Topic: Publishers defend lack of originality

[Famicom]

Article can be read here.

Basically there was a panel at E3 where publishers discussed the process of choosing new game IP, and why "many" get chosen yet very little is on the shelves. IMO a very unintentionally funny read, especially at the end, but it raises some serious issues in the process behind the scenes.

[oohhboy]

Sure those games are new IP, but Fable was flop. Fight night is another sports boxer and Call of Duty is another WW2 shotter flooding the market.

The discussion was focused wrong. They were all thinking like movie moguls. Games being interactive is more than what the eyes see.

From this discussion I can only se more disappointment in the future.

[vudu]

Quote
Welch named four original-IP games in the top 25 for 2004--including Call of Duty, Fable, and Fight Night 2004--and insisted that this was a good number.

Fable was one of the top 25 selling games for last year.  Not exactly a flop.  Not exactly a good game either, but certainly not a flop.  

[ruby_onix]

It wouldn't have been in the top 25 if Microsoft wasn't giving it away free with Xboxes last year.

[matt oz]

This eventually happens with every entertainment medium: once production/development costs reach a certain level, it only becomes profitable to make what's already proven.  How many movies are released as sequels, prequels, adaptations, re-makes, etc?  And the trend has certainly made its way into video games, except at a much faster rate, since the technology changes so rapidly.

I know I'm not the only one here who thinks it's ridiculous to release a new generation of consoles in the next year and a half.  A video game market crash is becoming more and more likely as time goes on.

[nemo_83]

before I even read that I just want to laugh at the thought of unoriginal games being defended.

[ThePerm]

meh i really dont see why it costs so much to make games

[KnowsNothing]

Games are more complicated these days.  Consumers want great graphics, sound, gameplay, length, etc.  It takes large teams a long time for a game that meets today's standards to be created.  You have to pay these huge teams, and the longer it takes, the more you need to pay them.  Then there are things like liscensing fees and the like.  Or whatever.  It's expensive.

[KDR_11k]

They've "educated" the consumer to want better graphics. Perhaps they should do the opposite instead but the suits always want measurable signs of "goodness".

[The Omen]

The game business is following the exact same formula that the movie business abides by.  Higher budgets=Better actors=Better f/x=better market share.  Sadly, it rarely works that way.  And watching the slow down in originality overwhelm the movie industry in the last 5-10 years makes me fear the upcoming generation of consoles.  It's really sad when a 10 million dollar movie is 'low budget'.  And video games are no different.  The head hoinchos see spending more as investing more, but they should be realizing it's the quality of the final product, not the final budget that makes fans come out to see it.

Next thing you know, we'll have strictly remakes coming out for all consoles...

[KDR_11k]

Well, the problem is a suit was trained to think in a certain way. They prefer to work with known problems rather than unknowns and numbers they can extrapolate. If game A sold 2 million copies and the sales drop by 10% each time a game is rehashed (fictinal numbers, of course), that'd mean 1.8 million units can be sold and that'sa good enough. Of course that's not how it works, there are too many variables like output quality but business school doesn't teach handling those so they get ignored.

[nickmitch]

Yeah but There are only so many games that people would want remade. So it'll stop when remakes of games that were so bad that you had to see a shrink to get over and the remake still gives you nightmares have 0 sales and publishers begin loosing money and get bought up by EA so that all 3rd parties are owned by EA so that they don't really have control and eventually are remembered of what an original idea was.


Ah ha haaaa. . .run-on sentence!

[KDR_11k]

Naah, they'd never have to dig up the garbage, if they run out of games to remake they start with remaking the same games again. That's how the music industry works although they only recycle the garbage (or make crap out of good stuff).

[nemo_83]

I would rather making games be easier so that it could be more related to writing a book, or making a movie; but honestly you need a crew of people with a range of talents and skills to make games.  The most profitable movie ever was Blair Witch Project which was put together by a couple of kids with two cameras.  Movies are all about the effort as a person doesn't have to have a degree in talking to computers to make a movie.  Using a camera is an art form unto itself.  A person with a camera can make a movie; it is direct like that.  To make a game though, you need a team.  You could break it up into individual tasks.  Your programmers, your artists, and your director/writer/game designer.  I like to think that everyone contributes creative ideas, but you need someone at the center of it all like Steven Speilberg.  Someone holding it together who may even be the writer.  I know as you get to these bigger games these days, games are becoming decentralized.  You have seperate people writing, directing, designing, marketing, patenting, researching, testing, specific programmers programming specific tasks, and so on.  The industry is getting less personal.  Can you really say these days that a certain game is a certain person's creation?

The industry has moved further away from an art form and closer towards manufacturing.  They have to have a sequel every year or every other year.  I play games these days and find them following formulas as predictable as a movie staring Terra Reid.  

[KDR_11k]

To make a movie on par with he latest hollywood stuff you need a huge team and millions upon millions.
To make a game on par with the latest next-gen stuff you need a huge team and millions upon millions.
If you're not competing with those, a computer/camera, a few bucks and your creativity are enough.

Seriously, there are many great games out there that were made by one guy in 6 months. None of these could be mistaken for one of those huge multi-million games that use the thirty latest buzzwords to fool you into thinking what you see is real but some are just as much, if not more, fun.

Developing games is easy. You don't need entire teams, just a bit of knowledge about coding (nothing that can't be learned from tutorials) and graphics. Sure, you won't get to make groundbreaking graphics or epic quests but hell, try doing that with your few guys with a camera. Make sure your game is fun though since you have nothing else to sell it with.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: nemo_83
The most profitable movie ever was Blair Witch Project which was put together by a couple of kids with two cameras.

Yes, a couple of kids with $60,000... and backed by $25 million worth of advertising. Also, most profitable film of all time? I think not. Just as an example, Jurassic Park cost $63 million to make, and generated $914 million worldwide. Anyway you slice it, that's way more profit than Blair Witch got, which nabbed $248 million worldwide.

[Dasmos]

I think what Nemo meant is was the has the highest ratio of money spent:money earned of any movie of all time..........it is even in the guiness book of records..

[ib2kool4u912]

I've seen Blair Witch Project and i thought it sucked.  Not all cheaply made movies are good.  

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Dasmos
I think what Nemo meant is was the has the highest ratio of money spent:money earned of any movie of all time..........it is even in the guiness book of records..

If you mean money spent to make the film, then yes it would be up near the top in terms of return on investment per dollar. If you count in the marketing, then no, Passion of the Christ would be an example of a film that tops it in the dollar-to-dollar ratio of profit (roughly $1= $10 for Blair Witch, and $1=$11 for Passion).

Suffice to say, I'm fairly interested in box office related information.

[jasonditz]

Clerks was made about as cheaply as possible for a modern movie, and it was great.

The problem is that in console gaming there's no chance of coming up with the equivalent, you can't just "decide" to make a GC title on a shoestring. I'm still hoping that Reggie's talk about indy development on the Rev wasn't just lipservice.  

[couchmonkey]

It's true that in console gaming it's harder to come up with cheap games, since the format is controlled by the hardware developers.  Alien Hominid is probably the only "indy" console game on the Cube.  I hope Nintendo is serious about indy development too, to me that would be a big plus.

I found the part where they thought 4 original products out of 25 was good to be the most hilarious/depressing.  I think about 15/25 would be desirable.  I do like to see sequels to my favourite games and I also understand that a certain number of sequels and liscences need to be put to work to keep modern game companies financially healthy, but as a gamer, yeah I'd like to see way more original IP.