Mid Life Crisis....

[moobaa]

On a somewhat related note... can anyone explain to me (in relatively simple economic terms) how any of the "big name games" can possibly make money?

Take, for example, Halo 2. By the time it's released, it'll have about 2 years dev behind it. Probably about 30 man years. (Correct me at any stage, I really don't know the numbers). So let's say that's $1.5-2 million. What volume needs to be sold to recoup those costs? We all know that artists get about 20 cents per CD sold, what's the return on games sold?

Anyone? Please, no flames - I genuinely have no idea

[venusian]

Isn't Bungie part funded by MS? Perhaps it's considered worthwhile as a loss-leader. Kind of like The Getaway for PS2 (remembering the jaw dropping shots in Edge before the final PS2 spec was even announced).

[Fuseball]

Hmmmm... interesting.

I went through a similar crisis a couple of years ago. I'd always felt that I was a barely adequate programmer... then Visual Pinball came along, and although I still wasn't the most proficient coder, I had a great eye for detail and accuracy. I found that my "real" work was losing all interest for me and that I had possibly found my natural (if non-earning) role. I'm prouder of the VP tables I worked on than anything I had done for years.

I had two brief stints in the games industry - first before it even was an industry and then later on a PS1 game. The latter experience was great fun, largely due to the team of people I worked with, although it felt as if it should have been a stepping-stone to an original project that we really wanted to do. Of course, nobody would give us the backing to do anything different and interesting, so I quickly became disillusioned with the industry as a whole.

I still find that it is the creative process that drives me forward. As a voracious consumer of stuff (games, music, films etc.) I feel compelled to pay some of the joy it has given me back. I always thought it would be games that I would design but I've found that other mediums such as music are equally as rewarding an outlet... and I'm probably a better musician than I am a programmer.

Maybe the role which really suits me in games is as a constructive critic and an encouraging influence. If I can get a llovely effect out of VLM-3 for example, which perhaps in some tiny way enthuses Yak and the crew, then I feel I've done something more worthwhile than my own fumbling attempts at games programming.

[moobaa]

Isn't Bungie part funded by MS? Perhaps it's considered worthwhile as a loss-leader. Kind of like The Getaway for PS2 (remembering the jaw dropping shots in Edge before the final PS2 spec was even announced).

True, MS owns Bungie. Take any other example, then... JSRF? PDO?

[pap]

I'm not sure I'll ever get into the industry, for a number of reasons - many of which have already been mentioned.

Firstly, if you wanna work on interesting stuff, there's a fair chance that your company will go under. 'Interesting' doesn't cut it with the gaming market of today. 'Predictable', 'anticipated' and 'familiar' seem like more appropriate adjectives to describe the buying habits of the gaming populace.

While I appreciate that there are still some genuine nutters out there who'll hunt down the likes of Steel Battallion et al, most people are really looking for an updated Beckham in the latest FIFA title.

That's not to say that anything I do is remotely interesting. I'm the developer equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger - typecast in features that involve a misunderstood web frontend making a connection with a tyrannical RDMS, and querying the living shit out of him. Sure, I get to do the odd 'comedy' number, but I know where my bankers are.

The problem with living a boring existence is that on arriving home, I've barely got the energy to /play/ games, let alone develop them. When the most taxing thing you do in the day is a substring, managing a game loop seems daunting in comparison.

External factors also take a toll. My girlfriend and kids all impact on time ( and rightly so ), which makes the prospect ever more unlikely.

The irony is this. I've got tons of game ideas, some of them bloody good. Thing is, I'd only ever be a 'sperm donor' with them. I don't think I've got the time to bring these babies into the world, and I'm dubious as to whether others would make suitable parents.

I dunno, maybe it's worth putting some of it about. After all, a flawed implentation of an idea is better than none at all.

[junkster]

Firstly, if you wanna work on interesting stuff, there's a fair chance that your company will go under. 'Interesting' doesn't cut it with the gaming market of today. 'Predictable', 'anticipated' and 'familiar' seem like more appropriate adjectives to describe the buying habits of the gaming populace.

We're not talking about companies. We're talking about independent hobbyists writing games on their own. I do think you're being a little hard on game players in general. They have to buy what's out there, and it what's out there is safe and predicatable, then that's what they have to choose form.

Commercial game development is such a completely different world that you can't really understand it until you've done it for a while. I'm talking about projects with $5-10 million dollar budgets that last for 2 to 3 years and involve 30-40 people. After all that you may look at the end result and think "Why did that cost so much and take so much time to create?"

[teamonkey]

I do think you're being a little hard on game players in general. They have to buy what's out there, and it what's out there is safe and predicatable, then that's what they have to choose form.

When you walk into Game on a Saturday afternoon, it's always swarming with kids (and "casual" gamers, and naive parents) buying the the most indefensible (sp?) crap. It's the Avril Lavigne factor. Doesn't matter how bad something is, people will buy anything if it fills a gap in the market, and if that's the same game from EA they'll buy it again for an updated David Beckham.

And of course, if publishers want big money they have to pander to the lowest common denominator.

[Dvorak]

As far as I can see, Jeff's the only one here that's 100% happy.

If I remember correctly, it's now just one year ago when a deeply frustrated and, well, sorrowful guy called Yak wrote an entry in his blog/diary "The Grunting Ox" entitled with "out on my ass again". It was in his blog then, that he wrote about his plans of writing "small and decent" games for the PocketPC and to sell them for an fiver each.
And I thought...
God, no! Don't! You never gonna make a living from that. Forget it! Time's over for that kinda games! What a moronic idea! Do some serious work instead, Yak!

The things that happened then fascinated me (and still do), cause it worked out completely different. I don't know, but the income from Deflex, Hover Bover etc. couldn't feed a single llama, I assume. But it was enabling other things that enabled other things that enabled...(via this forum, via people, social contacts, parties, then unity...)

I guess that's what it's all about: don't even try to identify a final destination. Instead go the way of the enabling things, those things that empower you, that open up new possibilities, new horizons...

By hindsight, of cause, Yak simply underestimated that effect of being Jeff Minter... (Minter? THE Jeff Minter?). He could do it that way. I cannot.

[Dvorak]

Talking about "The Grunting Ox" - can't find yakman's old blog with google. Anybody seen it anywhere?

[JonR]

"man cannot live by curry alone" (no matter how many of the residents here would like to think )

i remember thinking the same. "how is jeff going to survive flogging games for a fiver??". ah well, everything worked out well.

(and i can't remember where to find the blog either dvorak. sorry)

JonR.

[pap]

[quote=junkster]
We're not talking about companies. We're talking about independent hobbyists writing games on their own. I do think you're being a little hard on game players in general. They have to buy what's out there, and it what's out there is safe and predicatable, then that's what they have to choose form.
[/quote]

Yeah, my tangent. Soz. I guess I kinda got onto the subject through my own internal ambition thought process. While I'm here though, it's probably worth asking how many of us are considering Open Source or independent development simply because of the moribund situation in the commercial games market.

Most people would like to reach a larger audience than the niche one we comprise. Doesn't ego play a part in this? Personally, I've thrived off validation ( the nice kind ) since a very early age. It seems somehow sad that many of the true visionaries are going to be overlooked as a result of the latest trends.


[quote=junkster]
Commercial game development is such a completely different world that you can't really understand it until you've done it for a while. I'm talking about projects with $5-10 million dollar budgets that last for 2 to 3 years and involve 30-40 people. After all that you may look at the end result and think "Why did that cost so much and take so much time to create?"
[/quote]

As a developer ( of mostly crap projects ), one of the biggest problems I face is providing a tangible solution. Sure, my team know where we're headed, but often, outsiders fail to see the benefit of those steps that despite not producing an executable deliverable, are vitally important if you want to do the job right.

Uneasily transporting the analogy across to the gamers driving todays markets, it's clear that tangibility is also something that needs to be conveyed as a ropey substitute for quality gaming. Gaming charts provide ample examples of how todays buying public are lapping up games that exhibit a clear link from the virtual world into the real world. The Sims - effectively a watch people do things in a real way sim, strikes a chord, as does the amplified significance of David Beckham's latest hair cut being right in the latest footy opus.

I fear that the gaming public is losing their imagination, prizing closer approximation over a truly interesting gaming experience. Two recent examples spring to mind - Rez - a game frequently ignored by my house visitors because it looks weird. The other major indicator of this trend would be the latest Zelda, who's look was vilified across large tracts of the 'Net.

Returning eventually to the original point ( I got there in the end ), now might be the time to hang up your hang ups and just start going for it. Scarily enough, I'm finding it difficult to envisage gamers fifteen years from now enthusing over the 'creative genius' that is FIFA 2003. What really scares me is we might be part of the last wave of gamers truly able to overlook graphical and sound deficiencies in the quest for solid gameplay. Time to get going, unless of course you're flush to the tune of the $20-$30 million production outlay.

[junkster]

Jeff is one of the few game writing blokes with some independent vision. Whether he succeeds or fails, you've gotta hand him that. Sure, he started out with a Defender clone, and he loves Mr. Jarvis with a passion, but he carved out his own style of game design. There are now a number of indie games that are conciously in Yak's style--though they were written by other people!--which is a sign that he really has molded something from his own mindstuffs.

A number of years ago there was a talk from Greg Johnson, one of the guys who created Starflight, whose point was that it was difficult to get creative fullfillment out of writing games, at least not in the same sense that you get out of writing a novel (if anyone can find this, please post a link!). You can see this looking at the kind of games that are created for sale in the shops. If you're an indie, and you keep on remaking Boulder Dash and Jumpman, then it's the same thing. You need some kind of personal vision to keep going. "DirectX" is not a personal vision

[moobaa]

Commercial game development is such a completely different world that you can't really understand it until you've done it for a while. I'm talking about projects with $5-10 million dollar budgets that last for 2 to 3 years and involve 30-40 people. After all that you may look at the end result and think "Why did that cost so much and take so much time to create?"

These are the projects I referred to in previous posts. How is it possible for these games to break even? I am flummoxed

[arron]

These are the projects I referred to in previous posts. How is it possible for these games to break even? I am flummoxed

I think that it is something to do with a captive market. As the games tend to be on consoles, they are almost guaranteed a certain number of sales. And as they are harder to copy, people will need to buy originals at near full price.

I heard from a friend of mine who works in the industry that console games nearly always break even, where as only a third of PC games do.

The only way that dev houses can make games these days is with a publisher deal up front to get the massive amounts of financing that is required, and even then the publisher can pull the plug or delay milestone payments which will force the developer to shut up shop..

The cost of development may be high (for our standards of bedroom coding) but the cost of advertising is much, much more and I think that publishers have been more than willing to pull projects to avoid spending the cost of advertising the product when completed..

I think that the whole industry is playing the percentages. Sure you may have product that is mediocre at best, but the real jewels can make up for that. And you can even hype the product that isn't great so that people will buy it anyway, or buy a licence for it..

I think that the games industry (like the film industry) is heading for a crash at some point. There is far too much money involved and the whole development process seems to rely on positive feedback - everything bigger than the last project, more sequels, bigger licences, net gaming versions etc. No system can expand perpetually and remain stable. Eventually it will all come down again (like it did in the eighties). I personally think that we are not too far from this point..

[teamonkey]

I personally think that we are not too far from this point..

Maybe not the best time for us budding game programmers to try and enter The Industry then?

They were the best of times; they were the worst of times.