one thing to bear in mind is that many of the recent graphically stunning PC titles such as Crysis and UT3 have been commercial disasters, many people can't even run these games and UT3 was utterly panned for being just a graphical makeover of the previous release.
the point of this being, the consumers don't necessarily want the lastest whizz bang graphics, what they want is challenging and original gameplay not the same old thing repackaged with better eyecandy and this is something we are quite capable of delivering, there's definately a niche out there for developers like us .
Posted on: December 24, 2007, 08:14:38 PM
here's an interesting little game I came accross, it's an indie RTS game created by a team of 3 people over the space of about 10 years and generally speaking it does look like quite a nice game - I may possibly even buy a copy myself ( I quite like those old style RTS games) , but the story of this game and the reception it got upon release does highlight some of the pitfalls faced by indie developers and I think there are certain lessons that can be learnt from this case.
the game is called SunAge, here's the official website :
http://www.vertex4.com/sunage/newsI think this is a nice site they have there, all very professional looking, this kind of stuff certainly helps to sell a game .
one thing that sets this game apart from most modern RTS titles is that rather than opting for the now standard 3D game engine they went for a more classical 2D approach, it's still a very pretty looking game and is testament to the fact that you don't need the latest whizz bang technology to make a game look good.
the game itself is summed up pretty fairly in the following review :
http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=906509I think that one conclusion that can be drawn from this is that while having the latest eyecandy isn't essential to a game's success, making sure you deliver a polished full featured product most definately is.