Separating Games from the Industry
A lot was said after this years GDC in San Diego about the adverse effects of publishers controlling the tone of the games industry. The worst consequence is the effect on the games themselves. Games are dumber and shallower than they have ever been, and it doesn’t look like things will be getting better anytime soon. But maybe there’s an answer - one that doesn’t involve publishers.
Publishers are solely concerned with profit. Because this is so, they bankroll games not because they are good ideas, but because they are low risk and and guarantee a return. Publishers have had it so good for so long that we are in the crazy situation where many won’t even look at games that don’t project a greater than 200 percent return on investment. When you hear reports that publishers are cutting back and the industry is on a downturn, what they mean is they can no longer guarantee 400 percent profit margins. That, in their terms, is a grim situation and justifies the proliferation of souless licence games and sequels over genuinely new ideas. Gone are the days when rock star developers can defraud big publishers of 40 million dollars just on the promise of an unseen game idea (you can thank Ion Storm, John Romero, and Daikatana for that particular debacle). Now for the most part, publishers decide what gets made and how.
Anyone who works in game development has a fairly clear idea of just how bad the publisher/developer model can be. The worst effect for me is that games are dumbed down. In an effort to appeal to the broadest demographic, designers are being forced to homogenize and pasteurize their ideas till there’s hardly any real substance left. Deep content is jettisoned for surface gloss amid the mad scramble to hit deadlines (which are defined by marketing programs and sales windows, not whether a game is actually ready). Plagiarism has reached the stage where derivative ideas are being regurgitated at a third and fourth generation level. For the most part, game design is disappearing up it’s own bum. There’s only one thing found in that direction: shyte. Buckets of it. The games industry has been eating itself for so long we’re heading for the digital equivalent of mad cow disease.
Games did not use to be like this. There were always a lot of bad ones, but there used to be a lot of surprisingly good ones too. Now it seems as if the whole lot has been mixed together into a nice marketable slush of mediocrity.
There’s the argument that the publishers are only making this stuff because people want to buy it, but that’s only half the story. People have to choose from what is there - they can’t buy something that isn’t made. All the talk of games as art and the industry wanting to be taken seriously is just lip service if all we do is produce a continual stream of rehash.
During his lecture at this year’s GDC Warren Specter (of Deus Ex fame) encouraged us all to make the best licenced games we can (bottom post), and good on him. I agree, that’s a good work ethic. The problem is I could apply the same ethic to painting over the ceiling of the Sistine chapel with a nice even lilac hue of non-stick wash and wear wall paint. The point here isn’t how we are doing what we do, but what we are doing. The danger we face is falling into line and being good little workers when what we should be doing is fighting to make the games that are actually worth making.
Specter has never done a licence game, which perhaps gives him the luxury to hold such reasonable opinions. I’ve done several, and I can tell you they stop being fun pretty quickly. You never stop learning, and it’s always better to be making even ordinary games than digging ditches. But that doesn’t mean we should be content doing it, or worse yet, accept and support the process.
Several years ago I was privy to a conversation between managers of a (then) fairly important games company. They were remarking how the creator of a self funded game was ridiculed by publishers and developers alike when he showed it in a tiny booth at E3. They all thought his enthusiasm for the quaint little AI experiment was going to drive his fledgling games company into embarrassed anonymity. They smiled to his face, shook his hand, acted impressed, wished him well, and went away sniggering behind his back.
But it turned out his game didn’t make out too badly after all. The Sims is now the single most successful PC game ever released, and the same people who ridiculed it are hailing Will Wright’s genius and hurrying to find something similar to compete with it. The little corner display has spawned a multi-media corporation, not that Wright needed another one after the runaway success of his Sim City creations (which he sold to EA for a fortune before going solo). And that, in a nutshell, illustrates exactly what the industry heavyweights know about games. They can only see what is, and what has been, estimate the net worth, and market it. They are clueless about true creativity, and rarely have the ability to recognise it when they see it.
What’s happening in the games industry is not new. For a strong sense of deja vu you have only to look at the music industry, and you have only to listen to the radio or Video Hits to hear the result.
Publishers are like record companies. All they really have is money and distribution networks. If they ever lose control of distribution, they will very quickly lose their money too. Consider the major labels’ panic to crush the free swapping of MP3’s. All the rhetoric about the threat to artist income is a smoke screen (and has been shown to be false - MP3 distribution actually increases overall sales, especially of back catalogues). What they are desperately trying to prevent is the open distribution of product. If people can download the latest releases, there is no need for distribution networks and record companies lose their monopoly (radio stations and their symbiotic, often incestuous relationship with record campanies also become tenuous). Several major artists, including Prince, Sting, and David Bowie have experimented with offering their work over the internet, but with mixed success. Most of the record buying public are not yet internet or computer savvy.
But this is where the similarities between the music and games industries end, and where I see a big area of opportunity and hope. Games, as opposed to music, have always been digital media, and where the PC is concerned at least all the players are by definition computer and usually internet literate. Gamers are the earliest adopters of broadband and new hardware. Games released over the internet have a very real chance of being successful, and many already are (Doom anyone?). What this means is self-production is not only viable, it is natural.
So here’s the answer, or part of it: make your own games. The big players in the games industry are not going to support you, but the industry itself needs you desperately. Learn to code well enough to turn your ideas into something playable, or find people who can work with you to do that. Use the proliferation of free technology and open source tools to create your own ideas. There are many complete and very affordable games engines available that lay opportunities for development out on a plate. Then make your game available on the internet. The more independent, underground developers coming out with new game ideas, the better and healthier the industry will be.
And regardless of the effect on the industry, the more good games there will be. Speaking as a gamer, that’s all I care about.
The irony of the games industry is that while many of us get into it because we want to make cool games, most of us are hampered from doing that because we are in the industry. If making games is what you dream of doing, your efforts may be best spent doing it from the outside. Then, if you are successful, you will be able to continue doing it from within the industry if you choose, but on your own terms.
And that, for many of us, is the holy grail.
posted by monty · at 6:09 pm · filed under Editorials
Grrr. No html in comments.
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