"...only deprives people of potential profits."
i.e., a livelihood. But I'm sure the makers of Titan Quest appreciate the split hairs there, even if it won't buy them a haircut.
The "family" niche = games you stick a five-year-old in front of in lieu of cartoons.
Access to an online gaming service isn't necessarily part of what makes these products attractive to parents.
Sony obviously fails to understand this market, much as they failed to understand the MMO market and let Apple waltz away with the whole music industry right under their noses.
All of the fanboy posturing in the world doesn't change the fact that the scoreboard shows Nintendo making billions from the Wii while Sony's video games unit generally dog-paddles in place form year to year.
Ok, 'ratchet and clank', and a golf and racing game....
And, of course, the 'matter of months', which is PS3's specialty.
There's a reason that nintendo makes all of the money in that niche, and there's a reason that Sony is a similarly total failure in the MMO space.
Nor is there any inherent difference to a loaf of bread in a grocery store against what it is on one's shelf. There is no magical process that happens at the register except a 'licensing' process. So unless you're some kind of latter-day Bakunin who believes that all property is a meaningless construct, it is absolutely stealing.
Nothing is "killing PC gaming".
Blizzard, Funcom, Valve, Id, Maxis/EA, Bethesda, Creative Assembly, all have a great relationship with the PC. PCs have the biggest market and the best margins.
Meanwhile, PS3 struggles to get a single quality family title on the shelves and xbox is a multi-billion sinkhole no matter how you slice it.
Less than 1/4 of the Blizzard North people with credits on "Diablo II" went to Flagship. Also, only TWO people from Blizzard North with a credit on Diablo II are working in Irvine as of the past year!
Just a few of the names who did NOT go to Flagship AND are not currently working in Irvine:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo-ii/creditshttp://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hellgate-london/credits
- Both people named as designers (Hedlund and Sexton)
- The artist who created "Diablo" (Okamura)
- The original animator of "Diablo" (Haas)
- The lead programmer (Seis)
- The entire in-game music/audio team (Stone, Petersen, Uelman)
- The character artists behind the Paladin, Sorceress, and Barbarian and countless monsters (Johnson, Dashow)
- The illustration genius behind the UI art (Boos)
- All three level designers (McAuley, Scandizzo, Wilson)
Additionally, Bill Roper never had an office at Blizzard North during the making of any of those releases - he moved soon AFTER they were released.
The idea that "Well, Hellgate was a flop, so it must have been Blizzard all along that made it..." is unfounded and stupid. The sad reality is that Blizzard North was basically cast to the wind and can never be reformed in any real way.
This is a classic example of how anonymous this talent is.
This woman's performance was probably your entertainment experience of the month, yet you wouldn't recognize her on the street, and probably never bothered to learn her name:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0283253/
We enjoy it when it is good, but never notice it when it is slightly less remarkable. Publishers and producers know this.
2008 to Sorti:
Union membership has been falling fast since the 1970s. The fact that manufacturing is less than 20% of the economy now might have something to do with that. Meanwhile, amercians voted for a GOP president 5 out of 7 times in the past 30 years - and that probably would have been higher if not for Ross Perot.
Unions don't need to be terrorized by armed thugs or latter-day Pinkertons, they just fade into irrelevance as the jobs go somewhere else or to less union-minded immigrants here.
No time machine necessary.
"The music industry, movie industry, and sports industry, among others, have gone through the same dynamic"
I really don't agree - the talent in games is really anonymous and interchangeable compared to all of the above. The stars are the AAA studios and the franchises themselves. Many francshises have had 100% or close turnover, or had the rights to totally different teams, and audiences are none the wiser.
Also, for every successful start up, there are quite a few total failures, much as every movie, book, TV pilot, broadway show, etc, has a ridiculously high ratio of busts to hits.
Not just that, but getting a SAG card isn't cheap in the first place.
But when 90% of productions are money-losers, why shouldn't the talent share the fun?
And that applies for all traditionally unionized entertainment crafts as far as gaming goes. The reality is that most gaming audiences just don't notice the quality difference. In all cases, it is much easier for developers and publishers to find someone else rather than committing to a deal that involves the back-end.
This will only change if programmers effectively unionize and demand a closed shop. This, however, runs strongly counter to the equity-based culture which most tech firms and start-ups have, so it probably isn't going to happen. Similarly, you're probably not going to get an 80 hour week out of a plumber, nurse, grade-school teacher or maintenance guy for a dream of stock option glory.
Seriously, no sarcasm here - the transformation of Blizzard into a service company wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the departure of almost all of the people who actually did the r & d to make it happen.
The main thing which Blizzard has done right in the past few years is to not even bother creating anything which even remotely resembles new IP. Putting the focus on truly global marketing and strictly prohibiting any investment in games which are not sequels or expansions may seem a bit uninspired, but, on a business level, is pure genius. It has meant that not only is there no risk of cannibalizing their own product, but has freed up resources for taking the marketing to the next level of budget and polish, while also diversifying into additional high-margin ancillary products and licensed goods.
Almost all of the creative stars who actually made Blizzard's classic titles and helped in the original development of WoW are gone - Adham, Brevik, O'Brien, Strain, Phinney, Wyatt, Hayes, Petras, the Schaefer Brothers - and Blizzard is much better at executing as a business because of it. The ones who remain may never create a title which isn't an expansion or sequel, but they do know how to implement a winning formula. And, of course, they won't have the obnoxious sense of entitlement and demands for outsize pay often found in senior employees which drains coffers and damages morale.
WoW was a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity, and not needing to deal with the burden of catering to the kind of creative talent which chafes at endless regurgitation was the best thing which could have happened to them.
Though Orr was obviously central in making "Madden" the monster console hit that it is and was (and has an impressive record on sports games going way back into the 80s), I would contend that most folks would give Trip Hawkins the title of "creator of Madden", if it can go to one person.
Here's an interview from just the past week which goes into depth on the subject:
http://www.vh1gamebreak.com/2008/03/exclusive-trip.html
Obviously not the focus of TFA, but it is worth keeping the historical record straight on what was the most profitable title in games until "World of Warcraft".
Anyone who held onto their shares after the creator of "Majestic" was rewarded with the #1 spot at EALA only has themselves to blame. The same goes for the chance to sell at 60 last autumn - if the self-dealing at that point wasn't obvious to Joe Investor in those acquisitions, they should really stick to indices.
Like why the appreciation of EA stock in the past few years shows the same general trend as recording industry sales over the same timeframe.
I guess great minds think alike.
"Sometimes a more powerful adaptation can become more iconic than its original source material."
That may well apply to the Arbus imagery and Bartok 'percussion' piece used in the film as well.
Of course, 2 out of 3 of those were developed for publishers based in the Bay Area.
Turbine is to be commended, of course, for their success. Any recent release of subscriber #s?
In any case, I don't think anyone would confuse three or four teams with maybe 400 devs collectively with a strong presence.
The arrogance is a bit justified:
Seattle - Nintendo, Valve, MSFT, etc__
Bay Area - ERTS hq, a bunch of studios in SF's soma, lucas, almost every major tech company on the planet in SC county__
LA - every major publisher within a mile of the 405/90 interchange, every major film studio on the planet__
Boston is a distant sixth or seventh behind Austin, DC and possibly NYC and the NC triangle.
Good sports teams, though.
""What I Like About You" is pretty much an early Kinks pastiche. Ditto Gloria and a million songs that go E-A-D...."
"Baby Please Don't Go"/"Gloria" was actually released a couple of months before "You Really Got Me" (the Kinks' first non-cover single and first real hit) in summer 1964.
"Blizzard North was around for 4 years after the release of D2... in 2003."
The math is off in that statement - Diablo II was released in june 2000, the expansion was released a year later in 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
"...only deprives people of potential profits." i.e., a livelihood. But I'm sure the makers of Titan Quest appreciate the split hairs there, even if it won't buy them a haircut.
The "family" niche = games you stick a five-year-old in front of in lieu of cartoons. Access to an online gaming service isn't necessarily part of what makes these products attractive to parents. Sony obviously fails to understand this market, much as they failed to understand the MMO market and let Apple waltz away with the whole music industry right under their noses. All of the fanboy posturing in the world doesn't change the fact that the scoreboard shows Nintendo making billions from the Wii while Sony's video games unit generally dog-paddles in place form year to year.
except a viable market
Ok, 'ratchet and clank', and a golf and racing game.... And, of course, the 'matter of months', which is PS3's specialty. There's a reason that nintendo makes all of the money in that niche, and there's a reason that Sony is a similarly total failure in the MMO space.
Nor is there any inherent difference to a loaf of bread in a grocery store against what it is on one's shelf. There is no magical process that happens at the register except a 'licensing' process. So unless you're some kind of latter-day Bakunin who believes that all property is a meaningless construct, it is absolutely stealing.
And there's a reason that most or all of that list I mentioned is obsessed with QA and devotes a significant amount to it relative to r&d resources.
Nothing is "killing PC gaming". Blizzard, Funcom, Valve, Id, Maxis/EA, Bethesda, Creative Assembly, all have a great relationship with the PC. PCs have the biggest market and the best margins. Meanwhile, PS3 struggles to get a single quality family title on the shelves and xbox is a multi-billion sinkhole no matter how you slice it.
Less than 1/4 of the Blizzard North people with credits on "Diablo II" went to Flagship. Also, only TWO people from Blizzard North with a credit on Diablo II are working in Irvine as of the past year! Just a few of the names who did NOT go to Flagship AND are not currently working in Irvine: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo-ii/credits http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hellgate-london/credits - Both people named as designers (Hedlund and Sexton) - The artist who created "Diablo" (Okamura) - The original animator of "Diablo" (Haas) - The lead programmer (Seis) - The entire in-game music/audio team (Stone, Petersen, Uelman) - The character artists behind the Paladin, Sorceress, and Barbarian and countless monsters (Johnson, Dashow) - The illustration genius behind the UI art (Boos) - All three level designers (McAuley, Scandizzo, Wilson) Additionally, Bill Roper never had an office at Blizzard North during the making of any of those releases - he moved soon AFTER they were released. The idea that "Well, Hellgate was a flop, so it must have been Blizzard all along that made it..." is unfounded and stupid. The sad reality is that Blizzard North was basically cast to the wind and can never be reformed in any real way.
This is a classic example of how anonymous this talent is. This woman's performance was probably your entertainment experience of the month, yet you wouldn't recognize her on the street, and probably never bothered to learn her name: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0283253/ We enjoy it when it is good, but never notice it when it is slightly less remarkable. Publishers and producers know this.
2008 to Sorti: Union membership has been falling fast since the 1970s. The fact that manufacturing is less than 20% of the economy now might have something to do with that. Meanwhile, amercians voted for a GOP president 5 out of 7 times in the past 30 years - and that probably would have been higher if not for Ross Perot. Unions don't need to be terrorized by armed thugs or latter-day Pinkertons, they just fade into irrelevance as the jobs go somewhere else or to less union-minded immigrants here. No time machine necessary.
"The music industry, movie industry, and sports industry, among others, have gone through the same dynamic" I really don't agree - the talent in games is really anonymous and interchangeable compared to all of the above. The stars are the AAA studios and the franchises themselves. Many francshises have had 100% or close turnover, or had the rights to totally different teams, and audiences are none the wiser. Also, for every successful start up, there are quite a few total failures, much as every movie, book, TV pilot, broadway show, etc, has a ridiculously high ratio of busts to hits.
Not just that, but getting a SAG card isn't cheap in the first place. But when 90% of productions are money-losers, why shouldn't the talent share the fun?
And that applies for all traditionally unionized entertainment crafts as far as gaming goes. The reality is that most gaming audiences just don't notice the quality difference. In all cases, it is much easier for developers and publishers to find someone else rather than committing to a deal that involves the back-end. This will only change if programmers effectively unionize and demand a closed shop. This, however, runs strongly counter to the equity-based culture which most tech firms and start-ups have, so it probably isn't going to happen. Similarly, you're probably not going to get an 80 hour week out of a plumber, nurse, grade-school teacher or maintenance guy for a dream of stock option glory.
...is the fact that when EA dumps millions down the drain in Australia, it swirls in the wrong direction.
Seriously, no sarcasm here - the transformation of Blizzard into a service company wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the departure of almost all of the people who actually did the r & d to make it happen. The main thing which Blizzard has done right in the past few years is to not even bother creating anything which even remotely resembles new IP. Putting the focus on truly global marketing and strictly prohibiting any investment in games which are not sequels or expansions may seem a bit uninspired, but, on a business level, is pure genius. It has meant that not only is there no risk of cannibalizing their own product, but has freed up resources for taking the marketing to the next level of budget and polish, while also diversifying into additional high-margin ancillary products and licensed goods. Almost all of the creative stars who actually made Blizzard's classic titles and helped in the original development of WoW are gone - Adham, Brevik, O'Brien, Strain, Phinney, Wyatt, Hayes, Petras, the Schaefer Brothers - and Blizzard is much better at executing as a business because of it. The ones who remain may never create a title which isn't an expansion or sequel, but they do know how to implement a winning formula. And, of course, they won't have the obnoxious sense of entitlement and demands for outsize pay often found in senior employees which drains coffers and damages morale. WoW was a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity, and not needing to deal with the burden of catering to the kind of creative talent which chafes at endless regurgitation was the best thing which could have happened to them.
Though Orr was obviously central in making "Madden" the monster console hit that it is and was (and has an impressive record on sports games going way back into the 80s), I would contend that most folks would give Trip Hawkins the title of "creator of Madden", if it can go to one person. Here's an interview from just the past week which goes into depth on the subject: http://www.vh1gamebreak.com/2008/03/exclusive-trip.html Obviously not the focus of TFA, but it is worth keeping the historical record straight on what was the most profitable title in games until "World of Warcraft".
Anyone who held onto their shares after the creator of "Majestic" was rewarded with the #1 spot at EALA only has themselves to blame. The same goes for the chance to sell at 60 last autumn - if the self-dealing at that point wasn't obvious to Joe Investor in those acquisitions, they should really stick to indices.
Like why the appreciation of EA stock in the past few years shows the same general trend as recording industry sales over the same timeframe. I guess great minds think alike.
Imagine if Mattell had instead decided to quietly buy 25% of EA and 40% of Activision with that money a decade ago...
Shakespeare, Mozart and Dickens all made entertainment for the masses. What's the line about politicians, whores and buildings?
"Sometimes a more powerful adaptation can become more iconic than its original source material." That may well apply to the Arbus imagery and Bartok 'percussion' piece used in the film as well.
Of course, 2 out of 3 of those were developed for publishers based in the Bay Area. Turbine is to be commended, of course, for their success. Any recent release of subscriber #s? In any case, I don't think anyone would confuse three or four teams with maybe 400 devs collectively with a strong presence.
The arrogance is a bit justified: Seattle - Nintendo, Valve, MSFT, etc__ Bay Area - ERTS hq, a bunch of studios in SF's soma, lucas, almost every major tech company on the planet in SC county__ LA - every major publisher within a mile of the 405/90 interchange, every major film studio on the planet__ Boston is a distant sixth or seventh behind Austin, DC and possibly NYC and the NC triangle. Good sports teams, though.
""What I Like About You" is pretty much an early Kinks pastiche.
Ditto Gloria and a million songs that go E-A-D...."
"Baby Please Don't Go"/"Gloria" was actually released a couple of months before "You Really Got Me" (the Kinks' first non-cover single and first real hit) in summer 1964.
"Blizzard North was around for 4 years after the release of D2 ... in 2003."
The math is off in that statement - Diablo II was released in june 2000, the expansion was released a year later in 2001.