Great time to be a game developer

I’m slowly going to use this blog to talk more about games and technology, and less about things like apple fritters. (Although admittedly, that was one of the most popular blog entries on the site!) While I was a consultant over the past year I did a lot of thinking about game technology, tools and pipelines. There are so many interesting tools out there that people are starting to use, and so few places where people are discussing them. I’m planning to be doing more with, and takling more about, innovative game development tools here in the future.
But for now, I just want to say: what a great time it is to be a game developer! There are a zillion possible platforms to work on and it seems like companies are popping out of the woodwork all over the place to encourage us to work on theirs. For example, there’s the $100 million application development fund for the iPhone, the $10 million developer challenge for Android, and the rumored $150 million fund for the Blackberry. Wow!
Just recently I’ve been reading about Intel’s Game Demo Contest, the Dobbs Challenge, the Make Something Unreal Contest, and don’t forget the XNA DreamBuildPlay challenge!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s also the worst time to be a developer, since there are so many platforms to develop on. 🙂 But if you’re working hard to break into the game industry, there are a lot of competitions that may help you get a leg up. Of course the biggest one each year is the Independent Games Festival, which I am a huge fan of (and judge for). I’m already looking forward to next year’s contest!