Interviews

JA – Do you think indie AGs should be judged by the same standards as professional developers?

Steve Ince – Yes.  Independent developers are professionals, too.  We cannot expect to be given any favours because we don’t have 50 employees working for us or the review systems would be meaningless.  It also wouldn’t be fair on the players who we expect to pay good money for our games.  I’d like to hope, though, that reviewers, and others, would place more emphasis on gameplay in general than flashy graphics or technical wizardry.  Of course, these things will always get a game additional marks, but I think that’s right in the grand scheme of things.

What I think IS unfair is when an adventure is marked down because it doesn’t have features like those in Half-Life 2, say.  Adventures are not trying to compete with these games, just as RPGs are not competing directly.

However, in a comparison with other adventures, if you don’t like your game being compared unfavourably with The Longest Journey or Myst, then you should be asking yourself if you might be better if you chose a different style of game.

My own games will never compete with “top” titles on a technical or cutting-edge art level, but it is my intention to do the best I can within the chosen style and hope that this finds favour with game players and reviewers.

Jonathan
Boakes – Goodness
no! Think about all those buggy, boring movie tie-ins that would
suffer when compared to the shining quality, and individually,
of our independent masterpieces. Seriously though. I couldn’t
give two hoots. If a preview/review writer is unable to make
interesting comment, without having to compare a small project
to a $2 million monster I feel sorry for them… For a
few minutes, and then I laugh, and carry on.  

Britney
Brimhall – I
don’t necessarily think there is a difference between
indie adventure games and professional games. Although
many indie developers work on a hobby basis, there are also
many creating titles as their livelihood, and hence they should
be considered professional.  I think instead, that each
game should be judged against itself – I like to ask, did
the game live up to the vision that the team set out to achieve?

Tamás
Marosi Z. (Pierrot) –
Looking from the critics side, I would expect some special treatment,
that is tolerance and intention to help. We shouldn’t
expect anything like that from the audience, the players. They
are there with their money, and decide what to spend it on. Doesn’t
matter how, we have to convice them to choose our production.
It’s not sure that we have to be as pretty as the big ones
but then we should be cleverer. Or the other way round… Or
else…

Mikael & Eleen Nyqvist – It’s our firm conviction that games developed with small resources CAN compete with the giants (if not salewise, but that’s a completely different matter). Hence, they should not be cut any slack when it comes to reviews.

Matt Clark –
What’s the actual
definition of a ‘professional developer’? An indie
developer is as professional as they want to be. To suggest a larger
input of cash, and a dedicated publisher, promotes professionalism
seems shortsighted. Creating games independently involves strict
planning, and a careful use of the available finances and time
budget.

Cos Russo – Yes. Simply, it makes us produce product that is competitive, otherwise it may as well be shareware.
 

Agustin Cordes & Alejandro Graziani – This
is a tough one. If an indie is facing his work seriously and wants
to grow and evolve, then he should be judged by the standards.
It’s quite a process but I trust that eventually most independent
games out there will be on-par with commercial adventures. I must stress though, in terms of technical quality – which, sadly, tends to weigh too much on reviews these days.

It’s a difficult situation
because, in some ways, I think indies have it easier than professionals.
Think about it – less pressure, no strings attached to investors or
publishers (generally speaking here), a loyal following that can
almost ensure you a certain number of sales. On the other hand,
and depending on the scope of the game, indies are taking a big
risk and the outcome of a project may depend on factors they can’t
handle. And if the project fails, then an indie developer could
disappear in the act whereas a professional would just move on.
It’s not that black and white, I know, but this
is the way things tend to be.

So, I’d say overall indies
can have a hard time and should be treated somewhat preferentially,
but certainly not given away glowing reviews like candies.

Chris
Brendel – I
strongly feel that catering to independent developers by giving
their games undeservingly high reviews is an insult to both the
gaming community and the developers themselves.  It is unfair
to potential buyers for a game to be praised beyond its worth.  More
importantly, the only way developers can improve their skills
is by hearing criticism, as long as it is appropriately and constructively
given.  However, I also feel that any review of an independent
game, no matter the ultimate rating, should make clear the fact
that independent developers have a limited budget and fewer resources
than a commercial developer and, thus, cannot – in most
cases – stand up to the standards of commercial games.  As
long as this is made clear, it is my view that independent games
and commercial games should be reviewed on a level playing field.

Bryan
Wiegele – This
is a tricky question to me because, from my experience, an ‘Indy’
game can come from a 17 year old working with no budget or it
could come
from an experienced team with a budget of a million dollars and three
years to work on it.

Most Independent Games
are smaller than their ‘retail’ cousins and sell for less than
$20. I think a lot of people confuse $20 games that sold for $40 two
years before as ‘normal’ when in reality these games dropped
in price because they didn’t sell well at the intended full price.

I think in general reviewers
should rate a game according to the amount of enjoyment they got
from it versus the admission cost. If a game provides four hours
of enjoyment for $20 I would think it would receive the same grade
as a game that’s eight hours long and cost $40.

Gey & Silvio Savarese – Indie games are sold at similar price as higher budget products and they compete in the same marketplace. So indie games should be as competitive as big budget games. But indie developers have limited budget, they cannot afford cutting edge technology. Thus they need to excel in other things such as originality, creativity and novelty.

In other words, the overall
package of an indie game should be as good as that of a big budget
game. But, since the ingredients of the two packages are different,
an indie game shouldn’t be penalized just because it doesn’t
have cutting edge graphics.

It’s like in the movie
industry. Hollywood blockbusters have an amazing budget and feature
a lot of fancy special effects. However, even the good ones tend to
have shallow stories and stereotypical characters. Indie movies cannot
always feature amazing special effects but they offer interesting stories
and explore original ideas.

Michael
Clark – Yes
and no.  If an Indie game is picked up by a publisher,
and commercially published, then yes, it should be judged by
the same standards. However,
if the game is self-published by the Indie, than I think it should
be judged as just that – a home made, one-man production.  I
think standards for technical stuff such as graphics, voice talent,
etc. should be slightly lower for the Indies, however, I think creative
things, such as story development, and over-all game play and puzzles
should be judged by the very same standards.

Knut Mueller – Indies don’t have the financial backing of big-company-games, therefore the technical part of an indie-game (the game engine, actors) is often not the newest thing. The latest rage gets old fast, so there should be more to a game to keep it interesting.

Keith
Nemitz – Professional developers are not judged
by any absolute standard. Some games are great because they
look and sound good (Myst). Some
are great because of their gameplay (Zork)
or story (Planescape: Torment). Some
are marketed well. (Starship
Titanic)

Indie AGs should be considered with respect to their developer’s capabilities. Some
indies are groups of professionals: designers, programmers, artists. They’d better
perform to their budget. Some, like myself, are one man operations with hired help and
no budget. Judge my AG on it’s gameplay design and it’s programming/interface. I’m an
expert at those things. I cannot afford 3D modeling, animations, voice acting, etc…