Thanks to stumbleUpon, I’ve become aware of many new technologies emerging. Not to mention the already obvious leaps and bounds of gaming over the past ten years. It seams like technology gains momentum, so who knows where it will go in the next ten. What I’m worried about is the little guy, myself. Will people care about classic style games like jack and daxter, crash bandicoot or even legend of zelda when they have AAA 360 and ps3 games? Will the Indie developers be forced to only create the best games possible or else be tossed aside by the ever harsher gamer of today?
if you told me I’m stupid for worrying about that, I’d say thank you.
The success of random little flash games indicates a huge portion of the population doesn’t care overly much if a game has AAA graphics or not, they just want something to pass the time. As long as you set your price point low enough (or free with microtransactions and/or ads), and have interesting game play, people will play it.
Most likely nothing, because most indies don’t go on consoles(the unity ones atleast)
But you should expect that standards in visuals will increase. I personally can stand bad visuals(ala n64 or ps1) only if the game is very good.
Otherwise my eyes bleed.
It takes time to make good art. You’ll be able to create a whole bunch of good little games while the big studios make the games that are big. You’re concerned about things that aren’t going to change the state of affairs that has existed for years. Unity will continue to allow you to use the tools that the big studios do, like Umbra and Beast. Tools for content creation will get better. You’ll have to use those better tools, to keep the quality ratio of you to them constant, but again, that’s nothing new. It’s not like the big studios are magically going to get more money to hire more people just because technology is better. If they want to utilize it to its full potential, it’s going to take them longer. Just don’t stagnate and get stuck in whatever you’re using now.
Nobody does high poly work in a low poly modeler. You need a sculpting package.
Don’t go out and sample everything. Use something like soundsnap.com when you can.
Don’t write your own game engine.
Use a SpaceNavigator instead of working in 2 axes at a time with a mouse.
etc.
These things were not always available. Keep an eye out for things that will speed up your workflow.
The top selling games of all time, across platforms are cute, fun, and run on middle value hardware, they arn’t hyper realisitic AAA 360 titles, as you put it.
Think about it- Mario, Pokemon, Sonic, Wii Sports, Angry Brids, Fruit Ninja, The Sims. Heck, even Halo is kinda cute and fun like Mario, with that whole Red vs Blue thing…
The cutting edge hyper realistic games have always been a little bit more exclusive in their audience, but the graphics do trickle down into the big cutsie titles that are really noticed and sell at the top.
But Call of Duty is not at any where near the sales of the Sims series. Most gamers don’t play or buy the latest “next-gen” titles.
We are called hardcore gamers for a reason.
@ Jessy That was informative, helpful, and comforting. And it was a bit of a wake-up call I guess I was kind of thinking “Learn to make awesome stuff then do it over and over again” but your right, things will always be changing and I’ll need to always be learning.
@ Science That’s a very good point and something remember when going into my next project.
Just going to add my two cents in. (just a note, I skipped like the last few posts because I’m about to pass out from being to tired)
Just because it’s indie doesn’t mean it can’t look amazing. Look at Makoto Shinkai. He made a very popular anime mini-movie (30mins long) and did all of the graphics on his own, had some friends (and himself) do the voice acting, and paid for a few songs/licenses. It was extremely popular in Japan, and did fairly decently here in the US, for those that are into the anime market. The cg wasn’t super great, but the anime sections are amazing. To the point I already call him the next Hayao Miyazaki. The anime I’m talking about is Voices of a Distant Star BTW. The animation is amazingly done even compared to a full motion studio like Bones, and mixed with the music is amazing emotionally. It’s a good watch.
I don’t bring this up because of me likeing it as much to the point that it was done indie, and still surpasses many things that a professional company would try to do. So I while I don’t think that a single person will ever be releasing a full fledged AAA title on PSN or the like, I can easily see a well made, beautiful game made by indie. If you have a few people that are great at what they do, and love doing it, you’re going to get a great product no matter what.
For instance, I think that if I found someone good at 3d modeling and animating, as well as someone that’s good with game ideas (I’m not good at coming up with new ideas to be honest), I can program rather efficiently. I mean heck, I made pretty much an exact clone of Skyroads in less then 8 hours. Wasn’t pretty, but it was still a near clone. In one day. So if you get the right people, it’s very easy to get a fast pace indie game with quality. I personally believe that indie games will start to take over AAA titles fairly soon because they don’t ask for as much, and they generally are starting to get to the quality that is deemed acceptable to most. Angry birds is a great example. They didn’t spend too long on developing it. (If they did, then there is a major issue… Simple game, based off of other games O-o so it shouldn’t have taken long to build… I’d say easily less then a month) It’s no where near what people would call a AAA game, but it’s done extremely well.
O-o I think I’m done with my near sleeping rant… Sorry if I rambled or didn’t make any sense… I’m on nyquil right now… so I may not be as coherent as my mind currently thinks it is…
Take a look at the Fallen Earth MMO, that was made by Indies, take a look at ID software, they were indies back in the day, Take a look at Valve, they were indie, i could carry on all day
But id software and valve were indies in days where the market was empty compared to nowadays and to be hard, unlike 99.9% of todays indies they had engineers and people with a technology background to pull off stunning stuff, not artists and designers backed by middleware technologies to hack together solutions that thanks due to hardware overpower still run fluently more or less (on iOS less but they still run enough to sell at all)
Thanks to this major change in the field, its now infinitely harder to get enough exposure to be as successful as them, nobody gives a shit about your game if you have no big publisher behind you to push you into game mags and game dedicated networks like gamespot and ign.
Compared to the bad old days of gaming today is paradise really. I’m a very firm believer in the principle of culling and it works pretty well. In short, of your game is a sodding rip-off (like most games) then you’re screwed, and no one could be happier than me.
Then it seems that people are forgetting that gaming is not just entertainment. If you are willing to look into more broad usages of interactive technologies you’re going to see a very steady upsurge in job opportunities and general work.
Indie gaming has never been as strong as today, though I shiver when I think of all the bland indie games that need to be culled until we get a new Amnesia, Fate of the World or Braid.
I think the Future looks Bright and I believe the Game Artist will be akin to the book Authors and a team of one will be able to create engageing content …as programs such as unity are bringing that day closer and closer
however triple aaa titles will always be around with the massive budgets etcetera to go with it and that two is a good thing
I agree. I dream to sit down at a laptop and create a movie or game on my own like authors sit down and write books. It can take an author two years or more to write a good book, and the odds of success for a writer is about the same as a game artist. But it’s what I strive for. I think the day will come.
Some food for thought too: The technology behind interactive 3D graphics is still highly experimental, and its “standards” change so often that making a visually complex game can be a very expensive investment of time and expertise. Film was the same way afew decades ago, but as the technologies and techniques solidified into standards, making good technical quality films, with a tiny budget, has become more possible.
On the flip side, the democratization of a technology of expression (be it writing, photography, film, games etc) inevitably leads to a larger proportion of mediocre and redundant works- think Youtube. Eventually, I believe that 3D tech will slow down, maybe once we have the equivalent of the Holodeck, and then any 5 year old will be able to design a AAA quality game. The question is, would it be a game worth playing? Are most youtube videos worth watching? Probably not.
Guys, we are paving the way for just that. I’m so thankful to all of you in this community, and the great folks at Unity for believing just that!
Right now its a path in the woods, soon enough we will be on a 6 lane highway.
