Everything Takes Time

I’ve been writing in this blog for about 3 months now and as you can see very few people have commented on my posts. Does that mean my blog is unsuccessful? Possibly, but at the same time I see my hits are doing steady numbers. Should I measure success by the amount of money that I’ve made? Well that’s a no no. I haven’t made much, only a couple of dollars and even if I do have a ton of hits there’s no reason that doesn’t mean that I will be making more money.

The best way I think to measure success is to hear colleagues say, ‘I like your blog’ etc. As long as you please a core audience you’re successful.

Finding a base of users and never letting go of them is the only way you can grow. Treat these few people with respect and hopefully they’ll recommend your product somewhere along the way!

Being an indie developer, you must always be able to have time. Time is what you need to grow. Over time you will make better products. Over time your audience will grow. As long as you can afford more time the better off you’ll be.

Now if you make crappy products, well you just screw up this entire formula… Please don’t do that.

It’s time to use BlueHost!

I’m dead serious, drop your hold hosting provider and join Bluehost.com now! They just upgraded their standard hosting account to 30 gigabytes storage and 750 gigabytes bandwidth!!!

You’d think that a company like this would have problems maintaining all of this but the only downtime that I’ve experienced with them was a couple of weeks ago when there was a major rain storm in Utah. But we were back on within a couple of hours. They always backup the data at least once a month. They have a fast answering technical support line.

Bottom line is that unless you have your own server, you should switch over to Bluehost.com. All of this for only $6.95 per month! Best of all every 6 months of so they upgrade their accounts for free. So who knows what kind of storage they’ll be offering in the future… I’ve used mutliple hosts in the past and Bluehost.com is the best out of them.

Xbox Live = YouTube?

Note: Before reading this article please read Microsoft’s XNA Press Release URL http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/aug06/08-13XNAGameStudioPR.mspx entitled “Microsoft Invites the World to Create Its Own Xbox 360 Console Games for the First Time.”

Eventually this will be the world of games. Of course the major players, EA, Activision, etc. can and will survive in this changing environment, but this is the future. A time when players can alter pre-made games using their PC and then uploading it onto Xbox Live. Users rate the quality of the game so obviously you don’t want to make just a clone. Alter the physics settings, add in new 3D models, etc. BAM! You’ve got a working FPS, Racing, or sports game!

Now the foundamental gameplay wouldn’t change using the template. The template would just be the key to unlocking the door of how to 100% make your own games. Every now and then when a new gamelay mechanic comes along, Microsoft would buy the rights from the developer/hobbyist and add it to the Xbox Live developer’s template program collection.

If you can imagine this, then you can imagine what will become a reality very shortly. Whomever is able to break down this wall between players and content providers, will be rolling in the money.

Nintendo has stated that they are supporting indie developers with the Wii. Nintendo will release its online service called WiiConnect24. Sony is putting their money also on a system like Xbox Live. I’d bet that at least one of these companies has something to challenge what could become an industry dominated by Microsoft.

I was an Xbox basher all the way through its lifetime, but the 360 is another story. I’d definitely love to try out XNA. I saw the GDC 06 interface design and lets say that I won’t touch the program until they give it a game designer’s touch, instead of a programmers. Hopefully the final product will be very easy to use…

Never choose your first game idea…

…unless it’s just that damn good. When it comes time to think up of a new game ideas you need to get into the zone. It does take a while to do this because you have to think about what could be fun. Make sure to bounce ideas off one another and write each one of them down! If you’re having problems coming up with ideas think about things you like to do. From there sort out what could be game from the rest of the ideas and choose the best gameplay.

Now if your best game idea isn’t that great, you need some inspiration! Go out and to well anything. View life like a kid does and see what comes to your imagination. If you don’t have an imagination, you shouldn’t be a designer…