Topic: GDC: Burn down the House!

[KDR_11k]

What do you do when it burns? Let it burn!

Article
This article is a bunch of game designers talking about the rising dev costs and the lack of innovation in the industry. Warning: Contains MS, Sony and EA bashing that would get any poster here banned!

I won't give an abstract because I believe you need to read the whole article for the full effect. You might be able to tell what's in the article from my response but you're really missing out if you don't read it.

What does this mean for Nintendo? Well, obviously indy games are a real asset if you have them on your system. Cheap to make and potentially megasellers. One problem is that indies can't afford those console devkits. Since devkits aren't a major source of income anyway, giving those away for cheap would not hurt the bottomline much. If Nintendo had an affordable publishing solution that would allow indies to actually publish their games without selling their souls the indy market might just thrive. One method would be online distribution, since indies won't be tied to physical manufacturing volumes or something, their games would simply be on the net, for anyone who pays the charge to download. Let Nintendo take a not too large part of those d/l fees (part for the maintenance, part for making the suits believe in the idea) and give the rest to the developer. This way they'll see many new game ideas thriving on their system with little possibility for them to go to other consoles. So an indy dev could decide whether to use the online or the retail option, depending on how much they can pay for publishing.

Indy games can be truly invaluable assets, some of the best games on my PC are developed by independants. If Nintendo made the non-pornographic japanese indy games available for the rest of the world the Revolution will never see a lack of great arcade games (japanese indies love arcade-style games).

A revolution in how the games are played could also be a revolution of how games are distributed, right? (not that it replaces controller innovation but enhances it)

[Avinash_Tyagi]

I think Ninty has other companies produce the DEV kits, like Hudson ans SN are making the DEV kits for the DS, so for Nintendo just giving away Dev Kits or selling them for really cheap would probably not be a profitable way to go.

[KDR_11k]

Cheap in this context means two to three thousand dollars. Currently they're demanding ten to twenty thousand with the reasoning that they want financially stable developers (the problem being that they have to deal with too many proprietary technologies to let anything leak). If they made the Rev with indies in mind they could limit the knowledge of the technology needed for game development (or offer various tiers with less information and support being vastly cheaper and the really juicy stuff being expensive and well protected). Either way, they should search for a solution.

[nickmitch]

Buying a Dev kit its an investment which you then profit from later on.

[KDR_11k]

None of you RTFA, eh?

[PaLaDiN]

I read it... I just don't see anything I can add.

Seems Nintendo should do something about making dev kits cheaper for indy devs, as well as making sure they do out-of-order execution.

[couchmonkey]

So I finally got to read this.  Interesting how it starts off talking about issues of working conditions and stuff, but tends to sway more towards the rising cost of development and graphics versus gaming.

If someone is serious about developing an indie game, then a 10-20 thousand dollar investment is not unreasonable.  Having said that, I like the idea of cheap dev kits for independent developers and of creating a network for independent developers.  I'm not sure how Nintendo could manage this (how do you do it without ticking off big developers that had to pay full price?) but it could be worthwhile.  They could just lower the price in general, I doubt that the development kits are earning that much money for the company...but what do I know?

[RickPowers]

First, you can't just call a console manufacturer and say "I want to buy a Dev Kit for Revolution", for example.  You'd get laughed at.  They only allow "established" developers, so money is not the only hurdle a new development house faces.

[couchmonkey]

Well, I figured as much as that, but I guess that that is exactly the problem...sort of.  I personally think there should be some proof that the developer has at least one clear concept in mind before a kit is sold, and of course I wouldn't blame Nintendo for keeping kits out of indie developer hands when new hardware is still "under wraps" but I think enabling indie developers to make games for consoles has a lot of potential.  I can definitely see the industry getting into a groove where you have the multimillion dollar blockbuster games and little indie games.  PCs are already like that since nobody regulates what you put on them, and I think it could be to Nintendo's benefit to encourage something similar on its consoles.

[Pale]

I don't think Nintendo would hesitate to give a small Game Dev a kit as long as they have something to go on.  It makes sense that a dev that has never made a game before shouldn't be allowed to get a dev kit, otherwise they'd be giving them out to everyone.  Personally thats why PC gaming fits into the industry sooo well.  If you have a machine that plays the games, you have a machine that can make the games and thats a nice thing.  It isn't too much to ask of would-be developers to have them get their feet wet in the PC world first.

Also, if a small dev puts out a great PC game, I'm sure Nintendo would get in line to throw dev kits and financial backing at them...its just achieving the great PC game that is the hard part.

[KDR_11k]

I have a feeling that a good demo would be enough to convince Nintendo but their "with offices and an organizational structure" rules out indie devs no matter how talented. They say they give access to too many secrets so they want real companies that don't leak info but what about making the Rev in a way that very little secrets have to be given out? Anyone can develop Windows PC games without any confidental data from Microsoft. Perhaps they're worried about pirates but they could simply keep their production tech secret and allow everyone to set up the code but publication won't work without going to Nintendo. Have the dev kits require different binaries or signatures to prevent people from playing pirate games on their devkits and there you go. As I said before, online distribution would reduce the costs of failed games (no surplusses that need to be buried in a landfill) and the "problems" of second-hand sale and rentals.