Presentation about independent games for a guest lecture at gamecity, Hamburg.

1. Independent Games – Kreativität
jenseits ökonomischer Zwänge?
Gastvortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung
“Kunst und Spiel” am 8. November 2010
Dr. Julian Kücklich, playability.de

2. 1. Ursprünge
2. Technik
3. Ökonomie
4. Kultur
5. Ästhetik

3. 1. Ursprünge
2. Technik
3. Ökonomie
4. Kultur
5. Ästhetik

4. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Shareware &
Modding
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure

5. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Shareware
& Modding
Festivals
Amateure
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
The military-industrial complex

6. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Shareware
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure
Kommerzialisierung

7. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Shareware
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure
Publisher
Hardwarehersteller

8. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Shareware &
Modding
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure
Professionalisierung & Risikominimierung EULAs

9. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Shareware &
Modding
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure
Marketing &
Distribution

10. 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Hacker culture
Festivals
Bedroom coders
Digitale Distribution
Amateure
World of Goo? I’m sure it’s fun, and the
reviewers certainly loved it, but surprised to
see up so high. […] I scrolled quickly all the
way to the number one spot…Huh? WTF??
As in WHERE THE HELL IS FIFA 09???
“The industry big-
wig's indignant, self-
righteous incredulity“
- 2D Boy

11. 1. Ursprünge
2. Technik
3. Ökonomie
4. Kultur
5. Ästhetik

12. + Offene Architektur
+ Einfache Entwicklung
– Geringes Marktpotenzial
– Proprietäre Architektur
– Schwierige Entwicklung
+ Großes Marktpotenzial

13. – Publisher-Abhängigkeit
– Einzelhändler-Abhängigkeit
+ Große Reichweite
+ Zugänglichkeit
+ Direktes Spielerfeedback
– Geringe Reichweite

14. – Hohe Kosten
– Hohe Komplexität
+ 3D-Grafik
+ Plattformunabhängig
+ Browserkompatibel
– 2D-Grafik

15. 2. Technik
4. Kultur
5. Ästhetik
1. Ursprünge
3. Ökonomie

16. Piracy
Used Games
Retailer Margin
Returns
Distribution
Platform Royalty
Publisher Gross Margin
Potential Spend 84$
Actual Spend 72$
Retail Price 60$
Wholesale 45$
Publisher Margin 27$
27$
7$
4$
7$
15$
12$
12$
Development Cost: 30 million $

17. Arcen Games: AI War
From: Chris Park (Arcen Games)
To: Graham Smith (PC Gamer)
Re: AI War and the hidden cost of indie games
Hi Graham, Regarding the figures on costs and income, that’s a bit of a tricky topic — not
because I’m unwilling to discuss it, but because the best answer is “depends on how you
look at it.” For two reasons: First, that there was a lot of free labor on my part […]
Secondly, […] we had three guys who were doing all of their work purely for royalties […]
I suppose I’d say that Arcen invested about $80k directly into AI War, plus about another
$70k of unpaid time on my part, and we then made about $180k on it before taxes and
expenses. That had still been counting up until recently. It was a very successful game, and
only becoming more so, financially speaking.
And then of course there is taxes. For 2010 the payments so far have been about $32k, with
another $7k due later in the year.
All in all, that leaves us with about $15k sitting in our bank account at the moment, whereas
I’d at one time had our buffer up to $60k, and in general had kept it north of $30k since last
October, until everything fell apart.

18. “[T]he game has earned
approximately $34,000 so far […].
Minus FlashGameLicense and the
SteamBirds Team, that puts
$15,000 in my pocket for one
month of full-time work. Even if you
spread it out across my full
schedule -- around five months to
date -- that’s still $3,000 per month,
a decent salary.”
$25,000 from ArmorGames
$2,000 Bonus Content
$5,000 Secondary
Licensing
$1,000 Ad Revenue

19. “A WiiWare email promotion from Nintendo sold
25,000 copies of the game, a Steam 75% off sale
helped push 42,000 copies in one weekend, and the
MacHeist 3 promotion helped sell 88,000 copies in
2 weeks.”
“Ron Carmel said that, […] things didn't work out
quite as expected. He noted that the Steam sale
(75% off) had no effect on 2D Boy's website sales,
even though the game was four times as expensive
there.”
52%
15%
25%

20. 2. Technik
5. Ästhetik
1. Ursprünge
4. Kultur
3. Ökonomie

21. UBM TechWeb […] established the Independent
Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in
game development and to recognize the best
independent game developers.
We wanted to create a similar event to Sundance
for independent game developers - and that's just
what we've succeeded in doing with [IGF], which
has awarded hundred of thousands of dollars in
cash prizes (and brought major exposure and a
much higher profile) to a multitude of indie and
student game developers who enter.

22. IndieCade supports independent game
development and organizes a series of international
events showcasing the future of independent
games. It encourages, publicizes, and cultivates
innovation and artistry in interactive media, helping
to create a public perception of games as rich,
diverse, artistic, and culturally significant.
IndieCade's events and related production and
publication programs are designed to bring visibility
to and facilitate the production of new works within
the emerging independent game movement.

24. The Experimental Gameplay Project began as a student
pitched project at […] Carnegie Mellon University. The
project started in Spring 2005 with the goal of discovering
and rapidly prototyping as many new forms of gameplay
as possible. A team of four grad students, we locked
ourselves in a room for a semester with three rules:
1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme
i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc
Kyle Gabler, 2D Boy
Petri Purho

27. “Babycastles is a DIY arcade space
with a rotating set of independent
games curated by local artists and
game designers. The space is usually
set up for play during shows at Silent
Barn, but they'll turn the machines on
and let you play if you come by any
time they're around.” (rhizome.org)

28. 2. Technik
1. Ursprünge
3. Ökonomie
5. Ästhetik
4. Kultur

29. Here's a thought for you: what if, like fossil fuels,
innovation is a finite resource? […] As with exploiting the
oil sands, there will be technological achievements that
open up bursts of new innovation […]. But each burst will
exhaust itself in time.
So before we run out of new shiny things, we need to
build a better model of what a game should be. A
sustainable model. - Jonathan Blow

30. Let's face it: Games, in general, suck. Most
are repetitive and shallow. Most eat up
precious moments of our lives without giving
us anything more than idle entertainment in
return. The really good games, the ones
that we would only be half-embarrassed to
show Roger Ebert as art samples, are few
and far between - maybe one game per
console generation, if that. This is hardly
what we would recognize as an "art-full"
medium. - Jason Rohrer
To make games that are works of art, we should be
taking the exact opposite approach. We should figure
out what we want to express with our games and then
devise game mechanics that best communicates that
message. The heart of our games, the gameplay,
should be our primary vehicle for expression.

31. Games are not valued by their truth (in fact,
most people still believe they should be
measured by how “fun” they are). But like in
literature, you may find a grain of truth in
them.
This, I believe, is the ultimate goal to
games: to make other realities in which you
can find yourself.
- Daniel Benmergui

32. Heather Kelley of the Montreal-based
development collective, Kokoromi, will
be coming by the NYU Game Center on
Friday, April 23rd at 6pm to talk about
their now four year old game
competition, Gamma.
Kokoromi was formed by a rare union of
gamemakers and curators to promote
games as an art form and expressive
medium, worldwide. Based in Montreal,
Quebec, Canada, Kokoromi produces
events, develops games, and hosts a
blog at www.kokoromi.org.
Kokoromi is perhaps best known for
creating Gamma, the annual “new
arcade” event. The Gamma showcases,
which are free for anyone to enter,
present independent designers with
constraint-based challenges and a
public play environment that push the
boundaries of game-making.

34. I wanted to build something
confrontational, that would engage
players to give thought to what
they are doing both in and out of
game. The result is Loved – a
short story in the form of a flash
platformer.
- Alexander Ozias
Based on Valve’s latest hit,
Portal: The Flash Version brings
it all up in 2d! Portal: The Flash
Version includes over 40
challenging, portals thinking
levels, which features almost
every feature the real game
does, in 2d. (We Create Stuff)

35. Molleindustria aims to reappropriate
video games as a popular form of
mass communication. Our objective is
to investigate the persuasive
potentials of the medium by subverting
mainstream video gaming clichè (and
possibly have fun in the process).
- Paolo Pedercini

36. 2. Technik
1. Ursprünge
3. Ökonomie
Fragen?
4. Kultur
5. Ästhetik