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Censorship and Security Paradoxes
The price for freedom is having to fight against people who would try and use their freedom to eliminate the freedom of others.
SIMON BELMONT
Censorship and Security Paradoxes
qI think it's worse that there are companies out there (in this case, Twitter) who would keep users like Alex Jones around because it's more profitable and they don't want to deal with committing to an opinion. People like Alex Jones generate hits and many platforms have, in the past, said, "Oh, we don't like to judge anyone on here, it's not our place to decide what can be said on our platform!" because they think pretending to have no opinion is somehow less corrupt.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are entirely responsible for the content they host. If you make money hosting conversations other people are having, you are responsible, to some extent, for what happens. If YouTube uses an algorithm that hides or deletes videos about gay marriage, they are responsible for that, and their users can demand better. Sure, they may not legally be required to do anything, but we, as the people using these tools and generating their money, can demand better.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter are entirely responsible for the content they host. If you make money hosting conversations other people are having, you are responsible, to some extent, for what happens. If YouTube uses an algorithm that hides or deletes videos about gay marriage, they are responsible for that, and their users can demand better. Sure, they may not legally be required to do anything, but we, as the people using these tools and generating their money, can demand better.
Pls watch this v impt video
Rise of the Indie or small studio developer?
To second what Shinan said, a lot of the well-known indie developers spent 5-10 years consistently making games and only seeing mild success before hitting a home run. I'm sure this is a great way to slowly build up your skills, but it also means you can slowly build a fanbase of people who are into your games, and will start checking out what you make in the future. As you get fans who will help you promote future games, you can slowly build up & up until you reach critical mass!
...Or that's the theory, anyway. Honestly, it's pretty difficult to continuously make games, art, or whatever, when you also gotta pay the bills and everything else. But, it does seem to be a trend I've noticed! Very few people see tons of success on their first game or three.
...Or that's the theory, anyway. Honestly, it's pretty difficult to continuously make games, art, or whatever, when you also gotta pay the bills and everything else. But, it does seem to be a trend I've noticed! Very few people see tons of success on their first game or three.
Rise of the Indie or small studio developer?
I actually kind of like the industry practice of tentpoling your studio with your huge AAA franchise, and using the profits from that to experiment on the side.
A lot of studios will use this money to fund their own offshoot studios and small in-house that serve as AA studios. Or, they'll use the money to act as a publisher to collaborate with smaller teams. This allows them to have a hand in more groundbreaking or experimental games, without risking the millions that come with massive AAA titles. Square Enix is a great example of a studio that does this, publishing games like NieR: Automata and Life Is Strange and seeing success with those titles while still being carried by Final Fantasy and other mainline franchises.
As far as indies markets go... yea, the discovery problem is a big one, now. I don't know how it'll get solved. It's really hard to break out of the idea that Steam is the only way to buy & play computer games today. Maybe it'll be new indie-friendly stores like itch.io? Maybe the indies that stand out will be the ones that know how to market? Maybe it'll be an overhaul of game reviews & games journalism? There's still a lot of undiscovered paths, I think.
A lot of studios will use this money to fund their own offshoot studios and small in-house that serve as AA studios. Or, they'll use the money to act as a publisher to collaborate with smaller teams. This allows them to have a hand in more groundbreaking or experimental games, without risking the millions that come with massive AAA titles. Square Enix is a great example of a studio that does this, publishing games like NieR: Automata and Life Is Strange and seeing success with those titles while still being carried by Final Fantasy and other mainline franchises.
As far as indies markets go... yea, the discovery problem is a big one, now. I don't know how it'll get solved. It's really hard to break out of the idea that Steam is the only way to buy & play computer games today. Maybe it'll be new indie-friendly stores like itch.io? Maybe the indies that stand out will be the ones that know how to market? Maybe it'll be an overhaul of game reviews & games journalism? There's still a lot of undiscovered paths, I think.
Rise of the Indie or small studio developer?
Yea, Sooz summed up the indie development risks really well. Indie is romantic and appealing, but there's a lot more stability in a studio job.
With regards to the "indie bubble" popping, I think it's closer to a gold rush that's winding down. The huge surge of indie games in 2008-2012 brought in indie games that saw massive success and made millions - Braid, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy. However, these were the first of their kind, moving from the free Flash scene and breaking into a new market of small, affordable, but well-made and super-polished games. They had the advantage of being the first and only ones on the scene. Games during this time could get away with little marketing and even good-sized flaws because there was little competition.
Nowadays, as tools improve rapidly and the development space becomes more accessible, making an indie game is easier than ever, and people have realized that it can be a sustainable business model. So, we've slowly settled into a space where making an indie game can be profitable, but it takes some time and a lot more work than it did before, and the results aren't as astronomic. I think that's okay! But it would be preferable to reach a point where indie game dev wasn't so obscenely risky.
If I had to postulate based on what I've read and heard, these are just a few of the problems making indie dev difficult:
1. The frequency and expectation for hyper-sales (Steam Summer Sale, Humble Bundle) creates a consumer expectation that an indie game is rarely worth more than $5 or $10, so devs are often pushed to selling their games at an unsustainable margin.
2. The few online game retailers (Steam is the big one) have monopolistic control and so have the ability to demand high cuts (the going rate has been 30% for a long time) although some newcomers like itch.io are shaking things up. This cut, alongside publisher cuts and many other little finances, adds up when you're not making million-dollar games.
3. The idea that game development is a labor of love and that devs don't need to pay bills still exists (as it does in most creative fields) and that's shared in the mainstream AAA industry as well. This can lead to consumers believing higher-than-cheap prices aren't justified.
4. There's a lot of untraveled ground in the indie space that needs to be figured out - especially marketing. I think the rush of 2008 or so gave the impression that a really well-made game would simply sell itself, and that doesn't fly nowadays. How to manage the whole process, from creation to sales to support, is something many indies are learning and the ones that figure it out are typically seeing positive results.
The doomsaying around the death of the indie scene is overwrought, for sure. I'm hopeful for the future of smaller games and I believe the scene will grow and continue finding space amongst the superstar titles. It'll never die, that's for sure - there will always be people determined to create, no matter what.
With regards to the "indie bubble" popping, I think it's closer to a gold rush that's winding down. The huge surge of indie games in 2008-2012 brought in indie games that saw massive success and made millions - Braid, World of Goo, Super Meat Boy. However, these were the first of their kind, moving from the free Flash scene and breaking into a new market of small, affordable, but well-made and super-polished games. They had the advantage of being the first and only ones on the scene. Games during this time could get away with little marketing and even good-sized flaws because there was little competition.
Nowadays, as tools improve rapidly and the development space becomes more accessible, making an indie game is easier than ever, and people have realized that it can be a sustainable business model. So, we've slowly settled into a space where making an indie game can be profitable, but it takes some time and a lot more work than it did before, and the results aren't as astronomic. I think that's okay! But it would be preferable to reach a point where indie game dev wasn't so obscenely risky.
If I had to postulate based on what I've read and heard, these are just a few of the problems making indie dev difficult:
1. The frequency and expectation for hyper-sales (Steam Summer Sale, Humble Bundle) creates a consumer expectation that an indie game is rarely worth more than $5 or $10, so devs are often pushed to selling their games at an unsustainable margin.
2. The few online game retailers (Steam is the big one) have monopolistic control and so have the ability to demand high cuts (the going rate has been 30% for a long time) although some newcomers like itch.io are shaking things up. This cut, alongside publisher cuts and many other little finances, adds up when you're not making million-dollar games.
3. The idea that game development is a labor of love and that devs don't need to pay bills still exists (as it does in most creative fields) and that's shared in the mainstream AAA industry as well. This can lead to consumers believing higher-than-cheap prices aren't justified.
4. There's a lot of untraveled ground in the indie space that needs to be figured out - especially marketing. I think the rush of 2008 or so gave the impression that a really well-made game would simply sell itself, and that doesn't fly nowadays. How to manage the whole process, from creation to sales to support, is something many indies are learning and the ones that figure it out are typically seeing positive results.
The doomsaying around the death of the indie scene is overwrought, for sure. I'm hopeful for the future of smaller games and I believe the scene will grow and continue finding space amongst the superstar titles. It'll never die, that's for sure - there will always be people determined to create, no matter what.
Rise of the Indie or small studio developer?
It still holds true that if you want the most possible creative freedom, going out on your own is the way to do it. However, your biggest tradeoff is obvious - a single person is limited by their own hours and magnitude of creative output.
It's not exactly a binary chart, but a one-person studio has the most potential creative control, and a 500-person studio has the largest potential game scale.
But, you're right, the advent of more powerful & especially more approachable creative tools like RPG Maker has led us to today, where it's entirely possible for a single person to make a game. It's still a massively daunting task, and for every successful team you see, there's likely 100 teams that never finish or release a project. And like I mentioned before, there are some types of games & levels of polish that are really only possible with a large, coordinated team. A solo dev trying to recreate something at FFVI's level is difficult - trying to create something at FFX's level is nigh-impossible.
It's worth noting that there are a lot of reasons people leave or avoid major studios:
1. Creative control is a huge one - it's unlikely you'll be able to pitch your dream game to a studio, and even if you do, you'll have to share your ideas with the other devs, marketers, and people who keep the lights on.
2. The mainstream game industry is also notoriously corrupt, overworking and underpaying employees. Many, many people who work in the game industry could take their skills elsewhere and make better wages, and have better benefits. It's hard to enjoy the creative process when you're sleeping in the office and working 60 hour weeks to pay the bills, or are constantly being laid off.
3. The AAA industry is also very isolated location-wise. Studios are almost always in major cities, and certain countries have a few or no studios at all.
I'm personally uninterested in working mainstream because I can save up more money working elsewhere, and then use that money to fund my own ideas & make my own games. Plus, I'd rather not spend 60 hours working, and I honestly rarely play AAA games nowadays... I don't have a ton of interest in making them.
My dream gamedev setup is to be in a small team of folks who know their craft really well (2D artist, musician, etc.) that I can totally trust to have complete control over their area of expertise, working on a project that we all believe in together.
It's not exactly a binary chart, but a one-person studio has the most potential creative control, and a 500-person studio has the largest potential game scale.
But, you're right, the advent of more powerful & especially more approachable creative tools like RPG Maker has led us to today, where it's entirely possible for a single person to make a game. It's still a massively daunting task, and for every successful team you see, there's likely 100 teams that never finish or release a project. And like I mentioned before, there are some types of games & levels of polish that are really only possible with a large, coordinated team. A solo dev trying to recreate something at FFVI's level is difficult - trying to create something at FFX's level is nigh-impossible.
It's worth noting that there are a lot of reasons people leave or avoid major studios:
1. Creative control is a huge one - it's unlikely you'll be able to pitch your dream game to a studio, and even if you do, you'll have to share your ideas with the other devs, marketers, and people who keep the lights on.
2. The mainstream game industry is also notoriously corrupt, overworking and underpaying employees. Many, many people who work in the game industry could take their skills elsewhere and make better wages, and have better benefits. It's hard to enjoy the creative process when you're sleeping in the office and working 60 hour weeks to pay the bills, or are constantly being laid off.
3. The AAA industry is also very isolated location-wise. Studios are almost always in major cities, and certain countries have a few or no studios at all.
I'm personally uninterested in working mainstream because I can save up more money working elsewhere, and then use that money to fund my own ideas & make my own games. Plus, I'd rather not spend 60 hours working, and I honestly rarely play AAA games nowadays... I don't have a ton of interest in making them.
My dream gamedev setup is to be in a small team of folks who know their craft really well (2D artist, musician, etc.) that I can totally trust to have complete control over their area of expertise, working on a project that we all believe in together.
Contract Musicians & Artists: When taking a commission, what descriptions and references work best for you?
Those are all super helpful tips!
This is one I've worried about a lot in particular - I'll definitely be inspired by other media and want to jump off it, but I don't want a copy! It seems like good back & forth between the two parties about the mood you're trying to deliver while letting the artist do their thing is really good.
Thanks for all that, it's good advice!
author=Mirak
Many times my clients don't have a good knowledge of musical genres, so I often tell them to link to certain songs they liked that sound similar to something they might want. I usually disencourage this practice though, because it inadvertently "stains" the creative process. The clients I love are the ones that give me a bit of creative freedom, and offer me the chance to surprise them. I've never received complaints about one of the songs I made where I had full reigns, so I still hope i'm not doing things wrong.
This is one I've worried about a lot in particular - I'll definitely be inspired by other media and want to jump off it, but I don't want a copy! It seems like good back & forth between the two parties about the mood you're trying to deliver while letting the artist do their thing is really good.
Thanks for all that, it's good advice!
Games - Tester
Games - Other
