Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Utah Digital Entertainment Meeting – June 2015

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 11, 2015

Last night I went to the fourth meeting of the newly-renamed Utah Digital Entertainment Network. It was the first one I attended, mainly because they’ve been doing better at getting the word out and because my friend Steve Taylor of Wahoo / NinjaBee Games was the guest speaker, talking about “Building a Game Studio in Utah […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



Steam Refunds: Bad for (Some) Indies?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 8, 2015

It seems the one-size-fits-all approach to refunds (which in principle I’m totally on board with) is being used against indies. Indie Developers Report Steam Refund Abuse From PC Gamers, Show Graphs To Back Their Claims This goes hand in hand with this article from Polygon noting that the system has been optimized to minimize the […]


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



Well, %$#@! Desura Owner Bad Juju Files Bankruptcy

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 5, 2015

Well, that sucks. I’ve been a fan of Desura for quite a while. I’ve used it to discover a lot of off-beat indie games, particularly when it was so difficult to get a game on Steam. I’ve recommended them to other developers. They’ve been a decent partner to work with in the past. And of […]


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Horror Games - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



Matt Chat Asks if Wizardry was a “Rip-Off” of Oubliette

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 28, 2015

“Rip off” is a pretty strong term, as is “plagiarism” suggested by the Chester “the CRPG Addict” Bolingbroke based on his experiences playing Oubliette on a PLATO system.  Chester makes a pretty compelling argument and lays out evidence that Greenberg and Woodhead perhaps drew a bit more than just “inspiration” from the game. However, Oubliette […]


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



Visibility: Screaming at the Top of Your Lungs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 20, 2015

I don’t like to rant. I don’t like to scream. I don’t like to shock. I like to stay positive. Maybe that’s why I have no future in this business, I don’t know. It seems that as anything moves out of a niche to the point where the market gets saturated, anything that isn’t effectively […]


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



Are Game Consoles in Decline?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 14, 2015

There was a bit of buzz last year about the decline of gaming consoles. The buzz itself has gone into decline. I think it was in part this conjecture (building up over years) that led to the creation of microconsoles. The logic was sound, if the premise was correct and the conditions had been unchanged: […]


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 8 Comments to Read



OUYA Is For Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 29, 2015

This does not bode well for the first “microconsole” : Gaming startup OUYA needs to find a buyer quickly This will come as a surprise to almost nobody. The crowdfunding campaign was stellar, the concept sounded awesome, the excitement was trend-setting, the actual hardware was… well, problematic and less than amazing, but still cool. I […]


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 5 Comments to Read



How the Arcade Biz Really Works

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 7, 2015

Stuff I didn’t know…. I was a child of the arcades. That’s where my minimal income from chores went each week. I think it was interesting that while I had a couple of peers that fantasized about running an arcade one day, my own fantasies were about making the games. I lived out this fantasy […]


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The Awards Problem

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 6, 2015

At the Academy Awards in 2014, two of the voters for the film that one Best Picture admitted later that they’d never actually watched the film. They thought they’d have been “disturbed” by it, but voted for it anyway because of its presumed “social relevance.” I suspect that this happens a lot, but it was […]


Filed Under: Biz, Books, Movies - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



What’s Old is New Again: “Pay Once and Play”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 16, 2015

Remember how I keep harping on the cyclical nature of the industry, and how gimmicks and trends may rise and fall, but basic principles stay the same? Yeah, well, this: Gamasutra: Apple Launches “Pay Once & Play” promotions for games that aren’t F2P Is actually paying for a game and then playing it without it […]


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How to say “You’re Fired!” at a game company

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 13, 2015

Kotaku has an article entitled, “The Pizza Party Where Everyone Got Fired.” It contains horror stories about working in the video games biz. Or, more properly, about losing work in the video games biz. Read the story. It’s amusing in a stomach-turning kind of way. For me, it was right after a Valentine’s Day pot […]


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AAA to Indie – is the flow of talent going only one way?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 9, 2015

Many years ago, I wrote an article for the Escapist called, “Going Rogue,” which was about mainstream – often AAA developers – leaving their big-studio jobs for indie development. A few months ago, Jeffrey Grubb wrote “Why Triple-A Developers Are Going Indie (and Why Indies Aren’t Going Triple-A.” I’ve definitely been noticing the trend lately. […]


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



Minecraft Didn’t Sell Itself

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 6, 2015

It’s popular (in indie circles) to say that Notch did everything wrong with Minecraft, yet it still managed to become the biggest indie success story of all time. The game was confusing to players until they’d checked out some kind of out-of-game tutorial (or had someone sitting next to them explaining it to them). It […]


Filed Under: Biz, Game Development - Comments: Read the First Comment



The Era of Enhanced Game Re-Releases

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 21, 2015

I remember in the “good old days” (which were neither that good nor that old…) how we’d wish that somebody would remake an old classic game with no changes except improved technology for modern (at the time) systems. Of course, nobody ever did that. If you got a “remake,” it was a complete reboot. There […]


Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



The Indie Gold Rush: Ending with a Bang or a Whimper?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 20, 2015

There have been a few articles recently about the demise of the small indie game developer. Jeff Wofford’s “The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer” probably made the most rounds last week, but “How Do You Make Money Making Games Again?” is another excellent post on the subject.  At Gamasutra.com, Kris Graft notes in “As […]


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The Game Biz is the Same All Over

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 23, 2014

I am happily back from Japan. I had enough time to wash my clothes and turn in an expense report, and now I’m heading off to Cedar City, Utah to spend Christmas with the in-laws. It is in months like these when my laptop becomes my primary development platform. Le sigh… But hey, this was […]


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism, Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



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