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The question I pose to the wider community is, has our artform found itself now inextricably linked to the Bohemian heritage of all the arts through its indies? Or are the keyboard warriors and garage studios of today driven primarily by the pursuit of wealth?
Everyone knows Banksy. The graffitti artist known by his alias alone. Disruptive, provocative, infamous. His art is mirrored by the work of Terry Cavanagh, Jane McGonigal, Joakim Sandberg and countless others. The idea behind art-for-art's-sake is to cherish expression above all else. The question is: is art-solely-for-profit at risk of become the overwhelming consensus?
I love the indie scene. A world of emerging talent oozes out of Kickstarter and established portals like the App Store, Play Store, XBLA, PSN, Desura, HIB, Gamersgate, Steam and others.
Some indies have no marketing budget, they have no funding outside their job earnings or savings, their story is one of unwavering determination. Are we at risk of ignoring these voices as our portals become increasingly populated? Should we even take these voices into consideration at all?
The reason I pose this question is to cause discussion on wheter the artist and their struggle necessitates a new category of classification in gaming. Even within the indie scene there ought to be a means of discovering the art-for-art's sake avant garde.
Indie blogs and magazines explore this but I think this scene needs to be expanded far further to become an experience where the truly art-for-art's sake are - always - the majority.
Long have I been a believer in the power of expression through games, the eruption of the senses which unfolds as you enter a new Universe in pursuit of a goal. Players become both the conduit, the protagonist, often the subject also, simultaneously. This I feel, is essentially the most powerful element of our artform.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic
And maybe do some outreach and cross polination and include for example Demoscene contests at the same venues as indie game jams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_scene
I think we also need to have more examples of what these sorts of games look like. Speaking for myself, I sense there's a bright future in gaming as it relates to bold innovation and artistic expression, but I have only the vaguest of ideas as to what that future looks like. Maybe our collective artistry and creativity is beginning to atrophy after being beseiged by so much *ville and Call of Assassins Warfare Halo Gear Effect IX
Can we encourage more people to make the games they want to make even if it wont sell a ton of copies (although it might just do that too) and quit worrying about getting a share of a particular market or demographic.
http://www.bay12games.com/
How do we get more people to make their Dwarf Fortresses. Making a game "because I think it will be cool" or "because it's something I want to play" or "because nothing like it has been done before" now gets you laughed out of the business meeting.
And maybe we are still lacking in a major way, practical game design knowledge. New developers wind up spending a great deal of time learning how to structure their programs and just getting boiler plate functionality in place. There's a sense that you can't write the equivalent of a poem anymore, the least effort still feels like writing a full blown novel, in the middle is a trilogy, and recreating all of the worlds of Shakespeare is at the top requiring several lifetimes or a 100 man team.
p.s. and there are alot of indie games being made by developers who just want to make something cool that they want to play. You just don't hear about them. So the other problem is when we wish for art for art's sake games, we're also secretly wishing for those games to have mass appeal and in a sense make a political statement in the process as well as provide some sense of having been vindicated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU0Spqqfblo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdHdIcayi38
If there's anything artistic about a given game, try calling it an Art Game. The one who writes it could be called an Artist.
Exactly. Which is why I said: "I think that its dangerous to make a game with that kind of 100% selfish mindset, though, if you hope to earn back anything you put into it or profiting from it at all."
Put shortly, I am all too aware that compromise is necessary if ones vision need a large amount of resources to be put into it an one would like to be responsible about it.
I think there's an inherent conflicted relationship between creativite drives and any sort of practical consideration. That's really all I wanted to point out.
- Money (to get rich)
- Recognition (to be proud of your work, to make a difference in the medium, to spawn a new genre...)
- Fun (just for the sake of it)
We did it recently with our co-funders before contacting a marketing company that showed interest in our game, to define how far we'd go if needed.
Our technical programmer choose Money>Fun>Recognition, but said he'd never agree with changing our duck color to pink if the marketing suggested it based on research.
Our business/project manager went Fun>Money>Recognition as he has other business and still dedicates a lot of time (and sometimes some money) to our startup, but he defends we need our Fun job to be sustainable.
I ended up Recognition>Fun>Money as I want to push the envelope and inspire future games ("I want to make something I'm proud of" fits as Recognition), but I consider Fun as something I already have doing it and tie it to the first case, but also agree we need a sustainable source of Fun, and a sustainable opportunity of making a difference and wouldn't mind our duck char going pink.
Furthermore you need a strategy to keep the reason you make games in a sustainable state. And therefore you need Money even if your purpose is not making a lot of money, you need some (unless you're a loto winner and don't care for working).
@Brandon Van Every: "I want to work on my games full time. I can't do that if I have some non-game employer or contract that I'm beholden to, or if my own game doesn't make money."
Pretty much that.