An indie without broadband is possible?

[Jack Norton]

I suspect I am the one with the worst connection here - single ISDN with a crap flat that disconnects every 2h or so... :)
But my original question is: you think that a good connection is essential to be a successful indie? or in any case how important it is? in my opinion is very important. I could make many examples, like:
1) you want to develop a game for pocketpc, you're enthusiast then when you click on download PocketPc SDK 2004 you see "30h remaining"... you turn off pc and go playing soccer
2) you try to do some marketing yourself but while browsing the sloooow pages of websites you fall asleep
3) someone found a critical bug in the new update you just submitted to over 1000 sites - you quickly fix the bug and upload the new version, it's only 8mb. But when you reach 95% the connection fails. You start to have a deep crisis

note: all of the above happened to me. Actually I wonder how I managed to finish 6 games... :eek:

[Phil Newton]

But think of the productivity gains from not being able to surf the web for hours at a time. No wonder you've completed six games!

[Jack Norton]

Ha well, haven't thought about that in effect... :D

[kerchen]

I wouldn't call myself a successful indie yet (I had to go back to working for someone else after giving it a shot), but I've been able to manage with a 28.8 dialup connection for three years now. Most of the time, I don't have a problem with it. Using Internet Download Accelerator makes me more-or-less immune to failed downloads and even big downloads (like the latest DirectX SDK) don't bother me too much. Uploads stink, but fortunately they're not that frequent and if I have a time-critical upload, I'll take it to a computer with a faster connection. In some ways, I'd say having a slow connection even *helps* me because it keeps me aware of the fact that there are a lot of potential customers with slow connections. I'm sure my attitude will change when I can finally get broadband (at a reasonable price) again, though. :D

[Sharpfish]

currently on a 3mb cable broadband connection. I rarely use it (the bandwidth) and it is going soon (I am moving house) I may even be without a connection for a while!

I will get broadband again asap, for an online business an internet connection IS required but.. not sure how important the speed is. Though it can make it easier uploading demos/software to sites etc of course.

Anything above 500k is enough for me in reality.

[Jack Norton]

Wow so there's worse than single ISDN :)
Well I might relocate soon too, I think I'll get single ISDN+satellite connection. I'd use Sat connection just for big downloads and isdn for uploading 5-6mb games is ok (even if takes about 15-20min). Unfortunately here I can't have flat isdnx2 at reasonable cost, otherwise that would be the best one, 16kB/s of upload is enough :)

[Ricardo C]

I'm on a shared 256kb connection, and manage just fine. I download art assets, send out demos, and indulge my latest hobby, flirting with Linux via live CD distros. This past weekend I downloaded something like 1.5GB worth of Linux stuff. Before that, I was on dial-up, getting something like 6kb/s when downloading, and I still managed to cover my game dev needs. Then again I wasn't trying to run a business yet.

[ggambett]

I'm on 256/64 ADSL - 26 KB/s download and 6.7 KB/s upload, in practice. I do just fine. Uploading a 14 MB build is slooooow (over half an hour) (and I had to upload a LOT of builds in a short period of time recently when we released Wendy), but I can live with that.

[C_Coder]

Wow so there's worse than single ISDN :)
Well I might relocate soon too, I think I'll get single ISDN+satellite connection. I'd use Sat connection just for big downloads and isdn for uploading 5-6mb games is ok (even if takes about 15-20min). Unfortunately here I can't have flat isdnx2 at reasonable cost, otherwise that would be the best one, 16kB/s of upload is enough :)

Since you're in Italy, did you try Alice? or is it too expensive?

[svero]

When I initially moved to se asia I worked on a really crappy 56.6 connection through an old pbx from the 70's that limited the connection speed, as that was all that was available at the time. It was a pain to be sure, but I managed.

[Jim Buck]

Every week I need to do some major research online for some problem or another and end up visting dozens of sites. I can't imagine having to do this without broadband and not end up taking white hot needles and poking them into my eye sockets instead.

[george]

Every week I need to do some major research online for some problem or another and end up visting dozens of sites. I can't imagine having to do this without broadband and not end up taking white hot needles and poking them into my eye sockets instead.

same here. i cannot imagine working without broadband. i get about 500-700KB (kiloBYTE) per/sec downloads and i think my upload is 25-50KB. if i need to download a SDK or tool or update, i get it almost instantly -- that makes a big difference in productivity and potential (i can get anything i need without worry about download times). the speed is also essential when researching APIs or code on the internet. i can download dozens of competitor products instantly and immediately do research and comparisons.

sure it's possible to be an indie with a slow connection, but if you can get broadband, i definitely recommend it. the extra $10 or $20 or $30 a month you will pay for internet will pay for itself quickly...

[Jack Norton]

Since you're in Italy, did you try Alice? or is it too expensive?
The coverage is the problem. LOT of places in Italy, except the big towns, aren't covered by DSL. I live just 35km from a friend who has 4mb/s connection :D

[NuriumGames]

In my opinion a BroadBand connection is not needed. Currently I have a 512/128 ADSL that was updated from 256/128 a few months ago (I think,but I don't really mind, it is going to be updated to 1024/??? in a few weeks). The change from 256 to 512 hasn't modified my productivity at all, I don't know but I don't need big downloads to work, maybe one once in while but they are rare.

Most of BreakQuest was developed with a dial up connection and the problem was not the speed but that the connection was too expensive during the morning and the fact that when I was connected to the internet the telephone would not work so I had to limit a lot mi connection time, this coupled with the low speed was the problem, but not a big problem in any case.

Now I have 24h connection with more speed that I want, is this a good think for my productivity? don't really know, but I like it :D

[gpetersz]

The coverage is the problem. LOT of places in Italy, except the big towns, aren't covered by DSL. I live just 35km from a friend who has 4mb/s connection :D

Well, that's strange...
Somehow I thought that western europe should do it better, but seemingly it is the other way... :confused:

In the last 5 days DSL reached the smallest villages in availability. If the people can bear the price, well that's an other story.
The bigger companies only started to lower the price in the last 1-2 years
:)

Now it is around $40/month. (1024 kbit/DSL)
Actually I pay $20 because my wife works for one of these communication companies... :D

[soniCron]

Well, I've had a cable connection for the past 2 years, and I'd rather live in a well than live without it! ;) I'm running on a 6Mbit connection, getting around 512KBytes/sec download. The number of games, usually from indies, I download is significant, and I like the fact that I don't have to be picky about what I get. If I see something I like, I download it. In less than a minute (provided their server can keep up!) I've got it. It usually takes longer to install-start-wait-for-load than download.

I wouldn't live without this level of flexibility. I find myself visiting somewhere around 480 pages in a day. I listen to internet radio streams on two computers simultaneously all day. (No, I'm not listening to them both! My wife listens to one as well!) I run an FTP server for internal beta testing. (Note: "internal" != "same-location") I'm actually intentionally not moving to the place I'd like to, because they're still stuck with 250kbit DSL. Though I bet most devs don't spend as much time or doing as much stuff as I do on the internet, I think most would agree that broadband is important. But not "required".

Edit: Oh, and I pay $68/month for this convenience.

[Jack Norton]

Well, that's strange...
Somehow I thought that western europe should do it better, but seemingly it is the other way... :confused:

Italy is an exception. I talked with french and german guys and the situation is much better. No surprise Italy fell from 23th to 530rd place in the most technological country in the world, being surpassed by Tunisia and other "poor" countries... :eek:

[Nexic]

When I'm releasing a game and sending out new versions every couple of days I need it, but 80% of the time (when I'm developing) it's not important at all. I'm pretty certain I'd be more productive if I couldn't access the internet so much...

[jpantuso]

If you have no choice but to have only limited bandwidth, there is one thing you could do that might improve some of your situations. If you get a co-located server that you can remote desktop into, you could use it as an intermediary for some activities.

For example if you need to upload an update to a whole bunch of sites, instead of doing it all through your limited connection you could upload it once to your remote machine and then upload it from there.

It's even possible for you to put your build tools and/or installer tools up there and only need to transfer the changed parts (which are probably much smaller than your whole install) and rebuild the installer remotely and go from there.

Also when downloading you can download it quickly to the remote machine and then once you know you've got it you can trickle it down to your local machine, or even open up whatever it is remotely to get at what you need.

Remote desktop works amazingly well over bandwidth limited connections, much better than VNC or PC Anywhere.