Manifesto Games is Live 29
Conspiracy_Of_Doves writes "As reported before, Greg Costikyan, author of the Scratchware Manifesto has had a business plan in the works for a while now to do an end run around the PC Gaming industry and get indie games to the masses. Wait no more. Manifesto Games is officially GO! PC gamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your retail chains!"
Um, Steam? (Score:1)
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But think of all the unique indie titles and names that could be yours! Ideas of a lifetime! You could never expect non-indie companies to come out with such awesome games as "Lucky Fisherman" or "Jelly Wars" or "Boogers in my Dinner". But that's not all!! Buy our indie games now and we'll even throw in a special prize. We'll have one of our developers come to your house and build YOUR own game!
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And one of the games, an xcom clone, claims that they have to charge for online play because they have server maintenance costs, unlike RTS's. Eh, wait... Yes they do. Even if it's just the game hub, they have costs, too. Don't lie to me and then expect to get money from me afterwards.
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If you're talking about Laser Squad Nemesis, it was deveolped by the authors of Laser Squad and X-Com -- you'd notice if you paid more attention to the game description. I suppose making a new version of your own game is a clone, but it would be less derisive to call it a sequel. The game is actually quite good, and has been around for a few years now. I'd played the demo but wasn't interested in the full version due to the fact that I don't know anyone that would b
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But I attack them for lying, not for the game itself. I didn't care for xcom and I didn't even try this game. Any company th
Re:Indie games... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people would it take to make the next Geometry Wars? or bring back a fresh but old-school gameplay platformer, or 2D fighter? Not to mention there's a huge gap between your WoWs and your Solitares. Bigger companies are testing how high they can push up the high end and almsot completely neglecting the low. Indie devs tend to start at the low and work their way up, but without at least a foothold at the bottom of the spectrum you'll never see that middle ground start to materialize.
Indy developers aren't always anti-establishment but most often just some programers having fun in the spirit of the art in their spare time... and IMO we need more people like that in the game industry
Re:Indie games... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at something as simple as tetris.. How many years has it been? There are still variations coming out that people are more than willing to pay for.. Lumines anyone?
I still have not played any game as much as... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but I had to say it. A game can be something else than an ultra realistic world simulation in many polygons and big textures, and still be fun. In my book that is even a pro, and there are more people like me; and they are casual players - the group that the market desperately wants to target, you will never get casuals to play EQ or WoW - possibly FF, but not for long - and at a friends place.
So, is it possible to do something like tetris on 5 people, get it really polished - and do the QA? Yes, it's a question of getting a good enough idea - and to actually develop it. And making a clone of something old is not it. Second question, will a startup do that? Not in 1000 years.
But if there are 1000 startups...
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I too, admit my cell phone tetris addiction =)
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That he got screwed with a fixed sum deal is only his problem.
There is a reason for most indies not being picked up by publishers - they suck...
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I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Manifesto Manifesto [manifestogames.com] is nothing but a list of complaints, not a list of services that Manifesto offers.
But then, suppose I'm intrigued, so I want to sign up and sell my game through Manifesto. How do I do that? The "Help" page is busted.
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However, there's one critical thing missing: there is no draw for the game PLAYER to come to this site. It's a classic case of the consumer and the customer being different. The consumer of this site is the game developer. Unfortunately, the customer needs to be the game player.
Game developers always have a list of the greatest games ever that you just HAVE to play, and game players know da
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There are already perfectly good game portals out there, run by actual gaming communities that don't have any sort of incentive to promote crap games.
What's more, they're focused on specific genres, and even like different things within each genre. So you just find one or two that roughly lines up to what you find interesting, read the reviews (The big sites can get prerelease reviews, but sometimes the big sites aren't the best.), check out screen shots, read the forums, and you'll soon have a good idea w
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Re: I don't get it (Score:1)
What makes Manifesto Games unique as I take it is that his site is going to attr
Indie games? (Score:1)
Uh, it's just a beta (Score:3, Informative)
"Great" logo. (Score:2)
"MAN! FESTER games".
Given that one can sum up the half the problems with the current games industry as "games by men! for men!" I can't really see this logo attracting new, non-HARDCORE!!! audiences.