Slashdot Mirror
BioWare On Why Making a Blockbuster Game Is a Poor Goal
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.
I think it's pretty obvious that BioWare has always intended to create blockbusters. Fully voiced games, professional actors, impressive game worlds, fleshed out storyline, excellent writers... "blockbusters" are BioWares success formula, which is why I'm so surprised about Zeschucks statement.
WARNING idealism below, Do not read this post if you cannot handle it.
#1 reason = OVERHEAD
The real reason games don't make money is the behemoth corporations controlling the industry and funneling the money into the hands of the pointy haired overlords. It reminds me of an article I read about 4 years ago about how CISCO did not produce a profit that year right before I read the article outing the CEO's compensation: 690 million(Sounds pretty profitable to me, how about you?). Overhead is a made up word managers created to confuse workers and hide the FACT that all of the money is going to them and not the folks who actually create these products. I.E. Overhead = Huge salaries for management.