Gas Powered Games: Proud To Be Independent

[Greg Tito]

Gas Powered Games: Proud To Be Independent

Chris Taylor, head of Gas Powered Games, said that being independent from major publishers can be a strength, when wielded correctly.


Gas Powered Games has been on its own for the last 12 years, and Chris Taylor has used its independence to make the games that he wants to make. He made Dungeon Siege back in 2002 because he wanted to. Before Supreme Commander came out in 2007, Taylor lost a publisher and funding dried up, but he still made the game by pushing development ahead. Now with the recently announced Kings and Castles [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98326-Gas-Powered-Games-Announces-Fantasy-RTS-Kings-and-Castles], Gas Powered Games is learning how to leverage its very "independent-ness" by marketing a game with video logs and trailers, before a publisher or distribution deal are even lined up.

"What we often see, especially being an independent these last 20 years, is that we'd keep our concepts quiet, we wouldn't tell anyone, we'd go out and talk to the publishers, and that might mean 10 or 20 publishers at best, and they decide whether they like the concept or not," Taylor told Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27302/Interview_Chris_Taylor_The_Independent_Farmer.php]. "So even though we were an independent studio, or the industry was full of independent studios, there was still this 'go ask mom and dad' mentality to it, which to me doesn't really sound independent." He continued:

"This business is hard, there's resistance pushing you back, and you have to bring that storm and go forward. How do you do that? You capture human energy," said Taylor. Hopefully his series of vlogs will bring his independent mindset to the gaming industry.

So far, it appears to be working. The first vlog for Kings and Castles garnered over 20k views in the first few days it was out, despite having no publisher or distributor. Taylor was impressed: "That says to me, wow, the world really cares ... which means we need to continue."

It may help that Taylor's personality is perfect for TV. He's funny, and certainly knows how to turn a phrase. "Independent developers have the ability to maneuver," he said before dropping a sweet ass metaphor on us. "Think of us as the little ship that gets to maneuver around the big ships. If we don't exercise that ability to maneuver, then we're just giving up on a major strength."

If the whole design thing doesn't work out, maybe Chris Taylor would want to work as a game journalist.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27302/Interview_Chris_Taylor_The_Independent_Farmer.php]

Permalink

 

[Pipotchi]

Things like this are why I would never dream of pirating Gas Powered games alongside indie studios, Paradox games and so on.

I still think the best way for the big companies (Ubisoft/EA) to avoid pirates is not to treat customers like criminals.

 

[geldonyetich]

I'm proud you're independent, too.

I still thought Space Siege and Supreme Commander 2 were overly streamlined to the point of boredom.

I wasn't much of a fan of Dungeon Siege either.

Maybe if you guys are proud of being indies, you should stop trying to cater to the casual idiots in a manner identical to the big name companies.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

I like chris taylor I think he has alot of personality, its a shame his quirkyness doesnt translate over to his, well built and designed, but lacking depth story, lore and character wise

 

[MR T3D]

JESUS CHRIST, HE'S GOING TO DESTROY THE WORLD

if he has time.


i like him, i like supreme commander and discovered TA's fun aswell.

 

[Jared]

Its good he knows where he stands and he is happy with it! As long as he stays on that axis ^^

 

[Fearzone]

Yeah, Chris, it was nice of Stardock to finish Demigod for you.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Gas Powered Games: Proud To Be Independent
And crappy...lets face it Dungeon siege 2 is meh,Space siege is a consolized joke, Demigod still needs to be finsihed....(but so is Dragon age and bioshock....)

 

[Chaos Marine]

I really wish they'd hold off on this new game they're doing and re-work SupCom2 so it's actually SupCom not (surprisingly well) polished Starcraft-knockoff-bajillion-and-one.

 

[Fenixius]

I'm glad that Chris and his guys have made it this far as independent developers.

However, this gives me noone else to blame for the awful games that they've made since Supreme Commander. It really felt like SupCom2 was pushed by a publisher into making more money, being more accessible to more people, but there's no publisher to blame... so...

Good going, Chris.

 

[Miral]

The way this sounds, Chris was saying that GPG is independent in the "we aren't owned by a publisher, so can shop our games around" sense rather than the "we don't need no steenkin' publisher" sense. So there might still be a publisher to blame for some of those games mentioned above.

(The only one mentioned thus far that I've actually played is Dungeon Siege; while I never did actually finish it [got bogged down with inventory fiddling and a bit of blah] the engine itself and the way the levels were put together was pretty darn good. And I definitely liked the "buy the expansion pack, get the original game for free" strategy.)

 

[Booze Zombie]

I hope the company keeps going strong, it would send the right kinda message.

"So you're not with a big publisher, so what? Make your games good and go make money."

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

I like his style, shame I'm not a big RTS fan.

Being independent though, this game could be put forward for the anti piracy arguement.

Off Topic.
Does anyone make point and click adventure games anymore?

 

[obisean]

I just wish they would have put a little more effort into finishing off Demigod. The support of Demigod was good for the first month or so, then SupCom2 was announced and suddenly GPG couldn't be bothered with DG bugs. Stardock saw the potential in that game and tried (oh, how they tried) to make it a great game despite the fact that some of the bugs were game breaking. Stardock just couldn't do anything with the core code of the game because they were only the publisher (and MP provider) and not the developer, so the bugs that GPG decided to just ignore, went unfixed for a long time (I'm guessing that by now GPG most likely fixed them, but I'm not holding my breath).

 

[Dradiin]

I still thought Space Siege and Supreme Commander 2 were overly streamlined to the point of boredom.

While Space siege was miserable compared to other GPG games... how do you know Supreme commander 2 is "overly streamlined" seeing as how its not released till next Tuesday.

Seems a bit suspicious, you come across as just a hater.

 

[geldonyetich]

I still thought Space Siege and Supreme Commander 2 were overly streamlined to the point of boredom.

While Space siege was miserable compared to other GPG games... how do you know Supreme commander 2 is "overly streamlined" seeing as how its not released till next Tuesday.

Seems a bit suspicious, you come across as just a hater.

It's not suspicious at all:

The Supreme Commander 2 demo has been on Steam for the past couple days.

I've played it.

I found it overly streamlined.

 

[Scrythe]

No Dungeon Siege 3? How could you??

 

[AceDiamond]

I still thought Space Siege and Supreme Commander 2 were overly streamlined to the point of boredom.

While Space siege was miserable compared to other GPG games... how do you know Supreme commander 2 is "overly streamlined" seeing as how its not released till next Tuesday.

Seems a bit suspicious, you come across as just a hater.

It's not suspicious at all:

The Supreme Commander 2 demo has been on Steam for the past couple days.

I've played it.

I found it overly streamlined.

You do realize that sometimes things don't work, right? like the whole tech tree system in SupCom1 was horribly broken. And I love that game, but it was broken. Having units that would just take up space since you can't use T1 units to fight T2 units effectively is a problem, and the gap between T2 weapons and units and T3 weapons and units was even larger. So what did they do? They took the valid criticism and altered things so that now tech trees revolve around upgrading existing units instead of building entirely new ones. Much better idea, much more sensible idea too. That's not "streamlining" and if it is then I don't see what the big deal is.

Also deciding that "this is the entire game experience" from a demo is hilariously narrow-minded.

 

[Hobo Joe]

Superb points from a man whose games are fantastic, I've poured so many hours into Supreme Commander.