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World of Goo dev lays out indie headaches

Brendan Sinclair
By Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor

GDC 2010: 2D Boy cofounder Ron Carmel kicks off this year's Independent Game Summit with an introduction to his all-star investor squad, Indie Fund.

Who was there: World of Goo developer and 2D Boy cofounder Ron Carmel kicked off the Game Developers Conference Independent Games Summit program with a half-hour talk on the relationship between indie creators and publishers called "Fixing a System That Never Worked."

Carmel hopes Indie Fund will provide a more structurally sound bridge for downloadable games on their way to consumers.

Carmel hopes Indie Fund will provide a more structurally sound bridge for downloadable games on their way to consumers.

What they talked about: Carmel started out by talking about the problems that have arisen from the way digital distribution developers and publishers have tried to apply the retail publishing model into this new field. He said publishers tend to give too much money to developers to make their titles but take too much in return. The end result is that developers don't get anything in terms of royalties and wind up living project to project, where the first time they stumble in obtaining a new project, they go under.

The system where the publisher pays for everything and reaps the largest rewards makes sense in the retail space, Carmel said, because the publishers are taking all the risk upon themselves. But with digital distribution, there's less risk.

However, Carmel said despite taking on less risk, the publishers still take most of the rewards. One of the reasons for that is a simple lack of alternatives. Because pretty much every publisher will ask for basically the same terms, there aren't many other options available for indie developers. It also doesn't help that there's very little transparency about how well digitally distributed titles sell, so developers don't actually know whether or not they're getting a good deal.

On top of that, Carmel said the systems for getting games to consumers can be terribly inefficient. When it was time to get World of Goo on Steam, the legal and tech work required amounted to less than a week. For Games for Windows Live, the total time was four months.

With outlets like Steam taking some of the distribution duties away from traditional publishers, Carmel said it was now important to provide indies with funding. That brings up Indie Fund, a program Carmel is working to start up with an all-star panel of other independent developers (including Braid's Jonathan Blow and Flower's Kellee Santiago, among others) to invest in new games.

The idea behind Indie Fund is to provide developers with a transparent submission process and publically available terms so that they can comparison shop and know when they sell their game that they're getting a good deal. Creators funded through the program won't need to relinquish control or ownership of intellectual property.

Quote: "It's very easy to fall into the trap of saying I know what's better for your game than you do. But if I do know what's better for your game, then we probably shouldn't be funding you."--Carmel on why Indie Fund won't be seeking creative control over developers' projects.

Takeaway: Carmel's brief presentation served primarily as an introduction to Indie Fund, laying out inequities with the current publisher-developer model of digital distribution and offering his own endeavor as a possible solution.

Brendan Sinclair
By Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor

Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.

45 Comments

  • Vinder_DarkWolf

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 10:44 am GMT

    I second that, takeaway = good.

  • Get_Shorty

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 10:36 am GMT

    Thanks for the "Takeaway" I didn't want to have to read all that stuff.

  • Gen007

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 9:52 am GMT

    I wish them well because inequities with the current publisher-developer model seem to get worse as the gaming industry grows. It seems like nowadays the only way to survive is to get bought by EA or activision.

  • brian_13un

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 9:01 am GMT

    Yes They really imply there creativity on the World of Goo hope they did something like that again

  • AnelZukic

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 5:47 am GMT

    I was always sorry for Indie devs, I really like indie games, and mostly those great games are better then most "big" games, I really hope this Indie Fund will help them since I want to see more of games from them and enjoy them

  • DrEvilKoala

    Posted Mar 10, 2010 12:19 am GMT

    Just a day ago ModDB announced that it will be launching a digital distribution platform with a focus on indie games and mods. Looks quite interesting. It's a shame how many fantastic games never catch the attention of the average gamer because they only appear as a digital download on the developers website. Hopefully we'll be able to do something about that in the very near future.

  • ChamomileBaths

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 11:54 pm GMT

    There are about 15-20 games available on Games for Windows. I guess I now know the reason.

  • Skargamer

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 11:29 pm GMT

    I really liked the world of goo game. it was really cool to play. hope they make more, like world of goo two.

  • Rahnyc4

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 10:14 pm GMT

    is it true they made nearly 5 million dollars alone on world of goo on the wii? i mean zomg. i use to see that game always at #1 on the top 10 wiiware list.

  • bgres077

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 10:09 pm GMT

    World of Goo was great, keep 'em comin

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 9:18 pm GMT

    Let's see this passage from Wikipedia:

    "Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software, has claimed that Valve holds a conflict of interest with Steam, since it gives them the responsibility of distributing their rivals' products. He claimed that Valve took "a larger share than it should for the service it's providing" and that they were "exploiting a lot of small guys." A number of other members of the game industry then spoke out against Pitchford, including Ron Carmel of independent developer 2D Boy, who said that "no other digital distribution service I know of, PC or console, pays a higher cut of the revenues out to developers." John Gibson, President of Tripwire Interactive, said that "I can say with certainty that if it weren't for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now." "

    Says a lot about indy game developers' confidence in Steam, eh? Remember, Gabe Newell, Valve's founder, is a former Microsoft employee, so he would probably know the pain of being exploited hard.

    (And really, Gearbox Software, being a company that goes to IGN for the promotion of its games and approval of promotion gimmicks like IGN's "Borderlands is for real gamers" tripe, can't really have its statements taken at face value.)

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 9:10 pm GMT

    To serieus and zomglolcats: I wouldn't be so quick to praise Impulse though. Stardock made quite a mess of Demigod's multiplayer, though to cut Stardock some slack, Impulse has only been around for a while compared to Steam (whom we may know started out more than a little rocky).

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 9:03 pm GMT

    Seriously, every developer making games for the PC platform should just do like what Gas Powered Games and PopCap do - go straight to Steam. Easy, stable multiplayer and decently reliable DRM. Of course, for developers owned by big-house publishers, well, they would have to waste time and effort developing DRM and multiplayer management software that just many not work (like that of a certain Ubisoft game recently released for the PC).

  • Gelugon_baat

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 8:58 pm GMT

    "On top of that, Carmel said the systems for getting games to consumers can be terribly inefficient. When it was time to get World of Goo on Steam, the legal and tech work required amounted to less than a week. For Games for Windows Live, the total time was four months."

    YES!!!!!!!!! Finally, this passage gets onto GameSpot! I have always suspected that Games for Windows Live is hideously bogged.

    As Francis of Left 4 Dead would say: "I like steam."

  • wiidsduelpack

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 7:57 pm GMT

    That is life 2D boy. The big fish will eat the little fish. What are you complaining about. You guys are still not Square Enix/Activision/EA/Nintendo. Your pride is rising up quickly?

  • thrasher510

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 7:39 pm GMT

    more world of goo please!

  • Ladiesman17

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 7:30 pm GMT

    I hope this last long, because a good game is not necessarily the same... following the stream & "copycat" each other, developers must have an idealist, vision & able to pour their passion, in the games they make... something hard to find when developers following the publisher!!

  • Kravyn81

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 7:06 pm GMT

    Pubs-Devs really need to settle on some ground rules for digital distribution. For crying out loud if they can't sort the details out between them how can they sit there and dare to charge consumers anything and think it's fair?

  • serieus

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 6:28 pm GMT

    @zomglolcats You're right, but don't you lose out on the community. I think that's what makes Steam reign supreme so far is the huge community that's involved. But you're right you just log in via a website, no 3rd party software required for Impulse.

  • SpaceCadetB

    Posted Mar 9, 2010 6:27 pm GMT

    hmmm, i enjoyed the World of Goo...