Classic Games versus Indie Games?
A couple of weeks ago, I finally succumbed to the siren's call of GOG.COM (Good Old Games) and purchased some older RPGs - Gothic 1 and 2, and Arx Fatalis. Last weekend, I also found myself buying Phantasy Star II - an RPG originally released for the Sega Genesis - on XBLA.

Not that I really have time to PLAY these games in a serious, committed way. But I LOVE this growing trend of classic games getting re-released as downloads (or as remakes, though it makes me feel old). It's re-introducing games to gamers who might have missed them the first time around - whether due to age or attention. It's forcing publishers to re-evaluate their history and wealth of great properties ... an important thing when I'll betcha most of the suits making these decisions weren't there when these games were hot and might only be barely aware they exist.

I barely noticed Arx Fatalis when it was originally released. Its user interface is the sort of thing nightmares are made of (except for spellcasting, which is way cool), and its obviously nowhere near as pretty as Oblivion or Fallout 3. But so far, when I can look past all that, "she's got it where it counts, kid." I mean, for $6, it's a steal. Big-time. I pay more than that for lunch at Apollo Burger. Incidentally, thanks to you folks here and on the forums who clued me into this one.

But when I put on my businessman hat (it never fits very well, but I try and wear it from time to time), I get a little bit alarmed as an indie game business.

Here's why: One of the secrets of the console game market's success - the console makers wipe the slate clean whenever the market gets too crowded with games. That way the newer games don't have to compete so much with a large back-catalog of titles (many of which are now available used or at reduced prices).

The PC doesn't have that, and instead game-makers relied on the nature of the platform and kept our minimum specs creeping up year after year. And the fact that that in a brick-and-mortar world, those older titles don't usually stay on the shelf very long to crowd out your brand new game. But now, part of the challenge PC game publishers are facing now is that the ol' dog is having trouble keeping up now. We're hitting the law of diminishing returns on technology. Besides the fact that it is costing more and more to keep pushing that bar of visual quality higher, the kinds of gamers that at one time would annually drop a hundreds or thousands of dollars to maintain the ultimate gamer machine have defected to the console camp.

And then you have the indies. Like me. Particularly, those indies who are delving into familiar categories. The restoration of these classic games to the market means indie games have to jockey with some heavy-hitting old warhorses for position along the long tail. And it's only going to get longer. And the indies won't have the price advantage against these titles for which any residual profits are pure gravy.

But this means Frayed Knights is going to be going head-to-head against Gothic 2 Gold and Arx Fatalis. And do I really want a player to choose between my game or Fallout? Especially when Fallout costs less? Holy crap!

I guess I'm just gonna have to hope that people have already played Fallout. And ... *gasp* ... I'm gonna have to make sure that my game is something that's not just a clone of an older game.

Okay. So we indie RPG developers and adventure game developers may be facing a bit more competition since some of the artificial pruning of the marketplace may be getting undone. But really, I see this as a positive. A really big, wet, sloppy kiss positive. Here's why:

Do you think that Telltale Games is worried at all that LucasArts is going to be releasing a "remastered" version of The Secret of Monkey Island at approximately the same time they are releasing their new Tales of Monkey Island episodes? Of course not. If anything, the games are going to help sell each other.

Ditto for these older titles and the new indie games that they may have inspired. I think anything that grows interest in the kinds of games I want to make is a Good Thing.

So bring 'em on!

Labels: Biz, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:52 AM (Permalink)