Is GarageGames following the path of Dynamix?

#1 GG is not cutting it's support for the "little" guy. Be patient, you'll see.

#2 I'd like to particularly point out this paragraph:

"GG started out working toward this mission by focusing on providing professional quality game technology and tools at prices literally anyone could afford, democratizing game development, in a sense. There's no getting around the fact that making games is just plain hard, and it takes a lot of talent and work to get one finished-- let alone to make it fun and appealing. We can't change that. But at least GG put a stake in the ground and took on one of the biggest hurdles facing aspiring game developers and indie teams-- access to affordable, effective game technology."

Which was taken from IAC take over article I posted above...

#3 GG has already stated they are still thinking about us dreamers.
Let the dust settle, and we will all know for certain.

#4 Yes, they will be offering a stripped down version.

#5 Good idea, let the dust settle before drawing your final conclusion.

#6 You really thinks so? Is that what Brett meant by
"Does a hobbyist who never publishes anything serve these goals? Probably not...let's talk about that...

We're building Torque to enable a particular set of developers: those who can persevere though the challenge of game development. This means outfits like Fro Games, Stickman Studios, Sickhead Games, and Tilted Mill to cite some recent examples. In the recent Game Developer profile on TGEA for the Front Line awards, I think they hit the nail on the head."

As he stated in this thread:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/16021


Or how bout David's remark,

"@Andrew
I would raise the price significantly to remove branding from the engine. I would say into the $2000-$15,000 range depending on what they want to remove. I think branding is extremely important as a strategy in the engine market. I know it will burn some people and they will use another engine, but that's okay."

As he stated on this page of the same above mentioned blog by Brett:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/blog/view/15952/7

You decide...

#7 What amazes me is that quite a bit of the code in TGEA was contributed by members of this community who weren't paid for those contributions and yet, having not released a game with the engine are now considered 'dreamers' and 'hobbyists'. Any who have expressed negative opinions about the present state of the GG community are called whiners and told to wait. For what? Pieces of a functional website to be reinstated in a piecemeal fashion? For a price increase? This is what I get for being a loyal customer.

What's even more ironic is that a number of the current employees who have stepped forward in defense of all this were 'dreamers' and 'hobbyists' not that long ago.

I've been making my living in the digital media business for nearly two decades, long before a number of current GG employees graduated high school. To be considered a 'dreamer' and 'hobbyist' is downright insulting...

#8 Gibby, even more ironic than that is that many of the employees who are stepping forward in defense of all this were never "dreamers" or "hobbyists." They were never Torque owners. They were probably never even interested in game development. They were corporate fluff added on after the IAC acquisition.

#9 @Scott: I think you missed what David was saying in that quote above. Someone had mentioned a different price to remove the branding/flash screen, and he pointed out that to allow someone to do that he'd want a significant amount added to the cost. Having a flashscreen branding the engine is important for promoting the engine.

#10 Branding shouldn't be removed at any cost.

#11 Oh come on guys, Brett did an excellent job of detailing things in his blogs. Lots of words that generated emotion and attention. He stirred up debate without definite commitment to anything. That's all good marketing strategy for looking ahead. Rising prices have been a long time in coming. Nothing old or already existent (well... except the website) has changed, only people's outlook of the future. Sure there where a few public relations snafus recently, all change is accompanied by them -- and more than just GarageGames is at fault for that -- but a little patience in unsettled times can be rewarding.

#12 @ J.C. and David. I apologize and thanks for pointing that out to me, but at the same time I'd have to agree with Joe Melton...

Money talks...

#13 I feel as soon as they failed to deliver TSE as a product which replaces TGE. And started focusing on console support, I've been pretty disappointed and feel GG is going in the wrong direction. T3D? Come off it, I brought the early release of TSE and its vanishing now it has only just become OK.

If we get our games going are we really going to have the money to get licenses for consoles, and distribute for a console? I think an engine in OpenGL with support for Windows, Linux and Mac OS, is far more realistic for indie development and is what we had with TGE in 2001.

Instant Action, doesn't interest me at all why would I want to play and pay for a game in a browser?

#14 @J.C.
Thanks for pointing out the context of my post. It could easily have gotten lost and recontextualized to make it sound like I was saying "Torque should cost $15,000. C-ya little guys!" which was *NEVER* my intent. It was purely about branding in a competitive engine marketplace.

@Marcus
[quote]Yes, they will be offering a stripped down version.[quote]
A feature delta was one of the things discussed in Brett's blog. I really don't like feature deltas (I don't like it with A7 or Unity or other technologies that I work with). I much prefer license deltas, but it is extremely difficult to discern what people are doing with their licenses. But usually people are pretty good about not abusing their licensing if they have paid for the product. And if they haven't, like most pirates, they never will pay for it.

But it is still undecided how to work the Torque 3D licensing. That was one of the points of discussing it with the community. Even though the topic got heated at some points, it just shows that there is passion in this community when it comes to GG and our tech. People really went crazy with the interp that GG is not concerned with indies or hobbyists, though. It was quite disheartening to hear people screaming "why hast thou forsaken us?" when that was not our intent.

@Edward Smith
You seem to be in the extreme minority when it comes to browser-based gaming. I answer a ton of questions daily about it; some of them from very large AAA studios looking at technology to enhance their web-presence. There is a reason that id targeted browsers for Quake World, and I know a ton of people in the Unity community who are there not because it is a kick-ass engine (it is) but because it has simple web deployment.

You don't have to be interested in moving your game to a console or into the browser. But a lot of people are and opening that pathway was important for us. I believe it was important to Unity as well since they have a Wii engine as well. I believe C4 has clients targeting the PS3 and 360 as well. I think opening these pathways is an extremely important part of the gamedev business; especially the engine development or middlware business. Just because I cannot afford certification costs (I could probably skim and pull out the devkit cost) doesn't mean that other small studios can't or won't try to get the funding to push their games to consoles.

#15 I think one thing a lot of indie/hobbyist/dreamer developers overlook when it comes to costs, is... reality. Plain and simple, if you want to tinker around and not make money (ie, purely for fun) then demo/lite versions exist (well, for most software). If people are freaking out about $1,000 (which I sorta cringe here honestly), then they aren't business minded- even at the indie level.

Take this (true) scenario for example:
My friend and I have been developing a graphic novel for some time. Not the art, but the story. We've been tossing around ideas relating to how we'd deliver this story- via the web, print, or some other media (such as PSP resolution graphics, with some homebrew viewer perhaps). In our "circle" of friends, which is more like a spider web... comes a proposition out of the blue. An idea shared rather. The person sharing this vision, threw out a number for funding/capitol: $50,000. His vision was making a graphic novel. Didn't care about the story, or the art, so long as it was good. And he only cares about breaking even on his investment. So, the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together.

Now change some details, and make that story relate to making a game. What's $1k? But a drop in the bucket, considering it's one of the most valuable pieces of a game. In our case, that was blind luck (or something else perhaps), but at any rate- if you are business minded you can find people who have money. Prove to them you can make them more, and you have funding. It's simple logic, but apparently a good amount of people are overlooking this or it's just plain foreign to them.

I couldn't afford $1,000 for a license, personally- but only because it'd be a risky investment. Now if I had a team together, with a solid plan, and financial backing, that's easy. And I (us, the team rather) are still the small guy(s), the indies and the dreamers.

To be fair, it should be noted that there is a possible visible trend starting. A price hike. I'd rather see more stability in current feature sets, more semantics (in a rhetorical manner), and perhaps micro releases of interesting features to slowly grow the features. Rather, faster more diligent bug fix/stability releases, less features. Make what works okay, work great. Pull the junk out of Torque's poor crusty ears. Then worry about putting the makeup on, and throwing her on the street corner at a higher rate when she's more mature. Better yet, let the community work on the cool new features, like wet looking materials and (current gen) better lighting.