Little Big Indie Kids

[Kadayi]

Impressive as the graphics look for LBP, the premise seems like it's a bit of a rip off of the Garrysmod tbh. I'm not seeing a game, more a shared sandbox, which tend to have limited appeal in the long term save for aficionados. The only significant issue is that it's on the PS3 and it's a big move for the console market to finally dip a toe into the waters of user made content.

As for having a central studio location, probably a good idea, but I wouldn't get caught up with the idea that you must to be based in London, especially not in the days of video conferencing and IM. As long as you've a decent international airport and good restaurants/hotels nearby for when people have to visit you there is little necessity to be in the Capital.

London = everyone commuting = stress gained + time & money lost for all involved

My advice (and given petrol prices aren't remotely going to go down), look at acquiring a suitable property (you could operate out of a couple of barns if you wanted to think work space rather than office space) that is within walking/cycling distance of where you are and offers up a bit of colour at lunchtime. That way if you've got to crunch, it's not the end of the world in terms of personal inconvenience.

Your games are good because of the gameplay, and your crisp visual style is your trademark. The stripped down look is very pure and is very graphic design, stick with it. If you can't compete in certain arenas, don't bother entering them with half efforts instead promote and reinforce your own style.

[Nutter]

As always somebody has already said things better than I possibly could:

"Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside."


You might wanna read some of the gaping void list, theres some good advice to be found, no matter what profession you are in.

[wwarnick]

I also notice that the LBP guys are in quite a different situation to IV. For one thing, it seems to consist of veterans from Lionhead, and the fact that they're hiring suggests that, whatever their stance towards publishers, they've got a fair bit of financial backing coming from somewhere - both factors contributing towards their ability to get exposure.

And it seems they don't mind if "publishers #@%&*^$ up our games!"

Impressive as the graphics look for LBP, the premise seems like it's a bit of a rip off of the Garrysmod tbh.

Just because it's a sandbox, too? No. LBP's sandbox nature is more akin to old games like Excite Bike where you design your own levels, only LBP takes the idea and gives it a couple buckets of steroids.

wwarnick

[Kadayi]

Just because it's a sandbox, too? No. LBP's sandbox nature is more akin to old games like Excite Bike where you design your own levels, only LBP takes the idea and gives it a couple buckets of steroids.

I was thinking more because it's one using physics as the big sell. LBP is a tad more limited than GMod though because your effectively designing in a 2D platform environment (there seems to be limited depth to the environments shown), whereas with Gmod you can build 3d levels. Either way Sandbox environments have limited appeal, unless you have the free time necessary to put into them. People will no doubt rush out to buy LBP, but after a week or so it will be gathering dust on 99% of peoples shelves.

[Taedal]

Hi
Well Chris, personally I wouldn't let LBP concern you. It may well be fun, but to me this is 3d platform game with level sharing. This is not revolutionary to my mind. But really it's fairly irrelvant. The LBP devs have the full might of the sony PR machine (heheh most often a curse, granted) because LBP is almost a last ditch effort to bring some respect to the PS3...
Introversion games have their own niche, they are selling, the PS3 hype machine really has little impact on you. You don't have to answer to sony as well, so tbh you really should count that as a blessing.

Re: offices. I would expect an office would increase your productivity. It helps to get ppl to turn up and work regularly and would probably improve the efficiency of the team. Working in a office doesn't necessarily mean you are corporaqtly shackled, it just means you have a better working environment.

Location doesn't really matter. I would agree with the cambridge suggestion. Also, London would be fine, its a great place to live, exciting, happening, capital of the 21st century etc, but it is a costly thing.

[wwarnick]

...

It's a different genre. I think there may be people who are so used to mainstream games that LBP would have to grow on them, and they may not give it the time. But I think it has a totally different appeal than GMod because GMod is sandbox/fps while LBP is half-sandbox/puzzle. They have different target audiences. Maybe hardcore gamers wouldn't want it, but not everyone's a hardcore gamer. Some people (like me) just want something fun to play, and LBP is just that.

wwarnick

[Ennui]

I don't know about LittleBigPlanet or whatever; but IV is still quite in the game. Regardless of whether you have an office or not, your products are fantastic, and from what we've seen of Subversion, it's perfectly lined up to be as good or better than its predecessors. Don't let other games take the wind out of your sails... wind is a plentiful resource, you know.

Way I see it, you're just a different company. I do admire your honesty in this post though. Keep them coming and remember that you have a lot of diehard fans regardless of your envy of other developing titles!

[wwarnick]

Drawing on 70+ years of collective industry experience, and the pain and pleasure of releasing a whole shed-load of great titles (including Black & White, Fable, Burnout, Dungeon Keeper, and of course, Rag Doll Kung-Fu)...

No wonder. Maybe the company is younger but the people in it are not. They were indie for Rag Doll Kung-Fu, but I don't know that you can call them indie anymore.

wwarnick

[The GoldFish]

It doesn't matter how little or big (har har) something seems - what's important is purity, which is what you have been determined to keep, and quite rightly so; a game is not a business transaction - you knew that already.

And yes, if you need to hire people, look to the community - you've done it before. You might as well talk to the people most willing to be hired first, although naturally ascertain their ability.

[Kadayi]

...

Some people (like me) just want something fun to play, and LBP is just that.

wwarnick

If you'd made a multi-player game level you'd realise that there is very little fun involved, that is the key drawback to the whole premise of LBP. User made content relies upon participants tenacity, clear vision and raw talent to be genuinely successful. Fun and a good result rarely go hand in hand creatively. The levels you're seeing in LBP in the promo trailers are ones that the design team have certainly slaved over and refined for many months, putting in huge amounts of man hours to make sure the balance is just right in terms of game play between what is challenging and what is frustrating. If it is going to take a player several weeks of their free time to make a decent level, how many are genuinely going to bother putting in the necessary blood sweat and tears to come up trumps? For every half decent level that someone lovingly creates, there will be a thousand piss poor ill conceived ones thrown up out there.

What you get in the workplace that you don't get with user made content is feedback and quality control before it's launch. Consider Sims 2, there exists an enormous amount of player made custom content out there, but the vast majority of it is utterly dire, and tends to bury the few gems that do occasionally turn up. The same can be said of The Movies by Lionhead, there are some very talented people out there who have been making some fantastic machinema films using the games sandbox mode, but the vast majority of what gets uploaded is clichéd, derivative garbage that detracts from the overall. That someone gives you a paintbrush does not mean you instantly become Monet.

[BrianBlessed]

Well Trackmania is a game with a fairly similar premise, except being that of racing tracks. Creating tracks is relatively fun and the community seem to have a fairly good output. LittleBigPlanet looks rather fun and intuiative rather than one of the many frustrating competitive games, however it does seem like someone played Trackmania or any of sandbox editor type game then played LocoRoco. I suppose it could be considered brave in the times of EA blockbuster style multi-platform exploding gun fests, but at the same time I would expect to see similar games on the PSP, DS, Wii etc.

[Leonaken]

Impressive as the graphics look for LBP, the premise seems like it's a bit of a rip off of the Garrysmod tbh. I'm not seeing a game, more a shared sandbox, which tend to have limited appeal in the long term save for aficionados. The only significant issue is that it's on the PS3 and it's a big move for the console market to finally dip a toe into the waters of user made content.

As for having a central studio location, probably a good idea, but I wouldn't get caught up with the idea that you must to be based in London, especially not in the days of video conferencing and IM. As long as you've a decent international airport and good restaurants/hotels nearby for when people have to visit you there is little necessity to be in the Capital.

London = everyone commuting = stress gained + time & money lost for all involved

My advice (and given petrol prices aren't remotely going to go down), look at acquiring a suitable property (you could operate out of a couple of barns if you wanted to think work space rather than office space) that is within walking/cycling distance of where you are and offers up a bit of colour at lunchtime. That way if you've got to crunch, it's not the end of the world in terms of personal inconvenience.

Your games are good because of the gameplay, and your crisp visual style is your trademark. The stripped down look is very pure and is very graphic design, stick with it. If you can't compete in certain arenas, don't bother entering them with half efforts instead promote and reinforce your own style.

I really side with Kadayi on everything here, minus the LBP/GarrysMod comparison. I'd compare more with a physics-heavy side-view TimeSplitters, really.

[Garpu]

Bah. You guys have emotional impact in your games, which is something a lot of games never have.

[ChasM]

Clearly, expressions of envy. Amid advise from Mark to locate/relocate.
He may be correct about an Introversion office, but only if it's near a waffle cafe.
The new kids have every right to appear unstoppable. Their hype gettin' to you?
When I'm envious, it just makes me angry.

Englishmen don't live on optimism, we lament in pessimism.

So, a pessimist is never disappointed.
*snarl*
And now I feel I could thieve something trivial from Sony International. ;-)

[The GoldFish]

you're not by any chance happening to be quoting *this* a pessemist is never dissapointed, are you?