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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.
This reads like 'Don't even bother trying to make games that are awesome.' They are actually trying to say, 'Don't overspend and try to make a blockbuster game just by spending money.'
It's perfectly possible to make and amazing hit game without the budget that Bioware and Square Enix put into games. Do games care about graphics and cutscenes? Yes. Do they care more about gameplay and controls? Absolutely. It's just a LOT harder to come up with good gameplay and refine the controls, so they throw money at the pretty pictures instead. It's never been a good idea, but they do it anyhow.
The #1 killer for videos games (for me) is bad controls. If controlling the character doesn't feel like an extension of myself, if the character doesn't always do what I think it'll do when I hit buttons, if the character is slow to react or I have to wait on its actions, it's absolutely killer for me. It's the reason I now rent games instead of buying.
Some of the better games, like Fallout and Resident Evil, I've never played because I felt like I was fighting the controls instead of fighting enemies. It's just not fun.
A coworker was just saying the other day that Sonic on the iPhone sucks because the controls are so bad, even though it was one of his favorite games. And that Street Fighter is amazing because the controls are perfect. Not a word about graphics or gameplay, just controls. (2 separate conversations, too, so it's not like he was comparing them.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Depends. If you see it as an investment (it costs you, and you want something back for your precious time), then it's poor value. If you see it as "play time" (you pay $50 to enjoy yourself for 40+ hours), then it's excellent value for money.
If it was that strawman, yes, that wouldn't be much information.
What he's saying is that is that of the games that try to be the biggest, baddest, most epic ever, only the top X will be making a profit at all. Most will actually make a loss.
And that is something that seems to escape most people, sad to say. From people going into making games with delusions of being paid a million like Carmack, to kiddies who think that pirating a game is some kind of act of resistance to some uber-rich fatcat who's only charging 40$ for it because of greed, to people starting some monumental epic as some mod and expecting to finish it with 5 people in a few months, to fanboys arguing that a publisher is the incarnation of pure Evil if they had an upper limit at all for budget and didn't give the team an infinite limit on money and time to produce the perfect game, to ultimately the devs end publishers who increasingly compete only in that segment. The fact that there's a finite amount of money to chase in that segment seems to be genuinely news to most people.
It's not even a matter of "get off my turf" as some other poster made it sound. We have the equivalent of, say, 90% of the car makers deciding they want to compete only at the Bugatti Veryon end of the market. Or 90% of the computer manufacturers deciding they want to make only supercomputers. Sure, it's great if you do manage to sell the next Bugatti Veryon for 1 million a pop, but there are only so many buyers who will buy at those prices. If actually all major companies, from Ford and Fiat and Volkswagen to Bugatti and Ferrari decided to make only supercars in that segment, that most _will_ make a loss. Same here. There simply isn't enough money in the market to cover the costs of _everyone_ who wants to make the next super-game.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Strange not. He is talking about the industry. He say that if you are not already here (on the bioware position), is bad strategy to move to that position, because will probably get you killed.
Lets say the bridge that companies like Bioware have crossed, has burned. Anyway, why I am saying things like this? read the article, or better, assist to these conferences for a direct version and not a second hand one *lowbrownface*
-Woof woof woof!
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.
"Bioware needs to jump ship from the cinematic epic and graphics shell game and take stock of the history behind RPG gaming."
Bioware needs to do no such thing. They are among the successful ones competing in the overcrowded £35+ game segment. Mass Effect was my least favourite Bioware game for a very long time but it was massively successful.
What they are really is saying is that unless you are as good as them, you are unlikely to make any money in the Blockbuster game segment and you might as well focus on smaller, simpler titles in the £20 range. This is clearly self-serving (they'd make more money with less competition), but it is also true and it probably would be in the interest of gamers.
There are too many games and games studios that fail and go bankrupt, striving for that epic. If they had just taken a somewhat narrower and leaner approach, they might have survived. And us consumers might have gotten a great (although less flashy) game instead of a pretty but bug ridden mess released in desperation.
So? He knows what he is talking about.
And Jade Empire WAS creative. So was KOTOR. Yes KOTOR was Baldur's gate in Space! but THAT was also creative. An RPG set in space? Unheard off!
Mass Effect married many new elements to the Baldur's Gate style RPG. Sometimes you can create something new by cobbling together old parts. Coat of many colors.
As a side note, I think some people put to much emphasis on creative. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it is good. New Coke was creative, it was new, it was different. You want a bottle?
I wish Lucasarts stopped being creative and released one of their old style games, when you knew when you saw their logo, you were in for a good time.
Same with Bioware. Dragon Age 2 not creative? Who the fuck cares. Give me more off the same.
The plot is indeed always the same. But there really aren't all that many plots that you can put into a game. Yes, I have written a story line for a RPG in which you are NOT the hero. That is creative. I think it even works and might oneday turn it into a simple game. BUT I also realise that JUST the creative bit of you not being the hero isn't enough to make it a good game.
Bioware knows that a hero needs an enemy to overcome. Because the same enemy gets boring there usually is a plot twist that reveals a darker enemy behind the original enemy. There are simple game mechanics behind most of the plots.
Just as in a porn movie, somehow people always find a reason to have sex, often with attractive people. No pizza has ever been deliverd to my door by a randy teenager. Nor have I ever had to discipline a wayward schoolgirl with melons the size of melons.
Fantasy has rules, perhaps even more so then reality.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're absolutely right of course. The question now is, what is the purpose of life? To indefinitely create more value, or to have fun and enjoy yourself?
At some point in my life I decided that life is very enjoyable without being a millionaire and that being immersed in fantastic game worlds is something I enjoy. So my equation is: enjoyment > more value than necessary.
Chrono Trigger is a really bad example of the point you are trying to make. Today it does seem like a rudimentary game, but when it was released in 1995 it was anything but. The game was released by the biggest RPG maker in the world at the time and was made by a "Dream Team" of developers, including Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball Z). The graphics, gameplay, music, and multiple endings all went way over the top of what was expected in a game. This game was designed, ground up, to be a blockbuster...and it was.
Millionaire asks Fisherman, "Why do you just sit there fishing and relaxing, making just enough to get by, when you could apply that time toward something profitable?"
Fisherman replies, "What would that get me?"
Millionaire says, "It would expand your business, bringing in even more money."
Fisherman asks, "To what end?"
Millionaire tells Fisherman, "As you bring in more money, your business expands further. Your initial time investment will bring in exponentially more value."
Fisherman prompts, "And then?"
Millionaire states, "Once your business is large enough, it can stand without you. The money you make just by having the business exist means you can just sit back and..."
Fisherman finishes, "Relax? That is what I'm doing now."
And Millionaire was enlightened.
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.