Many AGS games are superb, still the biggest problems is not the games themself, rather the economical problems,
the lack of money and commercial, to not be able to selling the games except on steam. My idéa is that AGS games
should, or could have help from bigger game companies, like Telltale Games or Double Fine Adventures, as a help
publisher with commercial and selling the games to other countries, for a percental amount, from the game income.
Another thing could be, an AGS Publisher, Commercial and selling games to stores (not only on steam). By getting
help from Kickstarter with this project of creating som AGS Game Publisher. Even if the game is expensive because
of small amount of money, they may have in the beginning, I believe it could work wonders.
A steam version can be sheaper, but the DVD version should be expensive, to get the AGS game publisher to grow.
I'm pretty sure that Wadjet Eye Games has functioned as a publisher for at least a few of their games. And I know that Mark Lovegrove is wanting to branch out into publishing through Screen 7 (not sure if he's actually published anything, at least separately from the development cycle).
Adventure games are a niche market at best. That's not to say no one will buy them (Dave Gilbert makes his entire living off Wadjet Eye's proceeds), but there's a lot more work involved in publishing commercial games than most people really recognize (Dave has talked to me about this somewhat). If you've developed something that you feel will make the cut, I'm sure Dave or Mark would love to strike up a publishing deal for your game(s).
Quote from: monkey_05_06 on Wed 23/10/2013 06:08:10Dave Gilbert makes his entire living off Wadjet Eye's proceeds
I have often wondered about it, but thought it too crass to ask directly! That's pretty awesome.
Quote from: monkey_05_06 on Wed 23/10/2013 06:08:10
I'm pretty sure that Wadjet Eye Games has functioned as a publisher for at least a few of their games. And I know that Mark Lovegrove is wanting to branch out into publishing through Screen 7 (not sure if he's actually published anything, at least separately from the development cycle).
Adventure games are a niche market at best. That's not to say no one will buy them (Dave Gilbert makes his entire living off Wadjet Eye's proceeds), but there's a lot more work involved in publishing commercial games than most people really recognize (Dave has talked to me about this somewhat). If you've developed something that you feel will make the cut, I'm sure Dave or Mark would love to strike up a publishing deal for your game(s).
I have noticed Screen 7, and believe they will growing. I don't know Wadjet Eye Games, but will check it out. My real idéa is more based on a system, where people, who like AGS games, pay say 10-15 dollars a month, to a game publisher company. Of cause these things aren't exactly east, still an idéa some other persons can use to create such game publisher company.
I've been basically earning my living by developing, selling, and publishing AGS games for the last seven years! Under the banner of Wadjet Eye Games (link HERE (http://www.wadjeteyegames.com) in case you're interested in learning more). I'm supporting myself, my wife, and our newborn baby. So... yeah, it's definitely possible to make your living making these games. Although I'm not sure I understand you fully. Do you mean that AGSers would pay a company a monthly subscription fee and receive high quality games every month? Sounds logical, except that high quality AGS games take a LOOOONG time to make, even when working on them full time. So it would be a long time before those monthly fees resulted in anything tangible. I've been working on Blackwell Epiphany full time since December 2012, and I'm still not done (albeit, our recent baby definitely delayed things a tad).
As for Steam, I sold my games direct (e.g., not on Steam) for several years before Steam finally wised up and accepted them. :D I survived just fine, although selling on Steam is INFINITELY preferable. It's got the highest market share of any platform out there. People just like buying their games through the service. It's just the way it is.
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Fri 25/10/2013 01:25:18
I've been working on Blackwell Epiphany full time since December 2013, and I'm still not done (albeit, our recent baby definitely delayed things a tad).
Dave is so awesome he's still not done the game he won't start for another month and a half! What a
slacker! ;)
On topic, wasn't there an AGS Steam being built at some point. Nexus.... or something like that. It'd be awesome if there was a distribution platform that focussed precisely on the adventure gaming audience, one with the goal of motivating AGS development (ie a bigger cut of the $ for developers) and promoting the genre rather than strict cuthroat profiteering. But I'm not holding my breath.
Blast! Dutifully corrected!
I'm pretty sure the AGS distribution platform was discontinued a while ago. Not sure it was ever going to be used for commercial stuff but I might be wrong. I suppose Peder might be working on something with AGS Archives...
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Fri 25/10/2013 01:25:18
I've been basically earning my living by developing, selling, and publishing AGS games for the last seven years! Under the banner of Wadjet Eye Games (link HERE (http://www.wadjeteyegames.com) in case you're interested in learning more). I'm supporting myself, my wife, and our newborn baby. So... yeah, it's definitely possible to make your living making these games. Although I'm not sure I understand you fully. Do you mean that AGSers would pay a company a monthly subscription fee and receive high quality games every month? Sounds logical, except that high quality AGS games take a LOOOONG time to make, even when working on them full time. So it would be a long time before those monthly fees resulted in anything tangible. I've been working on Blackwell Epiphany full time since December 2012, and I'm still not done (albeit, our recent baby definitely delayed things a tad).
As for Steam, I sold my games direct (e.g., not on Steam) for several years before Steam finally wised up and accepted them. :D I survived just fine, although selling on Steam is INFINITELY preferable. It's got the highest market share of any platform out there. People just like buying their games through the service. It's just the way it is.
Yes you understand me correctly. Persons who likes AGS, make games, or everyone who wants to sponsor a game. The games on Wadjet Eye Games, could for short have more commercial, and even be buyed in a store like Amazon, in a DVD box. I don't mean steam is bad, rather, it is easier to see the titles and find them if you could buy them from a game store.
I still believe its pretty expensive to create a DVD version with could be buyed in a store. I just believe, that the creators behind the games could get more attention, contacts and money in this way, than only on just steam. The DVD version must of cause be more expensive, than the steam version.
I'm still amazed that I picked up a physical copy of Gemini Rue in a ToysRUs in Cape Town.
Quote from: Baron on Fri 25/10/2013 02:05:00
On topic, wasn't there an AGS Steam being built at some point. Nexus.... or something like that. It'd be awesome if there was a distribution platform that focussed precisely on the adventure gaming audience, one with the goal of motivating AGS development (ie a bigger cut of the $ for developers) and promoting the genre rather than strict cuthroat profiteering. But I'm not holding my breath.
What advantages do you see in this compared to just distributing adventure games on other platforms focused on indie games (e.g. Desura, Indievania)? Because honestly, having your special extra nice distribution platform sure sounds nice, but first of all, it's tremendous effort, and secondly it's hard to estimate how good further fragmenting the market really is for players and developers. Although, tying it to a particular genre may just be the thing that works. But at the same time I must say, in my opinion tying it to one single engine in particular would be a very very bad idea.
And regarding clients, I must confess, I badly want to make a Steam-like game client myself. I already wrote a simple game launcher for myself to track playtime of non-steam games. I'd use any excuse to make a Steam-like client as long as it's a good solid excuse.
Quote from: Pomperipossas_Godishus on Fri 25/10/2013 06:40:41Yes you understand me correctly. Persons who likes AGS, make games, or everyone who wants to sponsor a game. The games on Wadjet Eye Games, could for short have more commercial, and even be buyed in a store like Amazon, in a DVD box. I don't mean steam is bad, rather, it is easier to see the titles and find them if you could buy them from a game store.
Excuse me, but what freakin' planet do you think you live on when you, if I understood correctly, think that smaller studios/indie developers would make more money if only they sold nondigital versions of their games?
Is digital distribution (especially of Steam, Origin and other such stores with DRM) faulty in some ways? Of course it is, but today you depend on it 99% of the time if you're not under the tent of a big publisher.
What you're talking about is Kickstarter stuff maybe.
Amateur game production is also unreliable, "sponsoring" games is just too tricky to pull off. Yes, some really awesome games appear, but expectations are also lowered for a lot things. Making people pay for games raises the bar for the length and production values. Also lots of people gain experience through making games and they probably need feedback and recognition from as many people as possible, not judgement from others as they try to sell games that might have some problems (which are to be expected). There have been Bake sales of AGS games and they've done rather well, but I think extending this would just prove to drive people away.
You start to make games that are good enough and you get good reputation for delivering professional looking projects and you'll most likely attract a publisher/digital store, what you don't do is tell people to pay you for games because you make them...
And, apart from all this, I think AGS really is an anomaly when it comes to the amount of activity and support you get in and from the community, why limit this?
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Fri 25/10/2013 09:22:11What advantages do you see in this compared to just distributing adventure games on other platforms focused on indie games (e.g. Desura, Indievania)? Because honestly, having your special extra nice distribution platform sure sounds nice, but first of all, it's tremendous effort, and secondly it's hard to estimate how good further fragmenting the market really is for players and developers. Although, tying it to a particular genre may just be the thing that works. But at the same time I must say, in my opinion tying it to one single engine in particular would be a very very bad idea.
And regarding clients, I must confess, I badly want to make a Steam-like game client myself. I already wrote a simple game launcher for myself to track playtime of non-steam games. I'd use any excuse to make a Steam-like client as long as it's a good solid excuse.
I think a good example of a weird situation with a separate client is EA's Origin - a client from a publisher with a lot of big games under it's belt, still had trouble and had to offer a lot of free stuff and stop sales of it's games anywhere else, just so they could pick it up from the ground. I know I was hesitant to use it even though it's not that obtrusive, but laziness is great within users and will I install another software on my pc, just so I can play some AGS games (and by "I", I mean the random person the net, not someone who frequents the forums and such)? I think you'd already lose half the people, who would otherwise just download the game and try it, but see they have to install stuff on their pc and then download etc. and just give up and forget about the game without even trying it.
There's already sites mentioned before and many more that offer you distribution (and certain level of promotion) of your free indie game.
Quote from: Pomperipossas_Godishus on Fri 25/10/2013 06:40:41Yes you understand me correctly. Persons who likes AGS, make games, or everyone who wants to sponsor a game. The games on Wadjet Eye Games, could for short have more commercial, and even be buyed in a store like Amazon, in a DVD box. I don't mean steam is bad, rather, it is easier to see the titles and find them if you could buy them from a game store.
I still believe its pretty expensive to create a DVD version with could be buyed in a store. I just believe, that the creators behind the games could get more attention, contacts and money in this way, than only on just steam. The DVD version must of cause be more expensive, than the steam version.
Sadly, the exacty opposite is true. Physical copies of my games sell HORRIBLY. The manufacturing and shipping costs are so high that I barely break even on them. I actually lost a bit of money on the Resonance boxes, which is why I went back to selling the very basic DVD snapcases for Primordia. They are expensive to make, time consuming to produce, and REALLY expensive to ship. Not only that, they are hard to sell. Fewer and fewer people really care about having a boxed copy of a game these days. I'm sometimes tempted not to bother making them at all, but I like having them.
Quote from: Anian on Fri 25/10/2013 11:45:52
I think a good example of a weird situation with a separate client is EA's Origin - a client from a publisher with a lot of big games under it's belt, still had trouble and had to offer a lot of free stuff and stop sales of it's games anywhere else, just so they could pick it up from the ground. I know I was hesitant to use it even though it's not that obtrusive, but laziness is great within users and will I install another software on my pc, just so I can play some AGS games (and by "I", I mean the random person the net, not someone who frequents the forums and such)? I think you'd already lose half the people, who would otherwise just download the game and try it, but see they have to install stuff on their pc and then download etc. and just give up and forget about the game without even trying it.
There's already sites mentioned before and many more that offer you distribution (and certain level of promotion) of your free indie game.
I think Origin is both a good and a bad example. It's bad in the sense that you can't ignore the fact that EA are
total cunts who only care about profit and do everything for its sake, including chasing others' money (Valve's in this case). So their attempt of competing with Steam for the sake of competing with Steam isn't really indicative of how some indie-friendly digital distribution platform with very different goals (e.g. improving on the discoverability on Steam and helping indies get noticed instead of just trying to be Steam) might've fared. But it's good because it does illustrate just how hard it is to compete with Steam even for somebody with a lot of juice. No one really wants games on Origin, everybody wants games on Steam.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Fri 25/10/2013 12:38:33No one really wants games on Origin, everybody wants games on Steam.
This is absolutely true. I'm a total vulture for free Steam keys, but no matter how many people try to
give away Origin keys...I'm just not interested. (roll)
Quote from: Anian on Fri 25/10/2013 11:45:52
Quote from: Pomperipossas_Godishus on Fri 25/10/2013 06:40:41Yes you understand me correctly. Persons who likes AGS, make games, or everyone who wants to sponsor a game. The games on Wadjet Eye Games, could for short have more commercial, and even be buyed in a store like Amazon, in a DVD box. I don't mean steam is bad, rather, it is easier to see the titles and find them if you could buy them from a game store.
Excuse me, but what freakin' planet do you think you live on when you, if I understood correctly, think that smaller studios/indie developers would make more money if only they sold nondigital versions of their games?
Is digital distribution (especially of Steam, Origin and other such stores with DRM) faulty in some ways? Of course it is, but today you depend on it 99% of the time if you're not under the tent of a big publisher.
What you're talking about is Kickstarter stuff maybe.
Amateur game production is also unreliable, "sponsoring" games is just too tricky to pull off. Yes, some really awesome games appear, but expectations are also lowered for a lot things. Making people pay for games raises the bar for the length and production values. Also lots of people gain experience through making games and they probably need feedback and recognition from as many people as possible, not judgement from others as they try to sell games that might have some problems (which are to be expected). There have been Bake sales of AGS games and they've done rather well, but I think extending this would just prove to drive people away.
You start to make games that are good enough and you get good reputation for delivering professional looking projects and you'll most likely attract a publisher/digital store, what you don't do is tell people to pay you for games because you make them...
And, apart from all this, I think AGS really is an anomaly when it comes to the amount of activity and support you get in and from the community, why limit this?
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Fri 25/10/2013 09:22:11What advantages do you see in this compared to just distributing adventure games on other platforms focused on indie games (e.g. Desura, Indievania)? Because honestly, having your special extra nice distribution platform sure sounds nice, but first of all, it's tremendous effort, and secondly it's hard to estimate how good further fragmenting the market really is for players and developers. Although, tying it to a particular genre may just be the thing that works. But at the same time I must say, in my opinion tying it to one single engine in particular would be a very very bad idea.
And regarding clients, I must confess, I badly want to make a Steam-like game client myself. I already wrote a simple game launcher for myself to track playtime of non-steam games. I'd use any excuse to make a Steam-like client as long as it's a good solid excuse.
I think a good example of a weird situation with a separate client is EA's Origin - a client from a publisher with a lot of big games under it's belt, still had trouble and had to offer a lot of free stuff and stop sales of it's games anywhere else, just so they could pick it up from the ground. I know I was hesitant to use it even though it's not that obtrusive, but laziness is great within users and will I install another software on my pc, just so I can play some AGS games (and by "I", I mean the random person the net, not someone who frequents the forums and such)? I think you'd already lose half the people, who would otherwise just download the game and try it, but see they have to install stuff on their pc and then download etc. and just give up and forget about the game without even trying it.
There's already sites mentioned before and many more that offer you distribution (and certain level of promotion) of your free indie game.
Yes something similar Kickstarter, but not sponsoring their project, rather sponsor their commercial and publishing. I agree that the hommade games could have some technical problems, thats quite true.
Quote from: Dave Gilbert on Fri 25/10/2013 01:25:18
I've been basically earning my living by developing, selling, and publishing AGS games for the last seven years!
I saw an announcement on Twitter today that you've convinced another big name in the AGS community to do the same with Wadjet....
Yep! Just hired Mr. Ben304 full time! :-D So not only are these games sustaining my living, they are now sustaining Ben's.
Which is... kind of terrifying, now that I think of it!
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Fri 25/10/2013 09:22:11
Quote from: Baron on Fri 25/10/2013 02:05:00
On topic, wasn't there an AGS Steam being built at some point. Nexus.... or something like that. It'd be awesome if there was a distribution platform that focussed precisely on the adventure gaming audience, one with the goal of motivating AGS development (ie a bigger cut of the $ for developers) and promoting the genre rather than strict cuthroat profiteering. But I'm not holding my breath.
What advantages do you see in this compared to just distributing adventure games on other platforms focused on indie games (e.g. Desura, Indievania)? Because honestly, having your special extra nice distribution platform sure sounds nice, but first of all, it's tremendous effort, and secondly it's hard to estimate how good further fragmenting the market really is for players and developers. Although, tying it to a particular genre may just be the thing that works. But at the same time I must say, in my opinion tying it to one single engine in particular would be a very very bad idea.
And regarding clients, I must confess, I badly want to make a Steam-like game client myself. I already wrote a simple game launcher for myself to track playtime of non-steam games. I'd use any excuse to make a Steam-like client as long as it's a good solid excuse.
Well, I'm not going to talk you out of making a Steam-like client for AGS! So here's my thinking:
Quoteit's hard to estimate how good further fragmenting the market really is for players and developers.
It is not unreasonable to assume, given trends over the past decades taking us from a mass-consumer market to a specialized niche-market ...market, that further market fracturing will continue. Just as in the past people would go through the effort of switching DVDs or CDs in their drives to change games, I don't think it would be such a stretch to run a different client for a different type of genre. The motivation to do so would be entirely dependent on the quality of games on that client, of course, but if the system were properly calibrated to 1) give better cuts to developers 2) give better deals to players (i.e. by cutting out the middleman) and 3) sponsor a sense of community beyond just a commercial platform, I think it could be successful.
Quoteit's tremendous effort
Well ...yeah! So is game making, though. How many hundreds of hours have I slaved away at it... For what? I guess it's just a passion thing. Obviously you're going to do things for your own motivation, but let me set out a vision. A Steam-like client linked to the main page of the AGS forums (from where there are several hundred downloads a week already -in the past it sometimes topped 1000). Because this client is developed to support AGS games, publishing them is as simple as a click of a button. No fussing around with compatibility (ask Dave about Gemini Rue & Direct Draw on Steam), pestering a middleman who's going to take a huge chunk of your profits to please please please consider your game (ask Dave....), or players who are used to the paradigms of other genres (ask Dave about the casual market....), or trawling the masses for people who like old-school point-and-click (because anyone signed up would already be a fan). (Dave's great! ;-D ). I wonder how much of Dave's time is spent on the non-development end the business? If you could cut that "wasted time" out, how many more games would he make? More broadly, developers who are just starting out may well find that overhead overwhelming, a disincentive to make quality (commercial) games. I realise AGS doesn't have the market power of Steam, but there ARE more than 7000 forum members, and surely many more visitors. So setting up an AGS Steam-like client would be at first an exercise in market development, but it could pay large dividends down the road: a ready market for indie-developers at the touch of a button. This would encourage developers to make more games (because they are squandering less time on the non-development end of the business), and would also benefit players by providing them with more games. Even now, for a mid-range indie developer just starting out, a low-cost launch environment that nets him 1000 paying downloads could be the difference between launching a game-development career (meaning many more wonderful games to play) or finding another career path in life. As the client attracts ever more users, the potential market grows.
What about beyond just the commercial developers and the players? Well, I think the client should support non-commercial games as well. This would attract players to the client who might not be interested in paying for games
now, but may well later, as well as provide a reason for the client while the commercial game inventory is being built up. So the client would act as a platform for all developers in the community. For commercial games, I think a cut should go towards the maintenance of the forums: I don't think it need be much, but people are carrying the costs for this place themselves at the moment (Chris previously, now Peder). Finally I think the developer of the client should get a small cut, to compensate him for the effort of building it in the first place but also to encourage him to keep it up-to-date. But as mentioned above I think the lion's share of proceeds should go directly to developers.
So in conclusion, AGS Steam-like client is a win-win-win-win situation for developers, players, forumites and the guy who builds it. ;)
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
So in conclusion, AGS Steam-like client is a win-win-win-win situation for developers, players, forumites and the guy who builds it. ;)
Well there was Nimbus by Calin Leafshade:
https://github.com/pederjohnsen/Nimbus
I think he is thinking of picking it back up too! (As he asked me for this link to the source a short while back).
And if he does I'll be gladly helping out again with providing server space and hopefully me and AGA will integrate AGS and AGSA to share the games database so when people add games it's available from both sites and the client.
(After all both sites are now on the same server, seems a waste to double up on screenshots etc..)
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35...if the system were properly calibrated to 1) give better cuts to developers 2) give better deals to players (i.e. by cutting out the middleman) and 3) sponsor a sense of community beyond just a commercial platform, I think it could be successful.
But in the case of a third-party client, the client
is the middleman. I don't see how you can both "cut out the middleman"
and provide a Steam-like games client unless you're a developer who's just producing hundreds of games each year. Dave's on his way, but he's not quite to that point yet. :P
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
It is not unreasonable to assume, given trends over the past decades taking us from a mass-consumer market to a specialized niche-market ...market, that further market fracturing will continue. Just as in the past people would go through the effort of switching DVDs or CDs in their drives to change games, I don't think it would be such a stretch to run a different client for a different type of genre. The motivation to do so would be entirely dependent on the quality of games on that client, of course, but if the system were properly calibrated to 1) give better cuts to developers 2) give better deals to players (i.e. by cutting out the middleman) and 3) sponsor a sense of community beyond just a commercial platform, I think it could be successful.
On one hand, yes. On another, I think every other gaming enthusiast will agree with me, that when you are actually passionate about games you often realize how little (very often exactly none) effort people put into finding good games. So you find yourself literally begging people to play the quality games you already found for them and still finding some considerable apathy (taste does come into this of course, but it doesn't entirely negate the argument). This kind of instances has the tendency of making the hopeful perception go away and the reality sink in. The reality being people for some reason don't like investing any real effort into getting their hands on good entertainment. Usually that results in that they end up playing things put in their mouths by the most massive PR campaigns. Which means everybody has played Skyrim but they probably haven't even heard about your game even if you shaped it after their most sacred desires. And that doesn't bode well for what you and I are talking about. Only the most devoted niche gamers would bother with scavenging over a bazillion of different niche-specific distribution services (and know about them in the first place) and these people would in most cases find what they want anywhere else. Everybody else will just wait until Steam slaps them in the face really hard with the next title that became high profile one way or another.
So what I fear in this situation is: the indie developers will spread thin over numerous different distribution services with little visibility while Steam keeps growing stronger with its centralization and massive diverse-yet-unified audience. And for all its failings I think Steam benefits from being centralized and unified tremendously. And so I'm thinking maybe indies should join efforts and stay in focus together as much as possible too, rather than fighting the good fight and falling alone.
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
Well ...yeah! So is game making, though. How many hundreds of hours have I slaved away at it... For what? I guess it's just a passion thing.
I'd argue it's a bit different though. A game is a work of art and no matter how good or bad it turns out to be in the end, it doesn't have a chance of becoming quite as ultimately useless as a game client that failed to catch on. And thus, I'd view spending efforts on the latter a much more bitter waste than even a really bad game.
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
Obviously you're going to do things for your own motivation, but let me set out a vision. A Steam-like client linked to the main page of the AGS forums (from where there are several hundred downloads a week already -in the past it sometimes topped 1000). Because this client is developed to support AGS games, publishing them is as simple as a click of a button. No fussing around with compatibility (ask Dave about Gemini Rue & Direct Draw on Steam), pestering a middleman who's going to take a huge chunk of your profits to please please please consider your game (ask Dave....), or players who are used to the paradigms of other genres (ask Dave about the casual market....), or trawling the masses for people who like old-school point-and-click (because anyone signed up would already be a fan). (Dave's great! ;-D ). I wonder how much of Dave's time is spent on the non-development end the business? If you could cut that "wasted time" out, how many more games would he make? More broadly, developers who are just starting out may well find that overhead overwhelming, a disincentive to make quality (commercial) games. I realise AGS doesn't have the market power of Steam, but there ARE more than 7000 forum members, and surely many more visitors.
This part of your argument makes me wonder even more: is this what we should be doing or if we should just use this to promote the games we endorse after putting them on already existing platforms?
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
ask Dave about Gemini Rue & Direct Draw on Steam
This is pretty much totally unimportant to our discussion, but I'd like to note that this is rather Windows / AGS issue than any degree of Steam's fault.
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
So setting up an AGS Steam-like client would be at first an exercise in market development, but it could pay large dividends down the road: a ready market for indie-developers at the touch of a button. This would encourage developers to make more games (because they are squandering less time on the non-development end of the business), and would also benefit players by providing them with more games. Even now, for a mid-range indie developer just starting out, a low-cost launch environment that nets him 1000 paying downloads could be the difference between launching a game-development career (meaning many more wonderful games to play) or finding another career path in life. As the client attracts ever more users, the potential market grows.
This part of the argument is very definitely compelling towards your suggestion however. Very good points. I agree that making it easier to make the best of what we already have is a good purpose that provides some solid expectations. Still a risk, but you clearly outlined what the advantages are.
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
What about beyond just the commercial developers and the players? Well, I think the client should support non-commercial games as well. This would attract players to the client who might not be interested in paying for games now, but may well later, as well as provide a reason for the client while the commercial game inventory is being built up. So the client would act as a platform for all developers in the community. For commercial games, I think a cut should go towards the maintenance of the forums: I don't think it need be much, but people are carrying the costs for this place themselves at the moment (Chris previously, now Peder). Finally I think the developer of the client should get a small cut, to compensate him for the effort of building it in the first place but also to encourage him to keep it up-to-date. But as mentioned above I think the lion's share of proceeds should go directly to developers.
Completely agree with this.
Quote from: Baron on Tue 29/10/2013 21:47:35
So in conclusion, AGS Steam-like client is a win-win-win-win situation for developers, players, forumites and the guy who builds it. ;)
Would you agree though that making it actually engine-agnostic even if it's primary ground is AGS community is wiser? I mean assuming that first and foremost its AGS support is impeccable and everything. Like, make it for indie adventure gamers for instance rather than only for AGSers.
edit: I'd like to add a huge
HAVING SAID THAT here and draw the following conclusion: I think if one does undertake making such a platform / client,
aiming at a certain genre/style/kind affinity (and thus a specific existing audience) and
basing it on an existing successful community are both really damn good ideas. Both are courtesy of Baron.
Quote from: qptain Nemo on Wed 30/10/2013 00:34:12
On one hand, yes. On another, I think every other gaming enthusiast will agree with me, that when you are actually passionate about games you often realize how little (very often exactly none) effort people put into finding good games. So you find yourself literally begging people to play the quality games you already found for them and still finding some considerable apathy (taste does come into this of course, but it doesn't entirely negate the argument). This kind of instances has the tendency of making the hopeful perception go away and the reality sink in. The reality being people for some reason don't like investing any real effort into getting their hands on good entertainment. Usually that results in that they end up playing things put in their mouths by the most massive PR campaigns. Which means everybody has played Skyrim but they probably haven't even heard about your game even if you shaped it after their most sacred desires. And that doesn't bode well for what you and I are talking about. Only the most devoted niche gamers would bother with scavenging over a bazillion of different niche-specific distribution services (and know about them in the first place) and these people would in most cases find what they want anywhere else. Everybody else will just wait until Steam slaps them in the face really hard with the next title that became high profile one way or another.
Well, getting noticed in this day and age when anyone can publish anything is the real trick, I agree. It's hard on Steam, it's hard off Steam. Cynically thinking, I suppose most people do still just consume what's easy rather than what they say they like, but a discerning few (i.e. tens of thousands) have found their way to adventuregamestudio.co.uk or adventuregamestudio.co.uk over the years, looking for a specific type of gaming experience. Most of them have taken the risk of downloading weird ZIP files, RARs or even installer EXEs in order to get their hands on that retro point-&-click experience. If we could streamline that process, via a Steam-like client, we could make it REALLY easy for them to play more of our games (I think this is about where Cailin's Nimbus made it, at least in conception). But the critical next step would be to ease these players into potentially supporting our budding commercial developers: ideally through playing the freeware they would develop a taste for higher quality or longer adventure experiences, as well as grow comfortable with the community atmosphere associated with AGS (integrating the forums directly into the client -I realise this is feature creep, but our sense of community here is one of our strongest assets). From there it is not such a leap to becoming a costumer (especially if it was as easy as just clicking something in-client), and if we could do this even at a medium scale then we would have created a springboard for our mid-range developers to take their work to the next level.
But as compelling as the reasons are, I also agree with you that failure is a very real and even probable result (what happened to Cailin's Nimbus effort over the past few years (roll) ). You'd really have to pursue this courageously, in the face of a lot of setbacks and naysaying, to make it work. And that's a lot to ask of someone who would only profit minimally from their efforts in the best-case scenario. As I say, it's a dream....
QuoteSo what I fear in this situation is: the indie developers will spread thin over numerous different distribution services with little visibility while Steam keeps growing stronger with its centralization and massive diverse-yet-unified audience. And for all its failings I think Steam benefits from being centralized and unified tremendously. And so I'm thinking maybe indies should join efforts and stay in focus together as much as possible too, rather than fighting the good fight and falling alone.
The motivation to sign up with Steam is no doubt compelling, and I would never discourage any developer from doing so. Dave says he makes good money there ;-D , at least once they accept his games. But it is a hassle. And it's not really our target market, in the sense that 99% of Steam users are completely uninterested in adventure games and 0.5% are willing to try weird things but bring unreasonable expectations to the table. And they take a big cut of the scarce money players pony up, which keeps developers starving. The alternative, our own in-house Steam/Nimbus-like client, would have the short-term disadvantage of being small, and be dependent on the altruism of community members to be set up and populated with content. But over time, especially if a critical mass of players could be sold on the concept, it could be an important complementary outlet to other distribution services.
To address your other points, I agree that focussing on the genre would be better than focussing on AGS developed-games exclusively, although that probably complicates the client-development process.... I don't actually know, though: you are 100% correct that my technical knowledge is hazy at best. I just type up a bunch of code into the AGS editor and then madly click at things until it works.... :=
Yeah, your proposition is all around decent, but the risks are high. If it didn't mean sacrificing efforts that could be put into making actual games and earning money in more established and straightforward ways, I'd be optimistic about doing something like that. For now, I'll just have to keep that at the back of my mind, I suppose.
And no, I don't think supporting different engines would notably complicate anything, as all sane contemporary engines don't need much of "support" to function, so to speak.
Relevant: IndieCity is pretty much back to being alive (http://blog.indiecity.com/?p=2494). That pushes me again towards wanting to support them instead of developing an own solution.