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Game Corporations Rule, Independent Studios Drool
hapwned writes "In his third segment for The Escapist, Warren Spector reviews what the ambitious, creative, and talented (but poor) don't want to hear: 'Until and unless the business model changes, I see only one possible outcome: A business that's already heading in a rich-get-richer direction will see the trend accelerated and the situation exacerbated. Those who can afford to compete at the triple-A, movie-budget level will; those who can't will be driven out of business entirely or driven to different parts of the business - boutique online games, cell phone games, casual puzzle games...'"
$2.50 for two horse wallpapers.
There's a shocker!
Person predicts that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.
Can we get film at 11?
The biggest problem is that the public demands more from it's games now. It's not good enough to have a great game dynamic build and a fun game, it had better also have cutting edge graphics, professional voiceovers.. and maybe a pony.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
That or else they're StarDock and everyone will buy their games anyway because they respect their customers and they know that gameplay is more important than graphics.
There are new (and emerging) buisness models that are just being brought to the mass market level. With Garage Games' Torque engines you can develop a pretty decent independent game and can market it through XBox live; Nintendo has implied (although I'm not sure it has been announced) that the virtual consoles (like the NES, SNES and N64) will be open to new development and a person could make a really amazing 2D game on the N64 for not too much money.
On a side note, I'm really interested in seeing what Nintendo does; of all of the largest game publishers Nintendo seems to be the only one that is willing to openly say that development cost are getting out of control; and they want people to be able to develop for the Revolution without concern for budget. I'm really curious to see if they can make it possible for a team of 4-8 people (who are working for 6-12 months on a game) to produce and release a game [essentially the team size and time frame of most SNES games].
Isn't that part of the reason Nintendo is going after the casual gamer crowd with the Revolution?
The Kerr Divine: My wife's battle with a mysterious illness.
Ya know, we were all confused about Nintendo's direction for a while, but I think it's becoming more clear that they are realizing the growing trends in gaming, and are trying their best to curb this crap, and focus on fun games again. Hopefully they will create a haven for these floundering baby game companies who have nowhere else to show off their cool new thing, and give them enough of a chance to show off what they can accomplish in a game, and hopefully get their shoe in the door for the bigger and better.
It's just going to be like the movie industry, where Nintendo will host the Sundance game festival.
Face it. If you're not a HUGE corp with a lot of manpower to put behind your project, you won't write the next big thing in shooters. There are manyears in the 2 to 3 digit range behind those games. Nothing you can crank out with "hobbyist" levels. Forget writing anything in shooters or RPGs if you're not Blizzard, EA or at a similar level. You won't even be noticed.
But there are game genres that don't get overcrowded. http://www.galciv2.com/ is a great example of a great game that doesn't require a lot of explosions and pretty graphics (even though they're not bad either, by far not!). But the game itself is great! Lots of choices, lots of knobs and tweaks to fiddle with, lots of freedom for the player to create, play and plan. Lots of different strategies that can all lead to success.
That's where "smaller" companies have a chance. Not trying to compete with the big studios, but trying something new and improved. We won't see any invention or development from EA anytime soon. There's a reason why they print the year on some of their products, so you can at least see that there IS a difference in the different versions of the game.
The pet example in this context is usually Tetris, a game that even for its time had mediocre if not laughable graphics, and STILL it's one of the most successful game ideas ever. Tetris didn't get popular because of flashy graphics or cool effects. It was, is and will be a timeless classic for a gameplay that allows the player a lot of freedom and challenges him not only with his ability to react but also with his ability to understand different patterns and plan ahead.
This is where our chance is. Not in the vain attempt to create the better CounterStrike.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
and a Curse!
Big (Game/Movie) studios do not take chances. they use repeatable, established formulas to crank out tired and slighlty flashier product year after year. Innovation comes from below. Indie teams will be able to compete as they gain access to time-saving technologies. Most slashdotters are sitting behind a PC that could render Toy Story in a few hours. Innovative Open Source/low cost design products like Torque Game Engine, OGRE, BlitzMax make conceptualization easier. Languages like Python and Lua are already being used in AAA titles. ODE (Fizics engine) is FOSS and makes many in-game crates bounce realistically. The list goes on.
I think there will be a backlash. It happens a few years after every new batch of consoles come out. We are on the verge of a gaming honeymoon with the 360, PS3 and Revolution. This will last for 1-2 years. During that time we will hear
"Is PC gaming dead?"
"PC game sales down, again"
and so on. This will shake up the industry and bankrupt many AAA producers. Once the honeymoon is over PC games will again Dominate for 2-3 years.
This cycle has been going on for many moons.
The result is that while there WILL be boutique studios, small, low budget teams, they will have the AAA talent thet EA can no longer afford.
Game designers/programmers gotta eat!
I was thinking that exact same thing myself. StarDock has been around for quite some time. They were just about the only company back in the OS/2 days that recognized that there was a market for OS/2 games, and the games that they made were *good*. The OS/2 community responded by helping to keep StarDock afloat through purchases of what was clearly niche software products.
Along the same lines, StarDock's attitude that they should be grateful to the customer and therefore continue to produce games and company policies that keep people coming back also help to keep them afloat. Hell, I plan on buying Galactic Civilizations II just because StarDock has refused to use on-disc copy protection, even though I don't really care for that particular genre!
This is in stark contrast to the mega-game conglomerates like EA and Ubi who treat the customer as though they are potential criminals (and therefore deserve invasive copy protection) who should be grateful that they are being given the privilege of purchasing the game (and therefore expect the customer to tolerate a bug-ridden version while the company works on patches). Bullshit!
Since when does any company need to compete against the big-boys or die? From what I understand, Darwinia is exceptionally popular and that company doesn't come close to EA or UbiSoft. What about Zuma and other popular games? I still think back to Apogee and Id, both of which were independents that profited through a successful shareware model.
The notion that you have to compete with the big boys and have big-budget games in order to survive is complete and utter bullshit. Find your niche, make great games, get great word-of-mouth, and treat your customers with respect. You'll make it in the gaming world. You might not be as big as EA or Ubi, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
That's hardly new (or game-related in itself). Maybe people expected it would be otherwise for the game industry but that's really how it is for every industry in living in a capitalist model like ours.
movies, food, textiles, alcohol, books.... you name 'em.
The capitalist model encourages that: the richer you get, the easier it is to take advantage over your weaker opponents because you can gradually make better deals, lower prices. With a good plan, you end up spending less and earning more.
Gaming is just an industry like any other and independent studios will most of timee produce genuinely original products because in the end, that's their only way to make a profit (or be bought for lots of $$$). Big studios, will concentrate more on tried & true tactics. If they find that a particular game has potential, they try to buy the independent studio then make a franchise with the game or they create a spinoff title to compete with the independent studio but they rarely create original products out of thin air. Our favorite blockhead, microsoft, being the best example of "try to buy" then "make spinoff" if they can't buy.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
ive been hearing this same tune for what? 5 years at least.. and i still dont believe it, there will always be room for independant and/or creative developers. The are still independant and small budget films, and infact that industry is going in the opposite direction because people are tired of (high budget) unoriginal, uncreative movies.
I bought GalCivII for the exact same reason. It's a nice bonus that the game also happens to be awesome.
Apogee and Id made the best games around in every sense when they "made it" doing shareware. Nowadays independents simply can't make the best ZOMG GRAPHICS games, or afford big name licences or movie-star voiceovers. It's a genuine handicap, although not as big as some people seem to think.
Plus, the freeware game and mod scenes have stuff just as good as (all but the very best of) the independants who want to make money... so why buy their games?
There will always be room for the indie niche.
:)
:)
Of course, that indie niche does better if you remember not to mock them for their lack of enormous budgets, and encourage your friends to do the same...
It's very tiring to see people spend all the money they had to finance their dream game and then have that product mocked everywhere because their budget was a few thousand rather than a few million. (Note - I don't mean me. I have *NOT* yet spent a few thousand on graphics!)
I'm not talking about indie games with actual BAD graphics. I'm just talking about those who bitch "Oh god, that looks SO five years ago. I would never pay for that." at games whose graphics are attractive and useful but not hugely flashy. If you've ever said this, you are part of the problem.
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
We're seeing the exact same thing in games. There's no way a single hacker or even a small group can write WoW/Oblivion/Doom3- you need tens of millions, years of effort and a hundred people minimum. But again technology is a great leveler- we have dirt cheap computers and development kits that allow even minimal programmers to assemble good looking stuff that's fun to play. You can't do WoW, but you can exploit MM niches that nobody big would dare try such as Puzzle Pirates or A Tale in the Desert. You can't do Civ4, but you can do Oasis. XBoxLive is being supported in large part by Geometry Wars.
I think we'll end up with a fairly healthy ecosystem when we're done- you'll get your blockbusters and many might even be good, but there will always be a horde of smaller folks turning out cheap/niche stuff that doesn't need to sell a million copies. (Or indeed, any at all)
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
SO WHAT?! Since when did popular games require ZOMG GRAPHICS to be either good ro popular and why in hell do people like you continue to propagate that myth? Darwinia is by no means cutting edge graphics, neither are the thousands of title that companies like PopCap sell successfully. I've played and enjoyed Zuma, Bejewelled, and lots of other games of that nature. They are hardly games that anyone would consider to have cutting-edge graphics, but they're FUN and I enjoy playing them.
There are also plenty of talented voice actors out there who would give their vocal talents just for the fun of doing it. I think that most gamers really don't give a rat's rear end about who does voice acting as long as it's done WELL. Hell, I can do lots of accurate, European accents and have been told by many people that I should get into voice acting. I'd gladly lend my voice to a local independent gaming company (if there was one near me) just to say that I did it! Half-Life 2 was no better because it used the voice talents of people like Robet Guillaume (sp?) and Louis Gosset, Jr. It would not have been any worse if unknown but talented voice actors were used instead.
The attitude that successfull games require ZOMG GRAPHICS and well-known voice talent and that having neither is detrimental is the real "handicap" that independent game companies have to overcome. What's disgusting about it is that the real "handicap" is not the company's action but the ignorant perception of those who externally place those "handicaps" on the gaming companies.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I grew up playing genres like Space Quest, Hero's Quest, any Quest(TM) from Sierra, its kinda sad to see that the gaming industry moved away from some of these genres. It was always fun typing to get something done. Shit I can honestly say, my spelling and english comprehention improved from typing so much when I was playing those things as a kid.
Market needs to move away from focusing on 'first person shoot'em ups' and forge new genres or revisit old ones.. aka the graphical text action type.. which I thought kicked ass! Typing out what your character needed to do was part of the fun and frustration.
I'd love to see Darwinia for PS2...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I seem to recall Nintendo mentioning that indipendant and small developers could use the Revolution's Virtual Console to create low-budget games and still get the "console-style" exposure. May be marketing, but may be true. Then again, the number of small studios with skills, drive and imagination to make more than a novelty game is rather small, despite /.'s bizzare insistence that the way to market domination is to create a "homebrew" market.
75% of the costs of a game are in the art and animation. Unless we are being able to create content cheap the costs for developing AAA titles will be high. Some attempts are made to be able to reuse content (see COLADA). If we compare to the movie industry, movie equipment (camera's/video editting software) has become a lot cheaper the last decade while development kits for consoles and advances in technology have only increased the costs for developing games. Yet still, an indie movie (the blairwitch project) made on a low budget is still able to rake in millions, but we still have to see the first indie game do that (I hope darwinia does, just to prove that its possible).
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Independent films are going bye, bye anytime soon I mean is not like "brokeback mountain" and "crash" won an academy award a golden globe or something getting amazing earnings due to the low cost/income ratio while big budget noisy projects like "King Kong", "Narnia" and "War of the worlds" get the critical and audience boot and rotten tomatoes, not getting enough income to cover their own gigantic expenses, nope Not at all.
I mean is not like games such as "DEUS EX 2" by Warren Espector who got critically and fan BASHED (due to poor AI and uninteristing gameplay) or "Enter the matrix" the game that basically ruined Atari along with the "driv3r" series did a lot worse and had a lot less quality that small independent projects such as "katamari damacy", "luminees", "disgaea" etc OR that several huge franchises that exist today started as small independent projects, silly games nobody knows like "Pokemon", "Metroid", "Prince of persia", "Doom" and that silly little project that was originally a small mac game RTS what was its name?.. oh yeah "HALO" have you heard of that one? really unknown.
Yeah, Spector having a few Million bucks backing up is what guarantees a great game or movie, talent, resourcefulness or innovation have nothing to do with it.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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Eye candy only works for about a week. After that, the "new game smell" is off and all that's left is gameplay. If that's zero, the game hits the shelf and will NEVER be taken off again. Why? Because after 5 years, it's "SO five years ago", the graphics suck and if it has no other redeeming feature, the game sucks.
If you'd excuse me now, I'm off to play a few hours of Startopia.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That means all videogames will have the depth and innovation of Hollywood movies and pop music!!! Yay for status quo and big corporations, they enrich our lives in so many ways.
:Rolls Eyes:
I mean what have independent films, developers, and musicians ever given us that was worth a damn... oh wait...
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Look no further than projectoffset.com for an example of an independent on the verge of a revolution. The game engine and initial artwork/models are all done by three guys in their apartment. Living proof that great gameplay (these are the same guys who worked on Savage) and great graohics can live side by side. Just the words Epic Fantasy First Person Shooter get my juices goin!
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
A lot of people (like Warren Spector aparently) have the impression that "independent developers" is by definition a "small team doing a garage game on their own" This is not exactly correct, an "independent" group is NOT necesarily small, is just about any company or group (no matter the size) that works on their own budget with no obligations to a parent company, Using self publishing or a distributor to release their own products, "Blizzard" and "3dRealms" could be considered "independent" according to those terms.
,gameboy, etc. that are not "independent" (since they are attached to Nokia, Nintendo, Sony) but they may have a tiny staff of 5-10 people placed in a small office downtown. (maybe not a garage, but their companies certainly wont fill a city block like Blizzard).
Meanwhile there are really "small" groups doing casual games and extra work for cell phones, nintendo DS
Oh and btw, most ussually small yet succesful indie development teams, dont stay "independent" too long, eventually they get "hired" by larger companies. (like the CS team who know works at Valve, or the Naughty Dog, DOA or Strange Critters (Pokemon) teams, who now work for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo respectively)
So exactly what is the point of this message? Small teams shouldn't pursue larger games? they cant, independent or not, they have to hire more people and get more budget for a larger game and therefore they wouldnt be small anymore, should Small budget casual games stop being produced? they are in a all time High Rank right now! (how many people have bought Geometry Wars and PopCap Games?) Should Blizzard stop publishing large "independent" games, er... let me talk with their bank account about it.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
"Most slashdotters are sitting behind a PC that could render Toy Story in a few hours."
BHAHA! Keep up the technofaith. HEHE! You people are a riot.
Couldnt agree more, although I read that darwinia was not a big commercial success. A better example might be rollercoaster tycoon. that franchise was started by one guy on his own doing all the coding. it made millions.
And it can still happen today. Uplink did very well as I recall, and I'm making a living doing small budget indie games (so far at least *crosses fingers*).
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I disagree with original article. Lets look at movie industry - for average user it is dominated by large-budget blockbusters with occasional Indy or international movie hitting it 'big'. For movie connoisseur it is dominated by international and Indy movies with occasional blockbuster 'getting it right'. Both Indy and blockbusters can be profitable.
In the game market - consoles will tend to favor blockbuster titles and big budgets and PCs will dominated by specialized 'niche' games with occasional blockbusters ported from consoles. Both markets can fail to make money or be hugely profitable.
What's strange about this is that, on the average, I'm a lot more interested in the IGF finalists than most things I see on store shelves these days.
You're already doing well! Congrats on Democracy.
Wasn't Jeff Vogel bitching about this like, last month?
We know, we know, little studios can't produce the same content as big studios - not usually, anyway - and are therefore doomed to never meet the status quo. We've been hearing this same tired old rhetoric year after year, and any idiot knows that it takes time, money, and manpower that most people just don't have in order to make a title with the same level of audio-visual quality as the titles released by the 500-pound gorillas of the gaming world.
Let's look at games differently, though. After ample exposure to the GCS community, I can safely say that there are indeed people out there who make games who aren't in it for money or exposure - and they're damn good at it. The article tells us that these 'little people' will be forced into niche markets and will never make it big. (A classic defeatist argument, of course. "Your enemy is great, and you are small! Surely you will be struck down!") I have to wonder if any of these people have ever considered that some people just... make games for fun. It's not a matter of paying my bills or whether or not I get to eat if I sit down with a copy of Megazeux and make retarded comedy titles. It also wasn't a big deal for a couple guys in the community who worked for a year straight on a game called 'Adlo', which contrary to popular to belief is not a Mario clone, but something much more impressive. (That's saying a lot, considering that it's still a silly platformer. I mean, holy shit, it took me a week to beat that game, and it was awesome.)
I don't know about the people that make little 'niche games' like Puzzle Pirates and all that jazz, but some people - very talented and creative people who turn out very high quality work in spite of their limitations - just aren't in it for the money. These are the folks I pay attention to, because they've come up with the strangest habit of turning out games that are actually fun, regardless of whether or not they're just tweaks on old ideas.
Will independent studios ever dominate the market? No, because in order for independent studios to dominate the market, either they have to become huge, or the big studios have to shrink, and neither of those things will happen. (Well, maybe one of them. The big studios seem to be crumpling under their own weight these days.) The point of being an independent developer isn't to make it big in the first place. The point of being independent is to do your own goddamn work without someone breathing down your neck. (A few guys living in an apartment can turn out a good game regardless and keep their day jobs to boot.) If you want to make a lot of money, either you snag some investors and start yourself a mid-sized studio to try to get your foot in the door, or you get a job with one of the big-and-few. Independence was never about being big, and that's what a lot of these cynics - and hopeless optimists - forget.
So let's not be stupid. Let's not assume that indies are going to take over the world, but let's also not assume that they'll ever vanish from the face of the earth. Both assumptions are pretty freakin' dumb. Let's also not forget that the market is changing, and if rumors about the Nintendo Revolution are true, and if GCS development continues to proceed as it has, making a good independent title might become a much more casual affair than it was before. So, gamers and game makers, keep doing what you love.
"...that several huge franchises that exist today started as small independent projects, silly games nobody knows like "Pokemon", "Metroid", "Prince of persia", "Doom" and that silly little project that was originally a small mac game RTS what was its name?."
This, IMHO, is where Nintendo has the edge on the competition. Let's play Count the Successful Nintendo Franchises, shall we? Pokemon, Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party. Lesser franchises include Star Fox and Donkey Kong. When you look at that list, how many of those games require top-notch graphics and presentation? Metroid, maybe, but the others are games that consistently sell on their gameplay rather than their visuals. If Nintendo needs to print money, they announce a new Legend of Zelda game.
Once you have a brand name built up, you don't need to completely wow the consumer to sell it. Nintendo more than anyone has a library of possible titles that can be printed at low production costs while maintaining good gameplay. You could also say the same thing about Madden Football, or Dance Dance Revolution, each of which sells consistently whether or not the new versions are worth it. Anyone who thinks the little game isn't going to make it needs to tell it to Shiggy's bank account.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
What he is saying is that he's addicted to World of Warcraft, and won't buy any other games. Yes...the WoW effect. Not only will it ruin your relationship, but it'll ruin entire industries!
I'm still playing Diablo 2 and its graphics were in fact never good.... In fact most of the games I play the graphics mean very little to me. I bought Oblivion, but let me tell you the graphics were the furthest thing from my mind when I did.