THE SCRATCHWARE MANIFESTO! Yes, I'm excited for some reason.

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Eduardo X
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THE SCRATCHWARE MANIFESTO! Yes, I'm excited for some reason.

Post by Eduardo X »

http://www.spacetacos.com/sm.html
This is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen on writing. Since I read it, I've tried as hard as possible to find "scratchware" games to play and promote on Gone Gold, and now on OO.
I found it at abandonware site X, so I could never link to it, but I thought I'd see what the people here thing about it now that Anima showed me this non abandonware link to it!
ohh and here is your rolly eyes you lost em. :roll:
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Eel Snave
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Post by Eel Snave »

I now want to make a game. Serious.
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Post by qp »

Just a massive rant, I didn't really see anything particularily insightful there.
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Post by Peacedog »

This is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen on writing.
It espouses some intersting points, I think. From a quality standpoint, the writing reminds of something I'd expect to have been cut from an early rough draft of the script for Hackers. It sucks horribly, in other words.

I Have No Words & I Must Design is very well written. And a fantastic read (most of what Costikyan does is).
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Post by Kraken »

The article was too rambling to read in its entirety. What I did read validates my oft-stated position that PC gaming is becoming a niche, hobbyist endeavor. To the mass market and the consoles go the big blockbuster action clones -- that is fine with me, I don't want to play those. Originality will thrive at independent houses that can profit on small numbers of direct sales.

However, the article lays all the blame at the feet of publishers and retailers. That is not the whole story. Who's going into those stores and lining up to throw their dollars at the blockbusters? We are. As long as we keep snapping up big-budget clones and sequels, that is what they'll continue to make. How many people on this board preorder games, or snap them up the day they go on sale, without researching purchases first? How many buy more games than they can ever really play? These are the enablers who reinforce the industry's current practices. You can't blame everything on the Big Bad Publishers, as this article does. They are just taking advantage of a willing market.
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Eduardo X
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Post by Eduardo X »

Peacedog wrote:
This is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen on writing.
It espouses some intersting points, I think. From a quality standpoint, the writing reminds of something I'd expect to have been cut from an early rough draft of the script for Hackers. It sucks horribly, in other words.

I Have No Words & I Must Design is very well written. And a fantastic read (most of what Costikyan does is).
I'm dumb. I meant it is a great piece of writing on GAMING, if you could gleen that from my post.
Regardless of the quality of writing, I think the content is wonderful and extremely important. There are some people, like Derek Smart and Chris Sawyer, who took the idea of scratchware further, and who now have become pretty successful through their own avenues. There are some amazing freeware and shareware games that are developed by 1 person (Stormcloud, for example).
I just love the idea of stripping the publishers of their insane power over this industry and giving the gamers and developers control.
ohh and here is your rolly eyes you lost em. :roll:
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Post by Peacedog »

I'm dumb. I meant it is a great piece of writing on GAMING, if you could gleen that from my post.
Regardless of the quality of writing, I think the content is wonderful and extremely important. There are some people, like Derek Smart and Chris Sawyer, who took the idea of scratchware further, and who now have become pretty successful through their own avenues. There are some amazing freeware and shareware games that are developed by 1 person (Stormcloud, for example).
I know there are quality freeware and shareware games out there. I've played dozens of them (and some that aren't so good, alas).

Chris Sawyer and Derek Smart did not take this concept and evolve it or anything close to that. They just did what game designers have done since before the electronic entertainment industry was an industry at all, before it had a name that sounded vaguely snooty to boot. If you go back far enough, all the "publishers" were just tiny outfits themselves (if not one man outfits, in essence; see EA originally, or the Sirotek brothers), in instances where they existed (many people self published. One thing I think we can safely say we don't miss are the ziplock bag days, heh). What Sawyer and Smart did is nothing new at all. And they're still using major publishers. They haven't gone as far as the ultra-small who live soley through internet distribution (see: Spiderweb), still sticking to the business model laid out by Buntein-Barry, Garriot, Meier, and others. That is - make your own game (though in their cases, they aren't even doing the art), and then get someone to sell it if not sell it yourself. Wolfenstein 3d (and later Doom, of course) were sold over the net as well as in stores (Doom was a hell of a download back in those days). Most people have gone away from doing that, but if you dig down deep enough the stalwarts are out there (hi Reflexive!).

My point about the mainifesto, though, is that quality of writing matters. I won't say it is an end all be all (this needn't be written by Shakespear or Twain to be effective), but it matters. I think the quality is damaging here, but different people will come to different conclusions (just as they will about how much quality of writing matters). The interesting parts of the artcile are certainly discussion worthy, regardless of the quality of the writing, but I've no interest in discussing them in the context of that article (thanks to the wonders of the internet and critical thinking, I don't have to!).

Additionally, and seriously, some of the writing in it is laugh-out-loud bad. Maybe most people won't come to that conclusion, but I think it is damaging to the piece for readers who do.

We live in a world where there is a high amount of poor software development taking place, and it's probably worse in the gaming industry than it is in the entirety of the software development industry. There's lots of reasons why (including the very basic: it's much harder to make something like a game, which relies on the "fun" component, than it is a major softwhere system where many of the desired functionality is known up front and set in stone). I wonder why more people don't seem to talk about this, though.
I just love the idea of stripping the publishers of their insane power over this industry and giving the gamers and developers control.
Ugh, the gamers most certainly do not need more control. The amount of access gamers have to developers and publishers now is pretty significant. Gamer "input" (I use the term loosely, and I can think of quite a few nastier terms that would apply in many situations) is causing its own problems in the industry. The average "netizen" hobbyist (I'm loathe to use the term hobbyist here because I think these people are giving us real hobbyists a bad name) gamer who follows a game for months/years before release often feels and acts entitled in ways that can only be termed strange (not to mention ridiculous) when observed from afar. Developer forums are often a mess because of these kinds of people. Developers listening to Gamers is good, but frankly we're doing an awful job with our end of the bargin. That same average gamer mentioned above is generally deluded, whiny, and spoiled. As soon as something doesn't go there way, it's torches & pitchforks. And heaven help us all once that game gets released, and it fails to meet expectations that have been forged 18 months beforehand. These guys are bad for the industry.

Also, while the industry business model is in the crapper, it isn't just the publishers fault (by any stretch). The retailers have their part to play. They are extorting shelf space; companies have to pay large sums of money just to have their games appear in a store, and the period of time they get to stay there is small (this was the case a few years ago. I have no idea if things have changed since then). And gamers are the ones who are putting up with it, standing in line drooling waiting for the next big release. No business model works unless the buyers go along with it. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Internet publishing works great for the little guy (small file sizes meant that even on a modem things weren't too bad). It will continue to work better for the bigger guys since we're not really a dialup world anymore - at least not in the "major" countries (I'd love to see some numbers on who has broadband, especially by country/world region; I think we've moved passed the 1/4 houses in the USA have it. Also, last I heard there were still places in europe who were paying by the minute - ack!). I have no idea if we will oneday see most major releases distributed on the net. Probably not in my lifetime, but who knows.

I'd love to see a change in the business model myself.
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Post by milo »

I thought the article was rather silly. It seemed to me that the author had a predetermined position (he wants to play cheap games) and he went to great lengths in an attempt to justify it. However, I don't think his arguments hold water. Sure, Garriott hit it big with Akalabeth, just as Steve Pavlina seems to sell a boatload of Dweep today. But those kinds of hits have always been the exception, not the rule. I just don't think there are many people today who would willingly set aside Half-Life 2 or Warcraft 3 to play a game like Akalabeth if it came out tomorrow.

He makes a point that scratchware is supposed to have "pro quality" software, design, art, and sound. But not be built by a large team, or with a large development budget. That's not possible. I can only assume he means something else, because today's "pro quality" art and sound require a large team, and a room full of expensive computers and software to produce.
Peacedog wrote:We live in a world where there is a high amount of poor software development taking place, and it's probably worse in the gaming industry than it is in the entirety of the software development industry. There's lots of reasons why (including the very basic: it's much harder to make something like a game, which relies on the "fun" component, than it is a major softwhere system where many of the desired functionality is known up front and set in stone). I wonder why more people don't seem to talk about this, though.
Perhaps because it isn't true? I've worked, and continue to work on both sides of the aisle. Games aren't intrinsically more difficult to build than other types of software. And the only business requirements that are known up front and set in stone are usually vague, self-contradictory, and often just plain wrong.
The Scratchware Manifesto wrote:Who distributes scratchware?

Nobody. Currently no distribution models or systems exist outside of the shareware model.
Ultimately, the one thing that really torpedoes the article is that he is wrong. There are small indie game companies that develop and market and distribute scratchware. There are distributors who specialize in limited production games, and process and ship CD-on-demand orders over the Internet. There are websites devoted to the indie game developer community, and websites that do nothing but review indie games.

The fact that the author of the Scratchware Manifesto doesn't seem to be aware of this -- when he is exactly the sort of market these developers are trying to reach -- just showcases the probem.
--milo
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Post by Eel Snave »

I think the article was written in 2000, when there weren't a whole ton of options.

I agree with the positions in the article, for the most part. The problem is this: If the industry collapses, then it turns into a niche industry, and then we're back where we started years ago. Then, who distributes the games? How do they get to brick-and-mortar stores, where people do the vast majority of their shopping, especially their impulse shopping? There's no reason why the two can't coexist.

It's kind of the same argument people raise about comic syndicates. Some want to see the syndicates destroyed, but then, how do you get comics in your paper? Every cartoonist needs to contact individual papers, meaning smaller readership. What really should be done is that the syndicates should be reformed to fix the problems. The same in the game industry. Destroying the industry won't solve anything, because a new one will start out of necessity.
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Post by Eduardo X »

Milo, it is worth noting that the Manifesto was published almost 5 years ago. Since then, the internet has become much quicker, and digital purchasing has become a real option whereas it was not before with some games like Star Shatter and War in the Pacific.
ohh and here is your rolly eyes you lost em. :roll:
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Post by Eel Snave »

I beat you by a minute, Ed! HA!
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