Beamer wrote on Sep 21, 2010, 07:35:
Did you see them complaining about how they're not sure they are going to sell enough to stay afloat?

You asked for buzz, not complaints about sales numbers. There has been a lot of it on Blues, most of it positive (A rarity for these boards). Did you take a look at Orion Prelude? It looks amazing (a given sincve it uses the updated Source engine).

Beamer wrote on Sep 21, 2010, 07:35:

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

Is being published by a Russian publishing company. So there goes that point.

Only published for East Europe, the rest of the world is still an indie release. So there goes your point. EDIT: There is a fundamental difference between being a publisher that publishes your game while funding the development of said game and simply a publisher that acts only as a distributor. 1C is the latter regarding HoS as they didn't fund one cent of the game's development, they are only going to distribute it. Much like Frictional deal with Paradox for Penumbra, much like Tripwire is doing itself for The Ball and Dwarves, etc. Distributors that do not fund games are still a far throw from a full publisher that funds games.

Beamer wrote on Sep 21, 2010, 07:35:

Natural Selection 2

Wake me when it finds success.
Also, who the hell considers Natural Selection AAA? Who expects it to even hit a million? Who expects it to have the buzz of a AAA?

80.000 pre-orders just for the alpha. Unknown Worlds has very healthy finances and are one of the richer indie devs out there. NS2 has AAA production values and they've even made their own engine. PC Gamer even made a 2 page preview on the printed magazine.

Anything else? Indies are the future, not the shitty mainstream industry which will become a thing of the past The more the mainstream publishers shit on PC gamers, the more PC gamers turn to indies so it's a question of time until we start seeing PC gaming being indie for the most part.

This comment was edited on Sep 21, 2010, 08:02.

Prez wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 23:52:
Want to get excited about PC gaming again? Spend some time HERE browsing the games in development. Sure, still lots of retro throwaway crap, but man there are some potential gems in there.

Oh yes, that site is a true gold mine to find the next killer PC games. Lots of crap there but also lot of awesome games in the making. It's the future of PC gaming.

Have you seen the buzz "Amnesia-Dark Descent" has been generating here? Near-universally positive buzz no less

Did you see them complaining about how they're not sure they are going to sell enough to stay afloat?


Also, Sepharo, I fail to see how "I think it's a near perfect game in a genre I don't particularly enjoy" isn't "positive."

Consider yourself awaken. Publishers and shitty mainstream devs will be a thing of the past for the PC soon enough.

Funny, I've said they'd fill holes from major publishers and people here called me crazy and said I was an idiot. But these guys aren't making the same caliber game. It'll be years before an indie can make something that looks like Crysis. In the meantime graphics tend to be something people value extremely highly. How often do people here point out that it sucks that we're being held back by consoles graphically? Indies can keep up better right now due to that. If CryTek were able to do CryEngine 3 without regard for consoles we'd be so far beyond what any indie could crank out.

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad

Is being published by a Russian publishing company. So there goes that point.

Natural Selection 2

Wake me when it finds success.
Also, who the hell considers Natural Selection AAA? Who expects it to even hit a million? Who expects it to have the buzz of a AAA?

Love
Haven and Hearth
Minecraft
Penumbra
Cave Story

Ok, fine, a bunch of games with 2D or rudimentary graphics, outside of Penumbra, which had an 8 man team plus outsourced much of their graphics work to another studio that also had a multi-man team.
Lastly, how many people here even played these games?

Most gamers, all of us included, concentrate on big releases by big teams with big graphics. Most of us expect a certain level of quality. Indies will never, ever match the big money publishers for that. What they can offer is ingenuity, which games like Minecraft spit out in spades far beyond what the big money publishers can offer up.
But, in the long run, the graphics and polish are what push us. We enjoy the ingenuity, but we don't focus on it. That's not going to change any time soon.

Again, with music, we could easily replace recording companies. With a laptop and the internet. With movies, even film companies are seeing themselves slightly less useful, but only slightly. With publishing, well, the release of the Kindle has done nothing to make book publishing companies less relevant. And with gaming, DD has done nothing to make video game publishing companies less relevant.
So long as these things take significant amounts of capital publishing companies will be around.

You need someone to both invest the money and share the risk. Publishers do this. This is a good thing. I don't see why you guys want it dead. Want it to change? Yeah, sure, that'd be awesome. But want it dead? Who the hell is going to fund 9 figures to make the next Red Dead Revolver if not a publisher? Who is going to give Firaxis the money to kick out an ultrapolished, graphics intensive turn based strategy if not a publisher?

When will this guy Kotick surprise us for a change and say something half-way intelligent. Or at least say something that doesnt make him look like he's been snorting cocain for the last 10 years or so....

Prez wrote:

Beamer wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 22:06:
Wake me when an indie game gets half the buzz any given multi-million dollar AAA game does here.

Have you seen the buzz "Amnesia-Dark Descent" has been generating here? Near-universally positive buzz no less.

It would be nearly universal, except for the guy you're quoting

(and no I'm not going to count the others trying to figure out how to equip their weapon)

edit: wow... total posting failure

If he showed up at some big games convention, and got the piss beat out of him.. would anyone care?

Beamer wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 22:06:
Wake me when we get a AAA FPS that's an indie game.

Orion Prelude

Beamer wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 22:06:
Wake me when an indie game gets half the buzz any given multi-million dollar AAA game does here.

Have you seen the buzz "Amnesia-Dark Descent" has been generating here? Near-universally positive buzz no less.

This comment was edited on Sep 21, 2010, 00:12.

I never want to be reduced to the choice between "STRIPPED DOWN, DUMBED DOWN AAA CONSOLIZED FPS TITLE 8956" (Read: Modern Warfare 2) and yet another simplistic 2D indie adventure game with "amazing art and story" with graphics so poor they're reminiscent of the SuperNES days. I'll bank on games like Penumbra/Amnesia, Zeno Clash, Red Orchestra, and Din's Curse. They are every bit as advanced as modern games gameplay and mechanics-wise (if not more-so), and are only a marginal step down in visual fidelity. EDIT: How the hell could I forget Evochron Mercenary?! Absolutely Stellar Space Sim!!!!

Want to get excited about PC gaming again? Spend some time HERE browsing the games in development. Sure, still lots of retro throwaway crap, but man there are some potential gems in there.

This comment was edited on Sep 21, 2010, 00:26.

Beamer wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 22:06:
Wake me when we get a AAA FPS that's an indie game.
Wake me when an indie game sells several million units.
Wake me when an indie game gets half the buzz any given multi-million dollar AAA game does here.

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad
Natural Selection 2

Consider yourself awaken. Publishers and shitty mainstream devs will be a thing of the past for the PC soon enough.

The days of one guy being able to make an awesome game left us in the early 90s. We're now at some games having over 400 people on it at any given time. We're at even modestly graphics intensive games needing about a dozen.

Nope.avi

Love
Haven and Hearth
Minecraft
Penumbra
Cave Story
etc etc.

Apologies for forgetting Bungie was at some point an Indy. But Koticks comments point to the present, and not the past (which was 14 years ago ;p)

You base your logic on the assumption that games cost money, yet you mention AAA engine like UDK...

A *lot* of indie creators do not use the resources offered by game publishers.
There are more and more of those indies.

Wake me when we get a AAA FPS that's an indie game.
Wake me when an indie game sells several million units.
Wake me when an indie game gets half the buzz any given multi-million dollar AAA game does here.


Are indie games, and to a lesser extent non-indie eastern european games the future?
Maybe.
But wake me when we get there.

The days of one guy being able to make an awesome game left us in the early 90s. We're now at some games having over 400 people on it at any given time. We're at even modestly graphics intensive games needing about a dozen.
Where the money comes for this? Apparently you guys think VCs are easy to find (they're not.) Publishers are much, much easier. They essentially are VCs, only more familiar and requiring less financial documentation that will cost you an enormous amount of money to create.

You base your logic on the assumption that games cost money, yet you mention AAA engine like UDK...

A *lot* of indie creators do not use the resources offered by game publishers.
There are more and more of those indies.

conclusion: publisher's market share goes down.

God, just seeing his name pisses me off lately.

Valve has committed a few sins in the past few years , but I still think that they are an infinitely superior company to Activision.

Kevin Lowe wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 18:45:

eRe4s3r wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 16:50:
Exactly, how is Bungie an Indy - they never developed anything without Investment Money from a AAA Publisher!

Which AAA publisher bankrolled Marathon and Myth?

or Oni? The space sequence in Halo Reach was so good I'm dieing for them to make a space shooter as their next game now. If not it'd be amazing if they're revive the Oni series... but since Take 2 owns the rights to Oni now I guess that wont happen.

Hmm, if I'm not mistaken the definition of an indie developer is one not attached to a studio or a middleman of sorts, a self-financed studio without answering to anybody.

I think Bobby is a great money maker, he knows how to make a lot of money, nobody can argue that, but that's all he is. Saying Bungie is indie is like saying the Pope belongs to the wiccan movement. Bungie is under the wing of a publisher, it can never be any sort of indie whatsoever. This is a supreme insult to the indie community and now I wonder if their indie support contest will have any significant runners now.

Gee Bobby, I kinda have to thank you because it's people like you and who buy the shit that comes out of your mouth that will make the industry crash and right now a crash is what the industry needs.

eRe4s3r wrote on Sep 20, 2010, 16:50:
Exactly, how is Bungie an Indy - they never developed anything without Investment Money from a AAA Publisher!

Which AAA publisher bankrolled Marathon and Myth?

Kotick says something stupid and everyone gets into a fit.