New here but old in the indie biz :)

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi,

I used to run Mutation Software and later in the dying days Binary Design.

As an indie developer for approx 15 years I wrote many games like Dweebs, Dweebs 2, Tin Toy etc. on PC and also many old Amiga classics such as Doodlebug and Cyberpunks etc.

I have worked on consoles for larger developers too on titles like Lego Alpha Team, Midways Greatest Arcade Hits and SpongeBob SquarePants (mostly GBC and GBA).

I went bust after 15 years in Jan 2005 after 15 years trading and ended up drawing most of the last 60 dvd boxes for Xing Interactive (& some for Blimb Entertainment) in my final days as an indie.

I wont go on any further but do feel even though the end has cometh - I do have something to contribute perhaps (in terms of general knowledge about the business) to the indie scene at least - hence I registered here - and also with the superb www.lemonamiga.com Amiga fan site recently :)

I recoginse quite a few names here, even though in the main part I have always tended to keep my indie activity somewhat private to date, so have probably not spoken to some here in ages.

Best regards,

Adrian Cummings

[Sirrus]

Welcome Adrian...

I definately recall your name and Mutation...

Hope you can provide some good insight for us.

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi there,

Thanks... and i'm sure over time I hope to be able to answer 'some' and debate 'many' of the questions and topics raised here to help others on their path through the indie scene perhaps.

Cheers,

Adrian.

[stan]

Read in the "Did you know?" section of your site: "Amiga was used for commercial entertainment production until the mid 1990s." You can make that 2004 since most of Smart Lines was made on my A1200 ;).

[Sirrus]

Mind if I ask why your indie career is over? What do you do now?

Did you ever get paid for those Xing boxes by the way? Not going to bring up the Crystal Interactive days, but I do wonder about the new business.

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi,

Just for the record 'www.lemonamiga.com' is not my site btw: but I happened to register with their site recently - it's run by Kim Lemon - Sweden :)

Your right though Amiga1200 is a cool machine even now - i still have most of my old Amiga's but have given many away over the years.

Cheers,

Adrian.

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi,

Mind if I ask why your indie career is over? What do you do now?

I went broke (put all my money) into mobile games development - long story but it went tits up for many reasons - many not my own fault I will say though.

Did you ever get paid for those Xing boxes by the way? Not going to bring up the Crystal Interactive days, but I do wonder about the new business.

Yes I was paid in full by Xing for all of them on a job by job basis. One of the other reasons I went bust is because of lengthy time periods between payments from many publishers I had my games licenced to - the usual story of course.

Currently I am taking a break before hopefully going back full time into the games industry (whats left of it here in the UK that is).

Been a tough year 2004 for many it seems.

Cheers,

Adrian.

[Teeth]

Good luck with getting back into it. Portsmouth is home to the main Climax studio as you probably know, who had to let some people go recently over guess what - publishers not paying up. Don't think there are any other studios down there though, it's a really hard time in the UK :( :(

[Adrian Cummings]

Yes I worked there 14 times over 15 years, even right back in the days when Climax began as Images Design too.

It's tough all round tho as you say and if I dont get back in due to the current climate here, will eventually probably go back to a 9-5 'proper job' and time becomes a loop I guess :o

Very sad really but you cant flog a dead horse as they say - I flogged mine so hard I just ended up with the head! :)

Cheers,

Adrian.

[Teeth]

Ah, right. I may have met you a few months back in that case round at Big Dave's.

14 times in 15 years - god it sucks in full time professional games development!

[Adrian Cummings]

You may of done but then again I only know one Dave and thats Dave B.

You may know Mr Bird tho then :)

[whisperstorm]

Is there a happy medium? Balance the 9-5 security with the indie freedom? Do they have to be mutually exclusive?

[Adrian Cummings]

Not possible really - as I dont think the wife would stand for it now :)

Seriously tho I've kind had my fill of wheeling and dealing anyway and am looking forward to moving on.

It's not to say I would'nt write another game on my own in future, but there are only 24 hours in one day and I like to sleep at least 8 of them :)

What you said though, is how I started out though back in '89 and then eventually (when the money started rolling in) jacked the job in and went indie.

It was an interesting ride for sure!.

[Michael Flad]

Adrian,

if you're still interested in cellphone development you may get in contact with me by mail.

Besides that - sad to hear you fail even after such a long successfull time ...

Michael

[gamemaker]

Can I ask whether the publishers were well-known or not and in the UK or not?...thx, but no worries if you don't want to divulge ;)

[Mark Sheeky]

Hi Adrian!

Good to see your name here, just thought I'd say hello. I still listen to your dance music CD's every now and again :) I've a new one out myself.

Great work on that Arcangel box artwork. I never did find out whether the game ever went on sale!

Mark

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi,

Michael: Regards the cell phone development side of things - i'm really not sure to be honest after what I've been through so far?. Perhaps, if you have any ideas, you can contact me on (Edited Out) which is a forwarder to my account. Thanks though for you thoughts, and yes it was a real shame to get that far and then be forced to close up shop etc. I just ran out of money is the simple answer being self funding for many of the last years in business.

Caveman: I am aware of your dealings with a certain publisher shall we say and both were larger players in the mobile market yes... one being a publisher you would know very well indeed! :) I just did'nt like the business models on offer at the end of the day for either I had actual meetings with and in turn made the whole concept of developing my rather brilliant idea on mobiles all rather wishy washy in terms of income revenue. Basically we were asked to work to Beta with no income with all income returns being post paid royalties - er it's just not the way I like to do business anymore - i.e. working myself and others to death for little or no income - they all wanted too much up front for no money - hence it fell apart and I used up all my cash reserves until I could'nt sustain my small team any further.

Mark: Hi! I still like my M-Theory album the best :) Friend of mine Matt Laws, has some new choons coming from the newly formed Binary Finary and I have heard them - they are really good!. Regards the boxes, most of them were rush jobs as I did'nt get mega rates for drawing them all of course. I still have live games out with Xing also and not had much back off them lately either for all the usual reasons. I had several income streams in the last year, but most have not payed off of dried up of late and it was not possible to continue small business on paper at least... so I killed it off for good. I was working flat out most days on several projects from boxes to mobile to pc games and not making very much out of it - not much fun when you think about it really - so I called it a day for sanity reasons and the fact that if I had not a made a killing by 40 (this Saturday) then I never was going to. I think your game Arcangel (having drawn all the boxes) was in similar release line ups to my own sofware, and I'm still waiting for all those 'larger' royalty payments myself... last time I did your game was for the M2 range via Xing about a month ago, so I would advise you to contact Xing for your share of royalties in due course - you must be owed something by now I would say as your game has been requested for box art designs several times now. I think Blimb did FireFly some time ago also as I did the box for that one as well - i've done a lot of boxes thats for sure!!!.

I may not respond further for a few days as I'm about to celebrate my 40th birthday and look back with a hint of nostalgia no doubt when I get completely 'monged out of my head' this coming weekend hopefully! :)

Cheers 4 now,

Adrian.

[gamemaker]

Thanks for your answer Adrian!...but you did get paid, right?..we're in the same situation as you had been in, but our shareholders have given us brilliant support..long may it continue. Having said that though..they have been recently generous in giving us a payment in lieu of sales for Climber and a small advance for the current game we're working on...they're obviously getting money from somewhere and seem to be making inroads to markets not previously open to them (US and China as examples), so I'm not too despondent...yet!

Have a brilliant 40th birthday :)

[Adrian Cummings]

Hi Gamemaker,

No we did'nt even get off of first base with payments (small development advances) and after 4 months of many meetings and dealings we got tired and I pulled the plug on all of it amongst other problems I had at the time with a j2me programmer.

I'm not saying there is no money in mobile gaming (that would be stupid) but it seems very tricky indeed. I have to conclude that unless you have a brand (I sort of did actually) and want to work for nothing for about 5 months development time then it is not a very solid revenue stream to base further business on as a small developer - I'm in the business (or was) to make money as well as enjoy what I/we create like most others.

Nobody wants to pay anything up front any more and it's all royalty based (eweeeeeeeeeeee)... having worked on PC budget on this model for the best part of the last 6-7 years, I found all the old excuses coming up yet again, but this time in the mobile publishing market place.

What finally killed it off for my side of things was the amount of device fragmentation compared to say a year or so ago - it's really far too much work for nothing (or very little up front) given that we all have to eat and pay bills etc.

Anyway I do of course wish you all the best with sales of Climber and do not wish to come across as harsh on anyone, more to the point I wish everybody well who enters the mobile market place with great expectations... it just was not for us and in turn me at the end of the day as a business plan on paper with rather pathetic returns.

In reality I imagine the mobile market publishing models will settle down in time and perhaps more sensible models will replace the current ones we have now.

To sum up them... mobile games publishing = bit of a farce really from the developers point of view and totally reminds me of all those dodgy Amiga deals I got offered back in the late 80's and early 90's - what a joke! :)

Best regards,

Adrian.

[Reactor]

Doodlebug... heh, I really loved that old game :)

[gamemaker]

Thanks Adrian and yes, it's very tricky to actually get going in the mobile business. The amount of devices coming onto the market almost every month is ridiculous, and yet, we all still have to cater for the ser40 and crappier ones below also - developing an exciting rich game with only 55k to work with is a nightmare...do all developers have this opinion about them, I wonder?

We're gonna keep going as long as we can, but it's certainly not an easy way to make money!.

All the best Adrian, if you have any snippets of advice for all of us they would be gratefully welcomed :)

[baegsi]

The amount of devices coming onto the market almost every month is ridiculous, and yet, we all still have to cater for the ser40 and crappier ones below also - developing an exciting rich game with only 55k to work with is a nightmare...do all developers have this opinion about them, I wonder?The need to port a game to all those crappy devices is one main reason I stopped developing mobile games as an indie. Nothing is impossible, but if all you want is to create games the amount of work for those technical fiddlings is just to much. I started with the wrong promise that developing for small devices would be less work than for PCs, where in fact it's more.

Anyway, don't get depressed by this, the good thing is that more and more small developers are fleeing from the mobile market and the ones who can preserve should be in a very good position.

[Adrian Cummings]

I agree :)

Doodlebug: yes very old now and not bad when I wrote it all those years ago I guess (everybody loved the little yellow submarine ride it seems, even tho it was a very small part of the game heh)... even more to the point Core were great to work with back then as a publisher and least we all got paid and got advances to develop on further etc. - not much like today then sad to say for the smaller indie developers out there - oh well.

Anyone that can keep going in the mobile indie scene certainly has my admiration - PC budget is dire but at least you can actually eat with what you earn (just about!) :)

The general games industry is in the worst state I have ever seen it personally since about 84-85 I think (although I wasnt 'actively' in it back then it has to be said as I didnt start until about 89 full time).

Anyway I'll shut up now :)

Cheers,

Adrian.

[gamemaker]

HaHa Baegsi!...nice thought about small developers fleeing the market and leaving the ones that persevere, that's brightened up my day!, although, we've come very close ourselves on more than one occasion.

It's always been amazing in this business so far, for us, in that..just when we begin thinking that maybe we should look at getting a normal paying job, something turns up that makes us regain all our creative energies and optimism.