[casual_games] Manifesto Games to shut down. ;(

[oscar is oscar]

Sad day for people trying to create a viable independent channel for games.


http://www.manifestogames.com/node/5151

So as of today, I'm shutting down Manifesto Games.

We started in September 05 because we thought that a combination of trends
made it feasible to create a market for independently developed games
outside conventional retail. The spread of broadband makes digital
distribution even of quite large games feasible; growing disenchantment on
the part of developers with the conditions of the mainstream industry mean
many are looking for *any* possible alternative path to market; and the
casual game market had already shown that substantial businesses could be
built around selling games online -- games with characteristics quite
different from those offered by the traditional industry.

Clearly, we haven't succeeded in realizing that vision. There are a host of
possible reasons why; perhaps we launched with an excess of naïve optimism,
through of course a surfeit of optimism is an entrepreneurial necessity. We
did not achieve the critical mass of support by independent developers that
we had initially envisioned (some of whom, bizarrely, viewed us as a
competitor), though we appreciate the strong and enduring support we
received from some. We always knew that the essential problem we were trying
to solve was a marketing one, but we never figured out how to crack the
marketing nut, at least with the minimal financial resources we had
available. We failed to raise substantial venture money, despite engaging
with many VCs over time. And of course, the recession doesn't help.

In the years since we started the company, there have been hopeful change in
the independent games market; Steam has become a profitable and viable
channel for some developers, XBLA and WiiWare for others, and the iPhone for
still others. In addition, the casual game market has started to experiment
with a small handful of titles that break the inordinately restrictive genre
mold of that form. Attention paid to independent games by the games media
has grown (though why is it that the Independent Film Channel covers the
AIAS awards, and not the IGF awards?)

These are all positive signs, but they are dangerous ones, too; Apple,
Microsoft, and Nintendo have complete, monopolistic control over
distribution through their proprietary channels, and while they may, today,
generously grant a high revenue share to developers who sell through them,
developers are in the final analysis utterly at their mercy. There's no
question in my mind that ultimately the channel owners will someday use
their total control to demand an increasingly onerous share of revenues -- a
pattern we've already seen in the casual game market, and through channels
like IPlay/Oberon. The same is true, perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree, of
Steam.

In short, if a viable business ecosystem for independent games is to be
established, it needs to be established on the basis of open systems and
open markets, not proprietary channels. And that, I think, is inevitable;
the whole history of the Internet shows that open systems and open channels
rule.

Perhaps we didn't figure out the right way to crack this nut; and perhaps we
were simply too early. "Being too early" is, in fact, much of the story of
my career; I designed the single most successful online game for its time --
in 1989; and founded one of the first North American mobile game companies
-- in 2000. In both cases, four years later would have made a world of
difference.

I suspect (and hope) that this will be true of independent games as well --
that within four years, it will be a large, fast-growing, and highly
successful segment of the game industry. In other words, Manifesto may be
dead, but in many ways this is an excellent time to be an independent game
developer, and the potential we saw when we founded the company remains.

I am grateful to all of the many people who helped us over the tumultuous
years of our existence, but in particular to the people who worked directly
with me -- Bill Folsom, Nathan Solomon, Eleanor Lang, and Johnny Wilson,
each of whom contributed literally thousands of hours, almost all of then
unpaid, to the venture. And also to Eric Goldberg and Kathy Schoback, both
of whom were generous in sharing contacts and advice; and to our lawyer, Don
Karl at Perkins Coie, who took us on knowing we were an unfunded and highly
chancy venture and stood by us stalwartly.

To those who cheered for us and shared our vision of a thriving game market
that rewards creative vision instead of licensed drivel and repetitive
'franchise' remakes, a place for exploratory design to uncover the true
capabilities of the *ars ludorum*, a commercial channel where imaginative
game creators can make a reasonable living on a far smaller scale than the
conventional market, a future for more than the handful of genres the major
publishers deem worth funding -- don't give up the faith. It will happen.
One company's loss won't change that. The creative heritage of games will
endure.

*N.B.:* Play This Thing! <http://playthisthing.com/> will continue; and at
least for now, the Manifesto site will remain up. Payment functionality has
been turned off, however, and all demo download and buy now links lead to
the developers or other places the games on the site can be found.
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