Talk by Peter Lynch, CEO Fierce Fun at University College Cork's Digital Humanities conference Digitopia. The talk was on (independent) indie games development and role of self publishing in games.

1. Fierce Fun © 2017
‘Indie’ Games and the Role of Self Publishing
and the importance of vampire penguins
Peter Lynch

2. Games I have worked on
Internationalisation
Web Games
Client Work

3. What it takes to be a game designer
My story anyway…
• Working in a bank ?
• Finance and business qualifications ?
• Not being “creative” ?
What I did right
• Played games
• Self taught
• Found similar minded people
• Self belief

4. What is a game?
• Like digital humanities, defining games can be a subjective matter
• Difficult to shift the traditional view of the teenage male playing sports/shooter games
• Are you a gamer ?
Story/Narrative V Gameplay ?
Interactivity!
VR and AR will challenge game definitions even further

5. Games and Society
Positive
◦ Better problem solving/learning
◦ Online communities/social
◦ Co-operative learning
◦ Family entertainment (e.g. Wii)
◦ Identity expression
Negative
◦ Anti-social
◦ Addiction
◦ Aggression/violence
◦ Character stereotypes

6. Games now
• Games – bigger than movies and music
• Majority of players over 18 are female – ESA 2015
• Major disruptors – social and mobile
• Free to play dominates
Real opportunities for female game designers

7. What we do at Fierce Fun
)+
* =

8. Mindframe Arena

9. Working in games start-up
A good thing

10. Working in games start-up
Not so good…

11. Why are you making games?
• For a living
• Difficult
• As personal project
• “Indie”
• To learn new skills
• Visual
• Story/narrative
• Design
• Technical

12. Self Publishing
• Now easier than ever
• BUT easier for everyone else too….
• AKA 2million+ apps and The Long Tail
Tools
Unity, Stencyl, GameMaker… FREE
Publishing
Google Play (134 countries)…. ALMOST FREE
Go on…. Make a game !..........

13. Some Advice
For prospective games designers/developers
• Start with a personal project
• Use existing formats but innovate
• Do something simple but with the key ingredients
• Rules
• Goals
• Fun
• Find the right authoring tool
• Network
• Good community in Ireland
• Gamedevelopers.ie
• Finish it!

14. Fierce Fun © 2017
Thank you!
Peter Lynch
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterlynchire/
https://fiercefun.com/
https://twitter.com/FierceFunGames
https://www.facebook.com/fiercefungames/