1. Underground Gaming perceives games as a form of art.

  2. Underground Games are non-commercial. They shun the logic of the markets and question the capitalist system. They attempt to create and use spaces for free creativity.

  3. The Underground Gaming scene considers everybody as equal. Developers and players are both participants in the process of turning an abstract piece into a played game. Every form of group-focused enmity (including, but not limited, to ableism, classism, racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia) is ousted from its communities.

  4. The Underground Gaming scene lives and dies by the exchange and interaction from its participants. It can only prevail through mutual support, acknowledgment, and feedback.

  5. A Underground Game is a game that its creators consider to be complete. A work in progress or a demo is not considered an Underground Game until it is finished. The possibility to extend a completed Underground Game is explicitly supported.

  6. Underground Gaming tries to empower people. It supports the sharing of knowledge and tries to reduce barriers. The scene helps people interested in Underground Game development to reduce dependencies from capitalist corporations, but does not reject creative work if dependencies exist.

  7. Underground Gaming supports other non-commercial communities and movements. It seeks exchange and collaboration, as long as they share the fundamental values of the scene.

  8. The Underground scene isn’t carried or lead by individuals. Whenever possible, a democratic self-organization for communities is established.

  9. The Underground scene is open to editing and modification.

  • TPWitchcraft@lemmy.mlOPM
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    1 year ago

    #1 This part is what probably disqualifies me as underground. I am not too interested in open-sourcing my games at this time, and while the games I have released so far have been free, I am planning to sell my next one. Not because I expect to make a lot of money or because I am making it for that purpose, but because it feels like the right choice for the project.

    Hi. OpenSourcing your game(s) is explicitly not asked. Underground Gaming and FLOSS are close related, but not identical. OpenSourcing video games is okay for some, hardly possible for others (who are working with closed-source engines or do modding), and some might have reservations against it for any reason (feeling that the code lacks quality/fear that it could be misused, or whatever). I believe building a community and linking non-commercial developers is by far more important than bringing people to create free/open source software (though I do hope that some people come closer to the scene via underground gaming and consider going FLOSS).

    Also, even if you take money for your games, I wouldn’t say that you aren’t a underground game through this. It really depends what money you intend to make by doing it in first line. If you plan otherwise, I wish you the best of luck - but from my experience you make more money from putting your hat onto the street than by making and selling an amateur video game. The revenue for most of these is negative, and I don’t believe that anybody will blame you if you try to come into the green area. Other thing if you plan to launch some big marketing parade or bundle up with a (indie)publisher.

    If you make your game, knowing that it will hardly have any benefits for you, you shun the logic of the market regardless if you identify as an anarchist or not; I would like to add that Underground Games should be a left, but pluralistic scene. As long as you don’t mind sharing the scene with political left people, and go along with the “mutual respect” (no bigotry, see #2) thing, you are not forced to be directly political as human or in your work to be a part of it. If you want, check out my games ( https://thunderperfectwitchcraft.itch.io/ ) - there are (if any) only very discreet political statements in them.

    But the whole thing about monetization is something that I would really like to discuss within this community. What I have written are my ideas, and partly my ideals - but I’m willing to move towards other people in this aspect - in both directions (be it that underground games shouldn’t be sold in any case, or that a stronger monetization than described by me would be okay).

    #2 This seems like two different points. Bigotry should be excised, of course. I’m not sure what is meant by “developers and players are both participants.” Is this about the nature of games as interactive art, or referring to playtesting and feedback, or referring particularly to open-source development?

    Without a person who plays it, a game can’t a game - as it can’t be played. If we make a game we should have in mind that the last step in completing it is done by someone who is willing to boot it up and play it. The sentence is in there to take the wind from the sails of those people who state that their group focused enmity (or bigotry, if you want) is a part of their artistic freedom and thous can’t/shouldn’t be prevented in an artistic setting.

    #4 This is the point that I find most peculiar. I know that there are a lot of dead prototypes and abandoned projects out there, but every game is a work in progress until it is finished. This seems to imply that games should not be mentioned, shown, or talked about in the underground scene until they are complete, which I think is counter-productive.

    Showing, Mentioning, talking about WIPs is no problem at all. But I would ask to not call them Underground Game until they are in a state you think they are a good, finished game. Maybe use demo or prototype as a substitute term that you can later replace with Underground Game? As things are very easy to go through atm it isn’t a problem to post your WIPs, ideas and concepts here - but if the community should manifest and grow, we could (and should) create a separate board to discuss these.

    I manually search through the Itch releases, and finished games aren’t played since they are buried in prototypes, or even unrealized concepts. Nearly no hobbyist game developer has the nerve to go through these, and nobody who isn’t deeply interested in amateur gaming does this. We shouldn’t replicate this issue here.

    #5 I agree that democratizing game development is overall a good thing. Some of the work that has helped that happen has come from corporations putting out products like Unity and RPG Maker, but of course using these proprietary tools makes your work less portable. It’s a tricky situation.

    It is indeed. I believe that a lot of creativity is set free when people have these easy to use tools available, and would love to get them in - but I don’t know how to address and reach them atm tbh.

    #8 If this refers to mod support, this is always great to have, but unfortunately it also requires a lot of work and planning.

    It does. But it says the scene is open; if you include mod support this is great, but if you don’t it is no problem. You should - however - not mind if somebody creates a (non vile) mod for your game, even though you didn’t intended it.

    I hope I could clear some things up. What you think of it? Do you think the manifesto should be changed in some areas? Also, the Practical Questions Post I made also addresses some of the things from your post; it includes some thoughts about the selling of non-commercial games, but I think that the essential things are in this post :).

    • midnightspire@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Thanks for the reply. I know things like open source, political focus etc. aren’t strictly required, but they seem to be considered the “ideal” or preferred target for an underground game, and I am considerably far away from that ideal. That is why I’m not sure my work is really appropriate here. Then again, I rarely feel like I belong anywhere, so maybe that’s just me.

      As far as money goes, I thought for a very long time (and talked to other hobby developers) about whether I was justified in putting a price on my work, or if I even wanted to. I still have a hard time with these questions. All I can say is that this project is not a business venture, nobody is funding or investing in my work, I’m not running a marketing campaign, and my design is absolutely not influenced by earning potential (if it were, I would be making completely different kinds of games, anyway). Basically, I make what I want to make.

      I also feel strongly that MTX / RMT inherently degrade the experience of any game. You mentioned this in part 4 and I cannot see myself ever implementing these. I understand why some developers opt for a “freemium” model, but that doesn’t make it a good experience. I have never played an f2p game that wouldn’t have been a lot better if it had been sold as a complete package. Formerly premium games have been damaged or ruined by their botched transitions to f2p, and fully f2p games are rarely if ever good enough to justify the MTX costs that they engineer.

      Charging full price for the game AND having MTX on top of that is inexcusable. The game is automatically made worse for every piece that you deliberately carve out and sell as extras. “It’s only cosmetic” is no defense.

      I also absolutely shun anything related to NFT or blockchain, but that’s a whole other rant.

      Occasionally I hear from folks who push for more indies to charge for their work, and to charge more. There are a few different arguments for this, so I probably shouldn’t speak for anyone else.

      • TPWitchcraft@lemmy.mlOPM
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        1 year ago

        You are welcome, and thanks for posting here :).

        -I agree to your opinions about MTX / RMT, and especially about block chains.

        -As said, the money thing must be discussed - as far as I’m concerned, taking money for your game is okay.

        -From what you describe and from what I know/have seen about your games you make ideal Underground Games in my book :D. Feel welcome to identify with the concept of Underground Gaming (that will hopefully become a scene) if you want. There is no need to do anything other than what you do and did.