GameDevMike

I’m easing myself back into game development. It’s a little later than I had intended, but I’m eager nonetheless. I’ll be picking up the post frequency here over the next few weeks. For my comeback post, I thought I’d mention a lively discussion going on over at Indiegamer.

The discussion began from a post regarding an article by Kevin Kelly, titled Better than Free. In it, he talks about how the internet is killing the value of traditional digital media business models and discusses alternatives. He calls the internet a ‘copy machine’ and makes some salient points:

Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?

I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

The Indiegamer discussion focused on how this applies to indie games. Alex Varney made the point that game communities aren’t copyable and are well within the means of indie developers to monetize while giving their games away for free. He specifically is referring to what he calls boutique MMOs, browser based games which focus on a niche audience and don’t try to pull players away from WoW. Kingdom of Loathing is an example.

I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up the development of such a game for some time. I prototyped a couple of ideas last year and had a vague plan that once I finish the TBS I’ve been sporadically working on these past few years (where did all the time go?) I would go ahead and embark down that path. The biggest drawback for me, though, was the idea that it’s a long term investment. I have a lot of game ideas, mostly single player strategy games, that I’d like to try out. Of course, since the current project is essentially vaporware the odds of the other ideas getting completed any time soon are next to none.

On the other hand, getting a boutique MMO up and running by myself isn’t such a stretch. I’d definitely want to contract an artist, as I would for a distributable title, but the art requirements need not be all that steep. Database design and server management can also be contracted out. I’ve a good deal of Servlet/JSP experience under my belt, so no worries on the development front. And I can think of a zillion ways to integrate Java applets and applications into a browser based game experience, both as admin tools and for the players to use. There are a number of possibilities for such a game.

This is certainly an area that is wide open for innovative games. There are a number of such games out there already, but the lion’s share are part-time, hobby projects. With dedication and patience, a browser-based game can grow from humble beginnings to a profitable, full-time business and still remain free to play. It’s past time for me to step back and take a look at the path I’m currently on with my TBS. If I don’t think I can complete it this year, something that looks increasingly likely, it may be more prudent to chart a different course. A boutique MMO may very well be the way to go.

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