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.

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.

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?

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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