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Death to the Games Industry - Part II
hapwned writes "Following up on Greg Costikyan's first part of his article from last week, The Escapist goes for round 2 vs the Game Industry. Costikyna goes on to explain what they should do instead: 'One thing developers can try to do - and should do, if they can - is to take over that first additional piece of the value chain. They should try to fund their own development. If you can fund your own development, you get some big advantages. First, you can negotiate a higher royalty rate with the publisher, because they have less capital at risk. Second, you are not utterly at the publisher's mercy during the development process; if the publisher-side producer wants you to do something really stupid (and horror stories abound), you can tell him to screw off. And third,you can retain ownership of your own IP, so if you build a successful franchise, you (rather than the publisher) reaps the benefit.'"
While in an ideal world I would agree with the points made in TFA, and there are many companies in the games world moving in this direction (Valve's Steam, for better or worse, is at the forefront of the "Kill the publisher" movement) eliminating the publisher from fundraising and distribution is not that easy. The biggest advantage of having a publisher is that the risk of producing the game is largely lifted from the shoulders of the developers. Once developers start bringing in venture capitalists and other sources of investment, they become culpable if the game fails at market. Not to mention that the shift from publisher to VC just passes the control of your game from the hands of the publisher to the hands of the VCs.
The second part of TFA, regarding digital distribution, is also flawed in the real world. They give examples of games already available for direct download and mention that waiting "half an hour" or so for a game is no worse than driving to the store. However, many modern games are pushing the capacity of DVDs to their limits, and already multi-DVD games have been seen. Most people simply do not have the bandwidth to download several Gigs in "half an hour."
While I commend what the article is trying to acheive, I simply do not think that changing the business model for game development and distribution is as easy as it makes it seem. Established game companies, like Valve, will likely need to take the lead in changing the model rather than the new developers. That said, there are definate advancements being made in that direction and I believe the model is moveing steadilly towards innevitable and positive changes.
You are right that using your own money is a risk. Hell, if you listen to publishers they'll tell you that 90% of all projects don't make their money back (and 67% of statistics are made up). But, if you're not willing to put your own money where your mouth is, you can't bitch too much when the publisher demands you listen to their "creative input" or they "steal" you IP (Their money == Their project).
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
The point is not that everyone should be like George Lucas. The point is that if we take the focus off the superficial stuff, we could get some quality development done without the Lucas-style budgets budgets.
Yes, there's risk. But it needn't be as huge as the publishers want us to think. The problem is that they have strict (though misguided) standards for their output, which require a certain level of monetary input. Changing the output standards necessarily changes the necessary input resources.
I read through the article, and it struck me that "The Escapist"[1] -- as he styles himself -- is basically saying that game developers need to be in charge. Take over financing (and therefore control); take over distrbution (or control of it); take over retail (by not going through brick-and-mortar distribution).
Sure, because every developer thinks they know best... the truth is, we all think we're experts on every subject until faced with doing it. At least Costikyan admits that developers need help with the marketing.
What's really needed is for the leader of a development company to leverage their connections and personal charisma to get all these things done. Think about the leaders of the gaming industry, and these people get it done, in the current development structure.
My biggest pet peeve in the article is that Costikyan thinks that the key to marketing is to appeal to the "indie spirit" of the hardcore gamer -- and to develop that spirit if possible.
First, that spirit already exists. He just wants the retail industry to tap into it -- which, in effect, destroys it... although a ton of money can be made in the process.
Second, he says that the casual gaming crowd is not the target. Au contraire, mon frere, the casual gamer is the crowd that puts you over the profitability edge.
In all, Costikyan is trying to come up with a scheme to build one market-changing game. If I had complete creative control, if I could ignore the current distribution scheme, if I could just change the market to suit my model, then I'd have a hit game -- that happens to be oh so cool, becaue it's indie!!
On the plus side, I foresee publishers releasing divergent games -- the marketing-driven blockbuster (along with the personality-driven profit-making drivel) balanced with riskier games, that may make a killing.
I see the current distribution scheme changing -- for PC games (Steam, etc -- although it needs some fixin').
I see the market naturally developing an indie movement, as major media (and EA, etc are major media) begin controlling a ton of the content.
So, Costikyan is saying: what we need is what's happening already.
[1] My apologies to Michael Chabon, author of "The Amazaing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This sort of model also cries for Bittorrent, too. The bittorrent protocol is fire-and-forget for almost all users -- just build it into your game behind the scenes, and then other people end up paying for your bandwidth expense. You'd probably want to tweak the implementation a bit so that clients prioritize collecting the pieces in order, but its something thats quite doable. And, of course, not all games are multi-gig monstrosities.
If you use the sort of game-community/portal model that TFA advocates, you can share one common bittorrent network and preload content on your gamers machines ala Steam both as a way to maximize your torrenting efficiency and to also give seamless response when they buy a new product. Just make sure to add in some sort of DRM (doesn't have to be terribly invasive -- I think the "encrypt it all" thing was likely the biggest problem with Steam).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.