who is your Authorised Dealer for the state of Orissa (INDIA)

Regards.

Priyabrata Routray.
Mob : 09437009514
Fire Stop Sales & Services,
Plot No.207,Road no.8,Unit.IX,
Bhubaneswar-751022,
Orissa

I just took issue with the way Braid was totally dismissed in the original post, as (a) unsuccessful , (b) not what the market wants, (c) something that would need to be evangelized in order to become popular. It seemed really ignorant wrt indies to dismiss one of the biggest success stories offhand!

I would also argue that Braid is at least _closer_ to the sort of topic/treatment Chaplin would prefer than any other game on XBLA, or the 360 for that matter.

But then again I think the whole idea of emotions/etc in games to be a huge stupid dead-end — I hate the adolescent crap as much as anyone, but going to the opposite end of the spectrum is going to be just as embarrassing.

It would be better to argue that games should be more thematically diverse; I think games would probably be more effective at exploring form and structural stuff rather than plot-based or narrative ideas (which is where “emotion” is typically presented). Like, Primer has very little to say about emotion, but it does great in terms of working with typical movie structure to present something new and stimulating.

I don’t even think that “adolescent” blockbuster action games have to be as embarrassing as they currently are — they just need to move from “80s blockbuster action movie” to “contemporary blockbuster action movie” in terms of level of self-awareness.

However, on the subject to profitability and financial models, trotting out 5 of the smashiest hits for indie gaming and saying “this is the model of success” when we’re talking about 2nd mortgages is a lot like saying “if GTAIV and Gears of War/Halo can do it, anyone can do it,” just on a much smaller scale ;). For every incredibly profitable indie game out there, I can find at least ten more that are worthy of profit but are faltering.

If we wanted a good example of indie gaming profitability (which is really not the point of this rant), I think the iPhone ap/game model is probably the easiest to buy into and make money off of.

Why are you reading gaming news outlets that have reporters who don’t seek comment from the companies they’re reporting on? Ditch them.

It got me thinking about music and books reviews, that operate on the 1-5 stars system. Everyone knows what it means, but I really doubt that people put a percentage value to it. I don’t think of a 3 star album as a 60% (or a D-minus in academic grading scales). Although it can easily be translated into a percentage value to it, the system evokes a subjective value to an album/movie/book.

I think moving away from assigning number values to games is a fantastic first step, and maybe subjective rating systems will eventually stop being translated that way.

Your second point seems to be arguing that the huge overhead incurred by large teams doesn’t pay for itself — that increased production and marketing power won’t increase sales sufficiently to offset the additional cost.

If a team can’t be profitable **when you start out assuming that they’ve made a smash hit** (like World of Goo or Braid), then I’d suggest that the model in which they’re operating is broken or at least severely flawed!

>”Even if he is making money, it’s not exactly the model to profitability”
I don’t really understand what you mean.. two people working for three years to make $4M (and counting) seems like a terrifically prosperous model. Is it all that different from 100 people working for three years to generate.. $10M? $100M? (I have no idea what the typical AAA game nets). And I can guarantee you that in the latter case, the revenue won’t be evenly divided between all 100 people.

>”Do you have $180k just lying around? I don’t.” Neither did Jon Blow at first — but he _did_ have marketable skills (i.e the ability to make games) which could be applied to contract work in order to accrue sufficient funds. In the case of The Behemoth, they raised starting capital through second mortgages. We managed to get a loan for N+.

Most developers, even larger ones, don’t start with sufficient funds to cover development — they raise them, usually by getting an advance from the publisher. The only difference is that we’ve found alternate funding sources with terms which are less evil, which allows us to be much more profitable.

Also, The VGChartz numbers are pretty accurate, error is within 10% according to the dozen or so other XBLA devs we’ve heard from.

Second: Assuming just for the sake of argument that those numbers are 100% honest, if any large developer (the target of the rant in question) tried making Braid, it would have cost considerably more than $180k, and would probably not have turned a profit after advertising, shipping, and development costs.

Third: Show me four other games like Braid making Braid money. I didn’t say “Making Braid doesn’t pay.” I said (as you quoted) “Making games like Braid doesn’t pay.” Even if he is making money, it’s not exactly the model to profitability. One or two guys working for 3 years spending $180,000 of their personal money? Do you have $180k just lying around? I don’t. Maybe you should start making indie games? ;)