Have you considered writing Costikyan with your thoughts? His email addy's greg@costik.com. He also knows much more about the game industry than you seem to realize, so you might wanna check out his resume first.
-- Z.
Have you considered writing Costikyan with your thoughts? His email addy's greg@costik.com. He also knows much more about the game industry than you seem to realize, so you might wanna check out his resume first.
-- Z.
He might know a lot about the game industry, but his reasoning doesn't make sense. To know about the game industry isn't by far enough to venture into economics, otherwise great game developers and journalists could run successfully game companies, and that is the exception and not the rule.
References to pedigrees aren't a substitute for substanbtial reasoning either, even if he were familiar with economics (which he certainly isn't). Good substantial reasoning by common sense guys can put the best expert to shame. (happened cerationly to me, and it is a feast becasue we sometimes don't see the forest when we analyse single trees)
It is pretty simple: he doesn't distinguish enough to make his points. (about costs, dvelopers/publishers, and profits) He used some graphs, and then speculates.
If I presented some aggregate, most generalized data about money given to politicians per year and would draw conclusions about legislative output of different areas, different polticians in very different situations, even speculate about campaign influences by difffernt interest groups distuinguishing between Senators and members of the House, I'd be laughed at.
and yeah, I read his blog and his accomplishments, I'm not impressed by his accomplishments to a dgree that I wouldn't critisize him, but the blog is certainly very informative (!) and a great read.
btw, instead of me writing him, just write him and give him the website addy of this thread.An already great and informative site like Digital Press can't have enough well informed members.
(I'm serious about the Digital Press site. It is really a great and informative site with lots of knowledgeable and intelligent guys)
Originally Posted by zmweasel
Coaster sims are my life! It's my alltime favorite genre. I was a beta tester for all 3 games in Disney's Ultimate Ride series, and I've been making MODs for those games for the last 3 years, so obviously I'm a little biased towards the independents and the modding scene, but Disney was a joy to work with, and they really listened to the fan's input on those games alot.
BTW, I would say that a decade old genre that sat dormant for over 5 years is still a pretty young genre, even though the original Disney's Coaster was quite popular in it's time. It wasn't until after RCT that the niche was busted wide open and the genre exploded all over the scene to what it is right now.
But what I meant by "mass marketing" is exactly what you said. Isn't that what mass marketing is? Cramming your product down the people's throats whether they want it or not? It still goes on now too. cough "Acclaim" cough
Now as for the indie game productions, some of you guys don't seem to realize just how many of the big name games produced by the big name developers now started out as indies. There are many examples of very popular games that ended up being big name licenses by the time they were finally finished, because their demos had caught so much of the indutry's attention. Unless you follow the indie scene very closely, there's alot of games that you'd never know were actually indies when they first began.
And then there are games like Combat Mission. Look at what happened to it. It was an online only download for years before it finally took off into all the realms of the mainstream, and now it's a very popular franchise making alot.
The point that I was trying to make is the reason the economics of the industry are so messed up is because they pump so much of their money into doing trade shows and press releases and hyping the shit out of their crap, advertising, marketing, etc., and so little of their money by comparison actually goes into the development of a quality product. They've become so obsessed with "the bottom line" that they will release pure rubbish that's absolutely overrun with bugs, just to meet their projected release dates on time. Now why is "the bottom line" so all important to them that they are willing to risk their reputation and the success of their game by releasing an obviously unfinished product on time, just to say that it came out on time?
Equally alarming is the latest trend of using the general public as their beta testers, preferring to piss off and alienate all the early adopters, which should be the people who they go out of their ways for the most. Just so they can save a few bucks on some decent QA, and not have to delay the release? It's insanity. No independent and no modder in the world is gonna release something before it's finished, just so they can get their product out there, without slapping disclaimers all over it stating that it is a work in progress. If the industry is gonna operate itself like that now, the least they could do is show the same amount of respect for the gamers themselves, their bread and butter, and clearly label all their bug-ridden "on time" releases as works in progress! That's a big part of the reason why the future is so bleak for them.
They have far too much reliance on their so-called budgets and meeting their release schedules now to be paying as much attention to QA as they should, and this is apparently how all those crap games manage to make it all the way through development without a single soul realizing that the game is pure crap and barely even playable! If they do know it, they obviously just don't care, and it seems to me that they are shooting themselves in the foot, just to save their asses, which are doomed anyway if they keep it up like that! They've become too big for their own good and lost all touch with what it was that made them become so successful in the first place. The same thing even goes on with every independent who ends up making the bigtime. Quality goes out the window, and mediocrity becomes the norm.
There's just too much of everything out there now, and far too many big name developers who are far too focused on "the big picture" to even see what the gamers really care about anymore, and that's why we have so many companies that seem to have their heads completely up their asses, who are so far out of touch with what the gamers want that it makes us wonder why they even stay in business, much less how they manage to.
That's what I mean by watching the independents to see how it's done. They stay in touch with their fans, they listen to what they want, and then they try their best to do it for them, no matter how long it takes, rather than whining and complaining about how they have to get this thing pushed out on time so they can wrap it up and move on to the next piece of crap that's just gonna end up in the bargain bins and fading away into obscurity before it's even been available for 6 months. It's this kind of "junk marketing" that's killing the industry, and they don't even have enough sense to give a damn about it, if they even see it at all. They're too focused on the money.
Lendelin if the powerpoint presentation was full of those charts, graphs and statistics you craved then none of us would be talking about it due to the utter lack of excitement they bring:P
Re: Iron draggon
Valve, 3d realms, john romero, Id and several others would probably disagree with you thereThey've become so obsessed with "the bottom line" that they will release pure rubbish that's absolutely overrun with bugs, just to meet their projected release dates on time.
First of all, i'd say your overestimating the bugginess of games these days, and second of all, it takes a lot more effort to test a 2gb+ free form adventure game than a 4mbit side scrolling platformer. Nobody can really afford to test a game as much as they want anymore because it costs money, and because with games like that you can test forever. Longer test = less profit.
I'm not the one who vehemently disagrees with him, so I'll allow you to extend the invitation to come to these forums and defend his opinions, informed by more than two decades of extensive industry experience, against a long-winded German economist. I'm sure he'll jump right on it.
-- Z.
Hey, I'm an American economist and I don't think Costik is spot on with everything he says. But he does nail the point about developers. I can't understand how the external developer/publisher style relationship has continued for this long. The failure rate of game developers is enormous. When researching developers on the Playstation, I found that the vast majority of PSX-era developers have either folded or been consolidated. If Warren Spector can't even keep his place afloat, the rest of us are in trouble.
The exponential growth of game development costs will not continue - we're reaching the point (with PS3/XB2) where additional graphics are overkill. Further, I expect middleware (especially physics middleware) to continue to improve, and I know Sony is emphasizing an enlarged library for next-gen development.
Smaller developers will be forced to develop mainly for handhelds until they "prove" that they have the potential to be an id/Westwood/Bioware. Publishers will have to be more selective in what games they release - Acclaim's failure has nothing to do with the economics of the game industry.
Also, small team development is not dead. How about Devil Dice (Xi), a huge hit in the last generation? How about Eyetoy Play/Groove? DDR? These games were all made with very small teams. As far as I know, id has a staff in the low teens working on Quake III; I'm not sure how big they are now, but they're certainly not employing 200 to make Doom.
Lendelin if the powerpoint presentation was full of those charts, graphs and statistics you craved then none of us would be talking about it due to the utter lack of excitement they bring
I give you two short-winded comments on your personal attack:
1. I'm not an economist.
2.
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