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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Quite a bit actually.  In particular, I agree with the idea that somebody trying to create a salable product will typically expend much more effort in making it well-constructed and presentable, and in getting the word out about it to the market.

If it's only that, I don't think we needed an article to point out something that's fairly well-recognized. Most of the difference between, say, Aquaria vs the average Game Maker forums game, is due to experience and the amount of time and effort that goes into each.

But the advice it actually gave to people to achieve better games is worthless.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I mean, here's ten things I'd recommend that people do at random in order to make a game more polished:

1 - Use room transitions of some kind, it makes a game look bad to just jump from a screen to another without transition. Even just fading to and from black is better than jumping without transition between areas of the game.

2 - Have an options menu or an options .ini file where the player can turn sound on and off, change the resolution, lower the graphical effects for slow computers, and so on. People have different preferences about that sort of thing.

3 - Use sound effects for feedback, as a rule of thumb, most actions that have some impact on the gameplay should have some type of sound effect. It feels pretty bad when this is lacking.

4 - Learn about color harmonies and try to make the screen visually appealing most of the time (I think this is the biggest mistake of programmer-artists).

5 - If the game is text-heavy, use bitmapped fonts rather than a .TTF, and texture that font somewhat, and outline the font in black, it looks much nicer.

6 - Virtually all computers have stereo speakers, so if a sound happens on the left side of the screen, make it come out of the left speaker a little louder than out of the right speaker. This is a subtle effect that goes a long way.

7 - Give your game a website and a forum or forum section, even if it's freeware. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a page with a link to its reviews, YouTube videos, a few screenshots, and so on. It's pretty helpful to people in deciding whether they want to try out the game, and is better than posting a zip file on a forum somewhere.

8 - Have a lot of playtesters, at least a dozen and preferably about a hundred. And watch them play the game in person, sit behind them and just watch, it helps you see things you'd miss otherwise.

9 - If the game is unique or complex or if there's anything your playtesters were confused about it, give it in-game help about that point. Preferably provide an in-game tutorial explaining things that some people didn't understand.

10 - Unless the game is a fan game (where it's intentional), never use graphics or music or sound effects that you didn't create yourself.

That list I came up with in about 2 minutes would be more useful to someone than that blog entry is.

[LThenton]

*Snip*

That list I came up with in about 2 minutes would be more useful to someone than that blog entry is.

Very true, and good advice, there.

[handCraftedRadio]

Great advice Rinku, I'm definitely going to try these things, Thanks!

[Chris Whitman]

Well, it all depends on what you care about, doesn't it?  But seriously, I think there is a market to sell almost anything one could be really passionate about--it's just a matter of reaching it and expending enough effort on whatever you're creating that people actually think it's worth paying for.

But that's just another straw man argument. It isn't a matter of finding a couple of people who like whatever it is you're hawking, it's a matter of finding enough people to provide a return on investment and convincing someone who can commit capital to the project that it is worth spending their money on. Obviously, if you care about something a lot, chances are at least some other person cares about it as well, but if your idea costs the amount of money needed to employ a team of people for a year and a half and you can only make $500 in sales, it isn't profitable.

My point is that even ideas that are not profitable can have personal value. The idea that all worthwhile ideas generate revenue typically relies on both a value judgement about money as a sufficient condition for worth and the fallacy of denying the antecedent. I won't argue with the former, because if you believe money makes something worthwhile, that's your prerogative, but the latter rests on the idea:

If X makes money, X is valuable.
X does not make money.
Therefore, X is not valuable.

The alternative is to consider profitability necessary and sufficient conditions for value (which makes the above form validating), but that is equally ridiculous. I have a scarf that an ex-girlfriend of mine knit for me. It's my favorite scarf, but she didn't make a dime from the exchange.

Doesn't mean you'll get rich or famous doing it.  But why would you get into game development to get rich?

Because it's a multi-billion dollar industry that makes many people very, very rich? I'm just saying -- obviously it isn't likely to make you or I rich, but it does make quite a number of people extremely wealthy.

Quite a bit actually.  In particular, I agree with the idea that somebody trying to create a salable product will typically expend much more effort in making it well-constructed and presentable, and in getting the word out about it to the market.

I was mostly being snarky and sarcastic. I agree with that point, but I don't think it gives me any new information I didn't have before. People like money; I get it. The rest of the article is just slander directed at people who are interested in personal accomplishment more than business.

[Chris Whitman]

I mean, here's ten things I'd recommend that people do at random in order to make a game more polished:

The difference is that you are approaching this with the idea of helping people to improve things they care about, while the writer of the original article approached it with the idea of stigmatizing 'unprofessionalism.'

Good list, by the way.

Edit: Can we make that a thread? I think it'd be neat to have a 'little things you can do to improve your work' thread.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I have a number of game projects and game ideas that I don't think are salable at all (for different reasons), but I'll make them anyway and just make them freeware or donation-ware whenever they're finished. An adventure game using the Fedora Spade engine about a guy who goes into a forest to gain enlightenment which is all black and white; a game similar to the old Koei simulation games but also using some ideas of Chris Crawford's; a shooter where historical philosophers like Sartre and Aristotle fight at the end of the universe to decide the fate of the next; etc. But because I want to survive as a business too that influences which games I decide to work on at any time, so I tend to bias which games I work on toward those that other people might also like. Though this varies, I spent December just working on the enlightenment game and nothing else.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

The difference is that you are approaching this with the idea of helping people to improve things they care about, while the writer of the original article approached it with the idea of stigmatizing 'unprofessionalism.'

Good list, by the way.

Edit: Can we make that a thread? I think it'd be neat to have a 'little things you can do to improve your work' thread.

Sure, I'll post it as a separate thread.

[Terry]

Probably my favourite piece about games this week was Andrew Doull’s Amateur column about the difference between Indie and Amateur. Judging by the comments thread, not many people seem to Get It. You need to accept Andrew’s terminology and then just roll with it. If you do, it manages to nail a fundamental difference in the approach of developers to the work and throw a lot of great one liners too. I especially liked “Indies release when they’re ready for a private beta; Amateurs release when the game compiles”, “Every odd numbered Introversion title (Hacker, Defcon) is indie; every even numbered one (Darwinia, Subversion) amateur” and Peter Molyneux being analysed as the patron saint of amateurs.

"lol no"

Off topic: whoever's posting on RPS as "terry": could you please, like, stop it? You're not Terry. I'm Terry. You're someone else.

Damnit, now I need a new handle.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

That's why you should never identify with common first names :D

I usually use Paul Eres or rinkuhero on forums/blogs, since it's not likely to be confused with anyone else. It helps that I've a rare last name too.

[Terry]

That's why you should never identify with common first names :D

I usually use Paul Eres or rinkuhero on forums/blogs, since it's not likely to be confused with anyone else. It helps that I've a rare last name too.

Lucky you I suppose I could use my last name, but it's a bit long and convoluted to use as a handle. Ah well.

[ZombiePixel]

No need for anyone to get defensive.  I'm not sure what article you guys read but this was clearly in the tone of supporting "amateur" development.  The last line is:

2007 has undoubtedly been the year of the indie. Make 2008 and beyond the lifetime of the amateur.

Given the choices in that article I'd take amateur over indie any day.  It's a false dichotomy (I believe that's the term) that one must choose love or money in this or any business.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It's not so much that it was offensive, it's just that I didn't recognize either of those types among the independent developers I know, so it felt like it was talking about something that didn't exist. As two examples (from memory):

- I don't know anyone who uses geocities for their independent games site; they either don't have one or they use a regular server.

- I don't know anyone who releases their game as soon as it compiles. The people that tend to release games precipitously tend to use game engines like Game Maker anyway, so compiling doesn't apply to them.

[Zaphos]

No need for anyone to get defensive.  I'm not sure what article you guys read but this was clearly in the tone of supporting "amateur" development.

The picture it paints of an amateur is a rather insulting one, though; the "amateur" of the article is whiny, irresponsible, uneducated, autistic, insecure ...
Sure, you can say, "it's a good thing!" at the end, but it's still insulting.

And it's further aggravated by the fact that it's just wrong; it doesn't describe the broad range of people who are actually amateur developers very well at all.

[Massena]

Replace "looser" with "amateur" and that's how I feel about that article. It's cool to be an amateur (although in my case it's just cool to play amateur games, since I haven't made one) and making silly games is the only way to learn how to make games, so I don't get why the author is so angry at silly games with flashing geocities pages.

And I do think the article is kinda offensive to the people who just want to make games for fun, for the heck of it.

Edit: "the amateur game is the guy standing outside the window without his pants on." What's that even supposed to mean? Amateur games have no pants?

[PHeMoX]

so I don't get why the author is so angry at silly games with flashing geocities pages.

Perhaps he's simply frustrated because he never could get his geocities page to work?

Although at some point even "hobby companies" (amateurs? I don't know, some games are really goooood) should show sóme professionalism, there are plenty of minimalistic site with AWESOME games... so really in my opinion anything goes as long as the games are good.

[v-rus]

All this classification is pissing me off, why can't we all just be one big happy family of game devs? I mean, it's not like everyone is either an "Indie" or an "Amateur". I'm sure there are many of us out there that share qualities of both categories.
Death to Mr. IT Manager and his hatred of Dwarf Fortress and all things 16-bit!

[Alex May]

He doesn't hate amateurs; he is one himself.

[Zaphos]

He doesn't hate amateurs; he is one himself.

Technically hating something and being that same thing aren't mutually exclusive ...
Rather I'd say he doesn't hate amateurs because he's very positive about what they can produce?

[Alex May]

sure, ok