Problems inside the game industry, Claims by dev X

[L_i_n_k]

This tread is for soring out the claims , made by anonymous developer X about the differet problems arising in todays gameindustry. You can find the article here.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3

I would specially like to hear first hand experiences from resident developers about the subjects found in the article. Im not sure is this subject discussed here before with all this next gen talk going on.

So... is there a hidden world of unpublished aaa games, but never fructify, becouse of the reasons listed in the article.
Do the oldschool master designers go unchallenge becouse there is not enought knowledge in the bussines side to see where the talent lies and supporting them with enought resources that there could be any competition at the first place. There are lots of points in the article , please feel free to comment on them.

[scooby_dooby]

So what does this guy think about XB Live Arcade?

No publishers, no big budgets, lots of room for innovation. Sounds like the perfect solution...

[Edge]

I hate articles full of complaints.

Publishers are producing what the public wants, or they simply would not be in business very long. If you are going to blame the publishers, you might as well blame the people who buy the games. No one is forcing anyone to buy Doom III.

Let him innovate, and produce a game with less expensive assets (read: low quality), and see how many people are interested in it.

We don't buy $500 graphics cards, so we can buy games low on art asset quality, just because they are "fun". I want fun with high quality art assets, and if I can't get it from one company, I will buy the other company's product. If not, what was the point in spending $500 on a graphic card?

I think that you need more innovation is so over-rated. Many games try to innovate, and they are down right boring.

We need better story lines in games. Deliver an ingrossing and deeper playing experience.

[mckmas8808]

Edge you are dead on. SOTC proves that. It's not overly innovative, but it does give the player a great story with a new angle to play a videogame. I don't need games that are totally different than what I could ever think of in life. I want games that are fun. I want to be entertained.

[ERP]

It pretty much agrees with my feelings on the industry as a whole. When the last small developer I worked for went under, I considered starting a development company and decided that the business model just didn't make sense.

I probably wouldn't state things quite so strongly as in the article, but in general it's getting harder and harder to survive as a small developer and it basically impossible to sell an original idea.

I think we'll see more and more development moved internal by the big guys, largely because with larger development budgets it's easier to track the spending, you know the money your spending is being spent on your product rather than the one the developer is doing for the other publisher.

I think in a lot of ways it's just the industry growing up, budgets will flatten off at somepoint and there will always be people willing to take chances on original ideas, they'll just be few and far between. But honestly just because an idea is new and inovative doesn't make it good.

There are other models than the one that the article is pushing and there is more room for innovation in them. As a developer you have to conciously decide that your not making a AAA title and your not competing with the big boys and concentrate on something you can sell say 50K copies of and match that budget with your development costs. But no-one wants to build B titles.

[L_i_n_k]

What does he think about live arcade, i dont know. What do you think about it. There certainly is shell space, but there still is pile of money you need ,if you want to go beyond the Snes classics in terms of gameplay as anyone can top them in production values.

[ShootMyMonkey]

A lot of it is hit or miss. Some of the things he says in there are just weird, but others are pretty much unarguable. Especially his little section about the power of middleware, since it seems that everybody thinks middleware solutions are these magic bullets that solve everything.

Let him innovate, and produce a game with less expensive assets (read: low quality), and see how many people are interested in it.
You clearly missed the point. It wasn't about making something cheaper and simpler with weaker art assets -- it was about publishers not backing something outside the status quo no matter what the cost. And that includes your hopes of deeper storylines. Why? Because nobody wants storylines, they want constant action.

[Inane_Dork]

He has point. Nothing will be done, though.
Just like the last time someone yelled, "The sky is falling!"

[mckmas8808]

Well the samething is happening in rap music and movies too. Maybe it's just things changing in the world.:???:

[_phil_]

Let him innovate, and produce a game with less expensive assets (read: low quality), and see how many people are interested in it.


I would bet that the incoming massive outsourcing of graphical assets won't drive its quality upward.

[Shifty Geezer]

I probably wouldn't state things quite so strongly as in the article, but in general it's getting harder and harder to survive as a small developer and it basically impossible to sell an original idea.That's endemic to all the entertainments industries. Big companies want big returns and the 'accountants' decided what will or will not sell. If someone comes up with a great idea that'll be absolute perfect for a niche, and profitable, the publisher won't care if it won't be hugely profitable. Hence generic games, movies, books, musicians, TV programmes and everything else. As an example many kids publishers won't touch rhyming books because they can't be translated into other languages, and publishers only want to publish titles with broader appeal. That means if Dr. Seuss were trying to launch his career now he wouldn't get anywhere.

If publishers only cared about making a living, they could afford to take risks on small-time niche games and maybe get a sleeper hit once in a while. But they only care about making insane profits (like all other companies) and not actual contribute to people's entertainment, which ought to be the concern of the entertainment industry...

[Druga Runda]

it's an excellent article.

I am not from games industry but this is how any industry, or company dies and than sustains itself slowly changing and strangling competiton with its size and cash accumulated in past times. Effectively in the end just to be replaced with something else ... Not that gaming will dissapear any time soon, but the very forces that are driving the industry now it will slowly strangle it eventually. Not kill it, just strangle it, but this is the nature of this world, we will still play the GTA 69 games and such, not that it is bad, but surely it would be good too see the "real driver" (which is innovation) behind the entertainment take the hold.

Other mass appeal "art" style businesses are already at the same stage, look at music here and there some "real musician" manages to scrape through to the radio, and many times in the world it is because of some relatively cheap or independant medium, like small radio stations or in UK the BBC with it's John Peel's and simlar. Does this/ can this exist for games. Sadly making games is much more time consuming and costly than making music, and music is in such a dire straits as it is, on 100 Atomic Kittens, Boyzones, Girls Aloud, Sugarbabes, whatever you get some "real" musician like Jack Johnson (IMO an example of, a dude that would do the music regardless of making money or not) making a hit and being heard... what will happen with games? Who knows but IMO the only way out is to publish your own games ala Valve if you are big or reinvent the wheel through the net and find out to make money from "free" games...

It's not easy going against 50bn gorillas but quality counts and luckily the internet is the medium that a product can be distributed through almost for free. There is the future, somebody is bound to crack it, and manage to live off it.

[mckmas8808]

If publishers only cared about making a living, they could afford to take risks on small-time niche games and maybe get a sleeper hit once in a while. But they only care about making insane profits (like all other companies) and not actual contribute to people's entertainment, which ought to be the concern of the entertainment industry...

I agree with this 100%. But really aren't the game industry taking chances every now and again? Maybe not as much as we like but games like Okami, Jet Set Radio, SOTC, Ico, Kamnari Damancy (spelled wrong), etc. wouldn't have been possible.

[Druga Runda]

Does anyone seriously think anyone other than Will Wright could have gotten EA to publish a game like The Sims? And actually, EA tried to kill The Sims many times before it was finally released. From what I've heard (and this is definitely hearsay), Bing Gordon's comment at the meeting where publishing was approved was: "Well, it'll only sell a hundred thousand copies, but it'll get Will off our backs."
We're only talking about the best-selling PC title of all fucking time.

just to add that is quote is surely a classic, and I have no dobut that it could happen. This is strangulation because the money men have no vision, however teh industry will survive and move on with it's Fifas 200X's and Madden 200Y's... people want that too... it is up to independants to figure out how to make money out of creating and "giving away" good games. IMO not impossible but surely not something that has been started in the big way. From my perspective the natural way to independance is to try and get some money for in game advertizing, not much but it might be a way to get alternative stream of income for large distribution numbers. I am sure it would be even more valuable than TV adds for TV additcts as you can actually give products much more purpose and pitch in an purpose built innovative ad. (or better to hope for innovative game with some ads :D )

I know another beast we would want to avoid, but could be a way for independants to generate money just for large distribution of the game for free. I hope there are other more gamer friendly ways of creating games, but well we are still waiting for someone to start delivering... Surely this is bound to strart happening with even more power to "EA - it's in the lowest common denominator" style franchises.

[Brodda Thep]

I think he has some very good points about creating new game experiences. Such as the Sims or Nintendogs. or that damacy game I hear about. Most of these are from well known developers. You don't see very many new ideas from starting developers, yet at the same time we still see new types of games that are wildly popular. (grand Theft Auto)

So the problem isn't as big as he makes out.

The hardware guys would have you believe that there's a direct correlation between hardware capability and the size of the market, but that's false; people buy games for the gameplay experience, not for cool hardware, and the way to grow the market is to create new experiences - not to release game seven in a franchise.
I found that qute interesting. Ihave to disagree with him. The graphics is what has expanded the market drastically. I played the old rogue-like games such as Angband long ago. I loved them. But people would come up and look at what I was playing and not understand how I could find that enjoyable. They didn't see that '@' was me and that the 'D' was a fiersome dragon that I was engaged with.

Yet, these same people absolutely loved Diablo-esque type games. And the game play is nearly identical, with some aspects being better in Angband! (more levels, more variety of monsters, more effects) So graphics or rather immersion significantly drives market expansion and will continue to do so.

I think the reason why the industry is like it is, is because the medium which we bring games across to people on changes so dramatically in so short a time. In the three years it takes to create a game, the abilities of the medium have doubled if not quadrupled. Until this stops happening you are going to see the two-week-do-it-or-die sales.

Once hardware stops increasing so dramatically (maybe in 20 years?) you will be able to start getting collections of art and applicable algorithms that can expand your games without looking identical to every other game out there or look outdated. Until then, old work must continuously be discarded as new technologies come out, because they are simply outpaced.

[Johnny Awesome]

That's why publishers like Majesco exist.

[Alpha_Spartan]

Welcome to the games industry. Believe me, it sucks from the gamer's standpoint as well. It's sad that the ugliest Xbox 360 game, Tony Hawk Whatever, will probably sell the most because it's a safe game that many casual gamers will flock to.

Game development has become a needlessly self-fulfilling prophecy. Devs throw 20 million into a Halo clone to make it look shiny and they'll have to sell 2 million copies to make a profit. Why do games cost $20 million? Because Mr. Suit wants the game to appeal to the MTV audience so they hire Breaking Benjamin and The Killers to play a couple of tracks for the game. Of course, the game also has to debut on MTV so they have to pay MTV a few million out of the dev budget. Then there's the other advertising. Then there's all the developer overtime payroll because Mr. Suit wants the artists to put in a Sobe machine in one of the buildings in the game. But the programmers made it just another destructible object in the game, but Sobe execs don't like that so the programmer has to go in and make all of the Sobe machine objects indestructible. Of course, this causes the game to be delayed and go over budget.

Then when the game finally gets released and only sells 250,000 copies, the publisher dumps the developer because the $22 million dollar investment didn't pay off.

That's Modern Game Development 101 for you!!

[mckmas8808]

I just don't think it's that bad for the gamers Alpha.

[Alpha_Spartan]

Well, if you like Tony Hawk Rehash Edition and spending $60 a year on Madden for a new package and roster update, then you should be happier than a fly on shit.

But for those of us who got into gaming when almost no titles had a number behind them or was a clone of another game, we feel like blind men walking barefoot through a field full of cows at night and hoping that our feet don't get dirty.

[L_i_n_k]

People buy what they can get in their hands and that is desided by publishers, by voting idea x witch will get further along, And clearly in a lot of cases, they are not woting for a completely new bizard sounding ideas (EA anyone). But in the end , even if you get your self to the top, you are not going to top miyamoto if your ideas are allways greeted with , "stop this noncense Stanley, we are never gonna sell a game where this blumber eats mushrooms and grows big so that he can jump million times"

[Johnny Awesome]

Vote with your dollars. I won't buy crappy EA games. I own Return of the King, because it's good, but most of that crap I won't touch with a 10-foot pole.

[ShootMyMonkey]

Maybe not as much as we like but games like Okami, Jet Set Radio, SOTC, Ico, Kamnari Damancy (spelled wrong), etc. wouldn't have been possible.
You notice those examples happen to be Japanese? In Japan, at least, you've got a real gaming culture. And more traditional style games will sell quite well down there, and games like Katamari fit right in.

In the US, the majority of high-selling genres are those that are derived from simulations.

Once hardware stops increasing so dramatically (maybe in 20 years?)
I don't really think there's a very good chance of this happening, and even if GPU scaling of the hardware as we know it (i.e. rasterizers that do math) hits a wall of sorts, all that says is "time for a paradigm shift." nVidia and ATI probably just have too much vested interest in keeping the cycle of upgrades going and further obfuscating their numbering schemes.

[scooby_dooby]

What does he think about live arcade, i dont know. What do you think about it. There certainly is shell space, but there still is pile of money you need ,if you want to go beyond the Snes classics in terms of gameplay as anyone can top them in production values.

I think it's an excellent opportunity for smaller dev's to make money from their games, produce innovative gameplay, and not have monster budgets.

XB Live arcade removes the need for creating discs and distrubuting them via retail stores, so Developers no longer need a huge publisher.

They have this amazing piece of hardware that wil play their games, so here they are getting very low cost distribution with hardware that is super powerful, and an audience that will include every single X360 user with a broadband connection.

It's also an excellent way for Developers to sell their product, the publishers are only interest in GFX cause they think GFX drive sales. However, if you can produce a simplified version of your game, which goes on to be in the top 5 best selling XB Live Arcade games, then you can take that data to the publisher and prove undeniably thatyou have a good idea, and that it will sell.

Maybe, just maybe, one day we will see a killer app from XB Live Arcade....

[L_i_n_k]

Welcome to the games industry. Believe me, it sucks from the gamer's standpoint as well. It's sad that the ugliest Xbox 360 game, Tony Hawk Whatever, will probably sell the most because it's a safe game that many casual gamers will flock to

But this is understandable , obvious cashflow cowboy. the only problem is , where does this money go , buying a couple of more competitors. This would be ok if the franchises would continue to even some extend with different company name, but look at the amounts of talentet software companys and franchises this firm has bought, how many of those are still a live?

[L_i_n_k]

I think it's an excellent opportunity for smaller dev's to make money from their games, produce innovative gameplay, and not have monster budgets.

XB Live arcade removes the need for creating discs and distrubuting them via retail stores, so Developers no longer need a huge publisher.

They have this amazing piece of hardware that wil play their games, so here they are getting very low cost distribution with hardware that is super powerful, and an audience that will include every single X360 user with a broadband connection.

It's also an excellent way for Developers to sell their product, the publishers are only interest in GFX cause they think GFX drive sales. However, if you can produce a simplified version of your game, which goes on to be in the top 5 best selling XB Live Arcade games, then you can take that data to the publisher and prove undeniably thatyou have a good idea, and that it will sell.

Maybe, just maybe, one day we will see a killer app from XB Live Arcade....


Well yes , exactly my thoughts, but as i need to say something about this , how does low production values and high performance hardware ,with pretty high production value expectations fit together ?. I mean you need to have less pretty graphics than current generation of consoles, without that you cannont go cheap.

[scooby_dooby]

But look at the GFX the project offset guys cranked out. Just 3 guys.

It all depends on the game as well, maybe a game could have extremely good art but be quite small, who knows....imagination is certainly not my forte. The fact remains, though, they do have incredible GFX processing capabilities if they wish to use them.

[L_i_n_k]

But look at the GFX the project offset guys cranked out. Just 3 guys.

It all depends on the game as well, maybe a game could have extremely good art but be quite small, who knows....imagination is certainly not my forte. The fact remains, though, they do have incredible GFX processing capabilities if they wish to use them.

Ok , by the way do you have more information on that project offset thingie. maybe pictures or video.

[scooby_dooby]

projectoffset.com!

however that has been beat to death in other threads, it's just an example that a small team can still make amazing GFX.

[L_i_n_k]

It pretty much agrees with my feelings on the industry as a whole. When the last small developer I worked for went under, I considered starting a development company and decided that the business model just didn't make sense.

I probably wouldn't state things quite so strongly as in the article, but in general it's getting harder and harder to survive as a small developer and it basically impossible to sell an original idea.

I think we'll see more and more development moved internal by the big guys, largely because with larger development budgets it's easier to track the spending, you know the money your spending is being spent on your product rather than the one the developer is doing for the other publisher.

I think in a lot of ways it's just the industry growing up, budgets will flatten off at somepoint and there will always be people willing to take chances on original ideas, they'll just be few and far between. But honestly just because an idea is new and inovative doesn't make it good.

There are other models than the one that the article is pushing and there is more room for innovation in them. As a developer you have to conciously decide that your not making a AAA title and your not competing with the big boys and concentrate on something you can sell say 50K copies of and match that budget with your development costs. But no-one wants to build B titles.

What in it did not make sense?. reasons listed in the article?.
What alternative model you see happening in the farseable future?.

[Laa-Yosh]

But look at the GFX the project offset guys cranked out. Just 3 guys.

Yeah, they have like, 2 or 3 characters, with who knows how many animation cycles.

Believe me, nextgen level art assets take a LOT of time to produce. And we're not yet talking about fine tuning them.

[ERP]

What in it did not make sense?. reasons listed in the article?.
What alternative model you see happening in the farseable future?.

Without getting too ranty

As a developer I want front loaded payment schedule since all my significant costs are upfront. Publishers insist on a backend loaded payment schedule since if they cancel they are less out of pocket.

In order to sign a contract you must be competitive on cost and schedule, which means you bid at or less than what it will actually cost you (betting on royalties to bail you out) and are "inventive" in scheduling.

Almost every small developer working on original property is in breach of contract, because they will miss at least one milestone somewhere, once your in breach the publisher has you by the short and curlies, they can renegotiate royalties and payments whenever they feel like it.

Even if the property is a success you likely don't own it so the publisher is at liberty to have another dev do the sequel or move development internally if you're considered too expensive.

You work from milestone to milestone, which means before you finish one product you need to have already signed another, but you can't sign until you demonstrate that you have the resources ready right now to work on the new title....

Big publishers seem to think you need a team of 20 programmers to build a current gen game, and you have no hope of convincing them that you can actually do it better with 7 or 8 really good people. This in turn drives your cost up, and your back to inventive accounting and scheduling above.

Don't get me wrong there are ways to make money as a small developer, most of them are work for hire, port X to PSP type things or do contract work for a large publisher, and that doesn't honestly interest me.

[scooby_dooby]

ERP, what do you think about XB Live Arcade and the potential to sell original games in the $10-20 range without having to sell-out to a major publisher?

In his concusion I noticed that most of the things he is asking for will be provided through XB Live Arcade.

An audience that prizes gameplay over glitz. - check

A business that allows niche product to be commercially successful - check.

profitability with sales of a few tens of thousands of units, not millions. - check

creator control of intellectual property, because creators deserve to own their own work - check

Now, say for example a Developer releases a game that offers a totally new genre, and goes on to be a smash hit. That developer would conveivably have Publishers knockin on the door asking for a sequal, they will have much more leverage with the publishers, and could potentially retain the rights to their original IP while still gaining funding to bring their idea to the next level.

[Shifty Geezer]

Even if the property is a success you likely don't own it so the publisher is at liberty to have another dev do the sequel or move development internally if you're considered too expensive.This is something that bothers me. The devs do all the work but the publishers pocket all the cash, no? I mean out of a million copy seller that grosses $50 million in sales, how much does the dev company actually get? I get the impression it's a very small amount, so they won't be in a position to accrue enough wealth to publish their own titles.

There was an interview with Team17 a while back on GI.biz, that had them talking about publishing and developing. They used to publish their own material. That article pointed out how they had an IP (Alien Breed on the consoles, with the CON engine) that was pretty much finished and ready to go, and the publisher pulled out, so it's a useless development.

[Shifty Geezer]

Well yes , exactly my thoughts, but as i need to say something about this , how does low production values and high performance hardware ,with pretty high production value expectations fit together ?. I mean you need to have less pretty graphics than current generation of consoles, without that you cannont go cheap.You don't need a large art budget for good quality visuals. A simple game with clever use of quality shaders, post effects and rendering styles can negate the need for complex textures or models. Smart devs will choose an art style that fits their budget. So for example if they want to do a shooter, they might go with a vibrant cartoon renderer rather than an extensively textured and lit urban warzone that will be competing with big budget titles. And a racer will forgo the complex, detailed, realistic models of the GT series with their enormous modelling budgets and instead go for simplistic cutesy cars.

Good design, and good loking games, doesn't need stupid amounts of work. Indeed you can spend lots of time and effort creating game assets that with lousy art direction makes for a diabolical looking game, where a simpler design would have been far better.

[scooby_dooby]

This is something that bothers me. The devs do all the work but the publishers pocket all the cash, no? I mean out of a million copy seller that grosses $50 million in sales, how much does the dev company actually get? I get the impression it's a very small amount, so they won't be in a position to accrue enough wealth to publish their own titles..

according to the article at the beginning of this thread, it's about 7% when all is said and done, and out of that 7% you need to pay back the project budget that you were advanced.

[scooby_dooby]

J Allard is reading my mind....

"J Allard: Maintaining the lead in online is critical, it's one of the biggest drivers of growth and innovation. Whether you say, crazy new developer with a risky idea and how do they get it out in a world of 10 million dollar production budgets in a risk adverse industry. Our answer: Live Arcade - make a level, put it up there and see what happens, maybe you'll get signed to a publisher after that to make a million dollar version of it at retail and dole it out month over month. It's good for innovation."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/front_index.php?

[MfA]

He seems to have two problems with the industry, lack of innovation ... and not wanting to be a cog in a vast machine. I dont think the first is a big problem, innovation will always slip through the cracks ... movies I want to see are still being made too. The second is his problem :)

[PARANOiA]

It's a very interesting article, and one that has sparked some good discussion here. I'm impressed.

I do think this is just "the way of the world" today, but I also think that that doesn't make it a good thing. That's why more people vote for the "Idol" TV shows than in the general elections :sad:

[L_i_n_k]

You don't need a large art budget for good quality visuals. A simple game with clever use of quality shaders, post effects and rendering styles can negate the need for complex textures or models. Smart devs will choose an art style that fits their budget. So for example if they want to do a shooter, they might go with a vibrant cartoon renderer rather than an extensively textured and lit urban warzone that will be competing with big budget titles. And a racer will forgo the complex, detailed, realistic models of the GT series with their enormous modelling budgets and instead go for simplistic cutesy cars.

Good design, and good loking games, doesn't need stupid amounts of work. Indeed you can spend lots of time and effort creating game assets that with lousy art direction makes for a diabolical looking game, where a simpler design would have been far better.

Yes its kinda pretty and cheap so perfect for this kind of app, you are right.
Generally i think that all kinds of procedural generation that can save unnessessary work , is a must specially in future titles.

[L_i_n_k]

ERP, what do you think about XB Live Arcade and the potential to sell original games in the $10-20 range without having to sell-out to a major publisher?

In his concusion I noticed that most of the things he is asking for will be provided through XB Live Arcade.

An audience that prizes gameplay over glitz. - check

A business that allows niche product to be commercially successful - check.

profitability with sales of a few tens of thousands of units, not millions. - check

creator control of intellectual property, because creators deserve to own their own work - check

Now, say for example a Developer releases a game that offers a totally new genre, and goes on to be a smash hit. That developer would conveivably have Publishers knockin on the door asking for a sequal, they will have much more leverage with the publishers, and could potentially retain the rights to their original IP while still gaining funding to bring their idea to the next level.

It could really be a starting place for new talent and franchises that would normaly stay underground. Furter looked, microsoft would be in a good position for picking those gems and making them to be full fledged products.

[Shifty Geezer]

However won't XBLive! still require an expensive XB360 SDK to be bought? IT won't have the same degree of support as say PC development that's cheap as you like, bedroom development stuff. One the XB bigwigs mentioned a development price of $100,000 which still occlude most potential talent. How many wannabe developers can drum up that much capital?

I guess there might hopefully crop up some 'speculative' publishers who'll back small scale development teams who can prove they've the capability and talent. As I say, I hope so. I'm sure a lot of good ideas (though I'd hazard most people with a great idea for a new game actually haven't anything of the sort, going by software developer forums :p ) could get passed up just because people can't afford to develop them, and it's that cost as much as distribution model that needs to be addressed if development is really to open up. Though existing developers will at least find an outlet in Live! Arcade without a publisher taking all their earnings, and might try some more experimental work if they can find $100,000 to throw away on potential turkey. That's kinda the risk with new ideas - sometimes they just suck and you don't get anything back, so you should only undertake development if you can afford to lose it all.

[L_i_n_k]

Without getting too ranty

As a developer I want front loaded payment schedule since all my significant costs are upfront. Publishers insist on a backend loaded payment schedule since if they cancel they are less out of pocket.

In order to sign a contract you must be competitive on cost and schedule, which means you bid at or less than what it will actually cost you (betting on royalties to bail you out) and are "inventive" in scheduling.

Almost every small developer working on original property is in breach of contract, because they will miss at least one milestone somewhere, once your in breach the publisher has you by the short and curlies, they can renegotiate royalties and payments whenever they feel like it.

Even if the property is a success you likely don't own it so the publisher is at liberty to have another dev do the sequel or move development internally if you're considered too expensive.

You work from milestone to milestone, which means before you finish one product you need to have already signed another, but you can't sign until you demonstrate that you have the resources ready right now to work on the new title....

Big publishers seem to think you need a team of 20 programmers to build a current gen game, and you have no hope of convincing them that you can actually do it better with 7 or 8 really good people. This in turn drives your cost up, and your back to inventive accounting and scheduling above.

Don't get me wrong there are ways to make money as a small developer, most of them are work for hire, port X to PSP type things or do contract work for a large publisher, and that doesn't honestly interest me.

Okay very interesting thanks and very apreciated. As you said earlier, that you except things to get better eventually as other entertaiment industries have. But as we speack things are getting more complicated every day. You need even more money, bigger dev teams, quicker timelines. Could Xbox live arcade or similiar technology be that source of optimism?.

[scooby_dooby]

However won't XBLive! still require an expensive XB360 SDK to be bought? IT won't have the same degree of support as say PC development that's cheap as you like, bedroom development stuff. One the XB bigwigs mentioned a development price of $100,000 which still occlude most potential talent. How many wannabe developers can drum up that much capital?.

Well like any business you have to have some sort of capital, and $100,000 is much more realistic than 10 or 20 million!

ALso, I'd imagine if you had a group of dedicated guys with an amazing idea, alot of that 100,000 could maybe be in-kind manhours with the hope of cashing in after sales.

[L_i_n_k]

However won't XBLive! still require an expensive XB360 SDK to be bought? IT won't have the same degree of support as say PC development that's cheap as you like, bedroom development stuff. One the XB bigwigs mentioned a development price of $100,000 which still occlude most potential talent. How many wannabe developers can drum up that much capital?

I guess there might hopefully crop up some 'speculative' publishers who'll back small scale development teams who can prove they've the capability and talent. As I say, I hope so. I'm sure a lot of good ideas (though I'd hazard most people with a great idea for a new game actually haven't anything of the sort, going by software developer forums :p ) could get passed up just because people can't afford to develop them, and it's that cost as much as distribution model that needs to be addressed if development is really to open up. Though existing developers will at least find an outlet in Live! Arcade without a publisher taking all their earnings, and might try some more experimental work if they can find $100,000 to throw away on potential turkey. That's kinda the risk with new ideas - sometimes they just suck and you don't get anything back, so you should only undertake development if you can afford to lose it all.

Well 10 000 for sdk is five times more than a PC, That will defenitely make many heads turn. Then again, if there is more than one person in the project, that cost will be divided. 100 000 certainly is beyond many! bedroomcoders, but is afordable by smal to medi independent dev grops. Still i cant see a single person making a hit, except its some kind of new tetris.

[scooby_dooby]

So you code it in your bedroom on your PC, then take get some partners who can see the potential, and bring it to XBLive Arcade.

Maybe you don't retain full rights to your IP, but maybe 50%, and the investors deserve a slice anyways since you wouldn't have the capital to make it happen without them.

From there your game reaches XBLive and can begin selling, if it becomes a hit, you may be picked up by a publisher, and demand to retain rights to your IP. I think that if you had a proven product, there would be SOMEONE out there willing to fund it and cash in, even if it meant not owning rights to the IP.

The problem we have now is, IP's can't be proven until they've had 5million dollars pumped into them, and no-one pumps money that kind of money into an unproven franchise without a HUGE backend payoff, and the develop has 0 leverage. A smash hit on XBLive would change that negotiation process completely!

Hell you may be able to generate enough revenue to publish yourself(2million sales@$10), should that become the case, and your IP makes REAL money, then you could step in as the first real XBLive Arcade Publisher that took an active role in bringing the top-selling games to the next level, cashing in on the sales however not demanding IP rights from your developers.

[Shifty Geezer]

I s'pose ideally, and perhaps unrealistically, I'd like to see the possibilities that existied in day one of computer games. Back in the 8bit era individual nerds (or a nerd and their geek friend) could hack away on 32kb of assembler and make a best seller. For me the key to opening full innovation is enabling those same individuals with no financial reserve other than for a $100 language and an old $40 copy of PaintShopPro to still manage to get their ideas out there if they are willing to put in the effort. Ultimately I hate an industry (and world) where how far you get depends more on how much money you have (which can be a fairly random criteria) rather than how good your ideas are and how hard you'll work towards them. *sigh*

[Edge]

It seems to me you have an industry with a lot of idealistic people, who are low on cash, and think they can create the next best thing, if only a publisher would give them the money to do so. In other words the risk is on the publisher, and so the publisher drives a hard bargain, and understandable so.

There is bitterness against this, but why should there be? If you think your ideal is so hot, fund your own development, create a great game, and shop for a publisher.

Of course people don't have the money, and they seem so arrogant to think publishers should help them simply because they have such a great ideal. Well great ideals for games are a dime a dozen.

It's a very competitive industry, and so it's a very tough industry. If you can't hack it, you should not be in it.

[pc999]

Great article IMO.

And I do agree with him, games are each time more related to each others, look the same etc... (part of that is what make Rev so atractive), while they still play the same the interesting in games starts to fadding out, each time we see a new games if there is a new features is normaly only one (a little one) few games can go beyond that.

IMO while nicier gfx is cool (from detail stand point) I think that effects (eg.shadows) are much more important for both gameplay (eg.Splinter Cell with 10X the detail would not be better than it is) and low budgets (I think) and power for better AI, physics can make new gameplay too , but as I said before multiple times I think that too thinghs should happen too games get a new breath:

1) Games (and the console(s) itself) needs to have a lower price (1/3), so they can get really mainstream , and probably jump by much more than 3X (IMO is probably the 1B from Allard) the sales and get a much biger audience, and this way creat new markets for low budget games and such..., and once that a lot of people just dont play games because they cant afford it ( and a big percentage only buy it after a big redution in the price)

2) Gemes need new ways to improve (ie new interfaces, as STANDARD, Rev will probably pick much more new gamers IMO), you can see in my signature how a microphone as standard can add to the gameplay (if from the ground up) because IMO controllers are the main limitation with the power from the new gen of consoles (you can see in some others threads more ideas). New interfaces will also bring new gamers , new markets etc...

Althought XBL sees to have some nice ideas, it looks like it will hav 2 problems:

1) It will be mainly for more content which sould be hard being inovative with maps(...) they will hardly bring new mechanics to the games.

2) New games will probably be very simple once (by now) they only anunced 2D, board like , flash like ...games so while IMO still can be inovative, it will not be good for any game a bit more complex and that may be problematic for some people.

Althought it will be very interesting too see a bit more ahead in next gen consoles when gfx dont matter (because it will be very hard to see diferences, just see the numbers of UE3 licences), how consumers will react.

[scooby_dooby]

2) New games will probably be very simple once (by now) they only anunced 2D, board like , flash like ...games so while IMO still can be inovative, it will not be good for any game a bit more complex and that may be problematic for some people..
Why can't a XB Arcade game be complex? The HDD is recommended for XB Live users, and would be preferential for anyone planning on downloading several XBLive Arcade Games.

So storage space is a non-issue.

Bandwidth is somewhat of an issue, but I don't see why the live servers couldn't pump out some decent bandwidth and let you download 500MB-1000MB games, these types of games would probably be in the $20 range anyways, that's plenty of money for MS to get a cut and cover server/bandwidth fees. Especially considering there's no costs for advertising, shipping, packaging, manufacturing etc...

So bandwidth isn't a non-issue, but it's not a show stopper.

[L_i_n_k]

I s'pose ideally, and perhaps unrealistically, I'd like to see the possibilities that existied in day one of computer games. Back in the 8bit era individual nerds (or a nerd and their geek friend) could hack away on 32kb of assembler and make a best seller. For me the key to opening full innovation is enabling those same individuals with no financial reserve other than for a $100 language and an old $40 copy of PaintShopPro to still manage to get their ideas out there if they are willing to put in the effort. Ultimately I hate an industry (and world) where how far you get depends more on how much money you have (which can be a fairly random criteria) rather than how good your ideas are and how hard you'll work towards them. *sigh*

So would it be good way to start designing the game in fever dimensions(not old school nessessarily) and when the core innovation in gameplay is right, move on to produce top production quality on top of that foundation. If the level designers would know gameplay,to like complementing the gameplay by making it more than sum of its parts, not just trying to make it look great artistically. Many franchises have find that succesfull, maybe this "make a top production quality innovation hit from the scratch", is so rare that everyone just looks at you with disbelief, even with great trackrecord.

Knowing products like mertroid prime, a lot of this knowledge is within the AAA devs, how fundametally gameplayish the development phase generally is, doesent show from general level products at least (genre spesific mimics ect). but above described way it would at least be easier to innovate on simple gameplay and then move on to high production quality level, softer landing for investors and developers.

After all ,how deeply new devs dug into these fundemental non superficial parts of the game. Lots of famous greatlooking games being their source of inspiration, but do they ever get them, or master those doctrines by just making new harry potters.

After all in the article escapist hinted that there are wastly more great working gameplay combinations in the working minds at least ,than we are lead to believe. Publisher are working like a floodgate ,by just aproving ideas that are safe from bussines standpoint, and Talented devs like ERP keep making ports, maybe new spiderman if he gets lucky.

But im not only conplaining, as a gamer I think that, with even these resttrictions that are maybe natural in many ways Still. The number of quality games is great, but i would like to be having my jaw handed back to me by the very guys who have played the first 20 year patch of games and understand everything about them and know how to fuck my brains out =)