Death to the Gaming Industry

tekproxy

<div class="IPBDescription">Discussion of the gaming industry</div>Here's an interesting article called Death to the Gaming Industry. It's a good read if you're into that sort of thing, and it made me think of how much I like Steam and how much I admire Unknown World's attempt to breathe new life into the industry with innovative development models.
<a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/8/3" target="_blank">http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/8/3</a>

Quaunaut

I'm all for innovation, but the person who wrote that seriously needs to get a grip. There are more games that change gaming conventions now than anytime before, sans the birth of the gaming industry(And I mean the BIRTH, as in, a few years within pong. Not the NES/atari days). The only difference is is that the hyperbole on people looking across shelves is increasing. There was plenty of drivel on shelves then, as there is now- and theres plenty of awesome, innovative titles now, and then. Nothing has changed. Someone just wants to swear over the apocalypse 'cause someone always has to be chicken little.

GreyFlcn

Partially thats what Mod developers are for ;D

But actually whats quite interesting is that you are starting to get developer tools like XNA
Where someone can port a PC game directly to X-Box.

Which drastically reduces the budget that someone can make a game with.

SmoodCroozn

I always thought that games should be like mods, free and fun. It could be like a hobby you work on from time to time, not deadlines you must meet. With that said, I'd rather make a game from my passion, rather than being rushed to meet some date just so I can hope it's a success if it sells a certain amount of copies.

But the problem is that the sales drives the advertisement, popularity and so on. It can be hard for a free game to reach the masses.

My question is can a free independent, casually developed game achieve the standards of those licensed, market-driven, company games?

SloppyKisses

<!--quoteo(post=1620469:date=Apr 12 2007, 01:53 AM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Apr 12 2007, 01:53 AM) [snapback]1620469[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I always thought that games should be like mods, free and fun. It could be like a hobby you work on from time to time, not deadlines you must meet. With that said, I'd rather make a game from my passion, rather than being rushed to meet some date just so I can hope it's a success if it sells a certain amount of copies.

But the problem is that the sales drives the advertisement, popularity and so on. It can be hard for a free game to reach the masses.

My question is can a free independent, casually developed game achieve the standards of those licensed, market-driven, company games?
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To answer your question I would say prolly not. Reason I say this is because, money is a huge motivating factor as it is in any job. Sure you can get a bunch of people together to make a free game, but 90% of the time it wont turn out as such a good game like NS, but crap.

the_x5

That's where I think NS2 has a huge chance to hit. A free mod spawned a highly loyal community which spawned a company which uses the engine developed by what was once another free-lance company, VALVe. It all comes down to failure or success with NS2. As this article outlines, there really is very little if any room for failure like there used to be.
<!--QuoteBegin-Greg Costikyan+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Greg Costikyan)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->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<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He's correct on that point. Again, here is a crack UWE can break the mold on and shine through.
<!--QuoteBegin-Greg Costikyan+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Greg Costikyan)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->All creative media get stale, at times; it's happening to mainstream film right now. But film, music and comics have something the game industry doesn't have: They have parallel distribution channels for independently created product. They have a path to market for quirky, oddball, innovative, creative work. And that path to market not only allows creative people to support themselves in a modest way - it also provides a way for the larger conventional market to discover new talent, and new genres. It provides a lower cost way to experiment - and that very experimentation reinvigorates the larger field.

The nightmare scenario for gaming is that we become like comics in the 60s and 70s - a niche, repetitive field limited to a handful of genres with no real opportunity for growth. It might even be starting to happen: Video game sales in Japan have been declining for years, and even in the US, publishers are struggling to match their 2004 revenues this year.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->That I can agree with too, to a degree. I think the future of gamming will be that some companies will make and sell engines to other more innovative groups that make the games themselves.

What I gain that's positive and progressive from this article is that the game industry needs to embrace creativity better and focus on gameplay experiences rather than graphics. I agree with that plea to those two items, not the overall pessimism of the article.

Rob

This guy maybe in the midst of falling off his rocker, but you still can't deny that game development budgets swelling from 10s and 100s of thousands of dollars to 10s of millions changes the way the industry works. In fact, we didn't start calling it an "industry" until fairly recently. Before that, it was just something the weird kids played in dark rooms for fear of recrimination. Now, every one's who's cool has the latest stuff.

To me the spirit of gaming was always the counter-culture aspects. (It's a guilty pleasure of mine, I don't think counter-culture is bad unless you use it in a pompous fashion) Now, games are mainstream. There's a lot of money to be made, and a lot to be spent. You really are crazy if you think a bunch of corporate powerhouses are going to plunk down even 10 million dollars on a game just for the sake of experimentation.

It's true, that's what the point of mods are, to allow hobbyists to try something new, but it's getting harder and harder to do that, as well. Everybody wants mods to look just as good as the real thing. The engines we modify grow more and more complex, lengthening development cycles and cutting those who don't have the heart to sit and figure it all out. You'll not be taken seriously anymore if you just mess around with the weapon damages in deathmatch; that's small potatoes.

Not only that, but mods are classically for the FPS or FPS related genres. I don't know of any official full SDKs for RTS (I may be wrong there, but surely they're not as common). This leaves only the genius fans to hack and slash their way into adding new content, and it leaves the developers directly responsible for the longevity of the game.

I could only imagine the kind of awesome stuff the community would produce if they had the same level of control they have over the Source engine for Total Annihilation, C&C Generals, the Earth Series, Homeworld, Tribes series, Freelancer, etc. Hell, most of the content holes in these games could probably be filled in over time.

Then again, it's not in the best interest of Publishers to allow the modification of their IP, potentially adding years to the longevity of their game when they have other titles to sell. If everyone's still playing your old stuff, who's going to buy your new stuff?

KainTSA

The increase in graphics standards certainly does put new ideas at a disadvantage. It used to be, that "indie" games could come from just one author. Now even these games require at least a sizable team working on them to get them up to current standards. While its good to have input from multiple people, this does prevent the occational lone programmer from just trying out his oddball idea.

As a side note:

I have my own little site where I sell cheap indi games that I make in my spare time. When I first started out, I tried to make very original games but I got almost no downloads/sales. Just as an experiment, I made a copy-cat brick breaker and threw in a few new ideas. I couldn't believe how much better it did than my other games. It seems that people almost want to see the same thing over and over again <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />

tjosan

Swedish public libraries (well, all libraries are public in Sweden >_<) are working on lending games now. I think that's really cool, and a sign that computer games are slowly being accepted as part of the cultural mainstream.

Nice!

Dirty_Harry_Potter

<!--quoteo(post=1620543:date=Apr 12 2007, 05:00 PM:name=tjosan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tjosan @ Apr 12 2007, 05:00 PM) [snapback]1620543[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Swedish public libraries (well, all libraries are public in Sweden >_<) are working on lending games now. I think that's really cool, and a sign that computer games are slowly being accepted as part of the cultural mainstream.

Nice!
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->They've been doing that for quite some time here in Denmark <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> Though, it's rarely completely new titles, but still some good stuff among it. That reminds me, I should check the libary XD