What's really controlling PC game creation today?

[Ordy]

I have been playing video games since they began. I have seen the change of power from PC gaming to console gaming. I have also seen the transformation of the PC gaming world from entire stores with shelves upon shelves of PC titles into stores with one small disorganised rack of PC titles. In the past you could probably find a game about anything your imagination could come up with. Anything from submarine sims to samurai and ninja adventure games. And there would probably be 2 or 3 different titles for each game type you wanted.

I am just curious as to what happened behind the scenes to the gaming industry? There came a point where gaming turned into a hollywood movie type of industry. Less on creativity and uniqueness and more on financial return and multimillion dollar corporation approval. When a guy or gal comes up with a great idea for a game and wants to have that idea come to life and make it to the store, what controls it? What happens to the idea along the way? It seems like creativity and risk are being removed somewhere along the creation process. Its a shame because games are pretty much art when it comes to creativity and personal choice. Does the idea of creating something new and taking a risk seem foolish to people today? Or is the creation process locked under control by a select few in the industry? I am curious what you all think about the current state of the gaming industry. Have we hit a low point in it's lifespan or are we better off than we've ever been?

 

[Red Storm]

Publishers realized they could stop using full size boxes, actual book manuals, cloth maps, etc. and people would still buy the games. Then they realized they could rehash the same old content/gameplay over and over again and people would still buy the games.

If anyone is to blame, it's the masses who support the cuts made by these devs & publishers.

 

[FuryofFive]

cost $$$ omm nom nom

 

[CPA]

They are companies, many with shareholders. Company's first responsibility is to make a profit and to make it as big as possible. They do/make what's going to drive the most profitability. There's nothing new to that strategy and nothing evil about it. As Red pointed out, the masses have voted with their dollar.

 

[yllus]

In a word (er, symbol): $$$

The hardware in our PCs and consoles is constantly getting better, and whereas two or three people could crank out an AAA-quality title in six to ten months back when most games were 2D and realistic physics and voice acting wasn't a concern, today is vastly different.

As the cost of producing a AAA title shoots up, the risk tolerance for zany new ideas has gone down. It's one thing to throw away $600,000 or even $6 million on something that might work - it's another thing to throw away $60 or $600 million on the same. So we get lots and lots of sequels to things studios and publishers know are popular and "work".

I'm curious if as some point we'll see more middleware (like SpeedTree) be used to bring down the cost of a project for all developers everywhere. There's a lot of waste in each studio creating new models of everything themselves, but it's also a competitive advantage for those who do it well. I suppose we're already seeing engine technology be mass licensed instead of custom built.

 

[lozina]

If anyone is to blame, it's the masses who support the cuts made by these devs & publishers.

Perhaps a big problem is how the "masses" are all massed into one simplified category of generic gamers?

Perhaps the masses constitute many sub groups of gamers with different gaming preferences, but the gaming industry always likes to simplify them into one big group.

Then perhaps when some companies chose to make certain cuts or dumb down their games and found that people still bought their games what really happened is that a part of the original audience who enjoyed a more detailed, thought provoking game were turned off by the changes and left, but another group of players who enjoy a more simplified game took their place. And thus the companies continued to pursue the players who enjoy more simplified games and thus went more towards console games, while the people who enjoy complex, intelligent games are left with nothing to play so they stop buying games which kind of is a Catch 22 because then the gaming industry uses this situation as an excuse to proclaim PC games area dead and thus continue the trend

 

[Via]

Without having studied the issue my intial gut feeling is that financial expectations have changed.

Take the case of DNF - a company was able to draw out their development cycle for an obscene length of time because the financial model was on a much smaller scale than exists today.

When you brought the "masses" into gaming that model changed completely. AAA games are expected to make 100s of millions of dollars nowadays. Anyone who wants to get financed to produce a niche PC game for example likely isn't even going to score an interview, let alone recieve the money they need.

 

[Anteaus]

What is interesting is that in other parts of the market, when someone makes a product people either buy it or don't buy it, and if a product fails it is usually usually blamed on the product itself or the people who misjudged demand for it.

In this industry, I've noticed that a game can fail critically, but market failure is almost never attributed to a bad product, timing or demand. It is usually blamed on the faceless pirate.

I do see a trend that as console tech merges with PC tech game development will also merge, but that is to be expected. Economy of scale is not exactly a new idea. Games like Halo and CoD proved that moving a million units on release week is possible and is good for pumping stock up, so it isn't surprising that they tend to invest heavily in games that will net giant quick returns. Since it is the big fish that have the money to make the big games, it is very simple to understand why they might refuse a smaller developer money to make something that is unproven or for a single platform yet potentionaly profitable when they can spend that money on a known IP. In spite of piracy, gaming is profitable on all platforms (assuming you make decent product), but they have been spoiled by large margins and since in PC gaming the margins are smaller and most of the big developers (i.e. big money) are multiplatform now it's easy to see why things are what they are.

 

[wuliheron]

I am just curious as to what happened behind the scenes to the gaming industry? There came a point where gaming turned into a hollywood movie type of industry. Less on creativity and uniqueness and more on financial return and multimillion dollar corporation approval...

Have we hit a low point in it's lifespan or are we better off than we've ever been?

In this day and age of Walmart and McDonald's pushing every mom and pop store and restaurant out of business you have to ask? Its empire baby! This train's on a roll and it ain't stopping until it derails. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and anyone who complains gets labeled a communist terrorist.

 

[Martimus]

The same thing that has always driven it. The return on investment. People make a product and sell it to make money like they always have. To think that 10,20,30, or 40 years ago this wasn't the case seems pretty crazy to me.