Cafe people - The Power Gamer

*blows dust off blog*

Okay let's do this.

Once in a while, I go to the Starbucks in Astor Place. It's probably the closest cafe to where I live, but it is usually mobbed by 9am. There's rarely anywhere to sit, let alone anywhere near an outlet. I used to never go at all, because it used to cost $10 to access their wifi, but sometime ago they changed that when I wasn't looking. Their wifi is now free, so I try to get over there whenever I can get out early enough.

There's one gentleman who obviously has NO problem getting there early. Every day (or at least, every day that I'm there) I see him. A dude in a black leather coat hunched over a massive laptop - one of those souped-up alienware computers with the fancy insignia on it. The laptop sits on top of a big cooling stand. There's a keyboard attached, as well as a USB enabled XBOX style controller. He wears huge noise-cancelling headphones with blinking blue lights. His gear takes up the entire table.

And what's he doing on this computer? Playing MMOs. Every day. All day.

From a Starbucks.

I first saw him playing The Old Republic around the same time I was playing it last year. Then I saw him playing The Secret World. He is always playing the current Big MMO Of The Moment.

Whenever I tell this story, I get theories ranging from amusing (he's a pro gamer trying to make it big, but can't afford internet) to practical (he's a gaming journalist) to sad (he tells his family he's going to a job but comes to a Starbucks to play games instead). Who knows why he does it. He just does. Like most of the people I see every day in cafes, I don't engage. I just observe, come up with my own theories, and file them away to consider later when I'm designing characters. Who knows, you might see this guy in the next Blackwell game.

It would be oddly appropriate.

-Dave

The publishing thing

So our latest game Primordia, has just hit the Gold Candidate stage. This means the game is pretty much done.  Sure there might be a minor bug or two, but they aren't worth potentially breaking the game over in order to fix.  So unless the testers find a bug that's absolutely critical (an unavoidable crash or freeze, for example), we're leaving it to slowly bake until launch day.  

Primordia marks our eleventh game, and the third game we launched this year alone. It is also the fifth game we are publishing, instead of developing or writing it ourselves.  It was developed by a group called Wormwood Studios, and it's a gorgeous piece of work. There's a free demo available right now, and you can pre-order it for 10% off.  You can also vote for it on Project Greenlight, if you'd like to see it on Steam (the Greenlight thing is a subject for another day entirely). 

Anyway, publishing. I suppose the "indie publishing other indies" model is a pretty rare thing. It worked out well with Gemini Rue, and so I sought out other games along the same lines. Games that had tons of potential but where the developers lacked the time, experience, or motivation to finish it and get it out the door. Or they just didn't want to deal with any of the marketing/sales stuff after it was done. Or for any variety of reasons. Either way, we got involved and it's been a whirlwind.

One interesting thing I've learned about publishing a game is that it takes just as much time, effort and concentration as a game I develop myself.  That might sound weird, but what I mean is that the effort and concentration comes from a different part of my brain. It's turned me into more of a business guy than a developer guy, which has left me very little to talk about on this blog (which is why it's been so empty lately - er, not that I'm making excuses or anything). Business talk is boring, and I wasn't knee-deep in the creative process enough to feel comfortable talking about the development process. It's also left me in the complete wrong mindset to focus on my own games, which is why the next Blackwell is taking much much longer than I would have liked.

Regardless, I feel very proud that we managed to get Puzzle Bots, Gemini Rue, Da New Guys, Resonance, and Primordia out into the game-o-sphere. They are all great games - games that we (meaning Wadjet Eye) couldn't have created on our own.  I've worked with some wonderful developers and learned so much from seeing how they all  work. We are  much more financially stable - having lots of new games allowed us to pace out our releases and spread out the risk, so if one game failed we wouldn't go down with it.  Before we were just squeaking by, but now we have actual savings and enough of a "long tail" that we don't have to worry about going bust anytime soon. 

But still. I miss designing. I miss sitting in a cafe with nothing but my notebook and a bagel. Getting into publishing was AMAZING, but for now I want to get back to doing the thing that got me into game development in the first place. 

Hello, left side of the brain. It's been awhile. Have some coffee. Let's talk.

 -Dave 

More fun with placeholder art!

So awhile ago I announced Primordia, the next game we are publishing. It's unique in that I am not directly involved with production, aside from project management and dealing with the voiceovers. It's got the biggest team we've ever had on a single game - with a dedicated writer, artist, composer, and programmer. So it's been an interesting experience.

Since my involvement is so minimal, it often leaves me with large chunks of time where I'm not doing anything. So what to do with this extra time? Work on the next Blackwell game, of course.

It's slow going, because I don't work well when I'm constantly shifting gears, but it's definitely taking shape. I am tentatively calling it "Blackwell Epiphany" and like Deception before it, it's becoming the largest Blackwell game yet. No art assets exist for the game yet, but I am making some good headway using a combination of sketched backgrounds, MSpaint, and sprites from the previous game (which I will be replacing).

So while I can't reveal any details, I CAN reveal these lovely programmer art scenes that I've programmed!

The red bits are graffiti. That's how you know it's EDGY.

Tactile puzzle!

Mashup of photo and MSpaint.

If only I could get away with making games that look like this. My productivity rate would skyrocket. In any case, it feels really good to see Joey and Rosa up on my screen again.

-Dave

Dude, where's my boxed edition?

I talked a few months ago about my "ocean marketing" moments. Moments where I did something wrong, or something just WENT wrong, or in general things didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. One of those moments has come to pass again, and as a cautionary - albeit a bit embarrassing - tale I have decided to blog about it.

When Resonance first went on sale, I offered a digital version and a physical boxed version. I've done the physical version thing before, but that was usually just a CD in a snap case. The process in making those was always quite simple, as I always use a local duplication service (called Landshark CD, who always do a really great job).  All I needed to do was give them the art for the disc and case, as well as a memory stick with all of the files on it. Then they would create a proof for me to take a look at, and once I gave the green light they would take care of the rest. A week later, they'd call me to tell me the job was finished and I could come pick it up. They are a ten minute subway ride away, so it was a simple matter to zip over there and bring back all the packages by taxi.

However, this time around we wanted to do something different. A snapcase was all well and good, but we wanted to make an actual BOXED EDITION. A box which contained the disc and a poster, all professionally done with nice art and everything. The hype behind Resonance seemed to call out for it. If we were going to do a boxed version, now was the time.  So I went ahead and struck a deal with a manufacturer called Coral Graphics who specializes in this kind of thing. They were recommended by people I know at TellTale, so I knew they would do a good job.

But... what I did not take into consideration was how painstakingly slow the process of making these boxed editions would be.  Every piece of it has to go through an approval process, and Coral Graphics was located several states away. No longer could I just hop on the subway to take a look at the proof. It had to be mailed to me, and I would have to mail it back with my approval or rejection. If I didn't like it, they would redo it and send it back.

The disc alone took three weeks to get approved, since for some reason we weren't burning the data in the correct way. When I asked what the correct way was, we were told "We just duplicate the disc. We don't create it." While it would have been easy to get annoyed at them, the truth is they were used to dealing with much bigger companies than mine. Companies which usually have a whole department dealing with this kind of thing. In any case, a few tries later we got the data burning process right and the disc was approved. The poster was sent to us for approval, and it was much too dark. So that was sent back and we received another one, which was fine. That was another week lost. Then there's finding a warehouse to handle all the shipping, which is another logistical process that I had to learn about as I went.

The end result? It's been a month since the game was launched and the boxes are only JUST starting to be made. And if you ordered the box during the pre-order phase, you have been waiting almost two months for your box to arrive. For this, I can only say I'm sorry.

However, I promise - your boxes are coming. I have seen an early-production sample and it looks AWESOME. They just... are taking a lot longer to produce and ship than I thought they would.



An early production proof, propped up by coffee.
I have never done anything quite like this before. I should have done more research and determined how long this would actually take, and again - for that I can only apologize. Rest assured I will let you know as soon as the boxed editions are produced and ready to ship. And I will also be sure to start the process much earlier next time.

-Dave

Liftoff!

 

We launched Resonance yesterday, and with that launch came an interesting realization. This is the tenth game that we've released since we've been in business. Tenth!! We've released ten games. That's double digits, man. Crazy.

So Resonance, than. It's out and doing well. I don't do a lot of bragging on this site, but I'm happy to say that it has broken all previous sales records by, um, a lot. We're all pretty proud of it. I'm hardly unbiased, but folks in general are saying nice things about it so I think I'm justified in saying that the game is pretty darn good. It is the longest and most complex game we've ever worked on, for sure. Four player characters, a memory inventory system, and some truly devious puzzles which thank God I didn't have to program myself. Credit for that goes to my wife, who was coding away till 3am every night for the last several months.

So now that it's out I've been catching up on various things. I finally have the time to make some headway on the design for the next Blackwell game. The design stage is always the most nebulous part of the process, where I create and discard ideas like tissue paper. An idea I think is awesome one day just seems trite and stupid the next. I do have a core plot concept, and a framework to hang a game around. It just needs fleshing out. I'll be writing more about that soon.

We're also publishing another game in the Fall - a post apocalyptic cyberpunk adventure called Primordia which is looking pretty sweet. I've been pretty silent about that one because we were aiming all our PR guns at Resonance. But rest assured you'll be hearing more about Primordia before too long.

And... that's about it, I guess. Now that the game is out and crunch time is over, I suppose we have to relearn what having a life is like.

-Dave

Tales from the cafe!

This post doesn't have much to do with anything. Just some weirdness that happened to me a few hours ago.

Today was such a gorgeous day that I went to Cafe Pick Me Up to do some design. I grabbed an outside table and an iced coffee and began scribbling away in a notebook. It's been awhile since I've been able to do the cafe thing, so it was nice to get back into it.

I was sitting there for maybe a half hour when one of the baristas came up to me and asked if I could move. "Some guys want to film here. Is that okay?" Eh, sure. This is New York, after all. There was another table nearby, so I moved my stuff over. He even gave me a free drink to apologize. Yes, I have mentioned that I love this place.

Anyway, the film looked to be some kind of interview segment. Three ladies sat at the table and began chatting with each other. The man with the camera told them to "just talk and pretend I'm not here." Pretty common enough, but then I noticed that one of the ladies was wearing a hot pink pants suit with matching blazer and - I kid you not - pointy elf ears.

Not long after, a middle-aged woman came up to me and asked if I could hold her dog's leash while she ran in to grab a coffee. She was wearing a multi-colored tie-dyed shirt with hair to match. I took the dog's leash and she came back within minutes. She instantly asked me, "Dude! Did you see the naked guy?" Naked guy? "Yeah! Yesterday, there was a naked guy hanging around here. Everyone was talking about it!"

"I haven't seen any naked guys." I told her, "but there's an elf girl being interviewed over at that table."

"Pff," she scoffed. "I get interviewed all the time."

And with that, she took her dog and left.

The Kickstarter thing

So this was a long time coming. I'm afraid this blog post will be all sorts of confusing and contradictory, but here goes.

For those who have tuned in late, Kickstarter is a crowdfunding service that enables struggling projects to get off the ground. Let's say you have a Great Idea for a product, but you lack the money to make it happen. You pop onto Kickstarter, write about your project and include a pitch video, name your funding goal, and then send the link to everyone you know. Anyone who likes your project can donate money in exchange for various rewards (like $25 for a t-shirt, $50 for concept sketches, or even $10,000 for a free dinner with you). If the project doesn't meet its funding goal, than the money is returned to the backers. If the project makes its goal, then the money is transferred to you and you (presumably) begin work on the project.

Various video games have been funded on Kickstarter for a few years now - even the developer of Resonance had a modest-but-successful campaign a few years back - but the mad rush didn't begin until a few months ago with Tim Schafer and his Double Fine adventure game. To make a long story short, the game received over a million dollars in funding the first day and became the bone fide Video Game Kickstarter Success story. This was big news. The fact that it was a point-and-click adventure game made it even bigger. Seemingly overnight, Tim Schafer proved that the old genre still had life in it. The fans were willing to put their money where their mouth was.

It wasn't long before others joined in. Al Lowe of Leisure Suit Larry fame started a Kickstarter campaign, as did Jane Jensen of Gabriel Knight. Tex Murphy is back, and the two guys from Space Quest. Now, four months after Tim Schafer's debut, so many games are being Kickstarted that sites like Rock Paper Shotgun had to start a weekly column to keep track of them.

And through it all, I have been kinda silent about it. I've been asked numerous times about what I think about the resurgence, and if I'll be doing a Kickstarter of my own. The truth is, I wasn't sure but I couldn't say why. So I hemmed and hawed and avoided the subject, but my feelings basically boil down to: "I think it's great, but count me out for now."

To expand on the first part, the fact that we're getting a new Jane Jensen game, a new Brian Fargo game, and a new Tex Murphy game blows my mind. These are all franchises that we all thought were dead, and nobody is more excited than me to see them coming back (and with such fantastic fan support behind them). As a pure consumer, I am full of nerd joy at these games existing. As a pure capitalist adventure game developer, I figure that anything that gets more people excited about playing adventure games can only be a good thing. So I'm all for it.

But... I can't help but worry that this is a bit of a gold rush. I got into the gamedev biz at the tail end of the Casual Game Gold Rush, and I got sucked into it. Then it died and was replaced by the Facebook Gold Rush. That didn't last long and then we got the Mobile Gold Rush. And let's not forget the Flash Gold Rush, which predated all of them. All these gold rushes made a lot of money for a lot of people, but it wasn't long before they died out and left those same developers in the lurch. Myself included, for awhile.

Now we've got the Kickstarter Gold Rush, which is a whole different animal. The developers aren't trying to sell you a game, they are trying to sell you the idea of a game. The amazing thing about the Tim Schafer project is that he never once told us what the game was about. Just saying he wanted to make one was enough to earn over two million dollars.  The Jane Jensen project, the Al Lowe project, and the Tex Murphy project all asked for and got about half-a-mil each. Smaller developers are now hopping on the bandwagon with lofty funding goals of $20,000 and above. And the bizarre thing is... it's working.

Addendum: It's working, for now. Kickstarter is all the rage. As were casual games. And facebook games. And mobile games.

I've written before that I'm a craven coward. I like being a self-sustaining business. I put my games together with spit-and-staples, but even so I am confident that they will sell enough to earn my living as well as fund the next game. It's a system that has worked for years. I like being able to pay my mortgage and eat food. Why rock the boat?

But even still... I see all this magical Kickstarter money and ohh boy, is it tempting. It's easy to fantasize about using the service to fund a fully HD game, and you know what? I could probably do it. Once. But what about the game after that? And the one after that? Will Kickstarter still be a viable option a year from now?

During the casual game gold rush, many game developers relied on Big Fish Games for 90% of their income. When that bubble burst, most of those developers went out of business. If I start relying on Kickstarter and that dies out, could the same happen to me?

We're already seeing a few cracks forming. The debacle between Leisure Suit Larry project and the Sam Suede project was appalling to watch, and noted game journalists like Jim Sterling have gone on record saying they will no longer respond to emails with the word "Kickstarter" in them. Kickstarter fatigue is obviously starting to set in. Will it get worse, or better? Think about how many times you read about games that go way over budget, or get cancelled, or never get finished. When some of these Kickstarter projects inevitably don't surface - or turn out to be not what players expected - what will happen? Will people lose faith in the system completely?

And that's just it. I have no idea. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. A few years ago I wrote that I wouldn't consider doing an iOS port of our games, and I've recently changed my mind (more on that later) so my opinion of this could change. But for now, I've got too many questions and not enough answers. All I know is that I've seen several Gold Rushes and I want to be sure that this one has long-term stability before I join the fray.

In the meantime, as a consumer I am very happy and excited for the games that sought funding and succeeded. Like that new Tex Murphy game. I really want to play that one. So get on that, guys.


-Dave

Too long; didn't read version: Kickstarter is awesome for consumers. A bit iffy for business owners seeking long-term stability. This opinion is subject to change pending future developments. Gimme Tex.