Gamasutra Member Blogs: From game jams to indie drawbacks

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as companies taking advantage of game jams to analyze new talent, the drawbacks of being indie, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs Opening analysis: Fallout (Eric Schwarz) Fallout is usually considered a hard game to get into. Eric Schwarz argues that it's actually one of the most smoothly and subtly executed openings ever seen in a complex RPG. Jamming with purpose (Douglas Lynn) Game jams allow us to demonstrate our development skills to fellow developers by actually creating games. Douglas Lynn asks, "Can't game companies regularly use this same tool to analyze new talent by having aspiring developers work directly with the existing team?" Drawbacks of being indie (Vincent Dumont) In his last article, Vincent Dumont took the time to explain the benefits he saw in being a small independent team in game development. These advantages were freedom, fun and being close to the players. However, being small and independent also has its drawbacks. More Kick than Start? (Tim Willison) Crowd-sourcing is a great way of funding indie-games, but Tim Willison says it can't succeed without the respect for planning that would usually get forced on developers. Tomb Raider 3 - 14 years later, pt.1 (Matthias Zarzecki) Matthias Zarzecki looks back at Tomb Raider 3, and how its elements have aged over time.