renaissance of the bedroom programmer

When I woke up this morning I didn't think I would be writing a blog post so soon after yesterday's and on this subject. But then a conversation with my friend Jim Connolly (@jimconnolly on twitter) this morning almost wrote this post for me!
And yet that conversation started with a tweet I made last night about looking for a couple of old copies of Byte magazine.
From me telling Jim which issues I was trying to get a hold of, we quickly moved on to me making a statement about how the home computer scene of the 80's had a pioneering feel to them, a fun element, that until recently had been missing.
What had changed? Well back in the late 80's early 90's it was the death of the "bedroom programmer" and the standardisation on the PC. And although there have been "bedroom programmers" during this period. That feeling of pioneering, of fun and exploration went away as the industry grew up and went professional.
So what changed recently? Well by recently I am talking the last three or four years. The explosion of the smartphone for starters, and the courting of the "bedroom programmer".
The smartphone market reminds me of the early 80's home computer boom. Each month seems to bring a new phone, with new features.
The other thing I mention the courting of the "bedroom programmer" has also been a development of the recent years.
Once our home computers came with the ability for people to write their own software. But slowly with the move from MS-Dos to windows even on the PC we lost the ability to develop our own software when we lost even the ability to write programs in BASIC. If you wanted to write software you had to buy the expensive software tools to do it.
And then things changed, Microsoft started giving away a "student version" of their programming languages. Apple included the tools free with Mac OS, and so the " bedroom programmer" could once more start to flourish.
Now I can't remember the exact point in time but Microsoft then released xna, a framework that allowed the "bedroom programmer" to write programs for their games console. Then a year after the iPhone came out their was a development kit released for that to on the Mac which was also free. With both Microsoft and Apple for a nominal fee developers could get access to releasing their programs through the various app stores. It's a bit more detailed than that but I want to keep this at a level everyone can follow. And of course the development kit for Android is also free, allowing anyone to write software for the many Android phones.
And it is these reasons that I say that the fun is back in the industry. Once more the "bedroom programmer" is able to compete with the "big boys".
But for me it is the "bedroom programmer" or indie developers that are doing the interesting stuff, especially when it comes to video games.
They have the freedom to try new things and to explore the medium. Something that the "big boys" are less inclined to do as they have to make money and can't afford to take risks, so have to rely on "proven" formula to make games.
Some of my favourite games are Limbo for it's distinctive visual style and platform/puzzle game play. Braid with it's rewind game mechanic. Or such "games" as "today I die" based around a poem, and has a very non traditional game play, although very short. And that is just name the first three that come to mind.
It's also nice to see one of my heroes from the 80's gaming scene Jeff Minter still around and producing iOS games (he has two out at the moment).
So with all the above happening, it doesn't stop there. Things are getting more exciting as we see the explosion of tablet computing devices. We also have Microsoft in the spring releasing a new sdk this time for their Kinect, so that "bedroom programmers" can start to write their own stuff using it. Already have an openKinect project that is already showing what potential this device has.
It's nice to have the excitement back, and I'm glad I'm old enough to have lived through the early days and now to see the current one as well.

Exciting times indeed, and I look forward to see how the "bedroom programmer" and indie developers push the envelope.