Jeff Minter: "not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games"

[Remy]

Didn't see a thread for this yet:

stinkygoat: jesus fucking christ

not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than ten to one, in one week. OK, we get the message. All you want on that channel is remakes of old, shite arcade games and crap you vaguely remember playing on your Amiga. We'll shut up trying to do anything new then. Sorry for even trying.

[Brashnir]

Sorry Jeff. Frogger is a better game than Space Giraffe.

[AdmiralViscen]

Wasn't Frogger on sale recently for like $2?

And Frogger rules, what the fuck? I don't even know what's going on in Space Giraffe.

[Kuroyume]

I tried the demo, and I couldn't figure out what was going on in that game. I have the same problem with the E4 demo.

[TheGreatDave]

He's fully aware of why people would pick Frogger over Space Giraffe. You can't make alternative and arty games that intentionally go against the mainstream and them expect the mainstream audience to pick it up. I really liked Space Giraffe but come on, what did you really expect that game to achieve in terms of sales?

[MGrant]

I've yet to have space giraffe explained to me.

[Artie]

title sums up my reaction

[Stumpokapow]

Sour fucking grapes.

[Duke Togo]

Failure should be a personal experience, not a public one.

[mood]

I've yet to have space giraffe explained to me.

Its not that hard to understand.

[beermonkey@tehbias]

Frogger has like 13 trillion free codes out there.

[The Take Out Bandit]

Wait, Jeff Minter does stuff that isn't more way-out psychadelic updates for Tempest?

Shut up you god damn crybaby.

[Bildi]

Meh, I didn't buy either.

[blindrocket]

Wow. I kind of hope he's joking there... that's such a bitter attitude. Maybe he'd prefer the other service. The Store has all kinds of unique games that are received well. Now how well they sell is another issue, but Frogger isn't there for competition.

[Spire]

Sorry your Tempest remake didn't outsell a Frogger remake.

[Attack You]

I felt bad that I had to google Space Giraffe to see what the hell it was. If it's any consolation, though, I'm not the least bit interested in a Frogger remake. Had my fill of playing in traffic for one lifetime.

Sorry your Tempest remake didn't outsell a Frogger remake.

...Was what I originally wanted to say, I guess.

[flarkminator]

Yeah it had nothing to do with making a game that was incredibly obstuse and in general not very fun to play. Yep had nothing to do with that. Let's blame Frogger.

[vilmer_]

Frogger was fucking awesome. WTF.

[mr_bishiuk]

I wanted to like Space Giraffe...

Perhaps if the graphics were a bit less psychedelic I could understand WTF was going on becuase the tutorial was crap if memory serves

[Tain]

Space Giraffe is so much better than Frogger it isn't funny. Still, huge waah here.

Tempest remake

lol, holy shit.

[Masta_Killah]

I really wanted to like SG, but it was just a clutterfuck. Too much shit going on and the tutorial during the demo was really hard to follow. Non of what I was seeing onscreen made any sense and I had no idea how to play the game. It was visually stunning, but whats the point of all the visuals if a players doesn't understand the basic minimum of the core gameplay.

[Odysseus]

odysseus: "not seeing a lot of reason to care"

[AltogetherAndrews]

Space Giraffe is so much better than Frogger it isn't funny. Still, huge waah here.

To be fair, he's kind of in a position where he has the right to whine about things a bit.

[GhaleonQ]

What? Jeff Minter, master financial planner, C.F.O., and marketer, made a game that didn't meet his expectations, profit- and popularity-wise? Call the Wall Street Journal, someone!

[TheGreatDave]

Space Giraffe is easy to understand once you actually play it and figure it out. Just remember to use the jump quite a bit, notice there's a bar that's coming closer towards you in the foreground that you want to keep up, and that you can only ram in to enemies when it's not reached the bottom. Notice some things are bombs, not power ups, and try to keep enemies on the screen until you have to kill them.

[trilobyte]

*nothing

[ToyMachine228]

I'm all for "different" games like Space Giraffe especially over Xbox Live Arcade, but putting things like SPOOGE and weird animal sex references in your games isn't going to sell copies. THIS IS AMERICA SON, DON'T YOU GET IT?

And seriously, Frogger is fun. It was actually a girlfriend of mine who introduced it to me and I had fun with it.

[Ramirez]

Now those are some awesomely bitter tears.

[Armitage]

So he loves making games but needs to be validated by sales?

[lockii]

So GAF hates Minter now? I remember when he was loved with the fervor of someone such as Luke Smith or David Jaffe.

Frogger is an arcade classic though, how could anyone argue that?

[PARANO1A]

Next time try writing some instructions before whining. Ugh.

[Shard]

Yea, this should be no surprise to those of us who watched Minter basically have a meltdown over the critical reaction of Space Giraffe. Also of interest is that Minter is working on a conversion of Gridrunner++ for the XBLA, a game he made back in 2002 I believe. Also, who are you people and what have you done with the real Gaffers?

[AltogetherAndrews]

So he loves making games but needs to be validated by sales?

It might be hard to love doing something when what you do fails to compete with fucking Frogger.

Frogger is an arcade classic though, how could anyone argue that?

I think that's the whole point, why bother trying to make something new when all people want is their old classic?

[duckroll]

Whine whine. He should shut up and try harder. Stop taking drugs and make a real game.

[DECK'ARD]

I'm surprised someone who willingly developed on the Jaguar, the Jaguar CD-Rom and the Nuon is suddenly concerned with sales.

[Brashnir]

So GAF hates Minter now? I remember when he was loved with the fervor of someone such as Luke Smith or David Jaffe. Frogger is an arcade classic though, how could anyone argue that?

I don't hate Minter, but I do think he made a crap game, and now he's paying the price for it. (Or more appropriately, nobody else is paying the price he wants for his game)

He seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule of game design - clarity of presentation. If the player can't tell what the hell is going on, he's not going to continue playing. Sure the game is clear enough to people who understand the Tempest game concept, but on a service where a 5-minute demo generates 85% of your sales, and most of the userbase hasn't even heard of Tempest, Space Giraffe is a guaranteed disaster.

[Tain]

To be fair, he's kind of in a position where he has the right to whine about things a bit.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

He seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule of game design - clarity of presentation. If the player can't tell what the hell is going on, he's not going to continue playing. Sure the game is clear enough to people who understand the Tempest game concept, but on a service where a 5-minute demo generates 85% of your sales, and most of the userbase hasn't even heard of Tempest, Space Giraffe is a guaranteed disaster.

Jeff Minter needs to stop making Tempest.

What kind of Tempest were you all playing?

[SaggyMonkey]

How is space giraffe hard to understand? Move around, shoot at shit, hop off the board a little... It's mostly tempest with a couple twists.

[Armitage]

It might be hard to love doing something when what you do fails to compete with fucking Frogger.

How is this different from music, film etc? I could go make some fusion electronic jazz album and it'd sell a hundred copies, but I could produce a shit pop album and I'd do way better. Doing what you love means you have to make sacrifices.

[JDSN]

Oh noes?

[Brashnir]

I think that's the whole point, why bother trying to make something new when all people want is their old classic?

But this game is a repackaged classic. It's just a repackaged classic game that's not nearly as popular as Frogger.

[Joe Molotov]

And in other news, I heard Star Wars movies were more popular than Eraserhead. Like, OMG!

[Stoney Mason]

I'm surprised someone who willingly put games on the Jaguar, the Jaguar CD-Rom and the Nuon is suddenly concerned with sales.

He is probably just a bit frustrated. He's pretty much a one man shop and he's dedicated his life to the profession. Cut him some slack. I'm sure everyone of you people occasionally feel down and bitch about shit you shouldn't.

[Thunderbear]

Just because something is original doesn't mean its great. A quote like that smells of arrogance to me. It really sucks when something you've worked hard on isn't recognized, but it isn't necessarily people's "fault" for not liking it. They aren't picking killing children over loving bunnies or anything.

I am sure there is a circle of people that really likes Space Giraffe and good for them. If your equation of a good game is quantity of sales, then you should focus on at least themes and ideas that most people are interested in and take that in unique original directions. If you know you are quite different and have an alternative taste, then you should only expect people with the similar alternative taste to like it or maybe people who are leaning that direction.

To me it's simple minded thinking. People need to get over that shit. I think Ico was one of the best games of last generation but marketing and also the fact that it is a bit different is going to limit the audience. It's natural, it doesn't make people who aren't in that audience "wrong".

Shit man, you took a chance to make something that you wanted to do and it didn't pan out with a large audience. Blaming it, generalizing it and belittling everyone for not "getting" it, makes you sound like a very limited person.

[Kevin]

Didn't see a thread for this yet: stinkygoat: jesus fucking christ

[Kintaro]

I thought people were up on this and liked this game. O.o

[FunkyMunkey]

cry moar

[Salazar]

It's a bit like the Australian netball team complaining that they have to work normal jobs to support themselves.

[duckroll]

I'm surprised someone who willingly developed on the Jaguar, the Jaguar CD-Rom and the Nuon is suddenly concerned with sales.

Maybe he was really pissed when those systems didn't take off either! Just that back then, he didn't have a blog so the only people that heard him whine were the unfortunate ones that knew him! :)

[White Man]

Space Giraffe is fuck awesome. No shock that GAF hates it. If you lamewads were cool, maybe Minter would post here. Unfortunately I have to go to SA to get my Minter fix.