Whats next for the Garage?

#21 I'm not sure if the acquisition has really benefited we end user developers all that much. It seems to me like ever since IAC stepped in the GG employees and engine developers blog less and rarely participate in forums (are they not allowed to?), the engines get less updates, new engines sometime get announced and hyped up but never actually get released ( Torque2?, now T3D?..). Meanwhile products like TGB are still awaiting bug fixes, updated documentation and tutorials.

When they first announced IAC they made it seem like the greatest thing in the world. They rationalized their selling out of GG saying how it would allow them to do more because they will have more money. Looks to me like they were far more productive before the acquisition. I'm not bashing IAC, it's cool and all I just think maybe it should not be taking all the priority over all the tools and products GG sells.

#22 @Joe - ...Are you serious? I really don't know if you are joking or just haven't been involved in the community for a year.

Quote:GG employees and engine developers blog less

Since the acquisition, do you know how many blogs have been written by Deborah, Brett, myself, Matt Fairfax, Melv May, and so on? I've put out 9 by myself.

Matt Fairfax has blogged about every engine update and beta. Deborah keeps the community updated on events and TGB games...

Quote:...rarely participate in forums (are they not allowed to?)

David Montgomery-Blake is our site admin and handles the majority of the forum work. However, the forums are frequently monitored and posted in by Kenneth Holst, MattF, myself, and Deborah.

Quote:...engines get less updates

TGEA has received 3 updates in a year. Melv May has already announced he doing major work on TGB.

Honestly, if we are anymore active in the forums and blogs we would not be getting any work done.

Quote:updated documentation and tutorials.

I'm honestly speechless here...

Quote:would allow them to do more because they will have more money.

Yes, like hire on a larger team to work on TGB, TGEA, and TGE. Also, to fund Instant Action. Both of which have been blogged about and proved the point.

Quote:Looks to me like they were far more productive before the acquisition.

Not sure how you came to this conclusion, but I'll just be direct and say just the opposite is true.

Quote:should not be taking all the priority over all the tools and products GG sells

It did not. It does not. It will not.

Brett's blog obviously stirred up a lively conversation and got some people to come out of their holes to see what's going on at GarageGames. This is great, but I ask that people take a little time to check out what's been happening before inaccurate statements start being thrown around.

#23 Lol no Michael I didn't crawl out of a hole. I've been coming to GG every day and have since I started using TGB in its early adopter form. Sorry if I touched a nerve but things do seem to have changed since the days of TGB early adopter. If you take a look at TDN you will see many out of date tutorials and broken code for TGB. Yes the documentation has improved over the years but is still not where it should be.

I feel like I and a few other community members are the ones truly supporting TGB in the forums. When someone comes there with a problem that needs C++ work I rarey see an employee address the issue. And we see the same things over and over. How do I pause music? How do I handle this or that window event that appears to have no event handler in the sources. The portal games do (this or that), why doesn't TGB? Back in the day we used to talk directly to the TGB developers on the forums and things were good.

TGB hasn't had a significant update in quite some time. Aside from Melv May's coming back blog I haven't seen any mention of work being done for TGB. You all keep saying you have this giant sized team of developers slaving away at TGB... but who and where are they? To me it looks like all TGB development ended when GG was bought out. All I hear about these days is TGEA, iTGB, T3D and other things that don't really affect me as a TGB user.

#24 I listened to the hour long webcast by Barry Diller and I am reminded of the fact that his back ground is being a big time producer / mogul in the entertainment industry. I can't help get the feeling that this personality type inspired the creation of "Les Grossman" Tom Cruises' lovable Character who produces the movie in Tropic Thunder. The webcast was even hosted by someone who reminded me of Les Grossman's sidekick.

I personally think that Tom Cruise stole the movie. He did such an awesome job. I recorded the scene numbers so I can skip ahead and watch. Les appears in scenes 5, 14, 16, 23, and 24. Its awesome.


Here is just a glimpse... Get introduced to Less Grossman

Seriously though... after 17:30 of the webcast with Barry Diller he said that "video" advertising had great potential. I realized he was not talking about "video game" advertising. Basically his idea is a short web based commercial. I think he is planning on selling off GG and Instant Action or just stopping funding all together, because its distracts from IAC's core business. At 29:52 he states his plans with the emerging business unit and its not pretty (except for pronto)

Watch tropic thunder, then after a couple of beers listen to the IAC webcast with Barry Diller and a Citi Bank Sidekick here IAC Janurary 09 2009 Webcast its like a second movie.

..

#25 @Ross - No nerve touched, I just felt most of your statements were way off base so I had to create a lengthy reply. No one said there is a huge team on TGB, but that there is a huge effort being put into it. Up until Torque 3D, the teams working on Torque have been extremely small.

iTGB developments have actually been bleeding into TGB, mainly in optimizations and editor usability. There hasn't been a big update since TGB 1.7.4, but at this state TGB is extremely mature and stable. At least one person has been actively working on it, and now we are up to about 4 if you include management and documentation.

As far as forum activity, again I have to say that David and I have been very active. That includes the TGB forums where I'm helping out with tutorials. I've already stated that TDN is a mess, but I have to give it the least amount of my focus so I can work on the Official Docs. While some of those tutorials are dated, they are extremely helpful and TGB's section is the most organized and content rich.

Over the past 6 months, more work has been put into documentation than in previous years and every week I'm figuring out how to do more. We are now focusing on quality and not quantity, which is the best that can be done by one employee and an intern.

#26 @Ian, nope. The amount of money was tiny (5 to 15 million) The reason GG accepted the offer is quite clear. It was not money that GG wanted. It was freedom of direction. IAC stayed out of the way and let GG do its thing. That's why Brett Seyer never met any of these guys. GG went with IAC because IAC would fund GG and let GG run its business the way GG wanted too. The changes you are seeing in license and others is not the result of a direct command.

The changes in licensing vision and philosophy may be an unfortunate result of the fact that GG may need to survive again on its own in the short run. Raising prices an revenue is probably necessary for growth and survival at GG in the very near future.

@Joe Rossi, Playing and pausing music have little to do with a game engine at least a 3d Game engine, and the guys at GG are doing their absolute best to deliver the core features, and keep up with the community. If you see any real missing features in the core its probably due to the fact, that GG has spread its self thin over too many different projects. Ok now I see you are talking TGB... and yeah what you are seeing is a bunch of super talented guys being pulled in many directions. You are going to have to cut them some slack while they reorganize.

@Michael, If there is anything wrong with GG its not a lack of effort. Its too much effort in too many directions. Just my opinion but I think GG should reign in all the other projects and focus on a common core. I think thats what is happening with T3D and I think thats the right direction. Thats why I'm excited about the new direction.

If IAC pulls the plug (with out finding a new buyer to finance development) its going to be a tough road of self survival. GG will have to focus on generating its own revenue to survive. GG has done this in the past. Its the old reliable, entrepreneurial business model that will sustain GG. Its just difficult to stand up when someone pulls the rug out from under you. Focusing on increasing customer base and revenue should be top priority at GG.

#27 Oh right. I was under the impression you might be just misinformed.

Turns out you're delusional.

#28 well, at least these blogs show progress with your current project Britton. Interesting reads, and thanks for the link collections.

#29 Hello... just to comment here, when I said in my blog that we had a "unique" structure with IAC, I meant it. Accordingly, the usual thinking about ownership % and such doesn't apply to our situation. We separated and carved out management rights from economic interest and investment activity. In this sense, we really have the best of both worlds in that we have the support and backing of a very big, very savvy web company in IAC, and the benefit of being an independent shop in that you don't have to mess around with big corporate upper-management too much. Its pretty sweet.

You are right on in a lot of ways about how powerful all this stuff is in combination though-- GG + backing from IAC. Hopefully we can achieve what all we've set out to do.

#30 @Josh, from what I read you did a great job negotiating the contract. It does not surprise me that GG retains control of its direction. IAC's own team called you "Killer" which is a high compliment since these guys are the pros.

My question for you is: what does this period of shake out at IAC's emerging business unit mean for GG, worst case scenario? Can they pull funding, or sell GG? If they do sell GG do you have the same voting rights for control over GG's direction with the next company?

I only have two concerns:

1. GG retains its control over its own direction (with the next company). This appears very possible if the shares sold to IAC do not carry voting rights.
2. GG can survive with out IAC backing and not lose employees?

If anyone can pull this off apparently its you Josh. Hats off to your forward thinking in your contract negotiations back in 2007! If you managed a deal where your voting right remain independent of ownership of those shares... then I guess that carries... with the purchase of those shares to the next corp. I'm guessing another company probably would not want to buy those shares in that case.

After considering this it might mean IAC only has two options... continue funding or not.

Barry Diller should appreciate that since its the same strategy he used to win the battle against John Moore over control of IAC. Even though Moore had the Majority share at IAC through liberty mutual, Barry Diller maintained voting rights.

#31 Again my post assumes here worst case scenario. I was sick all weekend, and could not sleep due to sever congestion. So I'd cat nap and do more research... the more I dug the more exciting the GG tale became... all the way up to last Friday. I felt like I was watching the movie the Matrix... it looks like Josh Williams may actually turn out to be ... the One.

#32 Heh, well thanks for the compliment, but I'm not that great. :) Anyway, for reasons I'm sure you can understand, legal and otherwise, I can't really answer your questions, especially in public! Even more, it would probably be inappropriate to do so, even if I could. I guess I should say, re: IAC's emerging business stuff... they've already announced moves to do most everything there, and obviously we haven't been affected, so there ya go.

I just wanted to chime in quickly on this thread when I posted above, and make sure it was clear that I wasn't spinning or anything like that when I wrote up my blog. It is a unique, and cool, structure that we have. Its not the same as IAC's was with Libery Media, but again I can't get into detail for obvious reasons. Also, I'm a little uncomfortable having all this prognosticated about so much in public, as such speculation tends to lead to weird, uninformed debates about the future, doom scenarios, what-ifs, etc. We did all the doom-scenario, worst case, fallback, legal-beagle thinking, re-thinking, checking, and double-checking while putting the deal together. Now, we focus solely on making this *rock hard*. :) That's where its productive to focus your energy and time. In general, as long as we keep doing a good job, there's very, very little to worry about and we will be here trying to do good, innovative, useful things. And if we screw it up, then no matter how good our partners and agreements are, we'll have failed and we won't.

To that end, thanks to everyone for all the support, and hopefully everyone is as excited about what we've been doing and what we're going to do in the future as we are!