Topic: Death to the Games Industry!

[KDR_11k]

first part
second part

Abstract: The current system has to go. The publisher takes the IP and most of the money made from any game and many developers have only the publishers to get funding. Venture capital and download publishing are ways to get around the publisher but it's difficult. For internet publishing there needs to be a company that maintains a portal for all the hardcore indy games and does the marketing. For this to be accepted there needs to be a change in consumer behaviour.

You guys loved the "Burning Down The House" GDC panel, I'm guessing you'll love this, too.

The problem I see is bandwidth. Costikyan mentions "hundreds of megabytes". Yeah, in 1995. These days games are one or even two orders of magnitude larger. That's gigabytes. Gigabytes take days to download even on (consumer-level) broadband. That's not a 30 minute round trip to your local games store, that's eating up your bandwidth for many hours. I hope that means cheaper games because you're getting less value so a lower price is appropriate.

[Dasmos]

I read part 1, and I agree with it entirely.

A good read indeed. Maybe one day I'll read part 2.

[gally]

I'm only reading it now, and it touches on many of the things I've been afraid of. I think companies need to find some way to simplify graphics and go to game design basics. Maybe some sort of "standard engine" - several, can be made and used by many? It's a pipe dream, but one thing that could help.

My older brother once said "graphics don't impress me", and would keep saying it if graphics were ever pointed out to him.

Katamari Damacy is selling, and its graphics look like, well, not much. That is a good, but minor, sign. If nothing else, it means people are becoming less obsessed with graphics, to some degree. Maybe we are beginning to hit that "doesn't really matter" point soon, where people don't care that much about "impressive" graphics because they are no longer impressive?

I hope so. Development time is spent on many things, and I'd rather it be spent on level design and gameplay balance far more than graphics and sound.

[Dasmos]

I bet KDR is pretty stoked about the 2 thread replies. I do think mor epeople shoudl read this, if not skim over it. I also read part 2 not long ago.

[Renny]

Well despite the lack of replies, I think most of the people here are on the same page. It's something I've seen a lot of people on the interweb (well, games forums) citing as an important feature of the Revolution: the potential for a viable independent game channel. Ignoring the attack on Yamauchi's Nintendo, I think they want the same thing Iwata wants. A Revolution. A parallel--and potentially much larger--industry for smaller games. It's a vast chasm of unrealized sales that a large publisher like Nintendo needs to consider. It's up to Iwata to lose the NCL arrogance and regain the confidence of smaller developers.