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Rebel, Rebel: Independents Congregate in Austin to Take On Gaming's Mainstream
Game industry veteran Joe Ybarra, now of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, flew to Austin from Mesa, Arizona, in part to recruit talent and teams ready to take outsourced contract work. He said he was impressed with how savvy those in attendance were. “I think the caliber of even the newbies is higher than it's been.”
There was much to learn. “Blue Ocean Strategy” was the most-often plugged book, extolling the virtue of the untraveled path. Gordon Walton, now of Bioware's Austin studio, though his long industry tenure includes working as an independent as well as for big game publishers, gave his own talk advising indies to think carefully about what they want to do as much as who they are. “Every game is an unreasonable proposition,” Walton declared. “Most people passed on great games.” Walton inadvertently got a frustrated shriek out of Spector when he suggested that successfully selling investors on a game project, in a market where 80 percent of game projects don't make a return on their investment, is a confidence game. Apparently, given his reaction, Spector would rather such things not be spoken aloud.
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