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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Minke Rescue
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Leigh Marlow of The Apptivist Studio presents a game with a greater purpose -- to stop the violent whaling in Antarctic waters -- named Minke Rescue. What's your game called and what's it about?Minke Rescue is a new iPhone game. You play the part of a minke whale in the beautiful and harsh Antarctic Ocean. Best of all, it's only $0.99 -- and 30 percent from every game purchased goes directly to Sea Shepherd.What inspired you to make Minke Rescue?I wanted to raise awareness and funds for specific causes that I'm passionate about. However, I'm not noted for my cake making, t-shirt designing or car washing, nor do I have a sufficiently cashed-up network of friends to host a (successful) charity ball.In early 2010, after acquiring my first iPhone, I soon discovered the power of apps -- how regularly I was willing to spend small amounts of money -- and how addictive the very best apps can be. An ah-ha moment occurred and my direction was set -- to create a cool little iPhone game that benefited Sea Shepherd. The key ingredients were that the game had to be fun, addictive and not too preachy.The best part is I get to combine my passion for gaming and my passion for the environment.
Scott Hartsman: RIFT going F2P would be a 'large net negative' for the game
With so many former subscription-only MMOs turning to free-to-play/hybrid business models these days, one might assume that Trion Worlds feels the pressure to do the same with RIFT -- but that is far from the case. Speaking with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman confirmed that Trion has "absolutely no plans whatsoever" to transition RIFT to a F2P model. He cited strong business and a growing game as reasons why the company is happy where it's at. Embracing F2P, in Hartsman's opinion, would end up hurting more than helping in this situation: "One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you'd have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be -- that would be a fairly large net negative for RIFT and the RIFT community." While Hartsman confirms that F2P attracts large amounts of users, he also says that it fundamentally changes how an MMO studio approaches the game itself. "Take a free-to-play game or a social game, where the business is all about -- the social games' word for it is, 'going whaling,'" he said. "The idea is you have a paying player subsidising the play of, potentially, dozens or hundreds of other users. And so you have to be willing to create a game that has the ability to make huge sums of money from relatively small numbers of people. Once you decide that you are going to enter the whaling business, it's a different mindset and a different set of goals you're designing for entirely."
Remix a whale song, win an iPod
If you're a whaler, you won't like this story. The International Fund for Animal Welfare is running a remixing contest as part of its campaign against whaling. The idea is simple: you download some tracks featuring some whale songs (did you know that whales sing to one another? It is true) and remix them with some kickin' jams of your own. Enter it into the contest and you could win a brand new 60 gig iPod, a Nano, or a Shuffle.Since we all know that the whale song is the only thing that will save our planet from being destroyed by an ancient space probe, it seems only right that we stop whaling and give everyone an iPod.[via Scuba Diving News]
