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Things seem to be regressing to a point - going back to the "good old days"
opt2not:
--- Quote from: Gatt on April 01, 2011, 07:01:54 pm --- I ask, because I'm strongly of the opinion that the gaming industry needs to convert to the Hollywood buisness plan. Diversify and budget to the average expected sales. Meaning, a Horror Movie isn't likely to crack 100 million or 200 million sales, so they don't budget it as a blockbuster and it gets by without ultra-special effects. So if a TB Strategy game isn't going to sell 10 million, then don't budget it like Halo. I believe that like Hollywood, such a model would do well, and occasionally you'd have your "Saw" where you sell ridiculous numbers of copies above expected.
--- End quote ---
But the problem with the Hollywood model you mentioned for a video game is that the development of games and movies are different from a production standpoint.
For a movie you can skimp on the effects to save a buck, but it wouldn't necessarily change the end goal of the film. On a game, skimping on a feature can destroy a game design entirely. Look at a game like GTA, the whole point of the game is to have this vast living sandbox that you run around in. You have so many options Of things to do, because that's the nature of that game. Imagine skimping out on some of those options, the experience would change! It's like cutting out a few plot points in a story. It would just seem broken.
But your model does exist in games. Last year I worked on a small Wii title that was a 5 month project from start to finish. A cheap, very simple game for kids mainly. We got paid a small amount of money for development, pushed it out the door with as much quality that 5 months of production would allow. No one expected it to sell well, but it ended up selling through over a million copies! Now-a-days a million doesnt matter much, but for a budget title it's a wonderful surprise!
You are also right in saying that it is blockbuster run, and many high profile titles have been cancelled at the last minute due to publishers not expecting to make thier money back, cutting thier loses. But the real problem is that there is a vast amount of people in positions of power that are clueless about what makes a good game, what would keep the market from going stagnant. Marketting and business-folk, is the problem. They're of the mentality that the latest trends are what should be invested in, existing product momentum is king of the land, so you get you umpteenth God of Wars, your Call of Duties...and those people have a foothold on the what gets published. The movie industry is not very different from this. So this leaves out the innovators, the developers wanting to explore fresh ideas, establish new IPs. Sure there are few that have made it through, but that number of success stories is too small to significantly change things.
In all honesty, what the game industry needs to do is unionize like the movie industry. That would put these publishers in check and give developers a little more breathing room to make games the right way, and stop being pushed around by these corporation of investors.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: javeryh on April 01, 2011, 02:59:10 pm ---I don't know... I pretty much hate all iPhone games - even Angry Birds (no skill required!).
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If you believe Angry Birds requires no skill to play, then you don't understand the game. It's a puzzle game that requires skill to place the shots, even after you have the puzzle figured out. Sure, you can just randomly hurl birds at the structures, and get lucky enough to finish a sub-level, but you will likely only get a one star score. Trying to play through the game like this would be tantamount to taping the fire button down on your controller and running around randomly in an FPS. You might kill a few bad guys, but ultimately you won't succeed. AB combines several successful gaming elements, and puts them into a package that lets even a complete novice play with hardly any instruction, while offering players more difficult challenges as the game and their skills progress. This is the reason why it is so popular. It is the epitome of a good "arcade" game.
But more on point, the game industry is, and has been over the last year or so, struggling. Aside from the poor economy, there is a glut of games out there, and as most of the older folks here would recall, a glut is what caused the first video game crash. The current situation is not so different, in that the tools for making really good looking games have gotten really good and really accessible. This brings more players to field, sometimes with really good looking games that aren't very good games at all. But because of the wider audience games have today, and the relatively good economy of recent years past, even these marginal attempts were profitable and the effects of a glut were less noticeable. Now that the economy is doing poorly, and the outlook into the near future isn't indicating much for improvement, consumers aren't as willing to pay for big productions they might ultimately get little play value from. And as even the marginal games have high production costs in order to make them look good, companies who have in the past survived on this recipe are starting to succumb to a less forgiving marketplace.
Games, whether it be board, role playing, video, whathaveyou, are not intended to be a sustainable "lifestyle". They can be, but only if one has enough cash to keep buying the latest expensive releases and devoting a majority of one's time to them. In these rough economic times, even the younger folks who were able to live this way through the success and support of their parents, or other means, are starting to find that the well has run dry. Game companies must change the way they think in order to survive what can only be described as a "shakeout" in the industry. This will inevitably mean that they will need to focus less on production value and more on game play and design, creating games which have a more broad appeal with less investment, thereby allowing for lower pricing and, in the case of a successful entry, higher profit.
All in all, a regression like this in the gaming world is a good thing. It's a course correction that prevents it from ending up at a destination that is, from a business standpoint, unsustainable. It's a good thing for consumers as well, because it means that those who can still afford the time and money required to play games will ultimately start getting more actual gaming value for their dollar.
RandyT
robertsig:
--- Quote from: DataWest on April 02, 2011, 02:16:47 am ---The music industry is also experiencing a similar change. Gone are the days of complete records. Now as a society we have embraced the quick .99 cent pop song.
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Well, I can pontificate about that subject separately from this one, but I think quality has a lot to do with it. There are rarely duds on a Zeppelin album for instance, while even the worst Zeppelin song has more musicality than the best pop song on the radio today. There is also the sound-byte generation with an attention span of a gnat. But I digress.
I do miss the average 3D shooter like Doom and older RPG game like the early Ultima series (Ultima II - V). So many artists are required these days that graphics gets more attention than the game play.
My brother is a game designer (producer) in San Francisco and works at one of the "quick game" companies right now. Before that, he was involved in producing some big hits at other studios. The tides are certainly turning, and people go where the money is. With big massive PC titles, you only got the geeks. With Angry Birds, you get everyone.
eds1275:
The music industry is a sore spot for me, as I am a professional musician, composer, and sound engineer. Nobody wants to buy an album anymore, and so they just download the biggest and best tracks, and in my experience sometimes the best songs are not the ones that catch your ear right away because they are catchy - the best tunes are more often the ones that grow on you after a few listens or sometimes it takes years for you to develop the connection to music in a way that moves you.
This is hardly the case with arcade games though, as if the first level sucks you are going to stick your coins in elsewhere.
Back on the "Bird Debate"... Angry birds is not fun for everyone, and if you've played Trials until the hard and extreme settings that one is not fun anymore - but the addictive game play and the meter at the top that shows who's been doing better than you [i.e. the top score] is what keeps you playing. Having a competitive aspect to it really adds to the addictiveness of games - throw in a few secrets and you have a winner!
LeedsFan:
One of the things that really annoys me is the move into charging for new DLC on big name games. It's been goin on a while now but the mess that was "Dragon Age: Origins" really bugged me. So much so that I refuse to buy DA2 until it becomes budget priced. Why?? Because I was so pissed off with them releasing new DLC before actually fixing the problems with the game. I fully understand their reasons for doing so and that it's their way to make the most money. But I am one customer that refuses to buy those type of games now at full price.
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