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

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..

[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: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?

[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: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'.

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.

[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.

[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: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?

[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]

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