GamerKnight

Gamer joined Feb 9, 2010

GamerKnight is a professional programmer, who started programming when he was just thirteen years old. He was employed as a full time programmer at the age of seventeen. At the age of twenty one, he made the risky move of working for himself as a freelance developer, and has never been happier. He has worked as a developer in non-game related fields for many years, and is looking to break into the game dev market through small indie based games. GamerKnight has experience with multiple platforms and has developed software in a range of languages from .Net based applications on Windows, Objective C on the Mac, and C++ on Linux. I am always looking to meet new people who are serious about games development. Feel free to send me a PM with your thoughts or questions I will do my best to help out.

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0 comments by GamerKnight on Apr 29th, 2013

Indie Games Are dead?

Gamerknight.wordpress.com

Indie Games Are dead?
Indie Games Are dead? Of course not that is a stupid question. But a questions that a few crazy people seem to be being up the past few days. Clearly indie games are not dead, there is still a huge audience activly looking, funding and buying indie games. You just have to look at the stats and sales on IndieDB, Desura, and Steam to see this is crazy talk.

Hell Steam, one of the biggest digital distributors in the industry just Launched its Greenlight service to help Indie Devs get their games out there, why? Because they see it as a viable business opportunity to invest it.

Just for the money
Any Indie Dev that goes in just for the money is going to fail. I could easily make 10x as much money in half the time using my programming skills to write boring business applications. But I don't, because I am in it for the games, to make something unique and interesting.

Indie Dev is hard work if you are not in it for the games, you will not make it to the end. Ask any serious IndieDev they will tell you two things. One, i wish i could sleep more, and two how they take their daily caffine hits (Coca Cola, Tea, Coffee, UndeadFred Zombie Cookie Cutters, Mana Energy Potion) that wasnt a joke they are real: Thinkgeek.com

Be Different
A small collection of Indie Games do become successfull and most do fail. Becuases teams go in with huge ambitions of making lots of money in a couple of months and making a AAA game. When in fact that is completely the wrong approuch. Trying to compete with a AAA studio is crazy, they have more time, money, marketing budgets, and people. The area Indie Games really shine in is trying unique and interesting core game play mechanics. The kind of mechanics that a AAA studio would not risk the cost of a full team of developers on, because they are not "Market Proven".

Like any buissness venture you need to know your market. Indies Gamers are not looking for AAA games or another Call of Duty clone. They are looking for something different, something unique, something fun, something that is not just another AAA clone with new models and textures.

I am hoping someone will back me up here, I am starting to second guess my own decisions (I need sleep), these kinds of people make me want to give up.
Am i wrong here guys and gals?

GamerKnight
Days of Valor: Indiedb.com
Blog: Gamerknight.wordpress.com
Twiter: Twitter.com

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Post comment Comments

GamerKnight Apr 29 2013, 12:36pm says:

Thanks for all the nice comments, the support helps me keep pushing forward.

+2 votes reply to comment

Benjamin385 Mar 30 2013, 5:43pm says:

Knowledgeable people with a good attitude and a positive outlook on life are hard to find these days.

+1 vote reply to comment

Ccx55 Feb 11 2013, 7:17pm says:

I think anyone who has attempted game-developing has had those same thoughts at some point. Great analysis.

In my opinion, the best idea is to completely pin down exactly what you want from your game and make sure everyone has the time, effort and skill to fulfill it. However, this is usually also the most painstaking and time consuming part of developing games.

Good luck with DoV! Hope it works out.

+2 votes reply to comment

S.W.A.T Feb 11 2013, 1:37pm says:

Gamerknight has been a true asset to Days of Valor and pleasure to work with and hopefully conitune to work with him in the future very open minded and is full of many idea's

+2 votes reply to comment