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Should the Indies just give up already?
Lerxst
Member UncommonPosts: 648
I don't mean this in a derogative way, but so many independent developers are coming out of the woodwork to create the next game that will "rock the genre" only to fail miserably and give a bad name to Indie games everywhere, that it feels their efforts are counterproductive. As a "for instance" go through the games on this site and see how many fall into the category of "Indie" (not released by a major publisher/studio) and have been a success (generated constant player/customer base and maintained a quality product)... not many.
I have no issues with the smaller devs releasing their games as free trials, demos or paid alpha and beta tests. Back in the 80-90's those were called "shareware". There's really no expectation of a finished, polished game when you get involved in a game like that. If it does end up well, then great; you got front row seats to a great game! Most of them don't end up being Minecraft or Mount & Blade though.
What baffles me in the MMO genre, is those same types of developers even bothering to make a game anymore. Really, you have two options - 1. Base it off of something that's already been done to near-perfection and add a lot of polish and playability to it (alleviating the need to actually brainstorm brand new ideas and find new ways to reinvent the same wheel as before) or 2. Create a mod for an already popular game. (an IE for each - Minecraft was influenced by Wurm, but made a lot more user-friendly and DayZ which started its life as an ARMAII mod before going into development as a stand-alone) Anything else is doomed to failure right from the start.
The MMO genre is a field that's dominated by big, multi-million/billion dollar businesses. A couple friends working out of their basement aren't even going to make a dent in it in this day and age. The idea of starting a business that's nearly identical to an existing, larger one is entrepreneurial suicide. It would be the same as a person going to WalMart, getting upset at the lack of wheelbarrow choices and opening up their own personal wheelbarrow store in the same strip mall... but only carrying 10 in stock... and then charging a premium for those 10.
So much talent being wasted...
I'd rather see smaller developers/studios creating games like "Papers, Please" and "Braid" than wasting time trying to make a dent in the MMO industry in this day and age.
Comments
Eve Online did alright at it, and Star Citizen is technically an indie developed title.
I understand your comments to a degree, Mortal Online did nothing but damage Sandbox games, and was an amateur hour pile of garbage that I invested time and money into. The answer however is not to give up, give up and nothing new happens, we need indie developers to keep trying because eventually, another Eve will come about, and by another Eve I mean another MMO that has the ability to go the distance.
They should refocus on getting the basics right before trying to implement 101 awesome sandbox features.
If the game feels terrible, unresponsive, and clunky then the rest doesn't matter.
Now would be the perfect time for an Indie developer to step in and rescue us.
What larger developers and publishers are giving us now are 30 days of fun that are not really mmos. Sure people are sticking up for them but only for 30 days !.....The hype could last up to 90 days ( FF14 ) depending on good marketing because of constant influx of new players to replace the old. We had seen it with :
- Warhammer
- Rift
- SWTOR
- AION
- Star Trek Online
- Defiance
- Neverwinter
- FF14 - Going on right now
Soon to be:
- Wildstar ( I'll be playing, but I'm only expecting 30 days of fun )
- Elder Scrolls Online
- Everquest Next
The sad news...........Nothing is being developed by Indies, and development is usually slow. I don't see a near future Hero to save us.
If they're just going to make a lame copy of wurm online then yes they probably should just give up. The odds of any of these bad ffa ow pvp clones going anywhere is ....next to nothing.
Games that actually try and build something unique in the genre have a decent chance of being successful. I doubt any of the lower budget games will make a huge splash.... but do they have to ? Any game that sets out to be a wow killer has already failed.
It's also important to have indie ideas driving innovation, even if most of them fail financially. Not only does it afford the possibility of a dark horse success story where none exist in the world of big publishers and their safe approaches, but it keeps the talent pool fresh and ensures that a community exists to encourage a spirit of innovation free from constraints, for better or worse.
You never know when a publisher with some real money behind them is going to pick up a great idea and fund the hell out of it, either. The possibility of that happening is very low when the only studios working on mmorpgs are the ones already employed by said publishers.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
Q: "Should the Indies just give up already?"
Absolutely not. Not if they have vision, motivation, drive, and the skill necessary to pull off what they aim for; the MMORPG I've been playing for the past decade, Vendetta Online, is made by a self-publishing 4-man dev team, and it has been a life-altering experience.
I've always enjoyed game design (like, from the time I was 7), but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea for me to set off making my own MMORPG. The amount of work involved is huge, and that's from an outside player's perspective. However, I will lend my creativity to the game as I am able; that may be in the form of contributed mission content, videos, a player designed event, or a guild with a unique strategy. By playing a small part in the community, I can participate in something much greater.
However, if I truly believe in something I wish to create that doesn't yet exist, or something that exists but in a way such that I could vastly improve on it, then I may begin to ask questions like:
A) is it economically feasible?
and
C) is there a market for it?
For an interesting series on creativity, copying, and innovation (which I think relates somewhat to the discussion at hand), see also:
http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/
For me, the bottom line is that most things worth doing aren't necessarily very profitable at first... it really comes down to what I believe in as an individual; not superficially, but honestly, humbly, and sincerely.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
So on the OP...can someone tell me exactly which AAA company has come out with a decent MMO in the past ten years?
IMO indie companies are the ones to watch. They have the chance of comming out with something different and truely worth playing. While the big companies continue to pump out WoW clone after WoW clone, the indies can stay away from that.
Personally I would rather play an indi game with smaller population maybe a bit less graphics, but more original and in depth gameplay over a big name company game with lotsa flash n fireworks but nothing new in gameplay.
I was reading something the other day about 50 gig games becoming the norm in the next few years.
Considering most of that weight is artwork, I feel badly for any low-mid budget Indie trying to get a foot in the market. It's an insane amount of work to produce, and I have to wonder if all that art detracts from the priority of developing good gameplay.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
This is an important point, so many indie developers have a thousand great ideas they want to implement but the basic movement and controls arent solid so there is no fun in playing your character. Just moving him around is annoying.
The question is wrongly put.
It is not the developers that should give up but "gamers". Gamers who worship indie games and kickstarter as jesus coming. That's not going to happen.
Then publishers will truly lose.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Not sure if you are aware or not but. Minecraft was made by one of the two devs of Wurm Online. So of course there inspired by each other. Wurm was going to be alot like minecraft but Roft wanted to take it into a different direction so Notch and Rolf had there falling out and split from each other.
Making a good mmo is not an easy thing. most indies are just not good enough to make a solid game.
There are things that are very complicated to develop like,
- performance
- hack security
And without that the game will fail. Look at Drakfall, what a mess of a game...
Indie devs should concentrate to make single player turn based games. They are easy to make and will sell well.
Step in the arena and break the wall down
Indies have been successful because they either successfully pull of something experimental that the big boys would never do or they come up with a new spin on a old or forgotten/neglected genre genre.Most Indies in the MMO genre do nothing of the above so far,at best they take one part of an old game like Ultima online and try to make that the be all and end all of their game without any experimentation or innovation aside from a graphical upgrade.
It also pays to remember that for every Indie hit there's dozens of failures and break evens.
There is room in the MMO market for Indies with a unique angle or ideas just like any other genre but it seems the more complicated nature of the genre is maybe not attracting such people.
While i agree with this statement i can't get why small niche MMO is a bad thing. You see, a lot of people here demand exactly that, because mainstream MMORPGs... well... i couldn't call em a quality product. Yes, EA can dump millions of USD into a game... and end up with SWTOR - some kind of mediocre KOTOR clone but with some dudes from Internet in it for no reason at all. And i think i lost my faith that any AAA MMORPG can be the next UO, WoW or even Ragnarok Online (yes, i played it for a few years before WoW came out). Because now it's not about game, not about world, not about ideas. It's about money and that strange idea that the more money you dump into the game the more you get in return.
Or you can have Heaven and Hearth for example. Very niche game, ugly as hell and so on. But it gave me that incredible feeling of exploration, of figuring things out, of that MMO in MMORPG. Yeah, after some time that wears off, but not a single MMORPG since WoW could do that. Guess why? Because all this GW2, EQ2, LOTRO they are almost the same, not much changes since EQ (well, at least not all of the sudden so it's not that obvious). I played each of this games less than a month because initial hype wears off quickly and you realize that you are playing almost the same game that you left some time before. Yeap, MMORPGs are more difficult to create, but there are some indie MMORPGs that found their own players like Realm of the Mad God, Wurm Online or Champions of Regnum.
And if we look around. You know that League of Legends was made by what you can basically call an indie developer? Or Hawken? Or Forge? FFS even Counter-Strike once was a humble Half-Life mod (and how popular it was at that time!). So if you ask me - i want them to continue because that way we get a lot of finest game i ever played.
Not every inventor comes up with the lightbulb, but for every 1 that does it inspires thousands of others to try.
And if no one tried, we've never have gotten the lightbulb in the first place.
That talent isn't being wasted, they are doing what they often dreamed of doing - making something that they wanted to make. It may not rock the industry, or be what you want them to make it, but commercial validation isn't the only way to measure something as successful. In my opinion, if a developer is proud of what they have done, and uses that as a springboard to continue to develop and grow, that's a success no matter how many copies it made.
After all, how many people played Operation: Desert Storm? It sold 2,500 copies when it was published. Those developers went on to write Minotaur, then Marthon, Myth, and Oni in short succession. Then they went on to produce Halo, and a few people actually bought that game. Now they are writing Destiny.
All that came from a game that sold 2,500 copies, and that history is over the course of more than 20 years. Just because someone doens't knock it out of the park with Minecraft on their first release doesn't mean it isn't noteworthy, or that they should stop wasting their talent.
Normally when i see a indie game i see a huge list of features that sound great and i would love to have. then i sit back and think, how on earth are they going to be able to do all this with their 5 man team and low budget? Then the game comes out everybody who read those features runs in finds out not even half of the shit they promised is in the game, people rage and quit.
game dead.
Quote from OP:
The MMO genre is a field that's dominated by big, multi-million/billion dollar businesses.
This is exactly the reason why there are indies, so they can break away from these big companies and all their demands.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Shroud of the Avatar is indie and developing well. So is Black Desert.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson