BTW, I know I spelled Hobbiests wrong. Do you guys forsee a time in which Hobbiests can''t make games alone any more without it being totally outclassed. I know that a long time ago, people could make games alone, but now as the times have progressed, companies like Hasbro are trying to make it so that anyone who even makes a game with a feature similar to their games, gets sued. Games are progressing so fast that to make money, you have to work in teams. Maybe perhaps in the future, there won''t be any Hobbiests because every game needs a team to look even decent. Ignore my babbling if you will, maybe teams aren''t a bad thing and I''m just behind the times. -Blackstream Excuse me, I just got depressed.

I think very small teams are a good thing if the people get coordinate correctly. The problem is that people often end up forming teams over the internet, which makes things very hard. I imagine it''s probably better with maybe 2-4 people rather than like 9 or 10 if the people don''t know each other ''cause it would be easier communicate. I am just guessing though. I don''t really have any experience w/ teams yet.


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

One maybe bright ray of hope on the horizon: Yeah, it may take teams, but tools are getting more and more powerful. I think anybody who''s paid is more likely to do a better job (or at least FINISH), but game creation toolkits and engines may help level the playing field a bit for the garage developer. (I hope, anyway)

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

One option is to realize that the bast games aren''t always the flashiest. If a hobbiest creates an innovative idea (like Tetris was when it first emmerged) then they have the rights and can decide whether to be jerks or not. So many people here wanna create stuff that would max out the modern hardware with RPGs, RTSs and FPSs when something as simple as a new card game could be a hit.

OK here is my take on this...

I remeber reading an article about 12 years ago where the orchestal musicians said that MIDI was going to put them out of business. And I thought to myself "BULL." Well, 12 years later and orchestras are still around. MIDI was a tool that allowed musicians to work alone, to compose great music and get it all down. But, when people go to the orhestra... they don''t see a Roland D50 sittin up there with a wire stuck in the back of it playing Bethoven

OK, 12-15 years ago game programmers where selling their creations out of plastic bags in garage sells. Although this has changed (to some extent), I think that it can still be done. The problem is that now consumers have so many choices. There are around 50 new game released every month (not sure if that is correct, someone let me know what the true number is) and the consumer can pick and choose which one he wants. The bigger problem is that many a times the consumer has forked out $50.00 for a game that completely sucked! They got burned.

So, what does that mean for the developer selling thier creations out of a plastic bag? Well, since the consumer has choices and since they have been burned on new software that came from a (supposed) professional game house... why are they going to pay $10.00-$15.00 for you plastic bag?

Of course Wavinator and Nazix have very valid points. The first programming job I had was at a start up game company... they went under about a year and a half into our project. Hell, I belived in the thing so much that I ended up buying 49% of the company! I lost my ass. But, I would do it again. It was fun and I learned sooooo much from the experience.

My suggestion is this; Find some like minded people that live near you. Post some signs at the local software store or at a college/high school (whatever your age group) and wait. Wait for the people to contact you. The internet is a nice place but, it''s not the best arena for game development. Game development/programmin (not to mention the art and sfx) is a very cerebral/communicative experience one that the net does not offer yet. If you look at the figures (if anyone has a study on this let me know) on games that have started and been completed via the net, I think you would be hard pressed to find 5% of them being completed! And there are many that have been started.

Go on over to asynchrony.com and take a look at that site. They have 23,618 members, 941 projects, 821 active projects and they have completed 1. 1! Sheesh. Ok how many games? I did a search for the game and found 88 with the word "Game" in the project.
I don''t know the number of acitve/disbanded but, the first one that I looked at that sparked my interest was temporarily shut down.

Find you a local team and don''t worry whether statistics say you''ll make it... just do it!

My best friend that I went to high school with has moved back into town recently... he''s a programmer and has always enjoyed playing games and wants to write a game... were working on our Documentation now and should be ready to start at any time... Are we going to finish? will we be succesful? Will we make money?
Maybe, Maybe, Maybe!





Dave "Dak Lozar"Loeser

What''s to stop a garage developer selling their game zip-locked through e-bay, individually, promoting it through their website. What is the cost of maintaince of that? Less than 30 bucks a month for hosting, ebay seller account cost a percent sellers fee, use one of the online credit card charge accounts and do credit card transactions, if you ask me hobbist have never been so impowered. All this can be done now! Make it and make it good, and they will come.

Good Luck

-ddn

That''s a good point, I never thought about Ebay and having a online company (sorta). But don''t most people who buy games go to a store, rather than ebay? Or would they... If I wanted a specific game, I would try to find the main website and get info, but if I wanted a game I''d never seen or heard of before, I would probably go to a store. Or would I go to ebay? Ack. Still, ebay definately is a good idea for selling games. Also, I know Andre aka Necron has some kinda partner thing too, where you can distribute your games through him with a 50/50 cut. I''m not a partner, so I don''t know how it works though.

-Blackstream

( Insert text here )

Well the reason i mention ebay is because it circumvents the need of having to do your own transaction on your website and all the cost it entails (security, maintaince, acceptance by the public). Use your webpage as advertisement, Ebay as the store, and PayPal or BillPoint as the credit card transactors. You can set a preset bid on ebay so as to guareentee you make atleast some profit, who knows you might make more through the auction system than the straight up price scheme 8^)

Well Good Luck Again!

-ddn

Also, putting a demo no download.com would help I think. I''ve seen some fairly lame games get like 1000 downloads a week, so having that many people at least check out a demo of your game is pretty good.


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

I also forgot to mention Mr. LaMothe
I have a game that he has placed on a CD... not that I''m making much off of it, but I still have a game on a commercial CD.
Check out his partner program. It''s another alternative...

There are also companies (online) that will handle all of the e-commerce stuff for you... I''m not sure what the fees are but if your serious about selling your creations then you can check into them

Have fun and make a cool game...

Dave "Dak Lozar"Loeser