Post by: nemo_83 on March 05, 2005, 01:29:03 PM
The thread contains a lot of mistakes, rhetorical questions, and bad puns, but there were some good ideas I feel that are being confirmed now. Now it is 2005, and some things have changed; and some new evidence is on the table. There has been much talk about the new systems and where the market is going. In several days the GDC will finally happen and all ears will be bowed down to Nintendo’s President. Recently a new interview with him has hit the web and caused fear about what the man has to say. http://cube.ign.com/articles/593/593733p1.html
The following was found on another board concerning the direction the industry. This was on David Jaffes web blog. He is the director of God of War and the good Twisted Metal games.
1. Quote:
Had an interesting discussion with Dan Arey the other day. He’s the creative director over at Naughty Dog and he’s putting together a talk at GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) about what it takes to make a AAA game these days. For some crazy reason he thought I’d be able to provide some insight for his speech so he stopped by Monday and we had a nice chat about games.
One of the questions that came up was this: how can publishers mitigate risk in an industry where games are costing more and more to produce but the audience for games is not growing anywhere near as fast as the budgets.
A DAMN FINE question I think, and one of the most important issues facing all of
us in the gaming biz.
In talking to Dan it seems his research shows there are mainly two schools of thought on this vital issue:
School A (and I include myself in this camp) thinks that fewer games will get made in the coming years but the games that do get made will cost more to produce and have the market much more in mind when the games are being designed (i.e. focus testing the concepts like EA and ACTIVISION are reported to do). To me, this method seems more like the movie biz (as far as I can tell) in that the studios don’t put a gajillion flicks a year into theaters; instead they put their focus behind a handful of movies with mainstream elements: stars, proven directors, and stories that your average person- they hope- cares about.
School B- Games will get smaller, production value will get less important, and budgets will get scaled back to account for the fact that- while budgets are increasing- the audience for games is not (at least not increasing as fast). This could go a few ways. It could translate into more unique games (i.e. the logic being if we are only going to sell 200,000 copies, we may as well focus on pure gameplay and not worry about the production sizzle and mainstream concepts/themes and just market our titles out to PURE GAMERS, like in the 8 and 16bit days) OR it could translate into an attempt to still create mass market games but without the amazing production values, long play times, and – in many cases- needed play tuning.
In some ways, this ‘make smaller games’ theory seems to already be occurring in Japanese game development (as far as I can tell, don’t know actual budgets) because you see games like CASTLEVANIA: LAMENT OF INNOCENCE and NANOBREAKER which- while being cool- clearly lack the kind of polish, length, production value, and tuning time that games used to have coming from Japan. This is not to say the whole country has gone in this direction as we still see the big $$$ titles like GT4 and RE4 hitting shelves. But smaller and less polished games coming out of Japan are seeming more and more prevalent. And I’m not talking Mahjong and strip Pachinko games that have always littered Japanese game stores and never get sold in EB’s and GAMESTOPS of the USA. I’m talking about wannabe mainstream titles from big publishers like SEGA, NAMCO, and KONAMI that are finding their way to American game shops.
Now- to me- there are pros and cons to both schools of thought and certainly School B (smaller, less expensive games) is the safer school because we can at least keep the industry alive by heading down that path. If the game industry embraces school A and it fails, we could be in for a mighty crash. That said, you will probably still see fallout with School B in terms of people in the biz losing jobs because games that now take 50 people to make will soon only take 12 (like PSone days)….so that would be sad….but not as sad as a bigger industry crash.
You may also may end up seeing a mix where MOST games fall into category A, but 10% of the games per year are from school B (ala the Indy Film market).
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Dan and I also chatted about creativity in games and how games brimming with creative ideas and fresh, unique worlds are having a tough time on the market. In specific we talked about Oddworld’s new game STRANGER.
I played this a few nights ago and so far, I dig it. But I gotta tell you, the first thing that went through my mind upon playing it was: man, it really sucks that this game is not going to sell.
Now I hope I am wrong. I really, really do. I dig the Oddworld games and really appreciate what Lorne Lanning and his guys do down there in San Luis Obispo (so-cal town). And this new game is really cool and unique and just full of clever stuff.
But there is a good lesson here, a lesson that game makers really need to embrace if they- in my opinion- want to have a good shot at commercial success.
So here’s the lesson: 80% comfort zone, 20% new.
If we are aiming for the mainstream (which I imagine a title like Stranger OR Psychonauts OR American McGee’s Scrapland OR many, many other original titles that probably will never sell over 200,000 copies would like to do), then you need to take a lesson from the movie biz. Unless you are that rare title that gets an ultra **** load of marketing dollars behind you, you really need to design your game so that the vast majority of it can be related to by your mass market. As cool as the ammo system is in Stranger, that unique ammo system MIXED with the odd looking creatures MIXED with the strange looking hero MIXED with the totally unique world is WAY too much for the mainstream to stomach.
It’s not that I don’t dig it Stranger…I DO! I DO! I totally applaud Oddworld…it’s a cool game. BUT it’s just not commercial because they are trying to do TOO MUCH and the game is overwhelming the mainstream gaming audience. No matter how cool the ideas are, the average player can not relate. And he doesn’t want to try to either. He wants it pre-packaged and- to some extend- pre digested. And as game makers we should not be mad about this. We should embrace it. These people are looking for easy entertainment and if we don’t give it to them, someone else will.
Often- if the developers I know are any indication of the developers in the rest of the biz- game makers tend to be inspired by the movies. And- thus inspired- they will argue: Hey, ICE AGE was a hit…what is relatable about that? The answer is nothing is inherently relatable about ICE AGE…but that flick had the marketing machine of 20th Century Fox to shove the ICE AGE characters on every Burger King cup in the country; they had the dollars to put the ICE AGE posters on every bus stop (and every bus) in the nation! That much in your face branding, and ANYTHING because relatable because you see it every day! It’s relatable because it becomes part of your ****ing life cause you can’t avoid it!
Interesting to note that HALO 2 seemed to be marketed like a giant, big budget movie. They spent the cash on getting that game out there and it paid off….granted it was a sequel to a massive game (which helps) but I bet many more people played HALO 2 than HALO 1 and were brought into the franchise BECAUSE of the marketing dollars spent this last XMAS. And I gotta say, they needed the marketing dollars because the theme, setting, and story of HALO resonate with the mainstream only a bit more those elements in the ODDWORLD STRANGER game.
Interesting to note even some of the biggest influences to the game artists I know (PIXAR, DREAMWORKS ANIMATION) make movies with the 80/20 rule. Check it out:
TOY STORY- everyone knows and loves classic toys.
BUGS LIFE- Ditto (but not as much)
CARS- people love cars almost more than toys!
SHREK- Classic Fairy tales with a spinINCREDIBLES- Super Heros with a twist
They’ve ALL got something the average person gets, knows, and- in many cases- likes/loves.
Now compare those flicks to these recent animation bombs:
TITAN AE- Who knows what this about?
SINBAD- Ok, ‘classic story’ but not really…most kids don’t know Sinbad
PRINCESS MONONOKE- Great flick (to some) but no one could relate
Not one of these dealt with anything (in it’s main concept) that most people could grasp just by looking at the movie poster. Or watching a 20 second commercial.
And they all paid the price.
So there ya go…that’s my point: 80%,comfort zone, 20% new…that’s my motto.
AND PLEASE, remember the 20% portion! Because YES, a game can sell with a higher ratio on the 80% side (for example: 100%/0% is a damn good ratio) and many games embrace the 100/0 rule and sell like gangbusters. GTA, SOCOM, GT4, MADDEN, and NEED FOR SPEED are great examples of this. BUT there are two things to watch out for if you stack the 80% too much higher:
a- The closer your left side is to 100%, the bigger the chance that someone else has the same idea as you and- sooner than later- you are going to be swimming in very crowded waters (i.e. underground street racers; modern war games with soldiers and Navy Seals; sports games; urban hip-hop culture games). So you either gotta discover the next great cultural groove AND get it to market first OR come late to the party but execute the **** out of the idea and get some good/great marketing behind it.
b- Who the **** wants to make 100%/0% games?!?! Notice I didn’t say who the ****s wants to PLAY these games. Hell, I totally understand why those above listed games are hits and I LOVE some of those very games. But man, I don’t want to work on the ****…too dull and dry for me. I’d go nuts!
Right now the majority of the market seems to be embracing (or preparing to embrace) the 100%/0% rule and- because of it- the market is getting very, very cluttered with ME TOO titles (how many more army sqaud games can the market support)?!?!
It will be interesting to see if games stay at 100%/0% ratio or open the valve just a bit to let some imagination in.
I guess whichever way it goes will determine if games stay GAMES (the 100%/0% split) or if games- in the mainstream’s perception- become works of great pop entertainment (the 80%/20% split) like the movies….
I am pushing for the 80/20 but that’s just me.
If I had to hedge my bets, I would say the 100%/0% is on a hell of a roll…Can it EVER be stopped?!?!
Guess we’ll find out soon enough!
David
I was right with some of my thoughts on rising costs and slowing market growth in the industry, and there are only so many strategies around the situation. David was only thinking from the software side. My solution is to approach things from the hardware side first. Like I said in my original thread about the possibilities of another crash; the industry is only seeing the symptoms of its own disease and not the actual disease. Throwing money at something will get you nowhere in my opinion. There is not a big enough market for these beefy new consoles MS and Sony are releasing. I would pay $500 for a console from Nintendo with a vr helmet with internal gyro, two one handed controllers with internal gyros, a modem, a harddrive, and at least half the graphics of the NextBox. That is right, I think that graphics are not the problem of the hardware, but of the developer lacking the time and money to use the next gen hardware when the market is not growing fast enough and maybe even shrinking. Assuming noone causes a paradigm shift in gameplay, and the three companies get uber conservative releasing only safe games and sequels because of rising costs in development. We would also have a market split between PCs, three handhelds if the GameBoyEvolution comes out and is hopefully backwards compatible with Cube software, and three consoles. Do the elementary math, and you will figure out there is no room to breathe. There is no room for innovation. People will not be impressed and will not buy games. How can someone who is mainstream exist in tomorrow’s world of gaming. How can one person own one system and be able to play plenty of exclusive games with the efforts of developers focused on fewer safer games across all the available hardware.
Some have expressed doubt about Nintendo’s current strategy, or at least pieces of it. Editorials like this one http://www.planetgamecube.com/editorials.cfm?action=profile&id=151 show concern with the DS and what it says about where Nintendo is going with the Revolution. IGN and EGM also have been vocal about disappointment in the DS. On forums some seem to believe that the DS hardware is a failure. I personally feel that the software is the problem right now and that the hardware can do any gameplay that the PSP can do as well as do shooters, rpgs, and rts games better than the PSP. The DS software though right now is not aimed at traditional gamers. The DS’s best game right now is a port of a Mario game that early adopters of the handheld likely already own, and the game is not built to use the touch screen like the upcoming Metroid Hunters is. If Nintendo were planing to attract traditional gamers they would have released some games that used the touch screen and were appealing to hardcore gamers like the genres I mentioned several lines up. They seem intent upon digging up a market of non traditional gamers with the DS. Girls, retired gamers, gamers who like 2d games, and PC gamers will be attracted to the DS for the DS’ gameplay capabilities. They just need to put out some games that are complete games that are designed for the touch screen as opposed to the plethora of mini games hitting the system. There is no reason the PSP should be adopted for its graphics by third parties. Third parties did not flock to the GameCube because of its graphical abilities, why should they do it with the PSP. Am I missing out on some huge obvious conspiracy to hold Nintendo down in the industry?
Graphics need to improve, but what exactly about graphics needs to improve. Well if you are Sony, then you are thinking, “everything.” Nintendo though is not out to compensate for a small joystick. Ok, horrible pun; let us move on. Sony is pushing the idea of vectors, blue ray, and CELL technology. This all equals high end graphics, but will we be able to play with those pretty games? Will there be half the interactivity with the environment that the other two “inferior” systems have? I do not feel that polygons are as big of an issue as Sony is making them. It is too much too fast. Maybe next next gen we can start having games with characters that look this good http://fits.depauw.edu/aharris/Courses/ArtH132/galleries/images/fullsize/fs_Sluter_Moses.jpg but right now we need to be reasonable and use our imaginations http://filmstills3.netfirms.com/nightma1/
The difference is that the moses statue would be comprised of more polygons than even present movies feature in CGI effects. The fountain is a timeless piece of sculpture and shows exactly how to tackle the idea of hair and facial expression. The pictures from A Nightmare Before Christmas are of stop motion animation. This is how developers should be approaching their game worlds presently. The character models do not require high numbers of polygons to portray their lifelike nature. In Burton’s film it is the animation and real world lighting effects that separate this piece of art from the piece of trash Shrek. Character animation and lighting are more important to next gen graphics then all the bump mapping and photo realistic texturing they can fit on a blue ray disk. High polygon counts are a given for all three of the new consoles and surely it won’t matter that the PS3 can push more polygons than the Revolution if the Revolution uses the polygons it has and lights them better than the PS3's polygons then the Revolution’s fewer polygons will be of higher quality and feature more depth. Some developers just want to map scars and wrinkles onto the character models, but with the PS3 they maybe able to create the wrinkles in 3d with polygons.
A company can combat the graphics strategy of Sony’s several ways. One way is to release a system that is more like an ipod than a cd player. The company could cut out the middle man and become the sole retailer of their console’s software via an ipod type downloading system to a harddrive. This would make things easier for the consumer and create more profits with the gamers buying empty licenced disks to burn games from their system.
One route is to move the market towards developing games. The system could not only play games but allow for gamers to construct their own games, upload, and download them online. The system could launch with a click and drop game maker of either the GameCube’s Zelda games.
Another way to fight Sony is to release a system with a controller that can do things no controller has done yet. Follow the rumors about the Revolution and you will find that the controller may feature an internal gyro that detects tilting as well as turning. It combines the functions of traditional controllers with flight sticks and mice. There may also be additional tweaks to other mechanics of the controller. You can see my ideas on that in my signature.
If Sony can put a large screen on the PSP and sell it cheap I believe that a vr helmet with internal gyro and mic would add $150 to the price of the Revolution. Add that to the hardware, including graphics, modem, and harddrive costing $200. And the dual one handed controllers with internal gyros costing around another $100. Then a game for $50 and you are paying only $500 for what is the ultimate gaming fantasy. Hardcore gamers could be relied upon for the first two years to eat it up causing prices to go down and sells to continue. People would buy games and play them just to have fun, not just to beat them. This is the GTA effect. Where a game is so relatable yet fulfills impossible fantasies like car jacking that it is irresistibly fun to play. The reason maybe linked to the fact that when you play GTA you are not playing the game. You are able to break lose of the story and go do what you want. You are allowed to disrupt the story and the game world, and it is fun. You are allowed to be abstract. In Zelda you spend your time adventuring rather than experimenting with NPCs. While GTA’s adventure does not compare to Zelda, it has taken a page out of Zelda’s philosophy. In Zelda you are able to go and do any adventuring you want at any time, but how often do you find yourself away from the story creating your own adventure doing something that has no affect on beating the game? The new hardware needs to make it easier for gamers to be abstract. In Soul Calibur, instead of pressing down, forward, and b to attack someone you would simply move your arm and swing the sword directly the way you want to. Imagine a vr visor that was optionally translucent and used http://www.t-immersion.com/ allowing for anything to be projected before you in full 3d such as a lightsaber in your hand. Just an example.
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Okay, this is an edit: http://www.thehollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/video_games_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000884458
One of my favorite developers is leaving the industry. Oddworld is moving on to movies and tv. I always felt that there would one day be an Abe movie, I just did not think it would mean I would nolonger get to play Oddworld games. Read that interview. I do not know if I am allowed to post the entire piece.
"Lanning: It's an industry-wide problem. As game production costs rise, publishers want more sure bets because with rising costs come rising risks. What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."
"Lanning: Absolutely. Costs are going up, but not because the quality expectation is higher. Costs are going up because of the design of the next-generation hardware. The code that just one guy used to write on the Xbox is now going to take five guys. It's as if the movie camera that you started shooting with 10 years ago has improved some features and now you need 12 people to operate it instead of one."
"Lanning: Which has always been part of the plan. And the reason why today seems to be the right time is that game technology is now moving in an opposite paradigm. Video game systems aren't being designed to be conducive to development, creativity, or content. They're being designed to be cheaper for manufacturing. If movie cameras were made that way, you'd have a rebellion in Hollywood. But this isn't Hollywood and it isn't a movie camera; it's a videogame system and the public wants basically a $1,000 box but only wants to pay $150 for it. I'm not saying that anyone is guilty in this process, but this is the reality of the current climate for development in video games and where it's headed. And because the costs are higher, more ownership needs to be seen on behalf of the publishers and, quite frankly, I don't blame them. They can say, "Look I used to pay for video games when they were $6 million, but now they're $16 million. And you know what? My shareholders are not going to like it if I fund your game, it's a big hit, and then you take it to someone else. That's going to hurt my stock. We need to see a path to ownership or ownership right out of the gate.""
Post by: Deguello on March 05, 2005, 01:34:02 PM
I see a problem.
"If Sony can put a large screen on the PSP and sell it cheap"
I can make a $50,000 car and sell it for $3.25.
Post by: nemo_83 on March 05, 2005, 01:39:40 PM
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 05, 2005, 03:28:02 PM
The market is becoming slower, and everyday more and more like the Movie business. Is that neccessarily a bad thing? Well yes if you want to play something new every month, but I think the quality of gaming will make up for that. I'm sure noone here minded if Zelda 64 had a delay. Why? Becuase we are quality whores; we lap up every little detail given to us. We don't play games just to kill something for 20 minutes or steal a persons car, no, we play games to be transported into that world. Though it is only becuase we are experienced that we can "transport" into that world. Anyone who can't see themselves glued to the TV, using some controller that realistically has nothing to do with what's going on screen, is the reason why the game industry isn't getting any bigger. I think that we could of gone another generation without a "revolution" simply becuase many people gave games a try this generation, simply becuase they looked so appealing. They stuck with it and reaped the benefits. That would happen even more next-gen if the graphics, were say, double what they are today. People can easily relate to a game when it looks so much like the real world, thus making it easier to "transport".
Now, of course, there is an alternate method to "transporting" people. To make what is real in life, relate to what's happening on-screen and not the other way around, like Sony is suggesting, is a great way you can have both cups of tea. In one instance, the charachter can grasp the concept of CONTROL, which is fundementally the most important aspect of gaming, and in another instance they relate to what's happening on-screen because they've seen it before (in movies, tv and such). What also makes this method more appealing, is the fact that games that don't have realistic graphics, such as abstract/quirky games, can still hold some sort of relation with the player. A great example of this is the DS. How many people can pet a virtual puppy with their finger? Everyone. My point exactly. Nintendo now wishes to use this method with their new console, the Revolution. And if our little feathery friend is right (Noble-feather) then it will indeed be able to stand toe to toe with Xbox 2 and PS3. Which is great. This complies with method one, and a good first step. We have yet to see method two in action (or even method one in that case), but I can assure you it has something to do with making the controllers accesible to the game world. Gyration sounds great, but if it only allows for tilting games and using it as a virtual steering wheel, it won't attract anymore gamers to the market that method one can't. That's why there is so much pondering to what the hell it could be. I don't think Nintendo would put a touch screen either. They have a hand-held that is making it hard to utilize it's functions with games other than mini-quirky puzzles or games. And if they did include a touchscreen, without any sign of a killer app using this application, they would be the laughing stock of the videogame industry. And again, I don't think it would attract anymore gamers that method one won't. The clues add up...it has to do with Gyration. Hopefully the dual one-handed controllers are it, becuase that is really the only way I can see it blowing the door wide open to the general public, and saying "come right in." It would still use buttons, which is a "no no", but it can grab the non-gamers attention long enough for them to give it a shot.
Would using this type of controller still make the process of making the games slower? Well this can't be controlled...Prettier graphics = longer developement. What it can control are the games that don't need pretty graphics and that use method two of relation to capture gamers. These games can be made in a relatively short time, but still be called A titles. A music game is the perfect example. It essentially requires no graphics (polygons), the focus is on sound instead of sight. Add a bunch of drums, guitars, flutes (using the mic) to play and you've got a hit release. A release that is quality enough that waiting for that AAA title isn't as unbearable (more like fun).
If it looks fun...It must be fun. It it looks great....It must be great. If I know how the hell to control the charachter....then I know how the hell to play the game. The hardware/controller concept can check off those fundemental gaming truths.
A side note...I like that idea of downloading the game, but that won't see the light of day till these two problems are sorted out:
1. Everyone would have to have broadband (like T3)....there is no way downloading several tens of gigabytes can be done with dial-up. Also the servers would have to be extremely fast and able to have millions of users logged in at once.
2. Piracy must become negligent, as with the GC. It should not be able to be done....or if done, must suck so bad that your better off buying your own copy.
I like the idea of giving small developers the ability to run their own code on the Ninentdo, but that would essentially create more competition with Nintendo's software. Hardware sales would have a nice boost, but it's not worth it in Nintendo's eyes. (I'd love to see a web browser though...or even Linux.)
Post by: nemo_83 on March 05, 2005, 06:02:08 PM
Broadband is expanding fast, but the problem is keeping up the whole online networking thing without charging the consumer after they have bought the system and payed their cable bill.
Post by: KDR_11k on March 05, 2005, 10:45:50 PM
So, what's that "casual gamer market" you're speaking of?
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 06, 2005, 05:47:28 AM
What you said proves my point entirely, it was 10 years ago when Microsoft did that. 10 years ago, graphics were terrible and allowed for minimal "realistisity" and in-game physics. Those are especially needed for a FPS, like Microsoft tried to produce. Cool concept, but it just looked to cheesy back then, that's why consumers gave it the cold shoulder. Today, a device like that would work well. Not only could it be more sensitive, comfortable and cheaper, but it could also be coupled with amazing graphics. It was pre-mature when Microsoft released it, people could have more fun playing just a normal game.
In this era, I see the next Halo becoming an amazingly over-whelming game that is so complex, that even though it may take weeks before you can even "play", people will go through that buffer period just to reap the benefits. This is where Nintendo can succeed, for they don't need any buffer period, they can give the product and the product will be well recieved. People open up the box, they see a console and a wireless controller in two parts with a charging platform. They're like "WoW, this is really different!" They start playing a game, maybe the music one I was talking about. They can easily comprehend moving your hands as if playing a guitar, or banging an imaginary drum (they could use a pillow for resistance). They see the computer hands actually playing the guitar or drum, but obviously, they control what the hands do. Not confusing, not complicated, and best of all, no need for a manual. Multiplayer would be outstanding. *points to jam with the band* Nintendo could even use a boot-up screen that allows you to play with a computer animated hand just to get the feel for the controller (Like writing stuff on a "chalk board" that the Nintendo logo is engraved in).
There are many people who don't play videogames, and then there are those that don't play as often. Nintendo is targeting both, but mostly the ones that don't play as often. If they can somehow attract those people into the world of vidoegames, that's a hell of alot more people in the videogame market. These people already understand the concept of buttons and analog stick, but don't like it becuase it is too complex at times. A controller like this could blow down those walls. A sports game where you actually box, would be great for those college students or graduates that like sports, but not in videogames. What about the girl population? Personally, I know alot of girls that already like videogames, and play more than me...but I'm sure this isn't the consensus. Nintendogs could have a sequel for the REV, where you pet your dog, stroking its fur like you would in real life. Throwing a stick to make it fetch it, and other things that are simple to understand, yet fun. And again, brings them into that world becuase the dog is amazingly life-like. I would personally love a console debut of an RTS or even Black and White. I can imagine it now, picking up people and chucking them across the island. This would attract the PC gamers, for they are a huge virtually untouched market.
What about those abstract games that Nintendo likes to produce? Realistically, they attract the group that at one timed played games, but "got too old for it"....Hostile Creation's family comes to mind. Also, they attract that group that was never into games, but liked mind-games and gambling (Poker for one). I'm not sure what Nintendo could do, but if the Mario 64 mini-games are any indication, I see them making wonderfully interactive games that are addicting. Just what those non-gamers need, for they still play solitaire (my mother for one) becuase it's down right addicting.
A complex FPS, could attract those that are already in the market, but on the wrong side. I mean, really, how many people bought the Xbox for Halo? Alot....more like all of them. A Halo killer could be developed and potentially kill of the Xbox in a matter of a year (just enough time for everyone to hear about it). The possibilities are huge with this type of controller, especially in a FPS. Shooting two people at the same time, driving while shooting, shooting while ducking behind a crate, shooting behind you, pistol whipping, and maybe even using weapons that didn't fit the world before but fit nicely now (A mace, sword, spear, and others). All these could potentially kill Halo, and with an online plan...I see it happening. Again, Nintendo gains heaps of users.
What about the PS2? Well, that's harder, for they have many good games unlike Xbox. A great third-person shooter could come out, that showcases the controller. A RPG as well, though I can't think of any ideas right now. An RE can make great use of the controller, especially with the type of game RE4 is. Also a great fighting game to compete with Virtua Fighter (awesome game) and Tekken (again awesome). SSBM (which is better in my opinion) isn't enough, another more mature game must come out. Soul Calibur would be nice, but it's most likely muli-platfrom unless it has the possibilty of using the person arms. If it can be well used and intuitive, then it could attract the PS2 hard-core fan base and those that bought the PS2 for a DVD/Videogame player.
This is overall does exactly what Nintendo has been spouting for years, expanding the market. If they do go down this path, I hope they have a good mix of games. From the non-gamer to the gamer, becuase lord knows we don't want to HAVE to play non-gamer games. As well as a good combination of E-M rated games, and so far, there's already evidence that they're doing just that. Also, it might work out where the non-gamers, after enough "practicing" with their types of games, could find it possible to play the more complex games that we gamers are accustomed to (Zelda for one, and Metriod for another) and see the fun in them.
Post by: nemo_83 on March 06, 2005, 11:56:15 AM
I was trying in 03 to look to the future and give my best shot at what we would be talking about in 05, when I thought the new consoles would start coming out. Still, what are we talking about? A gaming revolution, just like I said there had to be for the industry to survive. I still feel a dullness in the industry and it is partially situational due to the number of systems being released. But I still believe that a crash is inevitable in the next generation if the controller hardware does not advance. The question is how far to go with the controller hardware this generation? What is revolutionary enough? What would be too much at once? The next time we see a VR helmet released it will not be the VB2. These companies have spent years developing their hardware. When people think virtual reality they still think it would cost a company $15,000 for the motion capture technology, that the helmet will be twenty pounds, there will be a bundle of wires, that the graphics would look like 3D on the Saturn, and that they could not possibly put thumb and finger functions on the handles. Why is this? Noone in the media seems to doubt Sony's claims about the CELL breaking Moore's law in order to achieve movie level graphics at an affordable price to the consumer. I am not even saying Nintendo has to break Moores law for virtual reality controller hardware. And I am even suggesting they don't need to worry about the graphics much at all. It is possible, and if people actually played it they would remember a feeling they have not felt in a long time. I remember the first time the birds took flight as I walked to them in Mario 64 while the camera swept along like a movie. I remember the excitement that I couldn't hold in when I first played Super Mario Bros. and moved the controller in the air everytime I jumped over a pit. The thrill is gone. The magic is not there anymore, and I am not the only person who feels this. People ask if Nintendo is a sleeping dragon. They ask this because they feel that everything that Nintendo has done over the past years has been sort of average compared to what they have done in the past.
I proposed the $500 setup because being the cheapest system in the past few years has gotten them nowhere. I am not suggesting they compete with Sony's graphics, but they lay waste to Sony's controller. Nintendo should do what Nintendo does times two. I feel the most secure way to get the point across is the helmet. The controllers may only get them half way, especially since Sony will do their best to make it look like their own controller can do what Nintendo's can. As more systems are sold, the cost of the hardware will go down. Sony wants to put out a computer, it will be expensive, and if Nintendo does not offer a next generation GAMING machine to compete with that computer then Nintendo will not turn profit because they won't sell enough consoles to sell enough games. There console would be the me too console even if its visuals are on par with Sony's. I don't believe Sony's path is the right one, especially for a smaller company like Nintendo. Virtual Reality is where gaming is going and it is time a company stood up and offered a version that was possible for the masses to enjoy. The first time someone looks around in a 3D cockpit and sees the clouds drift by they will know that there is no going back. The gamer will be immersed in the game. Developers can actually blur the line that seperates where reality ends and the game begins.
Also I would like to say that no matter what system you own, if you are a hardcore gamer you are getting tired of rappers in videogames. You are getting tired of their music probably too. I am sick to death of it. I am tired of the "mainstreme" as it is labeled. It is the stench of the movie and music industry trying to inject itself where it does not belong. I have no problem with good actors doing voices or a game having a filmic quality; but this MTV generation of movies and music is not worth my used toilet paper. I'm talking about movies with constantly changing camera angles lacking composition, scores that are not original, and cinematography with quick zooming or rotating and anything else that is not possible with a real camera like passing through glass. These things they say are making the industry mainstreme are the testosterone driven things keeping the industry from expanding.
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 06, 2005, 02:27:55 PM
Anyways, I don't know why you are so convinced. VR isn't going to happen now or even in the near future. Until costs can come down and you don't have to wear a goofy helmet, then one day it might be realized. Any other iteration of it, is a waste of time and money.
You mention the controller would just get them half-way there. Half-way to where? Did you even read my post above? As I see it, it would get them the sales they need, and the support from third parties that is unlike any other. People will flock, companies will flock, what else do you want?...........VR just won't happen.
I know how you feel. Especially jumping those gaps with Mario, or trying to stop a really fast turtle shell. Doing back-flips in Peach's Castles front yard was just...fun. It was new and exciting, and was never seen before then.
Now when the industry has gotten so complex, how do you bring back that feeling? Nintendo has asked themselves that question thousands of times, and I know they have a good answer. Emulating arm/wrist movements is enough for now. It opens possiblities that couldn't be done. Exactly like Mario 64. If they launch with a great example of this ala Mario 64, then they got it made. I can't see Sony spending yet another huge sum of money to get gyroscopes into their controller....it's too late. They've spent too much money on the Cell already. Xbox is coming in a year and to change the controller would be disastrous and ruin their software line-up on launch. So no worries there my friend.
Post by: KDR_11k on March 07, 2005, 12:39:50 AM
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 07, 2005, 02:47:41 AM
The controller would actually make party games more fun. There are so many more possibilities with this type of controller. I can see someone throwing a pillow at the leader, so it messes with their control.
Post by: couchmonkey on March 07, 2005, 04:59:16 AM
Quote
Noone in the media seems to doubt Sony's claims about the CELL breaking Moore's law in order to achieve movie level graphics at an affordable price to the consumer. I am not even saying Nintendo has to break Moores law for virtual reality controller hardware.
I don't think that's true at all. The thing is when the media reports something like that, it's not considered "professional" to add, "But Sony are a bunch of liars!" at the end of the article. Reporting is about presenting facts to the public. Unfortunatley, when you're presenting "facts" passed on by a company like Sony, all you can do is use words like "claims" and "says" instead of words like "will" and "does".
If you were to write a roundtable on the next generation and ask a bunch of credible industry reporters to say whether or not they feel PS3 will reproduce movie graphics in real time, I think you'll hear a unanimous "NO". Most of these guys know enough about hardware and about Sony's hype machine to know Sony is blowing smoke.
I do, however, agree with the notion that games are going to become stagnant if the next generation only tries for better graphics.
Very late edit: fixed my quotes.
Post by: KDR_11k on March 07, 2005, 06:21:51 AM
Post by: SgtShiversBen on March 07, 2005, 09:46:05 AM
Post by: KDR_11k on March 07, 2005, 10:59:25 AM
Anyway, normalmaps are a HUGE step towards movie-looking games because they drastically reduce the polygons required for the same level of detail. They aren't perfect but close enough that you don't see the difference ingame. You could conceivably cut Leon down to a third of his current triangle count without noticeable loss of detail since you won't need as much smoothing and stuff. HL2 proved that it's possible to get realistic animations ingame. Faking geometry detail and having much more credible animations will give realtime graphics a huge boost and might make it catch up with movies. Of course not totally, that's impossible but it will become close enough you won't see the difference anymore. Realtime graphics cut a lot of corners that aren't noticeable. Next gen games will use SSS, that much was confirmed by EA. If you can implement custom lighting algorythms, what is there left to stop you?
(btw, those fight night XBNext shots looked damn close to prerendered CG)
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 07, 2005, 11:32:42 AM
.
Post by: KDR_11k on March 07, 2005, 07:30:11 PM
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 07, 2005, 10:54:51 PM
Post by: KDR_11k on March 08, 2005, 04:34:44 AM
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 08, 2005, 05:20:08 AM
Post by: KDR_11k on March 08, 2005, 07:28:09 AM
Post by: SgtShiversBen on March 08, 2005, 09:27:28 AM
I do believe also that EA will do even better in the upcoming systems with making their people look so much more lifelike. That's the power of bumpmapping. You have a low polygon count model, but with those shadings and great bitmaps, those defeat anything.
Post by: nemo_83 on March 08, 2005, 11:30:33 AM
This industry is a heavy iron beast railing the rails that are ending over the ravine around the next hill. A crash could be the best thing to happen to gaming in twenty years.
Executive shake-up at Sony
Tue, Mar. 08, 2005
COMPETITION COMING FROM MICROSOFT, APPLE, SAMSUNG, CHINA
By Dean Takahashi and Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News
Sony's abrupt replacement of its top leadership with Sir Howard Stringer, the first non-Japanese to run the consumer electronics conglomerate, highlights the challenges it faces from Apple Computer, Microsoft and other technology companies.
The surprise resignations of Sony Chairman and CEO Nobuyuki Idei and Chief Operating Officer Kunitake Ando on Sunday clear the way for Stringer to make drastic changes to Sony's strategy.
Stringer, a Welsh-born executive who ran Sony's U.S. entertainment operations and who doesn't speak Japanese, must figure out how to respond to a variety of threats. Those include Apple's iPod digital music player, Microsoft's Xbox video game console, Samsung's ascent in consumer electronics as well as China's production of low-cost DVD players and other gadgets.
``All of these companies are taking share and that is creating a crisis,'' said Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Enderle Group in San Jose.
By picking a content executive to run the entire company, Sony seems to believe that the movie and music side of the business will ultimately be its saving grace. It raises the question of whether Sony will downplay the low-margin electronics businesses that account for 70 percent of revenue and 36 percent of operating profit.
``The world is not the same place it was just a few years ago,'' Stringer wrote in a memo to Sony employees on Monday. ``The needs and expectations of our customers have changed. The dynamics of the competitive landscape have changed. The pace of innovation across all of the businesses in which we compete has changed. Sony, too, must change.''
The choice of the new leadership creates big questions for Sony's game division, a cash cow which provides 13 percent of the company's revenue and 32 percent of its operating profits.
In Sunday's shake-up, the chief of that unit, Ken Kutaragi, was demoted. He had been running the electronics, semiconductor and game divisions in an attempt to coordinate Sony's strategy for its new Cell microprocessor. The chip will be the brains of Sony's next-generation PlayStation 3 console that is expected to launch in 2006.
Kutaragi, previously considered a favorite to succeed Idei as CEO, will now run only the games division. Yet he has been responsible for the Cell, a family of chips that will be used in everything from handheld computers to TV sets to supercomputers. Monica Wik, a spokeswoman for Sony's U.S. games unit in Foster City, said that Kutaragi's change in responsibilities is not necessarily a demotion and is more a reflection of the difficult tasks he must concentrate on in the games division. At a press conference in Japan, Idei said that Stringer was a ``better listener'' than Kutaragi.
`Next big strike'
``The Cell is the next big strike that Sony has against its rivals,'' said P.J. McNealy, an analyst at American Technology Research. ``It's a surprise that they would do this now. It shows a lack of patience for the plan they have outlined.''
Sony still holds the lead in console hardware and is launching its PlayStation Portable this month in the U.S. The gadget plays games, music and movies, making it a contender against Nintendo's GameBoy and DS game players as well as Apple's iPod music player.
But Microsoft has marked Sony as a target. The software giant's Xbox video game console has taken the No. 2 position, and it gained on Sony last year.
Microsoft has cut console prices because it knows it can lose money on hardware in the hope of making money on games. That strategy could work because Microsoft has $60 billion in cash compared to Sony's $3.7 billion. In the next round of competition, Microsoft can close the gap in market share with an early release of its next Xbox and it can cut hardware prices to drain Sony's cash.
One of Stringer's challenges will be to figure out how a smaller competitor like Apple managed to steal its thunder in a business Sony dominated for a nearly quarter-century -- portable music players.
Some analysts say Sony's failure to recognize the digital music revolution is classic big-company myopia. As the leading manufacturer of portable CD players and boom boxes, it's easy to see how it could reflexively dismiss MP3 players as a passing fad.
``Lots of big companies miss those shifts,'' said Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis for market researcher NPD TechWorld.
Sony also is guilty of a not-invented-here mentality, said Baker. It remained committed to its own digital music format, called ATRAC, and refused to make devices that played popular MP3 digital music files. Even its most recent generation of MiniDisc players, released late last year, require music to be converted to Sony's proprietary format.
Players rejected
``The market rejected them,'' said Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research in New York. ``Even if they were beautifully designed, relative to other players on the market at the time.''
Apple exploited that void in the market with the iPod. The portable music player not only played music in the most common format but was seamlessly integrated with Apple's iTunes music software and iTunes Music Store.
Sony's failure in MP3 players reflects the conflict between its consumer electronics and entertainment divisions. On one side are its audio and video products and on the other are its Hollywood movie studio and Sony BMG, the world's second-largest music label.
When it comes to music downloading, Sony's electronics division has accommodated the concerns of the Recording Industry Association of America.
``Sony put more resources, more time, more money, more prototypes into trying to be the good citizen for the RIAA than probably the next three labels,'' said Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group, a consultancy in Seaford, N.Y.
Losing ground
Sony officials did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.
Sony's core consumer electronics business has been losing ground to newly insurgent brands such as Samsung Electronics. The South Korean company has grown rapidly in the past few years thanks to products such as computer displays, TV sets and other consumer electronics gear.
Another threat to Sony has come from low-cost, low-end Chinese manufacturers. Sony has responded by striking a joint venture with Samsung to make video displays and by shifting much of its manufacturing to China.
Computer makers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Gateway also have entered the consumer electronics business. Those companies believe they have an edge as the market shifts from older analog products to computerized, or digital products.
``It's clear the Sony brand no longer demands a premium price,'' said John Yang, an analyst at Standard & Poor's. ``It started with flat-panel TV sets, and now they can no longer justify high prices. The competition from the Chinese and others is hurting. Their savior is the PlayStation 3 and the Cell.''
Post by: Galford on March 08, 2005, 04:53:49 PM
While not really new, it does try to address the growing cost of game development.
It's no surprise that Epic is a big supporter of XNA. Many of the things listed on the
Unreal website are things MS is trying to deal with using XNA.
Post by: KDR_11k on March 08, 2005, 09:14:29 PM
Nemo: How about cutting that to the relevant parts?
Post by: slingshot on March 09, 2005, 02:56:30 AM
Post by: slingshot on March 09, 2005, 03:52:41 AM
Post by: Spak-Spang on March 09, 2005, 07:39:24 AM
Also, if Sony blunders another company will be there to pick up the slack. Just like Sony picked up the slack on the mistakes of Nintendo's N64. Business is very competitive, and if money can be made then someone will revive any and all slowing businesses. Period.
On to the topic of that Unreal 3 engine.
Those pictures are amazing, but what I thought after seeing them was:
"Gee, I wish I could see what a creative cartoon world could look like with that engine."
Seriously, the world and the characters were boring.
Post by: Don'tHate742 on March 09, 2005, 08:43:41 AM
Post by: nemo_83 on March 09, 2005, 12:35:32 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Wasn't the point of XNA to abstract development to the point where the platform no longer matters?
Nemo: How about cutting that to the relevant parts?
Sony is teh dOOmed!
Just kidding, I just wanted to show that despite any damage control you may read about how great things are in the industry even Sony is visibly worried as all hell right now. People are confused about where the market is going or if it is about to be gone again due to some unseen twenty year macro cycle.
Sony is dozens of billions of dollars in debt and they only have about three or four billion bank left. The ipod is killing Sony's portable music division. Nintendo may release a second handheld aimed at competing with the PSP and Nintendo reps say they want to kill the blue ray based PS3 by making the Revolution like an ipod. MS is also going for Sony's sports gamers which generate much of Sony's software sells. If people were not tired of the old way of gaming then GameCubes would be flying off the shelves at this point in the generation as the PS2 is burned out literally. Sony is shaking in their boots, maybe because the CELL will not deliver on its promises, and maybe because they are afraid of a crash. Fact is they are changing leadership. This speaks volumes about Sony's lack in confidence in its own future. I'm not going to say someone is about to buy the company, but I'm not going to rule out the possiblity of it happening in five years if they don't become as skilled at handling their money as they are at hadling their image. Nintendo has shipped like twelve to fifteen million Cubes right? Sony makes claims about 50 million PS2s this generation, despite the fact that almost half of those PS2s are broken. Yet Nintendo has turned a higher percentage of profit this generation. Nintendo owns ninety something percent of the handheld market still and has around six billion dollars in the bank. Who really won this generation?
Post by: Galford on March 09, 2005, 05:55:06 PM
Rising development cost is a big factor to many studios today. Love it or hate it, MS is trying to deal with this subject head on.
Is XNA the next big thing in development systems, or is it the next .Net?
Post by: Galford on March 09, 2005, 06:23:53 PM
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/594/594673p1.html?fromint=1
The question is, will this be running the next Halo?
Post by: KDR_11k on March 10, 2005, 05:24:22 AM
Unlikely, Bungie prefers writing their own engines. Don't expect Halo 3 to look anywhere near as good, Epic has insanely skilled artists while what Bungie produces at times makes even me shake my head.
Spak-Spang: Well, this is what they look like with a mediocre artist and an older version of the engine (UT2004, that's UE2). With skilled people and that enhanced engine you'd probably get some awesome-looking stuff.
Post by: Spak-Spang on March 10, 2005, 06:34:52 AM
Games and animation just work better in a more exaggerated and less realistic design. The more you push for realism the more disconnect there is from the characters. I didn't think those creatures were very scary. I also didn't think they looked real, even though they are better textured and more detailed then anything we have seen before, except in the movies. And speaking of that, look at the movies. The best animated movies (Pixar) still focuses on more exaggerated styles of art to represent their characters.
The next generation is going to be awesome graphically, but if all we get is really detailed stuff like that. Oh, I will take it, but I will be disappointed.
I think this next generation may be the first generation to ultimately realize the dream of having a fully interactive cartoon world. In that we should be impressed.
Post by: nemo_83 on March 15, 2005, 12:22:39 PM
Post by: Bill Aurion on March 15, 2005, 12:48:44 PM
I call that Wind Waker, and I'd love a spiritual sequel that takes it even farther...
Post by: KDR_11k on March 16, 2005, 05:22:42 AM
Post by: nemo_83 on March 16, 2005, 11:17:09 AM
Post by: KDR_11k on March 17, 2005, 08:49:54 AM
I've posted it in General Chat as well...
Post by: nemo_83 on March 17, 2005, 02:23:52 PM
Nintendo is the only hope in changing the direction of games. I liked how they embraced piracy at the end.
Post by: Bill Aurion on March 17, 2005, 02:27:41 PM
Post by: KDR_11k on March 18, 2005, 02:21:09 AM
Post by: couchmonkey on March 18, 2005, 04:45:33 AM
I do think that to some degree, people pirate because something isn't worth the money to them. Particularly in the PC software industry, it's hard to argue that ordinary people would be spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy legitimate copies of Photoshop, Flash, etc. if it wasn't possible to pirate them. But I'm not as convinced as I once was that people only pirate stuff they wouldn't have bought anyway.
Post by: nickmitch on March 18, 2005, 01:47:53 PM
Why waste your time copying crappy EA games when there's nothing to do with them?
Post by: nemo_83 on March 21, 2005, 11:45:37 AM
I believe that the burning down the house article is correct. Games are art and industry destroys art. The only way for the art to return to games is for the industry model that Nintendo created to die.
Post by: nemo_83 on April 04, 2005, 06:37:18 PM
So, I've been working professionally in the games industry for over eight years now and I can tell you – we're a funny bunch of people. As a rule we don't dress that well, geek out over "unfashionable" things, spend too much money on superfluous technological gadgets and, dare I say, might look a bit funny. Every game industry veteran I know can tell you stories of "that guy" who slept in his office, never showered and smelled... um... Or about the tester that, after 30 hours of caffeine induced productivity, purposefully downed some testing department concoction for $50 of pooled change.
We're a young industry. Nobody wants to make anything second rate so we inevitably take on wildly ambitious projects. We also have some genetic inability to schedule accurately and therefore end up working massive unpaid (since most of us are salaried) overtime. Some people that went to business school take advantage of this and turn game industry workers into slave labor. And don't think I'm just talking about EA. Your industry heroes work like dogs too. Ask a Blizzard employee what their "core" hours were for the last year+ before WoW launched. Or a Bungie employee leading up to Halo shipping. And those are the lucky ones. For every studio that turned out a brilliant game, multiple other teams of equally cool people ended up wasting years of their lives working on games that never saw the light of day, came out stillborn or got pushed out early and died an ignominious screaming bug-filled death.
Don't even get me started on the core work hours for Japanese studios.
We're young and we're stupid and we work too much. But now some of us are getting older and a bit smarter. We try to plan our schedules better so as not to alienate our families. But there are a lot of people that want to work in the games industry – so if you won't do it, someone else might.
So we try to schedule better AND put out quality stuff.
The average price of making games has been escalating rapidly. Too many features have become standard (multi player, obligatory tools for player made content, matchmaking, cut-scenes, transforming donkeys, etc.), the caliber of graphics has risen (ironically, teams are getting bigger AND games are getting shorter because of how long it takes to make the higher quality art) and a myriad of other market factors. Nothing you buy from a store was made by a few people in a garage anymore. It hasn't been for years. One of my buddies was speaking to a high school class a few weeks ago about the game industry. After a few moments of disconnect, she asked the class what they thought the development cost of the last GTA game was. Most students thought it was around $500,000. She informed them that they were short about two zeros.
And some of these games make a ton of money. Most of them don't. And for the hell we go through, most of the industry doesn't pay that well. There are exceptions – some people make out very well. But let me warn you in advance – most of us don't exactly drive Ferraris. Don't get into video games for the money. Do it because you love games. If you want to make money in the industry, own the company. Create a good new IP (intellectual property) that appears in a single well received game. Then sell your company (and the IP) to a bigger company (like EA). Then leave. Don't stay – it will break your heart.
Or better yet, be a publisher.
I'm a lead game designer. And no, I don't play games all day. I play games at home in the evenings, trying not to piss off my wife because I'm spending time with my mistress (i.e. my computer) and not her. Watching me work is boring. I'm either writing something in Word, juggling columns and mathematical formulas in Excel or mocking up exciting diagrams in Visio. If I get really crazy, I might Photoshop something up to show an artist what I'm talking about. The "lead" part of my title means that I get to spend about 25%-50% of my day reviewing my team's documents and scheduling tasks so that we don't hold up the other departments. Then I sit in hours of meetings to make sure that everyone understands the design… and to learn why the programmers, artists, testers, producers and even other designers want to string-up me up this week. If I'm lucky, I have time to walk across the street and get a mocha.
At PAX this year I was a judge for their "pitch your idea for a game" sit-in. I got to break a lot of hearts by telling the audience a very sad fact – that in my 8+ years as a professional game designer, not once has any boss of mine ever asked me for an idea for a new game. Not once. Again, unless you own the company, you get assigned a project (or jump ship to another company working on a game that sounds interesting). Sure, I've helped flesh out any number of games from concept to fully realized design. And that's the hard part. Coming up with a good idea for a game is like coming up with a good idea for a novel. Everybody does that. But very few people have the discipline to sit down and write the book. The ideas are easy – the execution of the idea is the hard part.
The burnout factor is high. Like writing a book, there are a lot of people that half way though a project throw up their hands, burn their computer, shave their dog and trek off to outer Siberia to live the rest of their lives as hermits.
So, to summarize, we're a young industry full of pale, egotistical people that dream up ambitious games, work impossible hours and sometimes smell a bit funny.
God do I love it.
end quote
Post by: darknight06 on April 05, 2005, 06:49:53 PM
This statement right here disturbs the heck out of me. One of my aspirations for my life was to start a company of my own developing video games, but if this is really how the industry looks at things these days then crap. Stuff like this has had me thinking twice about even attempting it and to be honest with you I think I might be better off if I were to just produce a smaller scale game for myself and for anyone else interested. There's no way I'm selling ANYTHING to a company like EA. You saw what happened to Command and Conquer!
Post by: KDR_11k on April 06, 2005, 11:14:40 AM
darknight: Try becoming a one-man dev team then. That's pretty much the only way you can make your ideas reality these days.
Post by: nemo_83 on April 07, 2005, 09:42:49 PM
that is what the title of the topic read.
http://forums.modojo.com/showthread.php?t=125165
Post by: nemo_83 on April 18, 2005, 07:19:28 AM
http://www.thehollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/video_games_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000884458
One of my favorite developers is leaving the industry. Oddworld is moving on to movies and tv. I always felt that there would one day be an Abe movie, I just did not think it would mean I would nolonger get to play Oddworld games. Read that interview. I do not know if I am allowed to post the entire piece.
"Lanning: It's an industry-wide problem. As game production costs rise, publishers want more sure bets because with rising costs come rising risks. What we see is an industry which is rapidly discouraging innovation because people don't want to take chances on more innovative types of titles."
"Lanning: Absolutely. Costs are going up, but not because the quality expectation is higher. Costs are going up because of the design of the next-generation hardware. The code that just one guy used to write on the Xbox is now going to take five guys. It's as if the movie camera that you started shooting with 10 years ago has improved some features and now you need 12 people to operate it instead of one."
"Lanning: Which has always been part of the plan. And the reason why today seems to be the right time is that game technology is now moving in an opposite paradigm. Video game systems aren't being designed to be conducive to development, creativity, or content. They're being designed to be cheaper for manufacturing. If movie cameras were made that way, you'd have a rebellion in Hollywood. But this isn't Hollywood and it isn't a movie camera; it's a videogame system and the public wants basically a $1,000 box but only wants to pay $150 for it. I'm not saying that anyone is guilty in this process, but this is the reality of the current climate for development in video games and where it's headed. And because the costs are higher, more ownership needs to be seen on behalf of the publishers and, quite frankly, I don't blame them. They can say, "Look I used to pay for video games when they were $6 million, but now they're $16 million. And you know what? My shareholders are not going to like it if I fund your game, it's a big hit, and then you take it to someone else. That's going to hurt my stock. We need to see a path to ownership or ownership right out of the gate.""
Post by: KDR_11k on April 18, 2005, 09:05:51 AM
Why don't we see pro-level devs shooting lower? There are some indy games that were made by teams of one to four people that still look as good as they need to be. They don't simulate any hairs or stuff like that but they rarely involve something that has hair, anyway. Look at GTA, people will put up with bad graphics, they don't need the latest Pixel Shader version if the rest of the game is appealing enough. I think that's what Capcom realized and why they made the Capcom five (well, except for RE4) and other games. They are constantly experimenting by producing relatively low-cost games with risky design and seeing what people buy. Viewtiful Joe was apparently profitable despite abysmal sales. Speaks volumes about the costs involved. Interesting enough Capcom is probably the company that started the most"franchises" this gen despite being often criticised for Super Hyper Street Fighter 14 Tournament Super Collector's Edition: Revival.
In other words, I'm trusting Capcom far more than Nintendo in bringing us innovative games. N is still stuck with Mario and high budget games, Capcom is going a step further.
