On The Fractured State of Our Development Scene...

edited in General
I'm not sure if you guys like the format of my heading but, whatever.

Sup guys, Josh Kennedy here, that's a pseudonym.

Been observing our game development scene for a long time.
I guess what made me finally sign up is the fact that i will be looking to hire people soon.
I mean, damn, hello Steven Tu! I used to read PlayTech Magazine, my dude. Where's Dead Run?

Judd Simantov's still killing it at AAA studios, Free Lives has pushed the impact the furthest since Celestial's golden days of Toxic Bunny and the overall volume of work has increased.

Since tools are democratized and the ability to learn skills is easier than ever, i think that the biggest problem that faces our small scene is our seperatedness. Who is this guy that's running that SA Game Devs group and why does he make a point of excluding the MGSA initiative? I've seen a couple of people launching their own forums there, too.

Anyway, every kid starts out with a vision to make this huge game, to replicate the things they've been playing, without the slightest understanding of what goes into it all. They grow up and learn of the impracticality of making your own Mass Effect or COD. Some never learn though. Since we don't have the best skills or recources, the smartest studios in the country understand that the key is to make smaller games.

Ofcourse, the idea that one developer can make a hit game is something that has been shown to be true and possible. But these are often total anomalies, you know, the Flappy Birds, the 2048's and Cookie Clickers. But that's the thing, too. From what i've seen, people who are working on their own don't even try to do that, instead resorting to some generic multiplayer project they have not the skills or resources to complete.

I think, we all need to pool in together more, for instance, if you're going to start a studio, why not go to the Silicon Cape?
In fact, at some point all game developers in this country should be located next to each other like neighbourhoods. We truelly need that. Once we can all concentrate our efforts on helping each other make small, great games then we'll see the revenues pool in, letting an entire industry boom.

I don't quite think it's magical thinking. But a process and approach that would be great for all of us.

Anyway, good to be here.

Comments

  • Hi Josh (why the need for a pseudonym?) , welcome to the forums!
    I think, we all need to pool in together more, for instance, if you're going to start a studio, why not go to the Silicon Cape? In fact, at some point all game developers in this country should be located next to each other like neighbourhoods. We truelly need that. Once we can all concentrate our efforts on helping each other make small, great games then we'll see the revenues pool in, letting an entire industry boom.
    What your talking about here is called "clustering". It's been very successful for the Game Dev scenes in France, Canada and to an extent Holland. Clustering usually has additional support from Government as well (usually in the form of the creation of special economic zones or other benefits). Cape Town I think has the strongest potential to form a formal cluster since local and provincial government seem to be keen to making CT a digital content creation hub. I know there are plans underway to get a special economic zone declared in the CBD. Durban and JHB are also starting to move in this direction, but I think Cape Town will still win out as it has the benefit of being geographically smaller and having a stronger community (as well as having the benefit of the majority of the commercial active studios being located here). The big thing slowing down formal clustering at the moment is the lack of private partner to help fund it. A formal games cluster in CT is something I've working towards with IESA, though as always these things take time.

    Something I'm trying to do a lot better with IESA this year is partner with other organisations, We've already had some success with CiTi and CCDI with the Serious About Games project, and I've done some policy work with the Silicon Cape guys, so I'll definitely be looking to build more relationships there.

    I think a bigger issue than the fractured nature of the scene is the isolationism (especially outside of the CT and JHB). There are all these studios, hobbyists and quasi-indies slogging away on projects completely alone, either not aware that communities like MGSA exist or choosing not to participate. This has been discussed quite a bit on the forums over the years, and I'm still not sure we've come up with a good solution beyond making sure we have good content to try draw these people in.
  • Hey Josh, welcome to the forums.

    I like the sound of silicon cape, mostly since I love the cape. I agree with many of the sentiments you raised. We work largely with outsourcing stuff (mostly art) and remain predominantly developer focused internally. I have always held the model that movie studios do in mind. Lots of different businesses all specializing in different aspects each engaged when needed on each project. It doesn't tie in exactly with your statement of coming together but it has the potential to work without co location or consensus and what we all working on.

    Some specific thoughts
    joshken said:
    Anyway, every kid starts out with a vision to make this huge game, to replicate the things they've been playing, without the slightest understanding of what goes into it all
    This is often a learning experience for the people doing it more then possibly a commercially responsible one. It's not uncommon when teaching art or writing to have students start with work that is there and branch out from it. Gives a platform. I think as a whole the growing local industry still has to identify projects in more meaningful categories. Such as For Learning, For Hobbies, For Exposure, For Commercial. One approach or size doesn't always fit all.

    I disagree with your analysis of the major problem facing the industry. Or rather I think there are other issues that are more pressing. From the angle I look at the local industry we have a few problems. Access to funding is certainly one, exposure and market access are two others.

    Travis
  • edited
    Hi Josh (why the need for a pseudonym?) , welcome to the forums!
    I think a bigger issue than the fractured nature of the scene is the isolationism (especially outside of the CT and JHB). There are all these studios, hobbyists and quasi-indies slogging away on projects completely alone, either not aware that communities like MGSA exist or choosing not to participate. This has been discussed quite a bit on the forums over the years, and I'm still not sure we've come up with a good solution beyond making sure we have good content to try draw these people in.

    That makes sense. You're right about everything you just said. We should create good content to draw people in. And it's like i said with people making games of a scale bigger than they are.

    Imagine if the two developers of Overcooked were trying to make another Call of Duty clone instead, noone would be talking about that. Instead, it was just one artist and one programmer. Beautiful.

    I'm confident things are going to change. Capital is another element. But we'll get there. For our community, small and specific matters.
  • tbulford said:

    I disagree with your analysis of the major problem facing the industry. Or rather I think there are other issues that are more pressing. From the angle I look at the local industry we have a few problems. Access to funding is certainly one, exposure and market access are two others.
    On the idea of a kid wanting to replicate that wich they played, sure it's true but i was a bit too harsh definetly. I was talking more about people without the recources to make AAA games trying to make AAA games.

    Anyway, market access is an "overcomeable" hurdle by way of publishers and such. But funding is a key element. But i believe we must bootstrap shit into existance. Sure, the people just out of University, College and such need jobs that pay and don't have time to be making games that may or may not succeed. But it wouldn't kill them to collaborate on the side.

    When i do begin my hiring run, the people i'm looking for aren't going to be paid as if they work at Property 24. We're all essentially part of startups here. While our projects may take from our time, it's important to understand that the reward will be worth it.

    Thus i conclude that people are to sacrifice their time before financial incentives and build and accumalate results because this is what will attract the funding. Although, the idea of getting the funding first will also work.

    So... yeah.
    Thanked by 1texhkt
  • Welcome Josh!

    I hope you'll find MGSA to be a supportive, inspiring community to be a part of.

    If you are based close to Cape Town or Johannesburg/ Pretoria I'd definitely recommend hitting up a future meet-up. I imagine you'll find a lot more unity within the community than your post suggests.

    As @LexAquilla says, there are surely more developers out there that we'd like to have on board with MGSA and IESA. That said, from my own experience, I've found the exsisting community to be incredibly welcoming and positive. There are some major success stories that came out of the community last year(standouts for me incluse IESA getting a bunch of people over to Paris Games Week and the fantastic debut of SA Game Jam), and it's great to see how local developers have been able to band together and make these things happen.

    Of course there's always room for improvement, and I hope to see a lot more new faces on here and attending events. Here's to us being able to grow an even closer, more welcoming and more diverse community in 2017!
  • Perhaps i was a tad too pessimistic in my overview, thanks BenJets.
  • The big thing slowing down formal clustering at the moment is the lack of private partner to help fund it. A formal games cluster in CT is something I've working towards with IESA, though as always these things take time.
    I'd love for a game developer cluster to form in Cape Town! We're looking at helping fund (slash incubating) a couple projects this year. It'd be rad if there was infrastructure for these teams to plug into (rather than Free Lives providing all the infrastructure).

    Are the private partners you're referring to @LexAquillia really big corporations (like Microsoft or Amazon etc). What is the scale of investment such a private partner would need to deliver to get the government to take more action?
  • @Evan tens of millions over about 5 year period, maybe more. I think we can do a much smaller scale thing that you can potentially tap into (I'll dm you the details)
  • edited
    Another factor i've seen is that talent goes into firms that build games for other clients instead of focusing on their own. But that's not really a bad thing but it's just an area of split among talent. Again, [edit: not] quite a bad thing.
  • joshken said:
    Who is this guy that's running that SA Game Devs group and why does he make a point of excluding the MGSA initiative? I've seen a couple of people launching their own forums there, too.
    One of the big reasons I was happy with the founding of MGSA was that there'd be AGMs and a more democratic structure. I remember how on SAGD, Korax was adamant that his name would be on every page: "provided by Korax" or something. We were playing in his playground that he was paying for, and if we offered to pay for the playground ourselves and make the place genuinely "ours" he wouldn't have that either. I remember how indignant and powerless I felt there.
    Now i remember.
    image
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