covert.creations

The game industry is practically aflame after the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last week in San Francisco. Several luminaries from various walks of gaming life decided to rant on about the state of “big versus little” and the rising costs and Hollywoodization of the gaming industry.

Warren Spector : “I want to say how this business is hopelessly broken. Haha. We’re doing pretty much everything wrong. This is at the root of much of what you’re gonna hear today. Games cost too much. They take too long to make.”

The thrust of the rant is simple. Big studios are eating up the little guys, destroying the market with crap, and raising the price of entry. The rest of the discussion readily flows out of this complaint.

Matt Mihaly : “Finding ways to fund games isn’t the issue. What you seem to want to do is create Jerry Bruckenheimer movies without studio money. If you want to create games without a publisher, nothing is stopping you.”

This debate, while interesting will go essentially nowhere. I typically side with the little guys, but what exactly do they expect to change? Once everyone has said what they need to say, everyone will go home. Avid VG players would likely not pay attention to any plea from industry luminaries to switch to cheaper made games. These things exist in a market, and market forces have made it this way. It sucks, yes. But inevitable.

Mind you, I’d not dismiss any community efforts like guerrilla marketing. I’ve seen these work.

All I can lend to the topic is a reminder :

In 1993, iD Software created a kickass and unique game. It was so popular, that people passed the demo disk around, as it was that good. FTP servers went up. Positively viral, man. In this story, everybody won. The developer (they made so much money that they actually deposited million dollar cheques into drive-thru ATMs!) & the players (what gamer hasn’t played this? Hell, even my sister has played it). I think GTInteractive came in later and distributed it and its followons. I’m quite sure they made money, too.

Moral of the story : its possible.