Falling Through The Cracks

#21 Bill chances are you probably wouldn't have liked what Jeff had to say anyway. I remember the first time I showed Jeff a game I had been working on for over a year. I was pretty proud of it, as a developer I had actually done a lot of the art myself and compared to a lot of other 2D games at the time it stood up pretty well. I and some of the guys I was working with had worked long hours every night for a week before IGC to get the game ready to show and we were pretty proud of it. When Jeff saw it at IGC the first feedback I herd from him was "well the games kinda nice but you need to get yourself another artist, this art wont cut it".

Man that was a hard pill to swallow. I think it took me about a week to swallow it. It wasn't because I was somehow enamored with Jeff either, it was because I sat down and honestly thought it though. He was right, in the end the customers don't care if you poured your blood sweat and tears into a game, they are going to hold you to the standard of a reflexive of a pop-cap for production values and if you aren't there the customers are going to walk.

Jeff comes across a little gruff and conferences, it's true, but deep down he really does care about indie developers. Do you really think he's in this for the money? Do you think the GG crew are all there pulling big salaries? If this was just a big money making scheme why would GarageGames offer developers the best royalty rates in the business? It is a huge amount of effort to put on a conference like IGC and I don't think it's ever turned a profit. Countless hours are spent in organization, securing the venue, preparing speeches, scheduling speakers.

I have to say, if you didn't get Jeff to see your game it was because you didn't make a concerted effort. Did you get out there and install your game on all the computers? If your not prepared to do that then your probably not prepared to show it to Jeff. I think there was at least 25+ games installed in the show off center. With all those developers showing games and wanting feedback do you think Jeff is going to go out of his way to see your project on a laptop hidden away in a corner? If you really felt like that was the only way you should show it, then you should have said "I would like to show you my game sometime today or tomorrow, is there a good time that would work for you?", chances are Jeff would have said, "sure, how about right now". If you want to succeed your going to have to be assertive, not subtle. Asking Jeff if he's seen your game yet is a literal question, you can't expect him to pick up on the subtle "i want you to look at my game" message unless you come out and say it.

But whatever, you seem to talk pretty tough online, if you had half the self confidence at IGC that you display here in this thread you probably would have gotten what you wanted.

#22 @Bill

Actually Jeff and Jay were very approachable at IGC even though they were incredibly busy running the show and keeping things organized.

I can also attest that Jeff did actually look at games, designs and portfolios during IGC (I witnessed a few of these) and in fact I had him sit down with me during the entire closing ceremonies to discuss Dark Horizons - Lore and get his thoughts & opinions on the latest build that we were demoing in a live one on one situation (as opposed to phone or email). Sure Lore isn't a new game, but we always want feedback to make it better, especially feedback from our publisher. I should point out too that I was incredibly busy at this show (2 sessions, meetings, networking + PR stuff) yet found the time to make this happen.

As such I think you honestly do owe Jeff, Jay and everyone who works at GG and on the IGC conference an apoligy for your insults that you have tossed. If feedback was that valuable to you, ask for it, if they were busy, hounding them and make the time for when they weren't.

Also I see nothing in your post regarding you trying to recieve input from your fellow peers that were attending the show. Did you try to invoke this input? Sure these might not be "Jeff Tunnells" but they are still potential customers as well as developers who can give you valuable feedback.

In regards to GG and how they run their company, its their company so get over it. If I don't see something eye to eye with them then I work with them to hilite the program, offer potential solutions and then work with them to finalize a solution and impliment it. This also goes vice versa with them with regards to Dark Horizons Lore or work that I volunteer for this community. We might beat one another down but at the end of the day we are also arm-in-arm laughing, joking, having a beer, laughing at how stupid we all were and working towards a solution.

Lastly I will leave you with these words. Even if you personally don't like GG or its community because of whatever did or did not happen at a convention, don't blow your and your teams chances of succeeding by holding some stupid petty grudge. The nature of business is to move ahead from where you are now, so even if that means your partner with your enemy so be it, think of your best interst in mind.

Logan

Edit: Jeff you forgot to mention Dark Horizons - Lore in your game list. But we won't hold this against considering the tone of this thread... plus we know you are always good for a beer or two ;)

#23 This thread amazes me. If you were at the IGC, and you installed your game at the showoff center, and it was really good, it would have risen to the top. It does not matter how good it looked, if it was fun, it would get noticed and you would have been tracked down. Ask Matt Fairfax about his experiences with BoomBall if you need confirmation of this.

If the game is not yet playable, then you have nothing to show. It is that simple. Jeff can be brutally honest with his feedback. It is one of the things I really like about Jeff. In this age where meetings happen and it is all happy smiles and 'yeah, let's do lunch' talk, Jeff will give you the straight dope. If he thinks it sucks or will not sell, he will tell you so.

At the IGC, I know I was busy (5 sessions + meetings) and I can't even begin to imagine how over extended the GarageGames guys were.

As far as some teams and games being given 'preference' over others in terms of time.. I think you need to rethink that. There are those that are delivering and those that are not. The game we brought that showed well at the IGC (dRacer) got a lot of play because people were playing it, not because it got any sort of preferential treatment.

We are positioning oursleves to be a team that can deliver. We are working our butts off to make it happen (as is 21-6 and MaxGaming).. what you do not see is the years where you knew nothing about us.. where we were silently toiling to deliver the product.

Actions speak louder than words. If you have something that is that compelling.. it will rise to the top. That is all dependent on you and your teams ability to make it happen for yourselves.

#24 My last post was a bit juvenile - and was correctly deleted. My apologies.

Hey - I was ticked off.

But the post from @Bill, IMO, was outrageous.

Where does this sense of entitlement come from? The GG staff (and Jeff as a specific) have never been anything other than helpful to us, and honest in their assessments.

They provide Torque and the GG community, and attendent development products. There is NO other comparable indie game dev resource out there. None. IF this was all they did - pimp their own products - and they never considered a single game for publishing - they would still be far and above any other resource for the indie developer out there.

Trust me - we researched it thoroughly.

Personally, I feel an apology is owed.

Grrr....

#25 With regards to weston's origional query,

I know guys who have done just exactly what your ideal is. Mike Welch from www.blitwise.com (the creator of the origional DX Ball and the recently released SuperDX Ball) created a little game called PocketTanks a few years ago. Mike was a big C64/Amiga fan so his games have a distinct C64 feel to them, anyway his story goes like this. He had been working on pocket tanks for a while and he decided he wanted to make games full Time. He quit his job and released pocketTanks the same day. From that day forward he was making a nice full time living from his game. (think direct sales well into the double digits every day). The only marketing he ever did was submit it to Download.com (widely regarded by indies as usless today). Since that day he has lived quite well off PocketTanks, he owns a home, supports his wife and children all off the sales of this one game that he never did anything to promote.

He plans to follow a simmilar course with Super DX-Ball, just keep it small and let it grow by word of mouth. Last I herd it was already starting to sell fairly well.

#26 Not to perpetuate the thread hijack or anything, but this so-called Bill Lumberg is obviously overemotional and jumping to conclusions. He (or she) is suffering more than they can handle (frustrated developer?), and that suffering has poured over onto others, namely Jeff and GG. I barely have concept art and model screenshots and I had GG employees asking me about my (unpublicised) game at the conference. With an attitude like "Lumberg" has, if he drops off the GG radar nobody will miss him.

And just to underscore the ridiculousness of the accusations, the final portion of the conference was an open opportunity to provide feedback and criticism. GG welcomes constructive criticism, but broad and general accusations serve no positive purpose.

The bigger and more well known GG gets, the more sour grapes there's going to be, it's just a fact of doing business with the general public. Gotta have tough skin :)

#27 Jeff and Jay are great men and are always willing to help... enough said! :)

#28 Hey guys, thanks for the support. This morning, after sleeping on it, I deleted my .plan. Weston's original question for starting this thread was much more useful. Let's just drop the highjack and move on:)

-Jeff Tunnell GG