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News is out!
News is out!
| Name: | Josh Williams |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Sep 18, 2007 | |
| Rating: |  4.7 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Josh Williams |
Blog post
Well, we've been sitting on this news for awhile, and it's great to finally announce it! We're very excited to let everyone know that GarageGames has partnered up with InterActive Corporation, IAC, to build a brand new network of action games playable in the browser, and to fund independent games, all in accordance with our long-standing philosophy, vision, and mission at GG.
As far as publicity goes, to get the word out there, we decided to talk about the business end of our deal with IAC first, as we knew it'd cause all kinds of questions, and we wanted to answer them frankly. We figure it's best to be honest about it, now that we're ready and able to talk. This is why the stories you're reading online today are pretty deal-oriented and chalk full of business terms. From here, we'll be talking a lot about what we've been working on lately, and what we'll be doing in the future, which will be much more interesting (at least to most everyone on our site :).
Similarly, in this blog, to get the big sticky questions out of the way, I'll start off by talking about the deal we cut with IAC, what it means, and why we did it. Then, I'll move onto the really cool stuff, including what we're working on now, the future of Torque, and how we're funding games. I'll be totally straight in this blog, as this is obviously huge news for us.
Why were we interested in funding at all?
We were interested in funding to try and do a better job fulfilling our mission. Since Jeff, Rick, Tim and Mark started the company 8 years ago, and since many of us joined up early on working for beans as we bootstrapped the company, the fundamental mission for GarageGames was pretty simple (yet powerful)... make the industry a better place for developers. By doing that, more great games would get made, which would be better for gamers everywhere.
GG started out working toward this mission by focusing on providing professional quality game technology and tools at prices literally anyone could afford, democratizing game development, in a sense. There's no getting around the fact that making games is just plain hard, and it takes a lot of talent and work to get one finished-- let alone to make it fun and appealing. We can't change that. But at least GG put a stake in the ground and took on one of the biggest hurdles facing aspiring game developers and indie teams-- access to affordable, effective game technology.
But making it easier to create games is half the battle, at best. Part and parcel to GarageGames' mission was to help developers get their games to market successfully and find their audiences. That is a massive challenge, as anyone who has shipped a game will tell you. At GG, we've taken some steps to try and help indies get their games to market-- we created the basic Game Store here on GG.com, which publishes lots of fun indie titles, and we have helped establish some successful games there. We've helped broker deals for a few games to break onto Xbox Arcade, casual portals, mobile devices, and other emerging, indie-accessible channels. We created The Great Games Experiment, a social-networking site for gamers and game developers to promote games and find friends.
While these were all good efforts, we've never had the resources at hand to fundamentally change the game and carve out new space that'd really help developers be successful.
With IAC, that is exactly what we're doing now. We've been dreaming of a new, better way to develop, distribute and play games online for a few years now, and we've been working on the technology to support that dream for a couple years, behind the scenes. I'll talk about the details below, but the bottom-line is... we started looking at funding possibilities because we wanted to do a better job helping other developers build their games and be successful with them.
There's no way we or any other single company can help every single game out there that deserves attention and success. But what we can do, now, is truly become the publisher and developer partner that we always wanted to be. We'll help lots of teams succeed, and we'll help drive the industry even further toward establishing newer, more developer-friendly channels and markets.
We've been actively building out a new network of games at InstantAction.com (which everyone in the GarageGames community will soon get early access to, as you'll all be given accounts at IA). We're working on games ourselves, and we're funding games on very developer-friendly terms that allow both us and the developers we're working with to win. Of course, we'll doing all this while continuing to push forward (harder than ever) on Torque and our commitment to developer tools.
There's much more to talk about in all this, and this blog is just the beginning...
What kind of deal did we do with IAC?
As must be expected when doing a big hairy announcement like we just did... sometimes not everything you want to say gets across cleanly in print. However, I want everyone to know that our deal with IAC was and is fundamentally compatible with our philosophies at GG, and the internal plans we had in place.
As some of you have read in the announcements by now though, IAC has acquired a majority of the equity at GG. However, we used a very unique structure in our deal with them. While IAC now has the majority of the future economic value of GG, we continue to run the shop right here in good old Eugene, OR.
IAC is a very smart, savvy group of people and they recognized right away how passionate and committed we were to making great games, to treating developers fairly, and to our philosophies here. As such, our deal is structured to accommodate all that, and to make sure we stay true to our goals. As it's headed up by people with a lot of experience in creative industries, IAC also understands the importance of creative control, and treating both content creators (developers) and audiences (gamers) the right way.
So, our wording in the press release and such today involves IAC's new majority stake in GG's equity, and we wanted to be honest about that. But keep this in mind too: we wouldn't have done this deal without knowing for sure that we'd have the freedom to stay true to our mission, and we of course made sure that freedom was baked into the deal structure itself.
Our partnership with IAC is a big one, and it's truly built for the long-term. IAC is helping us in a huge way, through funding and through sharing expertise and resources, to build an awesome new game network, alongside our existing commitment to providing great developer tools (and we've got a bunch of exciting stuff to talk about on that in the coming weeks as well).
Why did we want to work with IAC?
Simply put, IAC was and is the perfect partner for us. We couldn't have dreamed of a better deal structure, or a better company to work with.
As anyone watching the industry sees today, games are heating up, and all kinds of investment is pouring into the industry. This is actually a great thing for developers and for gamers, because it means that there is more funding available out there, and that new kinds of games and distribution channels are being built.
At GG, we were and are offered funding on a regular basis. However, we never found a partner who really seemed to get the industry, to share our vision, or who we found willing to work with us in a way we honestly felt would allow us to stay true to who we are. We were very hesitant about VC or any such form of funding, as we didn't want to be under pressure to "flip"... eg sell the company to the highest bidder, or go public really quickly, which is what most VC is built to do, but obviously not what we're all about here.
So, even though we've always had a big vision and we figured it'd take more than we could hope to bootstrap on our own to truly fulfill that vision, we were always hesitant to take on any funding, or bring in any sort of partner. Call us untrusting... but that's smart in the world of big business. :)
With IAC, we finally found a perfect partner, though. To me, there are three overarching reasons why this is true:
Vision. IAC had an uncannily similar vision to ours at GG. They'd been looking at games for years, hoping to see an opportunity to help transform the industry and carve out a new market by building a great new online game network. We shared practically all the same ideas. I met with Shana Fisher from IAC in New York a long time ago, and it was eery talking to her... the challenges and opportunities she and IAC saw facing the games industry were the same exact challenges and opportunities we saw. IAC's ideas were uncannily similar to the vision that Jeff, Mark, myself and really the whole founding crew and team here had.
Entrepreneurship. With IAC, we found a partner that truly understood us, and how to build and support great businesses in general. IAC has a very entrepreneurial approach, and we have the physical and mental space to really do what's best. At the same time, we have access to amazingly talented, strategic thinkers, and the resources of a huge organization to lean on. Truly, we now have the best of both worlds... we run and operate as a small, nimble, entrepreneurial company with a big vision and a lot to get done... yet we have the support and resources of a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded, well-connected company with a great deal of web expertise and experience backing us up. That is amazingly cool and powerful.
In case you didn't hear it... GG just dinged. Level up!
People. Straight up, IAC is full of incredibly bright, super talented, dedicated, strategic, passionate people. Shana Fisher is one of the smartest business people I've ever spoken with. Barry Diller's track record speaks for itself, and it's incredibly exciting to be able to work with him and the reast of the team there. Jeff and I met a lot of the team at IAC, and the people there were a big factor in deciding the partnership with IAC was the right call. In fact, we recruited one of IAC's lead people to come work with us directly at GG. We hired Andy Yang a few months ago to spearhead our web efforts and InstantAction! Andy, truly, is one of the most impressive, intelligent, and dedicated people we've ever met, in any setting. It is an honor and a pleasure (and a huge win for us) to have the opportunity to work with the people at IAC.
Really, these are the overarching reasons we proceeded to talk with IAC, whereas we normally dismissed offers for funding and the like.
When did this happen, and why did it take us a while to talk about it publicly?
Our deal with IAC actually went down several months ago. As you can tell... we're still the same place we've always been (just better, more effective, and able to do more). We didn't announce it right away because we didn't want to do one of those vaporware releases you so often see. In most cases, people jump up and down about doing a deal, talk about all the crazy stuff they'll be doing, and then go dark for several months as they scramble to actually get something done.
We didn't want to do that. We wanted to hold off until we actually had something worthwhile talking about... not just brag about the fact that we did some big deal.
We finally announced because the InstantAction.com closed beta is starting in just a few days, and we're accepting registrations for early access now. We've poured a ton of work into InstantAction already, and with IAC we're investing millions of dollars into its continued development. We already have a bunch of cool stuff running, and we'll be taking the veil off it all soon.
IA beta testers get access to the games we're working on, and all the games our partner teams and studios are working on, as well as all the features we're building into InstantAction itself. Beta testers will even get sneak peaks at new concepts and newly proposed games, and can help us decide what to work on next and how it'll look and feel. So, we wanted to wait to get the word out there until we had this truly worthwhile stuff to talk about.
What is InstantAction?
I can't do InstantAction justice by answering this question briefly in the middle of a long blog. So, we'll be talking about this a lot more in the near future. For now, I'll keep this very brief.
InstantAction is a new place to play games. We're working on games here at GG and we're working with great indie studios of all kinds, from some of the biggest names in the industry to total unknowns with great ideas and the ability to get them done. We're building a bunch of great new games that focus squarely on being fun. They'll all be playable in the browser, and they'll be rich, core-oriented, and often multiplayer games. Effectively, we are building a web-based console... and just like a console, we'll have a wide variety of games and will be working with lots of developers and eventually perhaps even other publishers to create games for it.
For gamers, InstantAction will be and is a place to find great games and to connect with friends to play.
Again, many more details to come, and we'll look forward to seeing all of you in the IA beta, soon. :)
What kinds of games are we looking for?
Again, we'll be talking about this a lot more soon, so I'll be brief here. Fundamentally, we are of course just looking for fun games. We want games that appeal to a core audience of gamers and ex-gamers, pretty much anywhere in the world. We're building games that are designed to interface with the web, and leverage the unique advantages and cool features we are building into InstantAction.
We're looking for lots of games too, and are even funding some. So, if you've got a great idea and truly have the chops to get it done, get in touch with us at games@garagegames.com.
How are we working with developers?
As I said above, we've now been able to become the publisher we always wanted to work with. We're funding many games, and doing so in a way that lets everyone involved win. We have the best developer terms in the industry, and they're right in line with our long-standing philosophies.
This is one of the most exciting parts of this announcement, and we'll be sharing a lot more details on this in the near future. And, by the way, if you want the full scoop, IGC is for you.
What does all this mean for Torque, and the GG community?
Very good things. We're getting more done on Torque than we ever have before. As you've seen, we recently pushed out updates to TGB, TGEA, and TGE, while shipping Torque X and more. But all of this work pales in comparison to what we have to announce in the coming weeks for Torque, and the community here at GG. We're pushing Torque forward in a huge way, re-vamping and overhauling the engine and tools in ways we couldn't have before. We can't wait to share the updates with everyone, and we have a bunch of cool stuff for the community up our sleeve. More details coming very soon.
Suffice it to say, we're getting more done on Torque than we ever have. Honestly, for a long while there, it was really hard to break out and make big, important changes to Torque. We were bootstrapping GG, which basically meant we lived hand to mouth, month-to-month on the business from licensing Torque. That makes it hard to try and do anything really revolutionary, or take any big risks. So, I feel like we were starting to stagnate. For the past few months, we've been able to truly step back and look at the big picture, and figure out what we want to do with Torque and our developer tools, and how we can really make them better. That's lead to some great work getting done, and we're excited to talk about it with everyone very soon (suggestion: again, come to IGC, and get the story).
What's changed at GG since the deal happened?
Well, we're bigger now, but actually not by a lot. A couple years ago, we doubled size in one year. We haven't grown that much this year, and in fact our growth rate is about the same as last year. But overall, we've added a bunch of great new members to the team at GG.
We've been building out InstantAction. We've been making new games! :) And we've been pushing forward harder and faster on Torque.
We're constantly trying to improve internally, to become more effective and efficient, and to do a better job defining and achieving our goals and promises. Like any company, we're growing and changing, but our soul is still the same. We're just empowered to do more, now.
Fundamentally... did we sell out?
Being perfectly honest, no, we didn't. On a philosophical level and in terms of what we're working on and how we're operating, we just took the right steps to do what we always wanted to. I'm sure we could've cut a better deal with someone, if all we cared about was making bucks from selling out GG. But we have to sleep at night, and look at ourselves in the mirror every morning, and money in and of itself is only so valuable. So, no souls were sold, I'm happy to say. :)
Of course, we obviously traded in the majority of the economic interest in GarageGames, so in that regard we did sell a lot. But we did so in exchange for a great partner and a better way to do what we've always wanted to. And even economically, the deal with IAC is structured such that it'll work out better for everyone involved (IAC, GG itself and our employees, and our external partners) now that we're supported by a great partner in IAC and have the resources to truly bring the longstanding visions Jeff and others originally laid out for the company to reality.
So, there's the straight dope on this whole announcement, and our new partner, IAC. I hope I answered the the most important, immediate questions that seeing this hit the stories and blogs brought to mind for everyone. Thanks very much for reading, and I'll do my best to reply to comments as soon as possible. We'll be talking about all this-- especially our plans for InstantAction, Torque, and new games-- in a lot more detail in the very near future! This is all very exciting stuff, and we can't wait to talk about it all more.
As far as publicity goes, to get the word out there, we decided to talk about the business end of our deal with IAC first, as we knew it'd cause all kinds of questions, and we wanted to answer them frankly. We figure it's best to be honest about it, now that we're ready and able to talk. This is why the stories you're reading online today are pretty deal-oriented and chalk full of business terms. From here, we'll be talking a lot about what we've been working on lately, and what we'll be doing in the future, which will be much more interesting (at least to most everyone on our site :).
Similarly, in this blog, to get the big sticky questions out of the way, I'll start off by talking about the deal we cut with IAC, what it means, and why we did it. Then, I'll move onto the really cool stuff, including what we're working on now, the future of Torque, and how we're funding games. I'll be totally straight in this blog, as this is obviously huge news for us.
Why were we interested in funding at all?
We were interested in funding to try and do a better job fulfilling our mission. Since Jeff, Rick, Tim and Mark started the company 8 years ago, and since many of us joined up early on working for beans as we bootstrapped the company, the fundamental mission for GarageGames was pretty simple (yet powerful)... make the industry a better place for developers. By doing that, more great games would get made, which would be better for gamers everywhere.
GG started out working toward this mission by focusing on providing professional quality game technology and tools at prices literally anyone could afford, democratizing game development, in a sense. There's no getting around the fact that making games is just plain hard, and it takes a lot of talent and work to get one finished-- let alone to make it fun and appealing. We can't change that. But at least GG put a stake in the ground and took on one of the biggest hurdles facing aspiring game developers and indie teams-- access to affordable, effective game technology.
But making it easier to create games is half the battle, at best. Part and parcel to GarageGames' mission was to help developers get their games to market successfully and find their audiences. That is a massive challenge, as anyone who has shipped a game will tell you. At GG, we've taken some steps to try and help indies get their games to market-- we created the basic Game Store here on GG.com, which publishes lots of fun indie titles, and we have helped establish some successful games there. We've helped broker deals for a few games to break onto Xbox Arcade, casual portals, mobile devices, and other emerging, indie-accessible channels. We created The Great Games Experiment, a social-networking site for gamers and game developers to promote games and find friends.
While these were all good efforts, we've never had the resources at hand to fundamentally change the game and carve out new space that'd really help developers be successful.
With IAC, that is exactly what we're doing now. We've been dreaming of a new, better way to develop, distribute and play games online for a few years now, and we've been working on the technology to support that dream for a couple years, behind the scenes. I'll talk about the details below, but the bottom-line is... we started looking at funding possibilities because we wanted to do a better job helping other developers build their games and be successful with them.
There's no way we or any other single company can help every single game out there that deserves attention and success. But what we can do, now, is truly become the publisher and developer partner that we always wanted to be. We'll help lots of teams succeed, and we'll help drive the industry even further toward establishing newer, more developer-friendly channels and markets.
We've been actively building out a new network of games at InstantAction.com (which everyone in the GarageGames community will soon get early access to, as you'll all be given accounts at IA). We're working on games ourselves, and we're funding games on very developer-friendly terms that allow both us and the developers we're working with to win. Of course, we'll doing all this while continuing to push forward (harder than ever) on Torque and our commitment to developer tools.
There's much more to talk about in all this, and this blog is just the beginning...
What kind of deal did we do with IAC?
As must be expected when doing a big hairy announcement like we just did... sometimes not everything you want to say gets across cleanly in print. However, I want everyone to know that our deal with IAC was and is fundamentally compatible with our philosophies at GG, and the internal plans we had in place.
As some of you have read in the announcements by now though, IAC has acquired a majority of the equity at GG. However, we used a very unique structure in our deal with them. While IAC now has the majority of the future economic value of GG, we continue to run the shop right here in good old Eugene, OR.
IAC is a very smart, savvy group of people and they recognized right away how passionate and committed we were to making great games, to treating developers fairly, and to our philosophies here. As such, our deal is structured to accommodate all that, and to make sure we stay true to our goals. As it's headed up by people with a lot of experience in creative industries, IAC also understands the importance of creative control, and treating both content creators (developers) and audiences (gamers) the right way.
So, our wording in the press release and such today involves IAC's new majority stake in GG's equity, and we wanted to be honest about that. But keep this in mind too: we wouldn't have done this deal without knowing for sure that we'd have the freedom to stay true to our mission, and we of course made sure that freedom was baked into the deal structure itself.
Our partnership with IAC is a big one, and it's truly built for the long-term. IAC is helping us in a huge way, through funding and through sharing expertise and resources, to build an awesome new game network, alongside our existing commitment to providing great developer tools (and we've got a bunch of exciting stuff to talk about on that in the coming weeks as well).
Why did we want to work with IAC?
Simply put, IAC was and is the perfect partner for us. We couldn't have dreamed of a better deal structure, or a better company to work with.
As anyone watching the industry sees today, games are heating up, and all kinds of investment is pouring into the industry. This is actually a great thing for developers and for gamers, because it means that there is more funding available out there, and that new kinds of games and distribution channels are being built.
At GG, we were and are offered funding on a regular basis. However, we never found a partner who really seemed to get the industry, to share our vision, or who we found willing to work with us in a way we honestly felt would allow us to stay true to who we are. We were very hesitant about VC or any such form of funding, as we didn't want to be under pressure to "flip"... eg sell the company to the highest bidder, or go public really quickly, which is what most VC is built to do, but obviously not what we're all about here.
So, even though we've always had a big vision and we figured it'd take more than we could hope to bootstrap on our own to truly fulfill that vision, we were always hesitant to take on any funding, or bring in any sort of partner. Call us untrusting... but that's smart in the world of big business. :)
With IAC, we finally found a perfect partner, though. To me, there are three overarching reasons why this is true:
Vision. IAC had an uncannily similar vision to ours at GG. They'd been looking at games for years, hoping to see an opportunity to help transform the industry and carve out a new market by building a great new online game network. We shared practically all the same ideas. I met with Shana Fisher from IAC in New York a long time ago, and it was eery talking to her... the challenges and opportunities she and IAC saw facing the games industry were the same exact challenges and opportunities we saw. IAC's ideas were uncannily similar to the vision that Jeff, Mark, myself and really the whole founding crew and team here had.
Entrepreneurship. With IAC, we found a partner that truly understood us, and how to build and support great businesses in general. IAC has a very entrepreneurial approach, and we have the physical and mental space to really do what's best. At the same time, we have access to amazingly talented, strategic thinkers, and the resources of a huge organization to lean on. Truly, we now have the best of both worlds... we run and operate as a small, nimble, entrepreneurial company with a big vision and a lot to get done... yet we have the support and resources of a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded, well-connected company with a great deal of web expertise and experience backing us up. That is amazingly cool and powerful.
In case you didn't hear it... GG just dinged. Level up!
People. Straight up, IAC is full of incredibly bright, super talented, dedicated, strategic, passionate people. Shana Fisher is one of the smartest business people I've ever spoken with. Barry Diller's track record speaks for itself, and it's incredibly exciting to be able to work with him and the reast of the team there. Jeff and I met a lot of the team at IAC, and the people there were a big factor in deciding the partnership with IAC was the right call. In fact, we recruited one of IAC's lead people to come work with us directly at GG. We hired Andy Yang a few months ago to spearhead our web efforts and InstantAction! Andy, truly, is one of the most impressive, intelligent, and dedicated people we've ever met, in any setting. It is an honor and a pleasure (and a huge win for us) to have the opportunity to work with the people at IAC.
Really, these are the overarching reasons we proceeded to talk with IAC, whereas we normally dismissed offers for funding and the like.
When did this happen, and why did it take us a while to talk about it publicly?
Our deal with IAC actually went down several months ago. As you can tell... we're still the same place we've always been (just better, more effective, and able to do more). We didn't announce it right away because we didn't want to do one of those vaporware releases you so often see. In most cases, people jump up and down about doing a deal, talk about all the crazy stuff they'll be doing, and then go dark for several months as they scramble to actually get something done.
We didn't want to do that. We wanted to hold off until we actually had something worthwhile talking about... not just brag about the fact that we did some big deal.
We finally announced because the InstantAction.com closed beta is starting in just a few days, and we're accepting registrations for early access now. We've poured a ton of work into InstantAction already, and with IAC we're investing millions of dollars into its continued development. We already have a bunch of cool stuff running, and we'll be taking the veil off it all soon.
IA beta testers get access to the games we're working on, and all the games our partner teams and studios are working on, as well as all the features we're building into InstantAction itself. Beta testers will even get sneak peaks at new concepts and newly proposed games, and can help us decide what to work on next and how it'll look and feel. So, we wanted to wait to get the word out there until we had this truly worthwhile stuff to talk about.
What is InstantAction?
I can't do InstantAction justice by answering this question briefly in the middle of a long blog. So, we'll be talking about this a lot more in the near future. For now, I'll keep this very brief.
InstantAction is a new place to play games. We're working on games here at GG and we're working with great indie studios of all kinds, from some of the biggest names in the industry to total unknowns with great ideas and the ability to get them done. We're building a bunch of great new games that focus squarely on being fun. They'll all be playable in the browser, and they'll be rich, core-oriented, and often multiplayer games. Effectively, we are building a web-based console... and just like a console, we'll have a wide variety of games and will be working with lots of developers and eventually perhaps even other publishers to create games for it.
For gamers, InstantAction will be and is a place to find great games and to connect with friends to play.
Again, many more details to come, and we'll look forward to seeing all of you in the IA beta, soon. :)
What kinds of games are we looking for?
Again, we'll be talking about this a lot more soon, so I'll be brief here. Fundamentally, we are of course just looking for fun games. We want games that appeal to a core audience of gamers and ex-gamers, pretty much anywhere in the world. We're building games that are designed to interface with the web, and leverage the unique advantages and cool features we are building into InstantAction.
We're looking for lots of games too, and are even funding some. So, if you've got a great idea and truly have the chops to get it done, get in touch with us at games@garagegames.com.
How are we working with developers?
As I said above, we've now been able to become the publisher we always wanted to work with. We're funding many games, and doing so in a way that lets everyone involved win. We have the best developer terms in the industry, and they're right in line with our long-standing philosophies.
This is one of the most exciting parts of this announcement, and we'll be sharing a lot more details on this in the near future. And, by the way, if you want the full scoop, IGC is for you.
What does all this mean for Torque, and the GG community?
Very good things. We're getting more done on Torque than we ever have before. As you've seen, we recently pushed out updates to TGB, TGEA, and TGE, while shipping Torque X and more. But all of this work pales in comparison to what we have to announce in the coming weeks for Torque, and the community here at GG. We're pushing Torque forward in a huge way, re-vamping and overhauling the engine and tools in ways we couldn't have before. We can't wait to share the updates with everyone, and we have a bunch of cool stuff for the community up our sleeve. More details coming very soon.
Suffice it to say, we're getting more done on Torque than we ever have. Honestly, for a long while there, it was really hard to break out and make big, important changes to Torque. We were bootstrapping GG, which basically meant we lived hand to mouth, month-to-month on the business from licensing Torque. That makes it hard to try and do anything really revolutionary, or take any big risks. So, I feel like we were starting to stagnate. For the past few months, we've been able to truly step back and look at the big picture, and figure out what we want to do with Torque and our developer tools, and how we can really make them better. That's lead to some great work getting done, and we're excited to talk about it with everyone very soon (suggestion: again, come to IGC, and get the story).
What's changed at GG since the deal happened?
Well, we're bigger now, but actually not by a lot. A couple years ago, we doubled size in one year. We haven't grown that much this year, and in fact our growth rate is about the same as last year. But overall, we've added a bunch of great new members to the team at GG.
We've been building out InstantAction. We've been making new games! :) And we've been pushing forward harder and faster on Torque.
We're constantly trying to improve internally, to become more effective and efficient, and to do a better job defining and achieving our goals and promises. Like any company, we're growing and changing, but our soul is still the same. We're just empowered to do more, now.
Fundamentally... did we sell out?
Being perfectly honest, no, we didn't. On a philosophical level and in terms of what we're working on and how we're operating, we just took the right steps to do what we always wanted to. I'm sure we could've cut a better deal with someone, if all we cared about was making bucks from selling out GG. But we have to sleep at night, and look at ourselves in the mirror every morning, and money in and of itself is only so valuable. So, no souls were sold, I'm happy to say. :)
Of course, we obviously traded in the majority of the economic interest in GarageGames, so in that regard we did sell a lot. But we did so in exchange for a great partner and a better way to do what we've always wanted to. And even economically, the deal with IAC is structured such that it'll work out better for everyone involved (IAC, GG itself and our employees, and our external partners) now that we're supported by a great partner in IAC and have the resources to truly bring the longstanding visions Jeff and others originally laid out for the company to reality.
So, there's the straight dope on this whole announcement, and our new partner, IAC. I hope I answered the the most important, immediate questions that seeing this hit the stories and blogs brought to mind for everyone. Thanks very much for reading, and I'll do my best to reply to comments as soon as possible. We'll be talking about all this-- especially our plans for InstantAction, Torque, and new games-- in a lot more detail in the very near future! This is all very exciting stuff, and we can't wait to talk about it all more.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 09/18/07 - News is out! 08/18/06 - Torque X-- why we're doing it. 02/26/05 - Plan for Josh Williams 02/22/05 - Plan for Josh Williams 02/11/05 - Plan for Josh Williams 02/01/05 - Plan for Josh Williams 01/12/05 - Plan for Josh Williams 12/20/04 - Plan for Josh Williams |
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Submit your own resources!| L Foster (Sep 18, 2007 at 15:38 GMT) |
One thing that I think we all need to keep in mind is that change is good (especially in this case) and it will really allow this community to shine brighter than before with regards to the work that independents can produce, especially now thanks to the new round of funding that GarageGames has begun.
Josh give my thanks out to everyone behind the scenes at GarageGames that has been working on this and had to bite their lips until it was time to announce.
| Dave Young (Sep 18, 2007 at 15:53 GMT) |
| Julian R (Sep 18, 2007 at 15:56 GMT) |
| Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Sep 18, 2007 at 15:57 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Clint Herron (Sep 18, 2007 at 15:59 GMT) |
It really sounds like this will open up fantastic doors of opportunity for you, and I'm really really glad to see such amazing proactive steps being taken to further the GG vision. Well done!
I'm so very glad to be a member of this community, and working together to further such great work.
Finally officially getting TGB in a browser is of course insanely exciting as well!!!
--clint
| Simon Love (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:17 GMT) |
Can't wait to see what you guys have in store for current TGE, TGEA and TGB owners.
| Donald \"Yadot\" Harris (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:35 GMT) |
| Christian S (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:36 GMT) |
It will be very interesting to see the spinoff from this deal as well as how the garage handle the swim in the strategic flow of cash currents ;)
| Edward (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:47 GMT) |
Edited on Sep 18, 2007 16:49 GMT
| Edward (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:51 GMT) |
| Clint S. Brewer (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:58 GMT) |
Josh and all congratulations! And thanks for the detailed blog. Really looking forward to see how this plays out for everyone, and to see some new games.
And of course to hear what possibilities InstantAction will have for RPG's, Adventure games, and Virtual Music based Worlds.
cheers!
| Stephen Zepp (Sep 18, 2007 at 16:58 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Quote:
Seeing as from where i stand IAC just bought out GG and created anew company, called InstantAction, I dont see any mention of a increased GG staff, or a call to renew the outdated materials that is the bane of the GG forums and posting. But again, as i have been told time will tell. Im a loyal TGE / AFX user. Im hoping GG will not remember its roots.
I wanted to correct a couple of incorrect assumptions here:
--InstantAction.com isn't a company, it's a web site. If you've been a long time GG community member, you may recall us talking a very little bit about browser based gaming, and then we got very quiet about it--that was because we realized that this was an area that was incredibly empowering for Indys, and it deserved to be done right. It turned out to be so big of an opportunity, that "doing it right" included matching up with a partner (IAC) that had both our vision, and the resources to support that vision in a way we never could on our own--and InstantAction is going to be the result. Reminder: you can go to the site right now and sign up to request additional information as well as possibly be selected as part of our InstantAction.com beta testing process!
--actually, changes are already starting to show--if you look at the top of your page at the yellow navigation bar, you'll see a new section "Documentation", and dropping down to the TGE product for example, displays a link to A fully downloadable set of documentation for TGE that is available to anyone, even those working with our demo. This is a huge change--never before have we been able to make our documentation public to anyone and everyone, and this new organizational structure is finally allowing us to do so.
--You may have skimmed, but Josh mentions specifically that while it wasn't quite a year to year doubling, we've greatly extended our staff in the last 6 months. We've been actively hiring in just about every single area, and while it has slowed down, we are still most certainly looking to bring on high quality individuals for many areas.
Edited on Sep 18, 2007 16:59 GMT
| Orion Elenzil (Sep 18, 2007 at 17:36 GMT) |
This is great; it should give GG some headroom to do polishing like providing a engine architecture overview doc (NICE!) as well as expand into new technologies like 3D casual games in the browser. Awesome. And of course cocaine, hot ladies, and fancy cars, altho i personally recommend the giant inflatable sailor moon bounce-castle.
| James (Sep 18, 2007 at 17:50 GMT) |
:)
| Caylo Gypsyblood (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:12 GMT) |
Is there any change in the way the INDIE License will work?
What about COMMERCIAL License?
I ask because i picked TGE for its License system. If GarageGames is now owned by someone else (i dont care if they are calling the shots right NOW...) what happens to the License system?
| Luke D (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:18 GMT) |
Does this mean out-of-the-box browser plug-in capability for the existing engine products (independent of the InstantAction site)? The idea of engine support for embed-ability is fantastic, particularly if it's ubiquitous and not exclusive to InstantAction.
| Ben Garney (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:21 GMT) |
| Caylo Gypsyblood (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:27 GMT) |
| Scott Burns (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:35 GMT) |
If I'm understanding everything correctly, everything stays the same only someone else is paying the bills, we get an additional outlet to publish to, GG gets more funding to help publish even more games, plus GG will be able to expand in much needed areas like QA, etc. Not to mention that shiny new offline documentation reference.
I'd say this looks like pretty much a win all around. Here's hoping it continues that way and congrats GG!
| Josh Williams (Sep 18, 2007 at 18:38 GMT) |
| Gregory Sabatini (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:00 GMT) |
It's great that the guys at GG have found a partner that believes in their vision and wants to support it with financial resources so that they can grow that vision. Successful entreprenuers and companies generally realize when they don't have knowledge and look to others with expertise to support them.
Is the ultimate goal to make money? Of course! It is only by being profitable that a company can stay in business. The bottom line is whether you are indie or commercial, you gotta have some cash to make your vision happen.
| Canon (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:09 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Can't wait to see instantaction.com!
Christophe
| Cliff (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:12 GMT) |
The GG folks can definitely say their ship came in, though.
| Jay Barnson (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:15 GMT) |
| Stephan (viKKing) Bondier (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:20 GMT) |
Let's hope no one will be disappointed. 8-)
| Matt Fairfax (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:21 GMT) |
| Jay Barnson (Sep 18, 2007 at 19:28 GMT) |
Edited on Sep 18, 2007 19:42 GMT
| Scott Burns (Sep 18, 2007 at 20:21 GMT) |
Honestly I blame that on the running around between three different things in the office today, it kind of exhausted my long windedness (I think I just made a new word).
Plus by the time I got to reading everything the ZOMGWTF!!!11 shock from when a co-worker said "Hey, GG was just sold." had worn off.
Edited on Sep 18, 2007 20:22 GMT
| Adam deGrandis (Sep 18, 2007 at 20:26 GMT) |
nice work, fellas. :)
| Martin Schultz (Sep 18, 2007 at 20:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
What makes me trust and believe in this deal (now even more) is that I remember that you guys made the right decisions over the last years and I'm sure you'll do it this time right too. Oh wait, there was one wrong decision, the first name change for TSE to something horrible that I can't remember, but you corrected that mistake... ;-))
Meanwhile I thought about how cool it would be with GG's "CodeOnce" thing to develop a game In TGE and "port" it simply into a browser version. Will this come true? Let's see... :-)
Anyway, an even more interesting future appears. Rock on, guys.
| Matt Fairfax (Sep 18, 2007 at 20:40 GMT) |
Quote:
This is awesome, now you can finally afford to fire tim aste and replace him with someone good.
ROFL
| Jeremy Alessi (Sep 18, 2007 at 21:51 GMT) |
| Geoff \'Got Haggis?\' Rowland (Sep 18, 2007 at 22:11 GMT) |
| Timothy Aste (Sep 18, 2007 at 22:30 GMT) |
| Stefan Kruemmel (Sep 18, 2007 at 23:10 GMT) |
congratulations to your staff having found a fitting partner who isn't going to
rip your company apart and sell the parts.
can't wait to see the coming changes to GG/TGE(A)/TGB.
keep up your great work and longstanding support to the indie movement.
| Mark (Sep 19, 2007 at 00:37 GMT) |
| Glenn Thomas (Sep 19, 2007 at 03:09 GMT) |
| Andrew Brady (Sep 19, 2007 at 04:02 GMT) |
| Duy Dang (Sep 19, 2007 at 06:48 GMT) |
Mmmm...browser based goodness. :)
| Julian R (Sep 19, 2007 at 07:54 GMT) |
| Vashner (Sep 19, 2007 at 09:07 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Thanks again to all the GG mechanics and associates and cheers to more accomplishments in the future.
| Jeppie (Sep 19, 2007 at 16:14 GMT) |
As for the other stuff, well, despite the length of your blog, you told us amazingly little, lol. Lots of very vague, unspecific references to things going on now and in the future. It's pretty much boiler-plate for aquired CEO's to say such things about the new arrangement, but for your customers the bottom line is that you are now part of an internet conglomerate. You'll no doubt be judged just like all their other business ventures, and that is by the bottom line. Despite all talk of visions and goals and synergy and all that, it will in the end come down to investment and rate on return for your shareholders, which is always a scary thing and has a lot of possible ramifications.
| Daniel Bonnett (Sep 19, 2007 at 17:26 GMT) |
| Mark McCoy (Sep 19, 2007 at 17:37 GMT) |
| Andy Schatz (Sep 19, 2007 at 18:38 GMT) |
| Erik Madison (Sep 19, 2007 at 18:55 GMT) |
Reading it from this side though, it sounds more like things will remain as they always have. Thats still good, GG is a great place, but I sure was looking forward to the boys (and girls) of the Garage being forced into swimsuits and moved to the Gulf Coast where I could pop in and bug them every time I can't figure something out :)
| Blake Drolson (Sep 19, 2007 at 21:22 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
1) The new docs are great, definitely getting better, but I still feel that they are all details. Still looking for a overview document that describes all the stuff in the client and server script folders and how they interact with the C++ code. I am an experienced coder, but tracing back and forth across the script /C++ interface and trying to make sense of the logic flow is difficult to say the least. I really could use a nice 4-10 page document describing the engine and script base from the "top - down", including diagrams and flow charts of the major components and how they work with each other. This would go a long way to providing the info I need to use the engine more effectively. I need to know how it works to a greater level of detail. Right now there is no docs on the default script code, even though there are critical handlers that must take calls from the C++ code and return them effectively.
2) How about a new book, one that covers the engine from the top down like I described above, and also makes a complete networked game, complete with source code? Would be really great if they also made some C++ code changes so we could see best practice when we do it ourselves for our own games. I mention this because the last game I worked on was a single player game that made its own C++ code changes (Neuromatrix), and a hard to find bug that I inherited was one where an object was getting moved by the client and server and overwriting its own results. Anyway, the GPGT was a good book, but did not really cover the engine to the depth needed for a professional coder that really needs to understand the inner workings of the engine.
3) A single player version of TGE, optimized for the single player experience, without all the unnecessary network code of the current TGE.
Anyway, just want to close by saying that I really love what GG is doing for the game development community, and I have guarded hopes for the new merger. If we get access to better docs and tools, continued cross platform support for all current platforms, plus now running in a web browser, all at the current indie pricing, then I say good deal!
| Cliff (Sep 19, 2007 at 22:09 GMT) |
How is InstantAction going to be different than WildTangent? It sounds like a very similar concept from where I'm sitting (though of course I could be wrong), and while I would expect more from a web embeddable TGE(A?) engine than the WildTangent driver, it's hard to ignore that WildTangent did very poorly.
| Mike Rowley (Sep 20, 2007 at 10:45 GMT) |
| Ray Depew (Sep 20, 2007 at 19:58 GMT) |
| Paul Dana (Sep 22, 2007 at 16:38 GMT) |
| TerroX (Sep 24, 2007 at 11:00 GMT) |
| JPaxson (Sep 25, 2007 at 13:39 GMT) |
| Eric Kinkead (Sep 26, 2007 at 07:32 GMT) |
I'll be involved !!
| Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy (Mar 15, 2008 at 07:04 GMT) |
| Mark0794 (Apr 21, 2008 at 04:05 GMT) |
| Britton LaRoche (May 10, 2008 at 20:08 GMT) |
| Britton LaRoche (May 10, 2008 at 20:13 GMT) |
-----------------
-- For TSE
-----------------
login to the tdn tdn.garagegames.com/ Then click the link below.
New tutorial here: tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGEA/CreatingYourFirstFPS
-----------------
-- For TGE
-----------------
open the installation directory and double click:
Starter.FPS Dedicated.bat
or run the following via command line in that directory:
torqueDemo.exe -game starter.fps -dedicated -mission starter.fps/data/missions/stronghold.mis
Edited on May 22, 2008 21:09 GMT
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