OddWorld Inhabitants Leaving the Gaming Industry

Via Games*Design*Art*Culture*, a link to a Hollywood reporter story breaking the news that Oddworld Inhabitants is closing up shop in the games industry. Owner Lanning is apparently going to move the company into movies and TV, as a result of sour experiences in the current gaming industry environment. From the article: "As game production costs rise, publishers want more sure bets because with rising costs come rising risks. What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."

Comments

Gaming is a victim of its own success

[G4from128k]

The demand for ever more sophisticated plots, depth-of-gaming-worlds, realism, and whiz-bang physics/graphics engines seems to be pushing gaming into a bad place. Fortunately, gaming will always have room for simple, but innovative, games (of the Tetris-style) that don't demand Hollywood-style budgets and Hollywood-style realism. Perhaps what is really happening is that the gaming world will fragment into a high-budget FPS market (run by a risk-averse management) and a low-budget, high-concept gaming market.

IANAG, but I wonder if open source will be able to create a rich online FPS game/MMORG that offers the rich world-depth of a big-budget game without the need for millions of dollars in development labor.

Re:Gaming is a victim of its own success

[Tyir]

Probably not, since there is a lot of high quality open source programmers, but a high budget game doesn't just need programmers, it needs artists, sound effect designers, etc. etc. And those types of people aren't, in general, in the whole open source movement...

Re:Gaming is a victim of its own success

[TyrionEagle]

IANAG, but I wonder if open source will be able to create a rich online FPS game/MMORG that offers the rich world-depth of a big-budget game without the need for millions of dollars in development labor.

Well there are MUDs. Been around for a while. Most of themare low on the graphics, but are involving none the less.

Re:Gaming is a victim of its own success

[R3D]

Oxymoron of the day:

Hollywood-style realism.

Re:Gaming is a victim of its own success

[NanoGator]

"And those types of people aren't, in general, in the whole open source movement..."

Well, that depends on how they're recruited. Artists etc need a portfolio to get a job. The best type of portfolio to develop is the kind where you've done work on a project. An artist that's in-between jobs or trying to break into the industry would be an ideal candidate to work on an Open Source game. That is, more or less, what I did. I did some pro-bono work for a garage game. Since there were no real deadlines for the game, I was allowed to pursue my work to the point of learning new valuable skills. When job-search time came, my work on that game almost single-handedly got me a great job.

Unfortunately, I don't think a lot of new-to-the-industry artists would see the value in this. It would take a little attitude re-alignment, but I think with a few success stories like mine, it could be done.

Re:Gaming is a victim of its own success

[parryr]

"IANAG, but I wonder if open source will be able to create a rich online FPS game/MMORG that offers the rich world-depth of a big-budget game without the need for millions of dollars in development labor."

Well, you could always check out Once. It's pretty idealistic, and they really need code ragers and artists bad, but the idea's there. Apart from questions surrounding "who the hell's going to fund all this 'width!?" I think an open source Massive game holds potential to deliver fun, rather than something to addict you and keep Sony/Blizzard/whomever rich beyond dreams of avarice.

I sort of miss the days of MUDs, but I'm a graphics whore and can't go back. Guild Wars, now that's some candy I can get into - done without, as near as I can tell, an EA/Hollywood style budget.

how is that different

[AdiBean]

"What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."

They are going to be disappointed. This is already a very accurate description of the TV and motion picture industries.

Re:how is that different

[UWC]

Except you can make a good (photorealistic, too!) movie if you have a good script, a few talented actor friends, maybe a musician friend, and a $3000 digital camcorder. It's hard to do that with games.

Just like every other industry?

[Red Moose]

This is a shame. A real example of creativity as a basis for games was the adventure type of game. It had nice artwork but relied on a lot more in depth thought to create a good one as the entire perception of the game came from the story. E.g., that's why even Hitchhiker's Guide text game was entertaining and actually good.

That was an early warning sign, IMHO. The same thing has happened in movies for example, where we are treated to endless $100 million budget movies that make $500 million, but are shit basically. Same thing happens in pharmaceutical research where money goes to replicating me-too generic drugs (e.g., fluoxetine) to cash in instead of *actually* being innovative.

Car industry? Same thing. Besides genuinely new or advanced driving, we are basically in the same metal cages we had in 1950, except with lots of plastic and electronics to massage our fat asses. Mercedes makes rain-sensor wipers, then eveyone else has it too. Lexus installs runflats, well so does BMW. All the same, different brands.

Maybe it's more to do with ever extending globalisation as EA and their ilk eat up the small developer, sort of like say MGM or 20th Century Fox, or Daimler-Benz eating up Chrysler and everything in every industry eventually becomes under one banner.

Hang on, that's just like Microsoft buying up all the competition.

Re:Just like every other industry?

[cgenman]

While I know that Lanning and the Oddworld people have had major headaches in the past and I respect their desire for creative vision in a videogame setting, I've always seen them as a movie production company in games. Their characters and cinematics have always been strong, and their gameplay has always been just OK. Generally where their gameplay shined was in regions that were setting up or paying off cinematic visual moments. I'm actually looking forward to this transition, with all due respect to the people who are being laid off and their families, as I'm quite excited by the prospect of an Oddworld Movie.

There has been a lot that has changed in cars since the 1950's. Fuel injection, antilock disk brakes, one wheel steering, semiautomatic transmissions, GPS, etc, etc. Yes, they tend to converge, but so what? If one car company has antilock brakes, why not take that to all of them? We're not talking about an entertainment product here, we're talking about a car.

Drugs, too. There are many things wrong with the drug industry right now, but it is a completely different set of problems than the gaming industry is facing.

But back to entertainment products. There is a lot to be worried about in the consolidation of game studios. It's worse than you imagine: when you combine four studios you generally don't get the four same studios and an evil taskmanager that prevents them from being creative. You get four studios with the soul and sense of personal responsibility sucked out. You get four studios where each teammember is so overtaxed that they only have time to do the normal thing. Even without the evil taskmanager looking over their shoulder, the spirit usually goes away.

Growing your company is a dangerous thing in the gaming industry. Many companies have grown themselves into oblivion.

On the other hand, Techmo and THQ have consistently managed to eek out a living on smaller titles. Some of the most profitable movies in the past year have been little comedies with tiny budgets and 40 million takes. Heck, even Sin City was filmed on 50 million, hardly a blockbuster budget. I think movie studios are realizing that unless something is a sure thing, it's better to fund two or three maybies. Gaming is no different, as it's nigh-on impossible to convince publishers to pony up 20 million for a project unless something is proven. But how many gaming concepts require 20 million dollar budgets to explore? You also don't need to spend as much of that budget building an engine as before, as A: every company has their own engine already built up over several projects, and B: if you don't, you can buy one of the really expensive-to-develop ones. There is middleware for everything from lip-sync to physics engines, some of it cheap, some of it expensive, and some of it free.

And unlike other media, startup game developers have always been a part of the ecosystem. When a house is bought up and eventually bled dry, another one pops up somewhere with an innovative shareware title or a cellphone game (or, in the case of Turbine, cash from a big lawsuit settlement), and lands a development deal on a first-string platform. In this industry development houses are born, grow, get bought out, get used up, and die. It's the natural cycle of things. ...Or maybe it's something that I've had to accept for so long that I've just learned to accept it.

Re:Just like every other industry?

[ChristianBaekkelund]

Ummm...I disagree.

First, what was "an early warning sign"?...it's unclear from your post.

2 - movies) You are true in saying that studios have a constant flow of high-budget movies that are carefully created to be sure-fire successes...BUT, that doesn't mean there aren't other people making and successfully selling and distributing low-budget independent films. Look around, and you'll find at least one independent film theater near most well-sized cities. Go to a video rental place, and you'll see lots of small independent films -- even at Blockbuster. And so on and so on....so the film industry effectively has about three to four tiers which one can make a film at and have it still potentially be a success. The games industry has one.

3 - drugs) Drugs are MASSIVELY expensive to create and get approved by the FDA. Somewhere about 800 million or so. For this reason, yes, there is a limited amount that the companies are willing to risk, as just one drug can bankrupt an entire company (as might have happened recently)...however, that does NOT mean there is no innovation. Actually, there is a massive amount of innovation. Most drug companies create hundreds of thousands of potential drug candidates for each one they end up making. They start with a huge number of possible molecules, and then whittle them down based off a large number of criteria to just 1 to go through all the phases of trials. The games industry DEFINITELY does not do that.

4 - cars) In the car industry there is a large array of cars at different prices with different features. You can get a brand new car for, what, $7000? Or get a brand new Porsche or something for $100,000? That's a HUGE range of prices, again, something the game industry doesn't have.

And as for innovation, I disagree with your idea that we are driving the same cars we drove in 1950. There have been massive improvements in safety, price, mechanics, etc. across the board. However, a car is still a car as it is, well, the car industry. It seems the innovations you would want would extend outside the car industry. And talking about companies copying each other -- that happens in EVERY industry. It's good business common sense. If I see my competitor do something well, I don't want to be left be hind, so I'll try to do the same thing.

Not to mention the recent massive popularity of the Prius...

5 - EA) That's the nature of capitalism. Do you believe in capitalism? If so, what's your issue?...and don't compare EA to Microsoft...EA doesn't buy things to make sure they don't get released -- they buy them because they are impressed and want to be the ones releasing whatever. The Sims was made under EA's control, for example, because EA saw the value and potential Maxis based off the SimCity games, when no one else really wanted to go near Maxis...

Bad marketing

[-kertrats-]

As they talk about in the article, they've been the victim of horrible marketing. I didnt even know Stranger had come out, which it apparently has. When that's the level of people's notice of you, you can't really succeed.

Re:Bad marketing

[thirty2bit]

Someplace I read that Stranger wasn't going to be ported to all platforms immediately. When this reached greedy higher-ups, the advertising budget was slashed. It's no wonder you didn't hear about the title.

The gaming industry is a close family relation to the RIAA and MPAA, just without a cute acronym. The same thirst for money though.

Re:Bad marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's analyze that a bit.

EA signed a deal with them. EA wanted a cross-platform game. Lanning tossed EA a bunch of X-Box code. Remember Lanning said in 2000 that PS2 was "too hard to develop on"? They've not touched PS2 in that house. They were selling EA a PS2 game that not only didn't exist, but wasn't possible to create. That's why EA dumped their product. It didn't run on the major platform.

Of course EA didn't waste money marketing a product that was X-Box only. No-one would except Microsoft, but after Lanning sucked their dicks in 2000 suddenly they're nowhere to be seen.

Re:Bad marketing

[bigman2003]

Stranger's Wrath was a sleeper- along the lines of Metal Arms...but better. Hell- it was FIRST and THIRD person...so it was at least twice as good!

This was one of the best games I have played in the last few years. I enjoyed the entire thing all the way through. It never got boring, and looked awesome all the way through.

Too bad people didn't buy Stranger's Wrath in droves, because I would like to see a lot more from them.

A shame

[durtbag]

It's really too bad when something like this happens. Just like the MPAA and the RIAA before them, the videogames industry is driving out the truly creative people. I understand that a business is there to make money, but the people in the trenches would like there effort to have some lasting value. It's games like Katamari Damacy that keep things interesting. Hopefully inovation doesn't become as sparce as the music and movie industries

Re:A shame

[Anonymous Coward]

[rant on stale ideas, big business squeezing out the little guy, need for creative spark] KATAMARI DAMACY! [closing line ignoring some unavoidable realities in the industry, including that Katamari Damacy was made by Namco and succeeds only because it is $20]

---

[Japanese phrase with mundane meaning]

Re:A shame

[black mariah]

closing line ignoring some unavoidable realities in the industry, including that Katamari Damacy was made by Namco and succeeds only because it is $20

Yeah, the whole rant about big business was bullshit, but a $20 price point doesn't mean a game will sell worth a fuck. Katamari sold because of a combination of cheap and good that you rarely see. The word of mouth on that one was un-fucking-believeable.

Re:A shame

[Strider_Hiryu]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. Stuff Like Wild 9, Katamari Damacy, Alien Soldier, does keep Gaming interesting. You can only re-invent the wheel so many times...

Re:A shame

[tepp]

Even that doesn't always work.

Whiplash! was funny as all get-out, sold for 20$, and yet, didn't even make a dent in sales.

I don't know what went wrong. Probably a lack of word-of-mouth, though I told all my friends about it and absolutely adore that game (it's wickedly funny humor on a very well written platform style game).

So the "sell cheap by a major studio" trick doesn't always work.

The solution... or at least the start of one

[Dachannien]

Once again, the answer lies somewhere in Internet distribution. Cut the risk-averse publisher out of the equation and get some nontraditional sources of capital, and the developer (with grassroots marketing support) is free to explore new avenues of creativity. If a game turns out to be successful through Internet distribution, then the developer can contract with a distributor to make hard copies of the game for brick-and-mortar sales.

Re:The solution... or at least the start of one

[startled]

Once again, the answer lies somewhere in Internet distribution.

I think that's part of the solution, because it's tied to budget. Here's the main problem with different/original games right now:

Non-mass-market titles should not get mass-market budgets.

That's taken for granted in movies. If you're spending $100 million, you need to be making Armageddon. If you're spending $10 million, you can make Gods and Monsters. In games, though, most games get similar budgets. A studio often allocates $8 million for its gangster sci fi horror shooter, and $8 million for, well, Oddworld.

Part of that problem is distribution. Shelf space is a bitch in the games industry. Go to BestBuy, you'll see a ton of old DVDs on the shelves. You won't see nearly as many games, and certainly not old games-- and the old ones will be at 1/3 the price of a new one. This totally different approach to stocking and selling games means you need to spend a lot on up-front marketing, and sell a ton of copies in the first few months-- and if you don't do that marketing and spending and pitching to retail chains, your game won't even see the shelf in the first place.

So, it's nearly impossible to make a niche game, sell it in stores, and make money (successful budget publishers have made quite an exception, with sharply curtailed development costs, and good relationships with big retailers like WalMart).

Internet distribution, if it grows to reach a larger market (and I think it will double or triple over the next couple years), will be a huge help for these smaller budget, more niche games. There are already people successfully selling niche RPGs, mainstream puzzle games, and fun shooters over the internet.

You still don't see a system capable of supporting the mid-sized development I'd like to see: 5-10 people over 1-2 years. That's what would enable innovative, compelling games, and would create a sort of test market among the more game-savvy before a large publisher decides to dish out $15 million on an unproven concept.

Side note: the big-time publishers should be pursuing these concepts anyway. They're being quite stupidly conservative, given the cost of keeping a dozen people on payroll, prototyping new game types. EA's backing the Sims team, of course, and Nintendo does some experimentation, but for the most part you don't see publishers chasing after the next Sims. Given the huge piles of money it's generated, it's almost negligent.

Re:The solution... or at least the start of one

[supabeast!]

That's not a solution, because for many game companies, the publisher is fronting the development money. There aren't many companies out there like Valve, id, and Blizzard that can afford to produce a big game on their own, and there aren't a lot of venture capitalists and banks clamoring to loan money to independent game developers.

The real cost in games right now is artists. Detailed models with detailed animation and textures that look good at high resolutions take a lot of time and money. Add in a similarly detailed world, and things start to get really pricey.

Re:The solution... or at least the start of one

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real cost in games right now is artists."

Thanks for the laugh.

Nothing like Slashdot for an unending stream of clowns who've never seen the inside of a game developement house let alone a real life game budget.

Art and artists are cheap dimwit.

Quintology

[JRootabega]

Hey! Don't they owe us....6.2 more games?

Game topic without PA links?

[UWC]

What's going on?!

Ah, here we go:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-10 -23&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-10 -08&res=l

Not quite in the auto industry.

[Inoshiro]

While there is a disturbing trend to making large, fuel inefficient cars coming over North Amercia (modern Honda Civics are the size of the 1980s Honda Accord; modern Accords are the size of some NA cars from the 80s), there is still some innovation. Have you driven a Honda Insight? That car doesn't get 70mpg because it's traditional.

Lorne == John Romero the second.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember playing the first Oddworld game (Oddysee) with my roommates. It was pretty good, if annoyingly difficult in places (die, try something else, die, finally figure out the solution). That was okay though, because we had fun playing and figuring out the puzzles as a group.

I never played Exxodus because I saw it as a straight sequel to Oddysee, just more of the same. The demo of Munch seemed kinda lame (plus it was a rushed PS2 launch title), so I never played it.

At this point, Lorne's ego threw a temper tantrum which lead to him pointlessly (and very publicly) laying off most of the studio. He may not realise, but this was a public relations disaster and lead to a huge lack of faith in his games amongst the industry and gamers. It's like some strange mix of John Romero (Daikatana is amazing!) and Derek Smart (you're all wrong).

Karma's a bitch, huh?

The Xbox path

[Anonymous Coward]

Relying on the Xbox as a venue for your shovelware is walking a path to self-destruction. It may be a shovelware-friendly platform, just like Windows, but that doesn't mean it is your safe haven.

To all the other second-rate publishers and developers of the world: Don't fool yourselves into believing that Microsoft is your messiah. If you suck, it doesn't matter how much money MS pays you for your exclusives. You will fall, and no one will weep at your grave.

Hopefully this means MS will be more judicious about the companies they call to their side, and Xbox gamers will have less crap games to deal with. I almost feel bad for all these misguided bastards in the eXXXtreeeeeeeme Xbox world.

Why, though?

[johannesg]

Back when the Amiga ruled the earth, the scene was rife with graphic artists and musicians. Not all of them were equally good, but nonetheless there were some real quality people there. Linux has done next to nothing to attract these people, for some reason.

Personally I believe what the open source world needs is a bunch of good, simple tools. For the Amiga these were Soundtracker and DeluxePaint 2. For Linux we would need similar tools, and some extra's like a 3D modeller, and a distribution to bring it all together.

I have no idea if a distribution with such a focus currently exists, but I'm sure someone will enlighten me...

Re:Why, though?

[Malor]

That's because the Amiga created those graphic artists and muscians. The idea of a computer graphic artist didn't really exist before the Amiga.

As the Amiga died, the people who really loved graphics either stayed with it (I knew one person who was still using her Amiga in around y2K to do her painting) or moved to the Mac.

Most artist types don't care about the OS. They just want to paint or make music. Linux is probably the single worst choice for those folks. Even if you DID get good software for it, they're used to their Macs and mostly won't be interested in retraining. And given what Apple is doing with the platform now, I just can't see that the pain would be worth a darn thing for them... they'd suffer through retraining and then end up with poorer tools than they already have. Not a good idea for most of them, I suspect.

Maybe it's odd, but...

[Rob T Firefly]

I have the urge to pat them on the shoulder and say "sorry!" in a squeaky voice.

let this be a lesson...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that if you only have a budget for one console.. choose the one with 75 millon users.. stupid fucks.

Sounds more like...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can't fire me, I quit!"

Let's face it -- XBox suffered for having Oddworld anchor their launch, and hasn't recovered since. Microsoft is losing some baggage before they try it for real this time.

The first (PC) game was interesting.. but franchise? give me a break! Good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Re:Sounds more like...

[Rico_Suave]

Funny... I thought Halo anchored their launch. And the Xbox certainly didn't suffer for it.

Re:Sounds more like...

[Anonymous Coward]

"And the Xbox certainly didn't suffer for it."

Fucking pathetic. The greatest console disaster ever.

Yeah, that xbox did real well!

No, Lanning is a victim of his own failures

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2000 Lanning was all over the PS2 as being "too hard to develop on". They ditched the PS2 and turned it into a political move, going to X-Box with huge fanfare.

Now they're closing shop because their X-Box games needing porting back to PS2 and they'd made it impossible. It's no different to what small developers like Mucky Foot were doing one project previously - developing on the PC when their primary market was PS1, and forcing a poor backport - but this wasn't some fly-by-night Guildford spinoff, it was a hugely successful PS1 developer, and they should have known better.

Lanning de facto decided in 2000 never to support PS2, by writing for the more powerful console and making a backport impossible. The fact that he didn't realize that a backport was impossible until he tossed the code to EA and asked them to do it betrays a staggering lack of technical sophistication on Lanning's part. Lanning burned his bridges so brightly and publically and then 5 years later found he needed to cross the river. That qualifies the guy as a complete moron in my book.

This isn't a story about a small developer being unable to survive in a brutal market. This is a story about a large successful developer putting themselves out of business by making a series of schoolboy errors. And the fact that Lanning did it so publically and came out so hard on Microsoft's side against Sony (FFS!), for purely financial and political gain, makes me drool with shadenfreude.

I'm glad Lanning's out of the industry. He's done nothing but bitch and moan since 2000 and now we see the results. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Re:So Long Losers - You Won't Be Missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this a troll? That's exactly what they did.

I dont think so!..

[AzraelKans]

Maybe they should've started the article by saying, "we didnt made lots of money with our last game because it was too innovative and we blame society, game "X" blah, blah, blah"

Their game didnt sold so well, not because they werent innovative (probably thats the only reason of their few sales anyway) it just wasnt very good, the Platform part wasnt really that original, easy or fun to play (it felt and played as a ps1 game) and as soon as you started to feel comfortable with the FPS (which was the one that worked) you were forced back to the platform again. (think "Starfox adventures" with a lion like clint eastwood instead of a fox and an fps instead of space ships and you have the picture)

Also it was a bit too "kiddie" (with a bunch of disney like animal characters) which is not bad for a family game, but then it had enough gore and violence to get an M rating, not enough to appeal the MK type gamer though. So is rather difficult to find an audience for it. Hence the lack of sales.

"Innovative" games do have a place in the market, check out "luminees" for the PSP, "Phantom dust" in the xbox (hey at least is not a FPS sequel or a cut and paste RPG) or "Katamari Damacy" for the PS2 they did great (specially in Japan) showed off the "big boys" a trick or two about gaming. So dont cry me a river about innovative games not "making it" its simply more difficult for them (just like independent movies versus blockbusters)

Besides we probably have to talk numbers first, I mean Halo 2 and GTA SA made it to the top, but how much money and time was expent in their making? whats their profit? now ask yourself how much money was expent in making Alien Hominid or Katamari Damacy? how much money are they making in profit?

There is and will always be a market for original (budget and prime time) games