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by David Collins · in General Discussion · 09/29/2005 (9:15 pm) · 24 replies
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#22
For those of you who want to know what the "agency" gets out of it, it's a simple matter of increased state commerce. Game development companies create jobs and revenue on the state level. It's a great idea to promote development of games within a state as a means to increase the state's economic potential and ability. There are many studies you can view on this. Louisiana offers a 20% tax subsidy to developers to attract them to the state; this followed a 50+ page report commissioned regarding the beneficial impact of having developers there.
In case most of you don't realize, working over the internet is a horrible way to get a product made. Give me all of the reason you want, but the black and white truth of it is that local teams work faster, better, and in a more cohesive manner. I've had extensive experience with both forms of development; this is why the Poacher team is all local.
Now lastly, to answer the question put forth by the thread creator, everything you mentioned helps to some degree. But again, the thing that helps most is development funds. This is, and always has been the largest problem for any kind of indie effort. People typically can't take off from a day job to make games, so they have to work on games as a second job (essentially). Another great point to consider is that without an office, real publishers (of the box or shelf variety) have a hard time taking you seriously. Due diligence is what publishers are all about, and an unprofessional affiliation has a much less chance of success than a development team with infrastructure.
10/02/2005 (7:37 am)
We had a similar initiative put forth by the Maryland Department of Economic Development a few years ago. Although their help was limited, it was still beneficial to my team and our product. For those of you who want to know what the "agency" gets out of it, it's a simple matter of increased state commerce. Game development companies create jobs and revenue on the state level. It's a great idea to promote development of games within a state as a means to increase the state's economic potential and ability. There are many studies you can view on this. Louisiana offers a 20% tax subsidy to developers to attract them to the state; this followed a 50+ page report commissioned regarding the beneficial impact of having developers there.
In case most of you don't realize, working over the internet is a horrible way to get a product made. Give me all of the reason you want, but the black and white truth of it is that local teams work faster, better, and in a more cohesive manner. I've had extensive experience with both forms of development; this is why the Poacher team is all local.
Now lastly, to answer the question put forth by the thread creator, everything you mentioned helps to some degree. But again, the thing that helps most is development funds. This is, and always has been the largest problem for any kind of indie effort. People typically can't take off from a day job to make games, so they have to work on games as a second job (essentially). Another great point to consider is that without an office, real publishers (of the box or shelf variety) have a hard time taking you seriously. Due diligence is what publishers are all about, and an unprofessional affiliation has a much less chance of success than a development team with infrastructure.
#23
So... back to work!
10/02/2005 (7:53 am)
No worries Stephen. I gave up politics / economics debating a long time ago. I just recommend my favorite book, then go back to work. :)So... back to work!
#24
10/03/2005 (8:10 am)
I think it is a great idea especailly for the UK which I don't think really provides good chances for game developers
Torque Owner Nauris Krauze
As for the things needed: my guess would be among the top things actually *would* be development software, access to various dev kits, perhaps a helping hand getting into various expo's and such (could be a major problem for a small dev shop in such a geographically remote location as Australia, I assume).
Aimon, I suspect that you've hit the wrong audience- here most of us are Do It Yourself crowd, plus most of the teams are virtual, members scattered all over the world. So, not exactly the target audience. I personally believe its a good and worthy idea, mostly because I witnessed very similar government incentive in my home country, targeted at business IT start-ups and I must say, in many cases results were very good. Of course, there were failures, but it all boils down to the developers themselves. After all, government can not guarantee you success in free market economy:)