Another reason is publicity... I'd never heard of any of the indie games he's talking about. Demanding a revolution in either micropayments or ads is a bit much to ask for, though...

aggregating services are great for Long Tail type dealies like indie games, but it also centralises a lot of content on a very limited space (digg's or Videosift's front page), and thus has a limited attention span.

Only 10 indie whiz kids can have their 15 minutes of fame per week.

Unless each "sift channel" was a community unto themselves, maybe.

[edit]

VonNeumannSift!

i fully agree on game quality these days but unfortunately his ideas on it are just.. not right
i don't care enough to go on a corrective rant about it though

but.. i always acquire my games from teh internets with illicit means and if i like what i play, i buy it
most times when i get the game box i don't even install it cos the warezed copy already works fine (and better, without drm slowing it down and corrupting my windows)
but i buy it all the same cos i feel good paying for something that made me feel good

this also extends to indie games, and incentive to buy is adjusted by price it has
but with indie games also breed trust and loyalty between the company and consumer
they're usually very small companies.. two to ten people or so.. so people feel more comfortable buying from them even without playing it

like how zombie cow released ben there, dan that for free, and i loved it, and it's equally brilliant sequel time gentlemen, please was $5
you would have to be a pretty cold bastard not to buy it on the spot if you liked the first one, knowing it's by the same two people, in the same vein

budget for these was literally zero, and they're better adventure games than i have played in years
no huge budget and financing required.. indie projects like this just need an open market to put stuff on and get seen by people

Oh, booh booh. Developers go where the money is, fact of life.

As long as we want shit, we get shit.

People are greedy, also fact of life.

As long as you can get it for free as easy, people won't pay. If it's better, then they will pay. As long as pirates have better service than legitimate developers/sellers then people will pirate.

I don't think so. People do read reviews...

*NSFW for cussings.

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by ant.

Ok, he basically said 1 thing, then repeated it 6 or 7 times. I guess that's why he calls himself "reverend"...

anyway video games and movies alike - publishers/studios simply aren't willing to risk millions of dollars on something that is independent and creative. The more money that's involved, the less risk they are willing to take.

All these indie games he mentioned - they probably took thousands of dollars (or tens of thousands at most) to create. Assassin's Creed 2 took several million. The only reason they made the sequel was because the first one sold many copies, and many people liked it (even if the good reverend didn't)
The argument he should be making is why isn't there a better distribution channel for indie games? Sure, Steam and XBLA exist, but they aren't teeming with a huge variety of indie games. Braid and World of Goo are good examples of success, but how many others have failed to even be noticed?

I'm a gamer, and like others mentioned above, I've never heard of a single title he mentioned.

What he was saying is, we reward games disproportionately for the first impressions they make, the marketing, distribution etc... of them when we buy them off the shelves without having tried them, and that's what leads to an industry of derivative sequels, a lack of risk taking and creativity and a side lining of indie games. Whether they gaming industry likes it or not though, piracy is basically enabling people, especially when it comes down to single player games, to 'try before you buy'.

He's not saying anything new by any means. The same thing applies to movies, music, virtually any other genre. The movie industries is flooded with sequels, remakes, rehashes, whereas the music industry basically rides on the coattails of a few big celebrity bands/singers/routine dancing pop stars. If anything the game industry is ahead of the bell curve. When I discuss games with other people, what reviews it's getting comes up way more often as a conversation topic than for movies. I guess movies are generally a more subjective medium though. Not to mention some but definitely not all indie games like Braid, World of Goo, Plants VS Zombies did get lots of coverage on prominent review sites like Gamespot/IGN, which helps a lot.

*findthumb

A different thumbnail image for this video could not be found for findthumb request by EDD.

ugh...this guy has his head up his ass.

You can write a game, whack it on any of the DOWNLOAD TO DISTRUBUTE SYSTEMS

like I dont fucking know:
XBox
Steam
iphone
Nintendo (not sure how this one works tbh)
(im sure sony have something like this too)

So as far as Im concerned, if you dont have the brains to make a game for iPhone - where people are GAGGING for new episodic content, then ur just not strategically bright.

That happens

QQ


FYI Im playing QuakeLive, and when I get sick of that, Ill go buy Mount&Blade

The problem is that gamers become employed by game development studios. Right now we’re breading the next generation of game dev’s. Just take a look at that video recently where the kid was playing Contra and thought it was so hard. These day’s we’re about making games so accessible to anyone. This means eliminating the frustrations from the player. There are no repercussions. No dying anymore and flashy light arrows pointing to exactly where something is hidden. We don’t challenge the player like we used to. On top of that we’re pushing to have everything console oriented. Pick your station, Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii. If we’re not careful we will lose our MOD community and the generation that is coming up now will not be as tech savvy as the one before. We’re turning our future game dev’s into mindless drones.

Videos games are simulation and simulations represent the pinnacle of human expression. We’re supposed to be pushing the boundaries not reinforcing them.

The video game industry is basically at a low at the moment, because there truly isn't anything new coming out.

My problem is that they seem to have lost their creativity and imagination. In the past however many years, the "Big Name" companies have had one idea and milked the shit out of it to make a crapton of money that they're only spending a fraction of to make sequels of the same game wrapped in a new pretty box.

Halo, Gears of War, Prince of Persia, Metal Gear, Hell, even Final Fantasy is starting to go downhill.
All of these titles have at least 3 games already in the franchise, or are soon going to, and each one basically had a steady decline in how good it was.

Whoever previously mentioned that the companies don't want to take risks basically hit the nail on the head. Very few are releasing something new, and even fewer look like they'd be fun.
The way I've always thought about it, a video game is like a book, or movie, just interactive.

A perfect example of this is from the Bioware games, The KOTOR series and Mass Effect are fantastic in the way they play out, because it's the exact same as a story, there's progression, there's conversation, there's reason to do what you're doing.

Take a game like Halo: Combat evolved, look at it, it was fantastic because as the storyline progressed, you learned about what happened, you found out who the covenant was and what their purpose was for finding the halo, and you learned the secret of the ring itself, That's a good progression.

Then you look at the second one.. The only thing new about it was the fact that there were now giant gorillas that wanted to eat your face, everything else was the same, nothing real new in the way of story or gameplay except you got slightly more overpowered, and the third is basically the same thing. I can't blame Bungie for Halo 3, there was never supposed to BE a halo 3, but MS pulled their funds before they could finish the final level which was supposed to close off the series and they were forced to make it.

My solution to this is to actually find people who write, authors who are willing to at least pitch ideas for games, and a studio that's willing to listen. If there's a company out there that could do that, the independent market could be almost abolished because the companies are hiring them on for ideas.

However, the "Reverend" Is right on one point, until we stop buying these rehashed games with a new number on the end, there won't BE anything new to buy. The companies will go for more of the same because people keep buying it.

Boy, he really is repetitive. First he says something one way and then he repeats himself saying it the same way again. After he's said something once, he just says it again with the exact same words. For example, he would give an example, then he would give another identical example a second time. For instance, his examples were almost the same in every example. Also, again and again he seems to repeat the same things repeatedly and in addition, he repeats the same things on numerous occasions. Either he could be repetitive and you love it once he's done or he could repeat himself and you could just have a chance to realize it before he's proven his repetition.

^You sound like I feel when I write college papers

Btw, folks, the game he mentioned several times - Today I Die - although very short (~10min) is fucking brilliant, go play it:

http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.html