Adventure Gamers - Forums

Yeah when I say about supporting smaller teams or lone developers, I’m not really suggesting the use of Kickstarter. With the right support, those teams and devs wouldn’t need to turn to places like Kickstarter, is the point I had hoped to make. But you are right, sustainability (and success rate) through a KS funded game/studio is shockingly low. I am an expert in that field  

tomimt - 01 October 2018 12:16 AM

Detective Mosely - 30 September 2018 02:47 AM

Independent developers are usually much more willing to push the boundaries and innovate.  Even the tale of Telltale tells this tale.  (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Honestly, there’s only a handful of indies, that do the innovating. The rest are only too happy to follow whatever trend is hot.

I really don’t see that.  But maybe that’s just because the ones that interest me are the innovative ones.

I play a lot of indy games and every one is either innovative or is in a genre that big companies aren’t interested in making anymore.  Many are both.

tomimt - 01 October 2018 02:35 PM

Detective Mosely - 01 October 2018 02:21 PM

I really don’t see that.  But maybe that’s just because the ones that interest me are the innovative ones.

I play a lot of indy games and every one is either innovative or is in a genre that big companies aren’t interested in making anymore.  Many are both.

At the moment the biggest buzzword among indie devs seems to be “roguelike”, so games in that vein are popping up left and right. Before that, there was a tonne of tower defence style titles, open world survival is another that has been beaten to death.

I never denied there are fads that are followed.  But roguelike just means a game with permanent death and procedurally generated levels.  There’s tons of room to innovate within that genre.  I’ve played quite a few—FTL, the Darkest Dungeon, Slay The Spire, Into the Breach—and those games all feel extremely different from each other.

FTL is about taking a spaceship into space and trying to survive while acquiring upgrades along the way.  Slay the Spire is a game where you collect cards to build a deck which gives you various options in each of your battles based on what you draw, and manipulating your deck for more consistent success.  While they’re both popular roguelikes, they couldn’t be more different if they tried.

Lucien21 - 05 October 2018 01:50 PM

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/10/05/telltale-games-reportedly-lays-off-remaining-staff/

Looks like Telltale have fired the rest of their staff.

I heard a rumour that they are trying to outsource all development to a different company, and that company would hire some of the ex-Telltale employees to work on the games that are still in production.

I’m not sure what’s the point of such arrangement, as it would be easier to keep the employees in-house. I guess it somehow makes Telltale’s legal position easier, or maybe it’s easier to negotiate extra funding through a sub-contracting company.

In any case, it seems a bit weird and probably makes developing games harder.

Lady Kestrel - 05 October 2018 02:21 PM

Your link doesn’t work for me, Lucien.

The same thing is reported here
https://soundbooks.org/2018/10/05/telltale-games-reportedly-lays-off-remaining-staff/

They should update their news, since the tweet it’s based on was quickly followed by another to clarify that NOT all staff had been let go, just more of them.

This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, in any case. Telltale won’t be making their own games anymore, so as soon as the remaining people have served whatever purpose they’re still around for, they’ll be gone too.

Skybound has the rights and is trying to finish the season with the original team

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-07-the-walking-dead-creators-company-will-complete-telltales-the-final-season-with-the-original-dev-team