Well, that was fast. I got a new gig at a small developer in Osaka and how time has flown. Usually it flies when you have fun, but too much over time can completely bork one’s sense of what day it is. Repeatedly.
2013 holds a lot of promise, as it will most likely kick off the next generation of consoles. Plenty of leaked documents on the internet point to a 2013 release for Durango and possibly the PS4 as rumors keep swirling about Sony not making it for Xmas 2013.
Here are the 5 major wishes for 2013 I have as a developer:
- Tools geared even more towards efficiency. More tools like SpeedTree that make it so anyone can easily create a huge load of content in very little time. I’d love to give nVidia a salute for creating its APEX tool suite with ease of use and efficiency in mind without sacrificing power. I am rather disappointed that Unreal Engine and Unity haven’t gotten their acts together for UI creation, relying on sometimes costly additional software to get things done. APEX-grade ability to preview content would greatly help too.
- More seamless patching experiences. The need for patching has not gotten any better, and as the demand for deeper more complex games goes up, patching will become even more and more prevalent. Perhaps one thing to look forward to about streaming games like Gaikai or onLive is that the stream provider will take care of all that patching nonsense.
- As a console fan and hopefully indie console developer, I hope that for the love of whatever Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo find sacred that they will overhaul their online interfaces. As a friend said, “Steam sells me games I don’t want. The console makers can’t sell me games I do want.” Get your digital rights management together too; see Steam, Desura, etc. If I paid for it, it’s mine. Does it get any clearer than that?! This sounds like a wish as a consumer, but as a developer, naturally I want my customers to find my wares and purchase them painlessly. I’d love to go console as I have games that simply cannot be done on a tablet.
- As unlikely as this may be, a return to paid apps. I want to do small, quirky and creative. Free to Play relies on casting a net very far and wide to catch a few whales. Quirky tends turn people off making it difficult to judge whether or not you’ll be able to catch enough paying players.
- Marketing to be as easy as developing. All of my indie dev friends have been floored that they spend as much time talking about their games as they do developing them. With development already being a full time job, having to do another 1.5x full time job ups the challenge. Efficient tools would allow for more marketing time, but time isn’t the only thing developers need.
I hope you all have a pleasant and productive 2013!