Why doesnt SA make their own games?

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Project X

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Id like to know why SA doesn't have big company's like EA,Ubisoft etc and make their own games? something like GTA Soweto:D see that would be cool but the only SA game iv seen is that taxi one someone posted a while back.
i mean if i decide to do game programing where am i gonna go after school?:confused:
 
think eNATIS.

Would you really like to play a game that requires a cluster of XBoxes?
 
Project X said:
Id like to know why SA doesn't have big company's like EA,Ubisoft etc and make their own games? something like GTA Soweto:D see that would be cool but the only SA game iv seen is that taxi one someone posted a while back.
i mean if i decide to do game programing where am i gonna go after school?:confused:
Click to expand...

agree GTA South Africa style will be really cool ... id buy it ... seriuosly ....
 
Why? Well, I think, because of the same reason we don't get a lot of local audio manufacturers. People don't buy it locally, because it's local. People have the perception that most things made in SA is below par to anything from overseas.

Also, making a good quality game, takes years, and millions of rands. Not something the average software house can afford.
 
You guys obviously haven't been online for long? What? 13/14 year olds? Welcome to the WWW.

We have several game developers in South Africa. I suggest you google around a bit.
 
AcidRaZor said:
You guys obviously haven't been online for long? What? 13/14 year olds? Welcome to the WWW.

We have several game developers in South Africa. I suggest you google around a bit.
Click to expand...

It seems that the local games developers are not well known, or not making anything that made any kind of impact on the gaming world. If you have to google to find them, they are basically non-existing.
 
AcidRaZor said:
You guys obviously haven't been online for long? What? 13/14 year olds? Welcome to the WWW.

We have several game developers in South Africa. I suggest you google around a bit.
Click to expand...

Rather than say "google", the point may have been made stronger by rattling off the names of one or two of your favourites.

Not to say they don't exist - it just weakens the point.
 
Making a game in this country would constitute a colossal task as everybody will try and stick their fingers in the pie.

For example:
The game needs to be unbiast to race, religion, eduction, language. It has to be uncomplicated and be able to be played by those who might have disabilities. It has to be cheap, affordable for the masses as well as avaialble to all.

If you think about all the red-tape involved, you realise that there is already a game that caters for the framework layed out - the game is called PONG!

So why waste time, money and effort making a game in SA for SAfrican people when the Americans have already done us the effort?
 
We just dont have the skills and the environment for game development. First of all, our game base is small compared to the US, Japan and Europe therefore not many ppl would even think abt pursuing game design as a profession. Then the computer equipment here are expensive. Game development hardware could cost a lot here but our lower salaries could compensate for that I guess. Other than that, set up costs would be huge. For example an Internet connection would cost the company a big percentage of their capital available.
 
There is a thriving SA game development community: http://www.gamedev.co.za/

Gaming is an international business. You don't see French developers just make "french" games, or likewise for most other countries. Sure, Japan and the US are special cases.

There have been successful local games, the two I can think of immediately were toxic bunny and there's a monster truck game on the Xbox 1, I don't know what its called.

The biggest issues are:
1. The game has to have global appeal to make it financially viable
2. You have to have someone with enough money to invest it the ASTRONOMICAL development costs of these things.

But if you're keen, go for it. It's one of the reasons I prefer the Xbox: XNA. It really reduces the entry level to get into game development. Regardless of platform, if you want to write games, do it. There are enough channels now with the likes of XBLA, PSN, whatever, that smaller projects can make money.

I'd advise you start as soon as possible - if you're a scholar or student, use your free time to get into the basics while your parents are putting a roof over your head and you don't need to do stupid things like work to pay the bills ;)
 
I'm studying programming... and i'd like to program games.

but we mustn't be so negative..
we can make that start. and if we can make a game good enough and make an impact it will make a start and then things will go better... things will be though but we can do it...

PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN!!!
 
doobiwan said:
There is a thriving SA game development community: http://www.gamedev.co.za/

Gaming is an international business. You don't see French developers just make "french" games, or likewise for most other countries. Sure, Japan and the US are special cases.

There have been successful local games, the two I can think of immediately were toxic bunny and there's a monster truck game on the Xbox 1, I don't know what its called.

The biggest issues are:
1. The game has to have global appeal to make it financially viable
2. You have to have someone with enough money to invest it the ASTRONOMICAL development costs of these things.

But if you're keen, go for it. It's one of the reasons I prefer the Xbox: XNA. It really reduces the entry level to get into game development. Regardless of platform, if you want to write games, do it. There are enough channels now with the likes of XBLA, PSN, whatever, that smaller projects can make money.

I'd advise you start as soon as possible - if you're a scholar or student, use your free time to get into the basics while your parents are putting a roof over your head and you don't need to do stupid things like work to pay the bills ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks doobiwan, didn't have the time to explain.

To the others, buy a NAG now and again ffs or stop posting in a gaming forum when you're not really gamers ;)
 
as doobs said

its all about the moneh!!

we a first world trapped in a 3rd world :sick:

do we even have people to teach us like 3Dmax and 3D maya?? cos those are just a handfull of the programs you need to make a game,I once inquired about 3D maya which was only taught in JHB,CPT and soon DHB varsity campus,I was like "ok" how much? +- R30k was the reply if i can recall.

woot!
 
There have been a few south african developers over the years. I have even played some. Some was junk, and some was quite good. I cant recall the name of the developers, but I also know there is a few still out there.
 
hmmm... the problem lies in, if we do some how budget a game thats like gta, will it have a global appeal? i mean sure, if we made a game call "true crime:streets of hillbrow" people here would go crazy for it, coz well, the story line would have the Nigerians, and you a bad cop, and you know there''s little the government can do with the game. we could make it, have racism, more drugs then Columbia can pump out, violence that would make the creators of man hunt blush, swearing... and all of which do happen... but these things can make a fantastic game. I think im going to study computer graphics in 2 years time over in america (if i keep my grades going well) and if say a company here wants to set off with a project like this, im there.
 
There was a South African game dev studio called Celestial. They released Toxic bunny and a game called The Tainted, neither of which made big waves. Later some of the Celestial guys started up a company called Twilyt Productions. They were going to release an RTS called Zulu Wars, but they ran into financial problems and shut down around 2001 / 2002. A shame really.
 
I was involved with a game project called Titanium 3D, there was an article about it in the Financial Mail a few years ago and some of you may have seen it in one of the Rage expos.

One of the biggest problems the developers had was finding finances to turn it into a real project, so that we could employ artists/level designers, so sadly the project got scrapped.

I wrote a few songs for them, the ones I was happy with overall are available here: ( http://www.sl27.com/music/titanium3d_ost/ ) if anyone is interested.
 
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