Maybe that title is a bit too much. I say this because I’m not 100% sure the gaming industry actually needs saving. It has had its ups downs but, for the most part, it is an insanely popular business that is rapidly growing in both size and financial stability.
But while the industry continues to sell like gangbusters, the quality of games seems to decline. It’s a strange give-and-take relationship where, even though games now have budgets that would make some Hollywood blockbusters jealous, tight deadlines and censorship constraints make many a game broken pillars of the titles that they could have been.
The biggest problem is that, as we play these titles, we grin and bear the problems because we’ve come to expect them. We’ve become complacent with errors and problems in our games and, in some cases, the companies that make them; I love Bethesda, but I hate that I’ve come to expect that when a game of theirs comes out I’ll be restarting the game at least a dozen times within the first dozen hours of gameplay.
But, there may be hope: as independent developers begin to rise in both number and popularity, they’ve begun to provide the fresh innovation and talent this industry needs to revitalize itself.
They may not save it, but here are two ways independent developers certainly do help:
Fresh Talent
To anyone who's played Portal, this scene will probably look eerily familiar
You played Portal, right? That game that was really small back in 2007? Oh, wait, it wasn’t? I’m sorry, I must have been thinking of Narbacular Drop in 2004. See, it was a crazy little independent freeware game made by a bunch of students over at Digipen. It was awesome; you used portals to solve puzzles and they were interconnected and the physics were insane. You could drop items through the portals to activate switches and it was a zany, innovative little title.
I’m sorry anonymous reader, what did you say? That sounds like Portal? Oh anon (can I call you anon?), you are a hilarious character.
Both of these games sound the same because they’re made by the same people. Valve was so impressed with the small team’s project that they hired them on to make a game that revolved around the same premise and innovative ideas found in Narbacular Drop. Portal, which won more awards than God’s “I’m-a Gonna Smite You”, was made by less than a dozen fresh-faced college programmers.
And Valve isn’t the only company looking at independent games for talent; Microsoft and many others are bringing a huge focus to indie projects. Xbox Live even has its own section for these games and, with mobile gaming becoming as massively popular as it, many others are eschewing a life of consoles for portable devices and making a mint doing so.
These developers see the flaws in current gaming just as well as we do; the only difference is that they have the chops to actually do something about it while I just complain on a website (Hi guys!). And who knows? Maybe among these ramen-fed, bank-account-gradually-needing-more-resources individuals we may have the future Will Wright, the next Miyamoto. Maybe one of these guys will have an idea that reinvigorates the Japanese market, or maybe they’ll join forces with Keiji Inafune and have a way to make it die in a fire and come back stronger than ever.
They like the phoenix, right? That’s a good analogy? Whatever, I’m sticking with it.
Stretching the Boundaries
I have a question: What’s better than Babiez, Rocket Riot, and Halo?
The answer is Rocket Babies. Imagine it: a first-person shooter where you join a ragtag group of babies with rocket launchers out to save the world. There’s love, there’s romance, there’s probably some breast feeding here and there. It sounds awesome, right?! I’m going to stop doing this right now and go pitch this idea to Bungie for their new game!
…Ok, so, that didn’t work out as well as I had thought. They laughed at me and then sent a gang of nerds all dressed as Master Chief after me and they beat me with fake, plastic guns. I’m pretty sure one even whispered a dirty, racist word to me.
I won’t repeat it. I’ll spare you guys the misery. Know this; it started with a Q.
Development companies have a problem: they have to appeal to as many people as possible because, if they don’t, they’ll be shut down. It’s why every game that comes out, save for a few, is the exact same game as it was last year. These guys are on super strict timelines that have been decided by some bigwig who hasn’t played a game since Pong.
It’s why, even though people hate that Blizzard pushes back their games time and time again, no one can actually complain when they actually do release games because they come out damned good. It’s why Fallout is so damned buggy and self-destructive; these guys are making a game that has twice the world size of Starcraft II in an eighth of the time.
The great thing about indie developers is that the only constraints are their own; they can make anything possible as long as they have someone to program it, someone to animate it (sometimes not even that), and someone to make some catchy text for it. Minecraft was made by a few people. It has sold like hotcakes around the internet and it’s just going into beta! It is a game where you punch elements and then make things with previously-punched elements; could you see EA putting that game out? Hell no, they’d punch you and fire you AT THE SAME TIME.
Want to make Rocket Babies? Give it a neat gimmick, make it run well, and give it some decent graphics and I’d happily slap down a couple dollars to play it on my mobile device of choice. Make it a quality product and, while a major company won’t pick up that exact game (or they might and just call it something different *cough* Maxsplosion *cough*) maybe they’ll like your style enough that they’ll want you to make something a little more politically correct but essentially the same game.
Indies can help improve the industry… by making Rocket Babies. Please make Rocket Babies, I want to give you my money.
Or, just make something awesome. But, whatever it is, keep making it; you guys are helping the industry more than you think.
(No, really, make Rocket Babies.)
