Hi, and welcome to this weeks Dev Diary!
This last week was entirely on video editing, as I spent all my time on creating the first release version of the Intro Video for Project Taival. Secondly, I have spent time on researching about building a Indie Game company around my first game. You would think that you can't have a Game Company while being an Indie Game developer, but I found a method how that can still be true, while at the same time being more organized with other Indie game developers. More on that down below.
Intro Video
(Picture: Preview of the latest iteration of the 9th iteration of the Intro Video)
During all this time editing the intro video, despite being 10 seconds long (600 frames, at 60fps), I have constant problems with my PC's capability to handle the workload, as many time After Effects freezes due to low amount of RAM (8Gb). This can be mitigated largely by urging the caches often, but when ever I forgot to do so multiple times when previewing the footage, some work has been lost and needed to be done again.
Secondly, my 9 years old, 6 core CPU (AMD Phenom 2 1060T) isn't up for the task anymore. Luckily I decided back then to go for a 6 core CPU, even though many review sites touted that it was a waste of money back then (2010), as almost all games only used 1 or 2 cores. If I didn't have 6 cores now, I can only dread at how slow my PC would be now.
Due to the age of my PC, the preview speed in After Effects is only a fraction of a frame per second, approximately 1 frame every 3 seconds, when the text layer is enabled . This slows down even the most simple workflow considerably, which is why making a simple 10 second Intro #Video has taken so long. As I'm still just learning how to use After Effects properly, I do many small changes and like to see how they affected the end result, which takes time to see properly. The odd thing is, that the GPU acceleration is enabled, but somehow my PC processes the preview extremely slowly, which is odd to say the least. I have a Geforce GTX 1080 Ti GPU, so it shouldn't be because of a slow card for the job.
Ideas for a Games Company
Since simple research into company structures is so easy these days, I see no harm in sharing the rudimentary concepts of the ideas I came across for anyone interested.
Considering how bad the situation has become in the games industry, as all the largest game companies seem to be headed in to a quantity before quality approach in their games. Most visible example being EA having predatory and borderline predatory micro-transactions in their games and other games companies, like Bethesda following on their tracks with Fallout 76. I have come to believe that a Co-Op model would be the best practice for a games company, as that makes corporate takeovers by behemoths like EA much less likely to happen and keeps the company responsible for their customers in a healthy manner. Thus, those who want to enter the gaming industry to create something remarkable, something that speaks to players in a whole different level than the mass produced husks of ideas of past glory, have a place to do so.
As for the Indie developers, a Co-Op can function as a umbrella company for individual game developers, where independent developers do their own games the way they are used to do them. The Co-Op can provide the following benefits;
For Developers;
- Various Tax benefits (Potential savings in the first 5 years measured in a range of or more than 1k - 20k USD per year).
- Security in numbers, which helps all participants to protect their IP's
- The developer owns the IP, if the Co-Op has agreed so.
For Gamers;
- Much better likelihood for quality games, with more creative or experimental core concepts.
- Much more incentives for customers (gamers) to build and upkeep a healthy community around the company and it's philosophy. (if the co-op decides to implement such factors).
Remember that a regular corporation model can do the same things, but since a Co-Op is much more resilient towards corporate takeovers, a Co-Op harbors more trust and gives a notion of longevity and sincerity of the company. A Co-Op can include customers in the company ecosystem in a more integral way, thus encouraging customer loyalty. Taking care of the company bottom line by keeping the source of your revenue - the customers - happy, in a win-win fashion, is a healthy business decision by any measure.
I won't go into details on how to achieve all this, as that is between me and those who would like to build something like this with me. In Finland, it is possible to found a Co-Op by my self also, which I might do before finding partners, as it is a good idea to think hard on who you want to partner up with.
This is it for this weeks Dev Diary, thank you for tuning in and welcome again next week!
