Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page.

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Off we go onto the major news portals again with this great post by Emma Boyes.  Seems some gamers are willing to accept that Determinance looks more like a crazy Russian deathmatch game from the mid-90′s than a next-gen-smear-a-thon.  I love the guy who’s like “Dude, how can they release this when Crysis is coming out?”, though.

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Another “you-know-you’ve-arrived-when” moment: site which I believe is in Korean (apologies if that’s offensively incorrect) posts pictures of our game with people’s names blurred out like on Crimewatch.  Just…so…amazing.

We’re soft-launching at the moment – putting the game up on GG and seeing how the servers deal with an influx of registered users and demoists as the same time.  I am not really doing PR right now, just till we wait out this period, so the fact that the game’s coverage is, in many ways, EXPLODING across the world is totally beyond my comprehension.

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I think it’s fair to say we’ve had a couple of minor knock-backs recently, but it’s stuff like this which makes us get up in the morning.

“I’ve checked out my fair share of indie games, most of which could not keep my interest, let alone warrant an article, or more than a few words.

This title is definitely an exception. I found myself enthralled, quickly picking up on the unique gameplay and excellent accuracy and control.”

and not forgetting…

“I will tell you today that this game is worth it’s weight in gold.”

You may also bear in mind, gentle reader, that we have improved Determinance since this preview version was created.

Once again, Determinance proves itself not to be a mainstream game.  Some people “get” it, love it, want to rock it to sleep at night.  Some people think it’s ugly, vile, ungainly and silly.

To be honest, that’s what we want.

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We shortly should have some content on Gametunnel, which is a big plus for us as we’re long-term browsers of the mad, mad world of indie gaming.  Getting the chance to speak our mind on somewhere other than…well, here….is always potentially dangerous both for you and us, so we look forward to that one.

My goal of getting this game all over your RSS reader is now coming into view somewhat.

ON PR JUGGERNAUT! ON!

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Done for the day and holding the fort slightly while my esteemed is away – the blog feels wrong without sudden, explosively-opinionated reports about what he’s playing.

I don’t get time to play anything at the moment – that’s not a dig at him, I just have “too much on”, which is a shame because I was thoroughly enjoying my re-education consisting of Thief and Far Cry.

Today’s PR push will hopefully result in further previews soon – it’s nice to see what people are making of DT, and we’re lucky enough to have positive “vibes” so far – we are still waiting for the “OMG, why are there no GUNS” preview…I’m sure it will happen.

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Today’s been quite tough: soldiering through the ever-expanding PR lists trying to create eloquent, unobtrusive and useful spam about DT for any journalists who might want to even consider looking at the game.

I know I’ve been on about this before, but trying to get in touch with people about your product is much harder than you might imagine. I’m lucky in that I believe the product I’m working on has worth, but attempting to convey this to someone else is almost nightmarish.

Some people tend to post inspirational musical moments on their blogs, and mine today was a Finnish Nu-Energy (FiNRG) version of Barber’s Adagio for Strings thundering in at the moment I thought I might not physically be able to press down in Excel another time to get to some poor, poor person’s email address.

You might want to check out Alek Szala for similar experiences if you have the inclination. His set at Mayhem 2006 is violent and beautiful in the extreme. But that’s a whole different blog…

Back soon.

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Dear Joystiq,

It’s not intelligent for us at Mode 7 to make an enemy out of anyone in the media right now, so being on your back all the time is perhaps not the best position for us to take.

You know what? I don’t care any more. I especially don’t care when you insult me directly by telling me I don’t exist, so if you push me I will push back.

Every time something about the indie gaming scene pops up in my RSS reader I’m filled with foreboding because I know for a fact that the article lurking behind the headline will be comprised of baseless speculation and misinformation. Few journalists actually bother to investigate the indie scene at all before they write about it, so in the past we’ve been treated to droolingly naive proclamations that it will save gaming; or patronising “look-at-this-lovely-version-of-Tetris” guff; or simply scorn.

And now this.

That headline is insulting to us and to your readers. It basically broadcasts an impression that you know nothing about gaming.

I’ve told you about Determinance several times through your news submission form, and through direct email. I’ve received no reply. You’re simply not interested in our game, which is your choice, but isn’t that a little hypocritical?

Now, I understand a little of what news bloggers go through – they’re essentially like normal journalists except that the time-pressure on them is even more profound. They’re forced to come up with little titbits of information several times every few hours, and then get them formatted and up on their site. In that kind of context, its unsurprising that topics are treated casually and in little depth.

But still, you’re insulting me, Joystiq? Why are you doing that?

Let’s take a look at the article to which the post refers…This would seem to be a piece about indie publishing, and your post mostly obfuscates that. There are plenty of indie developers, but very few publishers who allow indies room to breathe. Valve do, and that’s why Intro-constantly-mentioned-version, who notably won’t let a publisher fuck with their game, chose to go with them to keep that indie flag flying.

O’Brien’s article is fair enough. It doesn’t go into too much depth, contrasts the modern era with the “floppies in a bag” Golden Age, namechecks Costikyan’s Manifesto Games (a project we continue to observe with interest)…it’s all fine for a general audience, but it’s doing nothing to change the situation.

“If there’s a niche indie developers can make their own, it’s PC gaming, which accounts for about 15 percent of the domestic market.”

Yeah, damn straight – how about looking at projects which are actually aiming for that very niche?

It is possible for small indie teams to make games passionately and get them released: it’s just very very very difficult, as I’m sure you’ll realise if you’ve read some of our posts below. There’s lots of wonderful rhetoric floating out of places like Nintendo right now: “Oh, we support small developers. If anyone wants to develop for us, just get in touch.” Yeah, that’s great – get in touch with whom? The receptionist at Nintendo Towers? Oh, and by the way, before you tell me to try wandering up to their offices with a sweaty copy of our game in my palm, I’ve already done the email equivalent. Guess what? No reply.

There’s literally no door open to small indies which doesn’t make them look like a fourteen-year-old kid who’s just come up with a “really awesome” FPS where the main character is called Commander Dope. You have to fight to get serious attention from anyone: be it the press or the industry. We’ve managed to do it in a couple of small ways, and you’ll see the results of that soon, but it’s not been easy.

Now, it has to be said that the marketing on Determinance hasn’t been as extensive as I would have liked quite yet, so I will forgive O’Brien because our message hasn’t reached him, and that’s my fault. I will cut you a little a little slack, because the indie scene is a nightmare of disorganised PR, half-baked ideas and crap games.

I’ll cut you some slack, but I’m not going to forgive you easily, Joystiq, because I’ve done all I can with you Stop telling me that it’s so very hard for indie games when you yourself are part of the problem: read your fucking email – the indie community is shouting at you.

Yes, I’m sniping now, but finally, just before I pack up my scope and unscrew the legs from that little tripod thing, here’s a further sprinkling of your distinctive magic:

“One notable omission: episodic gaming. With companies like Telltale Games and Valve actively using technology to deliver their games directly to gamers and disrupt the publisher paradigm, O’Brien’s piece didn’t consider the effects of these (admittedly larger) independent developers.”

What has episodic gaming got to do with anything? That’s simply taking two contemporaneous “issues” in gaming and shoe-horning them into each other. That’s cherry-picking something you do know about, and dropping it in place to disguise something you don’t know about.

Finally, here’s a challenge and a means to redeem yourself:

We demand an apology to all the indie game developers you’ve ignored. Then we want you to use your power to help us out, give us things like this, come looking for our projects, and most importantly, answer us when we need you. Listen to us.

We know it’s hard, we know we could have made things easier for you, but at least tell us how instead of simply ignoring us and publishing lies that directly impact us.

Many journalists want to rise above merely making money from things they cover to actually being a force for good in their chosen area – if you don’t care about games, then let your readers know that so they’re sure of where you stand. If you do care, get in touch with me, cover our game right now and write a post explaining exactly how we can present our projects to you in the way you want.

Update:

Just noticed the same sentiment expressed on Kotaku, another site we’ve contacted in the past, in response to the Slate article.  Come on, people – sort it out.

I’m refusing to accept the argument that sites such as these are “not positioned as news sites” – a significant number of their readers treat them as a prime news source.  Witness the response to Joystiq liveblogging the Wii announcement and then come back and tell me it’s “not news”.

Sites like BluesNews, Eurogamer…hell, even the Sydney Morning Herald are willing to communicate with indie developers.  Great little sites like Greg May’s Truly Obscure care about their coverage and are even willing to send me over nice letters of support when I go out on a limb like this – get your act together!

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Also, The Mode 7 Games Blog offers more thoughts on Determinance, their upcoming -MMORPG- as lead designer Ian Hardingham discusses the intricacies of coding a game to play over the internet.

Blue’s News

Long-term readers will know that after DT’s brief flirtation with the Deliverance IP, while it was still a mod of Die by the Sword and a single-player only title on the Wonderswan, we decided to make a decisive move into the shady arena of the MMORPG.

Originally, every player started with a farm, on which they grew fairies on fairy-plants, which they were forced to continually water every day with in-game magic water drawn from a well approximately seven game-miles from their original location. They were forced to walk there manually using our proprietary walking controller, which plugged into the Wonderswan via a USB adaptor made from unicorn tears.

Walking wasn’t the only facet of the elaborate risk/reward paradigms we constructed. The fairies could be rallied into gigantic columns and sent across the landscape to fight enormous battles against a huge and monstrous kitten which lived in a cave guarding the credit card details of every single user.

Should a brave adventurer amass sufficient numbers of trained faires to defeat the kitten, they were rewarded with a purple sash which we would FedEx to their house immediately, as well as the untold riches of the kitten’s cave.

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Despite their previous coverage of my egomaniacal tirade on Music4Games about Determinance’s soundtrack, so-hip-it-hurts and actually readable games blog Joystiq also neglected to include a mention of this wonderous opus amongst their recent flurry of posting.

It’s ok, we understand that hot news from the true gaming underground has to take second place when you have vital industry developments surrounding “the word ‘pee pee’“, and funny Ebay auctions to report.

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When I was mailing people to let them know that we had started a blog last night, I sent an email over to games journalism icon Kieron Gillen, who has been complimentary and expressed interest in our game in the past. Imagine my horror to discover that instead of snuffling at his inbox for further sweet truffles of indie gaming information, Mr Killen was busy degrading himself through the medium of Singstar and the imbibing of the Devil’s liquor.

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Enormous cavern of gaming news Blue’s News has linked up our fabulous blog, calling our outlook on our release schedule “amusing”. In a good way.

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