So, one of the posters (Ari) was wondering why there is not an Indie game movement for video games, like there is in film. The example he used was Disney and Miramax. Technically this already exists for all of the major publishers, Activision would be Disney in this example and Infinity Ward or Neversoft would be Miramax, but what he was getting at is a real problem and that is the real independents, the production houses that are not owned by the big publishers, that are feeding a lot of the good content to companies like Miramax and Disney.
There is a whole ecosystem in the film industry that I could go on for days about, so I won’t. The bottom line is that it is easier for experienced Directors and Producers in film to get money to do their next project than it is for Directors and Producers in video games to do the same. We do not have a system like theirs and I have heard stories about even the top tier guys in the games industry having issues getting funded. Could you imagine Spielberg not getting a deal, me either, but I can imagine a host of other very talented individuals out there right now, working for other firms instead of striking out on their own, because there is no system for us to get money, to build the next big thing or even explore the idea of it.
This topic is probably going to get me in some trouble, but I think that we need to discuss it for the health of the Indies that are out there struggling right now, all of the guys on the sidelines not taking the leap of faith and trying to go at it alone because it is just too scary and especially the developers that are trying to create the next big thing. The innovators, the risk takers.
So why is it so hard? No money, really.
No money for starting up, no money for bridging between projects (unless you borrow from a bank), no money for development (prototyping), no money for anything.
This means that if you had a project with 100 members for your last big release, then you need to let a lot of them go, unless you already have your next project underway or you were able to sack some of the money from the last project away, or you need to self finance a prototype out of your garage and then shop it around for a year. Both of these cases drain a lot of savings, kills a lot of new and established businesses and generally scares the crap out of anyone that is thinking about venturing out on their own.
Some would argue that there are tons of Indie developers making casual games and free to play online games. They are right, there are a lot, but they all are not making any money. You don’t see any big publishers in this space. A lot of speculation, some good games and the wild west of the internet haven’t panned out yet. Some would also argue that there is now XBLA and the Playstation Network and WiiWare that allow Indies to take a stab at it themselves, but again they need to bootstrap themselves and many of them just don’t have the infrastructure, experience or skills to make it big, nor the marketing or manpower muscle of the big publishers.
So how do we fix the problem before all of the Indies get bought, fail or the Indie spirit dies?
- Publishers all around the world need to take some risks. With the billions of dollars they are making, they should be putting some of that money to work on very speculative, risky ventures. This doesn’t make sense to the stockholders now, but in a few years when everything is the same it will make more sense.
- Create an organization that helps fund video game startups to the prototype phase and beyond.
- Producers and decision makers at the publishers need to get behind new ideas and new developers and go down with the ship if they are passionate about it (this has been successful for me recently)
- The entire industry needs to help each other. The big guys out there with all of the money need to help the upstarts. Everyone wins.
- While it has been cool that GDC and others have included Indie game development in their shows.
- More of us just need to take the leap of faith, take some risk, venture out on our own and take over the world.
- An all new model that hasn’t been discussed here…
What do you guys think? Lets discuss some more, because I think that collectively we can come up with ways to make this a better life for both established and would-be indie game developers.
