Hi.
I have many fellow students who are thinking about making games. So far me and them have made few very small trivial games that usually are not completed. And most of those games everyone has been doing alone. I'm thinking that it's time to get serious with game creation and actually make a complete game that actually could bring in money for our the spent time.
So I want to hear your thoughts about what kind of games would be good for a startup game company to create:
1. in case we are able to get some investments to get started
2. we don't get any money
One of my ideas about making games with JME3 for Android and then selling those games on Android market, but from what I have looked there are lots of free games out there and eaven the commercial games are very cheap there, like only 1$.
One of my friends is developing a text-based, rpg/strategy web game, like utopia, with php and mysql. He is like very good at making web apps, but he is doing it alone. From what I have seen lots of people are into such text-based games.
Another of my friends is building a "gaming framework" on Ogre engine and some game networking libraries, I think it was called Racknet, and again he is doing it alone and from what I have seen since he says he is making a framework he isn't really doing a game. But I think a framework will make making a game easier and more organized.
Third one is kind of obsessed with making his own 3D modelling program with OpenGL. His goal is to learn OpenGL I think. He is also thinking about making a website where are many small games that ppl can play. But he hasn't been thinking about how to make money this way.
And me, I have been thinking about making a MMORPG like most of newbie's that I have seen have found their way to JME. But I made a small shooting game with JGN and JME and saw that it's quite crazy to make a secure real time multiplayer game, I don't eaven want to think what it would be like to make MMORPG.
There are also couple of people I know who can make 3d models, animations, textures and sounds.
From what I have noticed that in this forum there are also many people who are developing alone, like the dude who made Mad Skills Motocross. And dude who made this wicked engine HHexen, but then stopped altough he had gotten quite far.
So what do you guys think, what would be the most reasonable game genre for students like us to get started with something commercial?
Seeing his interests I personally would not recommend joining those projects, or at least not the "little dungeon" (it's a good project and I joined it myself, but it seems like Henri wants to make his own game with his own friends)
What erlend pointed out is important though, so I'd advice to try to make something very simple with the people you want to collaborate with first.
When it comes to ideas… nobody can tell, many games making the biggest profit were concepts you'd never think had any chance (think farmville). I think there's a thread with a link to a lecture about psychological effects in games and how they made those games big (among other things).
My point is, your idea is as good as anybody else's and probably better, the concept isn't what makes a game sell anyhow.
Hello Henri
I have some very similar thoughts as i am currently developing a MMOG, too :lol:
Its not a usual MMOG with knights and orcs but a descent style game where you are a spaceship :roll:
Currently level loading and multiplayer movement and shooting is kind of 'working', but im alone and as
you said its very hard for one person to learn all skills required. As im a coder i would need some artist and a
second coder would be needed soon, too.
If you have any interest in founding a virtual company and investing man hours i would be very glad to get a pm.
PS: I think it would be very hard to get money from some venture capitalists these days, all i can hope
for are some fellows who invest their work to get shares on the company.
I would say hands down the best platform for a first-try commercial Java game is the Android. Distribution, revenue handling, initial promotion; it’s all taken care of by the Android Marketplace. It’s also a rapidly emerging platform that would pay off to get ahead on as early as possible. Android support in JME3 is basically there, and the greater the developer adoption the greater the progress.
Do you truly feel like you’re ready to hit the commercial scene though? Have you collaborated actively with other programmers before? There are some pretty cool game projects to find on this forum, e.g. the robots game or the “little dungeon”. I’d strongly recommend joining an already established team to work on your collaboration skills a little if you haven’t worked much as a group before.
Thanx for great advice! We will definately try Android. And yeah we do lack collaboration skills. 3 of us took part of Ericsson Application Awards competition, where I was project manager and our organization was a bit chaotic just with 3 people already. Basically we all worked on different parts and I put my part and the parts from other 2 coders together.
So joining some other small project is probably good advice, I'll thnk about it.