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Game Profitability Under Threat
The BBC has up an article looking at the dwindling opportunities for profit on games in the coming years. Soaring prices for game development, the increasingly-entrenched segmentation of the marketplace, and overwhelming emphasis on sequels means that it's looking increasingly dire for game development houses. While the success of the DS means that there's a wide market for games on that platform (witness Square/Enix's movement of the Dragon Quest franchise), the phasing out of the PS2 means that for the moment there is no 'leading platform' for game creation. The article talks about how the various game companies are responding to this challenge, as in Microsoft's reliance on exclusive deals and Sony's absorption of development houses into their infrastructure.
This article starts off talking about how it's hard to turn a profit writing games, and then uses a "solution" that a hardware vendor is using to sell their consoles as an example. What's going on here? Where's the story that goes with the headline?
Companies will get their costs in line. Either it will turn out that increased costs from games going HD will be a myth or become a myth as tools improve (most likely), or smart companies will know where to make tradeoffs to get their costs down. Many studios will fail and go out of business, which has been par for the course for ages. Ideally, they'd figure out that marketing and licensing costs are the bulk of the budget and take the money from there, but I'm not holding my breath.
The cost of making a game in the major categories is staggering when you look at what you're up against. But invent something completely different that's just fun to play and you can open up a whole new market. You can't win by making a new FPS, increasingly accurate physics and polymesh technology.
You're going to win because your game is just plain fun.
It doesn't cost a lot of money to make a game fun, it just takes a fun idea. If you insist on remaking the same games because you're afraid of loss, you've just painted yourself into a nice corner.
There seems to be this belief that HD games are somehow inherently more expensive to develop. PC's have supported "HD" for years and game development costs haven't spiraled out of control. Games are getting exceedingly expensive to develop because developers are becoming overly ambitious. Endless sequels are merely a symptom of a larger problem. Sequels exist as a means to reduce costs and to cash in on a popular franchise. This certainly isn't a recent thing: look at the endless Street Fighter clones.
By no means are developers ambitious in terms of unique gameplay. Rather, they're putting excessive amounts of effort into exploiting the latest graphics techniques, developing expansive storylines and introducing increasingly complex control systems. What I think they're trying to do is provide a more cinematic experience. They're trying to reproduce movies in a video game format. Hence the obsession with overly realistic graphics and the cinematic-type presentation. It's inevitable that games inspired by film will also command movie-sized budgets.
Needless to say, this doesn't necessarily translate into entertaining gameplay. I think many developers have lost sight of what constitutes good gameplay. However, I don't think they care. The average consumer is easily impressed by the cinematic patina contemporary games exude. Let's face reality, developers keep producing these games because they sell. The Wii demonstrates that there is a desire for something else. But Nintendo doesn't possess some sort of holy grail of unique gaming. The unique controller can only go so far. Many others have offered unique and compelling gameplay. PCs, outside of the FPS, RTS and RPG clones has offered tons of neat games for years.
Look at what indie developers are producing. And many of them are exploiting high resolutions to their fullest extent. Some of these games look phenomenal. Some have a unique visual style which enhances gameplay. I inevitably am drawn back to the Wii as compared to the other platforms. There is this prevailing opinion I see that expects the Wii to somehow solve all these problems. It won't. The system is hindered performance-wise and the controller while great for some games is nowhere near as flexible a device as some believe.
I predict that within a few years Nintendo will introduce an HD-capable Wii. I think it will be a smart move for Nintendo, but it will also mean anyone who currently owns a Wii and then gets the upgraded model will have likely spent $400-$500 on the two systems. Suddenly the pricing won't all that different from an Xbox360 or PS3.
I don't expect most large developers to change their ways. They may occasionally offer something different but the for the most part we'll see more of the same. Perhaps we'll see the game industry work more like the movie industry. Ultimately, the problem lies with the nature of business and the lack of consumers who can think independently.