Indie game developers get it: people don’t have a lot of money these days. And while they’d love to sell their creations at full price, it’s given that a lower-priced offering will get people to try games like Canabalt or World of Goo out and come back to try out even more titles.
Wait! That’s WWE ’13‘s music! THQ will probably be showing off the teaser for their next sports entertainment extravaganza at E3 in two weeks.
What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
My worst year on earth may well have been 2005. I had gone from a blood-and-guts newspaper writer to headcount hire sitting in a cubicle with nothing to do for weeks on end. I’d once been the coolest guy at the cocktail party, now I was just another stiff with a badge around his neck in the cafeteria. I’d moved from a log cabin in North Carolina to an apartment underneath the flight path of San Jose’s airport. I couldn’t be in my apartment without headphones on, pumping white noise into my eardrums. I literally went into therapy.
We spend a lot of time watching video game characters talk. Sometimes they’re perched in dimly-lit inns, plotting out their next moves over frosty mugs of Genuine Medieval Ale. Other times they’re exchanging snarky quips between rounds of troll-hunting or alien-squashing. Or sharing awkward pleasantries after robotic sexual encounters.
So, you’ve successfully rallied hundreds of strangers to pay for your brilliant game idea on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or some other crowdfunding site. Now you need to make the damn thing. But an even bigger problem looms after you develop and test Amazing Game X: getting it to everyone who wants it, including backers.
