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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.'"
That's the main problem. He is calling for an R&D department; but it's all outsoruced to smaller companies. How do you bring all that together to help the main product?
Extra Credits make a compelling case
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1923-Innovation
And how often do we expect a team of 2 people to crank out hit games?
World of Goo may have been a "1 hit wonder" that people can't expect to retire off the earnings of .... but I don't think it's fair to try to lessen the value of what they've said/done by complaining that they haven't released more great games already?
Among other things, I really appreciated the fact that they did both a Mac and a PC version of World of Goo. I spend most of my time on a Mac these days, and it's still disappointing how often a good game title never gets a Mac port. You'd think a developer would realize that to boost sales of a game they spent (presumably) years working on, it's easier to just recompile the code for OS X and get it running well on there than to come up with a whole new idea and crank out another whole game. Mac users may only be 10-20% of the overall market (depending on which stats you use), but they're far more likely to buy YOUR game title you release for OS X than the typical Windows user is! They've got far less to choose from AND they tend to be more affluent and willing to pay for software.