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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...
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?
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
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!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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!
"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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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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 :).
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
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!
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.