The Tomorrow Corporation Talks Indie Development

“Yeah, digital distribution is the future,” exclaims Gabler. “Putting bits on physical media, and in a box, and wrapped in more plastic, and having to ship them all over the world is absurdly wasteful. Retail is bad for game design too. All the overheads mean having to charge a lot. And to charge a lot, you have to cram in lots of ‘content’.

“And unfortunately lots of ‘content’ usually means lots of crap that’s uninteresting to play with, all to pad the game out to 40 or even 80 hours of dull play time. I’d much rather play games that last a short time, where every moment is amazing. Digital distribution makes those small, perfect nuggets of gameplay possible.”

The typical relationship between developers and distributors has been an adversarial one for quite some time now, with attitudes of self-interest and entitlement creating unhealthy and inefficient standardised practices, which work against the one thing everyone should be working towards together – making fun games.

With greater transparency, exploratory development, flexible prototyping periods and upholding of freedom – not to mention the retention of licensing rights for new IP – in publishing deals, we’ll soon have a healthier and more nourished indie scene that’s administered by a system that works to its strengths, rather than against them – one that will encourage the next generation of game developers to create those “small, perfect nuggets of gameplay” Gabler refers to.

The last few years have proven the viability of indie games, with commercially successful releases like Audiosurf, Braid, Castle Crashers and World Of Goo demonstrating that investment in indie games can be profitable.

With more and more titles appearing on XBLA and PSN, and seeping into the mindset of the mainstream, it may not be long before indie games hold a very different position in the industry than they do now.

The future is certainly bright for Tomorrow Corporation, which finds itself right in the epicentre of this slowly unfolding transformation.

“When one or two smelly guys can make games that are fuelled with more joy and charm than the big million-dollar studios, the kids must be doing something right,” says Gabler. “I wouldn’t want to change a thing.”

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