On The Need For New Videogame Funding Models

Thanks to Costik.com for pointing to entrepreneur Gordon Gould's comments on possible new videogame funding avenues, as he notes "the coming console shift to Xbox 2 and the Playstation 3 is going to once again raise the bar on development costs", meaning "a shrinking number of titles per publisher slate w/increased pressure on those titles to be out of the ballpark blockbusters." He suggests that "developers' ability to gain more control over their destiny is handicapped by the relative scarcity of funding sources", but this may be changing, as investors from outside the industry start to fund development (as seen recently at MMO creator Turbine.) However, Greg Costikyan weighs in with a response, arguing that "...even looking at something as goofy and hit-driven as the game industry, an investor is already taking a big risk, and his or her instinct is going to be the same as the publishers': be conservative in what you fund."

Comments

Re:The risk?

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No the games aren't fundamentally better just prettier. Gamers have gotten worse and easier to please though(I didn't thank that was possible, people bought Phalanx after all, but apparently it was.).

Take this game for instance: Beyond Good and Evil. It was critically praised, is a fantastic game, and came out for all 3 consoles AND the PC but it didn't sell(you can pick it up for $19.99 on the XBox or GCN).

Good and even good AND innovative doesn't mean sales. So it's always the safe bet, yet another FPS, yet another Madden title.

Then you have the general dumbing down of games. No new gameplay elements. We'll just take a buncha stuff from other games in the genre, improve the AI and physics a bit and BLAMO, we've got a success (*cough* Halo *cough*).

Most games may as well have been released for the last generation of consoles. Apart from how pretty they are, they're pretty much more o' the exact same.