Indie-Chatter
Latest
Indie Chatter: DLC Quest's Ben Kane pulls an indie vlog out of his hat
Ben Kane is a "fixer." When he sees a discrepancy in the daily minutiae of the gaming community, he does something about it, something other than signing online petitions or leaving nasty comments under clever pseudonyms on developers' blogs. He actively attempts to fix the problem.For example, at the height of the DLC outrage, when publishers first began blatantly shipping extra content behind transparent pay walls, Kane formulated his indignation into a modern-day Modest Proposal. He made DLC Quest, a satirical platformer that has players pay, with in-game currency, for essential aspects such as animations and moving to the left.The game generated attention for its message, but also its engaging gameplay, and after launching on XBLIG it was included in the Indie Royale St. Patrick's Day Bundle. The bundle alone sold more than 33,000 copies. Kane may not have single-handedly fixed The DLC Problem, but he did turn it into a source of entertainment for others, and exposure for himself.Again, when Kane noticed that there were no vlogs where developers discussed the day-to-day issues of building their games, he fixed it. He started Indie Chatter, a simple video platform where he can talk through the development process behind DLC Quest and any other titles, problems, conventions or happenings that he faced as an indie developer."Game development videos really only cover a small part of what is involved in indie development -- specifically, they show off part of a game," Kane told Joystiq. "But that only works when there's something interesting to show off. What about when you're coming up with the concept for a game? Or when you're adding polish and fixing bugs? What do you show when you're planning your release and thinking of how to market your game?"
