Jay Barnson - Page 2

10. From the view of an (ignorant) outsider, it strikes me that there is no move to establish a centralised 'hub' to promote and sell all kinds of indie games, though there are conferences and sites on learning about and supporting indie development. Is there something I'm not seeing?

Well, at one point, we looked like we were getting one. Or three. Then they jacked up their royalties to the point where they are taking the lion's share of the profits, limited their games genres to just a few that brought in the most concentrated income, and left the developers with the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Not that I blame them - business is business after all.

But that's the problem with centralization. That's the opposite of "indie," really. When you've got some kind of centralization, it means you are surrendering power and control to those guys. And they can't possibly be all things to all people. For an indie, the whole point is to do your own thing. If it makes sense to work with these guys, great. If not - screw it, you can do your own thing!

11.How much awareness is there of indie games outside more dedicated gamers? What do your relatives or the people you meet at the bar think when you tell them you're an *indie* game developer?

There's not much awareness, at least not nearly enough, even amongst the gamers who *play* these games. The "indie" thing means something to developers. But does Joe Gamer, who plays Halo 3 on his XBox 360, really recognize this difference when he gets sucked into a flash game online? I don't really know. It seems like it's just not something think or care about.

I think they attribute the difference to technology rather than team or budget. They understand that you can't do Halo 3 in Flash. At least not yet. But even young, aspiring game developers get caught in this trap of believing that technology is the limitation, rather than budget, manpower, and expertise. They don't fully recognize that they can't just get some friends together and whip out a last-gen blockbuster or MMORPG in a few weeks.

That's a challenge to indies, because our audience doesn't judge our games based upon our budget. They don't care, and they shouldn't care. I can go out to Amazon right now and buy a new copy of Oblivion for $30. Or Final Fantasy XII for $19.99 - that's the sweet spot for indie game prices. Why should someone spend that money to buy an indie RPG from my site instead of either of those games? Indies have to be ready to answer that question.

(And they have... http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2008/02/why-indie-rpgs-indies-of-round-... )

On the plus side, I think that's starting to change a little bit. With indie games now becoming available for the XBox 360 and getting some attention in the press, I think people are starting to become aware of who we are, and what we offer.

12. How can indie game devs (and fans) raise awareness? You've said before that the "biggest problem indies have is exposure". What can be done about that, in today's industry?

The number one thing is to play indie games. It makes no sense to talk about something you aren't interested in and don't know anything about. When you can talk about games like Depths of Peril in the same sentence with Diablo 2, that means something. And that's really the point - games are meant to be played. If people are playing them, buying them, and talking about them, everything else will follow. Indie games are getting some "buzz" now in the press, something that was inconceivable as little as four years ago. Indie games need some good grassroots support from players.

The other thing we need is probably some more marketing savvy on the part of developers. That's tough. Most people get into indie game development because they want to make games, not because they want to market games. But really - we need more interesting stories to tell the press. I think the time is right, and the press really just needs something interesting to talk about from the indie gaming scene, plus a really good game to go with it, and they'll be all over it.

So play the games, talk about the games, and bug the magazines and your favorite gaming websites to tell you more about indie games.

Braid certainly got plastered everywhere, at least.

13. Is the Braid 'saga' something akin to what you are talking about here? What impact do you think Braid had on this whole area?

Braid has definitely had a ton of marketing power behind it, and it has kinda become a bit of an indie poster child. And deservedly so. Does your average player download Braid and say, "This is an indie game, what other indie games are out there?" I don't know if they do. But it has definitely garnered greater media and industry attention, which is great for us all.

The biggest victory of all for Braid and some of these other games is that there are these really successful games out there that are very fun, worth every penny of a gamer's hard-earned cash - but which are nothing like the technological powerhouses with hyper-realistic graphics and believable hair movements that the industry has worked for years to convince their audience is a necessary part of a quality game.

I think that shift in perspective is a huge part of the battle. The other part - for those of us making games for open platforms - is to help the potential audience look beyond publisher-dominated distribution channels for quality entertainment.

14. It seems to me that the big issue is how there might be hundreds or thousands of people who might play your indie game, but they just never find out it exists. Should/will indies start turning to more mainstream methods of 'exposure' marketing once they have the financial muscle? (e.g. Penny Arcade's Banners Everywhere, or hell, 'contracting' people for prettier websites and the like?)

You are right - that is a pretty big issue.

You make it sound as if the indies are some unified group that is gaining financial and political strength as one big collective. I mean, sure, many of us are getting smarter about what we're doing, and teaming up to try and tackle some of these jobs through cooperation that we couldn't handle on our own. But we're nothing like a united front.

Hopefully some of these more traditional marketing routes will be open to reducing some of their costs for indies. We're seeing that now in some other areas of the industry - mainly for development, with some companies offering a difference between an "indie" and a "commercial" pricing for services or whatnot. Which I think is kind of a weird distinction, because most indies do have some kind of commercial aspirations. But hey, it's an outreach program to help make life easier for indies. Maybe we'll see more of that in the marketing arena.

Another thing to consider is that indies are not just miniature mainstream game developers, and what works for mainstream by way of marketing may not work for us. In fact, in a recent interview with Nick Tipping of Moonpod (an indie game company founded by two mainstream veterans), Nick told me,"Things we thought would be invaluable turned out to be useless; Mr. Robot and Starscape got incredible reviews in magazines, but even the smallest website review has a much bigger impact than a magazine."

(http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2008/08/interview-with-nick-tipping-of-...)

So in a lot of ways, we're still figuring out what's going to work. Sure, more successful indies will have more money to throw at the problem, which will usually yield greater success. But since indies tend to "go niche" more than trying to compete head-to-head against the mainstream, I don't know if trying to directly imitate our mainstream cousins is a smart way to go.

15. What kind of impact can indie games such as Aveyond, Eschalon and your upcoming Frayed Knights make on the RPG market in general, and mainstream RPG designs?

Because of expense, mainstream games are becoming increasingly risk-averse. They want proven designs and properties wherever possible. I think in part, indie games may be proving that there's still a solid market for types of games that have lost favor as game design has been riding the coattails of the most recent best-sellers. Maybe a few successful indie RPGs will shake things up. Maybe not.

Really, I don't care if indie RPGs make an impact on mainstream games or not. While I wouldn't mind more mainstream RPGs that match my sensibilities, I'm pretty happy so long as there are indies out there making the kinds of games I want to play. I think doing just that - addressing the niche audiences - is the biggest contribution and impact indie RPGs - and indie games in general - can make for the market.

Is it really necessary to be able to sell a million copies to that theoretical "Mass Market" in order to stay solvent as a game developer?

The Bioshock guys certainly thought so.

16. Are we seeing a trend towards simpler, less challenging RPGs that 'hold the player's hand'? Where does your design philosophy, and Rampant Games titles, stand in relation to that?

Well, I appreciate some hand-holding. I've got a few games I've never finished playing that I could probably have used a little more hand-holding on.

But there's a sense of satisfaction that you can get from figuring your own way through devious problems in games. Doing your own detective work and discovery. If I had to pick one way or the other, I'd really lean more towards the more challenging, less hand-holding method. That being said, my ideal would be a happy medium where the player can work it out for themselves the hard way, but help would be available in-game when the player gets too stumped. Sorta like how Bejeweled might give you a hint if you spend too long not making a move.

17.How important is fan feedback for an indie developer? How much, and in what ways, does it influence the way you design and promote your games?

In mainstream game studios, you get pretty insulated from what people really think about your game. You are separated from your customers by a publisher and a distribution system two layers thick. You are cut off from your primary feedback mechanism, which is unit sales - you wouldn't know the difference between a hit and a flop until the publisher gave you numbers which might or might not resemble reality. You really aren't making games for players - you are making games for the publisher, usually meaning an overworked game-loving producer and a whole bunch of non-gamer marketers, bean-counters, and executives.

As an indie, it's a whole 'nother story. It's all about the players, and making them happy. They are the ones who pay for your game-making habit, one way or another. It's them you want to make the game for, not some dudes in a suit in some boardroom looking at numbers on a chart and trying to do remote committee-based paint-by-numbers game design. And getting that feedback from customers and potential customers - early and often - is critical.

One experiment I did this year was to release a "pilot" of my game in development, for the express purpose of soliciting that feedback on the direction I was going. It was a huge success. I found a lot of people complaining about the same things - things I can fix at this stage - and a lot of outstanding suggestions for improvement. It's that direct kind of feedback - and potential for improvement - of a work-in-progress that I just can't see happening through traditional, mainstream game development.

I think it's awesome.

A big thanks to Jay Barnson for this comprehensive look into the life and thoughts of an indie developer.