DIE INDUSTRY DIE!
polycounter lvl 19
Haha, found an entertaining article By Greg Costikyan. Have fun.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3
Replies
Hahaha... Take that article, read it and explain to me why exactly I can buy a game like Gish or Uplink in stores, games that have pretty much zero glitz or name recognition and couldn't possibly be picked up by a publisher?
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I had to look those games up because I've never heard of them before.
Looking at both games, they seem to be self funded / low budget(in terms of team size, not quality). Basically, they finish the game and shop it around. This comes at a lower risk to the publisher because they can play it and see if it's fun. All the publisher has to do is buy it and put it on shelves if they like it.
It's rare, but it happens.
doom 3 is obviously a thousand times better of a game than doom 1, which is so widely received because of how new and invovative it was at the time. if you consider the level design, and gameplay elements, and updated the graphics so that it was nicely lit, you'd realize that doom 3 kicks the piss out of it. the main argument i've heard against doom 3 are stupid gameplay mechanics, like the whole monster-in-a-closet thing. guuuuueeess hwere that came from?
if you took doom 1 and put in in the doom 3 engine, and called it a different name, it'd be widely recieved as a piece of shit.
obviously the question here is innovation.. but it's a shame that people alow their nastalgia to get in the way of a side by side comparisson.
The only thing I can think of is that valve will perfect steam. That could open up a secondary distribution model.
OTOH, the "cheap crap" business seems to flourish as well, I see so many low budget games put out by some company noone knows, there has to be money in that.
Steam + Episodic content = lots of freedom to experiment with new gameplay mechanics. Shameless SiN Episodes Plug goes
>HERE<
BTW, Mr. Rockstar, that's why I called ETM a "fluke".
As for advertisement, hehe doom sold on word of mouth alone. I'm sure right now things are different, but i don't see how that wouldn't work if the games are being distributed online.
And yeah there are still development costs which you have to surpass, but thats the case with the games you've mentioned in your first post, they were self funded and then sold to a publisher, same thing can work with steam, it'll be a little tough as a new developer, but for someone with a little funding it should be very well possible.
I'm not saying it'll work, I'm saying that it seems like a way out of the whole publishers !@##$#ing developers in the @!# situation. most of the profits will go directly to the developer instead of the publisher and the developer only getting 12-15% in the best case scenario...
which means you have to sell less copies to make profit, which in turn means lower cost of development, much lower cost of distribution, which means theres less risk involved, which means there can be more innovative games. With episodic content it gets even better, since your development cycle is shorter, you can be more creative with each episode, you can try something new and if it doesn't work, well you've only lost very little in the grand scheme of things.
Steam & its ilk for the PC
Microsoft/Sony marketplace for the consoles.
The whole retail distribution paradigm is on its way out. It'll take years and it will fight its demise tooth & nail, but I believe its inevitable that physical retail distribution will become obsolete & irrelevant.
Ultimatly the greater financial rewards to developers will allow them to advertise & fund their own games.
3dcult
SIN Ep looks sweet Rockstar. now gimme a job! j/k less you got one!
Ah, another question for the article: If good graphics+bad gameplay sells, why is it that Acclaim went bankrupt?
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This might give you a few hints as to why:
http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=9091
i dont think the retail of games will be going away at all, people still like to go shop regardless of the idiots in the game stores.
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true, personally I prefer phsyical copies of something I've bought. you have something tangeable to look at and hold; not to mention I actually like having a manual to physically flick through when I'm stuck rather than minimising the window and opening acrobat.
as far as retail games go, i doubt they'll be replaced by electronic means. While Sky Box-Office is cool for renting a movie you want to see; you still go to Blockbuster and actually rent something don't you? Don't ask me why cause I have no idea ... just that people do.
Also sure while Valve's Steam, or GameSpy's Direct2Drive are good solutions for developers who have the cash to spend on development. This really only benefits people who are working on bedroom titles that aren't working on them full-time or companies that have already made enough to take a chance on making thier own titles.
As far as Budget / Adverage companies go, I doubt Steam/Direct2Drive have changed anything. They still need huge amounts of subsidies in order to remain operational; so it's up to the publishers how they publish.
Steam doesn't have a very good name as a distribution method. Personally I've never had any issues with it, but many people hate steam for how bad it was in the past and how it's not always 100% certain you can get content when servers are on heavy loads.
Not to mention most people still only have 1-2Mb connections if that. Downloading a game the size of Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 for them can take the better part of a day. Some people have slower connections.
Maybe if the whole world was on thier new 24Mb stuff that is just being released.. fair enough, or like Korea where almost everyone is connected via hi-speed 100Mb lines (no doubt why MMORPGs are so popular there). Most counteries just don't have that sort of exchange system though.
For places like Europe and America that would be extremely costly to the government to subsidise in the same way too.
I think for the most part this is a case of we have to let technology actually grow up to meet our needs.
Or rather it's implimentation.
Plus if we're talking episodic content then theres less content to download, means quicker downloads.
I'm sure people will still go to game stores and buy stuff there, and the whole digital distribution thing will not happen overnight, people aren't just going to all of a sudden stop going to stores and start downloading games, it'll take awhile, but it will happen because if you've read the article u know that theres a PROBLEM here. As a developer I'd rather make interesting innovative content and not have to deal with some corporate suit telling me I can't do that, and I when all said and done I also want to make money from what I've created and not just live from project to project hoping that one of them manages to sell over a million copies. I'm not alone, the more developers move onto this the better. Sure an average Joe will still go to walmart to buy a game, but with with digital distribution the money goes almost directly to the developer, so I don't care about targetting the average joe, I don't have to sell bajillion copies to make a profit.
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On a theoretical basis, the rise in development costs is driven directly by Moore's Law. As hardware becomes capable of displaying better-detailed graphics and higher polygon counts, it becomes mandatory to provide them.
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I call BS on this, you can still make game with somewhat out dated graphics have it sell like crazy. World of Warcraft for example looks like its graphics engine was desgined in 1998 but is craxy popular and one hell of a money maker. When will (BOTH) developers and publisher get it thru their thick heads they don't need to relay on crazy pipelines just because its "new".
I don't know why we are even talking about all this. The oil companies will see to it that no one has a job inside the US by jacking gas prices so high no one can get to work. Sure there will be death in industry, too bad it will be right along side the rest of the global economy...
DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
I think that area is going to the the growth category in the coming 1-3 years, and will help getting costs down a lot.
And innovation has been moved to hobby mods and indy projects already quite a time ago, so this isn't really anything new.
-R
When you can use internet distribution you are self-funded. There's noone who can tell you to do this or don't do that. Of course, self-funded isn't possible for most. And if you're unlucky you're the one eating the 3 million loss the article lists for the average game.
If you publish it via downloads you better make it cheaper because I see no justification for demanding as much for a download copy as a retail one (no manufacturing/logistics/storage). Since you're giving the user a worse experience (eating his own bandwidth for the download, giving him no physical copy to reinstall from so he has to burn his own at his own cost) a lower price would be reasonable.
What I get from that article is that there indeed needs to be a path for independent games, and it seems like the internet distribution model might be it. If you don't believe that people will download stuff instead of getting it at the store, go over and read "Touching Aimee's Panties" in the same Escapist issue. I think the trends in virtual MMO commerce cast some doubt on criticism of Internet distribution ideas.
Okay, my new life's dream is now confirmed. Someday, I wanna be the John Waters of the game industry.
/jzero
if you took doom 1 and put in in the doom 3 engine, and called it a different name, it'd be widely recieved as a piece of shit.
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No, I think you would call it "Serious Sam II", and Serious Sam is not shit. But the same mindless AI of Doom is on display there. same Millions of enemies rushing straight at you.
Scott
These days the cost of entry is too high, and Vig if you followed Costikyan's arguement to the last page, you see he refusted the assertion that Moore's law was in any way related to sales, He says the exponential increase in sales was due to the increase in Game types invented out of thin air in the past 30 years.
The one thing I see as the error in his thinking is that his charge that the audience must change. Audience change will happen, and it willb e glacially slow, and it may change away from where he wants it to go. In general I stil thing the collective movement of the audience and the inustry is toward more "immersive" and realistic expectations, with end goals like "The Holodeck", rather than the clean abstractions of Costikyan's boardgame roots. A lot of abstaction removes a lot of emotional connection.
Scott
World of Warcraft is a poor example Vig, because it's one of the best looking MMORPG's out there. So infact graphics do help sell that game in compairison to it's competition.
-R
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It does look good but the tech wow uses is hardly "cutting edge".
I wasn't bashing wow, I love the look and artistic direction they took. However thier models are under 3k thier textures rarely go above 512 and they use color masking on tons of stuff and every texture is mirrored. Not really new technology, its all pretty old. Which goes to prove my point old tech done right can make a good game. The author was saying that to make a good game devs MUST use cutting edge tech which WoW proves him wrong.
If blizzard was pushing the bleeding edge of tech WoW would look like the cinematics in WarCraft3. But they shot for apealing to the mass market but making the most out of limited tech, which is freakin AWSOME!
I only wish more dev studios would shelve horrible spec maps and normal maps and stick to what they know they can do. Instead of putting in poorly done "new tech" just for box hype.
Which goes to prove my point old tech done right can make a good game.
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That's an excellent observation. i totally agree. Source tech is half a generation behind doom3, but overall is many x's the game that doom3 is.
-R
still though, this is all just tech wise, game wise it really doesn't matter, I believe that its not the tech that drives the look of a game, but rather the people behind it, if you have amazing artists with the right skills and the right tools they can create an amazing looking game. The tech merely gives the limitations of what they can and can't do, it'll either enhance or hinder the art team's abilities to make things look good. Not everyone likes or even can make highly detailed normal mapped models, alot of people prefer the old fashioned methods and thats cool, there are lots of people who are very good at it. I think in the end the experience should be driven by the art and the gameplay, and the tech just being a generic base limitations of what can and can't be done, which then can be broken by the team to make something more unique.
anyways all I'm saying is that the tech is cool and all, but its really all about the people who make the games that matters.
There's an exception to every rule and Blizzard is an amazingly horrible example to bring up in this case.
WoW sold because everyone bought into it the second it was announced. There was never any question about WoW being successful; it had all it needed from the moment it started being developed. All it needed was the Warcraft title and Blizzard on the box. Whether or not they made it into a good game and whether or not it looked good was never important. WoW was going to sell well. Hence why they shot for lower tech; if everyone is going to buy it anyways, might as well increase the amount of people who can access it, right? Smart business, and business is all it is.
Had anyone but Blizzard or a select few other major companies came up with something that looked like WoW, they would have been taken as a joke. No one would take them seriously. "EQ2 is coming out with fancy shaders and you're going to try and start a new franchise looking like that!? Have you seen Guild Wars' models yet? Even Lineage 2 is higher poly than that!"
It only didn't apply to Blizzard because it's freaking Blizzard. Blizzard can do whatever the hell it wants. They could start their own army out of rabid fans.
Apply the tech rule to any new, starting company that isn't aiming for a niche indie market or discount game and it will still stand. Want to be taken seriously? Go for cutting edge.
I don't believe advanced graphics make an MMORPG, so they're the exception. Of course, fugly graphics (or more specificly, assets), like in EQ2, can limit success. Even with new rendering tech, artist control the appearance of games. Great artists on an outdated tech can create amazing visuals. WoW looks good, and it's accessible. Not to mention the popular name that pushes it.
I'm more and more convinced to work with a small team doing amazing work with average tech. Opensource engines open those possibilities.
When he said that, I started thinking of all the early indie movies I'd seen when that scene started to grow up during the 80s. You can draw parallels between Doom3 and any Bruckheimer overblower action flick, i.e. makes tons of money, fails as a vehicle for anything other than 'digital effects'.
So I thought, what does an indie game look like? I thought of Jim Jarmusch's 'Stranger than Paradise', and David Lynch, and as I mentioned earlier, John Waters. Those guys took miniscule budgets and freakish ideas and created stuff nobody had ever seen before. They didn't make much money doing it, at least at first, but with an audience that demanded it, that kind of filmmaking changed the market it existed in, until there was a clear path for anyone else to jump in and work according to their own rules.
I'm interested in doing THAT. Anyone else feel the same? Let's chat.
AIM & Y!M: radiumskull
ICQ: 257074108
/jzero
WoW sold because everyone bought into it the second it was announced. There was never any question about WoW being successful; it had all it needed from the moment it started being developed. All it needed was the Warcraft title and Blizzard on the box. Whether or not they made it into a good game and whether or not it looked good was never important. WoW was going to sell well. Hence why they shot for lower tech; if everyone is going to buy it anyways, might as well increase the amount of people who can access it, right? Smart business, and business is all it is.
Had anyone but Blizzard or a select few other major companies came up with something that looked like WoW, they would have been taken as a joke. No one would take them seriously. "EQ2 is coming out with fancy shaders and you're going to try and start a new franchise looking like that!? Have you seen Guild Wars' models yet? Even Lineage 2 is higher poly than that!"
It only didn't apply to Blizzard because it's freaking Blizzard. Blizzard can do whatever the hell it wants. They could start their own army out of rabid fans.
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I don't believe that to be the case at all. WoW may be low-tech, but it is very artistic and styled, and the universe that it's set and drawn in grabs people's attention. It wasn't necessarily the engine that was needed to grab the audience in this case. But I think that applies to very few genres as well.
An example: for multiplayer fraggin I'll pick up CS or Q2/3 any day and have a ton of fun, as opposed to the mediocre time I had with the FEAR MP beta. But ask me which campaign I'd rather play, and that's a totally different story. I sure love blowing people up in slow-mo with ragdoll and beautiful lighting effects
One of the drawbacks I felt of developing a few years ago was that my game was going to look like crap by the time I got it done, but the tech is stabalizing. What I mean by that is the tallent required to create games that look good is the limiting factor, not the technology. I think everyone here would agree that some cool characters and enviroments done in the Q3 engine with today's hardware in mind (6-7k polys per chactacter etc.) would look great. Mario 64 looks fine, and holds up pretty well graphically considering it is 10 years old because it has great characters, nice enviroments and a cartoon style that doesn't need occlusion shading and stencil shadows to look good.
It takes maybe a year to write a script and another year to shoot and edit a movie in your spare time. To even try this out you need to be able to write a story, and use a camera; two skills most people already have. To make a game you need to be able to program, 3d model and animate at a very minimum. Just learning those three things could take 5 years if you really worked at it every day.
The video game auteurs are coming, with easier to learn/use technology and just more time to learn.
http://www.igf.com/2005entrants.shtml
WoW sold because everyone bought into it the second it was announced. There was never any question about WoW being successful; it had all it needed from the moment it started being developed. All it needed was the Warcraft title and Blizzard on the box. Whether or not they made it into a good game and whether or not it looked good was never important. WoW was going to sell well.
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Do you play WoW acc? I can't help but think you don't.
If I'd worked on WoW ( and boy, that team put their lives into that game for years ) and I read your paragraph I'd be fucking pissed.
You're suggesting that WoW is the success it is solely because it's a blizzard game and that because of that its success was a forgone conclusion. Not only are you doing the developers a MASSIVE disservice with that hypothesis, but the mmorpg players too. They are a very discerning ( not to mention MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION PAYING ) lot and they deserve more credit than you give them.
World Of Warcraft is a stunning achievement that proves you don't need remarkable technology to create a compelling gaming experience. It is arguably the deepest, richest, most immersive virtual world ever created. It has diddly fucking squat to do with marketing or studio reputation or anything else. That shit isn't enough to shift units these days. WoW wouldn't sell and command a subscription fee It it was mediochre for chrissakes.
It is quite simply a remarkably good game built with modest technology by a few incredibly talented and dedicated people. It is a more than valid example to cite in the argument that next cutting edge engine techonology doth not necessarily a great game make, thankyou very much.
If Blizzard had made a crap mmorpg set in the Warcraft universe then personally no, I don't believe it would be the success that it is. Therefore I disagree with you.
However, were getting off the point somewhat discussing what the contributing factor into WoWs success is. The important point here is, it IS a VERY VERY GOOD GAME, and I can find you many many people that would agree with me, and it is not a game that relies on absolute bleeding edge 3D engine technology nor moreover, one that 'needs' it to be good. THAT'S my point
I started playing WoW because of word of mouth and watching other people at work play. I saw how utterly absorbing and engrossing it was and how beautiful and compelling the world was, and that last part is largely down to the Art and design, not any particularly staggeringly impressive tech. That's really what I'm trying to get across.
They don't use normal or spec because they bake a bunch of different smaller textures onto the body texture on load. This lets you see your character with a different belt texture without creating an additional belt geometry and adding to draw calls (the mmo dev's enemy). They could have chosen to have a less malleable character with a spec map on it (they have spec maps elsewhere, it was an intentional decision).
They could have had higher poly characters, but that would have gotten rid of auction houses and other places where tons of characters are drawn on screen. Blizzard also usually chooses to shoot for wide inclusion with their system requirements which I'm sure pays off in many ways.
You can see the developers made tons of choices like this throughout the development of the game. They focused on gameplay features instead of bullet point features for the box (things like graphics and physics). Mounts, gryphon rides, seamless world transitions, and an interface that was probably thrown out 5 times and reimplemented during development were all more important. Those are all very non-trival tech features too. Just not stuff that goes into a typical game engine middleware sales sheet.
Back on topic though. I also really look forward to having a stronger indie market. There's an indie market now, it just needs some better outlets. Things like steam (looking forward to SiN episodes) and the xbox live arcade have a lot of potential that I'd love to see realized. I'd love to work on indie games myself one day. I got into game dev partly because I really love working on small, agile teams. Modern game development has really lost that flavor.
If an unkown studio had made the same remarkable game, only with an unknown franchise, they probably never would have gotten nearly as much press as WoW did
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Arena.net's first game was Guild wars. they enjoy a tremendous amount of success, they have a low spec game that has a tight art style.
I think your ideas about WoW are short-sighted. it doesn't matter how much clout or how much of a rep you have, if you make a bad game (especially one that has a monthy fee) people won't pay for it.
The first ASHERON'S CALL was a huge success, huge. If your theory holds true than ASHERON'S CALL 2 would still be around, but it isn't.
-R
-R
Makes sense, if you ask me.
If you make a game that includes all the newest generation technology, you're limiting your buying audience to a very select few. Not every has the money to upgrade their PC to play a game. The reality is that a person is far more willing to shell out a measly $50 to try out a game, than to shell out upwards of $1000 to upgrade a PC and try out a game.
Blizzard also takes into consideration the benefits they get from applying technological elements to their games. There's no point to invest time and resources into a feature if the rewards don't justify it.
For example, you wouldn't include normal maps in a game like Warcraft 3 because the object of focus takes up only a small portion of the screen. You run into the problem of having difficulty seeing the desired effect. So many aspects of how WC3 is presented/played would change if showing pretty pictures had more importance over gameplay.
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While, I agree with you Daz when you say that WoW is a remarkable game, I would suspect that even you would admit that the fact that Blizzard made it and that its another Warcraft game had quite a bit to do with its success. If an unkown studio had made the same remarkable game, only with an unknown franchise, they probably never would have gotten nearly as much press as WoW did, and definitely wouldn't have been spread nearly as fast by word of mouth.
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That's true. But that can be said about any game. The studio name and franchise can only carry a game so far. Ultimately it's the gaming experience that creates longevity and popularity to a game's life. But you also have to give credit to Blizzard for having a successful franchise within Warcraft. The previous year's of work creating successful games also goes towards making WoW a hit.
Now, enough from this little Blizzard employee.
I've been to A LOT of interviews this past several months. Every project I've been inerviewed for are all slated for next-gen. But exactly "what" is next-gen? How do you quantify it? All these companies keep telling me how great their game is going to be because it's next-gen. How their game is going to have all these unbelievable features because it's next-gen. How they're going to create a completely immersive universe... because it's next-gen. Then they get back to me and ask my thoughts on next-gen. And what comes out of my mouth?
"It's a growing fad among the games industry."
Pretty harsh, and is probably the reason why I never heard back from a lot of the companies. But I do feel that it's true.
There's a growing obsession to have this tech ready for games. To the point where it's turning into a selling point on boxes. "More polygons!" "Better physics!" "etc! etc!"
What's alarming though is that a lot of developers seem to be over estimating exactly what "next-gen" can do. And this is going to cause a lot of trouble. Resources will be wasted, and more importantly, artists are going to be burned out.
If you're developing a game with a false idea of what you can achieve... reality is going to hit you square in the face and force you to change many aspects of your project. You cut back on features and revisit finished assets to comply with your newly found tech budget. 6 - 12 months of work down the drain because you were over zealous with what you THOUGHT could be done.
What does it all mean? A lot of people are going to be spending a lot of late nights and weekends at the office to make up for some idiot Executive's lack of foresight. Depending on who you're working for... games need to ship at perfectly executed intervals. Those games WILL get done at any cost.
It's not that I hate next-gen. It's just that I feel it's being incorporated for the wrong reasons. And that expectations are very, very high. And unless those high expectations are met... you're only bound to fall hard on your ass.
At the end of the day the visuals do little for me. It all boils down to if I enjoyed the gaming experience the game I played delivered. But that doesn't mean I don't have respect for great visuals. I do. But I have even more respect when something visually amazing can be achieved with old/current technology.
Japanese game developers are PRIME at this. The idea behind taking what's given, finding clever solutions to problems, and producing amazing results tops my books.
Sorry if a lot of that doesn't make sense. It's early in the morning and I haven't slept yet.
If an unkown studio had made the same remarkable game, only with an unknown franchise, they probably never would have gotten nearly as much press as WoW did
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Blizzard clout would have only moved boxes off store shelves. Its the game design and the art that keeps them logging in.
I personally feel that if a a studio conentrates on "tech stats" and "pushing the edge" they make it harder for themselves to make a well ballanced game and are only looking to sell big the first week after launch. They couldn't give 2 sh!ts what anyone thinks after that. They relay on tiny box requirements on the bottom flap as a shield agaist the throngs of angry customers that can't run the game. They made thier splashy game, that sold well(the first week) and everyone traded after being able to stomach only a few hours of thier "eye-popping-eye-candy". That is if they got it running at all.
I look at game making a lot like making a car. You can make a Saturn that was made with the latest technology the world has to offer. The saturn sells well but falls apart before the loan is paid off. Or you can do it right and make a 1956 Ferrari 860 Monza. a car that is worth 2.5 million 50 years after it was made with blood sweat and love. It's not the lvl of tech that went into making the car, it was the people behind it.
I am not saying great tech can't make a great game. But more over than the tech the game needs to come first.
Reguardless of the tech, you can make a fun game that sells. I have played a few new GBA/DS games that lack any kind of 3D art. In fact they used tech that is almost over 10 years old. Yet they where fun to play and where successful. The dev teams where not made up of small cities of artist working 24-7 under penalty of death.
Success needs to be redefined in the game industry, and it needs to have less to do with the latest tech or what franchise you can run into the ground while you laugh your way to the bank.
The same is true with graphics. People can tell when everything 'clicks' and creates an evocative game-world, and not just a collection of art assets. What makes that happen I think can be sumed up as 'atmosphere'. It isn't the gee-wiz effects that make Silent Hill, Mario, MGS or any Blizzard game's art 'good' but rather that all those game nail their atmosphere so completely.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/
I seem to recall an endless stream of side scroller rip offs, top down shooter copies and tired fps clones. Yes new ideas came and went but there have always been a mass amount of companies willing to simply rip off ideas and try to make an easy buck.
I think this sort of talk is just a lash out by frustrated developers who have had bad project after bad project and think the industry has lost its shine. Quality games are still being made as are the shitty ones and its all about finding a great project to work on, easier said than done I suppose. Maybe people need to realize making good games is hard work and like always requires an extreme amount of effort and talent, so the chances of being stuck in a crappy company is much greater than not.
Anyway I havent read much of this thread so maybe my opinion is irrelevant I just thought I would try to put a different spin on what seems to be a commonly held belief.
Scott