I’ve come to realize that Inland Studios never really had a company logo. It’s been nearly a decade that I’ve been floating around the internet with no identity. To some degree I suppose that was okay. I mean, do we need a logo to be successful? That’s hard to say, but it can help people identify with you, your vision, and your goals for the company.
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Archive for February 27, 2012
New Company Logo, Maybe
Category: games
New Website, New Beginnings
This little snippet and similar versions are EVERYWHERE. The reason is that I wanted all of the links that are currently spread to the 4 corners of the world to continue working, even after the site have been changed considerably. To do this, I kept the old directories like “/blog” and redirected any blog requests to the appropriate post.
$url = "http://www.inlandstudios.com/en/?"; if($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]) { $url .= $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"]; } header( 'Location: ' . $url ); |
In short, hopefully few people will not experience any pain if they have old links stored in their bookmarks. Still, I highly recommend that you update your links just in case things move again in the future. It took some serious effort to migrate everything into the new website and I hope you like it.
The website is now ready to grow and capable of showing more content and more games than I could before. The crusty old website has been replaced by a well oiled machine and will allow me to provide some really cool features in future products.
Category: games, general, programming
The Future: A Scary Place
@Ben_Quintero: “Can’t think of another industry where it cost $1M to make and sells for $1. And is something buyers still mull over so much. #videogames”
I wonder if chewing gum would exist today if it cost $1M and a team of college-educated masters of their craft to stamp out 500k sticks and they sold for $0.01 each. I kind of feel like video games might be going the way of chewing gum, sitting in the impulse isle next to People magazine and The Star (is that still around?). The difference however is that Bubble Yum hasn’t changed in like 100 years and they are still selling it. Video games have a very short life and often die with their target console. Then we need to spend more money to create more entertainment value but the flavor of our gum has to be different each time.
This was, strangely, what I awoke to this morning. I thought about all of the hours in my lifetime that I’ve put into video games. I thought about the long nights, the tireless efforts, the mind-melting problems that needed to be solve in order to get the simplest of things to happen on the screen. The hundreds of man-hours that go into the little things that the player is NOT supposed to notice (ie: uncanny valley, visual pops and artifacts, anything that breaks immersion). I thought about all of it. Then, that one quote sprung to mind.
I could be completely wrong here but I just could not think of any other industry where people put this much effort into something and ask so little in return. The closest resemblance may be Hollywood, but even they have some luxuries that we do not. When a film like District 9 is made on a $37M budget, or even some of the horror films being made for less than $1M it makes you think.
It seems like anyone with a Canon 5D DSLR can frame it up and take amazing video that is strikingly professional looking, even if by accident at times. Still, following some basic rule of thirds and understanding aperture go a long way. The beauty of nature and the talent of the people in front of the camera are key elements. Sure, there is lighting and composition but again, lighting and shadows are practically free when you compare them to the hoops we have to jump in the digital realm. In video games, digital artists agonize over the limitations of things like a single shadow-casting light source and a handful of fill lights while an indie film maker just needs an umbrella and a flood light from Home Depot.
I think that the video games industry are some of the brightest stars but you know what they say about the stars that burn brightest… I do hope that we can maintain this pace and I applaud my brothers and sisters. With budgets expected to rise again, new consoles expected to push 6x the horse power (more devilish details to UV-unwrap, paint, sculpt and light), and prices continuing to plummet, I hope we are ready for what lies ahead. The future is a scary place, but we will manage… I hope…
Category: general
Xbox LIVE Indie Games at it Again
There has been a lot of buzz (again) around Microsoft’s attempts to bury anything under their Dashboard that isn’t a Zune or Doritos advertisement.
I just don’t know what to think about this anymore. If you’ve read my post Working for Free then you know that I don’t exactly take pleasure in pouring my heart and soul into something without some kind of promise that it will at least payout (even a little bit). Don’t get me wrong I love making video games and that hasn’t changed in my 16+ years of doing this, but I can’t help but wonder exactly what Microsoft’s real intent is with Xbox LIVE Indie Games.
After grinding through a list of ideas, I’ve come up with a few things that Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG) is NOT:
(!)A way to promote your name as an indie developer
The fact is that not many people look at this service with rose colored glasses. It is the bastard child of Xbox LIVE, so much so that they insisted on appending “Indie Games” as if to remind everyone that these are not Real games they are Indie. Okay, maybe that assessment is a little backhanded but thinking about it. The title of Indie is both, a way to promote this ethereal concept of cool and not-mainstream while simultaneously apologizing for the crud that sits along side the truly entertaining games. It was pretty smart on Microsoft to use this title.
To ensure that no one will mistake you for a serious developer, they’ve gone to great lengths to segregate the Indie games service from the “real” games service. If you plan to use this service as a way to promote your development skills, be sure to include the 7 step process it takes to find your game. A video tutorial of navigating the Dashboard menus might help too, oh and a map of Valhalla in case they get lost along the way.
(!)A way to upgrade into “real” games
When I first heard about this service, I started developing games under the pretense that the better quality games are pushed up to the XBLA platform. Though this is partially true through their Dream.Build.Play contest, it is an event that only happens once a year. That means that 4 lucky developers out of the hundreds will find their way up to the ranks of XBLA. Though this is a step in the right direction, I’d like to see a process that would allow more than 4 games per year make an appearance.
(!)A career opportunity
Though there is some weight to saying, “I made a game on Xbox, here’s a download code” as part of your resume it doesn’t stretch much beyond that. The skills that you acquire in developing an XNA game are only 5% or less of those you would apply to a true console title. There are high-level concepts that you don’t often deal with on PC, like prompting the user if the controller is pulled out or dealing with the console Dashboard popping up, but the low-down technical knowledge here is not very applicable.
There have been recent claims that the top 50 games have averaged over $100,000 but I am skeptical. When you have Minecraft clones consuming 50% of the honey pot it doesn’t leave much for the other 47 games to fight over. On top of that, I am certain that the curve on that graph is an exponential decay; meaning the last 30 on that top 50 list have likely made less than minimum wage. In short, if you are in it to pay your bills and eat food look elsewhere or hope that your Minecraft clone will be ready before the wave has past.
Conclusion
I know that this post sounds like a lot of complaining, but it really is more of a reminder and a warning to those looking to strike it rich whenever they read about some Minecraft clone making $2M or some Avatar abuse game making over $100,000. The XBLIG market is a fickle ocean of impulse buyers who often follow the trends of whatever happens to be in the top 5 or screaming for their attention through Microsoft promotions.
In spite of all this bashing, I am giving XBLIG one last chance for redemption. With my book Mind of the Mencist now published on most major marketplaces, I have returned to the Indie games service for one last chance in my latest game. After this, I just don’t know if I can justify my months of gut wrenching effort for a service that doesn’t want to know my name. It is a loveless relationship but, for a dual-stick shooter that uses the full analog spectrum, it’s one that is worth giving one last chance before I venture back to the world of PC games… Xbox analog sticks, you will be missed.
Working for Free
Being an Indie developer is tough. In an economy where it is precious to even have a day job, indie developers have to muster the courage and motivation to choose one of two major paths. The fork in the road is simple but the ramifications are enormous.
To the left you have the path of the gambler, the person who leaves everything behind in search of his ideal game. He quits his job and cuts down on his spending to conserve what little money he was able to gather in his time with the work force. Pushing all his chips onto the table, the gambler approaches his future with an all-in make or break mentality; health insurance and 401k be damned.
To the right you have a the path of the analyst, the person who is willing to take small risks and moderate investments but only spending money that would otherwise be considered for entertainment such as luxurious vacations. The analyst would tell you that investments are a lifestyle not a gamble on your future, enforcing a frugal life in order to balance the new expenses. The analyst has a day job but allows his nights and weekends to be consumed by his drive to make money outside of 9-5pm.
Both paths have their pros and cons but lead to one result however, working for free. There is more to “working for free” than the time that is put into these games however. With video games having a heated race down to the lowest dollar, we’ve literally hit rock bottom. At the rate we are going, I am half expecting developers to offer cash for anyone willing to play their games.
Both approaches seem to have worked for people, but their approach seems to have less to do with their success. There have been just as many stories of a break out success from guys who programmed on a 48 hour marathon as stories about full teams of people who quit their jobs to seek funding and form studios and work for years on a project. You also have just as many failure stories as well. There have been stories of one guy working for a week on some iPhone game and selling 1M units. There have been stories of teams fading off of the release charts as quickly as they appeared, losing their shirts in the process. For whatever reason, certain markets seem to push the success of titles on a whim. What made Physics Game #99 any more successful than Physics Game #43? Was it the color of their start button? Maybe; and no one can truly say for sure, though people do love to speculate. If someone had the answer after all, they probably would be too busy swimming in their vault of gold coins to read this blog.
I’ve personally taken the road of the analyst. As a family man, I responsible for more than myself. After looking at the trends in video games lately, I don’t know that I would have ever taken the path of the gambler. Why would I when the facts show that the chance of success or failure have nothing to do with fervor in which the game is made? I am sure that plenty of people will disagree with me but if I am going to work for free I might as well get paid while I do it (i think that made sense).
Category: games