I’m walking down a long hallway in The Citadel, and I’m waved over by reporter Emily Wong. She wants some information on a local crime lord, and I’ve got some data on the guy that would give her a scoop. I hesitate at first, unsure of her motivations, but I eventually give in and I’m rewarded handsomely for the data. Not only does she transfer some credits my way, but I (Commander Shepherd) agree to giving her some juicy exclusive interviews. These interviews will put my name on the galactic map. Sweet.
Sadly, we face an almost identical ethical problem in the indie games industry, as I do in Mass Effect.
Diogo Ribeiro’s excellent article The “Indie” Challenge, if you have not read it already, presents an excellent overview of the challenges independent developers face when trying to get their games into players’ hands. Diogo singles out the all-too-cozy relationship between AAA developers, publishers and the writers/editors of large gaming networks, as a serious barrier for indie developers getting their games promoted. The article tugs at a lot of issues dear to us gamers and writers: the ‘us and them’ attitude that pervades ‘indie vs. mainstream’ industries, the ethics of game promotion and reviewing, and the perception of indie games as rarely something more than time wasting devices.
As an outsider to the games industry and journalism, I really appreciate Diogo’s strong insider knowledge of those domains. There is a lot of good information here for the indie seeking to get their newest creation out into the market:
Your first email to either should avoid looking like a typical press release. Don’t bother with terms like “cutting edge” – you’re supposed to be talking about games, not fax paper. Focus on the strengths of your game. If it sports a concept never seen before in videogames – a very rare thing, mind you – extol those virtues. If it uses traditional play mechanics with a novel twist, don’t be shy about making comparisons. “All the action of Gears of War with the ovine satisfaction of Sheep!”….
Obviously, this is critical for people trying to make a living out of game development, and I agree with everything he has to say here. But I see an extreme danger in this promotion-driven approach to game development. Herein lies the great danger:
Introversion is a case study for several reasons, but to me the most important one is they cared about one thing that most indie devs don’t – they gave as much emphasis on promoting themselves as they did creating their game. Why aren’t you doing the same, indies?
Is it true that indie developers should be spending as much time on promoting themselves as they did in creating their game? Of course there are obvious financial benefits to heavily promoting your indie game, but what kinds of costs come with a promotion-heavy approach?
Indie Ethics
The indie world depends very much upon the goodwill, honesty and free time of people who have very little financial benefit from reviewing or promoting your game. I have never received a penny from Rastek (Wither), Jenova Chen (Flower), Markus Persson (Minecraft), Anthony Flack (Cletus Clay), or Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey (The Endless Forest). None of these people asked me to write about their games. I chose to write about these little games (some of which became big games) because they were not promoted, because they were unknown, and because these creations impressed me completely on their own terms. When I get a request to review/promote a game, even if it is heartfelt and personal, my interest immediately sinks. People like me who write about games are not interested in being used as extensions of the advertising industry; asking me to promote your game is a very good way of alienating me from your creation. Real writers are their own source of inspiration; they don’t need your one-liner press kits.
There is another ethical consideration at play here. Diogo mentions fellow Canadian Phil Fish, whose game recently won a major award at the 2012 Independent Games Festival. Diogo writes,
Fez is an indie game that’s been in development for five years but continuous interaction with fans and trailers that highlighted the core gameplay, along with improvements to the game engine, went a long way to maintaining curiosity about Phil Fish’s game.
True. And it is also true that Fez precipitated a major ethical crisis at the GDC this year, when Phil Fish entered his game for a second time into the same competition purely out of self-interest (Note: I am not singling out Phil Fish – he seems like a decent enough guy, I’m just using this as a recent example). His appearance in Indie Game: The Movie similarly reveals the indie games’ industry’s sad history of shameless self-promotion, endless navel gazing and cult-of-the-celebritization. In The Competition: The Story Behind the IGF’s Critics Brendy Caldwell does a great job of summarizing the controversy here,
… in 2008, Fez won in the Excellence in Visual Arts category at the IGF. It certainly is a lovely looking game, I can personally testify to that. In 2012 it remains unreleased and subsequently re-enters the IGF for that year (and is eventually nominated for both the Technical Excellence award and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize).
Fez went on to win the Seamus McNally Grand Prize, worth $30,000 USD.
So what is the danger here? What’s wrong with a guy who shows off his little game?
- The controversy helped to fuel a new ecology for what I call ‘moral entrepreneurs’… journalists, developers and nobodies who use moral crises as ways of promoting themselves (I won’t mention any names here). There was a massive backlash to Phil Fish’s promotion strategy, and instead of focusing on the issues at hand and the games we care about, moral opportunists used this crisis as a ripe opportunity to viciously personally attack Phil Fish, and in so doing draw attention to themselves.
- I do not see the public value that is served in self-promotion. Easy-to-chew sound-bites and one-liners, hastily injected into press kits, 0nly serve to devalue gaming as a whole. When a developer encourages a game site (or magazine) to use ready-made text, this discourages independent thought. Needing to railroad a writer into a particular view of your game is, to me, evidence that your game probably sucks. Worse, videos like Anthony Carboni’s recent sycophantic interviews with indie developers do nothing to improve the perception that indie developers are in bed with the media; instead suggesting that journalists are more interested in basking in reflected glory than critical and honest evaluations of games.
- All of the work that hard-working people like Phil Fish put into their promotion strategy is time that could have been used in making a better game. Appearing at industry events like the GDC may be a requirement for AAA publishers, but I fail to see how attending the Independent Games Festival makes your game any more playable. When I attended the IGF/GDC in 2009, there was no time for developers and players to have a meaningful conversation. When you approach an IGF booth, you wait in line for 10 minutes and play for a few minutes – then you ask a few cursory questions about the game with the developer, and make room for someone else to play. The IGF is all about promotion and is not about tuning gameplay, just the Oscars don’t help people make better films.
- Aggressively promoting your game puts you personally into ethically dangerous waters. There is nothing worse than seeing a great game get shunned because its developer made a serious (or minor) error in judgement when dealing with the press. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard players promise that they’d never buy a game from ________________ because the developer accidentally said something morally questionable in an interview.
A Quality-Driven Approach to Promotion
Instead of thinking from a marketing perspective, I think that the marketing perspective needs to become the outcome of careful design and play-testing. Indie developers have to stop thinking with dollar signs in their eyes, stop thinking about how their game will serve to stroke their ego, and start thinking about whether their game even deserves to be promoted at all. This is an overgeneralization, but many games like Minecraft sold well because they were great games. We will still be talking about Minecraft in ten years, but we won’t be talking about games like Super Meat Boy in one year. Why? Because Minecraft was developed with the care and love that comes with slow and incremental design that emerged over years; it did not rely upon self-promotion. People love Minecraft because of the breadth and depth of its gameplay, not because of a superficial retroesque charm… such as the meaningless gameplay of Super Meat Boy.
Here are some lessons we might learn from a quality-driven approach:
- Your game can succeed on the basis of its expressive qualities alone; let real writers do their jobs to find you.
- Ever seen how much money it costs to attend the GDC or IGF? Aping publishers who aggressively market their games costs a lot of time and money. Perhaps that time is better spent focusing and improving on your game.
- Develop close, honest and respectful relationships with your fellow developers and community of gamers. These are the people who will give you the shirts off their backs, and do anything to see your little creation survive in the wilderness of the industry.
- As Ben Ruiz said at a recent GDC presentation, “quit being so fucking egocentric.” The whole notion of “independent” in indie games is a complete falsification of the truth. There is no such thing as independent game development – there is only interdependent game development. You need your fellow developers and gamers as much as they need you; the games industry is a very large ecology with many niches. Instead of playing your personal creation off over and against AAA developers, and cultivating your own ego, why not see how AAA developers and their games can help to improve your project?
Obviously, these are pretty polemic issues. I don’t mean to oversimplify the marketing difficulties that indie developers face, but I hope to at least point out that marketing and promotion bring up ethical problems that the industry has not addressed. And by ignoring these ethical issues, indie developers are only inviting the kinds of problems that AAA publishers are already faced with.
I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say about this, whether you’re an indie developer, AAA developer, gamer, journalist, or someone else.
History: For you collector, preservationist, historical types.
Indie Games: Reflections on indie games and their developers
Industry and Journalism: Commentary on the industry and its journalism.
Interviews: Conversations with interesting people, or interviews with Chris.
News: Current hubbub, moral panics and announcements for this site.
Philosophy and Psychology: Understanding how gaming intersects with human dwelling
Retro Gaming: Classic adventure, role-playing and action games of yore.
Storytelling, Narrative, and Writing: How and why stories and writing are important.
Visual Art: The roles that visual experiences and aesthetics play in games.
Worth Reading: Books, articles and blogs that are worth your time and money.
From gnome:
Ah, a thorny and most intriguing subject.
I have to admit that I do agree with you when it comes to moralizing writers/journalists, attempts at over-commercialization and the ridiculous cults of personality certain indie developers try to create for themselves.
Then again, as we do actually (and sadly) still live under the heel of capitalism, people have to try and make a living within its constraints, meaning that if you’ve selected to be an artisan of sorts, you really have to try and advertise/promote your wares.
I do guess that what I’m trying to say is that my main problem is with another sort of moralizing; the one that believes that indie developers should not charge money for their creations, meaning thus that game dev should be left to the privileged classes. The same philanthropist bastards that ruin everything…
Anyway. As long as its done tastefully I’m okay with promoting ones game. How does that sound?
From chris:
Gnome, I absolutely agree with you on all points. All of us do need to live, and making a living by doing something we live is (to me) an honourable way of doing it. I hope it didn’t sound like I was suggesting that indies make everything for free and give away their hard work. I was suggesting that if indies do want to promote their work, do market it, that they don’t lose their souls (or their shirts) in the process.
Perhaps it would have helped to point out that there are MANY independent developers out there who promote their games in an honest and transparent fashion, that they rely upon trusting relationships with journalists and their fanbase, and that they use this as an opportunity for *improving* their game and not just selling as many as they can. Not to point any fingers (or stroke your ego), but I think that your team has done a good job of promoting your work ethically, so has Andrew Goulding of Brawsome, Tom Francis and his game Gunpoint, or Chris Delay at Introversion – those are just a few in the last week. But, for every person willing to build up trust with other people, there are a larger number of developers who are willing to exploit it.
I like that way of putting it – “as long as it’s done tastefully”. That’s just what I wanted to say in the article!
Thanks for your thoughts once again
- Chris
From gnome:
Thanks for thanking me for my thoughts. I’d like to thank you back for your thoughts and indeed point out that we do actually agree on all accounts.
Mind you, I just commented in order to actually expand the conversion to include the fact that indie devs do need to live. So, uhm, buy an iPhone and then buy Artfully Framed as soon as we release it
From chris:
Oh, don’t thank me for thanking you for thanking me for your……….
Don’t worry, I’ve been waiting for Artfully Framed with bated breath. Stacey has an iPad, so I’ll definitely be able to play
From gnome:
Hooray! Really think you’ll like it. Will tell you more (hush) in private
From Diogo Ribeiro:
Hi Chris,
I always valued your writing and input on videogames, and I must admit to feeling somewhat privileged for the attention you gave to my article. More importantly, it’s good to see you back – and as sharp as ever
As you said, I am an outsider to the games industry at large. I only had a brief stint in a portuguese videogame magazine and a site (as brief as an year can be on both). It actually started out as a pitch about indie games that never really came through, and when the mag died I wasn’t particularly motivated to carry on with it. Of course, experiences with promotional events, along with other less savory attitudes in the industry I’ve been exposed to, eventually changed the article into something else and the result is what you’ve read and commented on. Unfortunately, the chances to visit events such as the GDC or IGF are slimmer by the day, and I realize that’s an experience I can’t include on my writings. From potential insider to forever outsider, I guess
I also share the opinion regarding the falsehood of “independent” in indie games. As I briefly mentioned, the idea was to polish some notes I’ve been making about the subject matter and write a series of articles based on that. I’m hoping to tackle the specifics of “indie” as a valid (or not) label, but also issues of perception, technology, “art games” (another label I’m not too fond of), the Kickstarter method and authenticity. If time is willing, of course.
The problem with extensively tackling this kind of issue is that there are always new developments (and I’m slow to write). Phil Fish’s second run in the GDC, for instance, really shone a light on the indie scene as a potential new kind of monster in the making. I wrote my notes when the new wave of indie devs and their projects seemed to be interesting, motivated and honest. And while I still believe this is certainly the case for many of them, it does feel like some are exploting it. A playground for moral opportunists – I shudder at the thought but it’s hard to refute that. And some people is all it takes to ruin it for everyone else. Fish’s case is interesting because I neither agree with Fez running twice at GDC, nor with his comment about japanese videogames “sucking” (or similar words). But it rarely seems people can divorce the man from the claims, the work he’s been doing from the work he’s criticized. This runs deep not only in indie circles but in gamer DNA at large, I guess. It’s that part of the “culture” that we still have to deal with it.
You did a better job at getting to the heart of self-promotion; it can quickly become too ego driven, and that’s never good whether we’re discussing “mainstream” or “indie” games. Gnome pointed out the influence of capitalism and maybe this is one of the issues at hand. I think sucess stories like Braid and Minecraft, along with Kickstarter funding several indie projects, have given rise to the idea that indie development should somewhow fight on the same terms as the rest of the industry: the loudmouth developers, the aggressive campaigns, the large financial backings. To me these seem less important – if not in direct contradiction – to what these bedroom coders started off doing: challenging the industry by creating games that proved there’s more than formulas, design by commitee, stale ideas, “sequelitis”.
With this in mind, by saying there should be equal parts work and equal parts promotion, I don’t think it necessarily places a game’s development at risk. Every game is a game, as they say; if a developer is funding, designing, programming and testing his or her own project, there may be little time or incentive to dive into social media. In that regard, it might be not only daunting but detrimental. If we’re talking about a group of individuals, all it really takes is good management. I believe the fundamental thing is to really set up the essential communication channels that serve both as an ongoing dev diary and some interaction (blogs still remain the most cost effective and simplest ways of doing this). Writers, and good and influential ones at that, will eventually discover the game and “translate” it to audiences, telling them why it’s worth to play it and keep an eye on. But care should also be taken with, as you said, those who have very little in the way of thoughtful discussion to offer – and that applies to any dev promoting his/her game as it does to writers, specifically journalists.
Like any other polemic and sensitive issue, the peculiarities of the indie scene are far from exhausted. There needs to be thoughtful discussion and, I think, a larger awareness of how its growth may be harmed in the long term. Goodwill and honesty only go so far.
From chris:
Oh wow. So much to reply to here!
First, I’m looking forward to the rest of the articles in your indie series. One of the reasons that I’m so critical about the indie crowd is because I’m so passionate about the projects that I’ve seen come out of it.
I like the idea that we need to understand the relationship between the creator and the created. There are some big personalities out there that become entangled with their own work – Jonathan Blow is an obvious example of someone whose harsh criticism of gaming has gotten him in trouble with his own creation (Braid). True, we have to deal with the indie culture, but there are many different ways of dealing with it. As you can guess, I favour ‘take the high road’ approach (which probably seems Pollyan-ish to some), because the alternatives are pretty bleak.
There are some good examples of indie developers who became publishers and advertisers… Wadjet Eye Games, for instance, started off with a couple of adventure projects. Eventually they opened their business to publishing other adventure games, on behalf of their creators, and this approach has not only appeared to be financially viable, but valuable to the adventure game community. Dave and Janet Gilbert truly love adventure games, and it looks like they treat their developers well.
The indie scene, to me, is very much like the game programmer scene of the early 1980s. Five years ago, there were only a few people who made quite a name for themselves making games. But now that everyone has rushed to the feeding trough, the chances of becoming the next star of indie gaming is slim-to-none.
Thanks again for the reply and the original article Diogo! Great to see this discussion go somewhere.
From Jonas:
Don’t mean to interrupt the hugging, just wanted to say that I liked this article much better than the previous one because it adressed an issue I find very interesting and made me think. Although that first paragraph seemed kind of pointless to me. But again that’s just me trying to find something to whine about
From Jonas:
Oh the hugging was already interrupted. Just ignore what I said.
From Ian S.:
I agree with this in part, but there is a one particular point I find troubling.
First of all, I suspect we are mostly in agreement. One of the things I find so compelling about indie game development is that it has the ability to sidestep the disingenuous process of advertisement entirely. Most indie games which have achieved massive popularity have done so through word of mouth rather than through an extensive PR campaign (although what exactly constitutes as campaigning for an indie game could really use elaboration). That’s to say nothing of the whole game jam scene, which eschews the notion of advertising, if not traditionally held ideas of “quality”, completely. Not every indie needs to advertise, necessarily.
I do, however, take issue with some of your statements about the IGF, notably:
“I fail to see how attending the Independent Games Festival makes your game any more playable. When I attended the IGF/GDC in 2009, there was no time for developers and players to have a meaningful conversation. When you approach an IGF booth, you wait in line for 10 minutes and play for a few minutes – then you ask a few cursory questions about the game with the developer, and make room for someone else to play. The IGF is all about promotion and is not about tuning gameplay, just the Oscars don’t help people make better films.”
I attended the IGF this year as a student nominee. As the sole developer of my game, I felt a great deal of pressure to be near my exhibition at all times to field questions (which did turn out to be mostly the same questions over and over) from players. What I experienced was three days of watching people who had never played my game before fumbling through it. This was far and away the most intensive testing experience I’ve had with the game thus far, and it has undoubtedly made my game more playable. I’m now intimately familiar with every flaw in the showfloor demo, invaluable for a game still in progress. I’d imagine this is true of other conference settings, such as PAX or Indiecade, as well, although I haven’t personally attended them.
There’s a moment in the video interview you linked to where Anthony Carboni asks Alexander Bruce, “How do you make a game like this [Antichamber] and keep it from feeling arbitrary and frustrating?” and Bruce answers, “Putting it in front of thousands of people over two years at every major gaming festival that exists.”
Furthermore, there is opportunity to have meaningful discussion. It’s likely my experience differs because my game is a sliiiight bit less popular than Fez, but my exhibition was nevertheless consistently busy. I was nevertheless able to have several in depth conversations about my game with other developers who stopped by to play it on the showfloor. Having that kind of conversation is really a matter of having that conversation. While I can’t promise that every single developer will engage you meaningfully, you will never achieve meaningful discussion by asking a few obvious questions and walking away.
You go on to write, “Develop close, honest and respectful relationships with your fellow developers and community of gamers. These are the people who will give you the shirts off their backs, and do anything to see your little creation survive in the wilderness of the industry.”
And I couldn’t agree more! But the IGF and other conferences like it are a perfect setting for this to take place. There is very little of an indie developer community where I come from. GDC provided me the chance, for the first time in my life, to sit at the same table as five or more people who were just as passionate about making games as I was. I was able to meet and talk with developers whose work I admire. I was able to game jam in the same room as other developers, rather than locked away alone in my apartment. I was able to be part of a community in a deeper way than I had before.
Perhaps in the end this is all secondary to the point you are trying to communicate. I’d like to see the indie scene kept as free from needless self-promotion as anyone else, but it’s important to make a distinction between what is and is not needless.
From chris:
Hi Ian,
It sounds like we’re on the same page! I should have qualified my statement to say that in my experience, the real conversations happened off the showroom floor – in pubs and cafes where developers could really talk about what their games were about. In my experience, the developers who really loved what they did, in my experience, were willing to spend *a few hours* talking about their creation.
But what you’re saying is absolutely right, and I shouldn’t have glossed over it. Getting an opportunity to show your game off to a few thousand people, especially when a developer hasn’t had the chance to let others give it a go, can hugely impact how the game is re-tuned. In my experience, the student showcase was where the real gems were – usually the games were 80-90% complete, and the developers were hungry for feedback that they could use to rework the gameplay.
In my home town, there are zero indie game developers (despite having one of the world’s largest AAA developers here – BioWare), and slim-to-none chances for indie game jams. I’m glad that the IGF, for you, was the kind of experience that most indie developers would want.
Perhaps it’s time for indie developers to look towards a new kind of conference, something less warped by advertising, huge profits and big names (GDC), and more geared towards real-world playtesting, meaningful conversation, and jams.
Thanks so much for the reply Ian. Your experience shows, to me, that there are a number of developers out there more interested in their creations than their names.
ps: advertising protip – mention ‘The Floor is Jelly’ in your comment, so all of us can keep up with your creation as it progresses
- Chris
From Amanda:
Almost posted what you posted, but you said it better. Being at the IGF personally seems like a valuable playtest experience to me — I wasn’t showing a game there, but I went there to play games, and lots of developers seemed very engaged with the feedback they were getting from the time on the floor. Getting a lot of exposure to a game in progress is nothing to sneeze at.
Obviously it varies. If a game is done and released, it may not be up for changes or need more changes done, making the IGF a purely promotional tool. (It’s not clear exactly what the IGF is for, and that’s a problem. Is it for recognizing finished games? Tuning unfinished ones? Right now it tries to serve both masters I guess.)
From Robert Boyd:
Although I think that ethics as an indie developer are important, I disagree with many things you said in this article.
GDC is very useful regardless of marketing. I learned so much from attending various panels at GDC last year and greatly missed not being able to go this year (had to stay home and work on our game). If you can afford to attend (or can get on a panel so that your admission is paid), it’s well worth the trip.
“Let real writers do their jobs to find you” is a great strategy if you don’t mind starving. If you want to have a reliable income, it’s a terrible idea. There are so many good games out there these days that if you don’t put effort into marketing your studio and your game, your chance of being discovered is slim.
Yes, time spent marketing your games and your studio is time that could have been spent actually making your games. However, time spent working a second or third job is also time that could be spent making your games. I’d much rather take some time to properly market my games so that my games sell well enough that I can afford to only be an indie game developer and not have to work multiple jobs.
Even though Minecraft isn’t my kind of game, I can admit it’s a great game. You know what? So is Super Meat Boy. It’s not just a cheap retro-throwback – it does many very clever things with its design that other developers would be well advised to study.
From Paul Acevedo:
I’m with Mr. Cthulhu on this – discouraging indie devs from contacting journalists is extremely bad advice. If you’re making a game just to express yourself and for no other reason, then sure, keep quiet about it. But actually profiting form the effort and reaching a larger number of people with your expression is probably something that most indie developers either want or need.
Some journalists may ignore an email from an unknown dev or be turned off that the greedy developer wants his game to receive attention (shame on him!). But there’s always the possibility that the writer gets hooked and starts following the game. This in turn leads to multiple articles throughout the game’s lifespan (pre development and post development) rather than just a single review or no mention at all. I guess you find this distasteful for some reason, Chris, but in most cases I think it’d be helpful for developers of any size.
Also, the jab at Super Meat Boy sure came out of left field. I don’t particularly care for the style of game (trial and effort platformers), but clearly a great many people do appreciate it. It may never have the impact of Minecraft due to the lack of multiplayer and the community that brings (plus it’s just a smaller scale game anyway), but that doesn’t mean nobody will remember it down the line. You could probably have chosen a better example of a forgettable indie title,
From Ben Sizer:
An interesting topic, but I think you are being a little harsh on the majority of developers. You cite the likes of Flower and Minecraft as games you covered without needing to be asked to; but how would you have even known about these games if not for previous exposure? It’s easy to assume that great games will make themselves known to you through word of mouth alone, if they are good enough, but every fire needs an initial spark and many great games never get that lucky break in the beginning. Expecting “real writers to find you” is a bit like telling bands to keep playing their local clubs until they get discovered by a record company; it just doesn’t work that way any more.
You seem to equate self-promotion with “easy-to-chew sound-bites and one-liners”, but I don’t think it has to be that way. Developers need to be able to get the word out somehow, surely? And if a lot of the communication looks like a press release, that is probably because that is the most effective way to get the information across. What’s the alternative?