This is the original English version of an email interview I did for merlanfrit.net. I added a few comments [in brackets like this]. You can see their version in French here, but if you rely on automatic translations things come out kind of crazy, so I wanted to put the original English version up somewhere. Here it is!
Merlanfrit: The compilation was inspired by the 8-bits pirate carts. Care to explain to our younger readers what those were? Do you feel any nostalgia for that time, or is it just a nod?
Mike Meyer: Back when games actually came on cartridges (the "cart" part), especially for the NES, some people got the idea of dodging official licensing of Nintendo or whoever and making their own cartridges to sell. Even dodgier, they would put pirated versions of official games on them (the "pirate" part) and sell them with labels like "99-in-1". They tended to include a bunch of slight variations of a lot fewer games, some just wouldn't work, and even then the number was probably wrong. I never actually had one, myself, but it's pretty clear that some of the IGF Pirate Kart contributors have nostalgia about them!
GloriousTrainwrecks.com started doing its own pirate karts (with a "k" because why not?) in a mad frenzy to make something for TIGSource's "B-game" competition as a community. 17 people made over 100 games in only 48(ish) hours! It was amazing! Eventually, GloriousTrainwrecks.com did the even more amazing The 529 in 1 Klik and Play Pirate Kart Part II: Klik Harder as its own event where over a hundred people made over five hundred games in 498 hours! [that was a typo. It was a much more impressive 48 hours!] And Jeremy Penner made a super spiffy launcher for it! There was also the Vector 3D Jam Multi-Game Pirate Kart which had a fairly low turnout [Relatively, that is. 29 games is nothing to be embarrassed about!] due I think to its extra restriction - that all games must feature Vector the Crocodile.
I guess that makes this one the fourth Pirate Kart. Really the IGF Pirate Kart takes its name more from the history of amazing jams than from the actual pirate cartridges of the past.
What kind of games should we expect to find in the Pirate Kart? There are a lot of games in the bundle, so the players might be lost... any highlights?
Relatively small, very personal, possibly very weird games. I have to admit I haven't had time to look through them very much! My plan once I get some more time is to sit down and use the random game button and enjoy the surprises!
The kart seems to have been quite a success, and it cost you a lot of money for the bandwidth. Are you pleased by the reactions you got so far?
It did cost me a lot of money on bandwidth. $2,7764.12 when I last looked. If I'd had more time to prepare, I might have been able to find a better way to host it, but I just went with what I knew I could get working quickly. I'm not bothered by it though. It's been worth every cent. It's been such a huge success! Even if it doesn't get nominated or if it gets disqualified, it has become bigger than the IGF in my mind. I am blown away by how excited everyone is by it and how much fun people are having seeing crazy things they might never have encountered otherwise!
There are a few trolls of course, but nearly every reaction I've seen is curiosity or excitement about a chance to get a ton of free games and see some crazy things that might never have gotten attention otherwise! I never imagined it could have worked out so well!
The Piratekart is also a sort of protest against the fees asked by the IGF to enter their competition. Do you feel the success of the indie game market is a menace to the bedroom coders? Some indie games have pretty high production values, and I guess it's hard to compete for the more experimental titles… Don't you feel the scene might be cornered by a few stars (Blow, Notch…)?
Is it? Why would we ENTER the competition as a protest? That'd be like protesting fur by killing an animal and crawling inside it. I know some of the contributors do have an axe to grind on that point but I don't think they can speak for all of us. I can't either, for that matter. For my part, I LOVE this sort of extreme inclusiveness but I'm not sure that's what the IGF needs to be. The success of others does not diminish the accomplishments of the rest of us. "A rising tide lifts all boats" and all that. Sure, some people are going to get more attention, but new popular indie games and new indie celebrities are appearing all the time.
It is also worth pointing out that not all of people who make games are in or are interesting in competing for attention, money, fame, or being part of the scene. A lot of people just have this game-making hobby, you know?
On the other hand, don't you feel the $95 charge can be justified ? The competition has to have a barrier of entry, or anybody could just submit their game, even if it's very weak, flooding the jury with half finished, boring games.
Absolutely. They are a private company and they don't NEED to justify it. The jury has it tough enough as it is. I hear there were over 600 games submitted this year! And that's even if you consider the Pirate Kart to be only one! They have a good reason for a barrier to entry! But you can't very well claim everyone is welcome in your competition while having that kind of barrier, can you?
[It's too bad I ended the interview with the line I did. The Independent Games Festival is much more of a contest than it is a festival. Simply by being the kind of contest it is, there is no place for you in it unless you both can pay the entry fee and your game has a chance of being chosen as a finalist. I'm sure it's not that they want to keep people out.]
[Also I feel I should have mentioned that "anybody could just submit their game, even if it's very weak, flooding the jury with half finished, boring games" doesn't sound like a bad thing to me at all. It sounds like an event I would love to be a part of. In fact, it sounds like the Pirate Karts.]