Read on for six ways to make games without EA

First, you have the personal computerEveryone has one, they are all connected to the internet, and anyone can get tools to develop on them for freeYou don't want to deal with Sony's and have a burning desire to build a game? Just go do it! There are even great, cheap engines available for you to play withIt also raises some interesting non-design problemsIt looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-termThe truth is World of Warcraft Gold doesn't HAVE to take a long time to get, especially in the higher levelsBuy WOW Gold here, and then enjoy your excited WoW life! Warhammer Online Gold will keep your high powerOn the other hand, if RMTers persuade the courts that people own what their characters own, the whole concept of a purge might be threatened. 

Other kinds of (creative) human activity vanish from its radar screen

This is an argument that forms part of a chapter I've written for a volume I'm co-editing  with Sandra Braman (Command Lines) that is currently under review, and there the specific example is Second Life and the challenges that the varieties of user content therein make to the multiple ideas about content held by the different teams within Linden LabBut GDC led me to see this claim as more applicable here as wellThey looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at usIt was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations

After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even strangerSomeone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted pointsIan made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic researchWhile I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developersAnd there are huge gaps in what we don't knowWhere is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from itI hope the audience did as well

But overall, I like to think that the attendance demonstrates that developers are interested in what academics might be able to tell them (again I will point out: no fruit was thrown)And all week, I talked with developers who were interested in what was going on with research, from the smallest to the largest companiesMaybe the issue is the "larger" communityIt's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that levelBut I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going onI don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to beBut then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet

The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

Second, you have the mod communityDon't want to do the grunt work? Do a mod or total conversion of a Quake, Doom, Half-Life, Unreal, or any of the other great mod-friendly games out thereAgain, no approval process needed, free development tools, an installed base, and even communities to help connect your mod to players.

Third, you have web gamesYes, Flash costs a little bit of money, but it's only a few hundred dollarsOnce again, you have all the advantages of the web and nobody telling you what to make.

Fourth, there are the many mobile options, from Palm to phonesSure, dealing with the dozens (hundreds?) of SKUs is a pain, but it you have a zillions phones out there and plenty of web sites looking for games.

Fifth, use the web to create something newI bet that if the web had existed a few years earlier, Richard Garfield might have built something very differentBoard games are experiencing something of a renaissance because buyers and sellers have so many new ways to come togetherGo out and challenge Cheap Ass Games with downloadable, tradable PDF-based games!

Sources : The RPG Fan Club