Ignoring Game Development To Make A Successful Game…

Hey folks,

Here’s a pattern I’ve noticed…that some of the best/most popular indie games … most successful games have taken less then 2 weeks to make…and usually only a couple days. I’m talking about the core mechanics of the game…of course, the developers may have taken weeks/months afterward to polish the game.

This includes games like Bejeweled, Minecraft, Pocket God, and even some very profitable social games. In fact, the guy that developed Steambirds…mentioned that the core gameplay for his successful game only took a few days to make.

However, I’ve seen other situations where people “are in development”….and they may spend months or years to finish something … only to have the game flop. Basically, no one plays it or it’s not fun.

I think it’s interesting to note that billion dollar companies like eBay, Facebook, etc…only took a few to several days to develop the core concept.

I now have a clearer development philosophy…basically, set a time limit of only a few hours/days to finish a basic game. If I do not finish in that time, throw it away…because it’ll probably fail anyway. Also, you need to feel emotion while developing the game…you have to infuse some passion into the game anyway…maybe that’s why month-long/year-long games don’t work. Because over the course of that time…you are infusing logical energy into the development and that kills the potential of “fun” in the game.

Btw, this development philosophy exempts sequels and clones…because if a company is making a sequel or clone that is a rehash or revision of the original idea….well…the original idea was already successful…the “fun” was found…and so making development an engineering issue is alright in that case.

here’s the summary…
when looking to do creative development…too much time or too little time will kill the chance of success…you need to find the right time…usually only a few days…and work with that. If it doesn’t work by then…kill it, move onto another prototype/mini-project…maybe revisit the idea again in a few months/years.

Any thoughts on this development perspective 🙂

Using Amazon Web Services To Build Your Online and Mobile Games

Jeff, Amazon Web Services Evangelist, discusses how game developers can benefit from EC2, S3, and other services

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/cc-aws.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Development of a new game genre, SOLAR games

A discussion with the CEO of Tonchidot about developing innovative mobile games

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/cc-arg-solar.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Indie Flash Developer Discusses The Changes He Made To Develop A Hit Game

Andy, developer of Steam Birds, talks about how he transformed a below-average flash game into a success

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/cc-steambirds.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Alfy: Using Video To Monetize Your Games

Chris, CEO of Alfy, talks about the benefits of using video to monetize your flash, social, and online games

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/cc-alfy.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Games As Art? How About Games As Utilities…

Hey folks,

As I attend various game conferences, I usually hear discussions about “games as art”…I’m not sure that’s the most important question. For games to be ubiquitous, they need to be utilities. I think the important questions to ask are…what mechanics/systems do we need to invent to turn games into utilities.

When a game becomes a utility, it then jumps out of the consumption curves of movie content/mmos…where there is a huge uptake initially and then a taper off over time…and into the utility curves of things like Google or Facebook….services that have grown over time.

We’ve already seen some innovations in ways to make games utilities…with services like FourSquare, Digg, and SCVNGR

With a utility, the games success grows over time. Now the question is…what are mechanics/systems that we can reference to build these game utilities…
Here’s an incomplete list…mostly borrowed from MMOs and Casual Games…

a) The game utility needs to work within the normal habits/acitivities of people/teams. That means…these games are not diversions from everyday life…but either amplifiers or accelerators of everyday life. FourSquare amplifies your experience of visiting a specific place. When you check-in, you may get a badge, etc. Digg relates to ranking and organizing news.

b) Badges/Achievements…this gives folks mini-missions/goals as they use the utility

c) Persistence…this is something that helps to show people’s time investment in the utility. This can be in the form of points, rank, or other types of system-generated content/information that helps to communicate the player’s investment in the utility…like an archive of their posts, comments, or ratings by others.

d) User-generated/Community-generated information streams…systems like Digg and FourSquare rely on users GENERATING content (rather than consuming it) … that content is added to the system to help make the game utility more valuable…for example, one player may create content relevant to other participants in the system.

These are the obvious mechanics…there may be other new ones…there has to be…because right now, the current design spaces have not thoroughly identified the mechanics/systems that can modify current games and turn them into utilities. Once we discover/invent these mechanics, we can easily apply gaming to everyday activities like search, dating, news, etc….with the expectation that the games will grow over time, rather than decline and taper off.

Any thoughts on other mechanics/systems that can turn games into utilities?