Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Manifesto Games Shuts Doors
Manifesto Games, which opened not quite four years ago as an alternative portal for non-casual indie games, announced today that they are shutting down operations.
Play This Thing: Shuttering Manifesto
Bummer. Greg Costikyan cites a number of reasons why Manifesto never achieved critical mass, including a reluctance to participate on the part of some developers; failed marketing, failure to get sufficient investment capital, and of course the recession.
He notes that things are looking brighter for indies now than they did when they started, especially with inroads in the consoles, but also cautions: "In short, if a viable business ecosystem for independent games is to be established, it needs to be established on the basis of open systems and open markets, not proprietary channels. And that, I think, is inevitable; the whole history of the Internet shows that open systems and open channels rule."
Farewell Manifesto!
Labels: Indie Evangelism
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:01 PM (Permalink)
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I was just reading about this on Raph Koster's website (linky) too. This quote from Greg's blog struck me the most poignant:
"These are all positive signs, but they are dangerous ones, too; Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo have complete, monopolistic control over distribution through their proprietary channels, and while they may, today, generously grant a high revenue share to developers who sell through them, developers are in the final analysis utterly at their mercy…"
I agree that having these major corporations in control of distribution is a bad sign for indie markets as in the end they will end up dictating control on what can and cannot be published (as Greg said). I am of the opinion that there needs to be an "indie-centric" distribution channel more-so than there already is. It needs to do two things. 1) distribute indie games for the developers with out threat of a giant corporate interest coming in to control and dominate things. 2) Get the word out to the general game buying public about said indie games. Perhaps it could have player ratings on games and semi-pro reviews (Scorpia anybody?). They could also start a meme that says that the latest eye-bleeding graphics do not make a game. Just a tech demo.
In a way the whole indie scene kind of reminds me of the gaming situation in the 80s. It's not unreasonable for a group of people to work in a garage and make a descent game in a year. Obviously the huge corporate game developers are out there but they do themselves a dis-service by rehashing everything over and over and also by sticking to the same IPs over and over. I would think that the general game buying public will get sick of sequelitis.
I am not anti-corporation at all despite how it may sound from this comment but I do believe in a playing field for indie devs and that is a playing field that doesn't have huge corporate interests controlling distribution routes. I guess I'm an idealist.
I am sorry that Manifesto games is closing down. I'm hoping for more good things for indie game devs and an indie distribution channel closing down isn't what I was hoping for.
Sorry for the over long comment.
"These are all positive signs, but they are dangerous ones, too; Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo have complete, monopolistic control over distribution through their proprietary channels, and while they may, today, generously grant a high revenue share to developers who sell through them, developers are in the final analysis utterly at their mercy…"
I agree that having these major corporations in control of distribution is a bad sign for indie markets as in the end they will end up dictating control on what can and cannot be published (as Greg said). I am of the opinion that there needs to be an "indie-centric" distribution channel more-so than there already is. It needs to do two things. 1) distribute indie games for the developers with out threat of a giant corporate interest coming in to control and dominate things. 2) Get the word out to the general game buying public about said indie games. Perhaps it could have player ratings on games and semi-pro reviews (Scorpia anybody?). They could also start a meme that says that the latest eye-bleeding graphics do not make a game. Just a tech demo.
In a way the whole indie scene kind of reminds me of the gaming situation in the 80s. It's not unreasonable for a group of people to work in a garage and make a descent game in a year. Obviously the huge corporate game developers are out there but they do themselves a dis-service by rehashing everything over and over and also by sticking to the same IPs over and over. I would think that the general game buying public will get sick of sequelitis.
I am not anti-corporation at all despite how it may sound from this comment but I do believe in a playing field for indie devs and that is a playing field that doesn't have huge corporate interests controlling distribution routes. I guess I'm an idealist.
I am sorry that Manifesto games is closing down. I'm hoping for more good things for indie game devs and an indie distribution channel closing down isn't what I was hoping for.
Sorry for the over long comment.
This is sad BUT at the same time it seemed almost certain given the economy and as started their 'poor' marketing. I think if they would have gotten more capital it might of went better.
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