i have some great ideas for middleware libraries/toolsets targeted mostly/solely at indie game developers (from a technical and marketing point of view). the resources (money,experience,time for dev and support) are available, but i''m not yet a business guy and i''m unsure about things like target market, competition, pricing etc. i''m wondering whether gamedev'' middleware is actually a viable niche and in what ways could i prepare myself for entering this market (which i would love to do professionally). i believe that most of the money would be made from keeping close contact to repeat customers e.g. a game developer purchasing one of my tools and then licensing it multiple times for his future projects (my tool''s license would be bound to a single product). so i guess i just need someone to tell me whether i''m wastin my time with this. any comments/links appreciated.

While middleware is a sound concept I doubt that indie developers would be a great market to aim at. By their very nature they tend to be doing stuff on a shoestring. Stil I guess it depends on what it is. If you haven''t already you should check out garagegames.com. They are licensing their Torque engine to the indie market for $100.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

As long as it is priced right, I don''t see a problem. Anything under $100, (I would say $50 or less is even better), is in the range of most low budget developers. Don''t base your price on the amount of work you put it into developing your product (if I did, it would be hundreds of dollars ), but base it on what people are willing to buy it.

thanks.

the software i have in mind is a bunch of rather lowpriced components (50$ sounds about right) that can be dropped into exisitng game projects (even on top of Torque for that matter). the components will be free for use in non-commercial projects so i guess at least i can get my name out there.