OUYA Free the Games Fund

[Admin]

I strongly recommend Leadwerks developers participate in the OUYA Free The Games Fund. Not only do you get twice the pledges, you get a spotlight you wouldn't have otherwise:

http://www.ouya.tv/freethegamesfund/

 

We're coming up on the OUYA stretch goal so it looks like you'll be able to do this. I'll make sure OUYA support is implemented early if anyone makes succeeds in this.

[Rick]

This is interesting and I'll have to start thinking about it. However, I think the reality will be that 4-5 games will eat up the majority of this 1 million and most likely be made from ex-industry developers :-/. We almost need to start splitting the indie world from ex-omgamazing industry developers who have gone rogue and all us other folks.

 

Also be sure to read it all everyone. Only US and UK is allowed.

[Josh]

If you're not already a major player, it can be more effective to focus on a niche platform like this.

 

Vultures don't swoop in and steal a carcass away from a lion. If they did that, they would end up as a snack. Instead, they stand out of the lion's reach and grab the bits and pieces he leaves behind that aren't worth his attention.

[Rick]

The thing that I seem to see more of is these individuals who have already worked on some major titles in the game industry, quit their game jobs and start an indie company. At that point they are vultures but vultures that have 10 or so years or professional experience makings games 8+ hours a day 5+ days a week. Yes they are "indie" in that they don't have a big company with lots of money backing them, but the playing field is far from level in things like this. I don't blame the people doing this as they put in the time and risk to get into the game industry in the first place and they deserve their rewards, but it would be nice to have the reality of such things shown so as to not get false hopes by the rest of us. I'll attempt to show these realities now for fun

 

Let's take what seems to be the mothership for indie success, Minecraft. Notch worked as a game developer professionally for what seems to be about 5 or so years before he did Minecraft. So if we say he worked (and I'm being conservative here) 8 hours a day 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 5 years we are looking at him having 10,400 hours of professional training as a game developer. Side note, there is a book called Outliers that says 10,000 hours is the magic number of hours to be great at anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

 

So let's take a look at what maybe we all think of as indie. Your average non professional probably gets to put in 10 hours a week into game development if they are lucky. That means to get the same number of hours we would have to do this consistently for 20 years, and that's questionable if with such limited time each day/week you get the same training and value from it.

 

So, as I too dream of making a living and being a success from making games, and I'll chase chances like this when they come up, I am also a realist and understand that the "weekend" indie game developer has an even smaller chance of success then is let on in the indie world.

[Josh]

It's a lot easier to be an indie today than it used to be. You have funding and distribution you never would of had access to a few years ago. When the XBox 360 was released, it would have cost about $40,000 just for the privilege of making a game for Microsoft's platform.

[Rick]

I agree 100% with those comments. What I want to make clear to everyone who maybe doesn't know this already, is that the word "indie" doesn't always mean what I think a lot of people think it means. In fact I think it's even more rare to have an indie team with no prior professional game development experience have big success.

 

If John Carmack quit his job and started making games on his own, he'd be considered "indie". If he then went on to start a kickstarter for Ouya, he'd get 250k (1/4th) instantly. John Carmack won't do this, but there are thousands of people with the same level of experience as John and who have worked on massive titles who are doing this because they then get the creative control of their games and because, like you said, so much more is offered now.

 

 

So basically we have an indie game scene with thousands of highly trained professional game developers...

 

 

So in your analogy above, the people who don't have all this industry experience really are the vultures. However, the hyenas are the people who have around 5+ years experience in the industry on major titles who choose to quit their game development jobs to start their own game business. So after the Lions get their meat, and the hyenas get theirs, then use vultures come in and try to get what's left. The truth, however, is there is very little left. This trend is only growing for the hyenas as the scene becomes more indie friendly. The hyenas will still rule the indie world.

 

Knowing this myself, I still chase it, so I don't mean to discourage anyone but give facts about what seems to be happening in the indie world. The more friendly the indie world becomes the more the professionals move in without their big business backers.

[Pancakes]

I'll be trying for this since the deadline seams to be 2014? Did I read that wrong. Anyway I don't need to meet a $30,000 funding goal for my project so to get this would only be icing on the cake. Dat sweet frosty pancake.

[Rick]

@Pancakes Maybe I've read it wrong but it seems like you must have a funding goal of 50k or more to get the match? Not sure where you pulled 30k from.

[Naughty Alien]

Hahahahahaha...comparisons with animal world really make ma laugh..omg...I havent had such laugh attack for years , from reading forum, and even more weird, programming one...gooood one haha