UK lawyer Alex Chapman (Sheridans) represents a number of independent developers and is representing Mobigames in their trademark dispute with Edge Games (*cough* this link is not entirely accurate but was better than linking to the real site!). He has kindly posted some information which should answer many of the common questions people have over trademark uses, rights and registration. Note that this is a UK/EU perspective and laws do vary across territories.

1.  A trade mark is anything that identifies the goods and services of a business or distinguishes them from those of another.

2.  A registered trade mark gives statutory protection and an effective monopoly in respect of that mark for the goods or services it is registered for AND for similar marks with the same or similar goods where there is a likelihood of confusion. Well known registered trade marks have additional protection if used by others for different goods or services to those for which they are registered if that use takes unfair advantage of or is detrimental to the repute of the well known registered mark.

3.  Marks that are not registered have common law protection through passing off – which occurs if a third party uses a trading name, style or get up that misrepresents a connection or association with the owner of goodwill in a business undertaken under or by reference to that trading name, style or get up and in doing so causes damage to the owner. That damage includes lost revenue that it would have received had the “infringer” entered into a licence agreement with the owner.

4.  Certain trade marks can’t be registered and can’t be said to have sufficient goodwill for passing off. These include geographical indications, signs that designate the nature or intended use of the goods or services or are otherwise devoid of distinctive character and incapable of distinguishing the goods and services of one entity from those of another. For example Egg for eggs or Cake for cakes is a NO but Egg for financial services and Cake for PR is a YES.

5.  Marks that are otherwise devoid of distinctive character can however be registered and can have goodwill in them if they become distinctive through the use made of them.

6.  If you don’t use a registered trade mark for a continuing period of 5 years it becomes liable to be revoked.

7.  If you don’t enforce your rights as a trade mark owner and don’t object to someone else’s use of your mark you can be considered to have acquiesced and lose the right to enforce – but this is more complex than it sounds.

8.  You should apply to register your key brands as registered trade marks [contact Alex Chapman directly for more information].

9.  If you threaten someone with a registered trade mark infringement action without good grounds then you can be liable to pay damages for “groundless threats”.

10. It is a criminal offence to say a trade mark is registered when it isn’t.

11. Trade mark registration is territorial though a single European application can be made covering all countries of the EU.

12. Trade Marks are registered in respect of classes of goods and services. There are 45 different classes and when making an application you need to draft an appropriate specification in each class.

13. Making an application also gives 6 months priority in other territories so that additional applications can be made in other territories and back dated in that time.

14. A registration would last 10 years but can be renewed at that time.

15. Trade Mark registration is by far the best way to protect your brand but understanding trade marks is also important so that you don’t infringe someone else’s.

I’d like to thank Alex for his help with this post. Trademark, Patent and Copyright law is a complex business and I suggest that professional queries should be directed to Sheridans or another suitable IP specialist.

If you’re an independent developer then I’m happy to recommend Alex Chapman for your IP queries and Publishing/Distribution contracts (he didn’t pay me to say this but he’s definitely bought me a drink or two in his time!).

Finally, please do mention this blog if contacting Alex or Sheridans – that way we’ll be able to get some more legal advice for indies on here!

For those unaware, while Train2Game are dragging TIGA into problems in this case Tim is dragging the IGDA down with him through blatant patent trolling versus an independent developer. Tim is a board member on the IGDA, an organisation who are supposed to fight for developer causes. It’s the second time this year that the IGDA have run into a serious problem involving their own board members, Mike Capps having frustrated the development community with his comments on working hours.

What I find so interesting about what’s happened this week is that the big boys are starting to come up against organised opposition. This is despite being linked to the industry bodies who, in theory, should be the ones throwing their arms in the air (but aren’t, the IGDA in particular). This isn’t a few left wing anonymous students flaming on random forums, we’re talking about increasing numbers of frustrated and annoyed professionals who feel they are being poorly represented.

Even the industry press are starting to wake up, although I do wish the ‘regular’ gaming press would make more of these issues – just mentioning them would be a start. Simon Carless (Gamasutra editor) has had to deal with the very real legal and political issues that have resulted from public comment by Gamasutra. It may be a pain for him but in one sense it’s a good thing, honestly! It’s a sign that the industry press may be growing up and just perhaps we will have some real journalism rather than press releases, reviews, and tutorials.

So will this moral outrage make any difference? I don’t know but I do believe that it’s the right thing to do.

There are risks, however. I’ve had to make some judicious Train2Game edits on this blog, have been warned about discussing certain issues in public, and have also been warned by my lawyer not to get involved with MIS due to their highly litigious nature. Just last night MIS managed to get the T2G-critical DigitalTrend threads removed (plenty of web caches remain, however).

In such cases I’d like to see some proper critical and investigative journalism from our press, and I don’t mean the sort of tabloid stuff we tend to see from the BBC these days (but that’s another story).

EDIT: You can now donate to the Mobigames cause while IGN have also picked up on the story. Wouldn’t it be great if gamers and developers could unite?

We had quite an amicable chat. Clive was at pains to point out that the Study Guide is being redeveloped and has asked me to point out that it’s early days for them and that they were just trying to improve course awareness to the public, where as now they plan on touring developers to inform us what the course is all about.

While writing both this and the last blog post, I did read several forums and there’s a lot of spiteful stuff being said. Clive’s take is that particular posters are from a competitor and he says he has given up trying to engage with them as it’s causing more problems than it solves.

My personal take is more complicated. It sounds like at least some MIS (Metropolitan International Schools) staff are possibly being somewhat irresponsible and I believe that TIGA should try to nail any misbehaviour or misrepresentation as a condition of TIGA endorsement. It’s not like those behind MIS hadn’t been in trouble before with SkillsTrain. While a lot of time does seem to have gone into the course content, to partner up with an organisation who have attracted such negative attention does mean that some extra diligence should have taken place over public materials IMHO.

There are also some questions being brought up over who owns and earns from Train2Game. The fact is that someone is probably going to be making money from it, be it Clive Roberts, Jan Telensky, or someone else. I don’t really have an issue with this as long as the course is good and the industry benefits. We live in a capitalist society where people make money, sometimes undeserved, through our education systems. Let’s at least see if Train2Game does what it intends – helps bring forward new talent into the industry.

In addition, however good the distance learning course is and however bad some university game courses are, a diploma based qualification is always going to have to work much harder to prove itself to the professional industry.  It’s with this in mind that it’s such as bad idea to allow the release of materials such as the ones I quoted from.

Clive assures me that the course is good and that those in the industry who have evaluated it have been very positive. He’s offered to visit Tuna to explain it to us and we’ll be taking him up on that offer. In an industry which I find consistently insular and negative, I think it’s only right to give T2G a fair say. I look forward to seeing the course content itself.

I better preface the rest of this post by saying that I 100% back the work by the likes of TIGA and Skillset to improve the education of those entering the game industry. However, TIGA’s endorsement of distance learning course Train2Game really bothers me now that I’ve read their “Study Guide” brochure, handed out to us at the Develop conference this week.

I’m going to provide a few tasty quotes for you to get your claws into. They are so jaw-breakingly awful than I almost don’t feel the need to comment on them because others will do a far better job. Before I set on, let me remind you that TIGA’s endorsement is about improving the quality of those entering the industry.

“…, until now, your only way into the business, if you were starting from scratch, would be through academic study on a 2 or 3 year university course, then you have to look for a job as a games tester and then spend the next few years learning the hands-on stuff working your way slowly towards the job you really want.”

That’s funny because the entire point point of all the university game-related courses is to avoid exactly this situation. Some manage it, some don’t, and it still depends on both the graduate and the state of the industry, but the above statement is just absolute rubbish.

“The Train2Game method of learning has been created so that nearly anyone can do it. In fact, this system is so directly geared towards the needs of the games companies that the industry bodies are now recommending to their members that they recruit from Train2Game graduates! They are so keen to have people equipped with just the right skills that we’re confident you’ll go straight from finishing your training to your first job as a developer. You might even find yourself with a choice of opportunities!”

I honestly see this is as straight forward miss-selling of the qualification considering it’s not even a degree equivalent and is a new course. However, I accept that other academic institutions come out with similar trash.

What I particularly object to is the “anyone can do it”. I don’t want “anyone”, I want suitably educated talent. As a developer who wants to see the best graduates, a course which “anyone” can do is not going to inspire confidence. My initial reaction was compounded by something else, which we’ll get to later.

“Why Train2Game? Our courses are aimed at anyone who has a great game idea, but who lacks the opportunity, skills or experience to be able to turn their idea into reality. We are the experts on the ‘inside’ and in unique and interactive ways we will help you pick up everything you’ll need to realise your dream. This is a complete system aimed at ‘ordinary’ people and written by actual game developers!”

Once again, straight forward miss-selling and yet more “anyone” can do it type stuff. Who are these “ordinary” people? Why are they making out that game development is some big secret when more people seem to be doing it than ever?

“Only very basic computing knowledge is needed… some of the concepts can be picked up more rapidly if you do have prior gaming experience, but it is certainly not essential… We have worked hard to demystify this often shrouded topic so that you can achieve the best result possible!”

Ah, I see, it is a big secret! Perhaps Train2Game aren’t aware of t’Internet and the myriad of amazing game development sites and software targeting everything from beginners to experts. That’s not to dis this course, but I object to the blatant and deliberate ignorance of what’s out there. Once again, I take this as a way of targeting people who are probably not going to cut the mustard anyway, and then you have to ask why TIGA are endorsing this course (as Train2Game go on and on and on about).

“Unlike other courses, our courses are written by gamers for gamers. They contain a wealth of invaluable information you are very unlikely to find in an ‘ordinary’ programming and design books.” - Their dodgy grammar, not mine!

At this point I started laughing. Out loud.

By gamers? I thought we were game developers. A quick search on Amazon reveals numerous game development books covering a wide range of content. I believe I’ve already pointed out this t’Internet malarkey but Train2Game seem to conveniently ignore this rather useful resource, except where it suits – they being a distance learning qualification!

“There are no restrictive entry requirements for any of the Train2Game courses… Using the very latest in assessment technologies they will quickly prepare a personalised study plan for you.”

May I suggest, dear reader, that we all submit an application to see what their “latest assessment technology” can do for us?

“In the unlikely event of you failing to pass the examination and provided you have carefully followed the instructions of your tutor, you may retake the course entirely free of charge.”

WOW! Gobsmacked! So basically you can’t fail. If anyone can do the course and anyone can gain a pass, what do I actually learn about my prospective employee/colleague/(tester!)? Ok, yes, I’m aware that universities these days barely fail anyone either although I do at least see lots of grades and can sometimes value the university and course itself.

They will have created some demos on the course which I know is a good thing, but I’m not seeing any suitable confirmation of difficulty or ability in the way the course is being presented.

Perhaps I’m being over harsh but there is an important point here. Regardless of the merits of the course  content, and I want more developers to see it first hand so it can be suitably critiqued, I’m not sure TIGA should be allowing a course they have backed to be promoted in this way. It feels like Train2Game, quite frankly, are taking the piss.

I want good quality graduates to have come from properly approved courses. I want the good people at TIGA and Skillset to ensure that course contents are suitable for our needs and will make a real difference.

TIGA should not allow the Train2Game course to be sold in this way and it should be made clear to the development world at large what this qualification actually means so that we can judge candidates accordingly. The “Study Guide” brochure provided at Develop was not the way to do it.

Train2Game may prove to be a valuable addition to the various game courses in the UK but if it’s industry backed then it should function alongside the existing courses rather than making overblown claims. Meanwhile, I’m sure there are a few university course administrators as unhappy with the Train2Game marketing as I am.

EDIT: So Train2Game, or at least the company administrating it, have just tried to sue Google over Train2Game bad press simply because Google searches show people’s complaints. Thankfully they lost the case but it puts things in a different, darker perspective for me.

I’ve also had feedback already that others in the industry are questioning the merit of both the course itself and all that surrounds it. This is something that needs addressing for the sake of both the students, those who have undoubtedly put some serious time and effort into creating the course, and the development community who must, after all, be on side in order for it to be worthwhile.

A few days ago I received a message from a friend on Twitter; join #badmovieclub it said. Turns out it was spawned from Graham Linehan’s off the cuff tweet about getting people together to watch a bad movie at the same time. Graham who? He wrote the classic series Father Ted and more recently The IT Crowd.

Over a 3 day period that single tweet spiralled into a monster, the ugly kind with lots of eyes and more tentacles than the Bush administration. The idea resulted in a flash mob at 9pm Friday 13th February during which everyone would watch M Night Shyamalan’s movie The Happening at the same time, adding their own commentary via the #badmovieclub hashtag on Twitter.

The impressive thing wasn’t that thousands of people agreed to get together (virtually) in such a short space of time. It wasn’t that BadMovieClub got large numbers of people doing the same thing either. It was that one single well placed tweet managed to persuade so many of the movie going public to go out and watch a film as awful as "The Happening" in the first place!

With one comment Graham Linehan managed to do what movie studios pay their marketing departments millions of dollars to do – persuade thousands of people to watch a shoddy film.

The power of Twitter lies in the simplified nature of it. Unlike other forms of Instant Messaging or even the Facebook status system, Twitter messages can be seen by everyone. When people tweeted about BadMovieClub, they were promoting BadMovieClub. There was no need for any kind of ad campaign because the mere act of tweeting on the hashtag alerted a user’s followers to its existence.

On Friday evening many Twitter users suddenly found their Twitter message box full of seemingly nonsensical tweets about bees, wind, plastic plants, and Marky Mark’s furrowed brow. When you see your friends all talking about the same thing, it’s only natural to want to join in. When you know there is a celebrity involved, you find yourself trying to impress just to get them to retweet (RT) your comment.

BadMovieClub didn’t just stop at Twitter, however. Many people made a night of it, having friends around to watch the movie, even displaying the Tweets on a giant screen. The national press have also got in on the act, with both Metro and Sky News reporting the event (a minute or so into the video clip). I guess I have to ask you to look out for my newretro avatar on the sky footage! Yes, that’s my tweet and yes I really did quite like Point Break, even if I’d rather that wasn’t broadcast to the whole nation – can I sue Sky for that I wonder?.

As flash mobs go, and this was a flash mob even if it was quite raw, I believe this to be the first ever on Twitter. Sure there have been flash mobs organised over Twitter, but I believe this one was the first actually held on Twitter, as well as in your lounge, your bedroom, your PC, your mobile phone, or where ever you happened to be.

To glinner, badmovieclub, jupitusphillip, lauriepink, and all the others that took part – I salute you! There are plans being discussed for future events, so follow badmovieclub and keep an eye on the BadMovieClub website for news.

Now please excuse me whilst I try and contribute to Graham and Phil’s Monkey vs Bear war on Twitter. On Twitter, you see, we are all only 1 degree of separation away from each other; and Darth Vader has an awful lot of friends, although not as many as Stephen Fry.

We’re micro-blogging our stop-motion console game Cletus Clay at cletusclay, and you can find several of the Tuna team on Twitter: newretro, SarahQ, andrewcrawshaw, stationBob and clay_Ape.

Secondly, I’m immensely proud to say that Cletus Clay has been nominated for the IGF Excellence in Visual Arts award. It feels amazing to have one of our games nominated, but I feel it important to point out that the nomination is particularly down to Anthony Flack, not just as designer, but who’s work formed the bulk of the submission (a lot of our effort is still very much work in progress).

There’s some interesting games in the IGF Nominations this year, and I really can’t predict who is going to win out.

One of the Grand Prize nominees is the intriguing Dyson; TunaSnax have just posted up an interview we did with them before Christmas. It’s the story about how they got this far and you can read it here.

Best of luck to all the nominees. See you in San Francisco!

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautifully crafted project and it’s about as polished as you get. The visuals are great, the interface super-simple, and audio just what was needed. It’s just that it feels like a game of luck to me, and that just isn’t fun. At least not for more than a few minutes.

Our creative director, Andy Crawshaw, has written a great article about why he loves Peggle and he also (probably correctly) suggests why people like me don’t get it. To find out more you’ll have to go and take a look.

Aspiring designers should definitely pay attention.

Still, I’m a little bothered about the space they are in. Two years ago we were working on our own casual ideas. We’d spotted the casual scene before the big publishers but in the end it was too late to enter a market which was becoming very competitive, particularly with cheaply developed but reasonable quality Eastern European content.

Through our own site we offer some of the indie and casual games which we particularly like, but we only opened up our full site with the Cletus Clay announcement. Before going live, we checked out many of the latest casual games and were shocked to find how little had changed in the last 18 months.

The casual scene has always been full of clones, but right now it seems to be as obsessed with object finding games as it was with match 3 titles. The difference now is that there is massive portal competition, especially on price and with numerous subscription schemes. Is it even possible for developers to branch out but still get coverage on the major portals?

Will they be able to generate enough revenue from games which need to gain traction in order to be accepted? Pricing schemes now make margins increasingly tight, yet the cost of development can be much higher than in the past.

Talented indie developers like Grubby Games could find themselves marginalised, finding it hard to sell enough of more innovative titles to survive, yet also struggling to compete in the world of casual clones. I hope My Tribe does well, but I also hope that there is room for more than just clones in the still relatively young PC casual game industry.

Will 2009 be the year that casual ate itself?

TunaSnax have published a short interview with Grubby’s Ryan Clark in our features section.

Today I can reveal that Cletus Clay is going to appear on both PC and Xbox LIVE Arcade platforms!

We’ve also got a new blog post revealing why Anthony chose to work with clay, as well as a little more about the game itself, complete with one of our early images.

Please read for the blog post and Digg members can Digg us up!

I’m very pleased to say that we’re working with Anthony Flack to create his long awaited follow-up to Platypus (download it here), Cletus Clay. To say the least, it’s bloody hard work for all of us but also highly satisfying.

For those who don’t know, we make everything in clay then animate it using traditional stop-frame techniques – just like Wallace and Grommit (Aardman Animations). What you see on the screen, give or take some clean-up and effects work, actually exists on a desk somewhere and it’s the photo which is on-screen.

I hear some people have just seen the blog this weekend and think we’re not really doing this, but honestly – we really are, and it’s more difficult than you can imagine. We’ll talk more about the process over the next few months and I’ll doubtless also mention it here.

Right, back to the hard grind!

I recently commented to OddBob that not only was the frankly insane War Twat designed to destroy my eyesight, but that our resident mutant colour-restricted project manager couldn’t even see what was going on.

Instead of ignoring us nutters, he’s only gone and developed a version for the colour blind! Technically, it’s a high contrast version to be more precise. Now that’s what you call service. There’s also a good interview with the crazed creator by Aleks Krotoski over at the Guardian’s games section.

If you’ve not tried War Twat yet then get the real version from here. You don’t have to pay, it’s freeware. Or you can wimp out and just watch the video below.

Let me know your highest scores – I could only reach 433 then my head self-destructed. Go on, try it, then admit your score in public!

War Twat from oddbob on Vimeo.

Tags: freeware, indie, oddbob, war twat

Cliff’s rants are not for the faint-hearted, in particular when it comes to the topic of piracy. However, he did a very brave thing and confronted the problem head on, putting out a public question on his blog asking why people pirate games.

In this post he talks about what happened, the mass of responses that he got, and how he is reacting to them. I urge you to go and read his page directly and I’d also like to add a few comments of my own.

Piracy is a difficult subject – it ranks up there with religion on the Internet hateometer. However, it isn’t a simple topic, unless you’re Bruce Everiss anyway (link to be followed with care). I’ve always had a live and let live view of software piracy where software is being given away, but not where it’s being sold.

In the case of freebies, I’d wager that 90% of the people would never have bought the software anyway, possibly even more other than in exceptional cases. This contrasts with someone selling software that someone else made, yet not paying them for it. That pisses me off. Why should some eBay seller, market trader or criminal outfit sell my game and pocket all the cash?

So, on to Cliffski’s post. To be honest, little I read was a surprise. Out of the many responses he received, the most common reasons given for using pirate games were:

• Price of games
• Game Quality
• DRM
• Ease of obtaining vs going to shops
• Political reasons
• Taking advantage of free stuff

The latter two I’ll give short shrift too. I’d wager almost anyone giving political reasons is too young or stupid to understand that people need to make money from their work. And as to anyone taking advantage of free stuff, that’s just human nature and, to be brutally honest, all of us do this at some point in our lives – be it music, photocopying, or games.

Let’s look at the other four topics in more detail.

Firstly, the price of games. It’s important to understand that there will always be consumers who complain about price. Whoever picks the price point of any goods or services is making their decision based on what they expect their audience’s opportunity cost to be of buying the game. This is an economic term which basically says, “If the price of A is this and the price of B is that, I’ll pick product B. However, if the price of A is just a bit less, then I’ll buy product A instead. Product B sucked anyway.”

What this means is that you can’t keep everyone happy. Some people will buy at $20, some at $25, and some only at $5. Consumers have a lot of choice when it comes to spending money, and they will value your game as they see fit. Games are priced too high only if revenue is not being maximised at that price point, and the maximal revenue situation is a lower price point. Selling more copies doesn’t mean making more money.

My bet is that if indie and casual games were reduced by $5 across the board, revenues would either remain broadly static or even drop. I’m basing this on the fact that $20 for the entertainment hours that a game provides is not a lot of money, and also hasn’t changed significantly in years. This contrasts significantly with other forms of entertainment, particularly cinema and sport. That said, there are ways to make lower price points work, such as through subscription schemes and 2-for-1 deals.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Actually it isn’t, because casual game companies have done endless price point testing and as a pure individual download game price point, $20 maximises revenue. What they are finding out is that some people won’t pay that but you can earn money from advertising to them, selling in-game items, subscriptions, and so on.

Summing up, the price of games will always be an issue, so the best solution is to go for the standard price for the class of game you’re working on, perhaps with some allowance for your profile and target audience. You can play clever on the price with bargain weeks, package deals, and lowering the price after a period of time or when the sequel comes out. There is something to be learned here, but I’d say it’s also something that should be in the back of any indie developer’s mind if they are selling direct to their audience.

The next issue is one of game quality. In my view this is something of an excuse because these are the days where demos rule. Not all demos are created equal of course, but most these days show enough of the game for users’ to know what they’re getting. The fact is that many people still buy on hype, or have undue expectations. In both of these cases a longer demo is simply going to lower sales, and is not going to solve the piracy issue.

No one goes out to write a shoddy game, but it happens for many reasons. We have released a few real dogs in our time. Vin Diesel hated one of our games but of course he had no clue how it went down or that we weren’t allowed to feature him in it per se.  Still, I’m so proud to be have been slated by such an esteemed actor.

Vin, I’m waiting for a phone call so we can discuss why “your” game was crap but since it’s been six years’an all I don’t expect much. Right, now I’ve got that rant out of the way…

Games are pirated whether good or bad. In fact, a very good game is generally pirated in massive numbers and poor games much less so. I’ve never seen any evidence to link demo quality to piracy numbers. What does this tell us? Well, probably that people using game quality as an excuse to pirate games are not people you’re going to sell to easily. All you can do is try to write a good game and gain a good reputation, something all developers should be doing anyway.

So we move on to the problem of DRM. There is no doubt in my mind that bad DRM experiences have cost sales on the PC platform, certainly for games at retail. Many of us have had nightmares with DRMs which are cack-handed – EA’s handling of the Spore editor was tedious to say the least and definitely puts me off buying EA PC products. When nasty DRMs make their way to download games as well, the people responsible should be hung, drawn, quartered, shot, slapped, tickled silly, then put out of their misery.

There is no excuse for painful DRM – it just kills your customers. This is doubled when your DRM can then go out of date, and I include DRMs which insist on you being connected to the Internet (PC or console) or specifically limit you to one machine. It’s your game, you should be able to do with it as you wish using your own registration code.

Cliff has decided to remove DRM completely from his games for the time being – a brave decision which I applaud. We did the same for our first ever game back on the Amiga. I was one of many school yard file swappers in the 8 and 16-bit days and I cut my teeth on game hacking, so I know what a waste of time heavy protection is.

Still, these days I would use a simple system of on-line registration and then leave people to it. All I want to do is stop the act of copying to USB stick or simple file sharing. Anyone who is prepared to go beyond that is welcome to play my game – the more the merrier – but I’m not going to waste time and effort chasing them down for money when I’d rather be doing real work. Besides, I hope that they’ll come looking to buy one of my games in the future, perhaps when they do have money.

Finally we come to the final excuse, “it’s easy”. To be fair, it’s really good to go on-line and download what you want, legally or otherwise. I much prefer downloading to traipsing down to a store who’ll probably sell me a scratched second hand CD at near full price and probably without telling me. Well, except for my early Steam experiences with Half-Life 2. The less said the better. Teeth. Gnashing. Lots of.

Cliff’s respondents stated that Steam was a good system and implied that users seemed to prefer it to direct downloads. I wonder if that’s because once you have a game on Steam, you can effectively take it anywhere – it’s attached to your account. While the Steam software has a somewhat painful history, this is one aspect of it I do really like. I tend to have multiple installs across my machines.

As Cliff himself points out, if only it were easy for all indies to get on Steam. The iTunes model anyone?

In summary, Cliff has done a very brave thing and I believe that many people can and should learn from his findings. The most useful thing for me was to see the apparent love for Steam. It really, really is a waste of your time, as an indie developer, chasing down pirates. In pure financial terms, you’ll earn more developing your next game than chasing dodgy copies, it’s that simple. And it’s more fun.

This will sound harsh but I’ve always said the same thing:

PIRACY HAPPENS

DEAL WITH IT

If you think dealing with it is to constantly chase pirated copies and moaning about it, stop! Turn around and – in the immortal words of Why Don’t You – go out and do something else less boring instead.

It’s a great parody featuring Bizzare Creations’ Geometry Wars, or rather the making of it.

I popped over to the LoadingReadyRun homepage and found another good video, this time featuring Wii games that never made it. The last couple are particuarly funny, stick with it! This video is probably not for the easily offended; you have been warned.

A storm is brewing over indie games Castle Crashers and Braid. A Japanese website has published the proposed price points for these much anticipated titles, 1800 points and 1200 points resepectively. Meanwhile the blogs at Behemoth and Destructoid (amongst others) are filling up with riled users unsure what to make of it all, as you can see by the Destructoid image below:

The first thing to say is that I expect the Western price point of Castle Crashers to be 1600 points rather than 1800, but I can’t confirm that with any insider knowledge right now. I’m sure the matter will be cleared up ASAP, possibly even today.

So what’s the problem? Assuming 1600 points, that’s $19.99 for a top quality game. Here are some of the issues along with my take on them.

If I’m paying more than $10, I want a boxed copy and no DRM rubbish

There are two issues here. Firstly, it looks like it will take some time for console game buyers to get used to the idea of buying games without a box attached. PC users have been doing this for years, and at a standard price point of $19.99 (casual games and bigger indie games), so there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this model. Secondly, there is distrust of Microsoft’s DRM model. Console gamers are used to take/loaning discs to mates, and Microsoft currently provide no adequate method to deal with this, or to transfer ownership (for a fee perhaps). Also, if Microsoft stop supporting the system, you may not be able to play the game in future.

It’s too expensive for a download game

Not really. Castle Crashers is competing time-wise with the big games out there. Sure, it isn’t Halo, but so what? I’ll play Castle Crashers more than Halo, so what does it matter?

Developers are money grabbing because they know we want Braid and Castle Crashers

Indie developers struggle to get their games made, and are unlikely to get rich off them. In fact, they are just trying to make enough to develop their next game, with Microsoft et al wanting ever bigger, flashier titles.

Game development, particularly console game development, is extremely expensive. While a Flash game may take 2-6 weeks for 1-2 people, a console game – even on XBLA – may take 1-2 years and 4-8 people, as well as a lot of additional QA/localisation/hardware/rating/marketing related costs. You don’t have to be an accountant to see the difference. It’s very high risk and profits are hard to come by, especially for an understaffed, overworked indie with no corporate investors to pay for production.

Microsoft are charging me more than 1600 points = US$19.99 because I’m in Canada, UK, etc

Now this I am sympathetic with. As a developer, we base everything on the US rates because that’s what affects us. Microsoft charge more elsewhere because of sales tax and their own reasons. I suggest people write to MS to discuss that particular issue, but don’t blame the poor indie for a console pricing policy.

It’s only a simple brawler / platformer. I’m not paying more than $10 for that!

You know what? Give the games a go and if you think they are worth the money then buy them. If not, then leave them alone. Anyone who thinks a game should be priced by genre is rather foolish in my opinion. You don’t do this with film or music or television! Tetris and Dr Mario were super simple yet have taken more of my gaming hours than most FPS titles. It’s all about value for money, about entertainment.

In summary, console users are still very new to the whole download thing and the lack of a boxed copy still resonates as a problem. I think Microsoft (and Sony and Nintendo) should look at their DRM systems as I think there are ways to mitigate some of people’s concerns. Also, perhaps a boxed copy could be part of the deal with a little extra $$$?

However, give the games a go and treat them as with any other game you’ll buy. It doesn’t matter how much they cost, what the license is, who made them (indie or otherwise), retail or digital – if you like them enough then they are good enough.

For the record, I’m a huge fan of both games – although I’ve played Braid more than Castle Crashers as I have access to it – and I’m a fan of the talented and friendly people behind them.

EDIT: Great opinion piece on Gamasutra where 2D Boy (World of Goo) explains issues with XBox Live Arcade for indies.

I mention that brief piece of history because it is of great relevance to independent game developers in 2008. It is rarely referred to as such, but shareware is probably what you’ll be dealing with on the PC unless you are developing an on-line game.

The retail market is in a poor state, but the download market is very active, particularly in the casual space. Games tend to be based around the try before you buy model, whether limited by content, such as only the first level being free, or by time, 60 minutes gameplay for free by example.

PC – Pros

• Massive potential market.
• Mature and successful on-line market rather than retail based.
• Completely open download platform – no concept approval required; no restrictions of any kind.
• Huge variety of open source and low cost tools.
• Set your own price and sell where you want.
• Other revenue options, such as ad-based, micro-transactions, or subscription.
• Release your game whenever you want – no third party approval required.
• Immediate downloads for home/office web surfers.
• Generally lower cost of development.
• Easy to add additional content and updates at any time.
• PC boxed copy sales can be a useful extra source of revenue.
• Easy access to your audience.
• Massive on-line audience for web based games or MMOs.

PC – Cons

• PC hardware is variable, leading to unexpected problems on a number of machines. This is not to be underestimated.
• Lower profile than a console release.
• Rampant piracy. However, this could be debated forever so I’ll leave that discussion alone!
• Lack of a submission structure may lead to lack of development strategy if self-publishing or approaching publishers towards the end of a project.
• Lack of approvals mechanism often leads to much lower production values.
• Distribution platforms such as Steam and GameTap require approval from their owners and may incur exclusivity restrictions – if only with respect to other PC distribution systems and portals. Anecdotal evidence from developers is that such platforms are getting harder to reach as mainstream publishers are providing more content.
• Some resellers may take a large cut of the sales price, particularly true of many popular casual game portals.

Piracy is an issue, although evidence for the real effect on sales figures is shakey. Russell Carroll has written excellent articles on the matter over at Gamasutra. However, what isn’t arguable is that a good console download will usually sell many more copies than a good PC download, at least for indie games.

In terms of sales figures, expect around 10k sales if you do very well, 20-30k for a very significant hit, perhaps more if you have a track record and an audience.. Those are not big numbers, although they are big enough if your game is $20 and you receive 60-90% of the income which you will if selling through your own site, affiliates or Steam. Casual games can sell many more copies but the per unit revenue may be a lot less as many traditional portals do not pay high rates and have various customer bundling schemes.

It’s important to bare in mind that the vast majority of indie and casual games will be lucky to scrape past 2000 units. I’ll be writing an article on sales figures later this year, but you’ll find some hard figures here.

In my opinion, the PC is the best platform to get started with unless you already have experience of professional game development. The console learning curve is steep, and for most people it’ll be extremely difficult and frustrating to even get through the approvals stage. By all means aim for console, but keep a PC version in mind and in progress where possible.

A brief note on Mac and Linux based projects. They may well be worthwhile if you are doing PC, but it’s debatable otherwise. Both platforms benefit from an active user base and seemingly less piracy. Supporting the Mac can get your title more press attention too and that can be very important. Mac may increase sales by 10-25%, and Linux by a few percentage points. It will depend upon how the game is promoted and how it resonates with the audience.

If you wish to consider these platforms, I’d suggest using a cross platform library or engine.

EDIT: Great opinion piece on Gamasutra where 2D Boy (World of Goo) explains issues with XBox Live Arcade for indies.