Aug 29, 2021

No Country for Small Indies

By Todd Mitchell • Issue #10 • View online

Welcome back dev fam! For big issue #10 we’re running through a collection of very recent stories that, oddly enough, all fit into a pretty specific theme. Lots of great coverage from all over the game development web–let’s get into it!

Are Indies running out of places to turn?

When I wrote about Buildbox’s pricing overhaul in May (and later interviewed the CEO for the podcast) about what I felt were potentially predatory changes targeting new developers, I viewed it as a uniquely alarming situation. To Buildbox’s credit, they’ve improved some of those choices and greatly clarified others, but it seems nearly every major engine and game-making service provider has made a recent move that complicates things for–if not outright hurts–soloists and small teams. This week’s stories vary in degree of impact, but they seem to indicate a trend in the industry that raises the entry barrier for new developers at precisely the moment they need the most help.

Devs now need Unity Pro to publish on consoles (Gamasutra)

Earlier this summer Unity threw up a huge new roadblock for small developers interested in console releases by changing its licensing policy to forbid new projects on Free and Plus licenses from targeting “closed platforms” such as Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. Developers now need, at minimum, a Pro license (an $1,800 annual commitment) or a Preferred Platform License Key assigned to approved developers by Sony and Nintendo but apparently not Microsoft.

That’s right: publishing your first indie Unity game on Xbox now costs no less than $1,800.

Microsoft stressed its “deep commitment” to Gamasutra despite being the only major console maker not to offer license keys. In fact, this revelation seems to shed some light on their general lack of upkeep for the Xbox Creators program which featured an official Unity package that seemed perpetually broken. Where Microsoft was once an industry leader in indie support (see the XNA framework for details), now it seems they might be less charmed by small products crowding digital shelves next to games from their internal studios and strategic partners.

www.gamasutra.com • Share

GameMaker licenses have changed again (GamesIndustry)

Opera–a name you might be surprised to hear again suddenly in 2021–apparently had $10 million available to acquire YoYo Games within the last year, and with it, the GameMaker Studio 2 engine.

Earlier this month new price tiers rolled out seemingly focused on making that money back by getting as many developers on monthly subscription plans as possible. Curious developers can download and learn the engine for free, but even HTML export, as well as desktop and mobile exports, will require a $9.99 monthly subscription. The ability to export to the big three consoles will require a full $79.99 monthly Enterprise subscription even though exports for PlayStation 4, PS 5, Xbox One, and Series X | S are all still in closed beta.

Most coverage of this overhaul has been neutral-to-positive, but I don’t know how long folks have been following the GameMaker story, if at all. My last check-in on GameMaker Studio came courtesy of a Humble Bundle pickup which, if I recall, scored me all exports but consoles for one low price. Long before that, I made my first computer game with the original Mark Overmars-era GameMaker in about late 2002 when the software was already a few years old. I recall unlocking all the bells and whistles for something under $30.

Make no mistake: I’m thrilled GameMaker is still around, and I still think it’s a great option to get many folks making games. The idea of not even allowing web exports for free, however, takes away the vital early feedback-gathering capability that makes new game developers good. $10 per month is easily the difference between letting new devs bootstrap and handing them a new monthly bill that won’t pay for itself anytime soon, if ever.

www.gamesindustry.biz • Share

Steam's two-hour refund policy leads to indie developer quitting game development (Eurogamer)

While there’s room to discuss the notion of leaving game development entirely over refunds, this week’s story about Steam’s “two hour rule” has important implications for the community’s call to make and support smaller game experiences.

The situation, if you aren’t up to speed, involves Summer of ‘58 by Emika_Games. Summer of '58 is billed as a first-person psychological thriller–tagged “Walking Simulator” by users–originally priced at $8.99 for what the developer says is an average of 90 minutes of gameplay. About a month after launch, Emika announced it would leave game development indefinitely, citing a “huge number of returns” despite positive reviews. Many users on Twitter rallied in the thread to support the game and debate the ideal threshold for Steam returns.

The writer of the linked article did great reporting and rightly pointed out it’s a difficult problem to fix. The post suggests “reducing the threshold from two hours will only hurt consumers getting through extremely long AAA releases.” I must confess I can’t entirely glean what that means, but it is clear that Steam is driven by major-budget games and its customers have (mostly) major-budget expectations. Steam currently offers Battlefield V Definitive Edition for barely half the price of Summer of '58, and it’s only fair to point out that many of Summer of '58’s negative reviews were not focused on the short play time at all. Players expressed frustration with technical issues with the software, repetitive exploration, excessively “cheap” jump scares, and more.

Rather than put demands on Steam that it’s supremely unlikely to accept at the expense of its core business, it would be nice to see more support for Itch.io. Itch gladly accepts projects at literally any stage of development and designed at any scale. The truth is, the world of smaller interactive experiences Twitter is crying out for is already here–it’s time for the community to truly get behind it.

www.eurogamer.net • Share

Unity workers are questioning the ethics of the company's government contracts (Vice)

If you’ve ever heard about any of Unity’s defense contract work and weren’t quite sure what you were supporting, it may or may not make you feel better to learn that most of Unity doesn’t know either. That’s the theme of a series of leaked internal memos and anonymous interviews provided to Vice as Unity scrambles to clarify its messaging and processes around its recent contracts, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence for what some sources seem to believe may be military applications.

The Vice feature is interesting for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it’s very unlikely that many game industry folks at Unity knew what they were signing up for when they joined the team, and that seems to be confirmed by the efforts they’re making to spread the word and make their concerns known. Regardless of your own moral leanings, I’ve never met an invested Unity developer who didn’t have a feature/fix wishlist, and it can’t feel good to see the company focused this intently outside making the Unity engine better for actual games.

www.vice.com • Share

A Facebook hacker beat my 2FA, bricked my Oculus Quest, and hit the company credit card (CodeWritePlay)

Speaking of uneven footing with massive companies unlikely to act in your best interest…

Yes indeed, if you didn’t know, I had my personal Facebook account hijacked recently. The attacker added himself to my business page for CodeWritePlay, started a scam ad campaign to run against my credit card, and put up some content on my personal profile that resulted in my automatic ban from the platform. Worst of all, getting booted from Facebook bricked my Oculus Quest 1 VR headset. In this story that travelled far and wide, I go through the timeline and my experience up through the eventual demise of my business page.

codewriteplay.com • Share

Hacked: No Facebook, No Oculus Quest (CodeWritePlay)

For a social network where I’m not particularly active, it would be hard to adequately explain how exhausting it was to get the hack resolved. In this episode of my podcast, GameDev Breakdown, I explained the whole situation to listeners who hadn’t heard, this time adding how things ended up (including how I got back into my Quest library and even my Facebook account), and I run through considerations you need to keep in mind before running ads on Facebook or developing for Oculus Quest hardware.

codewriteplay.com • Share

Where do we go from here?

We all seem to agree on the importance of representation in the industry and inclusion starting as early as possible, but in practice, game development companies clearly seem to be squeezing small-timers out of the competition, funneling them into over-reliance on publishers, or pushing them out completely. The unfortunate reality is that small indies rely on huge companies at their own peril.

If you’re an ace coder, nothing beats the satisfaction of working on your own engine! It’s not entirely realistic for the majority of us, but it’s also well worth rewarding emerging open-source options with our time and support. While there aren’t a ton of killer open-source options for serious game development, several are great and getting better all the time. I’m currently learning Godot, hoping to replace my previous reliance on Unity. If you’re not interested in coding from scratch but don’t mind getting your hands dirty, there are loads of great open-source libraries and frameworks that are surprisingly capable these days. A little trouble now can save you a ton of trouble–and money–down the road.

Until next week!

Huge thanks to everyone for following along during a chaotic couple of weeks. I’m working on a fun podcast and video show for next week with Brian Riggsbee, a project manager at Slack and the author of The Legend of Argus: The Complete History of Rygar. If you’ve never played Rygar (like I never had before Thursday), try your hand at a super-challenging arcade classic with a dozen weird and wonderful ports. It really is a whole world of its own!

Thanks all.

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By Todd Mitchell

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