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World of Goo Dev Wants Big Publishers To Build Indie Teams
Ron Carmel, co-founder of game developer 2D Boy, which created the indie hit World of Goo, gave a speech at Montreal International Games Summit in which he encourages large game publishers to put more time and money into smaller, indie-like teams. Quoting GameSetWatch:
"'We need a medium-sized design studio. Something that is larger than a typical indie, but has the same propensity for of talent density, focus, and risk-taking,' said Carmel, formerly an employee of major publisher Electronic Arts prior to going independent. Notably, a focus on profit must be eliminated from the equation. 'Creating this within a major developer doesn't present a problem,' said Carmel. With a budget of $1-$2 million dollars, 10 staffers could be hired to work on 'creatively ambitious and forward-thinking projects.' He likened it to the automobile industry, which alongside its mainstream consumer products works on concept cars — few of which enter production as regular models. The concept car is, said Carmel, 'a marketing expense to build your brand, and say, "Look at all the amazing things we're creating."' It also helps with recruitment. Said Carmel, 'there's no reason the larger game companies can't do that.' He also said that developers must move away from the notion that a team comprised primarily of programmers and artists can create a great work. Why do Valve's games have such amazing environments? Because, said Carmel, 'Valve has architects on staff.'"
EA just reinvented the R&D department.
Extra Credits make a compelling case
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1923-Innovation
what this guy asks, was the thing which turned gaming from an innovative field into a mass manufactory of profits for shareholders' sake, and ushered in the "SequelToGreatGame XVIII" era. and the rehash concepts.
if money is put to indie teams, those indie teams will get turned into just other manufactories for profit. and when they dont profit enough they will be shut down as divisions.
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Really? I know they have writers, artists, coders and animators but if they do have architects, i guess all those weird looking houses on TF2 maps are the reason why they hired them XD
Word of Goo was amazing, but the thing about small budget games is that you have to keep making them. You can't retire from your one hit wonder, although apparently you can segue into becoming an industry analyst.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Big publishers want devs to shut up and get back to work.
That said, many of the R&D departments at companies I've worked for are 0.56% R & 99.44% D.
Although I worked in the Advanced Development group for one company where all we did were prototypes and researchy projects. Some of them actually made it into product. I think that might be the exception though. Typically though that company bought its innovation and then we had to integrate it.
I think the lesson is: if you want to innovate, start your own company, starve for a while before you either go broke or get bought. That seems to be what World-o-Goo-guy seems to be saying too.
"With a budget of $1-$2 million dollars, 10 staffers could be hired to work on 'creatively ambitious and forward-thinking projects.'"
10 staffers that would constantly generate great game ideas that actually sell? Never going to happen, you need fresh ideas often and that takes fresh blood. What you need to do is take a page from venture capital firms: throw a little money out to anyone that come out with an idea that sounds promising.
Example: I come to you with this great game idea. You ask for a sample and I throw something together, maybe just a proof of concept. It looks promising, so you send me a money (whatever seems reasonable, between $X,XXX and $XXX,XXX) for a more polished copy. I now have a few bucks to throw around and find freelancer programmers and designers and throw money at them and come up with a decent alpha. You really like it, so you either buy the idea off me or hire me and maybe even the freelancers to continue working on the game with your professional developers. Now a real game comes out and it all started with some guy's idea.
Sure beats a dozen sequels of the same old crap.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Too bad they don't have any engineers.
*rimshot*
EA really didn't want Will Wright, Maxis and "The Sims" at first. He had to fight for it. Fortunately for teenage girls everywhere, it was a huge hit.
Spore would have been the next huge franchise, however EA got in the way and turned it into mush.
World of Goo could easily be a full franchise like The Sims, or Lemmings, but they're not going down that road, they want to innovate.
EA doesn't want to innovate, they just want "The Sims 4" now with extra add-on packs, so you can re-buy everything again.
Gives me $1-2 M and I'm pretty confident I'll create something as good, if not better than World of Goo. I already have quite a lot done, I just need financing.
It sounds like he suggesting video game companies set up their own version of Skunk Works. It sounds reasonable, really. A small team cranking out high-risk, low-cost games could make a better profit/cost ratio than a large studio. And, if they bomb a couple of times, there's relatively little profit lost. It sounds like a good way to keep people interested in a company that otherwise just pumps out one big title every year or two.
The publisher business model works the same for games and music. The game publisher is a record label, and the development houses are bands. No difference.
Is that supposed to be the punchline? Does anyone even know what an architect does?
And yes, "Systems Architect" has actually been my job title at some point in time. Possibly because I got too close to grasping exactly what a "Systems Engineer" does. (something to do with being the gap-filler in an organization, which includes unwrapping boxes, delivering stuff to customer sites, and sometimes odd programming... sometimes).
Notably, a focus on profit must be eliminated from the equation.
Right. Now to just find a business where the focus on profit has been eliminated from the equation! Oh, wait, they probably already went out of business.
It also helps with recruitment. Said Carmel, 'there's no reason the larger game companies can't do that.
So, are there really that few people who want to program video games that there needs to be an extra special super duper wiz group to entice recruits? I was under the impression that the under 25 crowd, well, kept being under 25 and still keeps wanting in to the industry, since there always appear to be an unending stream of new replacements.
I fail to see how setting up an in-house incubator is more efficient than letting a slew of hungry people in basements try to come up with something great and then funding the best of that, instead. (except for the part where they get paid to do it up front...)
Regards.
I've long thought that one day, when I get my own game startup off the ground, that I would grow the company not by throwing more manpower at games, but lots of independent, small, groups.
I've spent most of my career in tiny shops, and my limited time in larger companies (>100 people even) is that it's really impossible to properly manage everyone--you can't even know everything that's going on.
There are exceptions, of course, as some types of projects simply require numbers, but not most games, imo.
expandfairuse.org
Your efforts to get publishers to create dev teams of indie creators is like a poodle pissing itself in the face of it's masters. You are successful in spite of such anachronistic mechanisms what is your malfunction?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
sometimes you actually have to do something you don't "enjoy"
You make the same point as Anonymous Coward, to whom please see my reply. If I don't like to play first-person shooters, for example, how can I make a compelling first-person shooter? And if not first-person shooters, then which desktop-friendly genre do you recommend for a video game produced solely to pay one's proverbial dues?
I'm pretty sure most small business owners don't enjoy huge junks of the work they need to do to get their business running and then keep it running.
But as I understand it, most small business owners don't have to make and sell a completely unrelated product to prove themselves before they can make and sell a product that the business was formed to make and sell.
Who cares about the hardware reliability? You aren't selling the console.
Once the Xbox 360 had been out for a year and people had become aware of the general hardware failure indicated with three red quadrants, people started buying Wii or PLAYSTATION 3 consoles instead of Xbox 360 for greater perceived hardware reliability. These consoles have no counterpart to AppHub.
Who cares about Mac OS X [...] Who cares about "per platform"?
It's called keeping my options open. I've read horror stories about Microsoft burying the indie games in the Xbox 360 menu so that players can't find them to buy them. But if a product isn't an Xbox 360 exclusive, then even if the Xbox 360 version tanks, I can sell copies on desktop PC platforms that will take two players even if they won't easily take four. For example, every current iMac's built-in monitor is big enough for two players, one at the keyboard and one on a gamepad. Though the Mac game market is smaller than the Windows PC game market, it's also far less crowded, and being a medium-size fish in the small pond of Mac gaming could be my plan B.
of course you can. if you word it correctly while applying for the patent, you can own a genre even before it starts. saints row can happen, because gta didnt patent the genre by the way. but, some company will eventually attempt it.
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