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Peter Molyneux Asks For Gov't Help For Small Shops
spot35 writes "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy as I thought. Peter Moluneux has gone on record stating that creating a successful video game is too expensive for the smaller developers. According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat.
This other article gives a very brief profile of the man."
I lament the small business as well (in all industries), but government financial support is the worse idea possible. Things change, times change, and most especially business changes. It's the belly of the beast out there. The best thing we can hope for is that competition stays alive and the government prevents any one company from taking over the entire market. As long as competition reigns supreme, the market will thrive and that's all that really matters.
The government subsidizes the airlines, so why not the video game industry? I know that I play video games a lot more often than I fly on planes.
I'm going to go call my congressman.
Oh, the games should be free too!
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
In fact, Peter Molyneux actually has initiatives to keep the bedroom coder alive. Admittedly he's supporting Jeff Minter which is a pretty safe bet (check out the the "unity" mention on the lionhead site)
More of the same, that's what I say!
This sounds suspiciously like film subsidies (the gov't gives money to moviemakers to help them make movies). Look at what film subsidies have done for the British film industry. Fifty years ago, the British film industry was in great shape. Actors were easy to find, and the techs behind the scenes (camerapeople, lighting, etc.) were plentiful and extremely competent. Now look at the British film industry. Sure, a lot of movies are filmed in Britain, but most of them are American productions. Even the James Bond films are financed by an American studio (MGM).
Beware of subsidies...
Prop Ten is about children.
Vote yes on Prop Ten or else you hate children.
You don't hate children, do you?
Remember, keep American business small or else.
The owls are not what they seem
The government shouldn't be in the business of helping companies out. Just think how better the airline industry would be if the government didn't bail them out. Companies like SouthWest, JetBlue, and AmericaWest are making money and are generally kinder to the average consumer. Giving money to the other airlines only hurts the profitable ones that are actually doing good by the consumer.
We may as well become socialists, or communists. Right, comrade?
its capitalism. if they can't cut it, too bad for them. the govt shouldn't put them on life support.
first the airlines, then gaming companies. the government needs to let business darwinism take over. the strongest shall survive. why must the United States PAY to keep struggling and non profit bearing companies afloat? Poor or outdated business models should not be an excuse anymore. take the airlines for instance. struggling to make a profit the gov't helps them out to keep a useful transportation infrastructure going. SCREW THEM. Let them die and a new breed of airlines with a different business model will take over. government tax breaks, subsidies for failing companies does not foster innovation. what's next, Microsoft losing money and needs gov't help? I dunno, sorry for the rant. well one thing is for certain, small gamging companies won't have the lobbyists or connections in DC to beg congress for the money.
Peter Moluneux has gone on record stating that creating a successful video game is too expensive for the smaller developers. According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat.
Let's face it, Peter Molyneux is overrated. Black and white was very pretty, sure, and it was a good idea, but it got tedious very quickly. It simply wasn't a very good game. He got lucky with a few games early on, that's all.
It's funny, he wants a handout now, but I didn't hear him campaigning for a windfall tax on the games industry in the boom of the late 90s.
There is a huge, emerging market for small games that fit on portable devices (Palms, cellphones, and even GBA). You don't have to publish games on the PS2 and X-box to be successful. They could also join in cooperative ventures with other small design houses to make bigger games, if they want.
If they can't find a way to survive, they deserve to fail.
I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.
Governments are already involved in the gaming industry. America's Army is just one example of computer games produced for state PR (read: propaganda).
There has always been a long tradition of anti hate-games in Germany, funded by the ministry of the interior. The game series is called "Dunkle Schatten" (dark shadows").
If Peter wants funding "just for fun", he might think of giving something back to the one who funds him.
Oh, that reminds me of one question. Are the ads and banners in sport games (for making the game more realistic) sponsored by real companies?
You know what? The government should pay for everything. The government should own every business, keep them all running, and equally distribute the communal nations wealth to each citizen.
Then instead of a country where you succeed or fail based on your own skills, quality of product, and business mode, it would be like a one giant commune.
I think I'll invent a name for my new style of government based on a commune of shared wealth. I'll call it, umm, "the bus that couldnt slow down."
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I beg to differ. Consider that the (arguably) most popular online multiplayer game (Counter-Strike) was created in a "small shop" - what was it, one guy?
Also, there are a ton of good games chugged out by small shops - consider Serious Sam.
Granted that small shop wasn't located in the US, but those are but two examples without blinking. I'm sure you can come up with your own short list of successful games produced by small companies.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
The gaming business has, over the last several years, graduated (through its own success) to a higher level of competition. The budget to produce a globally-marketed game has gone up precisely because the markets (and the stakes) are larger. The price of this maturation is that small players get squeezed out to some extent - but not necessarily the talent. The talented designers and developers get picked up by the larger firms. This is (overall) a good thing, and plays out similarly to just about any other industry that has grown so dramatically in such a short time. There are some winners and some losers, but overall we have a net gain for society as a whole, particularly the consumers.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
A few years ago, the game industry had (for the time) much better graphics than independant companies would use. Grand Theft Auto, however, still made its rounds. Large game companies are good at making games that are good logical progressions from other games on the market, but small game companies innovate. It's true that Rockstar did wind up selling the Grand Theft Auto name to a larger company, but they now have resources to make other games. Just as when, according to the article,
it was all geeks and nerds, who had long hair, ate pizza and drank Coke
there is not a huge market for the long-haired developers. Instead, there is a slightly smaller crows watching them, but independant games still have the ability to spread like wildfire. It's a wonderful thing when the geeks and nerds can write games, get it seen by a few hundred people through an independant gaming site, and if it's good enough, have them tell their friends and so on. I think this is much better than getting all of the attention of the thousand-person video-game crowd of the yester-year.
In the long run, we're all dead.
I don't buy his arguments. There are small game shops thriving in the marketplace. The best example i can give is the guys at
www.battlefront.com
They've produced two games, Combat Mission and Combat Mission 2 that are considered by most afficianados as the best strategic war games ever made. They sell only over the internet, develop for Apple and PC simultaneously, and managed to sell out their first printing of the recent Combat Mission 2. There is still a place for the small guy. Great game by the way, I highly recommend it for those disatisfied with the standard RTS fare.
"the best safety of the frontier...will be secured by total annihilation of the few remaining indians" L Frank Baum 1890
Does that mean that games will be (officially) considered art?
Will whatever you pay for a game be tax-deductible?
Will there be a national endowment for first-person shooters (NEFPS)?
It's just a BloJJ
To be honest, I have no idea if this is true, but I see no reason why it should be. Just go back to gameplay. Make the games cheap and good fun. They may not last for as long as a fully cinematic, bump-mapped, Radeon-stretching, blah, blah, blah, but they'll pass the time.
Just look at the quality of work turned out by amateur game developers in their spare time on GameDev and Flipcode and the like. The coders are there. A simple game doesn't need much in the way of level designers or artists. So where are the big costs?
Whatever. Feel free to flame me - I know shit about the industry - and I am probably missing something big.
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
The problem with gaming indrustry with the cashflow is what people expect and want in the game has became more expensive to use. Back in the 90s and more so in the 80s games were programed by developers they did not have the technology readly available to make the games look perfect so almost any software developer with margninal art skill can make a game with good graphics and have it competitive in the market. But todays vidio games are aproaching film like budgets because of inhanced vidio and music so except for a ragtag team of software developers you now need Professional Artests, Musicians, Writters, and Actors. A story of Your are stuck in the castle and now you need to get out. Dosent seem to work with top games. We are now expecting more in games. Just like the film indrustry most popular movies now need millions of dollars to be popular the games are now needing to be the same. Because people are demanding their games to be just as good if not better then their movies they watch. As for me I am happy with kspaceduels. But I am not the average game player.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You need to provide some actual/falsified evidence of their snide anti-American remarks. Just mentioning them is just gay.
Did you happen to catch the title of the article? "Lord of the Game Developers"
Does this mean he can program without moving his arms?
(Or is he just going to be sued soon for sexual escapades?)
*sorry*
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Mission I: Get approval of caffeinated chewing gum project (based on 60 Minutes before their laughing stock show split in two and ratings plunged).
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Friendly Fire II: No Such Disease
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The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Don't knock the Brits.
If your company can not stand on it's own two legs, then it should not be. That goes for airlines, car and game companies. If there is a desire by people willing to pay then someone will run a successful business providing that service or good.
I don't understand this attitude that says, Privatize profits but socialize loses. Just because you can't come up with a good idea and implement it, does not mean my taxes should be raised to cover any loses.
And do you really want government to stick its nose into gaming content? Yes, there is a rating system, but it does not limit what can be in a game. The last thing I want is John Ashcroft and President Bush looking over John Carmacks shoulder telling him he can't put in the monsters of my soon to be nightmares into Doom 3.
Linux O Muerte!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
More than once in the article, the author recommends that the gaming industry receive the same support that the movie industry does. If the quality of recent British films (e.g. The Pianist) is the result of government interfere...er, assistance, I sincerely hope they keep their mitts off the gaming industry.
On the other hand, for those situations where government assistance is necessary, I think they are choosing the correct path. There are two schools of thought on government meddling in the business sector:
It's pretty obvious which direction the US has chosen. Hopefully they can learn from the UK that option #1 is the better solution.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
This is the opposite of my own perception. It seems to me that the number of games being published, primarily on the web, is higher than ever before. And the number of small-shop or one-person efforts is driving the bulk of them. It's a healthy environment for innovation in small-scale games.
Development environments like Flash have made it easier than ever to write games, and self-publishing is easy enough that many children do it. New tools allow motivated non-gearheads with a cute or interesting idea to actually implement their ideas, without funding, without needing to hire a guru.
Only a small number of the tsumami of games are commercial hits, but some are meant only to help promote something else, and most are just done for the fun of it. But whatever the reason or the rate of success, there are a ton of them.
I think small games companies will get funded like small film studios as soon as computer games are acknowledged as an art form by the British art establishment, which will probably be sometime in the next century.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Perhaps Mr. Molyneaux's perspective is tinted by the relative success of 'Black and White' and its expansions in the face of a hostile American market.
For those not familiar with the game, Black and White is an innovative 'God' sim in which you literally play a god. You have your peasants worship you and command a anthropomorphic animal titan to do your bidding. It's quite interesting and it's quite intriguing. Not only is the 3d game engine great, the AI in the game is astounding. The animal titan really seems to 'learn' from you and from his own actions.
There was a significant problem with 'Black and White', however. Lionhead and EA shipped the game well behind schedule and with a truly horrible number of bugs still in the game. It crashed frequently and the animal AI had some very serious problems... Your animal learned to become more evil by harvesting fish, for example. In-game quests were broken and hidden features were put in the game that could only be unlocked with 3rd party tools. There were long freezes due to the game's auto-save feature and many, many actions you could take that would crash the game or would somehow 'lock' you. Many features promised during development simply weren't in the game. It was really quite miserable. The game was fun to play, but so punishing that it quit being fun well before you had come close to exhausting even a fraction of the content there.
Since Molyneaux is a huge name and people were eagerly expecting the game, the backlash was dramatic. Players demanded a patch to fix the problems, but at the same time. It was almost four months in develoment from release. Interest in the game waned. Just when the patch was released, a number of rule-changes were added into the patch to address multi-player concerns. Unfortuneately, these changes made the single-player game vastly more difficult. The patch was required if you wanted to download any of the extras or install any of the expansions. This put players in the position of You could choose to play without the patch and subject yourself to frequent problems and lock yourself out of all other upgrades, or you could install the patch and play a game that wasn't fun any more, even with the upgrades and expansions.
Accordingly, the expansions didn't do half as well as the original game release. I've heard rumors that the sequel is being scrapped because of poor expansion sales.
The problem here is not with Lionhead studio's small size, but with their game quality. Molyneaux and crew developed what should have been a revolutionary game, but crippled their own work by bowing to release deadlines, unrealistic expectations, and the angry, but loud demands of a very small minority section of their target audience.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
No airline = no business meetings
No business meetings = no companies like hotels
No hotels = Where do I sleep when DEFCON comes around?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
there are no innocent americans. every one of them is nocent.
Subsidizing a luxury like video gaming is hardly the reason people created governments. It's laughable that someone should suggest that the government should prop up an industry like this when they can't even properly feed or educate the population or keep crime at a reasonable level, and when the budgets are already as strained as they are.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"Making a computer game now is incredibly expensive," said Mr Molyneux. "You're talking about millions and millions of pounds to make a triple-A, globally successful game." ....
Peter nelected to mention the millions and millions and millions of pounds this successful game will generate in revene.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Parallel Realities
*no really, that's what I'll spend the money on.
Summation 2
The grim truth is that small developers simply can't ride out any sort of market fluctuation, and if they get one game which doesn't make enough money, they are pretty much out of the game.
The games industry is in about the worst state that I've seen it in during my 10 years as a developer. Consolidation is inevitable unless small developers get some help. Everyone is just trying to amass enough investment to ride the storm out. Out the window goes innovative off-the-wall ideas from small dedicated teams. It's a shame.
My only fear is that this call for help is too little, too late. It's certainly too late for us...
If they let the airlines fail, more airlines will sprout up with different profitable business models. We're just caught in a dangerous cycle right now because the airlines have the money to pay for their contacts in Washington to get them to give the company money.
Just think, if the government gave up on big airlines we might actually have bigger seats, more legroom and cheaper fares.
not only because they distort the worth of companies by allowing some to stay afloat when they need to go under, but more importantly, they create a flow of income that is quickly taken for granted. This is bad because there is no such thing as a free ride or money without strings attached. And this leads to compromised content and/or the eventual end of that money stream. If businesses are relying on government money, when that money disappears, what happens to the businesses? My city's arts funding was cut one year not too long ago. The art community acted like it was the end for them. I realized what a terrible thing it is to rely on money from something as shady as the government.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
I just graduated Carnegie Mellon University for scientific computing. I can't get a job doing shit for anyone.
z imation /xyzim.htm
z y/index2. html
I'm coding my own MMOG because theres millions to be had, but in the meinwhile, I have like 50 cents on my table and 50,000$ in debt.
If other people are bitching for money cuz they're having trouble developing their video game, I should be the first mother fucker who gets it.
My ai page:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/
My XYZimator for animation for my game:
http://www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA/xy
I don't have a webpage yet for my MMORPG mainly because big buisnesses have stolen my ideas in the past. I'm one of the best video game developers in the world, yet I'm broke as a mofo.
You can watch here though:
http://delvedesigns.com/websites/clancra
God spoke to me
All the damn AAA games are too big, too complex, and most of all, too focused on GRAPHICS at the expense of Gameplay. All the big studios are spending all that money on trying to make realistic (that is, indistinguishable from live movies or TV) displays.
What ever happened to the good old games? Adventure and Zork had no graphics at all, just text. Rogue/Nethack just use ASCII symbols. The early Wizardry games had stick figures. And I still enjoy going back to old Phantasy Star games on my Sega Genesis, primitive graphics but so what?
We need to stage a revolution, bring back games that can be played on an AVERAGE PC, with a built-in (mobo) video controller, instead of one of these ATGTXYZ Roadrage controllers that cost more than some entire PCs.
Boycott the "AAA" games (not difficult if you're running Linux or anything else other than Windoze!), bring back the garage-shop game developer, don't worry about selling games at Best Buy or those places, market "Indie" games over the Net.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
If the government started funding the development of video games, you'd soon have every interest group you can imagine trying to influence the content.
If you think there are too many efforts to control content in games now, just wait until our ultra-conservative elements hear that tax dollars would be going to help fund violent first-person shooters or Grand Theft Auto-type games. Granted, it seems the publishers of those types of games might not need any government welfare, but do we want game developers to be put in a position where they risk losing the funding (possibly keeping them afloat) if they don't make content compromises?
Government-funded newspapers and TV stations in foreign countries is a possible parallel. If editors and producers don't parrot what the government says, the funding stops (or the offenders get fired). Either way, it's a quagmire I'd rather avoid.
See that's where your argument falls apart.
The lack of competition means fewer companies with a clue to cluebat those without one.
AOL's stock is almost worthless. In a documentary about the Time-Warner and AOL merger it's reported that AOL will be swallowed up by the very company they tried to buy, Time-Warner.
What went wrong? Reality bites. They had the content, they had the subscribers, they didn't have the other three magic beans:
1. The content promotion and exclusivity
2. The pipe, technology, and geeks to make it possible
3. A shred of respectability left after being tainted by the spam-breeding, comsumer information selling, child abduction prone, technological dinosaur. They only NOW got email sorting feature! AOL SO R NOT INNOVATION!
TWOL anyone?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Just look at EA and the number of great game companies and game series that they have plowed into the ground. Bullfrog and Origin used to be the best everyone of thier titles was excellent until EA showed up...everything after that was a joke, a pale parody of what it used to be...and what they have done to Maxis is just sameful...
That grand combining of game companies that brought Sierra, Dynamix, Blizzard, etc under one house almost cost us the whole thing....Sierra is a shell of it former self, Blizzard somehow managed to survive pretty much intact, thank god...
We need the small time developer they are the ones that drive the industry, by plowing new ground instead of plowing under to grow commodity products on a strict schedule. The larger game companies need to realize that with careful investment in(and not control of) and patience with the right game houses they can make a boatload of cash when the next big idea in games comes out...right now the industry despite some great games is rather stagnant...
I can't remember the last time I picked up a Space Flight Sim that wasn't more of the same or that evoked the feelings I got playing WC1,2,3 or X-Wing/Tie Fighter (other titles in those series were more of the same or actually pale shadows of the original games)
Quake was incredible, it broke ground based on its engine, and customizability(which really started as hacks in Doom that they went with)
Unreal was ground breaking, but just like quake really just Doom with prettier pictures
Freelancer is really just WC:Privter(sp?) with a bad control system....
Starcraft rocked, but was basically Warcraft in space....
We need fresh ideas and fresh blood, but the guys with the ideas can't afford to create them...
(As an aside I think the cost and complexity of tools is a big factor these days, 3DS Max which seems to be a requirement to complete in the modern Game world is niether cheap nor simple)...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
...he will be first in line for the handout.
If the government subsidized small shops, we'd all pay for it through taxes. Do you want to send your money to a small shop that has a mediocre concept, can't compete, or just isn't smart enough to know when to hang it up. It's not everyone's right to be successful. It's just everyone's right to have the same OPPORTUNITY to be successful. The government (by subsidizing) cannot be expected to guarantee success. If you can't let go of that game concept long enough to get a real job then maybe there are some other psychological issues at work here. Get a paying job, pay taxes, and contribute to society! If you're into medical research or something altruistic besides freakin' games, then maybe I'd be OK with a grant, but COME ON--GAMES?
One other feature of government subsidies is that they come with government strings. Which universally favor "political correctness" and, in the movie industry, result in the creation of a slew of ten hour films of the artist's own belly button, and suchlike trash. One could assume that the game results will be similar. Not to mention they will also likely be bland pap, since there would be public pressure on the government freebie givers to turn up their noses at anything "encouraging violence" or "prurient" or suchlike nanny-behaviorist blather.
The market reflects the free choices and preferences of the buying public. Attempt to bypass it, and all you get is something by definition unsaleable. Worse, you misallocate resources (in films: actors; in games: programmers) towards the production of unwanted crud, which stifles the market for good stuff and raises its price.
Reminds me of the old financial adage directed at a lender: "Loan me a thousand bucks, and I'm in trouble. Loan me a million bucks, and you're in trouble." Ported to the problem at hand, it might become a political adage directed to an elected official "A ten-employee business in your district is losing money, and it's in trouble. A ten thousand-employee business in your district is losing money, and you're in trouble."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The Baseball bat is now made out of harmless Nerf.
Thrills abound as you sit out the real-time mandatory waiting periods for your weapons.
Earn "Good Citizen" points by driving to the police station to turn yourself in.
All vehicles meet the highest CAFE standards. Arrested at 55MPH. Must wear seatbelts or vehicle ignition is disabled.
All monies collected during muggings will be placed into a lockbox. Payout promised at retirement.
Sexual intercourse with prostitutes is no longer allowed. Earn points by describing abstinence-only programs to the honeys.
Plenty of side action with missions the let you race across the city in a challenging low-speed chase as you install wheel-chair accessible ramps.
Quoth the author "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy as I thought".
I take it that the recent collapse of Rage (of Rocky, Lamborghini, GoGo Beckham etc.) and Curly Monsters (Quantum Redshift) and the merger of Sega with Sammy, all in the last month or two passed them by, then?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
My feeling is that a small or one-person team can do a lot given current tools (granted there is a lot for one person to cover) and at least will not fall into a bunch of backbiting and/or large scale corporate stupidity. Too many "big shop" games are either knock-offs, or without any real playability.
I have a terrific concept for a commercial game I'm trying to develop, so we'll see how the small fish does in my case... ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The first company the government is going to point to is id Software. They're extremely profitable, and what, only 20 employees now? Used to be a lot less.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
No, the videogames industry is not in as good a state as you thought.
Companies are going to the wall all the time. The money men seem reluctant to take any risks, which means NO non-licenced products, NO originality and a distinct lack of decent jobs.
Its a wonder to me that we have kept goin this long - the cost of a console/video game has doubled in the last ten years (maybe not even that much) and the cost of making a game is nearly 25x that which it was (multi-millions these days). People arent prepared to pay any more for their games, so its fast becoming difficult/impossible to make a profit in this little world. Result : the money men are panicing - hence the current spree of layoffs.
Admittedly a little funding would be nice (look what it did to films) but unlikely. My prediction is that in a couple of years only the big boys will survive, churning out shite like FIFA 2006 (all the fun of FIFA 2000 with different shirts) and endless sequels that just aint fun any more. Oh, and dont forget the mindless film licences that back up the revenue for even more mindless films.
Sucks tbh. I usedto love the industry, and now its turned into a sweat shop.
Not for long, if our lawmakers continue to implement these corporate welfare scams. The primary effect of corporate welfare is to destroy open competition in the market and secure the market share of existing competitors, regardless of whether or not they are endorsed by the consumer. Instead of being driven by the needs of the consumer, the market will be skewed in favor of special interests.
When open competition is threatened, the first busiensses to go will be the startups. For a new player in the market, it is absolutly vital to have equal opportunity to enter the market. Handouts and corporate welfare do not create equal opportunity; they destroy it.
I can tell this is an American board.
Is there any difference between grants for games companies than grants for films, the arts, museums, neighbourhood community projects, etc...
Or even just reducing the burden of taxes on these organisations would help.
Because it costs much less to invest in your own country's companies, keeping your own population in jobs, educated and trained, and having your country produce something whih is then exported and brings money in for the country than slinging everyone out on their ear and watching unemployment benefit costs going off the scale.
In the UK taxes are going up again in April. Small and medium-sized companies really will go to the wall, as if enough aren't already now.
If we take the current system to its logical conclusion and outsource everything to the lowest bidder in India, there is very little left that could be done in this country apart from police, lawyers, politicans, and hairdressers. And it won't be some work-free utopian paradise service economy where people spend all day skipping through fields. It'll be an uneducated unemployed population who can only claim off the state because there are no jobs available.
It's hit the spotlight in the UK with British Telecom staring outsourcing call centre jobs (yes, even the lowest-skilled jobs are being outsourced) to India.
I would have thought that computer programmers, being the first on the receiving end, would have realised the economics a long time ago. Sadly not.
According to one of the articles,
"He was courted by the likes of Sega and Nintendo, with one games publisher reportedly offering him a Porsche just for meeting with the company."
This sounds pretty good. Anyone know the story on this?
"Making a computer game now is incredibly expensive," said Mr Molyneux. "You're talking about millions and millions of pounds to make a triple-A, globally successful game."
So rather than having you, or a small development house shell out the money in exchange for potential windfalls, we should all front your money, at no return to ourselves. This is why we have what is known as "Market Capitalization". Sell some stock, and that will allow you to finish the product.
Business ventures are not for the faint of heart, whatever field you are talking about, and the development of videogames offers zero return on investment to the taxpayer. The closest example to this was the Army game, and that was given away for free, and had a purpose, namely, recruitment. I fail to see how a game featuring a giant cow furthers any objective a government might have.
I oppose this for the exact same reason I oppose the National Endowment of the Arts. Do what you want to do, fine, but do it with your own resources. Don't make me subsidize a game that I'll end up paying for anyhow.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
The film industry is subsidized in many countries because they were unable to compete against Hollywood, not the other way around. Arts that are thriving without public support don't go looking for public support.
35 years ago I was programming on punch cards in Fortran II. Now I'm programing in C# producing software that would have taken teams of programmers years to write back then. I see the same future for games. As tools develop, small game developers will be better able to compete. Buy a game engine, a few standard models, some scenery textures and all that is left is the story line. Hell, I see online artist co-op department stores for models and textures so that anyone with a good model or texture can participate.
The only question is if there is enough interest to make it worth anyone's time developing and standardizing the tools of the trade. You see a little of this already around the file formats of some of the modeling tools. Much more will be done over time.
please do not make a distinction between _BBC_ and _article_ in regard to hyperlinks when the former is an adjective of the latter.
Molyneux wants to make big games with a huge budget, but is finding that its not that profitable. Rather than find a more appropriate design, the UK government should fund the development? Oh yea, DOA Extreme Vollyball was definately a pinnacle of modern expression, and a clear example of why they should fund this new expansion of the arts. Seriously people, there's another group of developers in the UK thats not only smaller than Molyneux but also successfuly. Introversion has released a successful game to the PC market without support of a publisher for distrobution and marketing. Their game Uplink is a nice combination of gameplay that doesn't require a 30+ minute investment of time but still lets you make progress in the game.
The companies Molyneux cited all suffered from liscencing exposure. Crawfish made several quality GBA games. Unfortunately they were all ports. The bad deal with ports is while the liscence does come with an instant fanbase, it raises the standards for your first game (can't put off features like multiplayer in a street fighter game, even though you haven't figured a way around the slow bus speed yet), and even if you do pull it off to critical acclaim, the liscener will probably do it in house instead, ala Goldeneye/Rare.
On the other hand, I'd love to see cheaper games, and if the UK is willing to foot the bill on it, I'm game!
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
In agreement I have to say that if you are pursuing a competitive first person shooter, etc... you require a large staff with many graphic artists, prgrammers, etc. You are also going to pour lots of money into marketing and getting big names for voices etc. Additionally, getting into some of the console markets is near-neigh impossible unless your a well known and established company with millions.
However, in disagreement I offer our own experience. In our view, an indie is most at risk if they (1) accept funding from investors and (2) try to release games that mimic the current genres and (3) do not pay close enough attention to stability (e.g., support issues).
Our game has been fairly successful, and continues to grow, due in part to the fact that it bucks the traditional genres. We have no problem staying afloat because we funded the venture out of pocket and never once accepted money outside the company. This allowed us to retain total control over the direction of the game. Because we retained total control we also had the ability to ensure that we did not release anything until WE were happy and WE were certain it was stable.
It is apparent that it will be a slow and steady climb for us (our first release was in 2001) to get to the point where bigger names take notice, and console manufacturers want to talk - but as with anything, if you are tiny and innovative you can overcome most obstacles and become a david among goliths (sorry :).
First, asking the US governement to tick their fingers into free enterprise is never a good thing. These are some of the same people lobbying against violence in videogames and want to act as thought-police. You REALLY want them with greater leverage in the industry? Asking for a government bailout of the US gaming industry is just plain silly. Maybe if it were half the size of Japan's. Maybe. But it's not even close. How in the world is he going to convince the US government this is worth investing in? It's not exactly a national airline in need of bailout...
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How competitive is the linux video game industry?
Remedy received significant funding from the finnish technology agency (TEKES) for development of Max Payne. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much information in in english on the web in HTML form.
Let's face it, Peter Molyneux is overrated. Black and white was very pretty, sure, and it was a good idea, but it got tedious very quickly. It simply wasn't a very good game. He got lucky with a few games early on, that's all.
Peter Molyneux overrated? Got lucky with a few games early on?
Man, just what are you smoking?
Ever heard of Populous, the original "god" game? It created a whole new genre and blew the socks off everything else out there at the time.
How about Powermonger, Magic Carpet, Syndicate, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and their derivatives? All original games, all great plays and all great successes.
Care to name some other developers with as impressive a track record of producing original, highly-addictive games that have been as popular?
So you didn't like Black And White. Fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But to dismiss one of the industry's most creative and productive minds as "overrated" and "lucky" is ridiculous.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
...and I'm here to help you.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm one of the co-owners of an independent game company right now so I feel like I have a few things to say on this subject. His premise is flawed, IMO.
First of all, we heard this same argument on the Dreamcast homebrew development list back in the day when John Byrd (Sega DTS guy) was on there. He literally said that a couple of guys in a garage can't make a game these days. It was basically the same thing Peter Molyneux is saying now. I told him it was BS then, and I'll say it's BS about this as well.
The problem is one of scope. This same thing applies to movie makers, musicians, anyone. If you start out with the goal of wanting to be a world-wide phenominon, then you are probably going to fail unless you have the bookoo bucks. That's not how normal business people start though. You find yourself a niche somewhere where you can establish yourself, and then you work upwards from there. If you're passionate about it and stay on it hard, and more importantly if you have the talent, then you'll usually get a couple of key breaks eventually. If you don't, then perhaps you should try something else. Or, if you're like me, there's probably no failure too grand to keep you away from it. :)
You also have to look at the indie film and music scenes to see how this works, it's not that difficult. You find something you can do within the budget you have available to you; you spend time and track down people who have similar interests; and then you band together and make something that will lift all of you up to the next budget level so you can produce something more interesting next time. It takes patience, yes. It definitely takes a load of hard work. But you don't need a "worldwide AAA game" to be successful, just enough to pay yourself to continue your work.
There is also, of course, an element of "right place at the right time" but that tends to be purely luck (though it can be engineered occasionally).
And before any of the trolls start... our budget: $0 and a few hours of free time each day.
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
Do we really need to give that guy in the question mark suit(Matthew Lesko)yet another way to tick us off by screaming how people can get free money from the government? "Johnny Smith just got 50,000 dollars just to write low quality video games in his basement. Buy my book and I'll show you how!!" Sheesh...
No Sig For You
Make an IPO. Plenty of "Small shop" .COM companies in the late 90s got plenty of funding this way. If your idea is that good, then you should have no problem finding an investor to back your proposal. Goverment involvement in this area should be NONE AT ALL. I refuse to have my tax dollars going to some crack-head programmer who complains about not being able to keep up with the big guys. These days, to make a successful product, you don't need a good programmer, rather you need an excellent manager and marketing person. That's the name of the game these days.
* Yes, "special" and "selfish" in that order
In the interest of spawning interest, I will not name the work from which I drew these quotations (probably someone will recognize it and name the book; I hope so, anyhow), but it is one I've heard mentioned for many years and finally picked up my own copy a few days ago. Seemed very appropriate to the subject at hand, and I hope that Molyneaux is roundly and soundly criticized for the shortsightedness and arrogance of what he's asking. It is, after all, what a lot of other industries have sought -- and in many cases obtained -- and they deserve the same drubbing, whether their ploys were successful or not.
I'm all for people buying games, on their own time and their own dollar. Asking the government to subsidize less-successful makers isn't likely to benefit the world of games, at least not without exacting disproportionate harm to the market overall.
*******'s work could have used this as an example if it were being written today of just how ludicrous and harmful this sort of pleading really is.
timothy
p.s. Unless he's joking, in which case, Bravo!
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Govt funded video games? Great!
Now that we have voted ourselves some entertainment, all we need is to vote ourselves some bread. Ahh, democracy....
"No man is an island." This goes for business as well.
Lets say for the sake of argument, I get 1 hundred thousand dollars from the government to start my business. Now I buy a couple of computers, which are taxed, hire an employee, who pays taxes, rent a small office from a company that pays taxes. Every friday I hacelebrate with a pizza, which aget deliverd from a guy who pays taxes, and works for a company that pays taxes.
this kind of thing is one of the good things the government can do in order to generate more money.
If the company dies in a year, the federal government probably got 20% back, the state government probably will get 10%, plus all the taxes that will be generate by the fact that the peopleI payed to run my business make revenu so they can continue to do business and pay taxes.
On the unlikley event that my conpany is a success, or gets funding from a private source, the government will make back many times in 100,000 dollars seed money.
should the government coninue to support a failing company year after year, ad nausium? no.
Should game companie be treated differently then any other small business? no.
But, for the government, investing in small business pays off.
Just like being able to write off your mortgage interest. That pays for it self because more people can buy a house, and pay people to keep the house in shape, (plumbers, electrician, etc...), or do it your selfers who buy there parts from a hardware store. all that generates revenue for the government.
Now its not as profitable for private investers because the only get money if you are successful, where as the government gets money down stream, whether you are successful or not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yeah, we know.
Well damnit, man, it's about time we started some taxpayer funding for the really important stuff in our society. I mean, hey, in the US, there's old people eating dog food, schools closing early for lack of cash, and whacko Islamo-fascist terrorists trying to snatch our asses up in a bear trap, but forget all that! Pour our tax money into video games!! Yaaaaahhh!!!
God I hope this is a joke...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
It routinely takes a team of 30 or more people 24-30 months to create a single, high-end game, one that isn't even of Triple-A quality. And it is getting worse. Games are getting shorter, while budgets are skyrocketing. The trouble is that you have to devote all your time and all your money to creating one game, and then you have your company riding on that game. If it results in mediocre sales, then you have to fold up shop. Very few games make any kind of profit.
Two options are:
1. Come up with a way to make games with fewer people, in less time, but leveraging technology to keep the quality high. Don't use languages as low-level as C++. Use existing graphics engines and tool pipelines. Avoid cutscenes, voice acting, and other huge time sinks.
2. Admit that shooting for high-end extravaganza games is a losing battle, and refocus your efforts elsewhere. There has to be a medium between games like Halo (the fluke success that fanboys think is the norm) and crappy shocwave retro-remakes.
ok, lets call computer game creation an art. ( i and I belive many of us believe it is) Now, there is support for the arts. But, there is not the money to support the next quake or lackluster black and white. also, seeing as how many governments keep trying to outlaw gaming why on earth would they turn around and support it?
-
Hmm.. I misread. Hmm. The UK IS in kinda dire need of help woth gaming...
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See if the government will pay for a violin player.
POKE 36879,8
Was your use of the word pinnacle intentional when describing DOA Extreme Volleyball? ;-)
Forget the whales - save the babies.
One word: Uplink
If Chris at Introversion can write a cool game like Uplink in his apartment after working a full time job then there is still hope. The difference is that Introversion saw that while the graphics in games have become more and more impressive the actual gameplay has suffered.
I saw the same thing when I worked at Software Sorcery (producers of Sea Rogue, Jutland, Aegis, Guardian of the fleet, Conqueror 1086). As the graphics got better the games were less and less fun (i.e. boring) Do we really need another MMP 1st person shooter? Or another MMP strategy game?
Disclaimer: I'm one of those freaks who, when given the choice of playing computer games or going outside for a hike, usually chooses to go outside. YMMV.
If we fund the arts, why not games? I am going to make a game that puts up a bitmap of a soup can, it will change color based on mouse movements, that seems like an art/game that deserves funding don't you? The problem as I see it is with art I can force everybody to enjoy it, for instance a giant metal pineapple like piece of art was put in front of City Hall here in Orlando, FL. Now everybody get s to "enjoy" it, but how can I force people to enjoy my game/art, they paid for it after all, and the must be forced to appreciated it!!!
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
If you can't figure out how to make a game successful in today's market, without government assistance, then you deserve to fail.
You have no inherent right to succeed. Only to *try*. If you don't want to try without having millions in corporate welfare handed to you, too fscking bad.
Now, on the grounds that some poor developer out there might actually be trying, here's some ideas.
1. Fuck graphics. They're important, but you're not going to compete with huge arse studios here. Concentrate more on gameplay and background story if applicable. We'll love you for it.
2. Advertise, advertise, advertise! Games don't sell because people don't know they exist, or how they play. Put up a demo, get the game reviewed by a few sites. Above all, advertise!
Banner adds still work actually, usually on sites that aren't obnoxious with them. (Slashdot, a few game sites here and there.) Eh, pick up a cheap book on the ideals of marketeering, too. You need to know important bits of trivia, such as how to appeal to your target demographic.
For example, if you were attempting to sell a game to the Slashdot crowd, you'd have h0t ch1ckz0rz in the banner/other advertisements. If you were trying to sell it to a bunch of grizzled Civil War reenactors, you'd probably want some Southernly gentleman spewing a quote from a random (in)famous general. The basic idea is don't go the route of Sega. Make your ads relative to what you're trying to sell.
3. On the design/production phase. Ignore the OSS mantra. If you're working on a commercial product, "When it gets done!" ain't going to cut it. Well, maybe if you were releasing accounting software, but you're not. You're working on a game. Incomplete games with missing features suck more ass than a drunken CowboyNeal held at gunpoint. A simple mantra here? Once the compilation has begun, it is too late for the design gurus to vote.
4. Find someone good to do a soundtrack for you. Good can mean many things, and it can also mean cheap - there's plenty of decent yet starving musicians out there, if you can't afford some expensive nuts. However, this is of the utmost importance.
I don't know anyone who fires up a NES emulator to play Contra for the stellar gameplay. They all play it for the bitchin' soundtrack.
Are you an idiot? Look at what the US government has done to farming and ranching? Oftentimes farmers are paid to _not_ grow anything. Government in business never works long term...
A better example is Canada's health care system. Everyone is covered, thanks to government mandate, but everyone gets the same mediocre service. Even in the states, where there is at least incentive to innovate in healthcare, the government has meddled and driven up costs for everyone.
All this is to say that I put very little faith in the "suit" mentality as they merely wish to pump out more cookie cutter crap. True innovation, the kind that built the industry up from the its floundering beginnings was NOT from the big names or even the mega mergers, rather it was from the innovators that dared to CREATE the types of things that people wanted. Being reminded of Ultima now I can remember how once they were bought out by EA it seemed there were immediate problems that seemed to foreshadow the impending doom to quality gaming. The tradeoff as always is that they have the capital, the name and the muscle to get the best of the best for design and implementation. Yet internally they fall more and more each day into that bottomless pit of bureaucracy in which not only does it cost much more for each "unit" of output but if you factor in actual quality (and here I refer to QA salinity of the unit, not subjective portions about story, gameplay and such) of each unit the numbers drop even more. Think parabolic curves and the law of diminishing returns... This of course is due to the management and infrastructure model they use... but that is something for another time.
All in all I find the gaming industry suffering from a very similar situation of a tyranical government that comes to power legally and with full initial approval of the populace. IOW, consumers are not blameless in this. Consumers that throw their money so halfhazardly out at the latest game with a pretty box and cute advertisements and/or gets taken in with groupthink and fails to go for what would really interest them are the problem here. When you buy a game you give a vote of approval for the entire process of making it including all the stupid decisions by do-nothing managers absorbing revenue to the actual in game mechanics choices and architecture design. Of course, this means that much of the blame of "consumers" falls to those self labled "professional reviewers." Here is a hint: you are labled as Professional because you get paid but you obviously lack the consistent objection (even if used for subjective review) that would make you a valuable asset to the informed consumer. When games like Ultima 9 get such great reviews and ratings by the likes of Gamespot then I think it is time to sit down and draw up some formal criteria and rating systems to use because it is obvious that the reviewers failed to do their job. So many long time Ultima fans could only weep and gnash their teeth at that travesty yet it at least became clear that sites like Gamespot were not doing an adequate job of putting the right reviewers in the right roles. How you can EVER give a score of better than 20 to a game that is known in all circles to be less stable and "safe" than most pre beta releases I will never know.
That all said as a long setup... as much as I am against the crap coming out of the gaming industry lately I am COMPLETELY AGAINST any governmental involvement. What needs to happen is that consumers need to pull their heads out of their asses and start showing a little forethought. Stop buying all the crap out there just because it is placed in front of you and show a little discipline and self restraint. DEMAND that games which are unstable and bug ridden are not worth your money and you should get a full return including shipping. As for gameplay elements, suck it up and look at good reviews next time (the ones that like or dislike, do a good job of setting out in plain language the actual structure of the game as to give realistic expectations above the marketroid patter you get from websites (i.e. those that think that RPG means any game with elves, swords, dragons and wizards)) Stop visiting review sites that can not adequately distinguish wheat from chafe and make sure to yourself not become either a fanboy or troll. Those things will help in ways you can not imagine (or maybe you can, in which you might see where I am coming from with this).
Free market gives you the right to DEMAND quality and like anything in which you do not use it will atrophy. Many here might indeed be self supporting adults (mentally not just physiologically) that have actual budgets they follow. Others will be spoiled children of Mamma that have to get the latest crap just because. Some here will be the type to go to game forums and rationally discuss aspects of the game from bug fixes/work arounds to debates on the merits of certain game aspects (and the decisions to include or omit them) while others here will be nothing but drooling fanboys that are not exactly sure why they are fanboys and those trolls that are nothing but anti-fanboys. All movement from zero is still movement away from equilibrium so it is both amusing and depressing to read flamefestivals on the various boards where even the best written critique or even question about the various interworkings of the game are met with nothing but slavering attacks that it is obvious to anyone with neurons that those people seem to be trying to convince themselves by shouting down anyone who thinks differently especially when they make sense. (sort of like the self labled "anti war" protesters... there is anti war then there is pro-stupid-sheepish-I-must-be-told-what-to-think anti-anyone-non-liberal folk, especially when the later seems to be so pro war for much lesser reasons given the lead is of a country (and country's leader) that is currently "in favor" by the elitist hypocrites of the world) (i.e. the French who's whoring of themselves by selling weapons and weapon parts to murderous tyrants for personal gain is not in any way a new thing... Michelin Tire, anyone?)
I bet if aliens have been watching us from afar they will damn well stay far away after watching the inconsistent and hypocritical way the "talking monkeys on Earth" seem to go about their lives.
While I agree that the arguments of any other industry apply to Peter's company, software in general is more interesting than most other goods for one reason: it can be shared and duplicated without cost. This makes it a public good inherently unlike most other goods.
Take a radio station and a car. A radio station can be shared by anyone in a city for a certain fixed cost. Allowing another person in the city to hear it costs nothing (and in fact trying to meter it costs more) so it is a public good and most economists will tell you it is more efficient to have a government pay for public goods. An additional car OTOH does cost more per person and so it is a private good and more efficiently distributed through private enterprise.
Free software is thus a public good. The jury is still out on whether software is better produced free or not, but public funding for free software has compelling economic arguments. There is also the question of what constitutes infrastructure: the government thought the internet was, so how about a kernel (remember Mach) or an OS?
Lies about crimes
My Massively Multiplayer Hangman game isn't making any money so clearly I need government intervention to turn a profit.
[o]_O
Contrary to quaint local folklore there are places outside the US that are actually subjected to the market and the UK is one of them.
I take it you're in total agreement with HTB-1 visas (or whatever the US equivelent of a FTV is) and outsourcing? Nothing strikes you as remotely odd that in two years hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared or gone abroad, businesses have folded, and the stock market has disappeared up its own arse putting people's retirement in doubt.
No I'm not some red-flag waving communist but the idea that the government should sit idly by twiddling its thumbs saying, "we can't take any inititive to stop what's happening. That would be interfering with the free market. See you down the unemployment office," seems to me to be fatalistic and dogmatic.
You're missing the big picture somewhat. The market will always try and reduce the cost of production to zero to undercut competitors. Big businesses that can will outsource as much as possible to cheaper countries. Smaller companies that can't will die. At that point there will be hardly anybody to buy any products anyway as their jobs will have been outsourced and nobody will have any disposible income as they are either unemployed or doing menial work.
If I were you I would get your country's government to stand up for your country's businesses (I don't mean the globalised megacorporations that don't belong to any country any more) because nobody else will. There's no shame in your government cutting taxes or red tape, investing (not subsidising, there is a difference), or making business development loans available if the end is keeping people in jobs and allowing them to improve an industry in which your country is a recognised leader.
Likewise there's no shame in making the big boys pay tax on outsourced services and clamping down on them squirreling away money that should be collected as tax in some offshore bank somewhere. How much tax do you think the likes of Microsoft or Murdoch pays? As little as they can. As we've seen with Enron, Worldcom, etc etc...
If I need to explain it anymore than that, well, it's a lost cause.
Thats not the only one, you might want to check out all kinds of interesting (and small - downloadable on 56k) games here: http://www.positech.co.uk
"According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat."
Why doesn't he help them? He's the millionaire, not Joe Taxpayer (eg, me).
When I was an undergrad at Caltech, the scifi author David Brin (an alumnus) used to come to campus every year and give very interesting talks on all kinds of random topics.
Anyway, he has an interesting argument against government subsidy of the arts. He puts people into a pyramid formation based on ability, and observes that the market in effect draws a line through the pyramid based on minimal income needed to sustain the artist's way of life. The people well above this line make a lot of income, and the people just above the line struggle to barely get by. (The people below the line presumably find other work.)
Now government subsidy moves the line downward, allowing more people in the pyramid to be artists. Brin's key observation is that it also increases the number of people barely getting by, and therefore the total "pain" in the workforce. Geometrically, the area of the pyramid's base gets larger as the cut-line moves lower.
Molyneux's suggestion only really helps out the "little guy" if you believe that no additional developers would be attracted into the industry as a result of government subsidy, which I doubt. Hell, even I might move to the UK and be a game developer if I thought there was a dole check waiting for me.
And yes, you can rag capitalism, but the fact is: when you cut taxes (to a degree) you increase the amount of taxes collected.
This 'theory' is a favourite conservative nostrum, called the Laffer Curve. Unfortunately, there is precious little empirical evidence to support it.
If you look at what has really fuelled economic growth in the USA over the last 20 years, it is not tax cuts, it is cheap oil and the debt explosion.
Let's have a look at his history, these are his games that I have bought, pretty much in chronological order. I rarely play games through to the bitter end, if I get really stuck on a mission I chuck the game.
Populous-Innovative, playable, successful, fun
(early) Populous derivatives - nothing new here that mattered.
Syndicate - Innovative yada yada. Played this through three times at least. Quite possibly the single best game I have ever played.
Syndicate add on - Unplayably difficult. Couldn't finish first mission, as I remember.
Magic Carpet - Innovative, playable, successful, fun. Maybe it got too hard too quickly, but it was a truly astonishing game.
Magic Carpet follow on - too hard not fun.
Syndicate Wars - too hard, too ugly
Populous 3 - innovative, tedious, crashy. gave up on about mission 3
Black and White - innovative. tedious. Gave up on mission 1
I make that three good-great games but every sequel is a bust, and Black and White is just not my cup of tea. Maybe I prefer destroying things to building them.
I thought maybe I liked the game (B&W), but the bugs were horrendous. After playing the game for a couple hours, it was taking literally 5 minutes for a game save to occur, and the game saves occured every 20 minutes or something automatically.
Eventually during one of the saves, I just got up from my chair and never played it again.
EA's website said nothing. Lionhead's site was apologetic, and offered an outlaw (unapproved by EA) patch at some point, but still weeks after it was too late.
As an additional note, I also felt it was unclear at many points in the game what you had to do to unlock the next "quest" to progress through the game.
Anyway, Syndicate and Magic Carpet were awesome and the pinnacle of Molyneux' work. Some might say Populous was, and I couldn't disagree with that either, I just enjoyed Syndicate too much to agree completely.
Syndicate Wars was a complete disaster and is one of those sequels (like Civilization Call To Power) that made you wonder if the writers of the sequel/addon even knew what made the original game fun.
Are you an idiot? Look at what the US government has done to farming and ranching? Oftentimes farmers are paid to _not_ grow anything. Government in business never works long term...
;-) Seriously, I'd be curious to read more on this - real serious studies, not anything from a conservative think-thank (yeah, they're impartial towards government intervention...honest!). I'd be curious to see why the U.S. efforts haven't worked, while ours have. Do you suggest any particular, low-bias reading on the matter?
Ah, warm breeze of anonymous flames...First, who said anything about long-term? Most govt. involvement in the economy is anything but - if only because governments will sometimes cancel programs just because they were started by the previous one (if it was from the opposing party, of course). Not to mention when businessmen hold political office - Dick Cheney and Halliburton come to mind. One of the few semi-permanent govt. (and therefore, tax-funded) fixture in the american economy is the Pentagon, which has been the private sector's friend for decades. I haven't really heard about the farmers - I'd like a link, if you have one. I always like to read about bureaucratic fuck-ups. Make no mistake, though: private bureaucracies make dumb mistakes as well!
A better example is Canada's health care system. Everyone is covered, thanks to government mandate, but everyone gets the same mediocre service.
I beg to differ, having used the Canadian health care sytem on many occasions. The service is very adequate. It might not be stellar, but it sure ain't mediocre! Montreal hospitals are a bit too crowded sometimes (which is mostly due to an aging population), but there are other free services such as CLSCs (similar to community clinics). One thing is for sure: even though they sometimes gripe about it, Canadians are deeply attached to their healthcare system, and the great majority wouldn't trade it in for an american-style one - especially if they've lived in the states for a while. That should tell you something about its value! You know, free as in beer feels a small price to pay for waiting an hour more when your life isn't in danger. So is knowing that poor folks having trouble making ends meet can still get adequate care if they or their children get sick or injured. I guess that's called good old human compassion. (Which reminds me, that's a sentence we don't hear as much these days: compassionate conservatism...I wonder why?)
Even in the states, where there is at least incentive to innovate in healthcare, the government has meddled and driven up costs for everyone.
Hey, it's not because you guys didn't get it right that it means it can't work!
Reminder: find a new sig
I read all the other posts debating gov't money, loans and all.
My post has nothing to do with that since I don't live in England.
Peter Molyneux has always made good games, even on a small budget and hard times.
A link for y'all on the man
I think the thing that made all the UK games for the Amiga rock in the day is love of their pursuit, most US games were shoveled to the platform from the PC and showed it. Well that and most PC games sucked.
Even without support, a group of kids with some motivation can still code a game, build a web site and sell them. I'm not afraid they won't make it, it's when they do that we lose their creativity i.e. Psygnosis.
Striking out on your own is never easy and few survive, but those who do are worthy of staying in business and will of their own accord.
So to those kids in the UK with that twisted game design, go ahead code it, make it fun, push current hardware to it's limits and people will buy it. Millions of dollars aren't needed, that's only needed by those who have run away from creativity. (A slasdot article wouldn't hurt, make a linux version or something for a sure fire slashdotting)
Problem is that while you can do quite a lot with the tools available (the mod scene is a good example of this) if you want to publish anything then it will cost you a lot to license those engines.
So you either have to buy a license (expensive) or build your own engines (expensive and hard to get right).
In the 1970's, I could write a great game by myself in a day. You can code "Hunt the Wumpus" or Pong that quickly.
Later, it took a couple of weeks to write a good game, asteroids, pac man, space invaders, Colossal Cave.
Still later, it could still be done by one determined person in a year. You could write Doom or perhaps Sim City that quickly.
But then you started to need a lot of game depth - and depth doesn't come cheap.
I could write the software for Mario'64, or other early 3D games in a year - but the artwork would need several full time artists. I wrote "Tux - A Quest for Herring" (an OpenSourced game at about the level of Mario'64) in about six months. With another six, I could have it do everything that Mario'64 does - but without level designers and artists, I could not do it.
But now we are seeing games with immense, detailed 3D worlds with hundreds of 3D characters, vehicles, etc. There is no way you can do that with less than 50 people over several years. I'm too discouraged to even try.
With every new game, the ante is raised - and raised so high that only someone with a very large bankroll can hope to write a 'modern' computer game. Once you start needing a million dollars to develop it, people tend to become very focussed on getting it right. You can't take as big a risk with a megabuck as you can with a rainy weekend when you can't think of anything better to do.
Hence, the number of games being written shrinks and with no tolerance for risk, there can be no room for innovation.
We see this in movies and TV too - every movie is either a sequel, a remake or something based on an already very successful TV show or book. What movies made money over the last few years? Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond, Harry Potter, SpiderMan, LOTR - every one a sequel or a spinoff. Almost every TV show is a small variation on something that already exists - and if a new idea ever does show up, it's cloned mercilessly until the airwaves are swamped with them and consumers get very pissed at the lack of variety. (Think about the recent waves of Jerry Springer clones, then Court TV shows, then Game show clones and now reality TV.)
That's because the cost of making a movie is becoming HUGE - you can't afford to take any risks at all. It's not that the industry lacks ideas or motivation.
Games are going the exact same way for the exact same reason. Government funding won't change that...it's just swapping one risk-averse source of venture capital for another even more risk-averse source.
I think it takes a change of heart from the gamers. They'll have to get bored with games that need a 3D model of an entire city - or a game that has 30 uniquely modelled levels. They'll have to be so desperate for something new that when something like that does arrive, it can be something small but addictive - downloaded from the Internet probably.
Since all but the very largest games companies will have gone bust by that time, such a thing can only come from a small independent games house with people working for free in the hope of making money only when their game sells.
However, independent games writers are becoming frustrated and discouraged by their inability to come up with games as impressive as the big companies - and that's a shame. However, it may only take one or two off-the-wall cult successes to spur people into greater efforts.
Will we see a "Blair Witch Project" of the gaming business? Only time will tell.
www.sjbaker.org
> Subsidizing a luxury like video gaming is
> hardly the reason people created governments.
That said, promoting the interests of citizens, helping develop economic infrastructure, and meeting the needs of burgeoning businesses is in fact one of the reasons that government exists.
You might consider a macroeconomics class.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Hehe, i was broed so started checking these games out, and they are surprisingly cool. maybe there is something to eb said for small games. The racing ones were pretty funny.