the future of game development and where it leads

I'm giving up on development of games using traditional indie tools ie Blitz3d, BlitzMax, GarageGame tools, or any other indie affordable engine out there.

For those who want to develop 3D games I believe tools like Crysis or HL2 will be the right choice.

These games are highly modable using proven and latest technology. You get access to SDK and in Crysis case incredible Sandbox editor that alone can give you the power to create something totally different the the game Crysis without ever writting a line of c++ code. Both engines Crysis and HL2 are heavily supported by developers (Valve and CryTek) who belive in modding and building up strong community.

If you are creative enough to create something that stand out from the crowd you stand a bigger chance to make it if you go with Valve or CryTek then going traditional indie way and doing it all on your own, making your own technolgy and wasting years trying to add latest features,etc

Why use these technologies? Well if you want to have shorter development cycle, use the best technology currently available, want to have enourmous amount of fun doing it and stand a good chance of being published if your game is good enough.

I'm blow away how powerfull crysis sandbox really is, here are some videos of fun you can have playing in crysis. I dont know of any other engine with such advanced technology as crysis is currently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h533uOMKqww

if RedOctober was alive, I'm sure he would digg this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzq2BZsHdY

Ok, well I can find a list of published BlitzMax titles. How many published Indie games have been made with Valve and CryTek's engines? ( Current or previous incarnations is fine. )

Why did you start this kind of post? You are totally dissing the BlitzBasic name posting this.

It's mostly advanced rendering technology with nice editors. But strongly geared towards shooters. Plus the chance of being able to release anything with it other than a mod is extremely unlikely.

Developing a game and moding a game are two entirely different things. If your happy to play with the sandbox editor and experiment with a cutting edge engine thats good. Many of us want to go further and release games and maybe make a business of it if all goes well.

Modding is an ok stop gap if you want an industry job and need a platform to show off your skills. Chances of you actually working with a developer using the CryEngine are pretty remote. Even more common engines like the HL2 and Unreal engine only make up a small proportion of released games.

I agree that Crysis sandbox editor is exceptional, I doubt that producing anything of quality with unique gameplay and media is within the scope of any but the larger more experienced dev teams with stable funding, and established team. Your probably going to have to step back down to normal channels to actually get much chance of releasing anything you make.

...whats the fun in creating game with someone else tool, so good that you cant even feel taste of real game development..I still do belive there is tools outside, very powerful in right hands, and that they can produce title what can be much more close to the quality of the games developed by Source or CryEngine or at least almost same regarding tech, and at same time money/quality ratio is pretty much good...C4 for example..and multiplatform, Win, OSx, PS3...soo...and im not sure that bedroom coder can feed system like Crysis Sandbox properly...you will need team...

It's all about content. You'll never get a game in those engines made unless you fill it to the brim with contect (graphics, sound, music, story, levels etc). Sure you have an engine, but no GAME. That sorta stuff normally takes 10s of man years for AAA titles.

What about if you want to sell your game? Im sure the commercial licencing fees will be very "attractive" too.... not!

As Grey has already posted. Unless you have a very talented team (as in AAA talented) who want to work for free or have money to pay them from investment or your own pocket then this is pretty unrealistic.

That's not entirely true as it depends on what you're after and so it's mainly due to the game concept (beside of licence issues). For instance you could quite easily come up with something like a racing game. This would involve only a few elements done in a good quality and could be done in a more than reasonable time frame as well or you could just do a successful mod which might lead you into a position working professionally with it.

On the other side with the usual indie tools, and the quality they ship in, you can invest all the time with developing an engine or needed features on your own. How many people will fail here on their way? At some point you'll have to make a decision based on your game concept if you prefer developing an engine or if you prefer developing a game instead. Unity is a nice compromise here as it provides reasonable features between the top notch commercial ones and the usual indie stuff. For instance their terrain engine isn't as good as sandbox2 but it's much better than what most of the people would be able to come up with.

So, you either choose the right tool for what you're heading for or restrict your gamedesign to what's doable with a certain tool. Pressing a game concept into a tool which isn't suited for, mostly just is a lack of time if you don't do it for the fun.

Wrong!!!


Wrong!!!

If you make anything that is creative enough and different then the rest of FPS jungle they will help you get your game published.

Ofcourse if you make clone of a clone of a clone without interesting gameplay you will be unnoticed. Most of the games produced today by indies or game industry are like this. You can see that they are doing it for money and not for love of making a game. That's why most of games today are clones of successfull games. How many in our blitz community have not attempted FPS clone or 3Match games because these sell good enough today.

Only few of them are really creative enough, rest is just not even close not because of content but because of uninteresting, repetetive and boring gameplay that has already been done 10000 of times.

I dont think I need to speak about Valve and mods that they have picked up and published as games. This trend will continue since they earn money this way they will support this. I see platforms as Steam/HL2 and Crysis as one possible route available to creative indies that dont want to spend time developing tools but games. Look at the Valve steam, it's a publishing platform and if you can make anything that is interesting and creative enough and I am not talking about making AAA title with ton of content, you are all thinking inside of box, if you think outside of box you'll realise that there is big unexplored area of ideas that can be realised as games that does not need tons of new content.

Why use these technologies??? To save time is the biggest reason. I dont want to spend 3-5 years working on technology. Even if Mark now released Max3D I would not pick it up and start programing my own editor and my own little special game engine so I can say wow I am feeling so nice doing what has been done 1000000 times. That time is past atleast for me. Yeah the experience is nice but I'm not interested in it anymore, give me great tools that save time instead and I'll give you great games.

..are you angry, aa? :)

nein!

Well perhaps littlebit at Mark for not having released Max3D 2 years ago when I was burning to code but now that time is past and I'm looking forward.

are you happy, aa? ;)

hehehe..I dont have reason to be angry..sooo many nice engines out there so its okay..main painful part so far as I can see is always production of good and very quality graphics, models, textures, etc, and it will not dissapear even if you using latest next gen editors/engines..of course related to tools we bedroom boyz using...:) sooo..from my understanding, programming is quite exciting, once you have all media necessary for game done and correct..and programming is usually painful or very tiring because, before you start doing it, we all badly struglling with media and content creation, and spending a lot of time for that, so obviously, frustration after that will impact part we most likely all do here..not art itself..hehe..
I like it dirty.. :)

The thing is, the same people who do little with Blitz will do little with these engines. From the percentage of people who moan about not having the "next" 3D engine, if they actually got what they wanted, about 1% of them (if that) would take it any further than "having a mess". Its been the same since Amos.

I like Blitz, in fact I like a few of the indie languages but I have completed more with C and basic tools/libs than I have ever done with any of these languages. More sometimes isn't always better.

Okay Okay, I was only discussing.

Yes i gathered that :)

What i meant was is; If your game isnt lucky enough to be published by a large house that can afford it , how much does it cost for a commercial engine license to publish it yourself under your own label? Otherwise you might be left with a game you cannot sell at all.

Unless of course this is not an issue for you, but for indies who do it as a full or suppliment income then it is, as i am sure its not going to be cheap.

I tend to agree with you maximo. I often browse the gamedev.net boards and notice just how many 3d engines that people are working on independently and wonder if their games will ever be finished (yes yes I know mine are rarely completed either) . It may well be easier with an engine that you already know the feature set for.

Sure, Valve puvlished a bunch of mods. If the creators of these mods ever saw a buck for it is a different question, and the answer most likely is: no. I guess that's the nature mods. After all, you are using someone else's "intellectual property", that is content and engine, and you are not giving them anything for it either. So it's basically like "we let you do this, buddy, because it increases the sales of OUR game, but, hey, don't get any funny ideas - you want to make money with it, LICENSE our crap!" And licensing the CryEngine 2 or the Source or Doom 3 Engine won't come cheap; we're talking six digits figures here (in USD).

You can use older and by now open sourced id Software engines for free, but then you have to GPL your own game as well. Doesn't really appeal to me either, only for learning purposes.

So unless you have a serious budget to burn, using these technologies won't give you any viable business model at all.

Wrong! If that was the case they would not be very smart to be cheap when game like CS has made HL as popuplar as it is today. Lets be honest HL it self is not such an extraordinray game nor is Valve an extra ordinary game developer, they got lucky when CS got popular and made lots of people aware of HalfLife which made it have longer life then it would get without having successfull mods like CS.

Why are you wrong here? Well:

What I understand they bought the rights from the CS creator to sell CS as their own product. It would be really really stupid and not a good bussiness decision not to pay the person who makes successful mod anything since that would make sure you never get another good mod that puts you and your company that made the original engine in the shining light. If you wanna make sure you'll stay in that light and not have to do all the hard work of comming up with great new ideas and just roll back and watch the sunset go down on some beach, you'll make sure thos bedroom suckers that make succesfull mods get well payed for their efforts. Anything else and nobody sane will ever be making any mods using your engine. These guys understand this and that is why I say that this is one possible future for indie developers that noone has ever heard of...

They give you technology, go ahead and develop a game, if it'sa good one they will publish it them self Valve->Steam or on CryTek case they will help you to take your mod to next level. Visit cryteks website and read about all the effort they are putting into supporting mod scene and their desire to help really talented developers to make it big...

If I were a gamedev company with great engine I would for make sure all original mods made by talented people get what they need to make them successful, it's not because I 'am kind or generous person but because it makes businesses sense, here I have 1000 of people cooking up great game ideas and realizing concepts that would take my own game company years to realize and these guys are doing it for free driven by passion and desire. If now couple of them make really good games that are worth broadcasting and showcasing to the wider audience it would be smart to support these guys. License fees are for boring games!! You sir make an interesting game and the license fees are going to be paying them self either by publisher or by game engine maker...



You are very close minded, aren't you? ;) Status quo here is: develop your own, engine, editor, AI, network, boast to the world how good you are for pulling this off, then wake up and realise you still got nothing, well you got some experience and that may give you job in the industry but then you will be working for someone else and not your self.

Perhaps my standing point is different because I have no big problems creating content www.tridinaut.com is my website so you can check . My history is mixed, I got educated as software engineer but during my schooling I took time and got creative and learned neccessary tools like 3D studio max and learned how to model, texture, animate all on my own. I am not afraid of creating content, it should not be big hurdle to me. I am also not afraid of coding entire game using tool like blitz3D, but I have comed to realise that that time is past for me. It takes too much time to create something if I have to start from the scratch, ofc it's not really from scratch since language like Blitz3D offers alot, but if you level it it is like starting from scratch and from my experience when you code something even the simples projects take long time.

Here I will give you one good example:

One of the members on this forum named Swift is one who I personally consider really talented coder. When it comes to creating technology he is really good and can pull of almost anything of. He has written many additions to blitz which I have used and I can testify that this guy is really really smart cat. Complicated stuff that would take someone half a year Swift can do it in weeks or days if you press him hard enough, but when it comes to simplest of the simplest games which I and you would estimate to take 2-3 months to develop and have it on the net for download, well those seem impossible to finish.

Ask swift how many of his own personal game projects have been published? I'm aware of none, and these are simple projects, but somehow they take years to finish ;)

I am here on earth for a short time, I don't want to spend time creating technology anymore, there are as someone mentioned 100000000 of guys on gamedev.net yearning to do just that. Well i say let them waste their time and let them make the tech.

To me, give me the best tool available! I want to create games not technology that powers them ;)

I think Maximo has mentioned a critical point with the topic of this thread.

The short code samples coming with BMax and the demos in the code archive showing inspiring effects are in a certain way deceiving as the way from there to an operating, complete game even with a small content is far.

I myself now are coding since the release of BMax at an engine giving me the features I want to work with making games - lets say: easy support of a customizable GUI, in game world editor, a scripting engine using a syntax compatible with BMax, storage management for the worlds data and what the points are more - and after two and a half years of coding I hope now I will be in reach of a usable engine at spring next year. But I'm not sure I will finish this project anyway, because during the time you are experiencing effects with the software of your choice you would not have dreamed of when you run the short code samples mentioned above. To tell one of the worse, the debugbuilt has turned out at a certain point to crash the .exe reliable after a certain time, and since then I have had to work without BMax'es debug-support at all (Since then I am prepared for other surprises, may be some day I get the message: "File too large to compile" or something in this manner).

Nevertheless the chance of getting at last an application making my own ideas coming true makes it worth for me to use Bmax.

Well, i hardly ever post on the blitz forums anymore. I just check it daily to see whats going on in the community. I must say that some of the points that MAXIMO made, i realized them a long time ago. The problem is not that we aren't talented coders, the problem is that we are always reinventing the wheel over and over and over again.

Yeah *if* I was gonna make a 3D game (and had a huge budget) I'd use an established 3D engine for sure to save time. Makes perfect sense. But I'm still into 2D and that's why I've made a 2D game framework, to save time for future games.

The only thing they believe in is money, and getting people like you to do their jobs for them.

No. They will publish their game, and pay you a pittance.

Every business is doing it for money. Most games have always been clones of other, often more successful games. Even games made for love, not money (like FreeCiv) is a clone of a successful game.

Or DICE who hired the guys who wrote the Desert Combat mod. Then fired them right after they released Battlefield 2? Seriously, Valve do not publish HL mods for the kindness of their hearts, or love of mediocre videogames. They do it to ship more units of Half-life and because they get as much as a 75% kickback on every mod sold using their technology. So basically money.

Why would that not be smart? They were making money, selling the original Half-life, so people could play CounterStrike! It's free money! Doesn't get much better than that!

No. They just hired them.

Except you don't have to pay them well. Those bedroom suckers typically aren't in it for the money anyhow. Besides if you have that great a game, you would be stupid to give it to Valve instead of starting your own company (like the authors of Natural Selection did) and go hunting for venture capital.

Except here's the kicker. There is no guaranteed formula for success. You could be pumping millions of dollars into a great, original game (like Sacrifice, Beyond Good and Evil or Psychonauts) that nobody ends up buying, or you could give out alms to a unimaginative, boring game (like Neverwinter Nights 2) that everyone buys. If there were absolutely positively guaranteed to always be successful games, original or regurgitated, you'd never have to accidentally buy another Rise of the Robots.

Or alternatively: Buy someone else's, or hell, just use one of the free ones.

As opposed to working for Valve or Crytek? I don't see how that works out. Regardless of whether you get hired by Value to regurgitate the same game 20 times over that was originally a mod for their engine (like say CounterStrike) or hired by some other developer to regurgitate their same games over and over again, doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Even Will Wright doesn't get to make his own games, what are the odds you could pull this off when he can't?

It's not only about skill. It's about volume.

Didn't he make that LEGO game?

Sure. If I were a betting man, I'd say this is one of the reasons Grey Alien is selling his framework. However not everyone fantasizes about becomming the next Miyamoto Shigeru. I would guess that to the lions share of people here, programming videogames is a hobby.

Yeah and you have figured out what kind of people I am :D

I wonder if you have any demos or games developed using blitzmax or blitz3D? Would you care to show us? Since you have been a long time member of this community I belive that have you managed to produce something worty.

I am not saying that I'm somebody who has done anything better but I am just keen to see your track record of either interesing tech demos or published games or attempts of making a game. You the all know wiz, having all the answers why dont you show us some games you have done.

If you dont have anything to show, then tell me what value do you see when it comes to blitz and making games. Value to your self, not the rest of community. Can you tell me how you feel and your vision of future game development? Where will it lead? Do you really belive that indies should not touch engines like HL2, Crysis and rest that are getting better and better and with time will allow of fast prototyping of any kind of game, no longer being tied to FPS genre but with powerfull editors being able to make almost any kind of games.

My vision is that with time Valve and Crytek will turn into something like GarageGames inviting you to use their technology and helping the best teams by pushing their games and publishin them. If not these two then some other player in the industry who understands that community can produce some real gems without initial payment will suport this and with time turn into publisher offering their technology to anyone with talents and time to develop something interestin. That is how I see it. Somebody is going to do it, Valve is already attempting this with Steam.

You can say what you want to say, but you know your self if you were one of CEOs of these companies you would do well to support as much as you can modding teams and turn your company into publisher, not traditional publisher but online publisher something like Valve is doing with Steam. Now they are making money of every game sold thru their portal/client. Ching ching... while you mikkel are still in your badroom with your 15 teamete coworkers trying to figure out what shader to implement for the clone game you have put a spin on and are hopping to have the next hit on the market ;)

You got my point? Ofcourse you do! Perhaps now you can enlight me even more?

I thought they were games?!?

Yes but with great modding tools.
But I don't see the point in "not coding a single line"

What an absurd and totally off reality statement was that?
Ever had a look at HL2?
Even OGRE is easy to overcome compared to it. If you want to do anything else than a shooter, you will have to do what is called modding (no modding is not clicking around in an editor, thats called level building and only a minimal part of an own mod) and this includes heavy work on sources as well, not just some funny editors you might like.

well master perhaps you though wrong and reconsideration is needed ;)


Sorry about that one, I was speaking of Crysis sandbox editor and not having to code in c++ or anything else. Ofc you would have to do some scripting in the editor it self, but that is another story...

maybe you should take a look at PowerRender7 ..it has nice editor and very affordable price, DX9/10 support, and full set of features you can dream of for such money..'njoyy :)

If you have worked in the industry you will know its a cut throat business, not just for developers, but for publishers too. There is the miniscule chance of getting noticed. And so many hurdles to cross in getting a game published.

Even decent almost finished self funded games get turned down frequently depending on how the marketing department evaluate your game, and whether it fits their predictions for the next year or so. Thats assuming you already made a game and are not asking for a cash advance on a non completed game.

Almost no chance of getting a commercial game published with any engine.

Maybe it's worth to say that you can also do 2D casual like games just in 3D. This way they often look and feel nicer but still don't need insane budgets. It's somehow funny to read that for some the step from 2D to 3D automatically means going full price and AAA instead of just providing the same gameplay more nicely presented.

Plenty. About 60MB worth.

No.

Worthy of what?

Because that's not why I program in BlitzMAX / Blitz3D. I use BlitzMAX not out of some deluded wish to become a professional developer (I already am). I program in BlitzMAX because it's an unassuming language, that gives me the results I want faster than most of the languages I use in my day job.

Relaxation. That's what value Blitz products give me. The opportunity to do what I enjoy without the pressure of impossible deadlines and unreasonable customers.

The problem with that is that my vision of future game development is quite the opposite of what current trends are suggesting.

That's a loaded question. Personally I don't play video games for the technology. I play video games for entertainment.

Really? How many indie games are on Steam then? None? Pretty much.

If I were the CEO of any company I would do well to support my shareholders. I would probably do the same thing Sierra did to Dynamix, DICE did to Trauma Studios or EA did to practically everyone. Replace them with someone cheaper once I've taken everything they have.

Actually no. I'm at work, writing customized code for the Escenic CMS system. In my opinion better technology does not make better games. For an excellent example see Tempest -> Tempest 2000 -> Tempest 3000 -> Space Giraffe. :o>

For the record, an "AAA" game is one that's amongst the top 1% sales and review scores. So games like Super Mario Brothers, Bejeweled, Zelda64, FIFA'98 and The Sims are in, games like Crysis are out. Being AAA is not about budget, it's about results.

Even a game like Psychonauts is out, because while it got rave reviews, it didn't get the necessary sales figures.

Actually he is right, crysis and HL2 are games.

I thought all this time you may have been on about using the "cryengine 2" and whatever is behind HL2.
Or do you simply mean simply changing the media & dynamic logic for the existing games joining the hordes of other fanboi 'modders' out there?

I want to program it from zero! For me it's actually the challenge to create something cool using my own code. Could be that I never release my results -mostly because halfway I got bored and started something else-, but that's just me: a hobbyist programmer who likes programming. Years ago I wanted to do games, but doing games on your own led to the conclusion that you need quite some custom editors 'n such. Hence -> B+. Next problem would be gfx, as I'm not a 100% gfx-person I had to invent some structured way to create/program gfx -> my texture generator. And like this there are another oodles o' things you need to count when you're on your own. Eventually I put the idea of doing games on hold and purely do editors 'n other silly stuff.
I'd never want to use those drag 'n drop game editors.. it defeats all the programming fun!

I don't think so. That's somehow really nonsense to me as it's the same as if you would say:

If i can hit the compile button in BlitzMax that kills the fun for me. I'm only happy if i can open up vi and start a script in order to get the compilation started.

In good drag&drop tools you can do both, code and drag&drop. It's just that according to the problem in one case using the editor is the better solutions whilst in another case going by code is the way to go. Just think of picking up a certain colour:

#1
Enter rgbs, compile, watch, alter, compile, watch, ...
#2
As soon as you get tired of this you'll write a little code which can do a colour selection and shows/saves you the desired colour.

#3
Or you just open up the colour palette in the editor in order to get the desired value by watching the object/scene whilst altering it without the need to write your own solution first.

Accumulate such situations and you know why a lot of projects aren't finished, as they don't focus on the primary goal and get already lost here.

im personally against total control over game development on the 'point&click' way...but Im also heavily agree with Taumel here..having editor in order to set up things easy and fast regarding visual appearance, while still I will be able to control it later trough code, is big plus from my point of view...

CS_TBL

if you buy a big engine today you have normaly ~150Mb of source & includes and ~600 mb workflow (editors, tools, docs,). Some engines have 5-6GB of videos online (backstage) to learn all this in some weeks (months).

Nobody will use in 2007 a prof. engine only with source and 8000 pages of api description. The time where an engine was only one .a file and some headers is finished. ;)

If you like to do that as your hobby...ok. But that is not the way to produce software for the market today.


Shure, i also not. But you must make the differnce between a simple Editor and an engine with workflow and support.....and that is the future of game developing for third party. Use good workflows to produce quick and good..time is money. ;)

cu

Righty then, I guess I've never invested time in those editors anyway. Anyway: I'm into oldskool games anyway.. I bet there's little one can get for that?

i like a nice mix of both, i like to code my own game using proper code, but use editors for the dynamic data to avoid hardcoding as much as possibl.

He's got a point, look at Portal and Counterstrike. Of course everyone else made a good point ... that's not a lot of games to be picked up and published by the developer. I don't know of any that use CryEngine and I think there might be some Unreal stuff out there but not really the same sort of "under our wing" stuff as Valve has done.

Then again how many Blitz, DarkBASIC, Torque developers have enjoyed as much success as the Portal and Counterstrike teams?

There are many paths to success, if you feel modding would work better for you then do it. I personally touch on all types of development, choosing the best path and platform for a given title.

Both Portal and CounterStrike were professionally developed and funded by Valve, so don't exactly qualify as indie games.

I don't think it's fair to compare the traditional Blitz/DarkBASIC/Torque developers, who are mostly part-time developers with limited funds, to games professionally developed and funded by Valve, one of the largest developers and publishers in the industry. But sure, I'm guessing GarageGames (formerly Dynamix) are doing fairly well for themselves.

Garage games are doing well for themselves, but not through getting games published successfuly so much. For every released Torque game, theres probably at least a dozen released blitz ones.

Both Portal and Counterstrike were developed by part time modders and/or students and then picked up by Valve after the fact.

Yawn. Are we talking about game creating systems? You know, where everygame is the same - based on the particular framework.

You might as well use click and play products. This kind of attitude will kill the game industry. There is more to games than first person shooters.



Good.

No. Only the original prototypes. The games they have on Steam, are developed in house by Valve by teams of professional developers (of which some of the original developers are part of).

The problem is that for every CounterStrike or Portal there are a hundred The Specialists, Natural Selections and The Battle Grounds (all way more original than CS and Portal). Thinking you'll be more successful moding existing games, as opposed to writing your own, seems somewhat presumptuous, and without much merit. Particularly if you're not interested in making a "samey" game.

Well CS was the original Mod to commercial game (done by the original developers after Valve took them under wing). Portal is really just something different that I don't think should be compared. Many of those other mods are just go betweens that will never get any more than a tiny spot on PC gamer for their efforts. It's really just a matter of timing, right quality, right content, right team, right time.

Portal is just a dumbed down version of Narbacular Drop. What is it you don't think it should be compared to? Because it wasn't a Half-life mod, it's not indie?

Sure. But that's true regardless of whether you're writing a mod (CounterStrike) or a game from scratch (Portal).

@FlameDuck

Thats very true..

You are right that you will never get anything near as good as Crysis if you start from scratch with Blitz3D or something really simple. If you try to write your own system you will end up spending years on it. I happen to like engine design better than games, so I am happy with it. But if you want to make a game, you should use something that gives you a foundation to work with.

Crysis is a very neat combination of good tools, good art, and good programming. I really like the Sandbox editor, and it reminds me a lot of Garry's mod for HL2.

@Leadwerks makes really good points and he should know since he has been in this game for long time.

Sure, if you just want to make a game, go for it, sounds great...

But, I still think its impractical to use for 'indies' who do it for small-medium scale professional reasons.

There are no shortcuts and major companies are not about to let a load of independents loose to make loads of money with their multi million dollar, state-of-the-art hard work for nothing (which is what an indie affordable licence fee is worth to them).
Unless of course its for either non-commercial fanboy stuff (a bonus to their reputation, a free idea pool & free M.R.) -or- for their own commercial gain (ie, if you were lucky enough to write a game good enough to be noticed from the 10000s doing it, then only they are allowed to sell it)