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Andy Phelps Proposes 'B-Sides' For Games
Andy Phelps has once again begun blogging. A recent post of his to the Corante Tech site suggests an intriguing idea: B-Sides to major commercial games. "I think there is an interesting opportunity here: stick some "B-Side" experimental games on the DVD with the big title. Little Flash games, or student games, or Internet games that haven't taken off yet. Don't advertise them on the box, sell the "big game" just like always." Thanks to Hylton Jolliffe for the submission.
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What's the point? Really?
Companies would start to fear seeing the words "The B-Side game is actually better" in the reviews for their next AAA title...
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There are tonnes and tonnes of really inovative and great free games out there.
The chances of publishers letting you know that are tiny!.
Mod makers do most of the work that goes into a complete game (except the engine which can be freely downloaded.
If they had another medium for distributing their work they would be releasing the game for free and creating new engines and games, this would spell the end of big video game business in relatively short order as people get pissed about subscription services, ridiculously high prices, backwards distribution policies, unpleasent anti-piracy measures, adware, gamespy arcade... the list goes on.
If the industry wanted this, they could easily do it out of the profit margins of the larger titles. Easily. So if the industry really believes itself about the lack of innovation that it touts at GDC every year, put your money where your mouth is, and offer some incentive for experimental throw-away games. The way you innovate is make 20 totally different different games and find the one (or parts of some) that works. No one in the art world has every really had a different model.
But that's the thing - the industry doesn't want it. Only game designers and hardcore gamers really care about "innovation". As a game designer myself, I'd love this and heard this suggested in no less than four other places, but the truth is that it isn't really a profitable endeavor.
Why spend X dollars on a B-side that isn't neccessarily related to the A-side game at all when you could spend those X dollars to make the A-side game better (or, in most case, bigger)?
If you can figure out the answer to that which would convince an executive, I'd love to hear it so I can get to work on some B-side games.
By the way, if you are looking for a fun and innovative game, go pick up Katamari Damacy for the PS2. I just picked it up this week and it is the freshest, most original fun I've had on a console in a while - and it is twenty bucks. It gives me hope for this concept in the form of EPs (shorter, cheaper standalone games) rather than B-sides.
Pack games on the disk and don't advertise them on the packaging? While I can see a point to that (to reduce criticism), I'm sure marketing won't let anyone get away with packing in features and not advertising them. Marketing would make a bullet point out of the number of times the lead coder sneezed if that'd interest anybody. They sure as hell wouldn't let the opportunity to write "includes 5 additional Full Games as a bonus!!" on the box pass by.
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Not everyone has a high-speed internet connection.
Not everyone has internet access, period.
Not everyone is willing to leave their computer on all night for a download when they're being billed for the amount of time that they're connected to the internet.
Not everyone has access to a GameStop, EB, or a store that sells more games than the big-budget titles that Wal-Mart sells.
Not everyone feels comfortable buying games online.
Beyond all of this, the fact remains that publisher pays the development team, even a relatively small amount ($10,000, perhaps) might more than cover the costs of making the game.
Really, who loses out if a company decides to try this? All we'd lose would be the pretty screenprinting on the top of the CD, and that's not a very big loss...
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it already sounds like a few games that I've played.
And they have in lots of games, whether as Easter Eggs, unlockables or just fun minigames. Presumably, these are side projects thrown in to add something to the mix
These major ones spring to mind:
Pyoro 1 and 2 in Warioware Inc. Fantastic fun little things
The lightgun game Demolition Racer for Dreamcast. Lovely fun little game
The useless VMU games and both Pocketstation games that no-one ever played
Galaxians in the Ridge Racer loading screen
All the retro games in modern titles (PoP and the NES games in Animal Crossing)
NiGHTs and Puyo Pop for GBA in PSO and Billy Hatcher for GC
Blackhole Assault with an inbuilt pong game
After Googling, there's a whole FAQ full at http://www.steverd.com/faqs/hiddengames.htm - dates back to 1999, but the point is still there.
It sounds like a cool idea to help independents get a start. Which is probably why it'd never happen. Does any major studio want to encourage independent game developers? This is a billion dollar industry we're talking about. I'm not sure it would be in their best interests. Although it would make for an easy was to do market research of their own fringe ideas. I just doubt indies would get much exposure.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
You know what's great? Little mini-games you can play while the main game is loading. Too long have we been fobbed off with high-res ingame shots or unused coverart! Give us scrolling text that adds to the story, or a mini-game to occupy us - because sitting still for more than 30 seconds is *hard*.
I think why this isn't more common (including early tech demos) is that they are usually terribly buggy and there isn't enough time to fix them to meet quality control. The developers of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay had wanted to include the early prototype of the game as a bonus but they would have missed their deadline getting the bugs worked out.
We can also have games released on vinyl, because it would "sound better" and make the vinyls like $150. Then we can release singles of games with different dj-mixes and club beats. Maybe we can make one bigass game, but split it up into two releases (each with its own b-sides) and release them both at the same time. One company..two games. One game can be called "Bullet" and one can be called "Stealth"
- The crude-but-playable prototype from two years ago. There's a clear line of ancestry there, but it's always nice to see how things have evolved.
- A bit on how the game's focus changed, and why we incorporated building elements into it.
- A segment on the actual development process, from the initial concept to media development, coding, and refining.
- Outtakes! Maybe you'll get a chuckle seeing the early AI as it forced the multi-segmented Parade Dragon to loop in and collide with itself.
- How you can create artwork without a budget or artistic talent.
- Why I think (hope?) indie studios can earn a living.
So, the question that follows from Andy Phelps' article is: will added meta-content make an enjoyable game much better, or should developers spend their time on the game proper?____________________________ ____________________________
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I think it's a cool idea, but could go beyond experimental games. What about including old classics along with the newer games?
I think it would be cool if id included the entire Commander Keen in the box with Doom 3 or something. It'd just be a little bonus to say "thanks for buying our game." Or if Epic put the original Unreal in with UT2k4.
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I think software companies should bundle REAL things in the box, like manuals, action figures, cloth maps, anything to reward people for purchasing the package. A bunch of tossware would be pointless.
Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3!
The ______ Agenda
Any extras for free bonus stuff is usually put on a games website. I'd rather have a CD/DVD full of real game content than extra fluff.
The LP as we know it wasn't a common thing in the 40's through early 60's. Artists would release music a '45 at a time (and if one of the first couple didn't take off, they never got to make more.) The "A" side was the commercial effort and the "B" side was a chance to take a chance and experiment a little, to cover another artist or whatever. The reason the "B" side songs were usually lesser efforts is that they weren't taken very seriously by DJ's or the public, and it was better to save their best work for the next single.
When an LP was finally released, it was really a "greatest hits"-- a collection of popular singles (like, say, "Meet The Beatles".) Now, of course, you're expected to make a full album, whether you have the material or not-- which is why most pop CDs have one or two decent songs and a lot of filler. But the labels make more selling a CD than a single, so...
Anyway... I can't see how there would be a correlation as far as games go. Games are such team efforts, requiring so much more investment in man-hours and money than recording a song, that it's just not feasible to make a "labor of love" (and who's labor of love would that be, anyway?)
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So far you've been modded "funny" and "overrated." Much to my sadness, I think you deserve to be modded +5 Insightful. Way too many games come off as half-finished, be it in programming (game don't work? download patch please) or in content (Spider-man 2, potentially the greatest digital sandbox ever... too bad you've exhausted the content within 15 minutes with the same 3 side-missions over and over). Thriving mod communities are great, but they are in too many cases an indication that the developer didn't bother going "all the way."
B-side indeed.
WarioWare Inc. 2 to 10 seconds is plenty.
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bah. on one hand, your 'sense of history' fashions the statement 'represented a unique channel of distribution' as a lecture of pre-modern 'media'.
on the other hand, your flimsy argument dismisses all that implies, entirely, when applied to 'back of the DVD scan-in' "alternative-channel" video games/hacks.
the point is, video games mfr's have "MORE CHANNELS THAN THEY KNOW", in that they can create a sub-market/culture/environment with sneaky 'B-side' style thinking in their box delivery channel. do for videogame
In other words, put stuff physically *ON* the DVD which makes it more valuable, so that its not so 'readily' depreciable by online content delivery systems.
this is 'B-side' thinking.
It's even kind of interesting. But I don't see how it would do anything for resurrecting "innovation in gaming" any more than new channels of distribution (e.g. the Internet) are already doing.
In the eyes of a media person, the notion of 'unique channel' is an interesting one. What I hope comes of this is renewed thinking on the part of 'media giants' on the values of independent channels, created at will by any group who wills it.
This is the lesson of the Internet, after all, that it is groups of people, organized, who get things done/make things happen/blow big bubbles... if they create a 'counter-culture' B-side media channel on their boxes and in their games packages, I could see there being a lot of interest in actually buying these things at retail.
Bar-code videogames/cheat-codes that work with Nintendo and are printed on my XBox game CD might make for some interesting 'warfare' among the media giants..
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"In music, B-sides are either incomplete tracks that the artist never finished or thought to be worth finishing. Or they're songs that they were just playing around with and had no real intention to release."
Huh? They were primarily the songs the labels considered good but without as much sales potentional or songs the bands really fought to get included. Same thing, really: songs rightly or wrongly viewed as riskier bets. Many bands ended up with their best tracks as B-sides. That was 45's; with CD singles we're more likely to get throw-aways and silliness because there's space for more than an A and a B.
I'd be happy if all the PC game publishers ditched CDs for DVDs. DVD players are dirt cheap--they must be 'cause even I've got one!--so by fiat I declare the era of 4 CD games to be OVER.
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