Slashdot Mirror
The Videogame Industry is Broken
GameDaily is running an interesting opinion piece running down the ways in which the gaming industry is just broken. The author cites soaring costs, huge risks, a reduction in creativity, and a stagnation in market growth as just some of the signs of this crisis. From the article: "The next-gen systems require publishers to place very large bets with each title. This will mean decreased risk taking and just regurgitated sequels of big brand franchises. How many publishers will take risks with multiplatform original IP? This is clearly not good news for the consumer as innovation has driven our industry from the beginning. The irony is that the amazing tools, capabilities and quality of the new systems may very well doom what is most important, which is the game itself. Reconciling what a creative team wants and what the executive suite needs in terms of profits will be a growing challenge for many companies."
Set up EA the bomb.
Maybe the new creativity might start showing through that?
Cheers,
Ian
It's not so much that it's broken; it's that game developers keep hashing the same games out over and over with different themes and newer graphic engines. I haven't bought a new game in almost 2 years because everything is the same.
-Kinsey
that another video game will ever be produced for a console with graphics on the same level as that experienced by NES games, and that people will buy it?
Also, I find it odd how many video games based on movies are coming out at the sacrifice of both gameplay and plot in order to cash in on the franchise. You'd think they'd have learned from the E.T. video game, but apparently the better graphics have changed that? Why must a book usually be made into a movie before a video game is based on it?
Right now, at this very minute, Nintendo and the DS are demonstrating that it's innovation, not licenses or technology, that is selling software, and first and thrid parties on DS are benefitting. The same thing is happening on PSP -- look at Loco Roco's appeal and sales overseas.
The next-gen systems face some challenges, but no more than they ever have. As games move into a more mature phase of their existance, we have positives -- almost everyone under 30 has played games, and most continue to play games -- and negatives -- the percentage of people who buy new games just becuase their new isn't growing; instead most people are looking at the quality of the game itself before they plop down their sheckels.
The actual article is more reasoned than the Slashdot recap, but honestly, games don't face any more challenges than movies, TV, or any other media. Innovation is alive and well. Innovation doesn't have to mean better graphics or experimental gameplay. Look at Xbox Live Arcade, and Sony's and Nintendo's forthcoming online services. That's a HUGE innovation in the console space, and it enables new types of games on consoles that we simply wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Bottom line, the biggest problem with the game industry today, to me, are the jaded pundits, not anything else.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Hey, there's a mistake in the summary - this is good for the consumeres.
Finally the industry is discovering that making a sequel of a sequel of some old game is not a receipe for success. Of course Fallout N will sell good like hell. But at the end some companies will die. But most importantly a few other companies will succesfully create a new franchise, that will be good. And will have not only graphics, but the storyline. It's competition guys. Competition is always good for consumers, and bad for companies that fail to innovate.
That makes me think that they do not compete with themselves but with the hardware. Kinda funny if you asked me.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Ultimately, the video game industry will correct itself through market selection.
If newer systems with fancier graphics and capabilities require more development time and cost, development houses will take fewer risks and innovation will suffer. Those systems will eventually die out in the market as people lose interest.
But if other newer systems come along and don't require more development time or cost due to smart development tools and SDK/platform, the development houses won't have to avoid taking risks and innovation will still thrive. Those systems will succeed whereas the ones costly to develop for will not.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
The industry is trying to move to a higher price point. And that's just not going to happen.
It's quite possible that the Xbox 360 and PS3, and their games, will sell slowly at their higher price points, and won't go mainstream until the prices come down, which could take years. The PS2 is still outselling the XBox 360. Microsoft caught up with demand, and nobody cared.
What I find facinating is how companies change the way they do things when they get popular. They forget what made them popular in the first place. My company is a prime example. We we extremely successful and thus bought by a huge company. The first thing they did is change the way we did things... not realizing that the reason they bought us in the first place is that we were already doing things right. Very strange indeed.
As for the video game industry, I see a trend of going back to the basics with respects to gameplay. All this push to make super realistic movie like games is just not working yet.
http://religiousfreaks.com/It's funny that these opinion pieces continue to crop up, where all they do is criticize what is wrong with the industry. Sure there are tons of sequels, certain games are going to cost more in the future, and there are plenty of other far from pleasant possibilities on the horizon, but there can be plenty of positives too. However, most magazines would rather A) focus on Big Game Franchise X cover stories, and B) complain instead of showcasing things that are interesting.
At the end of the day, magazines and web sites are conduits to much of the game info that is out there, thusly helping to shape a lot of its readers' tastes, as well as often indirectly instilling interest in new areas of gaming. On the rare occasion, there'll be an interesting bit in a mag or on a site that focuses on aspects of the industry that could rejuvenate, or at least provide an acceptable alternative to, what this op-ed chastizes, but often times these mags simply don't go that route.
One could argue that they do this because they are just giving their readers what they want, but if readers aren't exposed to obscure game / trend X, how do they know if they want it or not in the first place?
The specs are what really are going to kill the gaming industry. A one and half year old computer is no longer good if you want to play some of the newer games. And the major nuissance is when the package says Windows XP only. I might have become a senile old fart, but what exactly is it that you can do on Windows XP and can't do on Windows 2000 when it comes to gaming (well, obviously play Windows XP only games, but that's not the answer I'm looking for)?
Some members of the industry are trying to move to a higher price point. Nintendo's Wii is expected to have a launch price similar to the company's previous consoles, and the games will be priced accordingly.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
Yes, the industry is "broken" because games get larger and larger and require huge budgets and thousands of man hours to complete...so the little guys are shut out because they can't compete or lack said budgets and the pubs don't want to take a risk...blah blah blah...
With the next generation development costs are increasing rapidly
So go develop a DS game or something for the XBox Live Arcade that's fun and original, and then you can get your funding, FFS. If you really have something insanely fun and interesting then you'll have no problem getting backing for it. Do it on a smaller scale and watch the doors open for the bigger deals. What the hell is an unproven "independent" trying to accomplish by making a $20 million game, anyway? Prove that you're worth the money and publishers will make sure your game gets to market...it's not like they don't fund all sorts of crap that sells anyway (see any of the Matrix franchise games for examples of this).
Growing the market - Where will the growth come from? Will the size of the hardcore audience suddenly double and triple or do we need the broad base of the mainstream to grow the business? The answer is obvious and so far the winners seem to be Microsoft with Xbox Live Arcade and possibly Nintendo with its easy to use and enjoy Wii games.
Again, sigh....this guys has answered his own damn question.
...it's heading the way of the movie industry and the music industry then? Lack of imagination, repatitive themes, form over function, soaring production costs and focus on brand rather than content... sounds familiar?
If you look at it that way, then it's not surprising. Although that said, the recent bedroom musician/indie film producer model means that we'll hopefully see a more gung-ho type of do-it-yourself game writing in the future.
...much closer!
Graphics cards are faster, stronger and more powerful than ever. Some years ago when Virtual Reality
where introduced - it lagged BIG time, it was however revolutionary - all the rage...and only
the worlds hottest shopping-malls got it back then, but it quickly died because the games where simple
and very boring except for the virtual reality immersion.
The technology for virtual reality just wasn't there yet, but behold...we're THERE NOW!
Just take a look at your own pc's gfx cards with their 1680 x 1050 resolution for your widescreen that
you can't see the pixels on more (from a meters distance) anyway... imagine two of these cards
and two seriously high-res mini OLED displays in your glasses and we're in business.
Virtual reality online gaming also needed the bandwith - and it's only recently we've
gotten this.
The technology is dirt cheap too! Mobile cell phones already come with high-res Oled displays
and you could create higher-res oled displays fit for "VR-Glasses" already...heck...they even
exist today in 800 x 600...even higher if I'm not entirely mistaken. And they're NOT expensive.
So get cracking! Take a chance - make the VR games right now!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
As far as gamedev articles posted to Slashdot go, this one is the first one in years where the author actually has a clue what they're talking about. Many people in the industry have been making similar points for a couple of years now, myself included. One of the points ("increased risk means decreased creativity") has been valid much longer, and is the primary reason for the current consolidation trend -- big companies trying to hedge their bets and spread the risk amongst as many projects and studios as possible. This is inextricably tied to the following myth: throwing 200 monkeys on a project means it'll ship in 12 months. That's what [insert large company that shall remain unnamed] does, and it's a trend that will not suistain itself, simply because technology is evolving even faster than their employee turnover rate. In other words, grabbing fifteen senior monkeys out of 200 and making them implement global illumination is just not feasible, while the shop down the street with a team of 30 and five superstar programmers will have the tech. More importantly, the current state of the art is in enough flux that the production pipeline changes drastically as we progress; the word "designer" means a very different thing now than it did five years ago; the term "technical artist" is relatively new, etc. It's very difficult to implement those changes in a giant production team -- especially considering the sheer number of suits that a team of that size requires, and their reluctance to rock the boat.
Personally, I'm cautiously optimistic about this, in the sense that the industry is way past due for a major overhaul, and that won't happen until it's painfully obvious to everyone involved that the current model is not feasible.
-goltrpoat
...by putting out more interesting, fun games than the big shops. Currently my favorite game is Mount&Blade, which was begun by a husband and wife team.
This is why the Wii will take the lead in sales with the coming generation of consoles. The development kit is cheap and rather than companies spending millions on pushing graphics to the max they are more focused on game design. The console is also signifficantly cheaper than Sony and Micosofts offerings so game companies could sell more.
For starters, I don't read many reviews any more because I don't buy computer magazines any more. In the UK, most computer magazines seem to "magically" have the same cover price of around £6.00 - on the basis of mounting a cover CD or DVD that holds demos & patches that I can download myself; not that I ever play demos anyway because otherwise I'd be deinstalling as quickly as I'm installing and screwing up Windows XP in the process. I regularly read Gamespot reviews for PC and Gamecube games but when I look through their "All Time Best Games" tables for both formats, modern games rarely appear in those tables.
Going on from that, because I care more about gameplay than graphics, I buy PC budget games and visit eBay or the local games shop to buy used Gamecube titles - simply because I am not paying full price for a game that throws pretty in game animations at me but little gameplay. Now I can pick up more than enough good games for either format for around £5 apiece, I'm happy waiting for a year or two - especially with PC games where they've been patched enough after that time to actually be playable.
Furthermore, the games industry is obsessed with 3D graphics to the point where some excellent titles have become unplayable dross when transferred from sprites to 3D graphics. Heroes Of Might & Magic is an excellent example of this - a superb strategy game up until HOMM3, then came 3D graphics in HOMM4 and the interface started to feel slow and cumbersome, now in HOMM5 the 3D graphics are fully in there (yes, you can even step into each battle you fight) but it's appalingly bloated. The same has been true for C&C
As for FPS games, Half-Life is probably the best game I've ever played but I've never touched Half-Life 2 because I'm not giving Valve the honour of installing their Steam spyware on my PC - I don't care how good the game is. Besides, Counterstrike & Unreal Tournament 2004 have given me hundreds of hours of fun and still continue to do so.
So, all-in-all, I've a large *totally legal* games collection that I'm still working my way through on the PC and Gamecube plus I can also emulate Amigas, Megadrives & N64s on my PC so I can also have fun with retrogaming and mess around with a whole heap of free games in Windows or Linux also - so why would I *want* to go back into the endless hardware upgrade loop just to play a few new games that each cost £30-£40?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
There's obviously going to be good games and not so good games, but the biggest problem is the increasing demand of super graphics. My impressions tell me that previous reviews focused a lot more on the story, playability and addictiveness of a game. Now it seems like reviewers take on the graphics more and more, as if it was a necessity. I find it sad that it's - as far as I can tell - impossible to get a top score with mediocre graphics. I'm not saying that graphics aren't important, but I do think that the importance of graphics has been ramped up recently.
My take on the situation is rather obvious. Video cards are getting seriously powerful and realism in games is only a decade away or so. Yes, it's obviously a stunning experience to play the most visually appealing games but that's only a couple of hours of excitement and it goes away, quickly. I still play StarCraft, despite the fact that it looks like crap and only supports 256 colors. Fact is, it has the playability. It has the story and it does have the addictive features. If such game was released today but with perhaps a higher resolution and more colors, without improving much beyond that, it would require far less resources and obviously less personell. It could still be a hit and I doubt anyone in here can prove me wrong on that point. Point is, to create a super pixelated game with the latest and best stuff, you need more developers but that will only add little to the last hours, days, weeks and (hopefully) months you're spending.
There is a solution, however. Games have become more complex and it is almost impossible to create a game that would generate some interest with the work of only a handful of people. Nowadays that number is more likely 30-50, sometimes even twice, three times or even four times as much. Therefore, the only way of making a game more profitable and less risky would be to slash the amount of developers who are working on a game title. This could be done if developers started exchanging technology and graphics. A lot of code and graphics can be reused in many other games and altered only a little without risking repetitiveness. Think about it: great-looking grass is always grass and a wooden crate is always a wooden crate. Just change the colors of it, add different shapes. We don't need artists to redo all that stuff over and over again. Instead, recycle what's still good and create games that last (read: story, playability and addictiveness).
Full Tilt
Is smaller companies CAN compete. Nobody said it was easy, but then nobody said it was supposed to be. On the PC market we see a small but thriving indy games scene. As the most successful receant example see Galactic Civilizations 2. It is the game Master of Orion 3 should have been, and because of that it's sold quite well (if you don't have it, get a copy, it's well worht it). You also discover, when you persue these Stardock people, that they've got a little system set up where you can buy a bunch of other indy games easily, you just pay and downlaod through their little tool. More research will show they aren't the only place doing this. Ok so you don't tend to see them on Walmart shelves (other than Gciv2) but that doesn't mean they aren't out there making money.
Consoles are harder, but even then, it happens. See Marble Blast Ultra for the X-box 360. Marble Blast is just a little "roll the ball through mazes" 3D game for the PC/Mac from Garage Games (another site you can get multiple indy games off of). However it is enough fun that MS decided it would make a good game for X-box Arcade and thus we now have Marble Blast Ultra.
Are people becomming mega-millionaires off of this? No, but then I don't think that's the only measure of success. I think if you can make a game that people like to play, and make money doing it, you've succeded. Apparantly that can be done indy, despite the current game market.
The availability of online services for all three next-gen titles will help ramp up creativity. If the companies are smart, they can release "mini" dev kits, and liscense content for cheap (or free!) online distribution. It would be great to see would-be developers crank out a level for a potential game (probably with dumbed-down graphics and no voice acting/SFX) and let people play it and see if they would be interested in playing more. If so, then they have more of a reason to continue with this original idea and put out a full fledged game. Or, for smaller developers, make a longer, better game, stick it on the online portion of a console(s), and if it sells well then they can go on to make a full game with industry backing.
The Wii itself is going to be helping the little guy. While we can expect a plethora of FPS and Lightsaber games (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease), the dev kit for the Wii is a mere $2000! This means that a group of friends (or another small, interested party) who really want to get into this can pool their money and get some capitol from a rich uncle to start creating something.
Making me pay to join an on line gaming sever is not the answer when the game is no better than off-line. While playing against a real person on the other end can be entertaining, it for sure is not worth the fees charged.
And then there is the sequel because they haven't yet sucked out enough money on some hit game is not the answer.
What the gaming industry is experiencing is no more and no less the same as that of the video media. There is so much drivel and mind bogglingly inane stuff on the tube you can tell it was only created just to fill time. But then, that always happens when big business get involved.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Biggest sack of crap I've heard of. Innovation happens quite often in games, and the only people who dare say that the industry only pumps out 'the same titles over and over' are those who don't understand how the entertainment system works. A music analogy was made before, about this article: The music industry is the current entertainment giant moneymaker. The main places to make cash in it pump out the same crap over and over- Gangsta Rap that focuses on the glamour, not the reality, pop stars who strip to sell records, and rock bands that use gimmicky riffs and lots of macho yelling, will always be a great place to make money. Does that mean its the best? No, of course not. Hence why there is a large indie scene, and why salsa music is still seen in Tower Records- people do buy it, just not in the large quantities of the other stuff. Sure, back in the day every developer tried to do something new...oh, wait. No, they never did. Developers have copied and copied to make money since the inception of the medium, its just that their getting better at it now to the point that at least when they copy, its still entertaining- and who is to say thats bad? Digressing, also note that much like the music industry, the games industry houses a very resourceful and powerful indie scene, that grows more every year- large independant works making it onto Steam is particularly encouraging thing(as they will all be seen by the millions amassed who play CS and CS:S until the sun arises the next day), and many of the larger development studios seem to be taking risks in places that they usually wouldn't. The large commercial success of more artistic titles, like Shadow of the Collossus, is occuring more often. And in the future, games like Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, and the entire existence of the Wii console(which people keep forgetting about, despite the fact that the average American has even been alerted to this new type of gaming system soon coming out on the market) almost ensure that innovation is not something that will be forgotten just because there is money to be made. Game Developers still make games- I don't know any suits just yet who know how to program, or know anything about art. I'm pretty sure were working just fine. :P
Every summer the same tired shit is rolled out by the press which has little to cover, and much to harp about. It's called "writer earning a paycheck time" again. This time it's particularly accute because it's a platform swapping year (or two) and transitions mean developers in the middle of a 2 year cycle. The video game industry was broken just before GTA3, just before Quake III, just before Doom (really broken before Doom because the Jaguar was on the skids, the 3do was a flop, and NEC's offering was going down in flames etc), just before Zelda & Mario 64 - anyone noticing a trend here?
Just like console cycles, the industry has it's creative cycles as well. Then some dev group or a new band of kids throws something on a new hardware platform and it's OMG "they're turning our kids into zombies" and "evercrack is taking over the world". And for those lamenting sequals, um - that's what Nintendo's been banking on for the last 26 years as far as Mario and Link are concerned. For every Nintendogs there's also a new metroid pinball. Surprise surprise. News flash! Dirt is brown! Water is Wet! - put that baby in 50pt Helvetica and slap it on the cover of the June issue.
My next prediction? Watch this November when the same salaried press-fuckers will be touting gaming's new "renaissance". NOW whose being jaded?
ME! You don't have to be a former member of a press-club to spew this rant - but it HELPS.
(it also helps to try to imagine the writer quitting smoking while typing this)
Mmm here is a message for EA and other huge gaming houses. At the large LAN we run locally we let users play the games they want for the thirty hours gaming or so it goes for. This LAN followed a trend we've been noticing for awhile: people are jack of rubbish no content games with flashy graphics. All of the users this time mostly played aoe2 and tremulous (tremulous.net - open source) and a small amount of call of duty.
How damn pathetic that after years these games still get play time (not that I'm not a fan of them myself), we should be onto far more creative and fun games these days! This is a broken industry so fix it.
I ate your fish.
Is there a terrible price difference between purchasing a console instead of a PC,
The answer is yes.
Vermifax
Logout
I looked to much forward to the XBox 360 but it simply failed to impress me. Same old same old. Just better graphics apperently but that is lost on me. What is not lost on me are the increased game proces and even worse the huge game load times making me long for the good old Nintendo game cartidges.
As long as companies insist to create artificial business plans they will suffer the consequences. Game consoles are sold below cost just so they can start making money on the games. Therefore you need to be authorised to develop for the particular console and of course only those with deep pockets get the chance to do so.
At the same time console makers build in restrictions to stop small third party developers from creating content since it won't benefit the console maker. Effectively killing the number of titles that can be made available.
At this very point in time, the console maker who is price conscious and sensible about their console will be able to sell it at or above cost is going to be the winner. Simply because they can afford to leave the platform open to third party developers and thus create a very lively user community around it.
Typically this means simpler technology, lower development cost and easier access for new developers. Yeah I know, it sounds like Nintendo Wii doesn't it! Can't wait to start lauging.
One way to kill the Hollywood mindset of regurgitating sequels for a safe bet because of compromise of innovation to hedge bets against huge development costs, is to open console games up to user modification. This is going to HAVE to happen for consoles; it has been propping up the PC game market a considerable more than some developers might be willing to admit.
Mods and Cheats need to be built in to console games.
The difficult thing, is to convince financiers wanting to 'own' a franchise, that this is the healthiest way to continue.
One way they might be convinced, is in merely rereleasing previous game in a new souped up, more flexible and editable engine. A bit less investment on their part. Unfortunately, this is too much like just pumping out sequels, and remakes, could be considered worse.
My typical game purchasing pattern: Buy new console; read of a few interesting games that never are released, suffer the lack in variety as the same safe blockbuster titles are regurgitated.