A good day to be in the Garage

It's a good day to be in the garage...

Wow, as most of you guys (and gals) know, there has been tons of stuff happening in the garage. We're approaching TSE Milestone 4, which now has some of the amazing Atlas terrain and John Kabus' awesome lighting work integrated into the engine. We just released Torque Game Builder 1.1.1 with some sweet interface upgrades and an integrated tilemap editor in the level editor. Just two days ago we announced Torque X up at GameFest and how its going to allow developers access to use XNA to bring their games to Xbox 360. And all of this was just in the past week. The two weeks before that I was traveling through China and Singapore marveling at the opportunities Torque is bringing to the region.

During my time traveling through Shanghai and Singapore these past two weeks, I got the opportunity to meet some really cool developers. It was a good time in Shanghai meeting up with some old friends who I met the previous year at ChinaJoy, getting to sit down with a group from the Tsinghua University which will be teaching Torque to their game dev students, and watching a few presentations of games being developed on Torque Technology. Besides the weather being super hot and humid, it was a great time.

My time in Singapore turned busier than I ever thought it would. Meetings were going morning, noon and night. I got to hang out with some great guys in the Singapore IGDA chapter. Guys who had been part of the dev teams ranging from FarCry to Fallout, and now focusing on some fun casual games. There were quite a few dev teams and individual teams that were working with Torque and many of them were using Torque to do some really crazy and fun things. Gotta give some serious props to the guys from Playware Studios who have a really cool studio with a bunch of neat guys (and gals) working on a lots of Torque projects. I got a chance to hang out with eFlyte, a group that GarageGames works with and is bringing the first 3d games powered by Torque to the airlines. We had a great time hanging out, singing Karaoke, and doing multiplication tables (inside joke).

Amazing stuff happened during this trip and there's more stuff to come from this region. But while I was flying home from Singapore, I got to reflect back on my trip. I started thinking about how much some of these developers who were based in Asia valued their history. The roots where they came from. Each one of the studios I visited had a "trophy-case" of their past titles and they were proud to say they were part of a long line of game developers. The funny thing was, I was reading the latest Computer Gaming World magazine while I was thinking these things. Then I got to page 59. Computer Gaming World was doing an "Overrated/Underrated List". And there it was, right in the category of Most Influential Game of all time - The most underrated game was Tribes.

Quote:
Tribes
If you want to get technical, Tribes laid the groundwork for multiplayer objective-based outdoor battles, team dynamics, and strategy in a first-person shooter. Build emplacements, control vehicles - but the signature jetpacks inspire either love or loathing. Oh, and bonus: Tribes is now freely available online.

That's right... everyone who is working with Torque technology is part of the history that stems from the most influential games in history. Tribes changed the way multi-player gaming takes place, the strategy that is involved and so much more. And since that times there have been hundreds of games that have been released on just about every single platform out there all powered by Torque. From the top-selling games on Xbox 360 Live Arcade to the shelves of Wal-Mart. From a Torque game created in the humble back room in some guy's actual garage to Torque-powered simulations being run on super-computers at NASA. These are all places where Torque powered games and technologies are playing a big part.

But the coolest thing about all this history is that we here at GarageGames aren't stopping and resting on our laurels. As evidenced with the past week, we're constantly developing, constantly creating new technologies, constantly seeking new arenas for developers of all levels to be involved in this exciting gaming industry. And there are times that we couldn't have done this without such an awesome and huge community of developers like you guys.

This is an absolutely revolutionary time in indie game development.

1. The casual game industry is almost a $1 billion industry and its expected to double in the next two years.
2. We've seen indie developers get picked up by big publishers and make a nice living making games.
3. The opportunity that indies now have to access the console space is unprecedented right now. All the major console manufacturers have announced their downloadable games plans.
4. Even the boxed channel is opening up more and more for indies-- PocketWatch's Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa in store shelves at Best Buy, WalMart and the like.
5. We see indies release their games - Joshua Dallman finally releasing a game... whooohoo... time to break out the portable Heineken keg.
6. We see indies generate lots of buzz with their game - Josh Ritter and reaching the 15,000 registered users bar.
7. The announcements from Microsoft regarding their XNA initiatives are going to let indies easily vet their gameplay ideas on a console for the first time ever.
8. AND SO MUCH MORE...

I was talking to Jeff Tunnell and he says that he hasn't seen this much opportunity for small gamedev teams since he first started out way back when. We need to all team up and make this stuff happen! We're super busy here in the Garage and we know you all are busy working on your games.

It's a good day to be in the Garage.