Razor Blade Games?

Oxygen99 writes "There's a story on the BBC News website regarding the financial impact on game developers of the next generation of consoles. The article states that while the cost of producing games increases exponentially as new technology comes online, consumer prices stay approximately the same, leading to an unsustainable financial environment for many small developers. With many small development teams already hurting from the crippling costs of development for the X-Box, GameCube and PlayStation 2, what happens when the X-Box2 or Playstation 3 arrives? Are the days of small scale game development over? Will we ever see a new Jeff Minter? Will the games industry go down the route of the razor manufacturers where consoles are almost given away with the games?"

Comments

Pressure = opportunity

[TopShelf]

When economic pressures like this get built up, that provides an opportunity for someone to deliver a solution to some of these problems that reduces cost and/or time of development. For example, rather than producing Hollywood-caliber graphics on a custom basis for each game, perhaps that function is better served by standalone companies that create characters and associated animations that game developers can license for use.

Bottom line is that the demand side will determine what happens here - if the market can sustain higher prices for games, the current trend could continue for a while. If a big-budget game flops dramatically, however, you'll see a restructuring of the process that could result in a major shakeout within the industry...

Re:Pressure = opportunity

[danila]

I bet many people are thinking about whom they can sue instead. ;)

But honestly, it's a brilliant idea. :) Some companies have already developed parametric character models. If we are to believe Valve, all scientists in HL2 will look different. And the upcoming Sims 2 will feature even greater variability. Improve this technology a bit, add extra controls, easier tools and you solved the problem of designing new characters. Want an evil villain? Move some sliders (ugly - 70%, evil - 100%, old - 60%, crazy - 80%, smart - 65%). :) A producer of the original system can update this a couple of time, until they can make completely realistic models that can be simplified automatically as necessary.

The same can be done for other objects. Recently the Driver 3 developers said that their biggest cost is designing the world, even though most of the buildings are still just empty boxes. The solution is similar - create a parametric function-based object called "house" that could be tweaked from igloo to WTC. :) Same with objects. Finally write a world generator that would create a random world filled with these objects. Voila. All problems solved.

Re:Pressure = opportunity

[mbourgon]

Yeah - except that a lot of this already happens. There's a physics engine (Havoc?) used by a lot of people. AI has been reused. A lot of games already license an engine. Take a look at Gamasutra.com or Game Developer for more details.

And while I'm at it - this article really overstates things. Yes, it can take more people to develop for consoles. But games can still be built by small groups, and the games can be A titles. It's about not reinventing the wheel - look at some of the mods out there. Built by small teams that have the engine already. Remember, while eye candy helps, it's all about the gameplay.

Re:Pressure = opportunity

[mausmalone]

I'd hate to paraprhase Dave Perry, since he hasn't had a great track record, but he said that a game developer must have control over every pixel on the screen at all times.

he was... uh... referring to the decision to use a software polygon engine in the early versions of Messiah, IIRC... but it's a good point nonetheless.

I've played a lot of games with randomly-generated worlds, and while the variation sounds like a boon, it just ends up becoming tired and boring. Think of Gran Turismo (to pick a popular example). Remember coming out of the roadways at the end of the SS Rt. 5 stage, rising back up onto the highway straightaway. Remember how it felt like you were soaring, as you broke out of a series of tight turns in a confined space and started rocketing down a straightaway at 200 mph in a wide-open space?

You can't have that in a randomly-generated game... there's no experience.. things aren't planned.. they're just there. There's no personality to it, no cohesion in design.

Now, I get what you're saying about using random world generator to take all of the extreme effort of crafting a play environment, but then you lose all control over the world itself. The play isn't crafted any more. The world has no personality.

The only exception I've seen is Animal Crossing, but that's because you contribute to the world's personality so much, that it doesn't matter if the world is a little odd. Your environment doesn't play as big a role in the game as it does in others.

Now, randomly generated graphics... that's a great idea. How about completely randomly generated trees? Give a few parameters to work off of, and a seed for a random number generator. This way, it'll generated randomly instead of being modeled, and will look the same every time. There's great opportunity for streamlining graphics production, but the actual play environment is an expertly tailored thing, and randomization would only screw it up.

Nope - vis a vis Bookwork

[cspenn]

Smaller shops will likely continue to innovate, especially in new markets like cell phones and PDAs, where compactness of code and short development cycles pay off quickly. You will not likely see Doom XXVIII on your Samsung NPH-3500 phone, but you might just see Bookworm coming soon.

Don't be fooled into thinking that consoles and PC are - forgive the pun - the only game in town.

Movie industry parallel

[MagPulse]

I see the game industry moving along much the same path as the movie industry did. Today, independent films are still made, movie enthusiasts support them, and they are a great way for individuals or small groups to get noticed and get on large projects that make real money.

I am hoping that moviegoers are getting saturated by the overly formulaic movies they're being given, and will shift the focus back to smaller budget films that are more original. But I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the movie biz right now. For those that crave original, small-budget films, there's no shortage of them.

Re:Movie industry parallel

[TheOneEyedMan]

The number of books published by small presses dwarfs the number if independant films. A major reason is that they are far cheaper to produce. To the extent that games aer like movies and not like books, there will be far fewer of them. In any case, the independent films only start that way. By the time the beauty pagent ends and a few of them have been chosen for mass distribution, the average member is far more commercial.

Re:Movie industry parallel

[imperator_mundi]

The parallel holds just partially... the technical aspects of doing movies don't change as fast as the videogame developement methods... I mean camera operators are not required to re-learn filming techniques every 3 or 4 years.

Re:Movie industry parallel

[jayayeem]

The problem with this parallel, is that advancing technology has made it cheaper to produce professional looking movie, by using digital cameras and editing suites. It has actually reduced the number of people needed to make a movie.

With games, the advancing technology has made it more expensive to create a professional looking game. A professional looking game requires more people today than it did 10 or even 5 years ago.

Consoles are already given out

[gorbachev]

All video game consoles are sold at loss. The business is already exactly like the razor blade business.

It has already happened with Inkjet Printers

[BagOBones]

Just look at printers. You can purchase a new printer for nearly the same cost or sometimes LESS then purchasing new ink cart.

Consider the Film Industry

[plasticmillion]

I see a lot of parallels between video game development and the film industry. As the market has become larger and more global, consumer expectations have risen accordingly. The result is that the biggest moneyspinners in the future are likely to be "blockbuster" games written by larger companies with big budgets and teams (this trend is already abundantly clear).

To me this is good news for gamers. True, it will result in a lot of lowest common denominator crap. But this analogy suggests a lot of positive aspects as well. For one, I personally happen to like blockbuster movies, and I'm glad that the market is such that someone can justify spending $300 mio or so on the LOTR trilogy (to name just one example).

At the same time, there is space for the little guy in the film industry to some extent. Innovative filmmakers can still make a name for themselves on a superlow budget (e.g. Clerks. In my view this applies even more to the gaming world, where a clever idea can be a huge hit without requiring dozens of programmers and designers to implement (consider Tetris).

Anything that makes really stunning high-budget output possible is more than fine by me.

Smaller developers...

[Junior J. Junior III]

Should develop smaller games. For every Grand Theft Auto 3, there's a Tetris.

The Big Hollywood style productions can be handled by the huge companies, while the smaller companies can do innovative things like games that actually have gameplay value as opposed to eyecandy value.

Gameplay value is timeless and largely not driven by technology. If need be, license the high end graphics from someone else rather than reinvent the wheel. But someone should be working on making games playable, re-playable, and fun.

A prime area for small-time, moderate budget development? AI. *Good* AI, that learns and adapts, for example, is something I'd like to see. AI that gets lazy and complacent and forgets sometimes, for that human feel, and to prevent things from getting too difficult.

Re:Smaller developers...

[Rinikusu]

Indeed. And with increases in technology and programming API's, even independent developers can get more done with less "effort". Stuff like DirectX and OpenGL help free up some of the resources that would normally be used in creating custom API's, and, as you mentioned, various 3rd party engines are available to use so the developer can concentrate on gameplay, storyline, or even art-look.

Consider Puppygames.com's Alien Flux. They produced a full-on arcade style game in 6 months, with just 2 guys working mostly part-time. It's written in Java, using OpenGL and a wrapper library they happily "give away" (lwjgl), and runs under Windows and Linux, and soon MacOS X (they seem to have troubles finding and keeping a MacOS X person with the expertise/time to keep the library up-to-date as the primary developers are x86 only). Is it Doom 3? No. Is it fun? Yes. Definately so. It's proof that you don't need a 10 million dollar budget to produce a good game.

Other areas for small-time developers: Mindless action games. Puzzle games (see popcap.com). I'm even toying with the idea of a small, episodic RPG's (think monthly-bimonthy episodes at low cost (say, $5-10 module or use some sort of subscription).

Anyway, I don't think the days of the independent developer are over. In fact, I think with the wider acceptance of Flash, J2ME, etc, the barrel has opened even wider.

this happened in computer dev as well

[514x0r]

things get bigger and more complex and so do the development environments. the big get bigger in this scenerio--for a while. there's almost always a new development--ie *nix--to bring things back to earth. in the end a good idea can overcome the cost of easy development.

Voodoo economics

[Brahmastra]

Why do video game prices have to go up because the the technology is improving? Computers have consistently become more complex, but their prices have been going down. The number of people playing video games is also going up quite rapidly, resulting in more customers for video game companies. Maybe they have to do more development, but that is the same for all new technologies. If video game companies are losing money, it's because of nothing but a crappy business model.

Re:Voodoo economics

[Outlyer]

You're talking about two different things, and so-called "Voodoo Economics" has very little to do with this topic at all. That's a Reagan-era term for supply-side economics and deals primarily with fiscal policy.

Technology on the CONSUMER end is improving, but if technology on the SUPPLIER end does not improve at the same pace, you have an increasing cost industry and consequently higher prices.

Any imbalance between cost of production and cost to consumers in the market would normally result in price shifts.

Video game companies are losing money because the cost of doing business has increased while market prices have not. As costs go up, firms will leave the market resulting in an increasingly diminished supply causing prices to go up and so on.

In the long run, without major improvements on the supply side, the industry would collapse; at least that is what generally accepted microeconomics principles would predict.

Small development vs. large development

[tambo]

(I think that the answer to this factoid observation is self-evident, but I'll post it anyway.)

The costs of developing large-scale games only affects the developers of large-scale games. As noted abundantly by others, such games tend to fit certain well-defined genres: RTS, MMORPG, FPS, RPG... indeed, the whole reason we even have and know these acronyms is because the styles of games have become extraordinarily pigeonholed.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Take Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - the game only works because gamers have been trained to go along with the scripting and accept the monolithic linearity of the missions. If you do, however, you get a pretty grand experience.

But the point is this: A few game niches have become so overproduced that independent developers can't hope to compete - but the rest of the market is wide open.

And what a wide-scale market that is! How many genres have barely been tapped, or not yet invented? How do you even classify something like Popcap's Insaniquarium? Or PaRappa the Rapper, or Dance Dance Revolution? Those are pretty easy games to design and develop, and they're fiercely fun. Window dressing is extra - but for these innovative games, window dressing is secondary to gameplay. (What a novel concept!)

Bottom line: Independent developers should not mimic Electronic Arts and try to compete in these highly stylized, overbudgeted affairs. But there's plenty of untapped gaming out there, just waiting for someone with a smidge of vision and a touch of imagination. Go get 'em, guys!

David Stein, Esq.

Alternative business models?

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

On the PC gaming front, we've already seen companies like PopCap Games and GarageGames get around rising design costs by returning to something similar to the shareware model of the early- to mid-1990s, creating relatively simple, inexpensive, fun games. Maybe something similar would work for the console market.

Oh, who am I kidding? Anything released to the console market without 3D graphics, genuine B-list actors providing the voiceovers, and 16.7 zillion colors is doomed to failure.

DecafJedi

Enter The Matrix?

[yerricde]

rather than producing Hollywood-caliber graphics on a custom basis for each game, perhaps that function is better served by standalone companies that create characters and associated animations that game developers can license for use.

Licensing characters with animations? Movie license games are rarely[1] good games. Capcom and Virgin tried the licensed-character route in the 1990s, borrowing characters from cel-animated movies published by the company we love to hate. The games (such as Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers, Aladdin, Pinocchio, The Lion King, etc) turned out way too one-dimensional to have any replay value. Or just read the reviews for Enter The Matrix.

[1] There is of course the occasional exception such as Goldeneye for Nintendo 64.

Misspent Resources

[EvilTwinSkippy]

New games don't take exponentially longer to develop. The problem is the black hole of CGI movies. How many games have you played that are simply a series of puzzles in between a boatload of Squarsoftish clips? Are racing games really that much more playable with photorealistic race tracks? I think it's cute that you can see a hockey player's breath, but if you are bitching about budgets, stuff like that is easy to cut.

What is needed is for game developers to stop throwing money into the photorealistic hole. Anime is a perfectly acceptable graphic style designed for mass production. By reducing the amount of "detail" using artisitic license you can focus more on game play, scripts, and quality assurance.

Why I Can't make a DOOM 3 clone

[Peterius]

I've been programming for many many years on many different platforms, I'm an expert in C and x86 assembly and I've done a lot of stuff with OpenGL and a good amount with DirectX not to mention being proficient in just about any area of programming you could think of. The problem is that a game engine like DOOM 3 is not a stand-alone work. It is rather the evolution of the first DOOM engine through all the iterations of Quake. I could write the first DOOM engine. I could probably even write something like Quake 2. But as a small developer, I cannot possibly break into this market when I'm competing with people who are evolving and reusing code that they've had for years. They just keep making it a little better. I can't do that because I don't have years and years of succesful 3d projects to draw from and improve upon.

No small developer can jump 6 levels of technology to get to the current state-of-the-art and compete with large developing firms. Programming, like everything, is an iterative process; so as games get larger(code-size) and more complex with more and better technology packed into them, it will be harder and harder for small developers to break in the market. Most of them end up buying a decent 3d engine from someone else. And with faster graphics cards and games like Warcraft 3 and PlanetSide, all games are beginning to rely on evolved technology. A small developer's game (whether its an FPS or an RTS or an MMORPG) can't compete with the beauty and speed of a large company's engine that has been revised and rewritten and composed of a multitude of high speed algorithms and computing tricks that have been drawn from a large code base. Which relegates us all to the realm of shareware...or, on the bright side, perhaps open source community projects.

Re:Why I Can't make a DOOM 3 clone

[Minna Kirai]

I could write the first DOOM engine. I could probably even write something like Quake 2.

I could probably write something like Quake 2... oh wait, I've got the whole Quake2 source code right here! Nevermind.

If you're a small developer, the excuse of not having a basis to start from doesn't hold up. Carmack has graciously released his code to the public well before it became fully obselete.

As mentioned in other responses, the majority of the work for a new game is in graphic/level resources. The fact that your binaries are GPL won't hurt your commercial prospects very much- customers still have to pay to play the game experience you've designed.

(And if the code you do change is GPL, then you have the added potential benefit of leveraging changes made by other small game developers)

Re:Give us more, and make it hurt!

[kfg]

Those of us who are older may have a slightly different point of view though. The only games that I play regularly now are years old, Grand Prix Legends, Red Baron 3D, Age of Empires. Throw in a bit of replay of Grim Fandango. Not to mention the classics like Asteroids.

None of these require the latest screaming system to play, yet they all still represent the Best of Class.

I havn't purchased a game in years, not becasue of cost. Not because of lack of interest. Simply because I haven't been presented with a game superiour to those I already play.

It wouldn't take much to grab a few hundred more bucks out of my pocket, but the latest gee whiz bang twist to the same tired old formula isn't going to do it for me.

Give me games instead of technology and I'll buy them.

KFG

Re:Small players in the console market?

[cosmo7]

Look at the old Atari days.

More salient than you might think.

Atari's weakness was that it did not control the games publishers. There was no quality control, consumers were discouraged, and in the end the entire market suffered. When Nintendo and Sega started to reinvent the games console market the first thing they did was to strictly control who was publishing what for their systems.

Re:Two things will emerge

[Zigg]

They say that only 5 percent of game players today complete a game to a developer intended "finish." So clearly a change toward shorter games would be beneficial.

My biggest problem with this change is that games are getting too short. If I don't finish a story-oriented game, the real reason is that the game has suddenly become extremely difficult for no good reason and frustrating, not because I lack the patience to finish it.

Middleware is the Solution

[Frogmanalien]

Solutions will arrive automatically. Thankfully we've already seen the start of this via Middleware - software by a third party which is hired/loaned and used for development. PS2 and Xbox have successfully helped build an entire middleware community and a new source of revenue. Now small bedroom programmers can either be responsible for middleware or the "end game" software.
Let us not lament- Sony is the current market leader and also happens to be the only manufacterer who opened up their console for easy programming (anyone remember the Sony Yazoo (or whatever it was called) for the PSX - a home development system) and is also selling Linux kits without a free cease and desist letter to anyone who uses linux on their PSX.
There's still space out there for bedroom developers, it's just that bedroom developers are changing!

Frogmanalien

GamePlay VS EyeCandy

[holy_smoke]

One thing I am noticing is that games today are, getting way too complex with regards to graphics, geometry, lighting, etc. It takes a TON of time and money to design, build, texture, test, and finalize these worlds. "What's your point you ask?" - Its this: That the gameplay isn't THAT much different today than it was say 5 years ago (exept with AI development), and quite frankly I don't play the game for the eye candy (although that enhances my experience while playing).

Game enjoyment is all about challenge, goal accomplishment, and interaction with AI in the computer. These are paramount elements, and these costs can be normalized to fairly predictable levels. The eye candy is on the list but not that near the top for me, and yet game developers sink huge dollars into this.

I really don't "enjoy" Quake III or UnrealTournament2003 any more than Quake II or UnrealTournament1999 except where BOT AI is concerned. This is because the GAMEPLAY has improved because of AI development, not because a building is made of 3000 objects instead of 500.

Does anyone else feel this way??

good reply...

[rmdyer]

Ok, so I'm having a large reaction to what I feel is a change in the balance of power.

1. It started with small unknown developers writing games for the PC.

2. The small unknown developers become giants.

3. The consoles allow the giants to sell more games to people who don't understand computers.

4. The giant can no longer afford to develop PC games because they need to put all their development into consoles.

5. Nobody buys anything but consoles and console games because that is the only thing the developers program for.

The end...PC gaming DOA.

What I generally dislike about consoles...

1. Doesn't allow mouse control.

2. Doesn't have high-resolution > 1024x768. And even if it did, that doesn't mean much to people who don't have HDTV.

3. You are locked into the game...no modding.

4. You can't always freely connect with other large groups over the net without using a system that was developed to monitor your gameplay...like Microsoft's.

5. How about setting up a 32 player server with a console?

6. Ever try to backup your console game CD?

7. Can you upgrade you console system without throwing out the entire box?

8. Why do you say consoles are easier? PC game interfaces are exactly the same (on screen configuration and controls)?

9. Consoles are sold separately from PCs. An investment in a console is not an investment in my PC. Why would I do that?

The end.

++more.

Re:good reply...

[PainKilleR-CE]

3. The consoles allow the giants to sell more games to people who don't understand computers.

Not everyone buying consoles don't understand computers. In fact, for many gamers it comes down to the simple fact that different game types play better on consoles than computers, and vice versa. I wouldn't play your average RTS on a console, and most FPS games don't work well on consoles, either. Star Wars: KOTOR is the first game that really brings PC-style RPGs to consoles without huge changes to the gameplay.

4. The giant can no longer afford to develop PC games because they need to put all their development into consoles.

For many of them most of the development process is cheaper for the PC, and the XBox, for one, offers some easy transition from console to PC (or from PC to console). The biggest effort on the computer is testing different configurations and making sure your control scheme works.

The end...PC gaming DOA.

People have been predicting this for a very long time. What usually happens is that PC gaming gets something new that can't easily be reproduced on the consoles for at least a few more years. In many cases, the consoles start catching up to PC gaming only because PC gaming loses a lot of it's originality, which is something we're seeing a lot of people crying about across the board, now.

What I generally dislike about consoles...

1. Doesn't allow mouse control.

Many mice have been available for different consoles over the years, they simply aren't very popular. Personally, I'd much rather have a USB adapter for both my keyboard and my trackball than something developed for the console specifically (because I'm very picky about my keyboard and trackball, partially because I have to use them all day). The XBox offers the keyboard adapter, not sure about mice.

2. Doesn't have high-resolution > 1024x768. And even if it did, that doesn't mean much to people who don't have HDTV.

Until people have the TVs, they're not going to bother with the higher resolution. On a computer monitor the higher resolutions make a big difference, whereas on a TV screen they mean almost nothing unless they're used to enhance FSAA.

3. You are locked into the game...no modding.

This is changing as well, though mostly with mod chips allowing people to add in various hacks and mods.

4. You can't always freely connect with other large groups over the net without using a system that was developed to monitor your gameplay...like Microsoft's. ...or EA's, or Blizzard's, or the old Won.net system, etc. GameSpy didn't make all their money from selling software, either.

5. How about setting up a 32 player server with a console?

How about setting up a 32 player server for a console? We setup multiple 32 player Quake servers on a single P200. This is why Microsoft chose the model they did. It doesn't take much to run a handful of large servers on one box to host a large number of console players.

6. Ever try to backup your console game CD?

A lot of people do. Can't say I've had any problems with CDs, or any other disc format. Overall I've had 2 or 3 CDs get scratched in a way that affected playback, and they were all music CDs (I have about 2x as many music CDs as I do PC game CDs, and about 30x as many music CDs as I do games for the largest of my console game CD collections). Ever try to backup a computer game CD? For a while there it seemed that you needed a new trick with every new game that came along. At least with the consoles once you learn the trick it rarely changes (though with things like GD-ROMs and DVD it's certainly a bit more expensive to get the hardware).

7. Can you upgrade you console system without throwing out the entire box?

I can buy a new console for less than the cost of a new graphics card. In fact, I bought my last 3 consoles with money saved from not upgr

Re:Nintendo is confronting this

[mrseigen]

Nintendo should be confronting this by going around to independent developers that look good and dropping a development kit in their laps. The idea that they attach strings to funding for already-sequelled games as long as they crank them out quick is stupid, and if that's Nintendo's idea of innovation the GameCube will be the last Nintendo system I ever buy.

Disney's control of its characters

[yerricde]

Now, if they had made it more of an RPG, with an action component

Hmmm... possibly like the Mana engine... smells good.

and extended the universe with a new story, THEN it might have been interesting.

For one thing, Disney might have dictated terms to Virgin that prohibited writing new story lines because any new story lines might conflict with the direction Disney wanted to take the characters in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride.

Better would have been to do like Rare did in Goldeneye for N64: missions inspired by the movie, with more depth in each mission than was explored in the movie, and a couple extra missions that might as well have been "deleted scenes" in the movie. Completely linear levels where the player dies instantly if he leaves the track, such as if he jumps off the ostrich in the "Can't Wait to Be King" mission of The Lion King for Super NES, are a Bad Thing.

Garage Not Dead

[carcosa30]

I think garage developers are far from finished.

There's a gigantic mass of untapped territory out there. All it takes is creativity. As John Carmack himself mentioned, big companies have trouble breaking away from molds. They produce "lock-in" conditions for themselves, being forced to run the same old games and formulae time and time again.

Games, like anything else, exist on a fitness landscape. Games like the shooters are searching for pinnacles, ever higher, in one very narrow area.

If id software broke away from their formula and tried something new, they'd then be duking it out with smaller developers, or houses with some money but without a huge popular name, like CDV/Fireglow (Divine Divinity, Sudden Strike)

Much of the bottleneck for small developers is art. Textures and models. These are hard to do, even for talented and skilled specialist artists.

I think a solution here is one that's fallen almost totally by the wayside in the last few years, and that's proceduralism. In other words, draw textures and models, as much as possible, procedurally-- as the insightful guy above said, parametric models are starting, and I think that's a way of coding that's going to revolutionize the way things are done.

Also, buildings, dungeons, plants, city maps... all these things can be done as L-systems or as other types of grammars. It's not impossible, it just takes a little bit "more work" right up front, and the things get tons easier. Like so many other programming tasks. And then you have almost endless replay, until you see to the bottom of what the system can do.

Id and Blizzard may not be around forever. They may be the SirTechs and the Broderbunds and the Beagle Brothers of today, to be supplanted tomorrow by hungrier smaller companies.

So what?

[Derkec]

They can't afford to produce for the console? Well, earn your stripes in the world of pc games. Once you can make money there, you can license the stuff for the consoles and move on.

This really doesn't seem like the end of the world.

Re:SDK

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is not in anybodies interest in the market for amateurs to flood the market with sub-standard crap."

Heaven forbid the market makes that decision. I feel better knowing Sony saves me the thinking.

Re:SDK

[Aadain2001]

I think you forgetting a great market that moved away from this kind of mentality and has not collapsed under a pile of crap games: the pc game market. Sure, they have crap games out there. But they don't survive. The good games become popular and the companies that make them produce more games. The setup of the pc game market does not prevent a 15 year old super coding genious from producing the Next Great Thing in his basement while still allowing for large companies like Blizzard et. al. to produce greate and not so greate games in mass. The console world can take a page from the pc game market and let the consumers decide what is a good game and what is a bad game.