Chapter 2: Getting Started with Game Development

Overview

If you browse most game development magazine and Web sites, you will find most “old timers” grumbling about the death of the one-person development team. In general, with the increase in hardware processing power, the game development industry has gone the way of Hollywood movie studios, with large budgets and large teams making it harder for lone wolf developers to compete. Although the times have changed, thousands of amateur developers, not unlike you, continue to create games.

Note

Some of the materials in this chapter originally appeared in Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required, Second Edition, 2002 by Charles River Media, Inc.

You might be wondering how you can compete. For starters, part of what makes it difficult to compete also helps amateur developers. With the increase in hardware processing power, software developers have created a wide range of tools that are actually helping small and single-person teams to compete with the larger developers. These tools include graphics applications, 3D modeling programs, and simple 3D engines, to name a few.

The tools are making it easier than ever before to create games by yourself, although it is very important to understand the market you are actually shooting for. While creating the “next big thing” would be very nice, it’s probably not realistic. Instead, you should probably turn your attention to smaller niche game markets that the bigger developers are overlooking.