Self-publishing Comes to Games

Posted on June 20, 2005

Self-published books can become popular if they are good enough and spread by word of mouth. The same opportunity may exist in the gaming world for independent game developers that can develop innovative games. Kaneva.com is a marketplace and software tool that lets people develop, play and sell video games. Kaneva, currently in beta mode, is billing itself as the "world's first digital entertainment marketplace."

Kaneva says individuals and game studios can make games using the Kaneva Game Editor. Kaneva is also offering a royalty split for games and other content sold on Kaneva's marketplace. It will be interesting to see how popular these types of marketplaces become and if an independent game underground will be able to develop.

There have also been rumors that Nintendo is going to provide a way for independently published games to be played on the Nintendo Revolution, the next version of the Nintendo gaming system. The following text from a press release about Revolution that seems to indicate that Nintendo Revolution might allow gamers to develop their own games or at least run independently published games.

Freedom of design: A dynamic development architecture equally accommodates both big-budget, high-profile game 'masterpieces' as well as indie games conceived by individual developers equipped with only a big idea.