DLC – It Sells Games…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 10, 2010

Cliff Harris has a very frank discussion about the role downloadable content (DLC) has played in his latest hit indie game, Gratuitous Space Battles… Ad Stats, and Why People Make DLC I know I kinda miss the days where games just had “expansions” and “sequels.”  But while the bite-sized chunks of additional gameplay DLC often […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Killing XBox Indie Games, Slowly…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 5, 2010

Some alarming articles about Microsoft’s landmark indie games offering for its console: Microsoft Slowly Euthanizes XBox Indie Games Commentary by former XNA / XBLIG developer Well, I say “alarming” but I can’t really say “surprising.” It does illustrate why my preference is for truly open platforms, but the crappy state of downloadable indie games on […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: Read the First Comment

Making Games: Lubricating with a GIMLET

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 3, 2010

Not too long ago, I read The E-Myth Revisited. While not the final word on why businesses survive or fail, it was packed with a lot of ideas. And I immediately used it as a yardstick to measure every video game studio I have familiarity with. And explains why so many fail. Unfortunately, the principles […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

The Coming App Stores

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 26, 2010

Due to the success of iTunes and the iPhone / iPad App Stores, I assume. we’re soon going to be seeing them everywhere. Apple has announced an app store for the Mac that will mimic their mobile app store, and rumor has already linked that Microsoft is planning an app store with Windows 8. This […]

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

How to Honk Off the Indie Gatekeepers

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 20, 2010

LateWhiteRabbit asked for my opinion on this particularly ugly little feud amongst indie developers for the XBox Live Indie Games channel: The Controversial Saga of the Zombie Massage Makers I’m not directly involved with the “Indie Games” channel. So once again, I’m probably talking about stuff of which I know very little. Please correct me […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Warren Spector: “We Are In Absolutely a Golden Age Right Now.”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 12, 2010

Warren Spector was the producer of many games well-loved by members of this community (like Thief, Deus Ex, Ultima Underworld, etc…)  He’s been interviewed by Portfolios.com, and has some great quotes about the past and present of the games industry, and of his own career (now with Disney). I particularly loved this quote about project […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Blizzard Jumps the Shark?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 11, 2010

Is this for real? Suspending or banning people and revoking their CD-Key for cheating in single-player against the AI? If it’s for real, that’s beyond the pale. Maybe I’m just an old fossil who remembers some games that were so buggy and poorly balanced or just plain vicious that they couldn’t really be won without […]

Filed Under: Biz, Mainstream Games - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

How Much Money Can an Indie Game Make? The 2010 Edition

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 5, 2010

Minecraft continues to defy all expectations. It’s now selling as much as 10,000 copies per day (It actually spiked to over 25,000 one day, after a few days of the server being down).  It’s sold over 300,000 copies total as of several days ago. But just think about it. Thousands of sales. Per. Day. At […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

How Much Should an Indie Game Cost… Revisited

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 24, 2010

Jeff Vogel puts his $0.02 in, again… which I guess makes it $0.04, total: Indie Games Should Be Too Cheap or Too Expensive It’s a curious situation. Generally speaking, “niche” products tend to cost more than those with broad markets. This is for exactly the same reasons Vogel mentions:  “Suppose the market for my retro […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

It Really Was Just a Publicity Stunt

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 22, 2010

Dear GOG.COM – Next time you choose a PR stunt, try one that doesn’t abuse your customers, okay? Kind of a jackass move that I thought was beneath you. Faking your own death was merely lame, but not allowing downloads of purchased games was not cool. That being said, I’m glad you are still around, […]

Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 17 Comments to Read

R.I.P. GOG.COM?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 19, 2010

Please, say it ain’t so! But this is what is on the gog.com website today: Dear GOG users, We have recently had to give serious thought to whether we could really keep GOG.com the way it is. We’ve debated on it for quite some time and, unfortunately, we’ve decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in […]

Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 21 Comments to Read

Steam Whine

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 13, 2010

You know what would make Steam a whole lot better? If it wasn’t actually there. I don’t normally leave Steam running on my machine in the background. And I’ve found, recently, that I’ve got a little bit of reluctance to run a game on Steam simply because of the overhead involved in it loading Steam, […]

Filed Under: Biz, Geek Life - Comments: 21 Comments to Read

The Fall of a Major Independent Game Studio

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 6, 2010

Note: “Independent” in this context means not owned by a publisher. Not “indie.” Sensory Sweep Studio was, by studio head Dave Rushton’s calculation, the largest independent video game studio in North America at one point (after Bioware was bought out by EA). I’m not exactly sure of it’s size, but when I was working there […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Brad Wardell Offers a “Mea Culpa” Over Elemental’s Release

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 3, 2010

Brad Wardell is an indie. A big indie, in charge of a part-business-app and part-gaming company, Stardock. He’s one of the good guys. He wrote up the “Gamer’s Bill of Rights.” He makes the kinds of games the mainstream guys don’t make any more. His solution to piracy is (in part) to make games for […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

“We Sold One and a Half Million Copies of a Dying Genre on a Dying Platform”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 30, 2010

Here’s a fun little interview with Tomasz Gop about The Witcher 2 at Gamasutra: Working in ‘a Dying Genre on a Dying Platform’ The quote that makes the title of this article is their favorite joke – their way of sticking it to the publishers and pundits that still predict doom if you make PC-only […]

Filed Under: Biz, Interviews - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Three Tales of Indie Game Development …

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 24, 2010

Imagining riches with your l33t indie game-making skills? It’s definitely possible. Here are some reflections on some semi-recent projects grounded firmly in reality. One is a traditional single-player game for PC that I thought (at the time) would be a sure-fire hit, blending one hit game with rock & roll mystique. Another is an indie […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: Read the First Comment



« previous top next »