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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Peter Molyneux Asks For Gov't Help For Small Shops 318

Posted by Hemos from the trying-to-make-games dept.
spot35 writes "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy as I thought. Peter Moluneux has gone on record stating that creating a successful video game is too expensive for the smaller developers. According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat. This other article gives a very brief profile of the man."
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Peter Molyneux Asks For Gov't Help For Small Shops More

Peter Molyneux Asks For Gov't Help For Small Shops

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  • Sorry Peter... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dalroth ( 85450 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:47AM (#5484672) Homepage Journal
    I lament the small business as well (in all industries), but government financial support is the worse idea possible. Things change, times change, and most especially business changes. It's the belly of the beast out there. The best thing we can hope for is that competition stays alive and the government prevents any one company from taking over the entire market. As long as competition reigns supreme, the market will thrive and that's all that really matters.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Perhaps he can give some small companies some money from all the Populous clones his outfit has been churning out for the last 15 years?

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hrieke ( 126185 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:56AM (#5484747) Homepage
      Thanks for beating me to the punch, Dalroth.
      You're right. Accepting government money (in the form of a loan, tax break) only invites the government to poke their nose deeper into your business.

      If a smaller business can't make an AAA game, maybe they should focus on a simpler game that is just as fun to play?
      • maybe they should focus on a simpler game that is just as fun to play?

        Exactly. Croteam created Serious Sam, a mindless shooter that's a blast on a fraction of the budget Molyneux used for Black and White, and that game sucked.

        • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Boone^ ( 151057 )
          to be fair, Serious Sam is but one game in a long line of mindless shooters, whereas Black & White at least attempted at innovating some.

          But I agree, it doesn't take $25M to innovate. There's middleware engines that can be had for a few bucks (or more) [newsobserver.com] which can be adapted for whatever concept you can dream up.

          • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by govtcheez ( 524087 ) <govtcheez03@hotmail.com> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @01:38PM (#5485611) Homepage
            Sure, the creature AI was interesting and everything, and all the little gimmick things were cool (including Outlook contacts as villagers, having similar weather as your zip code) - I can't deny that. The problem was, at the end of the day, there wasn't enough "game" in there. I spent more time trying to keep my creature from eating its own shit than doing anything fun. Something being innovative doesn't equate to it being a decent game.

            Serious Sam was a cool game because it went over familiar ground, and did it well. Wave after wave of guys came out, and you killed them. Why? Who cares why - it was just damn fun to do. I like to have plots in my games, but sometimes it's a refreshing change of pace to kill the screaming thing running at you and not have to worry if it's someone you'll have to talk to to get a key or a plot point.

            • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Slime-dogg ( 120473 )

              I was hoping for a thread like this to begin.

              Over the years, I've been a large purchaser of games. I've got all sorts of games, FPS's, RPG's, Action, Adventure, Puzzle, you name it. What I have noticed, though, is that almost every game that I thought was insanely *cool* have come from the U.K. Let's start with Lemmings. Lemmings managed to hook my dad into playing non-stop, he kept going and going. You have to understand that pre-and-post lemmings, my dad is decidedly not a games guy. It was the first game of it's kind, and it was perhaps the best lemmings game that came out.

              Populace, Relentless, Syndicate (the original mafia), Theme Park... These all came from somewhere in England (usually Bullfrog, sometimes Psygnosis). Compare this to 15 iterations of Wolfenstein 3D, each building graphically but little else. Not until Half-Life, which included a bit of a story, and Deus-Ex were FPS's actually innovative. No, Unreal was just the same as all the others at the time.

              American games tend to have one thing in common: Push the hardware limit. Doom ran on a 386, although slowly and in a tiny window. Quake demanded a 486 DX/2 66 and higher to run. Quake 3 demanded a 3-D accelerator. It seems that the U.S. is the test bed for all the newest technology, and it's up to the U.K. to implement it with any of that addicting story/gameplay.

              SimCity was the first "Sim" game. It was fun. Every other sim game the came after has sucked, with exception of SC2K. SC2K extended the graphics, but didn't fuck too much with the gameplay. It was really fun. SC3K and SC4 suck ass. SimEarth sucks ass. SimTower sucks ass. SimFarm, wtf? SimAnt (cool premise, boring game). The best game that came out was origially done by the Japs in A-Train, anyone remember that? Maxis just bought the rights to it, and managed to kill the game.

              So yeah, Peter's got a point. As long as the heads of business don't steal the money, I think it would benefit the U.K. to pony up some cash. They are the imaginative ones. We, Americans, are the inventive ones.

      • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Archie Steel ( 539670 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @01:16PM (#5485390)
        I disagree. In Quebec the government gave incentive for multimedia companies (and, to a lesser extent, game developers - there still needs to be some education about the distinction between the two among government officials), paying part of new employee's salaries for the first year, then a smaller part for the next five years or so. It grealy helped to spur the economy (even though the dot-com burst still affected us in the end). However, the only extent to which the government "poked their nose" was to verify that the money indeed went to new employees as salaries, and not to line the pockets of owners. I'm always puzzled by the visceral opposition people in the States have towards government intervention in business - especially considering that, without government subsidies, there would never have been a computer industry. The fact is that the three industries who've enjoyed the biggest growth (hi-tech, pharmaceutical and agriculture) are also the ones that have most benefited from government intervention (loans, tax breaks and subsidies). Also, when you consider the amount of money injected in the private sector through the Pentagon (i.e. your tax dollars at work), it's hard not to conclude that the U.S. has very interventionist economical policies. I know right-wing libertarians are going to flame me for this, but the fact is that a totally free market is an abomination that all industrialized countries abandoned since 1929 in favor of mixed economies (to varying degrees). With that in mind, I think government helping out small, independent studios (be it for games, films, art, books, etc.) is a great idea, as most of these won't be able to survive their first game, which will end up being the property of the publisher instead. Anyway, my subsidized 0.02$

        • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by patter ( 128866 )
          Actually, it's just misperception. If you don't think your fortune 500 companies get government money, or never ever did, you're on crack.

          Tax breaks anyone? Interest free loans? That's exactly what has gone on in the US for years. Someone's been actually believing Bush's BS campaign about 'cheap government subsidized lumber from Canada ruining the economy' if they honestly believe that Canada or the UK does things differently with regards to 'help' from government.

          Maybe the disclosure laws are different, but it happens in the USA every day ;). Or at least it did.

          There's no 'poking' of the nose as the above poster said implicit in getting government assistance in the form of low/no interest loans, which is what Molyneux seems to be on about.

          The point is, if all the conglomerations continue, pretty soon the industry will be one publisher and one developer, and no benefit can be had for the consumer in that case (see any parallels in business software here?).

          Also, you can't always just license an engine (although in many cases you can). An FPS engine is designed to render at insane speeds smaller environments - at least the quake derivatives do, black and white's engine had to support rapid camera changes from many different heights, so much of the traditional 3D backend was useless.

          Games are getting more expensive to produce, you can't break in as an indie if your game LOOKS like it was done on a shoestring. Art costs more and more money, and with things like Dolby 5.1, the sound engineers need to be ever more sophisiticated and expensive. Our governments helping us indies out isn't paving the way for any more than keeping monopilies out before it happens to the games industry, because we've all seen how impossible it is to break up software monopolies.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Bilestoad ( 60385 )
      "A government funded artist is an unprincipled whore!" - Jubal Harshaw, a character of Robert Heinlein.

      Of course those that want to accept the money to produce a game should be free to do so. Just add the warning on the packaging :-)
      • Sure... Just imagine if all products had to be labeled like that. You would barely even be able to figure out what software is in an MS box for all the ethical warning labels!

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But small businesses ARE the requirement for competition.

      Otherwise we will have few huge companies which will control different parts of the market and won't compete directly with others (like EA + Sports games).

      • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Informative)

        by DevilM ( 191311 )
        I disagree. It is not small businesses per se; it is innovative small businesses! Industries that have a few large players are perfect opporunities for startups to come in and upset the market with better wares at cheaper prices.

        Don't keep small businesses alive that are failing to play the same game as the large players. Incentivise the small businesses that will change the game itself.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dalroth ( 85450 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:07PM (#5484844) Homepage Journal
      I want to add a few things more while I'm thinking about it. I don't think my original post went far enough.

      The last thing in the world I would want MY tax money spent on is to support sketchy video game companies for products I might not necessarily agree with (yes I do play and enjoy Vice City) or products which are most likely going to fail and suck (9/10 games are absolutely pathetic in my experience).

      Government money should be used to guarantee that ALL markets remain competitive (not just the video game market). That does not mean subsidizing dreck, that mean preventing monopolies. Government money should be used to provide education benefits to our children. Government money should be used to provide health care for our people. Government money should be used to provide infrastrucutre and public services. Government money should be used to provide protection and safety from those who would do you harm.

      Government money should NOT be used for pork and that's exactly what this request is. You want your government to do something usefull for your industry? How about asking them to provide regulations that guarantee worker safety. How about asking them to enforce regulations that provide appropriate vacation time, or guarantee that programmers only work 40/hours a week when they're paid for 40/hours a week.

      We have enough pork bullshit going on in our governments as it is. This is what government money SHOULD be spent on.

      Bryan
      • The government helping small bussiness is nothing new. the tax dollars they ue to help a small business is reurned in employee tax, monies generqted from expeses of the business, rent, utilities, computers, ect....
        So the money is not gonr from the government, just reused. This is good for states as well, since it returns some tax dollars to the state from the federal government.
        If a company is a success, the return to the government is huge.
        This is not pork. Pork is when a representive applies pressure to keep a program that should be shut down. example: I build military industry bomb type 'A'. Bomb type 'A' ihas been obsuleted because its designated target is not hardened against it. The represenitive of the state applies presure to the government to not cut bomb type 'A' out of the budget. That is pork.
        Helpuing start a small business is, in general, a good deal for the government.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pmz ( 462998 )
      ...government financial support is the worse idea possible.

      I agree. There are small-business allowances for government contracting, where small-businesses are given awards just because (brace yourself) they cannot compete on price but have a powerful congressman on their side. Yuck.

      There are whole industries which are extremely unhealthy and artificially propped up by the government. Defense contractors, airlines, Amtrack, etc. It seems that, when the government gets involved, the outcome is more often worse than better. The main reason is that government bureaucrats don't give a rat's ass if they are actually productive. All they really need to do is blow the budget, and that's all that matters to them.
    • The market can/will thrive regardless of the well being of the people subjected to it. Just because there are several gigantic megacorporations presenting the pseudoreality that the market is thriving, is a misconception. The market will appear healthy according to the terms of capitalism. But capitalism is inherently flawed in that it considers all items of a particular class to be universally swappable (this has proven to almost never be true in the software market). In other words capitalism considers cost vs. quality concerns to be the only driving force as to which product is purchased (but since no standards are forced upon software and dominant established standard specs are often not published, competing products become impossible to "swap"). But the problem with the case here is that after a certain size is attained in a corporation all they have to do is place their bet high enough and the others will have to fold. Capitalism is so imbalanced that competition is the last thing that it encourages. Obviously, government influence is needed to balance things out. Why should this be an exception. Also, do you just have something against people having a voice, also? Big businesses can afford full time lobbyists to voice/pay off/influence congressmen. A person/small business does not have that luxury. They need any break they can get if you want a balanced economy.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pharmboy ( 216950 )
      but government financial support is the worse idea possible. Things change, times change, and most especially business changes.

      Amen. Big companies buy up small ones, big companies get bloated and create less niche content, new small companies come up with niche products, now tons of small companies producing niche products, that are now mainstream.....rinse and repeat. its in the natural cycle. as long as the playing field is level. Govt. support makes a level playing field NOT level. If the products are worth buying, people will buy it.

      The problems is people freak out on one end "oh my god, there are too few big companies! Its a monopoly!" and on the other "oh my god, there are too many small companies! no standards!" instead of understanding its the ebb and flow of capitalism. Its like "sea level" which is simply the average of low and high tides. It is the ebb and flow, the changes from big companies, then small companies, dominating that helps fuel innovation. Once again, as long as the playing field is level, or as you so elequently put it, "As long as competition reigns supreme, the market will thrive and that's all that really matters"

      The swings from big and small company domination are a good thing. Nothing grows in still water.

    • Re:Sorry Peter... (Score:4, Informative)

      by iocat ( 572367 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:46PM (#5485173) Homepage Journal
      I work at a small videogame company. The business climate out there is really, really tough. But at the same time, I don't think it's impossible to succeed. The problem is just that the market is really unforgiving. Making any kind of common rookie business mistake -- from bad management, to stupid financial decisions, to slipping your game, whatever -- will kill your company. But there aren't that many companies that do everything right, and fail anyway.

      Luckily, the capital it takes to start a game company and do a demo is relatively minor, even today, which is why you see so many new companies and dev. shops set up, even as others are closing down. It's brutal, but I don't think government subsidies will do anything but prolong the inevitable.

      To run a successful videogame company, you have to know how to successfully run a company -- that's actually more important than anything else today. I know for a fact my company would not be around today, ten years after it started, if we didn't have a president who was a hardcore business guy (who luckily trusts the rest of us to know what we're doing on the game side).

  • Why not? (Score:2, Funny)

    by viper21 ( 16860 )
    The government subsidizes the airlines, so why not the video game industry? I know that I play video games a lot more often than I fly on planes.

    I'm going to go call my congressman.

    Oh, the games should be free too!

    -S

    • Re:Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 )
      Videogames, while wonderful pastimes, hardly rise to the level of importance that air or rail travel does. We're talking transportation infrastructure vs. entertainment. I know you were probably being cute with this comment, but some people really feel that way I'm sure!

      Your post should be modded Funny. I think that's how you meant it, too.

    • Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sporty ( 27564 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:03PM (#5484815) Homepage
      Yeah, but more rely on airlines than on video games.. Lesse...

      • USPS and similar services
      • Multi-homed offices, where exec's need to get to point A from B
      • Families need it from emergencies to reunions
      • Long-distance commuters


      If airlines shut down, trouble abound. Lots of traffic jams, undeliverables and stranded people.

      If you don't get duke nukem forever, you'll live.
      • If you don't get duke nukem forever, you'll live.


        You make it sound like it will be out while I am alive.

        Silly old bear...
      • USPS can run their own planes (UPS, FEDEX, and others do)

        Exec's have money and can afford to fly

        Long-distance commuters can telecommute or live friggin closer to work!

        Families in emergencies... ok, fine. Give them a discount or let them take a train/bus/whatever.

        Government subsidies of Airports and Air Traffic control I understand. Subsidies of airlines I don't ... if some carriers can make money then why can't they all?


        • USPS can run their own planes (UPS, FEDEX, and others do)


          AFAIK, USPS doesn't have its own airline.


          Exec's have money and can afford to fly


          Granted.


          Long-distance commuters can telecommute or live friggin closer to work!


          It's a life choice that a lot of people have made. A good amount of people fly due to business, either commuting or just biz purposes (non-exec). Gov't supports people being able to do business, even if it's for their salary.

          Public transportation in a lot of places work the same way... or at least at one point. You can't just say, "move closer". Sometimes, you just can't. Hell, I live 7 miles from work only because the rent is cheap where I am, i can't afford to drive to work. I rely on public transportation. The market for what I do is beyond terrible where I live because of the layout of the city.

          Point is, gov't likes to subsidize/aide people on grand scales. It helps to "keep the country going".


          Government subsidies of Airports and Air Traffic control I understand. Subsidies of airlines I don't ... if some carriers can make money then why can't they all?


          Because it's life. No one planned on 9/11 or the internet boom. No one plans for a grand downfall. Especially in a large utility. It is a utility since a lot of people require it. The gov't can help prevent it by subsidizing it. No one plans for an inquisition.
        • Exec's have money and can afford to fly

          Try telling that to the shareholders. Oh yes, we DID buy a $50 million dollar private jet. Yes, only the execs (all 12 of them) can use it. Golly, why is everyone at the shareholder's conference so pissed?

    • Yeah, that's great.

      The next goverment-sponsored RTS will be awesome. Pay 500,000 gold for a peasant, 30.6 million for a ballista.

      I'd pay good money for an updated version of Lemmings, in which the characters are models of current government officials, patchable after every election. "Oh, sorry, the bridge to the 21st century is taking a little too long to build. Haha...*splat*"
  • In fact, Peter Molyneux actually has initiatives to keep the bedroom coder alive. Admittedly he's supporting Jeff Minter [llamasoft.co.uk] which is a pretty safe bet (check out the the "unity" mention on the lionhead [lionhead.com] site)

    More of the same, that's what I say!

  • Film subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by leviramsey ( 248057 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:49AM (#5484688) Journal

    This sounds suspiciously like film subsidies (the gov't gives money to moviemakers to help them make movies). Look at what film subsidies have done for the British film industry. Fifty years ago, the British film industry was in great shape. Actors were easy to find, and the techs behind the scenes (camerapeople, lighting, etc.) were plentiful and extremely competent. Now look at the British film industry. Sure, a lot of movies are filmed in Britain, but most of them are American productions. Even the James Bond films are financed by an American studio (MGM).

    Beware of subsidies...

    • Film subsidies == "arty" crud (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:23PM (#5484993)
      One other feature of government subsidies is that they come with government strings. Which universally favor "political correctness" and, in the movie industry, result in the creation of a slew of ten hour films of the artist's own belly button, and suchlike trash. One could assume that the game results will be similar. Not to mention they will also likely be bland pap, since there would be public pressure on the government freebie givers to turn up their noses at anything "encouraging violence" or "prurient" or suchlike nanny-behaviorist blather.

      The market reflects the free choices and preferences of the buying public. Attempt to bypass it, and all you get is something by definition unsaleable. Worse, you misallocate resources (in films: actors; in games: programmers) towards the production of unwanted crud, which stifles the market for good stuff and raises its price.

    • Cause, effect. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 )
      The film industry is subsidized in many countries because they were unable to compete against Hollywood, not the other way around. Arts that are thriving without public support don't go looking for public support.
    • You correlate film subsidies with the collapse of the British film industry, using a weakly quantified statement of before it was good after it was bad. I request more proof, please.

  • screw that! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DevilM ( 191311 ) <devilm@@@devilm...com> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:50AM (#5484696) Homepage
    The government shouldn't be in the business of helping companies out. Just think how better the airline industry would be if the government didn't bail them out. Companies like SouthWest, JetBlue, and AmericaWest are making money and are generally kinder to the average consumer. Giving money to the other airlines only hurts the profitable ones that are actually doing good by the consumer.

    • Re:screw that! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      I agree that the amount of government support for the airlines was a tad outrageous, but it was prudent for them to keep them afloat. They're part of the infrastructure that keeps the economy moving. Personally I'd rather have seen more of the money diverted to the freight carriers, and not the screw-your-customers passenger lines (because as you pointed out, JetBlue et al can step up and replace them).

      I don't want to see the country revert to a state where it takes a month to move goods from LA to New York.

      Same with the internet, phone system, postal service, roadways, power grid, waterways. That stuff needs to work or business in general doesnt work.

      The economy doesnt need the sequel to Black and White, or the uber-cool new quake clone that some propellerhead is dreaming about. That would be socialism.

      The government has no responsibility to make sure your business stays afloat, that's the businesses business or something.
      • Waitasec. Propping up the essential infrastructure is good old fashioned capitalism, because the Infrastructure Is Important, but funding things like the arts (because that's what it entails, to give grants and loads to small content vendors) is Dangerous, because The Government Screws Things Up, and Would Be Socialism?

        Pardon me while my head explodes.

      • None of our infrastrcture is gonna collapse without gov't support. If anything, they'll collapse WITH gov't support. Case in point: electricity in CA. CA opened it up to competition, but CAPPED THE PRICES that the companies could charge. So when everyone is yelling about deregulation not working, what in fact happened is that no company was willing to deliver electricity at that arbitrary price. Remove the gov't from the picture, and the need WILL be filled. That's how Capitalism works. If there's money to be made doing something, anything, somebody will do it, whether it be a garbage collector, or an airline.
        • The prices weren't a cap. They were a floor - part of a contractual agreement with the energy providers (and requested by PG&E in order to ensure profitability during the transition to a deregulated environment). The price was locked in by mutual agreement, and then the vendor found out that its upstream was going to jack up the rates. There is nothing about a lack of government involvement that guarantees against costs exceeding profits in any given period of time. And, of course, it turns out that much of the crisis was artificially created by Enron.
    • Bingo. Government handouts (i.e. corporate welfare) introduce coercion into the market. Handouts represent coercion because instead of choosing for ourselves which companies to patronize, we are being forced to support the interests of those in power. The end result is a market which evolves according to the "needs" of those in power, not the needs of the consumer. And that is not free trade.

      Bottom line: In a free, competitive market, where trade is based on the principle of voluntary association and free choice -- not coercion -- corporate welfare does not and cannot exist.

  • Molyneux overrated (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:52AM (#5484704)
    Peter Moluneux has gone on record stating that creating a successful video game is too expensive for the smaller developers. According to this BBC article he suggests that the government helps the smaller developers to keep them afloat.

    Let's face it, Peter Molyneux is overrated. Black and white was very pretty, sure, and it was a good idea, but it got tedious very quickly. It simply wasn't a very good game. He got lucky with a few games early on, that's all.

    It's funny, he wants a handout now, but I didn't hear him campaigning for a windfall tax on the games industry in the boom of the late 90s.
    • I have to say that B&W was overrated; Molyneux is not. I cannot overemphasize the wonder I felt the first time I played Magic Carpet. Even that hovercraft racing game his publishers cajoled him into making back in the day was fun (not on the PlayStation, though).

      Magic Carpet had convincing (at the time) rolling water with warping reflections and also destrucable terrain. Populous was bit slow for me, though. I'm an instant action kind of gamer.

    • Molyneux overrated? I think not (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @01:11PM (#5485354) Journal
      Let's face it, Peter Molyneux is overrated. Black and white was very pretty, sure, and it was a good idea, but it got tedious very quickly. It simply wasn't a very good game. He got lucky with a few games early on, that's all.

      Peter Molyneux overrated? Got lucky with a few games early on?

      Man, just what are you smoking?

      Ever heard of Populous, the original "god" game? It created a whole new genre and blew the socks off everything else out there at the time.

      How about Powermonger, Magic Carpet, Syndicate, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and their derivatives? All original games, all great plays and all great successes.

      Care to name some other developers with as impressive a track record of producing original, highly-addictive games that have been as popular?

      So you didn't like Black And White. Fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But to dismiss one of the industry's most creative and productive minds as "overrated" and "lucky" is ridiculous.

  • Smaller companies = smaller games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Flarg! ( 265195 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:52AM (#5484707)
    There is a huge, emerging market for small games that fit on portable devices (Palms, cellphones, and even GBA). You don't have to publish games on the PS2 and X-box to be successful. They could also join in cooperative ventures with other small design houses to make bigger games, if they want.
    If they can't find a way to survive, they deserve to fail.

  • America's Army (Score:5, Insightful)

    by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:52AM (#5484708) Homepage
    Governments are already involved in the gaming industry. America's Army [americasarmy.com] is just one example of computer games produced for state PR (read: propaganda).

    There has always been a long tradition of anti hate-games in Germany, funded by the ministry of the interior. The game series is called "Dunkle Schatten [bmi.bund.de]" (dark shadows").

    If Peter wants funding "just for fun", he might think of giving something back to the one who funds him.

    Oh, that reminds me of one question. Are the ads and banners in sport games (for making the game more realistic) sponsored by real companies?
    • America's Army is just one example of computer games produced for state PR (read: propaganda).

      I don't know that I'd consider America's Army propaganda... an advertising/recruitment tool would be a more appropriate parallel.

    • Re:America's Army (Score:3, Interesting)

      by leviramsey ( 248057 )
      Oh, that reminds me of one question. Are the ads and banners in sport games (for making the game more realistic) sponsored by real companies?

      They are. If EA doesn't get the money from one advertiser, they either don't bother to put an ad there or put a parody ad in its place ("New Prune-flavored cola! Cures constipation and gives you a caffeine jolt!"). Sometimes, as a condition of licensing the IP for the game (logos, uniform designs, and such), the league or club will require that their sponsors be included in the game (I believe the NFL does this with the recent Madden games).

  • Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    You know what? The government should pay for everything. The government should own every business, keep them all running, and equally distribute the communal nations wealth to each citizen.

    Then instead of a country where you succeed or fail based on your own skills, quality of product, and business mode, it would be like a one giant commune.

    I think I'll invent a name for my new style of government based on a commune of shared wealth. I'll call it, umm, "the bus that couldnt slow down."

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Funny)

      by blancolioni ( 147353 )
      I think you're trying to say something, but I keep missing it, because the SLEDGEHAMMER YOU'RE MAKING YOUR POINT WITH HAS LEFT ME UNCONSCIOUS.

  • meh - not quite (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Drunken_Jackass ( 325938 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:53AM (#5484718) Homepage
    I beg to differ. Consider that the (arguably) most popular online multiplayer game (Counter-Strike) was created in a "small shop" - what was it, one guy?

    Also, there are a ton of good games chugged out by small shops - consider Serious Sam.

    Granted that small shop wasn't located in the US, but those are but two examples without blinking. I'm sure you can come up with your own short list of successful games produced by small companies.

    • Keep in mind that CS was a mod of a game, meaning the original game studio (sierra or valve, forget which) gets to decide whether you sell it or not.

      But honestly, you can successfully make a good game from scratch if you have the time (it isn't much of a 'money' issue). Graphics are the only thing that you'll need help with. If you want to make a 3d game, Garage Games [garagegames.com] sells a 1-seat license of their torque engine for $100, which isn't breaking the bank. But the real problem is finding the graphic artists and animators and paying them.
    • I don't know what you consider a small shop, but Wolfenstein 3D was produced by a not-quite-as-large-as-they-are-now Id Software. The company Small Rockets has produced Star Monkey, which is a great arcade-style shooter. Heck, even Romero's Monkeystone doesn't seem bad off, and AFAIK it doesn't have tons of money behind it.
    • Here's a good example:
      Rollercoaster Tycoon
      Written almost entirely by Chris Sawyer at home (I think he wrote it as a rollercoaster sim for his kids), and is one of the highest grossing computer games of all time.

  • That's the price of success (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:54AM (#5484721) Homepage Journal
    The gaming business has, over the last several years, graduated (through its own success) to a higher level of competition. The budget to produce a globally-marketed game has gone up precisely because the markets (and the stakes) are larger. The price of this maturation is that small players get squeezed out to some extent - but not necessarily the talent. The talented designers and developers get picked up by the larger firms. This is (overall) a good thing, and plays out similarly to just about any other industry that has grown so dramatically in such a short time. There are some winners and some losers, but overall we have a net gain for society as a whole, particularly the consumers.

  • Bail out games companies??! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:55AM (#5484735) Homepage
    Government money (ie taxpayers money) is there to fund vital public infrastructure such as hospitals
    and schools etc. NOT to subsidise failings games companies! I couldn't think of anything more
    trivial to for them to waste my tax money on. It seems to me that Mr Molyneux seems to think the
    real world is like one of his sim games. Or maybe he's just testing the extent of politicians gullbility for reasearch purposes. Perhaps SimGovernment 2004 is on the cards??

  • Still room for independant games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by silvakow ( 91320 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:55AM (#5484738)
    A few years ago, the game industry had (for the time) much better graphics than independant companies would use. Grand Theft Auto, however, still made its rounds. Large game companies are good at making games that are good logical progressions from other games on the market, but small game companies innovate. It's true that Rockstar did wind up selling the Grand Theft Auto name to a larger company, but they now have resources to make other games. Just as when, according to the article,

    it was all geeks and nerds, who had long hair, ate pizza and drank Coke

    there is not a huge market for the long-haired developers. Instead, there is a slightly smaller crows watching them, but independant games still have the ability to spread like wildfire. It's a wonderful thing when the geeks and nerds can write games, get it seen by a few hundred people through an independant gaming site, and if it's good enough, have them tell their friends and so on. I think this is much better than getting all of the attention of the thousand-person video-game crowd of the yester-year.

  • Example of a Small, Successful Development Group (Score:4, Informative)

    by brulman ( 183184 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:56AM (#5484752)
    I don't buy his arguments. There are small game shops thriving in the marketplace. The best example i can give is the guys at

    www.battlefront.com

    They've produced two games, Combat Mission and Combat Mission 2 that are considered by most afficianados as the best strategic war games ever made. They sell only over the internet, develop for Apple and PC simultaneously, and managed to sell out their first printing of the recent Combat Mission 2. There is still a place for the small guy. Great game by the way, I highly recommend it for those disatisfied with the standard RTS fare.
    • There are small game shops thriving in the marketplace.

      Not for long, if our lawmakers continue to implement these corporate welfare scams. The primary effect of corporate welfare is to destroy open competition in the market and secure the market share of existing competitors, regardless of whether or not they are endorsed by the consumer. Instead of being driven by the needs of the consumer, the market will be skewed in favor of special interests.

      When open competition is threatened, the first busiensses to go will be the startups. For a new player in the market, it is absolutly vital to have equal opportunity to enter the market. Handouts and corporate welfare do not create equal opportunity; they destroy it.

  • Art? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jmerelo ( 216716 )
    Does that mean that games will be (officially) considered art?
    Will whatever you pay for a game be tax-deductible?
    Will there be a national endowment for first-person shooters (NEFPS)?
    • If the medium is going to grow into any kind of maturity, and break out of the grip of the genres is it mostly in now (exceptions: Black & White, The Sims, Ico, Mister Mosquito, Rez) then I suspect an "art genre" will develop. And it may develop with some public help. If not in the US (which seems to have an allergy to publicly supported art), then maybe in Europe or Asia.
      • If the medium is going to grow into any kind of maturity, and break out of the grip of the genres is it mostly in now (exceptions: Black & White, The Sims, Ico, Mister Mosquito, Rez) then I suspect an "art genre" will develop. And it may develop with some public help. If not in the US (which seems to have an allergy to publicly supported art), then maybe in Europe or Asia.
        And excellent set of points. The more innovation succeeds in the marketplace, the more you'll see publishers willing to take risks. As for the U.S. allergy to publically-funded art... it's so true. Invariably, the first reaction to a new piece of public art is, "What the hell is that? Who ordered that? You mean my money was used to pay for that?!?"

        The free market ideology has deep roots in our fundamental national consciousness.
  • To be honest, I have no idea if this is true, but I see no reason why it should be. Just go back to gameplay. Make the games cheap and good fun. They may not last for as long as a fully cinematic, bump-mapped, Radeon-stretching, blah, blah, blah, but they'll pass the time.

    Just look at the quality of work turned out by amateur game developers in their spare time on GameDev [gamedev.net] and Flipcode [flipcode.com] and the like. The coders are there. A simple game doesn't need much in the way of level designers or artists. So where are the big costs?

    Whatever. Feel free to flame me - I know shit about the industry - and I am probably missing something big.

  • aproaching Film budgets. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @11:57AM (#5484766)
    The problem with gaming indrustry with the cashflow is what people expect and want in the game has became more expensive to use. Back in the 90s and more so in the 80s games were programed by developers they did not have the technology readly available to make the games look perfect so almost any software developer with margninal art skill can make a game with good graphics and have it competitive in the market. But todays vidio games are aproaching film like budgets because of inhanced vidio and music so except for a ragtag team of software developers you now need Professional Artests, Musicians, Writters, and Actors. A story of Your are stuck in the castle and now you need to get out. Dosent seem to work with top games. We are now expecting more in games. Just like the film indrustry most popular movies now need millions of dollars to be popular the games are now needing to be the same. Because people are demanding their games to be just as good if not better then their movies they watch. As for me I am happy with kspaceduels. But I am not the average game player.
    • I think there's still ample room for another low-budget breakthrough like a Tetris or whatnot. I think if a game is good enough, it can get away with less eye candy.

      Even in the film world it happens. Look at the first Blair Witch Project. It cost them like a few thousand to make, and grossed tens of millions.
  • Mission I: Get approval of caffeinated chewing gum project (based on 60 Minutes before their laughing stock show split in two and ratings plunged).

    Other titles:

    Friendly Fire I: I Regret That I Have Only One Lif... Thud!

    Friendly Fire II: No Such Disease

    and My Favorite!

    Electoral College Arena: Capture The Flag

  • Agreed, Sorry Peter... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mullen ( 14656 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:01PM (#5484794)
    If your company can not stand on it's own two legs, then it should not be. That goes for airlines, car and game companies. If there is a desire by people willing to pay then someone will run a successful business providing that service or good.

    I don't understand this attitude that says, Privatize profits but socialize loses. Just because you can't come up with a good idea and implement it, does not mean my taxes should be raised to cover any loses.

    And do you really want government to stick its nose into gaming content? Yes, there is a rating system, but it does not limit what can be in a game. The last thing I want is John Ashcroft and President Bush looking over John Carmacks shoulder telling him he can't put in the monsters of my soon to be nightmares into Doom 3.

    • Re:Agreed, Sorry Peter... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ratamacue ( 593855 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:25PM (#5485007)
      Privatize profits but socialize loses.

      Good evaluation. Reward the market loser, and penalize everyone else by forcing them to support the market loser. A ridiculous scam if I've ever seen one, obviously designed to benefit special interests at the expense of the taxpayer. Is it surprising? Not in the least. The bigger the government, the more we're going to see these kind of scams put into action.

  • On the other hand, (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:01PM (#5484795)
    It helps if said small shops don't hype their product to the skies and then produce something as buggy, short, unfinished, and dull as Black & White.

    TWW

  • More than once in the article, the author recommends that the gaming industry receive the same support that the movie industry does. If the quality of recent British films (e.g. The Pianist) is the result of government interfere...er, assistance, I sincerely hope they keep their mitts off the gaming industry.

    On the other hand, for those situations where government assistance is necessary, I think they are choosing the correct path. There are two schools of thought on government meddling in the business sector:

    1) Give money to small businesses, which foster many new ideas but don't have the capital to bring them to market.

    2) Persecute the big businesses so that small, idiotic companies with poor business models can flood the market with every little stupid idea that springs into their double mocha cappucino soaked brains.

    It's pretty obvious which direction the US has chosen. Hopefully they can learn from the UK that option #1 is the better solution.

  • I think small games companies will get funded like small film studios as soon as computer games are acknowledged as an art form by the British art establishment, which will probably be sometime in the next century.

  • Game Quality (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:03PM (#5484814)
    Perhaps Mr. Molyneaux's perspective is tinted by the relative success of 'Black and White' and its expansions in the face of a hostile American market.

    For those not familiar with the game, Black and White is an innovative 'God' sim in which you literally play a god. You have your peasants worship you and command a anthropomorphic animal titan to do your bidding. It's quite interesting and it's quite intriguing. Not only is the 3d game engine great, the AI in the game is astounding. The animal titan really seems to 'learn' from you and from his own actions.

    There was a significant problem with 'Black and White', however. Lionhead and EA shipped the game well behind schedule and with a truly horrible number of bugs still in the game. It crashed frequently and the animal AI had some very serious problems... Your animal learned to become more evil by harvesting fish, for example. In-game quests were broken and hidden features were put in the game that could only be unlocked with 3rd party tools. There were long freezes due to the game's auto-save feature and many, many actions you could take that would crash the game or would somehow 'lock' you. Many features promised during development simply weren't in the game. It was really quite miserable. The game was fun to play, but so punishing that it quit being fun well before you had come close to exhausting even a fraction of the content there.

    Since Molyneaux is a huge name and people were eagerly expecting the game, the backlash was dramatic. Players demanded a patch to fix the problems, but at the same time. It was almost four months in develoment from release. Interest in the game waned. Just when the patch was released, a number of rule-changes were added into the patch to address multi-player concerns. Unfortuneately, these changes made the single-player game vastly more difficult. The patch was required if you wanted to download any of the extras or install any of the expansions. This put players in the position of You could choose to play without the patch and subject yourself to frequent problems and lock yourself out of all other upgrades, or you could install the patch and play a game that wasn't fun any more, even with the upgrades and expansions.

    Accordingly, the expansions didn't do half as well as the original game release. I've heard rumors that the sequel is being scrapped because of poor expansion sales.

    The problem here is not with Lionhead studio's small size, but with their game quality. Molyneaux and crew developed what should have been a revolutionary game, but crippled their own work by bowing to release deadlines, unrealistic expectations, and the angry, but loud demands of a very small minority section of their target audience.

    • Re:Game Quality (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I work at Black & White Studios and this is completely false. The sequel has not been scrapped, the original sold 2 million copies and the expansion has done very well. Lionhead as a group is doing many more games now on the back of B&W's success (we still get congratulatory messages to this day with people telling us how much they liked the game).

      Of course there were some problems in the original and we have a detailed post-mortem document, but we are addressing these in the sequel to a very great extent. Check out the B&W2 GDC coverage sometime.

    • Re:Game Quality (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gid ( 5195 )
      but crippled their own work by bowing to release deadlines

      EA is notorious for forcing game companies to release on schedule, even though the game isn't quite done or polished enough. Just ask id Software and about any other game company that has agree to a release date with EA. Take BattleField 1942 as another example for instance, that game still has huge sound issues, but it was still released as is. Although in Dice's defense, I have a feeling the sound issue problem is something with directx/directsound, as Medieval: Total Warfare has similar problems.

      While I hate it when a game is released early, I can see where EA is comming from. EA didn't get to where there are today by being dumb, timing the release of a game can make or break it.
  • Subsidizing a luxury like video gaming is hardly the reason people created governments. It's laughable that someone should suggest that the government should prop up an industry like this when they can't even properly feed or educate the population or keep crime at a reasonable level, and when the budgets are already as strained as they are.
  • "Making a computer game now is incredibly expensive," said Mr Molyneux. "You're talking about millions and millions of pounds to make a triple-A, globally successful game."
    Peter nelected to mention the millions and millions and millions of pounds this successful game will generate in revene.
    Nothing ventured, nothing gained ....
  • not only because they distort the worth of companies by allowing some to stay afloat when they need to go under, but more importantly, they create a flow of income that is quickly taken for granted. This is bad because there is no such thing as a free ride or money without strings attached. And this leads to compromised content and/or the eventual end of that money stream. If businesses are relying on government money, when that money disappears, what happens to the businesses? My city's arts funding was cut one year not too long ago. The art community acted like it was the end for them. I realized what a terrible thing it is to rely on money from something as shady as the government.
  • I just graduated Carnegie Mellon University for scientific computing. I can't get a job doing shit for anyone.

    I'm coding my own MMOG because theres millions to be had, but in the meinwhile, I have like 50 cents on my table and 50,000$ in debt.

    If other people are bitching for money cuz they're having trouble developing their video game, I should be the first mother fucker who gets it.

    My ai page:
    http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager/

    My XYZimator for animation for my game:
    http://www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA/xyz imation /xyzim.htm

    I don't have a webpage yet for my MMORPG mainly because big buisnesses have stolen my ideas in the past. I'm one of the best video game developers in the world, yet I'm broke as a mofo.

    You can watch here though:
    http://delvedesigns.com/websites/clancraz y/index2. html
  • All the damn AAA games are too big, too complex, and most of all, too focused on GRAPHICS at the expense of Gameplay. All the big studios are spending all that money on trying to make realistic (that is, indistinguishable from live movies or TV) displays.

    What ever happened to the good old games? Adventure and Zork had no graphics at all, just text. Rogue/Nethack just use ASCII symbols. The early Wizardry games had stick figures. And I still enjoy going back to old Phantasy Star games on my Sega Genesis, primitive graphics but so what?

    We need to stage a revolution, bring back games that can be played on an AVERAGE PC, with a built-in (mobo) video controller, instead of one of these ATGTXYZ Roadrage controllers that cost more than some entire PCs.

    Boycott the "AAA" games (not difficult if you're running Linux or anything else other than Windoze!), bring back the garage-shop game developer, don't worry about selling games at Best Buy or those places, market "Indie" games over the Net.

  • Content control. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stanl ( 646331 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:17PM (#5484940) Journal
    If the government started funding the development of video games, you'd soon have every interest group you can imagine trying to influence the content.

    If you think there are too many efforts to control content in games now, just wait until our ultra-conservative elements hear that tax dollars would be going to help fund violent first-person shooters or Grand Theft Auto-type games. Granted, it seems the publishers of those types of games might not need any government welfare, but do we want game developers to be put in a position where they risk losing the funding (possibly keeping them afloat) if they don't make content compromises?

    Government-funded newspapers and TV stations in foreign countries is a possible parallel. If editors and producers don't parrot what the government says, the funding stops (or the offenders get fired). Either way, it's a quagmire I'd rather avoid.
  • Just look at EA and the number of great game companies and game series that they have plowed into the ground. Bullfrog and Origin used to be the best everyone of thier titles was excellent until EA showed up...everything after that was a joke, a pale parody of what it used to be...and what they have done to Maxis is just sameful...

    That grand combining of game companies that brought Sierra, Dynamix, Blizzard, etc under one house almost cost us the whole thing....Sierra is a shell of it former self, Blizzard somehow managed to survive pretty much intact, thank god...

    We need the small time developer they are the ones that drive the industry, by plowing new ground instead of plowing under to grow commodity products on a strict schedule. The larger game companies need to realize that with careful investment in(and not control of) and patience with the right game houses they can make a boatload of cash when the next big idea in games comes out...right now the industry despite some great games is rather stagnant...
    I can't remember the last time I picked up a Space Flight Sim that wasn't more of the same or that evoked the feelings I got playing WC1,2,3 or X-Wing/Tie Fighter (other titles in those series were more of the same or actually pale shadows of the original games)

    Quake was incredible, it broke ground based on its engine, and customizability(which really started as hacks in Doom that they went with)

    Unreal was ground breaking, but just like quake really just Doom with prettier pictures

    Freelancer is really just WC:Privter(sp?) with a bad control system....

    Starcraft rocked, but was basically Warcraft in space....

    We need fresh ideas and fresh blood, but the guys with the ideas can't afford to create them...
    (As an aside I think the cost and complexity of tools is a big factor these days, 3DS Max which seems to be a requirement to complete in the modern Game world is niether cheap nor simple)...

  • Taxes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nrohyarts ( 536104 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:23PM (#5484992)
    If the government subsidized small shops, we'd all pay for it through taxes. Do you want to send your money to a small shop that has a mediocre concept, can't compete, or just isn't smart enough to know when to hang it up. It's not everyone's right to be successful. It's just everyone's right to have the same OPPORTUNITY to be successful. The government (by subsidizing) cannot be expected to guarantee success. If you can't let go of that game concept long enough to get a real job then maybe there are some other psychological issues at work here. Get a paying job, pay taxes, and contribute to society! If you're into medical research or something altruistic besides freakin' games, then maybe I'd be OK with a grant, but COME ON--GAMES?
  • Reminds me of the old financial adage directed at a lender: "Loan me a thousand bucks, and I'm in trouble. Loan me a million bucks, and you're in trouble." Ported to the problem at hand, it might become a political adage directed to an elected official "A ten-employee business in your district is losing money, and it's in trouble. A ten thousand-employee business in your district is losing money, and you're in trouble."

  • Grand Theft Auto: Nice City (Score:5, Funny)

    by scotay ( 195240 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:24PM (#5484997)
    The Baseball bat is now made out of harmless Nerf.

    Thrills abound as you sit out the real-time mandatory waiting periods for your weapons.

    Earn "Good Citizen" points by driving to the police station to turn yourself in.

    All vehicles meet the highest CAFE standards. Arrested at 55MPH. Must wear seatbelts or vehicle ignition is disabled.

    All monies collected during muggings will be placed into a lockbox. Payout promised at retirement.

    Sexual intercourse with prostitutes is no longer allowed. Earn points by describing abstinence-only programs to the honeys.

    Plenty of side action with missions the let you race across the city in a challenging low-speed chase as you install wheel-chair accessible ramps.

  • "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy"??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iainl ( 136759 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:25PM (#5485009)
    Quoth the author "Maybe the gaming industry isn't as healthy as I thought".

    I take it that the recent collapse of Rage (of Rocky, Lamborghini, GoGo Beckham etc.) and Curly Monsters (Quantum Redshift) and the merger of Sega with Sammy, all in the last month or two passed them by, then?

  • Small game developers need to think like NASA... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:25PM (#5485010)
    smaller, cheaper, faster.

    My feeling is that a small or one-person team can do a lot given current tools (granted there is a lot for one person to cover) and at least will not fall into a bunch of backbiting and/or large scale corporate stupidity. Too many "big shop" games are either knock-offs, or without any real playability.

    I have a terrific concept for a commercial game I'm trying to develop, so we'll see how the small fish does in my case... ;-)

  • The first company the government is going to point to is id Software. They're extremely profitable, and what, only 20 employees now? Used to be a lot less.

  • Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yer Mum ( 570034 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:38PM (#5485108)
    I can tell this is an American board.

    Is there any difference between grants for games companies than grants for films, the arts, museums, neighbourhood community projects, etc...

    Or even just reducing the burden of taxes on these organisations would help.

    Because it costs much less to invest in your own country's companies, keeping your own population in jobs, educated and trained, and having your country produce something whih is then exported and brings money in for the country than slinging everyone out on their ear and watching unemployment benefit costs going off the scale.

    In the UK taxes are going up again in April. Small and medium-sized companies really will go to the wall, as if enough aren't already now.

    If we take the current system to its logical conclusion and outsource everything to the lowest bidder in India, there is very little left that could be done in this country apart from police, lawyers, politicans, and hairdressers. And it won't be some work-free utopian paradise service economy where people spend all day skipping through fields. It'll be an uneducated unemployed population who can only claim off the state because there are no jobs available.

    It's hit the spotlight in the UK with British Telecom staring outsourcing call centre jobs (yes, even the lowest-skilled jobs are being outsourced) to India.

    I would have thought that computer programmers, being the first on the receiving end, would have realised the economics a long time ago. Sadly not.

  • I want to know more about that Porsche... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dilute ( 74234 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:40PM (#5485125)
    According to one of the articles,

    "He was courted by the likes of Sega and Nintendo, with one games publisher reportedly offering him a Porsche just for meeting with the company."

    This sounds pretty good. Anyone know the story on this?

  • Absolutely Not (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Syncdata ( 596941 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:42PM (#5485142) Journal
    "Making a computer game now is incredibly expensive," said Mr Molyneux. "You're talking about millions and millions of pounds to make a triple-A, globally successful game."
    So rather than having you, or a small development house shell out the money in exchange for potential windfalls, we should all front your money, at no return to ourselves. This is why we have what is known as "Market Capitalization". Sell some stock, and that will allow you to finish the product.
    Business ventures are not for the faint of heart, whatever field you are talking about, and the development of videogames offers zero return on investment to the taxpayer. The closest example to this was the Army game, and that was given away for free, and had a purpose, namely, recruitment. I fail to see how a game featuring a giant cow furthers any objective a government might have.
    I oppose this for the exact same reason I oppose the National Endowment of the Arts. Do what you want to do, fine, but do it with your own resources. Don't make me subsidize a game that I'll end up paying for anyhow.

  • I don't buy it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @12:57PM (#5485264) Homepage
    Molyneux wants to make big games with a huge budget, but is finding that its not that profitable. Rather than find a more appropriate design, the UK government should fund the development? Oh yea, DOA Extreme Vollyball was definately a pinnacle of modern expression, and a clear example of why they should fund this new expansion of the arts. Seriously people, there's another group of developers in the UK thats not only smaller than Molyneux but also successfuly. Introversion has released a successful game to the PC market without support of a publisher for distrobution and marketing. Their game Uplink is a nice combination of gameplay that doesn't require a 30+ minute investment of time but still lets you make progress in the game.

    The companies Molyneux cited all suffered from liscencing exposure. Crawfish made several quality GBA games. Unfortunately they were all ports. The bad deal with ports is while the liscence does come with an instant fanbase, it raises the standards for your first game (can't put off features like multiplayer in a street fighter game, even though you haven't figured a way around the slow bus speed yet), and even if you do pull it off to critical acclaim, the liscener will probably do it in house instead, ala Goldeneye/Rare.

    On the other hand, I'd love to see cheaper games, and if the UK is willing to foot the bill on it, I'm game!

  • View from a game developer... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrIcee ( 550834 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @01:01PM (#5485298) Homepage
    As an indie game developer (TQworld [tqworld.com]) I both agree and disagree with the article.

    In agreement I have to say that if you are pursuing a competitive first person shooter, etc... you require a large staff with many graphic artists, prgrammers, etc. You are also going to pour lots of money into marketing and getting big names for voices etc. Additionally, getting into some of the console markets is near-neigh impossible unless your a well known and established company with millions.

    However, in disagreement I offer our own experience. In our view, an indie is most at risk if they (1) accept funding from investors and (2) try to release games that mimic the current genres and (3) do not pay close enough attention to stability (e.g., support issues).

    Our game has been fairly successful, and continues to grow, due in part to the fact that it bucks the traditional genres. We have no problem staying afloat because we funded the venture out of pocket and never once accepted money outside the company. This allowed us to retain total control over the direction of the game. Because we retained total control we also had the ability to ensure that we did not release anything until WE were happy and WE were certain it was stable.

    It is apparent that it will be a slow and steady climb for us (our first release was in 2001) to get to the point where bigger names take notice, and console manufacturers want to talk - but as with anything, if you are tiny and innovative you can overcome most obstacles and become a david among goliths (sorry :).

  • First, asking the US governement to tick their fingers into free enterprise is never a good thing. These are some of the same people lobbying against violence in videogames and want to act as thought-police. You REALLY want them with greater leverage in the industry? Asking for a government bailout of the US gaming industry is just plain silly. Maybe if it were half the size of Japan's. Maybe. But it's not even close. How in the world is he going to convince the US government this is worth investing in? It's not exactly a national airline in need of bailout...

  • Calling BS on this one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by frohike ( 32045 ) <bard.allusion@net> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @01:24PM (#5485456) Homepage

    I'm one of the co-owners of an independent game company [cagames.com] right now so I feel like I have a few things to say on this subject. His premise is flawed, IMO.

    First of all, we heard this same argument on the Dreamcast homebrew development list back in the day when John Byrd (Sega DTS guy) was on there. He literally said that a couple of guys in a garage can't make a game these days. It was basically the same thing Peter Molyneux is saying now. I told him it was BS then, and I'll say it's BS about this as well.

    The problem is one of scope. This same thing applies to movie makers, musicians, anyone. If you start out with the goal of wanting to be a world-wide phenominon, then you are probably going to fail unless you have the bookoo bucks. That's not how normal business people start though. You find yourself a niche somewhere where you can establish yourself, and then you work upwards from there. If you're passionate about it and stay on it hard, and more importantly if you have the talent, then you'll usually get a couple of key breaks eventually. If you don't, then perhaps you should try something else. Or, if you're like me, there's probably no failure too grand to keep you away from it. :)

    You also have to look at the indie film and music scenes to see how this works, it's not that difficult. You find something you can do within the budget you have available to you; you spend time and track down people who have similar interests; and then you band together and make something that will lift all of you up to the next budget level so you can produce something more interesting next time. It takes patience, yes. It definitely takes a load of hard work. But you don't need a "worldwide AAA game" to be successful, just enough to pay yourself to continue your work.

    There is also, of course, an element of "right place at the right time" but that tends to be purely luck (though it can be engineered occasionally).

    And before any of the trolls start... our budget: $0 and a few hours of free time each day.

  • Make an IPO. Plenty of "Small shop" .COM companies in the late 90s got plenty of funding this way. If your idea is that good, then you should have no problem finding an investor to back your proposal. Goverment involvement in this area should be NONE AT ALL. I refuse to have my tax dollars going to some crack-head programmer who complains about not being able to keep up with the big guys. These days, to make a successful product, you don't need a good programmer, rather you need an excellent manager and marketing person. That's the name of the game these days.

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