It Ain't Business
posted on 09:23 07/03/2010 by planetidiot.com
There's a lot of crap on the Indie Game channel of XBLA. Don't get me wrong there's a lot of good stuff too, but it's hard to find any of it because there's so much garbage. Let me state for the record I don't write games for money. I think once you stop doing something because you love it and start doing it for the money you've lost your way, and you are going to sabotage your efforts. I know there's commercial games that are awesome so that sounds incorrect, but I'm speaking of indie developers here. Big companies have entire teams dedicated to every facet of the game to (try to) make it good and to make money. But money is the end goal with them and they'll sacrifice anything and everything for it. But you know that. Indie developers (and specifically garage developers) are in a different situation.posted on 09:23 07/03/2010 by planetidiot.com
With a one man team, or even a small team, developing games as a hobby doesn't afford you a lot of time. So your options are pour all your effort into something big, or try to put out a larger number of smaller projects. Nothing is wrong with either approach, and I'd argue putting out a few small projects is a great way to refine your code and get to know the publishing system you're dealing with. However just the fact that you can crank out a project quickly doesn't mean you should. At the heart of it is the question: Why are you doing it?
If your answer is that you hope to make a lot of money, please do us all a favor and stop. If you have a passion for creating games that you would play if someone else made them (and the money is a nice bonus) then you're doing this for the right reasons and the games you produce are going to be excellent. As soon as you start creating games based on what you think will sell you've gone over to the dark side. For big soulless corporations it's par for the course, but for a lone human being it's just a sad waste.
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