Interviews

JA – What are some of the biggest challenges you think an Independent Developer faces?

Steve
Ince – Motivation
and marketing. 
When you don’t have a publisher breathing down your neck you have to create
your own schedules and ensure that you meet the deadlines and milestones you
set yourself.  However, knowing that you can create just the game that
you want is a pretty good incentive. Marketing, on the other hand, is not
easy at the best of times.  When you’re an independent developer,
marketing yourself, your company and your games can take a lot of time that
you sometimes feel would be better spent on game development.  However,
without a good approach to marketing and being able to get the word out about
your games, all your development hard work could be for nothing.  Independent
developers should think very carefully about how they handle their marketing.

Jonathan
Boakes – Picking a project/story from the millions
zipping about inside the mind. It’s tricky to pick one,
and work solidly for a year, without deviation. So little time,
and so many ideas!

 

Britney Brimhall – Independent
developers often have limited funds and less experience. When a
game does not have a realistic budget or experienced management,
I think there is a high risk for burnout.  

Tamás Marosi Z. (Pierrot) – I consider the high standard of the production the biggest challenge, as one needs time, even with enthusiasm, to produce pretty graphics, high-quality music and accurate programming, and time always costs a lot. Sometimes these high demands can be compensated for by a simple but brilliant idea, but that happens very rarely, and most of the time, you can only use it once. Meanwhile, it is just right for the audience, the customers to expect the usual high quality.

Mikael & Eleen Nyqvist – To advertise and distribute the games are obvious problems for the indendent developer. On the other hand, by selling the games yourself you get a more intimate contact with the players. 

Matt Clark – Freedom. Absolute freedom. It can be quite dizzying.

Cos Russo – Producing a game that is competitive –  there are some amazing games out there.  I also suspect we will have to deal with a diminishing PC game market – more and more people will shift to console games, especially with the introduction of the new game consoles in 2006.

Agustin
Cordes & Alejandro Graziani – Lack
of resources, subpar computers, no real ‘office’ to work in…
all of these have impacted a lot on the whole development process.
And I’m not exaggerating when I say that we could have shortened
the timeframe by 2-3 months (which is a lot) just with more
powerful computers. For instance, the garden in Scratches had
to be supposedly completed in less than two weeks. In the end it took
us over four weeks because of sluggish modeling and dreadful rendering
times!

The lack of a proper office also meant lack of regular meetings, which could have sped up other aspects of development. At least a short meeting each two days to review the current state of the project would have been enormously helpful.

Chris Brendel – The two biggest problems that I have encountered are budget restraints and lack of mass advertising options.  As an independent developer, it is a constant struggle to have a vision and then fulfill it within the restraints of what is available financially.  Then, when that vision is finally attained to a degree that is acceptable, finding a large enough audience to make the whole endeavor worthwhile is extremely difficult and time consuming.

Bryan
Wiegele – While
there are big challenges to Independent Games, the reality is
there are challenges even if your game is fully funded, just
of a different nature. My personal challenge over the last year
has been with getting the word out about our new game series.
It takes a lot of money to get the word out and as a small developer
you don’t have that luxury.

On previous projects I’ve
had trouble finding reliable people who are willing to commit to
their work on an Independent Game, even when being paid I’ve
had many bad experiences with people who decided to quit midway
through their work or just disappear completely.

Gey & Silvio Savarese – Develop our own ideas with a limited time or budget. Try to be creative and find technical solutions in order to make up for the limited budget. Furthermore, we believe that a deeper challenge (and responsibility) for independent developers is to keep the (adventure game) genre alive by proposing novel and original ideas to the game industry.

Michael
Clark – I
think the single biggest challenge facing an Independent Developer
is PR.  Getting his game out there to the public, and getting
it recognized.  When self-publishing, you have to rely
on word of mouth predominately through the various Adventure
Game forums.  Through that venue, there is only a limited
number of people who will hear about your game and thus decide
whether or not to purchase and play it.  The better your
game, the better the word of mouth and the better the reviews,
but still, unless you are published commercially, it’s
a constant job trying to self promote your game.  Fortunately,
the major Adventure Game sites are wonderful at supporting the
Independent Developer, and work hard at helping them get recognized.

Knut Mueller – To be independent.

Keith Nemitz – Making your presence known is the biggest challenge of all. Making a game that sells
would be next on the list. Those two are composed of many, many, many smaller
challenges. Yet when they are achieved, you can probably call yourself successful.