It’s been about a year since I came across Unity. As someone who always played games a lot, creating them became my dream, like a lot of people on this board I’ll bet. Back then I wasn’t aware of the market realities and what creating games actually involved. Let’s fast forward one year.
Now I’m 18 and half-way thru a C# tutorial, as I will be handling the programming aspect of whatever game we’ll be making. I also have a relative who just started learning Cinema 4D. There’s one thing we agree on : the kind of game we want to develop would mostly fit only with a controller. It’s very hard for us to come up with ideas for a game that would use the Mouse/Keyboard combo because, frankly, we’ve never been big PC gamers. We’re ready to get over it to reach our goal, but is it even possible for a home-based indie team to end up developping on consoles? To be precise, we’re aiming for the PlayStation Network. XNA doesn’t appeal to us, WiiWare does but from what I read, Nintendo doesn’t seem to give home-based indies a chance. Which sucks, because frankly, not everyone has like 500 000$ to fund a studio… PSN appeals to us because the debug PS3 doesn’t cost much, only 1200$. Then you have the free PhyreEngine optimized for PS3 (Unity probably isn’t), you retain all creative rights as well as the IP, they don’t rush you to publish faster and you can also set your own prices. It’s amazing.
But… there’s still one big question left. Is it a better course of action to develop a 100% original game (like World of Goo did) or go with something a little less original but who will sell better on Steam? Something along the lines of Fat Princess which is a team-based multiplayer game, nothing new, but the setting and gameplay is still quirky and attractive. What do gaming companies like Sony/Nintendo judge indies with? Is it by product quality or Steam sales? And would they be able to get over the fact we are home-based if they see our talent?
I’ve no idea where you take your information from but for $1200 and home developer you won’t go anywhere.
Already the PSP Mini Dev Kit costs $1500 and thats just Mini (100mb, no network connections, …) and even that requires a valid business, so no “group of friends hacking at home”. On top of that you have the fees for the age rating in your target area(s)
For PSN / Disk dev licenses (ie not Minis) you will not go through anywhere that cheap or without a real business.
So going by this, you might very be forced to either do something else to build up the required reputation / Sony interest to get onto the platform or create a real business and seek the required funding.
As for Nintendo: They don’t judge you by either, you normally get onto their platform without a proofen track and even then they might deny you. They are primarily concerned about quality and protecting their IP and tradesecrets and have no problem rejecting even veterans on their platforms if they don’t feel all this points covered appropriately.
Make sure whatever you do meets a certain level of quality, the smaller the scope of the project the better (unless you have loads of resources to throw around – IE Money) The reason you are choosing an original game is that you want to make sure you can do whatever it is you are doing better than the competition so if you have no competition you win by default (IE something original). It still has to have a certain level of quality but remember gamers (for the most part do not care if its an indie or a big company) they only care about the end product, meaning if you are game is good for an indie but sucks compared to say a AAA then most people will it stinks outloud.
Make iphone games, the old 8GB ipods are going cheap now and the apple dev license is $100 per year, then you get the iphone add on for unity and you can start pumping out games with no one to stop you (other than app review but that only takes a week)
Doing a great iOS game that gets good attention can actually open up you the way to the PlayStation as some examples have shown where the devs basically got invited / pushed to join the platform
Start small… Learn to crawl before you run a marathon.
“half way through a c# tutorial” is not even close enough experience to even be thinking about making a full game… let a lone a PSN game.
Run to many tutorials, make many smaller games for fun. Learn your tools, learn what is possible and what is not. Try not to focus on making money, instead focus on gaining experience.
Finally… and I mean finally, choose a simpler platform. PSN is a little out of reach for most developers. Start with iPhone or android, it is a great platform to start with because it helps you get in the mind set of limited resources; where every thing you do matters and can affect performance.
The mobile platforms are also fairly easy to get your games out to the public. They are fairly simple tog e your game on the market and into the hands of players around the world.
Heck, start with PC and a ps3/xbox controller hooked up to it. If it is a good, fun game, Sony has no problem helping newcomers. Look at media molecule. Have you seen what they showed Sony as the tech demo? It was practically stick figures and lines, but the gameplay was fun, and Sony fully endorsed them.
I do have to say though, I’d work with unity for at least a few months on smaller projects. Learn the advanced stuff, plan out the game design while your doing it, then work on it fully when all of the ideas have been realized. Heck, just make small little scripts, like a HUD, or a basic AI object. heck, get up to advanced AI that tries to dodge attacks or something. Take smaller steps first. If you create a good product, many companies will look at you. You don’t need to buy a dev kit (which for PS3 last I remember seeing was $2k) because you can make most of it on the PC with unity first and then just build it for the PS3 when the time comes. Don’t spend the money until you need to, that way if the project does fail you don’t loose the money, you just lose the time.
Sony used to be total nazis regarding who developed for their consoles and how you did it. Their list of demands for how your game worked and interacted with the console and user were insane, and changed every few months. There would be no compromises, and they would practically be standing over your development team with a whip the entire time demanding all sorts of mad things.
Judging from the quality of some of the cheap PSN games I’ve seen on the PS3 lately they no longer care and are happy to flood it with games that aren’t much better than the turds that infest the XBLA indie marketplace. I don’t know how some of these companies can afford to develop for the PS3 and yet produce nothing but Space Invader clones or terrible jigsaw puzzles, but they’re doing it. As for their profits, I have no idea. Hopefully they’re negative.
Minis are on similar “QA requirement level” as i XBLA Indie … basically anyone with the money and a registered company can get in.
but real PSN titles should normally be a few level higher as the Q&A costs etc for the approval steps etc still fully apply to those. no “easy go through” as with minis which from what I recall only have the requirements to meet size and work (so basically appstore requirements if we go by game console Q&A standards)
Thanks for the replies guys, it’s very constructive. Since it seems to be a concern (it’s true, I didn’t point this out in the OP) : I can say right away that making a game that crafts innovative gameplay mechanics off the original idea has always been our goal. Sure we think about money (who doesn’t) but it’s really not our focus yet. The only reason we would reduce ourselves to developping a generic multi-player game was in the event Sony/Ninty judged people by sales. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Opinions seem mixed. Is registering a company name all it takes? I was already planning on doing that. Or do you actually have to rent a place and fill it up with furniture, electronics and employees?
VPrime, don’t worry I’m not saying I’m gonna tackle game development with only that half of C# done, lol. Sure I’m a newbie but I’m not desillusioned, I’m taking this seriously. Why I wrote that was to inform you guys of my situation, the reason I’m posting here is because I want to learn everything possible so I don’t regret it later… the info is actually a bit hard to come by.
Now that this is out of the way…
iOS was mentionned and put forth a lot so I checked it out. Looks good to me. Steam is cool and all but there is absolutely no guarantee that your product will pass their, um, questionable tests. I don’t want to lose months of work… iPhone/iPod Touch is a safer bet I think.
So how do one develop for such a system? I came across DragonfireSDK but I’m not sure how it compares to Unity… what are some extensive websites covering most of what developping for iOS involves? The iPhone’s limits, the library’s classes and so on…
Ah and is it worth it to pay for Pro + iOS Pro? I hope Unity offers an iPhone Simulator like DragonfireSDK
Steam questionable tests? If the steam one are questionable, you are not even having the slightest chance getting as a real title onto PSN / XBLA (normal), where the test are much more strict and where Q&A passes altogether cost you several thousand USD (you pay any step and any reapproval)
And Unity has no iphone simulator, no need for it.
You can use the remote to play right within your iOS project on Unity on OSX and then only go through the build when you really want it on the device
What are they not questionnable in? A few games that received an overall rating of 9/10 as well as indie awards never made their way on the platform, without ever receiving a reason. Sure they don’t owe us one but at this time their methods are still unknown, which means questionnable in my book. There’s no telling something like this won’t happen to me.
Since you’re sensitive to costs, note that iOS development generally requires at a minimum an iOS license, an apple development license, a Mac, and an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Whether Pro is worth it to you, only you can decide. They compare iOS vs iOS Pro here:
I don’t see why steam has questionable methods any more then apple’s methods which haven’t ever been fully detailed at all, but I’ve never looked at steam myself, but I haven’t had any grand game ideas, nor planned the game out, and I’m still learning a lot of stuff, so it’s not quite a priority for me to look at this stuff yet.
Either way, I don’t think Sony will be any worse then Steam or Apple. Also as far as cost, Steam is probably the cheapest being that you only need Unity free. As far as I knew, Steam doesn’t require you to buy a license, but I could be wrong on that. You probably do have to have a registered business though.
As far as the registering a business goes, you do have to legally register it with your state, as well as pay taxes, social security, etc, so it’s not necessarily a simple process to get the EIN that you would have to have. Anyway… That’s my thoughts, and I’m not fully familiar as I have never set up my own company, but I have looked at it a little, so that’s my insight to my current knowledge.
Caliber thats actually incorrect.
In sept the full guidelines were released under which apple operates.
now more or less the same will get applied to the mac app store too.
but yeah before it was a hit and miss.
And yup steam does not require a license but you might want to implement their platform which requires plugin support which requires pro
In addition to what has already been said, I’d like to throw in Android as a suggestion too. Prove yourself there, see how it works out and then move on to bigger and better things. I’m working on my first 2 projects, one for Android, and one for PC.
If the PC project goes as planned, it would be awesome to port to PSN, but if it fails miserably (it won’t), It will be without the financial loss of investing in the sdk.
Another point, and this isn’t based on any concrete numbers, but I’d guess that indie games get more exposure the mobile marketplaces than on either PSN or XBLA.
First off.
I won’t suggest you to think about console programming (even with Unity PS3 or UnityX360) without any experienced console programmer.
Specially “experienced C++ programmers”. I know that Unity PS3 shall be easier than any other console engine to develop games on it but don’t simply count on Unity, you need (not only a lot of cash) but also experienced developers.
Be honest with yourself, (avoid impossible dreams at all cost) write down (design) and work on something within your current resources and skills.
