Game Developers Becoming Similar To Hollywood Studios?

CNet is running an article that looks at the growing parallels between the major movie studios and some of the most successful game publishers, which have gradually turned into the juggernauts of the industry as they've absorbed a variety of smaller developers in recent years. "If we consider Hollywood — the model to which the video game industry is always compared — it doesn't take long before we realize that it's dominated by a handful of studios that effectively control a large percentage of the industry, while the independent studios are left trying to defy the percentages and get their innovative and artistic films to the masses. Since most fail, it's the big studios that enjoy profits as the independents try to find some way to stay alive." Gamasutra has a related piece suggesting the opposite trend: "Smaller, less expensive games made by smaller, more agile teams seem like a very logical step, now that the industry structure is better able to support it, with no less than three venues on which to distribute content as a small team. These are downloadable console, direct to consumer PC downloads via Steam-like services, portals, or direct sale, and iPhone and potentially DSi downloads."

Comments

Steam?

[Frank Fry]

I think "Steam-like services" are a step backwards.

Re:Steam?

[Sousuke]

It's better than all the limited availability nonsense the movie industry tends to pull.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, isn't it dreadful how Steam makes it so easy to buy games? I much prefered the old days, when you had to physically drive to a store and then drive home again and spend an hour swapping CDs. All this digital delivery is a right pain in the ass.

Re:Steam?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Because they consolidate the industry? You know, steam has been very friendly to indie developers.

Or maybe it's a simple issue with DRM. Oh well, the games are (mostly) cheap, and they can be installed on multiple computers. It's good enough for me.

Re:Steam?

[wisty]

If the gaming industry was like Hollywood, you would have to sleep with some producer, just to get your foot in the door.

Can you really see Hollywood embracing a distribution system that makes it easy for independent studios to reach consumers?

Re:Steam?

[Savage-Rabbit]

If the gaming industry was like Hollywood, you would have to sleep with some producer, just to get your foot in the door.

Can you really see Hollywood embracing a distribution system that makes it easy for independent studios to reach consumers?

The flaw in that plan is that nobody wants to have sex with computer nerds. Perhaps, in exchange for allowing them to get their foot in the door, the evil game industry executives can demand sex with the nerd's girlfrien...... oh wait... never mind....

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to buying non-tangible product online without any manuals/booklets/maps/goodies, waiting hours or days for gigabytes of game data to download, slowing down your internet connection during that entire time, not being able to install/play those games without being connected to Steam or if they decide to let their servers become too busy, not being able to lend the game to a friend or take it with you somewhere else, being at the mercy of Valve et al if they decide to deactivate your game and/or account and not being able to play those games should Steam ever shut down or if Valve goes out of business.

Yeah, sounds like a fucking great way to buy a game to me...

Re:Steam?

[sortius_nod]

I think "EA" is a step backwards.

ftfy

Re:Steam?

[Ihmhi]

You can't necessarily make a good movie with a handful of guys and some talent. There are very real expenses involved, including paying or compensating actors.

A game? A guy can sit down and code a game on weekends by himself. Look at Flash games: many of them are more complex than games of the NES era and worlds of fun.

Look at mods like Eternal Silence, Fortress Forever, Dystopia, Insurgency... these are teams of a handful of people (10-50) working on their free time and they put out a quality product.

Re:Steam?

[grumbel]

Yes, isn't it dreadful how Steam makes it so easy to buy games?

I can order a game from Amazon.de (Germany), have it at my doorstep the next day and pay 5-10EUR less then buying it on Steam and of course I get a printed manual and a box too. With that given digital distribution doesn't look so great any more.

Re:Steam?

[grumbel]

You can't necessarily make a good movie with a handful of guys and some talent.

Have a look at the recent Half Life short movie or movies like The Man from Earth or Primer, you very definitvly can make a good movie with a tiny budget. The only real disadvantage that a movie seems to have is that you need to have all the crew in the same place at the same time, while a game can be developed by people connected via the internet and can recycle lots of content from the parent game. But of course, a tiny movie budget won't give you the next Star Wars any more then a tiny game budget will give you the next Half Life, that however doesn't mean they can't be good in their own way.

including paying or compensating actors.

That's like saying you can't make a game without compensating the programmers and artists, but you very definitively can, because there are plenty people who do it for the fun of it, not the money.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the gaming industry was like Hollywood, you would have to sleep with some producer, just to get your foot in the door.

Can you really see Hollywood embracing a distribution system that makes it easy for independent studios to reach consumers?

Please dont make me sleep with gaben :|

Re:Steam?

[xch13fx]

yes i think at this point i would rather have that. I have been trying to install unreal 3 which is free this weekend and steam just does not have the server support. I need to spam install for a few minutes of download eachtime. I started it last night and woke up this morning to it not doing anything at 25percent weee. might as well grab a torrent.

Re:Steam?

[Nathrael]

Interestingly though, before Valve adapted that stupid 1USD=1EUR-policy, buying games over Steam was actually quite a bit cheaper than buying it in the store (I'm living in Austria atm and from what I've heard, the situation is similarly bad to how it is in Germany). Before they did, you could easily buy games to USD prices (which sometimes are about half of what you pay in Europe). I still use Steam nowadays to buy most of my games though - importing them takes too long, buying crappy German versions (I'm bilingual and also like to play games uncensored - most games sold in Austria are German versions, which often have had their content censored -, thus I prefer the US version of a game; I also prefer to avoid DRM, even though Steam is a form of DRM as well, at least it doesn't mess up my system like StarForce or SecuRom do) in the store isn't really an option either (and DLing a game, which averagely takes about 2 hours in which I can do some work, isn't that long either).

Re:Steam?

[Djehuty3]

Not true - you are free to take the game elsewhere, as you are free to install on as many machines as you please.

If you get a new machine, just copy over the STEAM folder and run the .exe - it'll just work, even off a USB stick.

You also do not need to connect to STEAM to play - once it's installed, and you've run it once, you can play it in offline mode from that point on.

Whilst I have heard of people losing their VAC standing, which means they cannot play online on VAC secured servers, the only time I've heard of STEAM locking entire accounts is when a fraudulent purchase is made, or a charge does not process correctly.

and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

While i dislike Valve a little, i disagree with Steam being backwards.

It allows you to easily purchase games and install them anywhere.
Computer dead?
Oh don't worry, download Steam, login and download your stuff again.

Basically Valve is a software version of a console. (well, as of this recent generation)

And if Valve were to somehow die, i've heard that they will unlock the games to some extent.
Whether this could potentially cause problems, i guess it depends.
Maybe only their own games, others up to the creators.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.

This is an oft-repeated statement with little proof behind it, but lets assume it is true

What I wonder is: will Valve actually be allowed to do this? Sure, they can free their own products (Half Life, etc), but to "unprotect" games from other publishers that are hosted on Steam seems of dubious legality. I have a hard time imagining EA has agreed to such a thing.

Of course, whether a company that is going under will have the resources (or the rights) to free up its own IP is also a major question.

Re:Steam?

[pizzach]

I agree with you. Just wanted to point out making NES games would probably be much easier nowadays. Compilers have become very good so the developers could probably move up from assembly to C. This doesn't change the fact though that many early NES games only had two programmers etc.

Re:Steam?

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention they can decide at ANY time you are a filthy pirate and demand you pay TWICE and you have NO say or choice in the matter. I know because I was fucked by HL:GOTY edition. Some pirate group put out a keygen that could spit out valid numbers like nobodies business, so what happens to us that actually PAID for the game? That's right, we got fucked by Valve. I even offered to email them a pic of my discs with the days paper behind it so they could see I owned the damned thing but nope, pay again was all I got from their rude ass customer "service" which acted like I was a dirty scumbag for actually buying their product.

Well I learned my lesson. It will be a cold day in hell before I EVER give those bastards a penny. And if it is on Steam? Too bad because I will never use it. All of you with Steam accounts are just one keygen away from losing one of your games or more. Enjoy that sword of Damocles hanging over your head. Now I won't own any game that I can't find a crack for FIRST. That way I DECIDE when and where it works, not some company. When I pay for it it is mine, NOT yours.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I usually like buying boxed games. I bought left4dead from a store for example and it is on steam. You really are not forced to buy off of steam - even though I do that for some games too.

  As for not being able to play the games offline, or if the "servers are too busy to handle your request", or if Valve ever went down, you'd still be able to play the games. All you need are the gcfs/ncfs and common folder and use Universal Content Launcher, or one of the many other steamemus.

  I assume I'll be dead before Valve ever goes under, though. Even if/when they do - they'd just probably gimp steam and the only thing we wouldn't have would be the activation servers and VAC2. We could still run. Else, we'd use what I suggested above.

Not advocating piracy here, and this requires registration but here's a link to UCL http://cs.rin.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46295

The dev section on cs.rin.ru is particularly interesting.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how would you take it elsewhere? Go through the whole download again? Waste DVDs burning it? With physical media it's easy, just grab it and go.

The same applies to getting a new machine, although I suppose you could copy the files across a local network. What happens if the old machine died? You have to download all of your games all over again. With physical media you can easily install at your leisure.

What if you don't want the game any more and want to sell it? You can't. Again, with physical media this problem doesn't exist.

IIRC, offline mode is only good for a limited amount of time (ie. 30 days). If you don't connect to Steam after that time period, you lose the ability to use offline mode. Also you have to actually be online to activate it (makes a lot of sense, huh?), so if your internet connection goes out or the Steam servers are unreachable, you're SOL. Say goodbye to your games.

Still, people losing their account does happen and people can get locked out at the whim of a single company or employee of the company for any reason, real or bullshit. From their EULA.

13. TERM AND TERMINATION

Either you or Valve has the right to terminate or cancel your Account or a particular Subscription at any time. You understand and agree that the cancellation of your Account or a particular Subscription is your sole right and remedy with respect to any dispute with Valve.

C. Termination by Valve.

1. In the case of a recurring payment Subscription (e.g., a monthly subscription), in the event that Valve terminates or cancels your Account or a particular Subscription for convenience, Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide a prorated refund of any prepaid Subscription fees paid to Valve.
2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.
3. In the case of a free Subscription, Valve may choose to terminate or amend the terms of the Subscription as provided in the "Amendments to this Agreement" section above.

And how about their region locking? I travel a lot and have sometimes bought games while in other countries. Or what about people who move, do they suddenly lose their entire library of Steam games?

I can't trust a company on just their word that they will unlock games if they go out of business or stop the service. If they go out of business, what incentive do they have to provide anything? If they stop the service OR go out of business, they may not even be able to provide the ability to unlock games if the specific game developer or publisher doesn't permit them to.

B. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.

NEITHER VALVE, ITS LICENSORS, NOR THEIR AFFILIATES SHALL BE LIABLE IN ANY WAY FOR LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND RESULTING FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE STEAM, YOUR ACCOUNT, YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS AND THE STEAM SOFTWARE INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES. IN NO EVENT WILL VALVE BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, OR ANY OTHER DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH STEAM, STEAM SOFTWARE, MERCHANDISE THAT YOU ACQUIRE VIA STEAM, ANY INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH, OR THE DELAY OR INABILITY TO USE MERCHANDISE OR ANY INFORMATION, EVEN IN THE EVENT OF FAULT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF CONTRACT, OR BREACH OF VALVE'S WARRANTY AND EVEN IF VALVE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBIL

Re:Steam?

[level99]

But consumer choice, you being able to buy both the digital download and/or the physical CD, means a lot. And I think that was the point.

Re:Steam?

[nabsltd]

And if it is on Steam? Too bad because I will never use it. All of you with Steam accounts are just one keygen away from losing one of your games or more.

If you don't purchase the boxed game, this is not an issue.

The collision with a keygen serial number can only happen if you use the boxed game to unlock the download from Steam.

Re:Steam?

[nabsltd]

But of course, a tiny movie budget won't give you the next Star Wars any more then a tiny game budget will give you the next Half Life, that however doesn't mean they can't be good in their own way.

I think a group of talented people could easily take the budget for the original Star Wars (about $13 million) and make a much better movie than any of the last three that George Lucas has put out.

Sure, you wouldn't have monster special effects, but you don't need those to make a good movie.

Re:Steam?

[Tezcat]

IIRC, offline mode is only good for a limited amount of time (ie. 30 days). If you don't connect to Steam after that time period, you lose the ability to use offline mode. Also you have to actually be online to activate it (makes a lot of sense, huh?), so if your internet connection goes out or the Steam servers are unreachable, you're SOL. Say goodbye to your games.

Offline mode works indefinitely, as far as I am aware. I recently went without an internet connection for approx. 4 months, and regularly started steam in offline mode and played (valve and non-valve) games throughout that period with no lock-out occurring. While I can't guarantee that it doesn't cut-out at 6 months or a year without connection, I highly doubt it.

Re:Steam?

[Djehuty3]

I'll concede the region locking point - however, I wonder what would happen if you were to contact Valve, should you move and lose access - I expect you'd have to proof it was your account, though.

If you want to take it elsewhere, just put the applicable folder from steamapps and put it on a USB stick - I have an 8GB USB stick with STEAM installed, Audiosurf installed via STEAM, and the rest is music, and I can take that, plug it into any computer, log in and play. Likewise, I have previously installed L4D and Gmod onto the same USB stick, and both worked flawlessly.

STEAM also allows you to back up entire game packages, be that to USB, DVD, or something more esoteric, merely by rightclicking the game on the list and selecting backup. or, if you prefer, manually backing up the .gcf and .ncf files.

Oh, and note; if you purchase a third party game via STEAM, you get a key. it is very easy to view said key - merely rightclick the game on your game list, and select "View Game Key".

I personally have a great deal of faith and trust in Valve - call me a fanboy if you will. I feel they have created a powerful platform, and that STEAM will only grow in years to come - it and Impulse are the only examples of Digital Distribution done right - no install limits, idiot proof. if you want to complain about something, complain about the goddamned adverts, and the fact that some of the third party files seem to take a lot longer to download.

If you want to complain about third party pricing, keep in mind that Valve don't get an awful lot of say in that.

Re:Steam?

[tepples]

Just wanted to point out making NES games would probably be much easier nowadays. Compilers have become very good so the developers could probably move up from assembly to C.

There are people on nesdev.com/bbs who are trying to make some support libraries for programming the NES in C, but it's not practical so far, for two reasons:

1. The widely available C compiler targeting the 6502 CPU fails at optimizing. Do you know of a better free or semi-free C compiler targeting the 6502 CPU?
2. The NES has 2 KiB of RAM; cartridges can have 8 KiB more at an additional cost (address decoder + SRAM chip). This makes typical C programming idioms, such as a stack bigger than 256 bytes, look inefficient.

Re:Steam?

[pizzach]

Hmm...All of my personal programming with the NES was with assembly. You're right though. It would need a special C compiler to work well. Dunno.

Re:Steam?

[hairyfeet]

So I should be punished for actually BUYING the full product with the nice box and manual? And folks wonder why piracy is on the rise. How about NOT treating your paying customers as criminals, how about that? It isn't like I was the only guy either. Look up HL:GOTY edition and screwed in Google and you will find countless stories JUST like mine.

Either you refuse to sell the boxed product and go download ONLY(and forget about anyone who doesn't have broadband or who has caps or like me that like a nice box and manual) or actually SUPPORT YOUR DAMNED PRODUCT!!! But screwing a customer who just handed you $50 is NOT the way to do business. I will NEVER buy from Valve again, and I buy lots of games, as I don't care for movies. But between all the Trojan DRM crap that makes a PC as unstable as Win98 and crap like this I'm frankly surprised they have any customers at all. But don't worry, I'm sure some hacker group will eventually find a way to screw Steam and then y'all will get the fun of dealing with their customer disservice. I've dealt with friendlier folks at the DMV.

Re:Steam?

[MaineCoon]

At the same time those mods:

1. Build on a significantly developed technology base that the creators probably could not have made on their own (or it would have required a much longer development time)
2. While above 'amateur' in quality, are not necessarily at commercial quality (Dystopia's levels could use some work)
3. Have low exposure and low adoption; I'm lucky to see 2 Eternal Silence or 3 Dystopia servers with a lot of people even at prime time. And this is after the mods became Steam Installable; they did see a huge spike at first but interest dropped off rapidly.
4. Are made as a hobby; some of us like to make games for a living. Many modders want to use the mod as a springboard to an actual job, so it's sort of like an unpaid internship to them if they can get a job.

I've worked at both small and big game dev companies; I prefer the big one I've been at far longer than any small developer I've worked at has managed to stay alive (I think the record for steady paychecks at any small company I worked at is one year; I've been at a big publisher/developer for over 5 years now). One advantage larger studios have is that they can keep people employed (barring major cuts of course) - there isnt much of a hire/fire cycle between, to keep the skill pool constant. People can be shifted around to other projects after one finishes or to help one finish up.

Being part of a large developer allows long term budget planning - the studio's financials are bolstered by continued sales of the products they make. At independent developers it was always a work for hire contract with the publisher and no residuals, so it was hand to mouth the whole time. Good luck negotiating residuals if you aren't self funded, and you need even better luck to get self funding as a small studio, regardless of the pedigree of developers. Publishers take a big cut from the sales for independent studios; not so with publisher owned studios, where the studios get most of the revenue, and provide responsibility profit to the corporation.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bullshit. I can't believe anyone was treated like that. I'm never purchasing a Steam game again. I refuse to support a company that hangs their customers out to dry like this.

Re:Steam?

[LingNoi]

And how about their region locking [shacknews.com]? I travel a lot and have sometimes bought games while in other countries. Or what about people who move, do they suddenly lose their entire library of Steam games?

To answer your question because I asked them this because I often travel to Thai -> UK.

No.

You only lose access if you buy the game in Thailand and try to use it in UK. If you use your UK account in Thailand it's no problem.

Re:Steam?

[kbg]

I was wrongly locked out of steam once for unknown reasons. It took me some days to get Valve to fix the situation, meanwhile I could not play on a scheduled LAN tournament. As you can imagine Valve is not my favorite company.

Do you really believe they have already made a patch to remove all activation requirements?, and have to keep that patch up to date all the time? No I can assure they have not, I mean why should they, there is no financial gain for creating such a patch, and If they go bankrupt, no patch will ever be made.

Re:Steam?

[Ihmhi]

I've seen it. The thing is, when you say "Game", it can be anything from 5 minutes to hours upon hours of play.

When I say "movie", people think 90 minutes+, not 3 minutes. That's a short film.

If we're talking a game that you can get 40 hours of quality play out with decent graphics compared to a 90 minute movie, I'd wager that the game would be cheaper and easier to produce.

Re:Steam?

[Miseph]

Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.

Re:Steam?

[Sky Cry]

What happens if the old machine died? You have to download all of your games all over again. With physical media you can easily install at your leisure.

If you prefer physical media, you can burn it yourself: Using the Steam Backup Feature

Re:Steam?

[vux984]

Not true - you are free to take the game elsewhere, as you are free to install on as many machines as you please.

But you have to activate them online after doing so.
And if you have more than one game in your account, and you playing one of them online, your wife or kids can't play another one online.
Offline mode is a pain, doesn't always work, and of course, restricts you to games that can be played offine.

If you get a new machine, just copy over the STEAM folder and run the .exe - it'll just work, even off a USB stick.

After you connect to the steam service to activate them, of course. Otherwise pirating steam games would be as simple as just copying someone's steam folder...its not.

You also do not need to connect to STEAM to play - once it's installed, and you've run it once, you can play it in offline mode from that point on.

Offline mode is flaky. And only applies to offline games. And you need to connect before you can go offline.

and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.

Pure fantasy. Under what circumstances would valve go out of business and activate this feature?

If they are bought up, it will be up to the new owners, not Valve. The moment they are even in talks to sell Valve, their is absolutely no chance in hell they would be allowed to devalue the company by 'freeing' up all the activated games. Same if they go into bankruptcy protection - they are obligated to operate the business in such a way as to preserve their assets for their shareholders and creditors to sell off...again unlocking all the games would NEVER be allowed.

What does that leave? Valve's owners get old, bored, and decide to just shut it down instead of selling it off? What are the odds of that happening? Seriously.

Re:Steam?

[Djehuty3]

Yes, you need to connect to STEAM to validate the install - but usually only once. for third party games, I'll concede this may be different - STEAM allows the developer/publisher to set the intervals for validation.

Offline mode was flaky - but in recent months, when I've had to use it, I have had no issues with it - YMMV.

Re:Steam?

[vux984]

Because finances aside, if they go completely under and fail to release such a thing it is possible the most culpable individuals (read: executives) could potentially face criminal charges for fraud and theft. It's an outside chance, but it's also fairly trivial to write a nuclear option patch that completely defeats the possibility.

You'll want to do some research into how a corporate bankruptcy actually proceeds.

If they go completely under, they are REQUIRED not to go and devalue the company assets so that they can be sold to pay back creditors, bond holders, and maybe even shareholders. Most of the time, the bankrupt company is picked up for pennies on the dollar by another company interested in some element or other.

Releasing a 'nuclear option patch' to give away all the games is simply not an option.

The trustees over seeing the bankruptcy would have to approve the release of such a patch, and it would never happen, because it would significantly devalue the asset. As the assets were sold off, ownership of the steam servers, customer accounts, and whatnot would eventually end up in some other companies portfolio, and it would be entirely up to them what to do with it. (Former) Valve executives would not have any say in the matter, and if they wanted to shut it down they could. Its just that simple. Valve has no contracted obligation to its subscribers to release a patch if the service shuts down, and the new owner is not bound by something the former exec's " informally said -they- would do if -they- shut it down".

In reality-land there are very few scenarios where the current Valve-execs would be shutting it down -themselves-.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Compilers have become very good so the developers could probably move up from assembly to C.

On the NES? I very much doubt it - the C language is not suited to run fast on a slow 6502 processor with nasty bank switching. If you wanted it to be better than the 1980s crop of games my instinct is you would have to stick mostly to assembler, for the engine at least (perhaps get AI and front end code in a higher language). No, you don't pass all the parameters around as strings and then convert them to integers via floating point at every function call :-)

The big benefits in developing today for such a platform are

1. The tools for developing content (graphics and maps)
2. The speed of compilation/content management
3. Being able to run it in a debugging emulator instead of on slow physical hardware

Those are very significant improvements, but it doesn't mean a script kiddy would find it easy to write a full-blown NES game these days, unless someone is kind enough to write the engine in assembler first (like SEUCK on previous platforms). Also people from the Java/VBscript school of memory management would find their brains fried by the concept of only 2Kbytes of user RAM.

Re:Steam?

[Nick Ives]

I've just copied & pasted this from a post I made in the previous discussion about whether physical distribution will survive.

I've never been able to actually find that quote [that they'll release a free activation tool], which is generally attributed to Gabe. I find it hard to believe that they would actually do that however as firms go bust when they become unable to meet their financial obligations. In just about every jurisdiction ever destroying your most valuable assets before defaulting on all your debts is considered criminal and I don't think the directors of Valve would be prepared to do jail time for us.

Having said that, Steam is making Valve huge sums of money so they're not likely to go bust. Even if they do, Steam is only worth so much because it's running as a going concern, shutting it down would destroy its value.

We don't own games on Steam, we purchase subscriptions. Read the subscriber agreement. A new owner might decide to charge a pound for downloading the games more than five times, for example. Under UK (and I think EU) law if you make unfavourable changes to a contract you have to let the other party opt out. I'd take that to mean a full refund for everything I've purchased but we all know if Steam ended up with a new owner with that mindset they'd make a refund process very difficult.

Re:Steam?

[BikeHelmet]

I heard from a friend that you can deactivate steam games and give/sell the codes to people.

Then he gave me a code to the original half-life. :D

I've never done it myself, but it's something to look into.

Oh, and region locking is total BS. I hate that.

Re:Steam?

[DreadPiratePizz]

It's different though. it doesn't take any more effort to frame a shot with a cheapo camera versus an expensive one, and writing a story is the same for everyone. Independent film has fewer limitations that independent gaming. Advances in game design are technology driven, so you need to have access to the latest software and cutting edge developers in order to harness that. This takes money, so independent games tend to go for simpler designs more reminiscent of older games. However, most gamers want an increasing in the sophistication of game design, which is why I believe that the indie scene has rightfully been largely ignored. Talented people are producing good games, that unfortunately are below standard fare for today in terms of complexity. After all, it took Valve to get Portal off the ground. How much of an impact did narbacular drop make again? I really have yet to see an indie game that seriously pushes game design forward. I have seen many indie films push storytelling and filmmaking forward.

Re:Steam?

[j0nb0y]

It's a valid question. If Valve goes bankrupt, would a bankruptcy judge allow Valve to deploy their "kill switch"?

In bankruptcy, the creditors are in charge, and I find it likely that the creditors would object.

That said, I love steam and I'm willing to bet that valve will be around for a long time. When I get a new computer, I just install steam, and all my games are right there. No hunting for CDs, and then having the pain of changing multiple CDs mid install, etc. Plus an integrated friends list and achievements. I've never been big on selling my games, so that detriment doesn't affect me much.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on now Gary, we all know you're banned from Thailand for life.

Re:Steam?

[segur]

and if Valve ever goes out of business, they have already developed and tested a "kill switch" patch for the client, to remove all activation requirements.

What I wonder is: will Valve actually be allowed to do this? Sure, they can free their own products (Half Life, etc), but to "unprotect" games from other publishers that are hosted on Steam seems of dubious legality. I have a hard time imagining EA has agreed to such a thing.

As far as I understand, Valve's part in this bussiness is to copy-protect the games, if they go of ou bussiness, they just stop doing that — protecting the games (using "kill switch"). This has nothing to do with voiding copyrihts or something.

Re:Steam?

[nabsltd]

Allowing you to download the product in addition to having the physical disks is a convenience, not a right. Valve doesn't have to offer this...they do so because they are a fairly nice company overall.

Yes, you had a problem, but the only thing you lost was the ability to download that game from Steam. Perhaps Valve's customer service could have been better, but their lack of resolution for the issue doesn't stop you from playing the game. You still have the game you purchased, and it still works just fine.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he can't play the game because it must authenticate through Steam.

Aside from not liking anything that Valve has ever made (yes, I thought that Half Life sucked), this poor guy's experience ensures that Valve will never see a dime of my money.

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lies. HL 1 never needed Steam auth, only once patched. Uninstall and reinstall and it'll work just fine.

Re:Steam?

[nabsltd]

If you have the physical disks, you can install and play any Valve game (or at least anything HL2 or before) in single-player mode without even having an Internet connection.

Re:Steam?

[hairyfeet]

No online though, which of course was the ONLY reason to buy the damned thing instead of pirating it! And don't I feel great for not just snatching the thing when all I got was the freaking finger from Valve. Of course the pirate version had ALL the single player and multiplayer mods with a really nice installer, so yet again the pirates got a much better experience than me, the guy who actually bought the fucking thing. Between that and all the damned DRM bullshit that the other companies put you through, again giving the pirate the BETTER experience for a whole $0.00, is it any wonder piracy is on the rise?

I don't know about you but frankly I'm getting pretty fucking sick of handing over my hard earned cash and then getting kicked in the nuts for my trouble. It is like that scene in "Time Bandits" where Robin Hood has his men punch the hell out of the peasants so they feel they have "earned" their reward, but we are PAYING for the privilege of getting punched! And meanwhile the pirates just laugh and laugh and laugh as they enjoy their DRM free games that just fucking work. And the game companies are surprised piracy is on the rise? If I treated my customers that way I would be out of business in 90 days or less. Maybe if that happens to a few of the sorry bastards they will remember they actually NEED customers and stop treating us like shit!

Re:Steam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody ever said that HL1 needed Steam authentication. You might try reading the thread and understanding the basics of English grammar before you make an idiot out of yourself next time.

Wait, really?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If we consider Hollywood -- the model to which the video game industry is always compared ...

Sure it is...

Re:Wait, really?

[sortius_nod]

Funny how non-gamers seem to run to Hollywood as a comparison for everything.

Honestly, games have been quite varied from the start, many producers and many distributors. The whole "hollywoodisation" of gaming has come in recent years with massive corporate entities like EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, and the like taking over smaller studios to feed their own agendas.

Yes the game industry is moving toward a Hollywood model, but it's definitely not the one that it's 'always compared'.

Re:Wait, really?

[Ant P.]

If you count EA as representative of the entire industry, then that comparison is apt.

Re:Wait, really?

[stephanruby]

Speaking of which, have you noticed how Hollywood movies, television shows, and news shows are becoming more and more like computer games, with one player vs. another player, with simpler plot lines, with a good vs. a bad guy, with killer bees that actually don't kill, with water droughts that don't actually materialise, with more blood than usual, with less employees/newscasters than before, with more animations and more blue screen usage than before, with more fake paid audience members/fake digital audience laughs/applauses than before, with most of the background video clips or news clips being recycled day after day -- week after week, and getting shorter and shorter/choppier over time.

Re:Wait, really?

[rdebath]

Not really, there have always been plenty of "B" Movies.
Of course there used to be a few "A" Movies too.

Oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I agree with both points.

don't forget..

[SwedMiro]

the marketing! I know I will be cursed, booed, spit on and generally carried out on a rail after being dipped in oil and feathers, but i work in marketing. The need for large entities in the business will still be there since marketing costs a lot of money. Sure you can self-publish a game but it will almost certainly drown in the flood of games that are released. A bad game with marketing will almost always outsell a good one with no marketing. The almost part will always be the luck factor.

Re:don't forget..

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The question is whether the traditional models of marketing always apply to such small game producers.

If you take the very dubious example of Nigerian scammers, you can see how a very small group of people, given essentially an infinite market and near-zero costs, can make a profit even considering that most people reject out of hand.

Word of mouth is the best marketing you can ask for. Whether that is grassroots-led or astroturfed, the mere fact that people can spread the word for very little cost means that today's game publishers have a much more powerful marketing medium than ever before.

Re:don't forget..

[wisty]

Marketing (including product focus, positioning, and other less tangibles) is still important. Advertising is just a small part. But a leveler playing field is always welcome.

Re:don't forget..

[SwedMiro]

Even gerilla-marketing is expensive. Adding one market-guy salary to a small developer can break the budget. The margins in games developing is not what most people think. They are small and unless you get a big hit out there you are almost certainly going to be walking the edge for ever.

Re:don't forget..

[sowth]

I think marketers are "cursed, booed, spit on..." because they take a bad product and make it look good. People buy said product, take it home and use it, find out it is a piece of crap, then curse, boo, spit on the marketers. :-)

It is a bit like the shyster lawyers who take clients who don't have a real case, yet win it and bankrupt some poor innocent person. Use your powers for good, not evil.

More on topic, I think video games have become "Hollywoodized." Most go strictly by formulas now. FPS, RTS, RPG, zombie, horror. And most of the games we would have called video games in the '80s are referred to as "mini-games." At least our computers aren't locked down like the consoles (yet), so anyone has an opportunity to make their own games...

Re:don't forget..

[Znork]

marketing costs a lot of money.

You mistake cause and effect. Marketing costs a lot of money because the large entities (try to) make it necessary.

drown in the flood of games that are released.

Drown in the flood of marketing by the large entities, you mean.

A bad game with marketing will almost always outsell a good one with no marketing.

I'm sure you're right, and that's one of the more severely damaging aspects of copyright. In a free market system with interchangeable goods there's a limit to the value of marketing; make too much and your product becomes too expensive and people buy the competition. In a monopoly system with low product fungibility the limit is simply where lost sales are not lost to competition but to unaffordability, that limit is much higher.

It's an effect that's noticable in every monopoly protected sector, from pharmaceuticals to music; more money gets spent on marketing than on the actual product.

Which is rather tragic, as it means we're getting less of what we, as a society, actually want, in exchange for more of what we don't want. Way to go, intellectual 'rights'.

And twice as tragic, as most such goods mostly sell themselves if left to do so.

Re:don't forget..

[pjt33]

Remove marketing and the only way people are going to hear about games is word of mouth. That's fine until you remove copyright as well, at which point the same people who tell you about it can also give you a free copy. Then the only way there's any profit in games is making them either heavily DRMed or thin clients dependent on a server to play.

Re:don't forget..

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Don't be ridiculously short-sighted. In an open-source scenario as you've explained, it would be difficult to make money on the development of the game, sure. But consider that there is money to be made in the support of the product.

Just because the first guys to develop a product see no immediate profit, it doesn't mean that there can't be an entire ecosystem of support developers who make a good living helping users with the game.

Re:don't forget..

[SwedMiro]

Well...that was sort of the point of my argument. People tend to forget that the entry barrier of the games market is still there as long as marketing is a fact. We will see more of the indie-games than we used to, but the market will still be dominated by large entities that have the money to build and entertain IP:s. Your attack on copyright and "monopoly proctected sectors" is like fighting windmills. What you have to do is to start a political movement to change the system. Markets work within the institutional boarders they are given.

Re:don't forget..

[snerdy]

Theoretically, independent artists who produce high quality work will rise above the flood of mediocrity over time. Independent artists or groups of independent artists who expect to release one product and hit it big are fools and/or gamblers.

Instances we can point to where an independent artist did release one product and was immediately swept to stardom always have outstanding factors that explain their success, usually in the form of connections to industry establishment (which, arguably, makes them not independent artists).

This does mean that independent artists are fighting against the clock, assuming that everyone has a period of productivity. They're probably going to have to work harder and longer (whee!) for less near term material reward and only scant promise of eventual material reward. For this reason, we often find that independent artists who have been revealed over time to be producers of quality work also have a high degree of integrity with regard to their specialty.

Re:don't forget..

[aurispector]

Put him on commission.

One competent marketing/sales guy can put business through the roof. Hate on marketing if you like but they're responsible for putting the SHINE on that little button you just clicked.

Re:don't forget..

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

marketing costs a lot of money.

You mistake cause and effect. Marketing costs a lot of money because the large entities (try to) make it necessary.

It's actually in every big media's interest to make marketing as affordable as possible, since they pour multiple billions into marketing each year. Your saying that the interests of Big Advertising can somehow outweigh the interests of Big Movie, Big Music, Big Game, Big just about anything else? Perhaps marketing costs so much because it works so well.

drown in the flood of games that are released.

Drown in the flood of marketing by the large entities, you mean.

Small games can easily slip under the marketing flood. The real problem is that under the marketing flood, there's a flood of flash games, indie games, open source project games, etc, all equally vying for your attention, with no effective method of marketing or spreading via word of mouth. I think the OP meant what he said.

A bad game with marketing will almost always outsell a good one with no marketing.

I'm sure you're right, and that's one of the more severely damaging aspects of copyright. In a free market system with interchangeable goods there's a limit to the value of marketing; make too much and your product becomes too expensive and people buy the competition. In a monopoly system with low product fungibility the limit is simply where lost sales are not lost to competition but to unaffordability, that limit is much higher.

There are two things wrong with that argument. Firstly, there is competition in copyright systems. You can buy (or, in some cases, get legitimately for free) other products from the competitors, but you just can't get an identical product. It just means that if you want that exact work, you have to take the distribution method with it. That's all.

Secondly, see my sig. If you want competition of distribution models over the same artwork, then the creator is not going to get any money, assuming the free market works (which it does in most cases). Consumers will typically go for the cheapest distribution. The artist not making any money, will typically result in him finding something else to spend his time on, something that puts food on his table. He simply can't compete with file-sharers.

You think that lack of competition is bad with copyright, you should see it without copyright.

It's an effect that's noticable in every monopoly protected sector, from pharmaceuticals to music; more money gets spent on marketing than on the actual product.

And what about non-monopoly protected sectors? I'm pretty sure that Coca-Cola spends considerably more on advertising than it does in production, or research into new formulas, etc. It's not a monopoly, yet it still "suffers" from the same problem. It happens with most large businesses, monopoly or not.

Which is rather tragic, as it means we're getting less of what we, as a society, actually want, in exchange for more of what we don't want.

Look, nothing is stopping you from searching from behind the advertising. Advertising doesn't actually make other goods harder to get, it just promotes them into the forefront of what most people will compare when they decide to make a purchase.

I think you're blowing this all way out of proportion. There aren't mind-controlling waves emanating from advertising. If you don't look beyond advertising, it means either you're lazy, you're stupid, or you're happy enough as it is buying from whatever advertisers serve to you. If the first applies to you, it's your own damn fault. If the second applies to you, then getting rid of advertising won't help you. If the third applies to you, then you're not complaining. What's your problem?

Re:don't forget..

[pjt33]

That model works for software which companies use, because companies are willing to pay for support. Where games are concerned the user will simply bin it and play a different game.

Re:don't forget..

[AmaranthineNight]

Seems like games are the one area where there would not be much money to be gained from support either. It's not like you can sell a support contract for a game to a large company, a game tends to require much less support than most software that could be used by a business, for example. At most there will be trouble with installation or possibly crashes. I don't see how it's plausible to charge for patches since they'll be governed under the same open source license as the game, the only way to charge for one of these things is to charge an online subscription fee for multiplayer for use of the servers. Games that don't include that kind of function wont' be able to get money for the work put in. While this doesn't matter to some, the entire industry can't work this way. Unlike infrastructure software like Operating Systems, server software and even to a lesser extent web browsers and office suites, game companies can't live on support alone.

Re:don't forget..

[Dogtanian]

A bad game with marketing will almost always outsell a good one with no marketing.

I'm sure you're right, and that's one of the more severely damaging aspects of copyright. In a free market system with interchangeable goods there's a limit to the value of marketing; make too much and your product becomes too expensive and people buy the competition.

Perhaps I'm missing the point you're trying to make, but if there was no copyright protection then the "free market" would result in the cheapest price being charged by duplicators who give nothing back to the creators.

There are certainly flaws with copyright as it stands at present, and in many ways it's gone too far. However, the basic reasoning behind it is sound- ironically for the reason that many Slashdotters give when saying copying such goods isn't "theft".

Because, for most intellectual works, the marginal cost of making more copies is low to negligible without reducing the product's value *to the end user*. Yet at the same time this does nothing to address the fact that the cost of creating such information is usually non-zero and such a system guarantees *nothing* back to the creators.

I don't believe for a second that charitable or goodwill donations to the creators would be a workable substitute for the majority of situations.

If you agree that it's desirable for people to be rewarded for the effort involved in creating any intellectual work (in the broadest sense), but you dislike copyright, then you're going to have to come up with a workable alternative.

Copyright isn't perfect, but as a general principle it's probably the best workable solution to rewarding intellectual effort in the same way as more traditional forms. I'm not sure why abolishing it would improve the games market unless you think that the hobbyist-who-can-afford-to-write-a-small-game-in-their-own-time is the best model.

Re:don't forget..

[Dogtanian]

(Additional; I should have replied to this above)

It's an effect that's noticable in every monopoly protected sector, from pharmaceuticals to music; more money gets spent on marketing than on the actual product.

Much as I dislike some of the workings of the pharmaceutical industry, most such drugs would not have been developed without some sort of patent, since they're dependent on expensive development and *more expensive* testing, approval, etc.

One might argue that they were the wrong approach anyway; medicalising issues because that's where the money was.

I would accept that this is true in some cases, but not all- and since you didn't mention this, I don't believe it was the point you were making anyway.

Which is rather tragic, as it means we're getting less of what we, as a society, actually want, in exchange for more of what we don't want. Way to go, intellectual 'rights'.

Your problem is that you effectively argue for abolition of copyright and patents (as would be the result of removing the artificial "monopolies" you criticise and which these rely on) but you present no workable alternative.

And twice as tragic, as most such goods mostly sell themselves if left to do so.

Many of these "goods" wouldn't exist to sell themselves in the first place if there wasn't some form of enforced monopoly to ensure that the creator gets their due.

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

Online marketing is just not that hard or that expensive.

Small studios can (and do) still make it work. One person with some skill in game design and programming can make a living from their own wares if they are willing to do what it takes to start *ANY* small business *ANYWHERE*.

It's also important to remember that a one or two person studio takes a lot less money to survive than a 75 person behemoth. It's ok to be outsold if you are still making a decent living each year and you enjoy what you are doing.

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is, if a game is advertised through traditional channels, it's usually less appealing than it looks. With movies you could watch a trailer and get a general sense of the acting, pacing and storyline. With games, you get that but you leave out the finer aspects of game play, stability, and player interaction. The particular reason you don't see these features is that they often require a description or enumeration of the features plus actually switching from the CG videos to show gameplay footage; and most gameplay footage pales in comparison to CG because it has to run on real time (minus systems that require godly specs to run). I find that effective advertisement (at least to me) occurs through a combination of word-of-mouth and online site demos/gameplay videos/developer documentaries.

In fact, there are other aspects in which the games industry differs from Hollywood (in a good way). Big publishers lease their movies out to theaters (which can only show a few blockbusters at a time) while games simply stick to brick-and-mortar or online stores. Hollywood movies usually need large teams whereas a good game can still be done with a small team. The particular reason for this is that most movies require physical labor to setup sets or animate scenes while games simply need coders and a few graphics people. Consequently, game developers are not constrained by the man power required for the physical labor but the skills/intelligence of their team members.

I think with these differences, it's harder to lockout the smaller competition. In fact, smaller, indie teams may have an advantage in that they're agile enough to attempt novel features rather than the standard genres. In this sense, I don't think the games industry is like the movies industry because there is more opportunity and a lower overhead to competativley participate.

Re:don't forget..

[tepples]

At least our computers aren't locked down like the consoles (yet), so anyone has an opportunity to make their own games...

But the TVs are locked down. The vast majority of people who play games on a monitor big enough for four people to fit around do so on a console, not a TV. Even though PCs can easily handle four gamepads through a USB hub, they don't because end users don't want to buy a separate PC for the TV room or a separate TV for the PC room. Nor are they willing to buy $50 scan converters from, say, SewellDirect.com to convert high-definition (768p RGB) signals from a PC into standard-definition (480i composite) signals for a (paid-for) CRT SDTV. Nor are they willing to buy a LAN's worth of PCs for visiting guests to use because a PC is a lot more expensive and takes a lot more floor space than an extra game controller. This adds up to lock indies out of party games.

Re:don't forget..

[Plaid Phantom]

Okay, I'm honestly curious about this. I've heard this argument many times, and it makes complete sense in a corporate environment. However, I've yet to figure out how such support could be supplied to a computer game. Is there any history of people specifically purchasing support for a game? If a game is problematic enough to need tech support, then it needs to be put back in development.

Thinking back, I remember a 900 number for game hints in a Final Fantasy manual, but that was about it. Now, with sites like GameFAQs, the market there is gone. On the other hand, I know one or two people who buy game guides.

Re:don't forget..

[unity100]

marketing is accessible for small entities thanks to internet.

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise who you've just responded to, don't you ?

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want competition of distribution models over the same artwork, then the creator is not going to get any money, assuming the free market works (which it does in most cases).

Not true. You can get competition in the market for a single artwork, while still maintaining a form of copyright, by forcing the artist to licence the replication of the work for some fixed percentage.

It's not a perfectly free market, since the artist has a bit of an advantage over the other players (since they don't have to pay that percentage), but it's still competition.

Re:don't forget..

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Oh absolutely. Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was saying that without copyright, it wouldn't be possible. What you propose, as you said, is a form of copyright, just with mandatory licensing.

Interesting idea too, even if it isn't really in line with the free market. The free market is supposed to guarantee sellers some rights as well, like the right not to sell if they don't want to, to avoid drawing them into an inefficient, unprofitable markets at their expense. Still, tune it up a little, add a few details, and I think you have a reasonable idea there.

Re:don't forget..

[Dutch Gun]

Don't be ridiculously short-sighted. In an open-source scenario as you've explained, it would be difficult to make money on the development of the game, sure. But consider that there is money to be made in the support of the product.

"Support of the product" has long been the mantra of selling open-source business software. It has not generally, to my knowledge, been seriously proposed as a viable solution for a consumer product - an entertainment product at that - one which people tend to (for single-player games) play once and once only. The only support gamers need is when their game doesn't work. And at that point, they're probably not exactly in a mood to start handing over money to the developer.

Just because the first guys to develop a product see no immediate profit, it doesn't mean that there can't be an entire ecosystem of support developers who make a good living helping users with the game.

You're not doing a very good job of convincing anyone to develop the original game, which is, you know, the hard and expensive part...

People have talked about open-source gaming for years and years, and nothing significant has come of it. On the other hand, we have a thriving computer game industry with no less than half-a-dozen major platforms to choose from, and entire store-fulls of high-quality games. A developer may spend upwards of $50 million to develop a AAA game title, and I get to enjoy it (typically anywhere from 10 to 40 hours of gameplay) for $60. I just don't see how that's such a horrible system. If you look at it in terms of dollars-per-hour, it's one of the best entertainment values out there, which I think partially explains why the industry does well even during recessions.

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop trying to look cool.

Its embarrassing.

Re:don't forget..

[Znork]

Remove marketing and the only way people are going to hear about games is word of mouth.

I've always suspected all those gaming mags were just huge paid-for-ads...

No, seriously, and apologies for being snide, but the games industry is one of the least dependent on word of mouth. Reviews and recommendations highly sought after by consumers. Combine it with web 2.0 and you have all the marketing channels you need, but more tailored towards people finding what people want instead of telling them what you (or a few players) have.

Re:don't forget..

[Znork]

Your saying that the interests of Big Advertising can somehow outweigh

Not at all. I'm saying advertising is very effective, but most effective when you have more and better than others who are advertising.

Perhaps marketing costs so much because it works so well.

It costs so much because others advertising works so well. And vice versa. It essentially becomes a self-sustaining increasing spiral.

Firstly, there is competition in copyright systems.

Read up on the concept of monopolistic competition. The broadest kinds of competition you'll always find, but that's a far step from free market direct competition. Monopolistic competition does not lower prices or create more efficient production; it'll follow lockstep with consumer disposable income.

then the creator is not going to get any money

Not necessarily. The easiest model I usually suggest is simply levying a sales-tax off any end sales, pretty similar to the model for radio, with a cut of the proceeds from any revenue generated from duplication going directly to the creators. A model that easily bypasses the whole problem with advertising, as the maximum revenue derived in channel becomes set in competitive terms again.

It's not a monopoly, yet it still "suffers" from the same problem.

Last I checked Coca Cola was trademarked, so you may want to rethink that example. But at least trademarks don't prevent substitutes so they're not exactly that damaging.

I think you're blowing this all way out of proportion

I think you misunderstand my objection. I have nothing against marketing in itself. It's the combination with monopoly rights that I have a problem with.

If you accept the most naive explanation for copyright and patents, their sole intent is to encourage production of more useful arts and inventions. If you look at the macroeconomic effects of their implementation, their function is to take money from other places in the economy and funnel into creation and research, essentially a form of taxation and subsidizing system. That is, again, fine with me.

But then when you analyze the financial flows you realize that as much of what is essentially taxpayers money (by merit of the state legislating and enforcing the incentive system) is spent on marketing as on R&D. These systems have a stated end, and when more money goes elsewhere than towards that end it's not a good thing. In some it's merely sad, but in others like pharmaceuticals, it means our money is spent on irrelevant byproducts (hopefully people aren't getting sick from marketing, so marketing isn't what drives sales there) when the primary end goal is a very important one.

Re:don't forget..

[Znork]

Perhaps I'm missing the point you're trying to make

Sort of. I'm objecting to the particular implementation that increases the value of marketing to the disadvantage of the incentive to the creators.

then you're going to have to come up with a workable alternative.

Usually I advocate the easiest option; an end-point levy on revenue similar to what's done with radio, but over all end-sales of material. Ie, put a 25-75% 'sales tax' on books, music, games, etc, and hand that money directly to creators and artists. Let the bookstores, music shops, etc, copy for what they're worth, but the creator gets their share, effectively bypassing the whole problem area of todays system (owner-distributors-marketers-channel).

My best bet would be we'd get prices at between 10-50% of todays (indicated by subscription type systems ranging from bookclubs to emusic to radio to cable tv), with more total revenue going to creators and efficiency of transfer of spent funds increasing from 5-10% today up towards 70%.

Re:don't forget..

[Znork]

(Additional; I should have replied to this above)

Ah, missed this :)

Your problem is that you effectively argue for abolition of copyright and patents

Well, no, and I should perhaps been more clear about that, but this was more regarding marketing as it pertains to monopoly protected sectors.

I'm arguing for the abolition of the _monopoly_ aspect of copyright and patents, to be replaced with a _revenue right_ aspect for such materials.

It's the monopoly aspect that is responsible for close to every problem with both copyright and patents, while the redeeming feature is, as you say, revenue (altho a pitiful percentage of it) being directed towards desirable activity.

Re:don't forget..

[Anonymous Coward]

A bad game with marketing will almost always outsell a good one with no marketing. The almost part will always be the luck factor.

Completely true. And you'd better get my money that one time, because I'll never believe an iota of marketing from that Game Studio again. I've been so offended by over the top marketing to completely ignore any offerings from a Game Studio that promoted the bejezus out of a downright awful game.

Re:don't forget..

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

It costs so much because others advertising works so well. And vice versa. It essentially becomes a self-sustaining increasing spiral.

No-one is holding a gun to business's head, and saying "you must advertise". No-one is holding a gun to consumers and saying "you must buy advertised products". If businesses want to get ahead, they have the option of advertising. It increases their chances that a consumer will look at their product to compare. If you don't want it, or if you can't afford it, you can sell as if advertising doesn't exist, requiring your product to be lucky enough to be bought by someone who likes it. It's not a great business strategy, and it wastes a lot of potential, but you can do it. Expecting everyone else to do it, however, is unfair. If a business's customers reward them with copious amounts of money, why shouldn't they be able to use it to advertise?

Monopolistic competition does not lower prices or create more efficient production; it'll follow lockstep with consumer disposable income.

Correction: it often does not lower prices, or create more efficient production. There are exceptions. For example, how much less do you think we'd be paying if telcos weren't given a monopoly? Every telco would have to invest in its own infrastructure, god forbid they actually work together on a single infrastructure. The first one on the scene would have the infrastructure hastily built, and have the first and only infrastructure actually working, while the others decide to give up and call it a day. It seems that, in fact, the "free" market causes less competition than the "monopoly".

Similarly, copyright is also an exception. We recognise the need for individual works to compete (to keep prices low, and terms reasonable), but we also recognise that we simply don't need competing distribution systems for the same work (for obvious reasons). What you call a monopoly, is simply the bundling of a distribution system with a product. The products are generally trivial enough to survive this bundling, that is, they are non-essential enough for people to boycott the work with the distribution system. They are, after all, entertainment.

Last I checked Coca Cola was trademarked, so you may want to rethink that example. But at least trademarks don't prevent substitutes so they're not exactly that damaging.

Look, you need to be more specific with the words "monopoly". Coca-Cola does not have a monopoly on black, sugary caffeinated drinks, but it does have a "monopoly" (if you must call it that) on the name, and I believe their recipe is also a trade secret. But, as you said, this does not prevent substitutes. Do you really think it's the monopoly on the specific ingredients (down to the letter) and the monopoly on the name that is somehow causing their advertising budget to be in excess of their manufacturing costs?

But then when you analyze the financial flows you realize that as much of what is essentially taxpayers money (by merit of the state legislating and enforcing the incentive system) is spent on marketing as on R&D. These systems have a stated end, and when more money goes elsewhere than towards that end it's not a good thing. In some it's merely sad, but in others like pharmaceuticals, it means our money is spent on irrelevant byproducts (hopefully people aren't getting sick from marketing, so marketing isn't what drives sales there) when the primary end goal is a very important one.

Hold up. Yes the state legislated, but the state does not enforce. Copyright, trademark, and patent infringement are all civil matters. The court costs must be paid by private parties, not the state. The only thing that has a cost is the patent system, in terms of instituting a system that requires regular maintenance, but with a few grand for every patent, I think we can cover costs effectively.

Besides, looking at these money flows are deceptive

News, indeed!

[macraig]

I was comparing the two more than a decade ago, and discussing it with friends who agreed. The parallels are, dare I suggest it, obvious.

The title does not match the summary

[trifish]

Or does the author of the submission assume that game developer = game publisher?

Words of hope from Techdirt's New Year '09 Address

[D4C5CE]

Mark Masnick, On Staying Happy:

Incumbent short-sighted players have been able to hinder and harm progress, but they can't keep it down completely. That culture of improvement can't be stopped entirely.

[...] often [...] the innovators of yesterday seek to stop the innovators of tomorrow, but the march of innovation hasn't been stopped yet.

This isn't technology

[Anonymous Coward]

This is administration or politics. What is it doing on Slashdot?

Re:This isn't technology

[MrNaz]

What, an article on the games industry is out of place on http://games.slashdot.org/ ? Personally, I think you're out of place anywhere that's not an institution for the handicapped.

Yes

[sortius_nod]

Wait, sorry, was I supposed to answer the headline or read the submission?

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Not really opposite

[iamdrscience]

I don't think those two articles are really pointing out opposite trends at all. The CNet article claims the market at large is consolidating into fewer major studios, and the Gamasutra article claims new opportunities for independent studios. These conditions can exist concurrently and in fact do now exist in the movie industry. The majority of the film market is produced by major studios but film-making is still becoming increasingly attractive for independents.

The diffence is that in the movie industry, independents have thrived because of the decreased barrier-of-entry (film-making is now potentially cheaper than ever before) whereas a growth in independent game studios will, I think, come mostly from growth in the gaming market.

Yes they're the same

[thetoadwarrior]

Yes, both think more of themselves than the should, the love sequels and remakes and hate innovation and thought in their stories.

Some big differences.

[EWAdams]

Hollywood can sell the same content six times (cinema, pay-per-view, pay cable, free cable, terrestrial broadcast, DVD -- not to mention airline sales, overseas licensing, etc.). Videogames only run on the machine(s) they're made for.

Movies can continue to be shown for decades. With a tiny number of exceptions, a game is dead meat within a year.

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

Filmmaking is very nearly turnkey if it doesn't require special effects. Every game is a unique piece of software engineering.

A big film is 3 hours tops. A big game is 40-50 hours. That's a lot more content.

The economics of the two are very different, and the production models can never be the same.

Re:Some big differences.

[91degrees]

Hollywood makes movies for the big screen and DVD. The others are just extra perks.

Movies make the vast bulk of their money in the first year.

The general public isn't as concerned about movie stars as they once were.

Games really aren't that unique in terms of software engineering - I'd expect a rigger has a comparable level of technical skill to a software developer.

Re:Some big differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd expect a rigger has a comparable level of technical skill to a software developer.

I don't see what the color of anybody's skin has to do with this.

Re:Some big differences.

[VinylRecords]

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

Whoah whoah whoah...I think we all remember when John Romero was going to "make us his bitch!" with Daikatana.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana#Controversy

Suck It Down /.

Re:Some big differences.

[jesperhh]

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

One word: Blizzard

Re:Some big differences.

[iamdrscience]

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

Most people don't care which studios make a movie either. Games have stars just the same as movies. Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft, etc., they're all stars as well as characters that fall in from other media -- Star Wars comes to mind. Similarly they have behind-the-scenes "stars" as well, instead of well-known directors there are well-known game designers who add a cachet to their productions (Will Wright, Sid Meier, etc.).

Re:Some big differences.

[91degrees]

Learn to read! I was talking about those mechanical things that dig holes!

Re:Some big differences.

[Stormwatch]

Whoah whoah whoah...I think we all remember when John Romero was going to "make us his bitch!" with Daikatana.

My take on it. (I showed it to Romero, he thought it was funny.)

Re:Some big differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood can sell the same content six times (cinema, pay-per-view, pay cable, free cable, terrestrial broadcast, DVD -- not to mention airline sales, overseas licensing, etc.).

Oh, they can sell it more than that. Don't forget remakes.

Re:Some big differences.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Brad Pitt!

This is fun! OK, now I'll name one, and you match it with another big name in the Games Industry.

Angelina Jolie! ...

*crickets*

Re:Some big differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another big difference: with movies, at least when they show in cinemas, your choice is severely limited. Unless you live in a very large town, the number of cinemas where you live is going to be pretty small, and the same thus goes for the number of movies you'll be able to watch there.

Have you ever heard about an interesting movie being shown at $RANDOM_INDY_FILM_FESTIVAL and thinking "I'd like to see that", only to find no cinema near you will actually show it? I certainly have.

Games are different. When a new game comes out, no matter how obscure the developer is, I'll have no problem getting and playing it (as long as it's released for my platform, but that's a different matter).

Re:Some big differences.

[Team503]

And I'm not a gamer at all, but it's worth pointing out I'll buy literally anything BioWare makes without question because I was so impressed by KOTOR 1 and 2, and I'll be signing up for my first MMO with TOR from BioWare. Unless the Stargate MMO comes out first. Because I 3 snarky Colonel O'Neill.

Re:Some big differences.

[drinkypoo]

Hollywood can sell the same content six times (cinema, pay-per-view, pay cable, free cable, terrestrial broadcast, DVD -- not to mention airline sales, overseas licensing, etc.). Videogames only run on the machine(s) they're made for.

Counterexample: Game ports

Movies can continue to be shown for decades. With a tiny number of exceptions, a game is dead meat within a year.

Counterexample: Classic downloadable, purchasable games on Wii on Xbox 360. Also, games sell for much more than movies, another rebuttal to your objection.

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

Counterexample: Romero, Carmack. Over 70% of the US public plays video games now. This is thus changing.

Filmmaking is very nearly turnkey if it doesn't require special effects. Every game is a unique piece of software engineering.

Counterexample: Movies are made. Often a game uses the same engine as a previous game (MANY examples, too many to list) and thus only content need be authored. Many games have no acting whatsoever.

A big film is 3 hours tops. A big game is 40-50 hours. That's a lot more content.

Counterexample: repetitious hallways in Halo

The economics of the two are very different, and the production models can never be the same.

The economics of many things which have similar production models are very different.

You are just typing to see yourself do it. Too bad you're all wrong.

Re:Some big differences.

[level99]

How are you not a gamer? If you buy games, and play them, you play games. That makes you a gamer. The whole "gamer" label is not a term used to describe fanbois, sad basement dwellers or the like.

Do you listen to music? Do you watch movies? Do you watch television? Do you browse the Internet? Entertainment. And so is gaming. For some reason we just feel the need to label the later. It's almost racism. :)

Re:Some big differences.

[LordNimon]

No kidding. First he says he's not a gamer, but then he uses gaming acronyms, tells us he's a fan of a particular game studio, and then lists a bunch of RPGs that he's played.

Re:Some big differences.

[Team503]

I listen to music, and I play it, thus I am a musician. Also a music geek.

I watch movies. I am NOT a "movie guy" or a "movie afficiando" or a "movie snob."

I work in IT, and thus am a geek. Just browsing the web doesn't make me a geek.

My sister drives a car, but that doesn't make her a gearhead or mechanic. I read car magazines regularly, participate in forums online about cars, and do a bit of work on my own. Thus, I am a gearhead, and she is not.

When I say "gamer", I do not mean just "a person who plays video games." I mean "a person for whom playing video games and participating in the associated subculture is a significant hobby." You know - I play an occasional game, but I am not a gamer. My roommate is a gamer - he subscribes to EGM, reads IGN regularly, and spends hours a day gaming almost every day. He can tell you things like what cool new game is coming out, or what spiffy technology is behind it, or what the cheat codes for GTA4 are off the top of his head.

So, while your polite and well-meaning comment is understood, you're taking it the wrong way. The term gamer isn't used in a derogatory manner, at least that I know of. Human beings categorize things to make them easier to understand. As intelligent (I hope) /.ers, we are aware that each individual is unique and blah blah blah, but we are still going to categorize. It's the way our minds work.

If you don't like the term, try and start a new one. However, it's fitting and apt, thus I think you're out of luck. After all, no matter what you do, "fetch" isn't going to happen.




PS - Listing two games I've played in the last 6 years hardly qualifies as a "bunch." And I pick up on things because I'm not an idiot and I have a gamer for a roommate.

Re:Some big differences.

[tepples]

Want names? Nobuo Uematsu (to meet your John Williams). Shigeru Miyamoto. Masahiro Sakurai. David Crane. Gabe Newell. The entire staff of Id at one point. Activision before Bruce Davis used to feature the name of the lead on games' box art: see River Raid by Carol Shaw.

Re:Some big differences.

[tepples]

Counterexample: Game ports

There is next to zero effort in porting a movie to a new environment: all you have to do is take the original DVCPRO (etc) master that was transcoded into DVD and pipe that through another encoder, and possibly bleep swear words if you're targeting an FCC-controlled or advertiser-controlled environment. Games, on the other hand, may need a complete rewrite: a game might have been written in C++, but one target platform can run only Objective-C, another only ActionScript and other SWF languages, another only Java and other JVM languages, and another only C# and other CLR languages.

Re:Some big differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Movies can continue to be shown for decades. With a tiny number of exceptions, a game is dead meat within a year.

Maybe it's just because I'm old, but my favorite games are the ones I played with my best friends in high school. I'll take FFVII, Resident Evil, Goldeneye, Red Alert, or Silent Hill over any of the new flashy games out now.

The classics will always be, well, classic. I doubt people will ever stop playing Super Mario Brothers, just like I doubt people will ever stop watching Indiana Jones. (at least not for a few more decades)

Re:Some big differences.

[William Baric]

All your points are wrong.

Game publishers can also resell the same game many times. I bought some games from retail stores, some from online distribution, I got some packaged with hardware, some with magazines, I even got a few with cereal boxes!

I regularly play games which are 5 to 25 years old. I bought several games from GoG. There are still a lot of people playing pac-man. Anyway, there is only a handful of movie which can be shown for decades.

I don't care that much about stars in a movie. What will draw me to see a movie is mainly word of mouth. For example, I just watched Shaolin Soccer even if I never heard of Stephen Chow before. It's true that if I like something I might be tempted to seek other productions from the same person, but the same is true for video games. Warren Spector, Ken Levine, Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto as well as a lot of others are stars. Most people don't know those names simply because video games are too new from a cultural point of view. As video games will become more known, the general public will begin to care too about those names.

A lot of games doesn't require much programming skills. Making an adventure game requires more writing and artistic skills than programming skills. Also, a lot of games are made with licensed engines. If you look at the modern AAA title, there are a few programmers and a lot of artists. Anyway, movies are not just a cameraman and a bunch of actors. There are more technical people than actors for the production of a movie.

Very few games have more than 3 hours of content. What video games do is simply repetition. You do the same thing over and over. It's true it makes video games more akin to mini series than movie, but I believe the next step of casual gaming will be shorter version of what we call now "hardcore" game.

The economics of the two are very similar.

Re:Some big differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Brad Pitt!

This is fun! OK, now I'll name one, and you match it with another big name in the Games Industry.

Angelina Jolie! ...

*crickets*

Will Wright.

Sid Meyers.

Re:Some big differences.

[drinkypoo]

There is next to zero effort in porting a movie to a new environment

Massive FAIL. There is next to zero effort in doing a shitty transfer (hint: it's not a port, and trying to make it one won't make it true) from the masters to a new form of media. Just as there is next to zero effort (on a reasonable difficulty scale) to do a shitty game port, if the game engine was designed for portability in the first place. In some cases, like when the PS2 or PS3 is involved, the bar is very high. Luckily it is totally unnecessary to support a Sony console at this stage - Microsoft and Nintendo are both completely viable alternatives. There's plenty of audience either way; one console is powerful, the other is the most popular.

On the other hand, if you want to do a quality transfer, it's actually not all that easy. Witness the difference between a regular and criterion collection edition of, well, just about anything. One excellent example is The Seven Samurai, but frankly you can see the difference in pretty much anything remastered by the masters. As it turns out, most movies are poorly mastered to begin with. At least there's a parallel here - most games have a crappy story and shitty execution, just like what we get with most movies.

Games, on the other hand, may need a complete rewrite

If you design games intelligently, this is not true. And if you design a game engine and the content creation tools intelligently, they can be used on multiple games. In fact, this is SOP in the industry - a game engine is rarely used once, and even if it is, it's carved up and pieces of it appear in other games. It's called "code reuse", perhaps you've heard of it. You can rarely take advantage of this effect in cinema; while some practical effects footage can possibly be reused between films, in actual practice it's typically shot for the situation. Sometimes television shows get to reuse video footage from other related series; we've seen this happen in the Star Trek universe and between Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis.

Even if you don't design games intelligently, if your content is designed intelligently then you still don't have to recreate the entire game, just the game engine.

If you don't create the game code and game media in such a way that they are designed to be portable, then you're an idiot anyway, and you don't deserve any fucking tears. What fucking year is this, anyway?

Re:Some big differences.

[tepples]

There is next to zero effort in porting a movie to a new environment

Massive FAIL. There is next to zero effort in doing a shitty transfer

I apologize for not knowing about the existence of poor transfers.

Games, on the other hand, may need a complete rewrite

If you design games intelligently, this is not true.

Platform A can run only JVM bytecode. Platform B can run only CLR bytecode. Platform C can run only ActionScript bytecode. Platform D can run only ARM machine code, and the distribution license forbids implementing a virtual machine. If I want to make a game with the same physics and rules on all four platforms, even if the input and output are highly platform-specific, in what language should I implement the physics and rules so that they are portable across the platforms?

Hardly surprising...

[jonwil]

Given that one of the largest studios in the industry, Activision Blizzard is owned by Vivendi Universal (one of the largest media companies on earth and, last I checked, owner of Universal Studios, one of the largest film production/distribution companies on earth)

Also, we have Sony who seem to have their fingers in media of all sorts (including games) AND the devices to play it back on.

EA arent a film studio (FMVs for Red Alert 3 not withstanding) but they act just like one.

Mouse Trap.

[Samschnooks]

I like to point out to engineers who have the attitude that if you build a better mouse trap, the World will beat a path to your door, how will the World know about your mousetrap?

Marketing baby!

hers's the problem with this

[DragonTHC]

developers != publishers

publishers are 9 times out of 10 owned by larger media conglomerates.

the few who aren't, have abandoned the art.

Re:hers's the problem with this

[Scrameustache]

developers != publishers

Came here to say that, but in defense of their confusion: most publishers also do in-house developing.

Still, publisher is not a synonym for developer!

demolishing each point to oblivion

[Scrameustache]

Hollywood can sell the same content six times (cinema, pay-per-view, pay cable, free cable, terrestrial broadcast, DVD -- not to mention airline sales, overseas licensing, etc.). Videogames only run on the machine(s) they're made for.

You haven't been on the online marketplaces lately huh?
Seems like every time I show up at my buddy's house he's playing a 15 year old game on his 1 year old Wii.

Movies can continue to be shown for decades. With a tiny number of exceptions, a game is dead meat within a year.

Only a tiny fraction of 1% of movies are in theatre for longer than two months.
How long has WoW been sold?

Movies have star power. The general public doesn't care who made the game.

Games have star power. Star voice actors, their likeness, and Spore sold mostly based on the big name of the man who made the Sims.

Filmmaking is very nearly turnkey if it doesn't require special effects. Every game is a unique piece of software engineering.

Reusing the same engine and concept is a videogame tradition.

A big film is 3 hours tops. A big game is 40-50 hours. That's a lot more content.

You haven't been looking at the bonus material, huh?

The economics of the two are very different, and the production models can never be the same.

The economics are nearly identical.

Re:demolishing each point to oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been looking at the bonus material, huh?

Surely you jest.

Business 101 = consolidation. Game business is

[Anonymous Coward]

the same as any other big business.

Automotive started with 100's of small companies 1890-1910. Soon there was a handful. Then just 'Three', then a global handful. Soon to be a few again.

Game development takes a lot of resources over an extended time to produce content. Somewhere that cash has to be available to fund those resources.

So most games will be produced by large production houses; who will be in constant consolidation.

(On the star-comment, look at the Lara Croft series.. reversed direction of star power.)

But it doesn't need to be this way. The internet, with open source routines, can ruin the consolidation movement. If a lot of small developers re-use open code for most of the heavy lifting (essentially trading or bartering work) then small developers can compete and expand. Look at the music industry too, don't need record labels to publish.

A little cash and a lot of passion and organization has created success with Ubuntu - that has major OEM's pre-installing on hardware now. A different model that seems to be working.
 

Writing a terrible wrong

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

This is great news. The puritanical and backwards thinking of the W years has hurt America while other countries not hindered by superstition have moved ahead to become leaders in this field.

No wonder America has lost it's edge.Maybe we can get back to the godless heathen science that made us so great.

Re:Writing a terrible wrong

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Please mod to -1. Offtopic for this thread (post error)

huh?

[burris]

Game publishers are becoming just like the movie studios.... except aren't the movie studios supposed to be dinosaurs from a bygone age, their empires being slowly chipped away as they fail to adapt to the new reality of cheap distribution, mainly because they dare not slight the theaters or WalMart? Does this mean the age of epic scale games with budgets in the tens of millions is coming to a close as indie developers buck the system by distributing their own games while pirates sap the publishers remaining profits?

Film at 11?

Re:huh?

[Microlith]

Pirates will sap the Indie developer's profits as well, once all the studios currently active producing good games give up the ghost.

Especially if the Slashdot dream of pirate distribution replacing paid distribution completely comes true. No better way to compensate developers than to screw them over completely, that's the Slashdot anti-copyright way!

No, you're wrong and just being argumentative.

[EWAdams]

You're carefully choosing what appear to be exceptions but aren't on closer examination. You're just being argumentative.

Your buddy's 15-year-old game had to be rewritten for the Wii. The director, actors, editors, etc. have to do NOTHING to take a movie to another medium. Yeah, you can use a emulator -- but how many real people, i.e. Wal-Mart shoppers, use emulators?

When a movie leaves a cinema, then its REAL economic life begins. When a game leaves the shops, it's done. And don't even think of comparing WoW to a movie. Their economics are completely different, as I said. Do you pay to see the same movie monthly (jokes about the Friday the 13th series aside)? No, you don't. Does a movie require a huge live team to be working all the time to be generating new content? No, it doesn't. They are entirely different. Casablanca continues to make money for Warner Brothers without them doing anything at all.

Star power: you're gonna compare Will Wright to Angelina Jolie, are you? If you think that's star power, you're severely deluded. Will Wright will be lucky to earn over his lifetime what Angelina Jolie can earn in a single movie. She's a star. He's a well-respected game designer.

Reusing a game engine and concept doesn't change the fact that every game is a unique piece of software engineering. Does a movie have to be tested for months by dozens of people to make sure it works in the projector? No. Either you don't know anything about software engineering or you're pretending, quite successfully, to be stupid.

40-50 hours of bonus material with a movie? Not in any cinema I've been to. When I buy a game, that's what comes IN the game.

The economics are NOT nearly identical. Not in what people are paid, not in how long they work, not in what gear is required and how it is used, not in how games are sold, not in how they are marketed, not in how they are financed, not in how they are licensed, not in how the accounting is done. Movies routinely cost tens of millions of dollars -- a $25 million movie is a cheap movie. A $25 million game is an expensive game.

You really don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I have a feeling you're not in the game industry at all.

Re:No, you're wrong and just being argumentative.

[Yosho]

Your buddy's 15-year-old game had to be rewritten for the Wii. The director, actors, editors, etc. have to do NOTHING to take a movie to another medium. Yeah, you can use a emulator -- but how many real people, i.e. Wal-Mart shoppers, use emulators?

Just thought I'd point out that, no, it wasn't rewritten. All those games on the Wii's Virtual Console are running in emulators. Do you honestly think they would go through and rewrite every single one of those games, even going so far as to reproduce the original glitches? You can also buy & download games for the original Xbox and Playstation over Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, too. If those Wal-mart shoppers have a current-gen system and have bought downloadable games, then yes, they're using emulators.

Don't count on indie developers !

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, indie developers aren't innovative either ! Indie developers chase the mythical 'casual' audience. They seldom release something that's not a simple arcade game or a platformer. In particular, there are virtually no turn-based strategy games, multiplayer games, or rpg games. Most indie FPS are clones of Quake 1 or some other popular game like Tribes. Currently the trend in indie gaming is 'physics', especially construction games. They're all basically the same game in different clotching, be it Line Rider, Crayon Physics, Phun or World of Goo. There are also Guitar Hero clones, Audiosurf clones... clones of clones...

b0rsuk

Re:Don't count on indie developers !

[Willy Wong]

I was thinking about MMORPGS a while back and how crap they are. The combat consists of point and click, and that's pretty boring. I'm surprised no one has tried using turn based game MMORPGSs instead. I used to play a game called incubation over the Internet (it was a single player turn based game with online multiplayer). Something like that within an MMORPG would be great.

Re:Don't count on indie developers !

[Anonymous Coward]

yes there are turn based strategy game from indie devs:
http://www.positech.co.uk/
and RPG games like Aveyond and Cute Knight
Not all indie devs are casual devs. There is a big difference

See my replies to your bedfellow.

[EWAdams]

Your counterexamples are too insignificant to refute the general principle: the economics of games and movies are very different. Repetitive hallways in Halo don't change that basic fact.

Go down to Main Street and ask how many people have heard of George Clooney. Then ask how many people have heard of Carmack. Then go away. Only fanboys and industry veterans have heard of Carmack.

The economics of many things which have similar production models are very different.

Um... did you ever take any classes in logic? This has exactly what to do with my point?

Once again, I suspect I'm dealing with a person who either isn't in the game industry or hasn't been there very long.

Re:See my replies to your bedfellow.

[drinkypoo]

Your counterexamples are too insignificant to refute the general principle: the economics of games and movies are very different. Repetitive hallways in Halo don't change that basic fact.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to color it all in for you, but here goes. First, you are making broad generalizations about games. Some games which are very easy to put together still sell for as much as games costing an order of magnitude more to develop. Think puzzle games, for example.

Second, as games have become more popular it has become possible to take advantage of economies of scale in much the same way you do in movies and television, and this trend will only continue as the tools for making games mature to the extent that the tools for making movies have. For example, when you make two related television shows at the same time you can reuse certain set elements and effects shots to make both shows cheaper; the same thing is becoming true for games. It will only become more true as the environments in which the games are set become more realistic; the time necessary to create such a scene will motivate developers to make them (more) reusable.

Third, gamers have always cared about the people who make the games. Video games are becoming more of a factor in American culture. Give it some time.

Once again, I suspect I'm dealing with a person who either isn't in the game industry or hasn't been there very long.

My basic premise is that the game industry is going to change as the amount of money changes - which it's doing already. If you want to make assumptions about something which is irrelevant anyway, go ahead; it won't change the fact that the video game industry is on the rise, and hollywood is waning. Technology is transformative and only some of the classical assumptions about the industry are going to continue to be valid "in the mysterious future".

Oh, THAT crap.

[EWAdams]

He didn't say what 15-year-old game he was talking about. Fine -- there are emulators on the Wii. It doesn't change the basic point that the game industry's economics and the movie industry's economics are not remotely like each other.

When it takes as much money to make a big game as a big movie, and that game earns for the next 50 years, then they'll start to have something in common.

Sleep with a producer to get onto a console?

[tepples]

If the gaming industry was like Hollywood, you would have to sleep with some producer, just to get your foot in the door.

It almost is that way with the console makers. They have historically cared more about the trappings of a business than about the product. Nintendo in particular states on warioworld.com that it still requires the Wii and DS devkits to be kept in leased office space, not a home office. If your team isn't rich enough to relocate to one location and set up an office, you're restricted to PCs running Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The big drawback of PCs is that the screens hooked up to those usually aren't big enough for four people to fit around; unlike consoles, most people don't have a PC next to the TV.

Vivendi sold most of Universal

[tepples]

Given that one of the largest studios in the industry, Activision Blizzard is owned by Vivendi Universal (one of the largest media companies on earth and, last I checked, owner of Universal Studios, one of the largest film production/distribution companies on earth)

Vivendi sold an 80 percent stake in Universal Studios to General Electric's NBC in 2004 but kept Universal Music Group.

Region coding is exactly the same

[tepples]

Games are different. When a new game comes out, no matter how obscure the developer is, I'll have no problem getting and playing it (as long as it's released for my platform, but that's a different matter).

Unless it's region coded to the USA and you live in the UK or vice versa; that would be the closest to your "no cinema near you" situation.

Other situations that hurt obscure developers: It doesn't come out at all because the company holding the digital signing key to the platform rejects all titles produced with clever workarounds for a shoestring budget. (I'm looking at you, Nintendo, and your ban on home offices.) Or unless the platform that it does come out on isn't very popular. For example, a game designed for the Pandora handheld system won't sell because there probably won't even be 10,000 Pandora systems produced, and indie PC games in the "party" genre wouldn't work well because there aren't a lot of gaming PCs connected to a TV-size monitor.

CORRECTION

[tepples]

on a console, not a TV

should have been "on a console, not a PC running Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X"

Free game engines with proprietary all-but-engine

[tepples]

Unless the support consists of "expansion packs", or additional games that run on the same engine. Look at Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels: it's the same game as Super Mario Bros., just with different maps. With an appropriate scripting system, it's possible to make a Free engine designed for proprietary everything-but-the-engine, and some games recommended by the FSF use this approach.

Guide to starting a business?

[tepples]

Anonymous Coward wrote:

One person with some skill in game design and programming can make a living from their own wares if they are willing to do what it takes to start *ANY* small business *ANYWHERE*.

Can anybody recommend a good guide to starting a software development business and growing it past the home office stage? In particular, Nintendo platforms require developers to keep devkits in a separate office.

what manual, booklet ?

[unity100]

bullshit. i havent read 3 manuals or booklets since 1986. if a game requires extensive booklet/manual reading, it means that it has failed in terms of user friendliness.

if i need ANYthing, i resort to online forums, communities, guilds. it is high chance that someone had exactly the same problem with me before. i dont have time to waste while solving/learning specific stuff through an arduous booklet.

yes its a fucking great way to buy a game. i dont waste gas, i dont waste time, im with my family, in my pajamas. yea. people can shove physical media up their butt all they way to their neck. no offense.

Re:what manual, booklet ?

[bami]

Then you're not buying the right games.

Game booklets used to be tons of fun, with of course the general controls in it, but also lots of trivia, back story and other stuff.

For example, take Age of Empires, it includes:
* A CD-ROM with the actual game.
* a 3 A4 sheet fold-out with stats of various units on one side, a complete tech tree on the other.
* a huge book with of course install instructions, game play tips and other hints, a complete back story of each civilisation in the game, really detailled information about stuff in the game, tactics.

And some other things I've lost over the years.

Age of Empires wasn't an exception though, I remember Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis containing both a CD-ROM with the game, as well as 9 floppy disks with the game, a user manual, a really thourough walkthrough, a poster and some other goodies.

Of course, you can't fit loads of crap anymore in these tiny dvd-cases, but I find booklets and stuff always expand game experience. I never knew about certain types of station building in Transport Tycoon without one for example.

Re:what manual, booklet ?

[unity100]

Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, Assasin's Creed, World of Warcraft, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Age of Conan, Spore, Medieval II Total War, Diablo II, Lord of the Rings Online, Ilyushin 2 Sturmovik, Colonization II, Patrician III ....

these are just the boxes i see when i turn 70 degrees to my left. and i didnt read manuals of any of those.

so these arent the right games. but, age of empires with its something-inch units poster is ?

Re:what manual, booklet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you're missing out. Some games come with very nice booklets that go in-depth into the universe of the game and set the tone to help place the player into the role. I still remember many of the Sierra games coming with fake magazines or comics, Wing Commander came with a "Claw Marks" magazine for starpilots, Star Control 2 came with a full Hyperspace map, Mechwarrior 2 had a very nice clanner's handbook, Morrowind came with a full size map and GTA SA came in a hardcover "city guide" booklet to name a few.

Also having a manual that details information for the game is in no way a failure. Some games require more than button mashing or "A for jump, B for fire". Maybe you just play the simple ones. From the sounds of it, you've probably never even read a book. Try it some time, you might enjoy it.

I don't waste gas either. I walk, bike or hop on the metro to the shop. A peripheral benefit to this is I get to see the sun and socialise with people while I'm out.

If you enjoy having a company control what you do and getting only the software, then by all means continue to get your crippled digital media. I want the real deal with everything that it is supposed to come with and without the hassle of tying up my bandwidth, which I need for work, for hours downloading a video game.

Re:what manual, booklet ?

[unity100]

gaining 3-6% more from gameplay through reading a full booklet in an hour is waste.

i'd rather live the universe than read about it. the universe should guide me and let me play itself.

i dont want to walk bike or hop on the metro to the shop. i can use my time to do other things which i can get more out of, and not peripheral too.

yea. alright.

[unity100]

grab and go. easy. and ONE problem comes up with your fuckiing cd, a dent, a scratch, even some incompatibility with your particular dvd/cd reader and that cd they printed, you drive back to the fucking store.

with the download, if i have to redownload, computer does it itself. i can spare that time to other things.

Re:yea. alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never experience any of that. Even my oldest CD-ROMs dating back to the very first DOS based CD-ROM media still works just fine. However, in the highly unlikely chance that I buy a defective disc one day, I won't mind the extra trip back to the store. I would still get to the store, have the game replaced and be back home playing the game before you were anywhere near finished with your download.

Perhaps if you treated your discs better you wouldn't have any of those problems.

Here are some tips:
1) When you are finished using a disc, put it back into its case. Simple.
2) Do NOT use a power sander on your disc. Tricky one, I know.
3) Last, but not least, make sure you get the correct disc for your operating system. Don't feel bad, a lot of computer novices make the mistake of buying a Macintosh disc when they needed a Windows disc and vice-versa. You'll learn in time.

Re:yea. alright.

[p0tat03]

I wish I had mod points. I've had some console DVDs scratch on me, and it's always a pain. With Steam I never have to worry about the longevity of the physical media. I can burn it to a disc, or put it on a USB drive, or do anything with it that has a helluva better chance of being there in 5 years than a frigging disc.

Re:yea. alright.

[unity100]

then you are not buying as many games as many people do. i had a lot of disk issues. and disk issues, as you seem to be not aware due to inexperience with them, are not limited to 'scratching' due to 'bad treatment'. you buy your cd, open your box at home, shove the cd/dvd into the drive, only to see it attempt to read it millions of times to fail in the end. reason ? your cd drive and what printed that cd has incompatibility. be it alignment, be it some other thing.

Re:yea. alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, never happened and I own hundreds of games on discs that span back the past 20 years.

It must either be your fault or you are just making this all up.

Re:yea. alright.

[unity100]

yea me and at least one other participant in this discussion are making it up. and you on the other hand, bought hundreds of games and never experienced it in the last 20 years.

Re:yea. alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is correct. Not a single one of my discs has ever arrived or gone bad.

None of my friends has ever received a disc that was bad, although some of them may have damaged discs due to their own failure to take care of them.

The other person has discs that were damaged by themself, not discs that came damaged/defective. Since you lied about that, it leads to the conclusion that you have been simply lying to further your weak argument of "bad media".

Re:yea. alright.

[unity100]

yes me and the other person are LYING, but you, who have jumped from rationale to accusing the opposing argument holder as being LYING in just 3 posts, have not experienced this ever. and your FRIENDS - that's noticeable, NONE of your friends actually, have experienced that.

and not so surprisingly, you are posting anonymous.

dont excuse me. you're full of shit. i leave you to your scratchless friend circle to drivel and get the hell outta this conversation.

Re:yea. alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never accused the other poster of lying, since it's believable that they could have scratched their own game discs.

You, on the other hand, are likely lying. You misrepresented (lied) about what another poster said in an attempt to bolster your own argument. That doesn't do much for what little credibility your argument had in the first place. I'm sorry if I don't believe that game companies are so irresponsible that they ship any significant amount of damaged physical media. I have never been victim to this, nor have any of my game playing friends.

By the way, when I say "friends", I mean real, pick-up-the-phone-and-call friends that I actually physically hang out with on a regular basis. I don't mean whatever instant messenger/web forum loose definition of "friend" that you obviously mean. I may only have a couple dozen friends, but I have always chosen quality over quantity anyhow.

You're rather anonymous too "unity100". I merely can't be bothered to create an account on every random web forum that I read. Would you feel better if I had some meaningless handle/number combination for a name like the 10 million other kiddies roaming around the "intarwebz"?

See ya around Mr. Public Identity Non-Liar.

Re:yea. alright.

[unity100]

AAAAlllright buddy AAAlright. take a chill pill. i have made a lot of profit from lying to you in this generic discussion. now i have to go and cash in my winnings.

Inde Game Resources

[witherstaff]

Everyone interested in indie games should sign up to computer graphics world and Game Developer mag. They give away subscriptions if you're a developer. You know, basically anyone who fills out their form. Their online articles are decent too.

One of the best features of Game Developer is the postmortem, the what went right, what went wrong. Fascinating stuff about the industry for an indie publisher or an outsider to read.

The Indie Games show off some of the best out there.

While there are some very good indie works out there it is like the movies. You can tell the difference between a hollywood movie and a indie film, just like a AAA game title and an indie title. Although there are enough gems in both indie movements to make it interesting.

Steam?-Truths.

[Ostracus]

"This is an oft-repeated statement with little proof behind it, but lets assume it is true"

The same could be said of piracy's "But I'll pay for it...eventually" so I guess we take our truths were we can.

Re:Business 101 = consolidation. Game business is

[westlake]

If a lot of small developers re-use open code for most of the heavy lifting

The geek sees everything as code.

Rapture must first be imagined before it can be built. The "heavy lifting" has nothing to do with how to animate water.

It has to do what role water will play in the game.

That is why the underworld of Grim Fandango seems more real and compelling than the generic fantasy lands of the high tech shooter or RPG.

STFU

[Scrameustache]

Your buddy's 15-year-old game had to be rewritten for the Wii.

No it did not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_emulator You clearly have no clue what you're talking about.

The director, actors, editors, etc. have to do NOTHING to take a movie to another medium.

Wrong again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remaster

Do you pay to see the same movie monthly (jokes about the Friday the 13th series aside)? No, you don't.

Cable movie channels.

Does a movie have to be tested for months by dozens of people to make sure it works

Yes it does: Focus groups.

40-50 hours of bonus material with a movie? Not in any cinema I've been to. When I buy a game, that's what comes IN the game.

The bonus material are on the DVD you buy, you imbecile.

Christ, for the last time!

[EWAdams]

The economics of the two are very similar.

How much does Will Wright get paid? How much does Will Smith get paid?

END OF DISCUSSION.

Re:Christ, for the last time!

[William Baric]

No, not end of discussion. You still don't get it. You're still wrong.

First Will Wright is the equivalent of Steven Speilberg, not Will Smith (as an actor). The equivalent of Will Smith is really Lara Croft. The fact that Lara Croft does not get paid is irrelevent. The point is that star actors are mostly about marketing. Let's be serious... Do you think Keanu Reeves deserves his salary? As an actor, absolutely not. But as a pretty face good for marketing? Sure.

If you look at games, you will see that main characters are many times what distinguish a video games from another. That's why publishers will happily spend millions to buy rights to a title. Mario, Lara Croft, Master Chief, Gordon Freeman do not get paid, but they still would cost millions to have and they still sell games. That's why both video games and movies can use the same model. No mario won't appear on the tonight show to sell a movie, but the tonight show is only a minor part of marketing which can easily be replaced with a good internet campaign.

way to kick their butts

[dafing]

I hate moaners. Have a super day.

Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Its allready gone Hollywood - Its all sequels Anybody up for EA Games Fifa 2044 - David Beckham gets his bus pass?

technological convergence too

[peter303]

The main article was about business model convergence. When I go to computer graphics conference like SIGGRAPH the two technology appear to borrow more of each other's ideas. The movie animation house are leverage the cheap and ubiquitous gamer hardware, i.e. GPUs. The gamers are employing more visual and story arts in solidifying their products.