It’s been a busy news week for Tim Schafer’s DoubleFine Studios. After spearheading a record-breaking million-dollar Kickstarter campaign, he sat down with Hookshot to discuss the success of the campaign, his past bouts with Activision over his RTS/Action metal hybrid Brutal Legend, and also the state of the current indie gaming boom.
According to Schafer, the closed systems implemented by the modern console makers are too restrictive and expensive for most indie developers to participate. “You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can’t do it on [console] systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch – we can’t afford that!” He continues on to note that so-called “open” systems like Steam are generating a lot more enthusiasm from the development community due to their lack of cost-prohibitive restrictions. Indeed, even Steam’s developer, Valve, has expressed concern several times in interviews about the restrictions on updates and content hosting on Xbox LIVE.
Among the 3 major console makers, general attitude towards the indie development community varies. Nintendo, for example, is outwardly hostile – going so far as to state on the record in interviews that they are “not looking to do business with garage developers”. Sony has remained more or less mum on the subject, while Microsoft has provided the XNA development framework and the Xbox LIVE Indie Games channel for creation and distribution. However, Microsoft has failed to provide frequent updates and support for the indie development community. Do you think the console makers should make it easier for licensed indie developers to patch and update their games? Do you think they should open the floodgates to garage developers? Let us know in the comments below.
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