Let’s Start a Band!

Remember back in the older days when a group of teenagers who would meet during their music class and talk about starting a rock band. Then they would meet after school assign themselves the instruments of bass, guitar (lead/rhythm), and drums. After all positions were decided then they will begin to “jam,” come up with songs, and write lyrics. However, it seems times are changing and youngsters want to develop the next top selling game.

Resources Offered

The resource tools for game developed that once belonged to big name game companies are now available to the mainstream public. Frameworks such as SDL, OpenGL, DirectX, SDKs, XNA, Unity Game Engine, and Unreal Game Engine are now available for download on the internet. Along with the primary websites offering the development kits also feature tutorials on how to use them properly.

There even exists websites and blogs which are dedicated to teaching people how to program their own video games simply and quickly. Now a person who has the drive, someone to do art, and another programmer is able to build a simplistic game to test the waters of game development. The further they dive down into it games will become more elaborate and feature better graphics and unique game mechanics.

No Corporate Strings

                One of the beauties of indie game development does not exist the higher seat of power that will limit indie developers’ creativity. Therefore, games can feature some unique game play features and intuitive game mechanics. Deadlines do not exist unless the developers themselves want to them to be present.

                However, indie developers want ways to monetize on the games they release to the public, and need to find a place to that offers that service. For Flash video game developers there exist a site called Mochi Media which places ads within Flash based games as so the publisher of the game will receive money for each ad that is viewed. Another way is through the Xbox Live Indie Games where developers pay $100 to Microsoft to publish games on their Market Place to monetize on the games they sold.

                With all these ways to learn a new game development framework and researching ways to monetize on creator owned products is why indie game developers are similar to garage bands. A small band of creative minds assembling together to produce a product for people to enjoy.