Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Game Companies Prepare for Next Console War

Posted by Zonk on from the game-making-is-expensive dept.

domanova writes "The BBC has an article up about the difficulties games companies will face in the next round of the console war. I don't play games, and my programming is in a different world, but the last lines of the article struck a cord. "Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more business-like. 'There are still some developers who were involved in games from the bedroom coding days. Some of them are still making games for peer group approval - that has to stop.'"

7 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Who has to stop? by IndiJ · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more "business-like".
    "There are still some developers who were involved in games from the bedroom coding days.
    "Some of them are still making games for peer group approval - that has to stop."

    Mr. Fred Hasson appears to be a bloody fool. If games are no longer made for peer-group approval by like minded peers, they'll be like movies made for focus-group approval by bottom-line conscious busybodies - bland, homogenized and utterly uninspiring.

    He may have some basis in common sense though. Developing games is becoming harder and harder to do for small developers. But instead of forcing independent game developers to fold or become hollywood schlockmongers, maybe the industry should find ways to make development easier so games can be developed by people that will make great games, instead of just big hits.

    --
    It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys.
    1. Re:Who has to stop? by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Developing games is becoming harder and harder to do for small developers.

      That's just not true though. Developing games that appeal to gamers who are interested into shooting their friends from the first person perspective with cutting-edge detail is harder, yes. There are plenty of small developers that continue to do just fine by appealing to those of us who are more interested in gameplay though.

      If you want to make a high profile game that is going to sell millions of copies, you can go Hollywood and take your chance that your non-movie-licensed title will be the one in twenty to make it, or you can concentrate on a smaller audience and overall game quality you can respect yourself in the morning and probably put food on the table...

      The reason we're seeing comments like this is not because the independant game developer has gone away, but because as the games market has grown and tons of marketing dollars have been poured into the market, the smaller developers have slipped off the radar. Remember that the journalistic machine is lubricated with cash... I'd bet more people play independant games than mainstream games (think about all those flash games, PDA games, etc...), but the trade rags only write about the ones that produce advertising dollars.

  2. He's saying it from a perspective of cost... by the_skywise · · Score: 3, Interesting

    By "peer group approval" I think he means that teams and developers are getting bogged down in making the "perfect" game or a work of art that will be approved by 99% of the world instead of 90%.

    It takes a lot of cost and effort to get that last 10% and it breaks the back of a lot of companies. So in business sense, it's better to ship a product that's "good enough" than to never ship one at all because it wasn't "great".

    As a consumer of games, yeah that's a moronic statement! We want GREAT games!
    But in reality it doesn't pay the bills. Unfortunately it also means we're going to get saddled with commodity games... like "Aviator: The flight simulator"

  3. Everybody develops for their peer group. by Picass0 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Singers suround themselves with other singers. Actors surround themselves with other actors. A person in any trade is going to seek the feedback of others within their profession before seeking the opinion of outsiders.

    "Hey, I'm going to medical school to learn to ACT!"
    "I have 20 years experience as a chef, and I want a job as a reporter."
    "I work at Jiffy Lube, and I wanna write video games"

    Gamers develop games for other gamers and they know what they want. And it isn't "Deer hunter".

  4. Re:what??? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He's got two problems:

    1) Is that most "peer group" targetted games fail. Mostly they appeal to too small a segment of the population to make any money even if they make it out of development. Many don't get that far as they get too complex and too niche.

    2) Games like Katamari Damacy that come out of left field screw up his pre-existing business of selling licensed sports games, another FPS with fancy new graphics etc. etc. I.e. innovation takes away some of his market share. Until he owns it, he's losing money.

    This isn't really new. Look at Hollywood. Most movies are nothing but old ideas with new faces designed to target a specific market and get some easy cash. But we do rarely get a new, good movie that stands above the rest. They're hard to pick out, but they're out there.

    Businessmen are classically short sighted. They only see things as they are now, and make decisions that way. Once something new comes in they're scared until they can make money from it. Then they love it. If you made a bundle off every gas powered car sale, wouldn't you be afraid of someone who sold electric cars?

  5. A businessman at Namco.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ..almost kept Katamari Damacy from being released in the US since "it would likely underperform".

  6. Informal Poll by Mitaphane · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I thought we already were. New creative games are becoming far and few between. It's sad but soon enough the "mainstream" game industry will be the same as Hollywood cranking out the same crap over and over again. Once and awhile there will be something new, but for the most part anything genuinely new will be from (or at least I hope) small independent game companies showing their thing at indie-game festivals.

    I was just curious because I recently noticed how bad it's gotten so I did a poll of my games(the number of non-franchise/sequel games vs. total number of games for the last-gen systems compared with the current gen systems):

    (Last-gen PS): 21/28
    (This-gen PS2): 5/18
    Right now I don't see that number getting any better. Any one else care to share some numbers?

    I know video games being sequelized to the point of oblivion has been around for a while(I'm looking at you CAPCOM). But this year has seemed worse than most others: Metroid Prime 2, GTA: SA, HL2, DOOM 3, Halo 2, Tekken 5, Silent Hill 4, and I'm sure could go on if I wanted to. At least one good thing that sets video games apart from Hollywood sequels is that the bad sequels are the exception istead of the rule. Putting that aside, I am starting to feel tired of playing the same games over and over again.

    --
    -Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn