Hi Brat,

The market research of Deer Hunter was pretty simple.

GT asked the buyer at Walmart what title he thought would be popular. Roger Westmoreland replied a "Deer Hunting Game". Well GT hired Sunstorm to make a Deer Hunting game and Roger was correct the game sold very well. You do not have to look to hard for niche, just ask some questions. What markets are being under represented, which are crowded, hey mister buyer what game would you like us to create that you would buy a shitload of.

Well Sunstorm became successful, they hired a bunch of people and created alot of games. They were very prolific and never made a AA or AAA title. They had a good run before the cost of employees versus development budgets did not match up anymore. Same thing happened to me.

I like being an independent. The label indie is applied to me not by choice but by market conditions.

I truly feel we will see a rebirth of the indie developers with tools like 3DGS, Torque and Cipher. We happen to live in a very exciting game making time.

Ken