Microsoft has obviously been inspired by the success of the music business on how to fight piracy…. Oh wait! The music business is the main example on how NOT to fight piracy. Check out the news over @ BBC news

Microsoft might be big enough to pull this one off though, but I have a feeling they’ve just lost those 1 million customers that got a permanent ban unless they buy a new unmodified console to play on.

Why does several businesses out there insisit on fighting piracy head on? Instead of working around it?
Look at steam, I know dozens of has-been pirates that now buys the games instead, over steam. Of course, if it’s not on steam, they might end up downloading it unless the game is available for digital purchase online.

I was of the impression that Xbox live also was one of the good ways to stop piracy. Make games easily available online to download unto your console. I am sure most of the games from Xbox live is not subject to piracy, though I don’t know the statistics….
The most ironic thing is that the ban is only for Xbox live, which means they cut them off from the only thing that probably keep them from pirating ALL games…
They can still play offline, so what’s keeping them from still pirating games to play offline? Heh….

And I can actually understand why someone would want to pirate the store-games.
First of all; people like to be able to buy their games online without having to go to a store.
The Xbox games usually cost ALOT for any average gamer, which would also end in piracy.
And there has been so much crap games out there at times, that you feel really ripped off when you had to pay $60 for a game that just sucked.
Discs are fragile things, they can handle some beating, true, but I know myself that I like to have a digital backup of it anyway. Just in case.

I have a feeling this initiative from Microsoft isn’t gonna end in a good way….

Unity did it, and now Epic has done it too!

A little over a week ago, Unity decided to make their indie license for their 3D engine developer tool, Unity3D free. This was great news for us indie developers, and I have already decided to use Unity on our games instead of Torque!

But then! Epic announced a few days ago that their Unreal 3 engine Developer Kit can also be downloaded  for free!
Granted, they still require 25% royalties on all revenue over $5000, but the possibility that we indies now have to use the AAA U3 engine is bound to generate some great new games out there.

I like the development of the Gamedev business lately. What’s next? CryEngine for free?
This is kind of bad news for Torque though, since they recently decided to not make a separate indie license with their new Torque 3D engine, but instead offers it for $1000 for everyone. Which means they will most likely lose ALOT of indies to Unity or Epic.
Unless they use the opportunity and release a free indie license in the coming weeks, which might be a smart move as it looks now.

Also, Unity has just partnered up with  online video education site, Noesis to offer education on the use of Unity3.
Which is something I’ve always found lacking in the past, easy accessible education on the different 3D engines out there.
Hopefully this trend will continue too, so we get more education on the different engines online.

Little has happened since new years… Too much procrastinating with things like buying an apartment, surgery on my achilles and such. *sigh*
One would think that the time off my day-job because of the surgery, but guess what! Being home sick and being required to have my leg elevated at all times just kills all motivation
This friday, I am going to China though, yep! I am going there for 4 weeks! And I will be training Kung Fu at the International Kung Fu Centre[^] in Deng Feng! I am sure I will have alot more energy when I get back and tons of motivation to get the game going again. So that’s my light at the end of the tunnel right now.
Anyways, enough about me

We applied for funding before new years, which we didn’t get. We’re applying again with a, hopefully, better application again this spring. And also we’re now getting some help with the finances and maybe to help establish Kybernesis as a “real” company.

The game is going slooowly at the moment, but we have managed to get some art and modelling together(Read: the others have) and I might have found a candidate to join us as a programmer.
So everything isn’t all that dark.

Also, since the gamedevelopment seems to have stopped on our main project because of lack of funding(and procrastination ) we’ve been discussing a possible side-project as we gather some more funds. Facebook games! You know, those annoying games that you get invited to every day!
I used to hate those invites until one day a few months back I thought, “Hey! Maybe there’s something to these facebook games”, so I started to check them out instead of blocking them.
Granted, 90% of the games are just a variation of the same game(Read: Mafia Wars, Vampire wars, Dungeon wars, Whatnot wars ), but some are actually quite well made! Such as Battle stations[^] and even Dungeon Wars and the other Zynga games have some interesting quirk. Dungeon wars has “3D” quests which is nice to see. Battle Stations have great graphics, a way to actually join a clan, and not just your own passive clan, and do clan wars.
I am sure there are other interesting Facebook games out there too.

But I have found alot of the games lacking, so therefore we’re thinking of making a smaller game for Facebook as a sideproject. Incorporating all that we think is lacking in the current games ofc
I think it’s gonna be a fun experience, and will most definitely prepare us better with our main game.

I promise I will be alot more active on my blog when I get back from China!
So see you all in 5 weeks time!

Cliff Harris over @ Positech Games[^] asked all the pirates out there what drove them to pirate his games.
Needless to say he started a nice little flamewar and his blog[^] crashed under the pressure of all the traffic. But he actually got loads of sensible(and insensible, I am sure) answers…
It’s absolutely worth the read, as there are som great insight into how pirate-gamers think, and why they *do* pirate games.

So head on over to his summary page from his little “project” and see why Pirates do pirate games. Talking to Pirates[^].

A few weeks ago, I promised to compile a list of articles about how to start a Game Studio. After some searching around, I have found a few very nice articles that are out there.
I will update this list as I stumble over more good articles, but keep in mind that I actually read them before posting them, so it might take some time

Anyway, let’s get on to the list!

Starting Your Own Game Company[^] – by Gregg Man. It’s aimed primarily against starting a professional Game Studio, and he has a lot of good advice. But it’s all applicable for an Indie Game Studio too.

How to start and run a computer games company[^] – by Matthew Stibbe. It’s quite old(written in 2001), but it still holds great advice for starting a Game Studio. He focuses mostly on publishing, marketing and finances and what to think about while starting up. A good read for a starting studio.

How To: Create your own game company, Part One[^] & Part Two[^] – by Victor Agreda, Jr. Part one deals mainly with some different resources you should consider when starting up. Lots of good suggestions there. Part two deals with the business part of starting up. Both parts are good articles and he lists tons of links to other related articles and the resources he mentions.

Five Realistic Steps To Starting A Game Development Company[^] – by Jeff Tunnell. A very good guide of how it is to start up as a Game Developer. He starts from the hobbyist stage and work his way up from there.
Be warned though, this article is just a teaser for his upcoming ebook, can’t wait till it’s finished!

The birth of a new game studio[^] – by Daniel Sánchez-Crespo Dalmau. Another 2001 article, but a very good read with loads of good advice. It’s more an account of how they started a game studio than a howto, but that doesn’t make it less valuable.

How to start your own games studio part One[^] & Part Two[^] – by Mark Morris. Part One deals mainly with the decision to start independently and the process of Idea generation, with lots of good advice around how to go about the process. Part Two extends the idea generation and talks about making the prototype of your game. I am looking forward to any future articles in this series from Mark.

An excerpt of what I myself have learned from reading all these articles.

• Use free software where possible, but if you can afford a game engine, it’s highly recommended to buy one. It will save you so much time, it’s without question worth it.
• Build a solid idea and then make a prototype of that idea. It’s while making the prototype you really will discover if this is something you want or are able to do.
• Learn team-building. There are tons of good articles and books about team-building out there, and if you want to start your own studio, you will need all the advice you can get.
• Get someone who knows his/her economics, or try to strike a good deal with an accountant.
• Marketing. You can do viral marketing while building your network, but again, this is usually not too easy without a prototype to show off. I would also recommend joining gamerelease.net[^], it’s cheap and it dumps you right into a already well-developed network of game contacts. And it gives you a way to publish press releases to blogs, RSS feeds etc.
• And last but not least, you need to dedicate your life to this. Game developing takes ALOT of time and resources. You can do it as a hobby, but if you want to make a living from your game studio, it will take most of your free-time. And as Jeff Tunnell put it; Don’t quit your day job!

Hope this list will help you as much as it did me. It’s quite the nice compilation of advice for starting up a game studio. So if you’re still set on starting up, good for you and best of luck to you! And welcome to the life of a game developer.

Mark Morris of Introversion[^] has posted part 1 of an article series on bit-tech[^], titled: How To Start Your Own Games Studio[^].

The first part is an interesting read, although it mentions things you hear from anyone experienced, that you ask this question.
But I think it’s a great initiative by Mark to do this, I know there are a lot of people that ask themselves, or professionals this question. And there isn’t any place on the net where you can get an answer as straight to the point as this one.
Usually, you need to either buy a book or browse through pages and pages of a forum or a blog.

Hmmm.. That gets me thinking.. I think I will do some research on exactly that and post an overview of what I find regarding this exact question.
So stay tuned for a post coming up on this in a weeks time(I hope).

Gamecareerguide has posted a new Ask the Experts feature post: Ask the Experts: Console vs. PC Development[^] that I find very informative for anyone who wants to start developing indie games.

Consoles might be a nice platform to develop for, when it comes to possible profits, but as Jill Duffy points out, it’s usually alot more expensive to develop for them. In addition, you need to get access to the development ki, which means another money sink AND a meeting with the company making the console; Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft.

Our [Kybernesis] games will be made primarily on PC, and maybe ported to consoles when we can afford it. Cause I have the same philosophy as the panelists mentioned in the feature points out in the end. Keep costs to the minimum… At least in the start-up phase!

Gamasutra has also posted a Postmortem: How Puzzle Quest Saved Infinite Interactive[^] which gives some very good insights into developing Indie games, specifically a casual puzzle game. But their experiences could very well fit any kind of Indie developed game.

There’s an essay @ Gamasutra about gameplay patents[^] by Ernest Adams. Well worth the read!

I agree on the points he make, the US patent-system just don’t work as it is today.. It restricts freedom of creativity which in my opinion is synonymous with restricting creativity. Cause there can’t be any *real* creativity without freedom!

Imagine if everyone and their cat patented all the innovative parts of their game…. On one side, it would demand innovation in games, no matter what! On the other side, it would kill all indie-developers, since only the big companies would be able to afford the extra cost from using someone else’s patent.
Or it would kill all innovation whatsoever! Cause all the big companies would patent their innovations and stick to them, never straying from the patented path. It would be even worse than it is today…

I’m glad it isn’t like this though, and I sure hope they will remove the possibility to patent gameplay in the future.

Oh, and don’t forget programming code!! As Ernest points out, if the creators of all the sorting algorithms that we programmers use today, had patented them.. There would be no effective programming. I shudder at the mere thought…

Gamasutra has posted a talk from GDC: Dave Jones talks about APB[^].
This guy has some really good points!

He talks about how the level grind of the old days-MMO is absolete, or in his own words:

One MMO concept Jones also eschews is the traditional level grind. “How will people be playing this in six months? What’s going to keep them playing again and again and again?” He asks. “How long will I have to get all the cool stuff and level 99? …I think that’s wrong, it’s broken.”

I couldn’t agree more! There are so many other things one could incorporate into a MMO that don’t involve endless, boring grinding of some sorts..
Like player generated content, player-made stories, player-made communities. Put the player in control, and stop forcing them to blindly play with [the company's] content.
Like he mentions too in his talk:

So Jones eliminated the concept of character levels for APB. “I didn’t want any grinding. It’s a very broken instrument to drive gameplay. It’s customization that’ll drive players.”

The day [Kybernesis] makes a MMO, we’re gonna focus on the same.. Customization, player-created content, making the world so the players make it their own world. And not giving players access to a static world of [Kybernesis'] design.

All MMO’s today brag about being dynamic, persistent, listening to their community.. Granted, MMO’s are persistent, but not all dynamic.. The only dynamic today is when the company decide to release a content-patch or an expansion. Then it just goes back to be static again… Ugh!
It has to stop!

Gamasutra have posted a really interesting interview with Team Blizzard form the 2008 DICE summit in Las Vegas on their site; “DICE: Team Blizzard On Building Its 17 Year Success[^]“.

Coming on Blizzard’s 17th anniversary as a company, the lead team — co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime, game design senior VP Rob Pardo, and product development executive VP Frank Pearce — got together at the 2008 DICE Summit in Las Vegas to reflect, and to discuss how small steps on a long journey helped create a game industry giant.

A lot of good insight and tips in that interview ^^