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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 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.
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?
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.
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!
If airlines shut down, trouble abound. Lots of traffic jams, undeliverables and stranded people.
If you don't get duke nukem forever, you'll live.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
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.
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.
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.
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