions of power of 2. I think by default glpng might try to make the texture fit power of 2 width/height.

i.e. 256x256, 512x64, etc

I could be wrong though.

That's a good point. I've never had problems with bitmaps, so I just ignored it, but now...

Thanks again.

[Jason Rohrer]

I hope the next generation of consoles has an iPhone-style distribution system, business model and revenue share. That would be indie paradise. And it's not totally unthinkable, the way things are heading (PSN, XBLA, WiiWare, PSPGO, DSiWare, etc)

Yeah, I'm totally not excited about that future!  I think that some filters in place, beyond the whims of the masses, are a good thing.  Someone to focus people's attention on the good stuff.

That's why I've given up on iPhone dev and am working with a publisher.

Having a successful iPhone game is a bit like winning the lottery.

Also, would y'all say that the iPhone is currently an "indie paradise?"

[Zaknafein]

(Though you may need a few XNA hooks for achievements and such)

XNA is strictly for C# development, so if you make a C++ game on the Xbox, you don't touch XNA. It's a new thing, and there's very few titles on XBLA that actually use XNA.
So for platform hooks it's the XDK (xbox dev kit) extensions. Thought I'd clear that out.

I believe that the reason Fez uses C#/XNA is mainly because that was the language/framework that Renaud knew best---I think he was learning it in school or something like that.

About that... Yeah C# is my language of predilection and I couldn't imagine making Fez with anything else. I don't regret this choice, I still think it's as good as it gets.

XNA was in its infancy in 2007 and it was looking like the "next big thing", so I figured I'd give it a go. I was more used to Direct3D programming through higher-level engines, did a little bit of OpenGL, but I was more comfortable with the DX way of things (less immediate mode & flattened state machine, more batching & object-oriented).
So it was just a natural choice for me.

Of course the fact that XNA opened the "Xbox path" helped the choice. We said it on the IGF'08 showfloor and I think in interviews : the game was designed with the assumption that the player has a CONTROLLER in his hands. I can play it pretty well on a keyboard, but Fish & Jason think it's a terrible interface for Fez. So there.

(Not confirming nor infirming anything about a PC release, by the way.)

[Kramlack]

Congrats on the Xbox deal, unfortunately, it's not my system of choice so I won't get a chance to play it, but again, congrats none the less. 

[Alec]

Congrats on the Xbox deal, unfortunately, it's not my system of choice so I won't get a chance to play it, but again, congrats none the less. 

...unless you wait for the inevitable PC release. 

[Melly]

Lets make an internet petition! They'll certainly read it!

[rekcah]

ARGGHH!! How come most of the games I want to play are coming out in 2010?
*goes to sleep for 6 months*

[Bennett]

Yeah, I'm totally not excited about that future!  I think that some filters in place, beyond the whims of the masses, are a good thing.  Someone to focus people's attention on the good stuff.

That's why I've given up on iPhone dev and am working with a publisher.

Having a successful iPhone game is a bit like winning the lottery.

Also, would y'all say that the iPhone is currently an "indie paradise?"

I know the complaint about the iPhone store is that there is a lot of crud rising to the top, and a lot of gems sinking to the bottom. But is this actually true? I think that element is falling out of it quickly as the iPhone review press and social media are starting to coalesce. Furthermore, I think there's enough audience to go around, so if someone makes a million dollars for 'pull my finger', I don't need to feel jealous about it.

For iPhone dev you need to do your own branding and marketing, which is something a publisher would do for you. But I like that! It means you can get a pretty high royalty and more importantly, you can publish games that will only sell 500 copies and still make a profit. Maybe that's not attractive if you want to write one game every five years, but for someone who wants to make 100 miniatures over 5 years suddenly it's possible to make money doing that.

That's why iPhone dev is a paradise. You can make any kind of game you like, and still make a profit.

iPhone also has these benefits for indies:
- low barriers to entry, both in terms of money and experience (look at the problems Bob Pelloni had getting a DS game published)
- relatively rapid to publish (not as quick as flash though) meaning you can get topical projects out
- you can sell games for any price you like
- inbuilt social promotion tools

And it has these benefits for all game developers, both indie and mainstream:
- large market for the games
- automatic updates
- almost zero piracy
- players can impulse purchase the game when they are trapped on a train, and have it instantly delivered. This one is so crucially important I can't even express how important it is.

If you're making a monolithic indie game like Fez, or like Braid, I can see why you want to get a publisher involved. Your costs will be high, so to make a reasonable profit you really need to sell for a higher price and you may want a professional marketing team to give you a push.

But not everyone wants to quit their job, get a loan, and bet the entire farm on a four-year project. Some of us are hobbyists, and some of us want to make small, high-risk games that turn a profit every week or month. Flash and iPhone have been massive gifts to these latter groups.