Digg it up for Cletus Clay on PC and XBLA

Today I can reveal that Cletus Clay is going to appear on both PC and Xbox LIVE Arcade platforms!

We’ve also got a new blog post revealing why Anthony chose to work with clay, as well as a little more about the game itself, complete with one of our early images.

Please read for the blog post and Digg members can Digg us up!

To those who were wondering, I am still alive - just! I’m hard at work hammering out our indie title, which you can now find blogged on TunaSnax.

I’m very pleased to say that we’re working with Anthony Flack to create his long awaited follow-up to Platypus (download it here), Cletus Clay. To say the least, it’s bloody hard work for all of us but also highly satisfying.

For those who don’t know, we make everything in clay then animate it using traditional stop-frame techniques - just like Wallace and Grommit (Aardman Animations). What you see on the screen, give or take some clean-up and effects work, actually exists on a desk somewhere and it’s the photo which is on-screen.

I hear some people have just seen the blog this weekend and think we’re not really doing this, but honestly - we really are, and it’s more difficult than you can imagine. We’ll talk more about the process over the next few months and I’ll doubtless also mention it here.

Right, back to the hard grind!

Sometimes you have to love indie developers.

I recently commented to OddBob that not only was the frankly insane War Twat designed to destroy my eyesight, but that our resident mutant colour-restricted project manager couldn’t even see what was going on.

Instead of ignoring us nutters, he’s only gone and developed a version for the colour blind! Technically, it’s a high contrast version to be more precise. Now that’s what you call service. There’s also a good interview with the crazed creator by Aleks Krotoski over at the Guardian’s games section.

If you’ve not tried War Twat yet then get the real version from here. You don’t have to pay, it’s freeware. Or you can wimp out and just watch the video below.

Let me know your highest scores - I could only reach 433 then my head self-destructed. Go on, try it, then admit your score in public!

War Twat from oddbob on Vimeo.

Tags: freeware, indie, oddbob, war twat

One of my favourite indie authors is Cliff Harris, otherwise known as Cliffski. His background includes stints doing game development at Elixir and then Lionhead. Upon leaving Peter Molyneux’s outfit he moved into indie games, starting out with niche title Democracy, following up Kudos, Rock Legend, and Democracy 2 (amongst others), all available from the Positech website.

Cliff’s rants are not for the faint-hearted, in particular when it comes to the topic of piracy. However, he did a very brave thing and confronted the problem head on, putting out a public question on his blog asking why people pirate games.

In this post he talks about what happened, the mass of responses that he got, and how he is reacting to them. I urge you to go and read his page directly and I’d also like to add a few comments of my own.

Piracy is a difficult subject - it ranks up there with religion on the Internet hateometer. However, it isn’t a simple topic, unless you’re Bruce Everiss anyway (link to be followed with care). I’ve always had a live and let live view of software piracy where software is being given away, but not where it’s being sold.

In the case of freebies, I’d wager that 90% of the people would never have bought the software anyway, possibly even more other than in exceptional cases. This contrasts with someone selling software that someone else made, yet not paying them for it. That pisses me off. Why should some eBay seller, market trader or criminal outfit sell my game and pocket all the cash?

So, on to Cliffski’s post. To be honest, little I read was a surprise. Out of the many responses he received, the most common reasons given for using pirate games were:

• Price of games
• Game Quality
• DRM
• Ease of obtaining vs going to shops
• Political reasons
• Taking advantage of free stuff

The latter two I’ll give short shrift too. I’d wager almost anyone giving political reasons is too young or stupid to understand that people need to make money from their work. And as to anyone taking advantage of free stuff, that’s just human nature and, to be brutally honest, all of us do this at some point in our lives - be it music, photocopying, or games.

Let’s look at the other four topics in more detail.

Firstly, the price of games. It’s important to understand that there will always be consumers who complain about price. Whoever picks the price point of any goods or services is making their decision based on what they expect their audience’s opportunity cost to be of buying the game. This is an economic term which basically says, “If the price of A is this and the price of B is that, I’ll pick product B. However, if the price of A is just a bit less, then I’ll buy product A instead. Product B sucked anyway.”

What this means is that you can’t keep everyone happy. Some people will buy at $20, some at $25, and some only at $5. Consumers have a lot of choice when it comes to spending money, and they will value your game as they see fit. Games are priced too high only if revenue is not being maximised at that price point, and the maximal revenue situation is a lower price point. Selling more copies doesn’t mean making more money.

My bet is that if indie and casual games were reduced by $5 across the board, revenues would either remain broadly static or even drop. I’m basing this on the fact that $20 for the entertainment hours that a game provides is not a lot of money, and also hasn’t changed significantly in years. This contrasts significantly with other forms of entertainment, particularly cinema and sport. That said, there are ways to make lower price points work, such as through subscription schemes and 2-for-1 deals.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Actually it isn’t, because casual game companies have done endless price point testing and as a pure individual download game price point, $20 maximises revenue. What they are finding out is that some people won’t pay that but you can earn money from advertising to them, selling in-game items, subscriptions, and so on.

Summing up, the price of games will always be an issue, so the best solution is to go for the standard price for the class of game you’re working on, perhaps with some allowance for your profile and target audience. You can play clever on the price with bargain weeks, package deals, and lowering the price after a period of time or when the sequel comes out. There is something to be learned here, but I’d say it’s also something that should be in the back of any indie developer’s mind if they are selling direct to their audience.

The next issue is one of game quality. In my view this is something of an excuse because these are the days where demos rule. Not all demos are created equal of course, but most these days show enough of the game for users’ to know what they’re getting. The fact is that many people still buy on hype, or have undue expectations. In both of these cases a longer demo is simply going to lower sales, and is not going to solve the piracy issue.

No one goes out to write a shoddy game, but it happens for many reasons. We have released a few real dogs in our time. Vin Diesel hated one of our games but of course he had no clue how it went down or that we weren’t allowed to feature him in it per se.  Still, I’m so proud to be have been slated by such an esteemed actor.

Vin, I’m waiting for a phone call so we can discuss why “your” game was crap but since it’s been six years’an all I don’t expect much. Right, now I’ve got that rant out of the way…

Games are pirated whether good or bad. In fact, a very good game is generally pirated in massive numbers and poor games much less so. I’ve never seen any evidence to link demo quality to piracy numbers. What does this tell us? Well, probably that people using game quality as an excuse to pirate games are not people you’re going to sell to easily. All you can do is try to write a good game and gain a good reputation, something all developers should be doing anyway.

So we move on to the problem of DRM. There is no doubt in my mind that bad DRM experiences have cost sales on the PC platform, certainly for games at retail. Many of us have had nightmares with DRMs which are cack-handed - EA’s handling of the Spore editor was tedious to say the least and definitely puts me off buying EA PC products. When nasty DRMs make their way to download games as well, the people responsible should be hung, drawn, quartered, shot, slapped, tickled silly, then put out of their misery.

There is no excuse for painful DRM - it just kills your customers. This is doubled when your DRM can then go out of date, and I include DRMs which insist on you being connected to the Internet (PC or console) or specifically limit you to one machine. It’s your game, you should be able to do with it as you wish using your own registration code.

Cliff has decided to remove DRM completely from his games for the time being - a brave decision which I applaud. We did the same for our first ever game back on the Amiga. I was one of many school yard file swappers in the 8 and 16-bit days and I cut my teeth on game hacking, so I know what a waste of time heavy protection is.

Still, these days I would use a simple system of on-line registration and then leave people to it. All I want to do is stop the act of copying to USB stick or simple file sharing. Anyone who is prepared to go beyond that is welcome to play my game - the more the merrier - but I’m not going to waste time and effort chasing them down for money when I’d rather be doing real work. Besides, I hope that they’ll come looking to buy one of my games in the future, perhaps when they do have money.

Finally we come to the final excuse, “it’s easy”. To be fair, it’s really good to go on-line and download what you want, legally or otherwise. I much prefer downloading to traipsing down to a store who’ll probably sell me a scratched second hand CD at near full price and probably without telling me. Well, except for my early Steam experiences with Half-Life 2. The less said the better. Teeth. Gnashing. Lots of.

Cliff’s respondents stated that Steam was a good system and implied that users seemed to prefer it to direct downloads. I wonder if that’s because once you have a game on Steam, you can effectively take it anywhere - it’s attached to your account. While the Steam software has a somewhat painful history, this is one aspect of it I do really like. I tend to have multiple installs across my machines.

As Cliff himself points out, if only it were easy for all indies to get on Steam. The iTunes model anyone?

In summary, Cliff has done a very brave thing and I believe that many people can and should learn from his findings. The most useful thing for me was to see the apparent love for Steam. It really, really is a waste of your time, as an indie developer, chasing down pirates. In pure financial terms, you’ll earn more developing your next game than chasing dodgy copies, it’s that simple. And it’s more fun.

This will sound harsh but I’ve always said the same thing:

PIRACY HAPPENS

DEAL WITH IT

If you think dealing with it is to constantly chase pirated copies and moaning about it, stop! Turn around and - in the immortal words of Why Don’t You - go out and do something else less boring instead.

There are thousands of gaming podcasts around the net but, to be honest, most are dull as dishwater. There are a few exceptions, notably Ben Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation over at Escapist Magazine. I did just find this gem blogged about on Destructoid, however.

It’s a great parody featuring Bizzare Creations’ Geometry Wars, or rather the making of it.

I popped over to the LoadingReadyRun homepage and found another good video, this time featuring Wii games that never made it. The last couple are particuarly funny, stick with it! This video is probably not for the easily offended; you have been warned.

LATEST: Shacknews is reporting the pricing as an error, however the debate is still very relevant as XBLA prices are definitely on the increase and I expect Castle Crashers to be 1200 or perhaps 1600 points personally.

A storm is brewing over indie games Castle Crashers and Braid. A Japanese website has published the proposed price points for these much anticipated titles, 1800 points and 1200 points resepectively. Meanwhile the blogs at Behemoth and Destructoid (amongst others) are filling up with riled users unsure what to make of it all, as you can see by the Destructoid image below:

The first thing to say is that I expect the Western price point of Castle Crashers to be 1600 points rather than 1800, but I can’t confirm that with any insider knowledge right now. I’m sure the matter will be cleared up ASAP, possibly even today.

So what’s the problem? Assuming 1600 points, that’s $19.99 for a top quality game. Here are some of the issues along with my take on them.

If I’m paying more than $10, I want a boxed copy and no DRM rubbish

There are two issues here. Firstly, it looks like it will take some time for console game buyers to get used to the idea of buying games without a box attached. PC users have been doing this for years, and at a standard price point of $19.99 (casual games and bigger indie games), so there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this model. Secondly, there is distrust of Microsoft’s DRM model. Console gamers are used to take/loaning discs to mates, and Microsoft currently provide no adequate method to deal with this, or to transfer ownership (for a fee perhaps). Also, if Microsoft stop supporting the system, you may not be able to play the game in future.

It’s too expensive for a download game

Not really. Castle Crashers is competing time-wise with the big games out there. Sure, it isn’t Halo, but so what? I’ll play Castle Crashers more than Halo, so what does it matter?

Developers are money grabbing because they know we want Braid and Castle Crashers

Indie developers struggle to get their games made, and are unlikely to get rich off them. In fact, they are just trying to make enough to develop their next game, with Microsoft et al wanting ever bigger, flashier titles.

Game development, particularly console game development, is extremely expensive. While a Flash game may take 2-6 weeks for 1-2 people, a console game - even on XBLA - may take 1-2 years and 4-8 people, as well as a lot of additional QA/localisation/hardware/rating/marketing related costs. You don’t have to be an accountant to see the difference. It’s very high risk and profits are hard to come by, especially for an understaffed, overworked indie with no corporate investors to pay for production.

Microsoft are charging me more than 1600 points = US$19.99 because I’m in Canada, UK, etc

Now this I am sympathetic with. As a developer, we base everything on the US rates because that’s what affects us. Microsoft charge more elsewhere because of sales tax and their own reasons. I suggest people write to MS to discuss that particular issue, but don’t blame the poor indie for a console pricing policy.

It’s only a simple brawler / platformer. I’m not paying more than $10 for that!

You know what? Give the games a go and if you think they are worth the money then buy them. If not, then leave them alone. Anyone who thinks a game should be priced by genre is rather foolish in my opinion. You don’t do this with film or music or television! Tetris and Dr Mario were super simple yet have taken more of my gaming hours than most FPS titles. It’s all about value for money, about entertainment.

In summary, console users are still very new to the whole download thing and the lack of a boxed copy still resonates as a problem. I think Microsoft (and Sony and Nintendo) should look at their DRM systems as I think there are ways to mitigate some of people’s concerns. Also, perhaps a boxed copy could be part of the deal with a little extra $$$?

However, give the games a go and treat them as with any other game you’ll buy. It doesn’t matter how much they cost, what the license is, who made them (indie or otherwise), retail or digital - if you like them enough then they are good enough.

For the record, I’m a huge fan of both games - although I’ve played Braid more than Castle Crashers as I have access to it - and I’m a fan of the talented and friendly people behind them.

EDIT: Great opinion piece on Gamasutra where 2D Boy (World of Goo) explains issues with XBox Live Arcade for indies.

In 1981, IBM launched their Personal Computer (PC). For many years it was only ever used as a business computer, with a few shareware games released. However, that changed in 1993 with the massively successful shareware title Doom. The next few years saw a massive boom in PC gaming.

I mention that brief piece of history because it is of great relevance to independent game developers in 2008. It is rarely referred to as such, but shareware is probably what you’ll be dealing with on the PC unless you are developing an on-line game.

The retail market is in a poor state, but the download market is very active, particularly in the casual space. Games tend to be based around the try before you buy model, whether limited by content, such as only the first level being free, or by time, 60 minutes gameplay for free by example.

PC - Pros

• Massive potential market.
• Mature and successful on-line market rather than retail based.
• Completely open download platform - no concept approval required; no restrictions of any kind.
• Huge variety of open source and low cost tools.
• Set your own price and sell where you want.
• Other revenue options, such as ad-based, micro-transactions, or subscription.
• Release your game whenever you want - no third party approval required.
• Immediate downloads for home/office web surfers.
• Generally lower cost of development.
• Easy to add additional content and updates at any time.
• PC boxed copy sales can be a useful extra source of revenue.
• Easy access to your audience.
• Massive on-line audience for web based games or MMOs.

PC - Cons

• PC hardware is variable, leading to unexpected problems on a number of machines. This is not to be underestimated.
• Lower profile than a console release.
• Rampant piracy. However, this could be debated forever so I’ll leave that discussion alone!
• Lack of a submission structure may lead to lack of development strategy if self-publishing or approaching publishers towards the end of a project.
• Lack of approvals mechanism often leads to much lower production values.
• Distribution platforms such as Steam and GameTap require approval from their owners and may incur exclusivity restrictions - if only with respect to other PC distribution systems and portals. Anecdotal evidence from developers is that such platforms are getting harder to reach as mainstream publishers are providing more content.
• Some resellers may take a large cut of the sales price, particularly true of many popular casual game portals.

Piracy is an issue, although evidence for the real effect on sales figures is shakey. Russell Carroll has written excellent articles on the matter over at Gamasutra. However, what isn’t arguable is that a good console download will usually sell many more copies than a good PC download, at least for indie games.

In terms of sales figures, expect around 10k sales if you do very well, 20-30k for a very significant hit, perhaps more if you have a track record and an audience.. Those are not big numbers, although they are big enough if your game is $20 and you receive 60-90% of the income which you will if selling through your own site, affiliates or Steam. Casual games can sell many more copies but the per unit revenue may be a lot less as many traditional portals do not pay high rates and have various customer bundling schemes.

It’s important to bare in mind that the vast majority of indie and casual games will be lucky to scrape past 2000 units. I’ll be writing an article on sales figures later this year, but you’ll find some hard figures here.

In my opinion, the PC is the best platform to get started with unless you already have experience of professional game development. The console learning curve is steep, and for most people it’ll be extremely difficult and frustrating to even get through the approvals stage. By all means aim for console, but keep a PC version in mind and in progress where possible.

A brief note on Mac and Linux based projects. They may well be worthwhile if you are doing PC, but it’s debatable otherwise. Both platforms benefit from an active user base and seemingly less piracy. Supporting the Mac can get your title more press attention too and that can be very important. Mac may increase sales by 10-25%, and Linux by a few percentage points. It will depend upon how the game is promoted and how it resonates with the audience.

If you wish to consider these platforms, I’d suggest using a cross platform library or engine.

EDIT: Great opinion piece on Gamasutra where 2D Boy (World of Goo) explains issues with XBox Live Arcade for indies.

Game Connection have announced a Level Up program for their European event. This means that five lucky indies can exhibit at Game Connection Europe for free. This is a great opportunity for any start-ups to meet publishers since GC provides you with a booth, a meeting system, and a ton of publishers looking to sign projects.

Tuna did Game Connection a while ago and signed three titles off the back of it, and also made several great new contacts. Burned deep into my memory is when Nintendo themselves came to see us, little old Tuna. We were gobsmacked (and happy that the liked Alien Hominid GBA!).

And that’s the point - indies attending GC can get in front of almost anyone.

For more information, visit the Game Connection site. Highly recommended.

Sony’s follow-up to the massively successful PlayStation 2, the PS3, included an on-line service to compete with XBLA. PlayStation Network (PSN) offered similar game download facilities as its main competitor, although without the Game Points and Awards. That, however, is changing with the constant firmware updates such as the recent - although buggy - 2.4 upgrade.

Like Xbox Live Arcade, the quality of download titles is rather mixed, but does include the excellent Super Stardust, Jonathan Mak’s indie hit Everyday Shooter, and - from Japan - the Pixel Junk series. Unfortunately, like with XBLA, the user interface leaves a lot to be desired, and firmwares thus far have not been without their problems.

Whilst I have no firm sales figures to hand, anecdotal evidence indicates that sales are some way off those of successful XBLA titles. That’s obviously a major consideration given the likely development costs involved.

PSN - Pros

• PS3 user base is expected to continue growing fast.
• PSN is a maturing system which Sony are continually updating.
• Sony are currently more open to new concepts than they have been in the past.
• Sony have been actively funding a number of projects (although some have been dropped before completion leading to problems for the developers involved).
• Lack of significant competition on PSN.
• Download games can be virtually any size.

PSN - Cons

• Barrier to entry: Sony restrict projects based upon a concept approval process. That usually means some lengthy document writing in their standard format and, like Microsoft, they really like to see demos and mock-ups.
• Barrier to entry: Development kits must be bought from Sony.
• Barrier to entry: You may be required to support networked multiplayer, and this can bump development and QA costs considerably. Sony’s supporting systems are not as well developed as Microsoft’s are at present.
• Barrier to entry: Development costs must account for TRC handling.
• As with the other platform holders, Sony control the distribution mechanism and may do as they please.
• Sony have to approve the project, both technically and content-wise.
• Once again, localisation and age ratings need to be considered.
• Development environment said to be improving, but the PS3 is considered a trickier beast to develop on than the other home console platforms, at least by some.
• Exclusivity restrictions possible.
• Sales seemingly lower than on XBLA.

With the PS3 selling well as well as the frequent system updates, I personally think PSN has a very promising future. Whilst apparent sales figures are a concern - and I don’t have solid figures to back that up in all fairness - as a system I believe it to be more open to indies than XBLA currently is. Remember that it only takes one or two hits for developers and publishers to follow each other like Lemmings, and PSN hasn’t quite grabbed people’s attention yet.

To register for PS3 development, you’ll need to visit SCE DevNet (the Licensing Information page).

I continue this series with an article about the good old PC, as well as Mac and Linux.

The Nintendo Wii. Apparently it became the fastest selling games console in British history. It’s certainly the first home console to cross demographics so effectively, with everyone from young children to their grandparents prepared to have a go.

Has that success come at a price, however? Anecdotal evidence is that the Wii is kept as a party machine, or for very specific games, such as Wii Sports or Wii Fit. That’s not so bad for Nintendo, but it is a concern for mainstream publishers and indie developers.

WiiWare is Nintendo’s answer to Xbox Live Arcade. It was only launched in May across most regions, and as such there is little data out there right now as to its success. The big worry is that many Wii users simply won’t know or care about it since the Wii may be seen more as a toy or party game than a console.

WiiWare - Pros

• An abundance of Wii units in people’s homes.
• Expect the games to be smaller than recent XBLA titles; that should mean cheaper to develop.
• Nintendo will let you get on with your product - the content is up to you.
• Nintendo claim to be more open to game concepts than Microsoft or Sony.
• You get to code for the WiiMote!
• Nintendo are promoting it to indie developers.
• The Wii is a reasonably easy piece of hardware to develop for.
• No requirement for a Wii exclusive.
• Can still get in early whilst there is a lack of competition (at the time of writing).

WiiWare - Cons

• Barrier to entry: Registering for development has been harder than indies expected. It may help to have a prior relationship with Nintendo or a game development track record. Like the other platform holders, Nintendo still have to approve the core concept although the process seems to be far simpler than with Microsoft or Sony, and with less content-related feedback.
• Barrier to entry: Development kits must be bought, although they are comparatively well priced.
• Barrier to entry: Development costs must account for TRC handling, although Microsoft and Sony are generally considered stricter.
• Right now, no one knows how WiiWare titles will sell.
• As with Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo control the distribution mechanism and may do as they please.
• Nintendo still have to approve the project, although content-wise they may be more open than the other platform holders.
• Localisation and age ratings are again a consideration and expense.
• The WiiMote is the only controller Wii owners are guaranteed to own and it’s not very good at being a regular joypad. This may make it more difficult to design a game for use across multiple platforms.
• Game size is very limited.
• Nintendo don’t allow their hardware in home offices, which conflicts with their pro-indie stance.

WiiWare is the new kid on the block and that makes it difficult to properly evaluate. On the positive side, games can be developed far cheaper and far quicker than for some competing systems. That alone makes it very attractive for independent developers. The home office thing is an issue, but I’d hope people can find ways around that.

I’ll end with some useful links; IGN have a good interview covering a few WiiWare issues with Tom Prata here, there’s a good developer-oriented blog post on BigRedPimp, and to register for development you should head for Wario World (yes, really!).

My next article in this series is about developing on Sony’s PlayStation Network for PS3.