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BioWare On Why Making a Blockbuster Game Is a Poor Goal

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do dept.

BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk spoke at the 2010 Develop Conference about the current focus within the video game industry on making huge, blockbuster titles, and why that is the wrong approach. Quoting Gamasutra's coverage: "'While blockbuster game creation is everything that most game developers working today growing up wanted to do, it's precisely the wrong thing to chase in gaming's contemporary landscape.' Risk-taking from publishers and investors has dramatically declined in recent times, the Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio-runner noted: 'As a result, innovation and creativity [are] being squeezed. Where the bottom of the market had dropped out at one point, now it’s the middle of the market has dropped out. Unless you can be in the top ten releases at one given time, it's unlikely that a triple-A game is going to make money.'" Zeschuk also commented that consoles aren't necessarily the future of game platforms, and that BioWare is experimenting with smaller scale MMO development in addition to working on their much larger upcoming Star Wars title.

5 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"small scale MMO"? Jumbo shrimp! by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Funny

    The term MMO doesn't just mean that it's multiplayer and there are lots of players, it also implies that there's a persistent world and players spend all their time in it. You can have that kind of game with as little as a few hundred players.

    It doesn't "just" mean that it's Massively Multiplayer, but it does mean that it is. Massive. And if it's not Massive, then pick a different word to describe it, you or you might as well just start speaking in your own personal lexicon, you chuwero muptard.

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  2. Re:Translation by uncledrax · · Score: 3, Funny

    No, more like 'Bioware doesn't aim to make a blockbuster game.. we've just been remaking KOTOR ever since we discovered it was a smash hit!'

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  3. Re:BioWare has thrived with "blockbuster" games by Jaysyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    I bet you are fun at parties.

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  4. Re:BioWare has thrived with "blockbuster" games by osgeek · · Score: 2, Funny

    ugh, replied to wrong post.

    40 hours of my being stupid: priceless

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  5. Re:BioWare has thrived with "blockbuster" games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Lucky Ducky!

    http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/26/tom-the-dancing-bug-4.html