Who developed NightSky?

Today I came across an Escapist article titled "NightSky Dev: Kojima is terrible at making games." I was curious why Nifflas would say such a thing, and  checked the stuff out. The article had more such 'gems':

"Konami doesn't make good stuff"
"He's terrible at making games. Metal Gear is good in spite of him."
"If you like FPSes, anything from Japan is going to suck."
"The main thing I want to see from indie developers is to stop calling themselves indie developers."


I was then wondering if the newsroom guys pulled an April Fool's joke on their readers and Nifflas, but then realized that the opinionated drivel came from Tyrone Rodriguez, aka the Nicalis guy!

The source article at IndieGames makes a point to drive home the message too:

"Nicalis's own developed game, Night Sky"
"his company developed and self-published NightSky"



So, what gives? Wasn't the game developed almost entirely by Nifflas alone, then bought and published by Nicalis? How does that make Tyrone the developer?

Nicalis only seems to bring problems...

Nifflas made the game in MMF, but Nicalis bought the game and developed it in C, at least that was the plan. They were going to publish it for the Wii and other consoles, but that never happened. Jamie then made a C versionthat has been made available for the pc after the MMF version came out.

But I agree, this is a really bad move by Nickalis. They're spreading negative karma, so they'll receive it back and that will basically put them out of business.

lol, gotta love Tyrone.

How much does a game like NightSky sell for?
I'd think there must be a way for the forum to buy the rights of future games..
Especially if it's already a paid game.

Rodriguez has a point - a point justified by his superior knowledge and experience regarding this topic than almost all of us here at this forum.  A point supported by the developers of Braid and Fez, the former being one of the greatest indie games of all time and the latter most likely to join that rank upon its release.

It makes sense, considering games of the above caliber don't just rival those of larger corporations but leave them dead in the water.  You are either a games developer or you are not one.


[mod]Deleted the condescending phrase in the beginning. The original article was linked in the OP, so it's only courteous to assume that just like you, other posters also read it before voicing their opinion. Don't assume ignorance just because an opinion doesn't match yours.
[/mod]

There's nothing wrong with calling a developer indie. It's just a classification. I think the reason Rodriguez complains about it is because people hear the term "indie game" and think it's a silly thing made in Flash.

EDIT: Rereading it now, I guess his idea is more that saying you're indie is a pretentious thing to do. But like I said, it really is just a classification.

Wow, Zelakon, that's a strong opinion you have there!

I'm personally inclined to disagree with Rodriguez, I think the efforts of Konami and Kojima are definitely interesting rather than "terrible". I don't think Blow and Fish are making the same argument since they're talking about issues within the Japanese game industry rather than Kojima specifically. I don't approve of dismissing games based on their country of origin, but I've definitely noticed the trends they're talking about in games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

I also question your assertion that Rodriguez' opinion has more merit simply due to his experience in the industry. Compared to Kojima, his role in the development of Nicalis' major games seems to me to have been far smaller. After all, prior to his involvement, all of the games existed already in very similar forms. If you have information indicating otherwise though, feel free to direct me to it.

Finally, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that last line. Are you just mirroring Rodriguez? Am I a game developer if I only see it as a hobby, or if I only make mods or levels for games that have already been created? Do you, like Rodriguez, simply want to see the 'indie' label discarded? My opinion is that promoting the game developer / non-game developer dichotomy, even if the intention is good, will just contribute to the alienation of people who would otherwise create games, effectively stunting diversity in the field of game development.

It takes a lot more effort to be an indie game developer than being one in a big company.

While I don't agree with a lot of what Tyrone said, I do believe the term 'indie' is being thrown around too much lately and often misused. There's certainly a great difference in how independent developers work in that they have to do everything on their own, and also have relatively more freedom in what they create. However, I believe this difference is just due to the corporation part of development houses: what I mean is that all developers are more or less the same, and the fact that they're independent, while it may affect their modus operandi (in terms of budget, deadlines, overall workload atc.), it doesn't affect their development skill, creativity or ideas. After all, a game isn't better just because it was made by an indie developer, right? You can commend the additional effort that was probably put in it (compared to a commercial game), but that's it.

Rodriguez has a point - a point justified by his superior knowledge and experience regarding this topic than almost all of us here at this forum.  A point supported by the developers of Braid and Fez, the former being one of the greatest indie games of all time and the latter most likely to join that rank upon its release.

It makes sense, considering games of the above caliber don't just rival those of larger corporations but leave them dead in the water.  You are either a games developer or you are not one.

Having some insider knowledge in the comercial world of videogames gives Tyrone's opinion more weight, but he comes off as a bit arrogant here; this often happens with interviews like this one (I remember a recent one from the developer of Fez wasn't taken very well).

Anyway, about the original point of the discussion, I think somebody should clear things up a little, as I've seenthere's genuine confusion about who the real developer of NightSky is in some game forums/blogs.

In response to everyone above, my arrogant and opinionated post was just a catalyst to spark debate among intelligent forum members.

I'm personally inclined to disagree with Rodriguez, I think the efforts of Konami and Kojima are definitely interesting rather than "terrible". I don't think Blow and Fish are making the same argument since they're talking about issues within the Japanese game industry rather than Kojima specifically. I don't approve of dismissing games based on their country of origin, but I've definitely noticed the trends they're talking about in games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

I agree.

I also question your assertion that Rodriguez' opinion has more merit simply due to his experience in the industry. Compared to Kojima, his role in the development of Nicalis' major games seems to me to have been far smaller. After all, prior to his involvement, all of the games existed already in very similar forms. If you have information indicating otherwise though, feel free to direct me to it.

Probably true; I have no contrary evidence.

Finally, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that last line. Are you just mirroring Rodriguez? Am I a game developer if I only see it as a hobby, or if I only make mods or levels for games that have already been created? Do you, like Rodriguez, simply want to see the 'indie' label discarded? My opinion is that promoting the game developer / non-game developer dichotomy, even if the intention is good, will just contribute to the alienation of people who would otherwise create games, effectively stunting diversity in the field of game development.

Game developing, like creation within any form of art, is never a cut and dry affair.  My fingers struggled to type the phrase 'You are either a games developer or you are not one'.  I feel mildly insulted how people would think I actually meant such drivel, but I suppose since you don't know me, there was no way of understanding my anti-humour by simply staring at a screen!

However, to expand upon your final point (and simultaneously say nothing new at all), would such false identification REALLY hinder originality in the world of games?  Maybe, but I dread to think how surface labels and classifications could possibly have such a pervasive effect on an art form we all know and love...

EDIT:  Sorry SiamJai; it was necessary to provoke response.  My whimsy is never easy to recognise 

Hah, well there's a shock twist I wasn't expecting! I can understand how you might feel mildly insulted, but your approach is something I've never encountered before (what is that, intelligent trolling?) and I have difficult even detecting sarcasm in written form.

With regards to your final point about my final point, I imagine the effect might be negligible in practice, but perhaps it's an 'every little bit helps' sort of thing...