Xbox Co-Creators' CEG 'Middleman' Venture Fails 15
Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for their story revealing that the 'gaming middleman' venture Capital Entertainment Group has closed its doors. The article explains that CEG's founders "...included Seamus Blackley [now heading to CAA as a games agent] and Kevin Bachus, who were part of the team that created the Xbox at Microsoft and persuaded Bill Gates to spend billions in a bid to unseat Sony as the dominant player in video games." The founders started CEG "...to solve growing rifts between game developers and publishers. CEG planned to develop high-quality games with established developers. It would then take those games and pitch them to game publishers and share in the cut if the games were successful." But funding wasn't forthcoming, since "...in the end the VCs didn't want to try their luck in risky hit-or-miss games." Will there ever be room in the market for an "independent production company" like CEG?
Will there ever be room in the market? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that CEG wasn't a production company at all. They were simply trying to fill the same role for developers that agents play for actors or managers play for musicians, and the industry isn't quite setup that way, yet. If it starts to move in this direction, it'll be more likely that the publishers will establish the role of agents, putting people out there to look for game developers, rather than having game developers pitch directly to publishers as they do now, and since the agents will be an arm of the publishing company, the cut the agent takes will be extra padding in the publisher's bottom line.
Only once this system (which is more or less a scam) is in place would an independent company have it's place, and only then if that company had made significant in-roads with the publishers. It only becomes a production company (of sorts) when they've got enough developers under their wing and when they can maintain developers by making single-title deals with publishers (rather than multiple-title deals which are fairly common with successful developers).
Even at that point, you have to find ways around the economic problems with the games industry, realizing that most titles fail and that games are getting more expensive to produce every year, and, as an independant production house, publishers aren't likely to sign off on your projects until they're fairly close to completion unless you have a very solid team in-house that has released some very strong titles and has been very consistent about doing so. The music industry's getting hammered by bad economics, and the movie industry turns out a lot of crap to try to deal with it's economics, so moving to a model with more 3rd parties involved in games, where the economic problems are really just starting, doesn't seem like a sound idea.
That being said, having one of CEG's founders move on to CAA seems like just about the perfect move for both him and CAA, since they need people with a better idea of how the games industry works, and it essentially gets him a little closer to the job he was setting up at CEG in the first place.
In the middle of what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sturgeon's Law (Score:1, Interesting)
"Fun" has become ever more elusive as the amount of content continues to explode. Everything is either the same as everything else or just plain f'ed up and wrong. For the record, the last game I liked were Rise of Natio
Re:Sturgeon's Law (Score:2)
The xbox, hands down, has the best hardware package for consumers and the most attractive tools for developers.
any negative statements you may have about him, you have to grant him that much. the only things they could've done better, was streaming media capability from network shares -> xbox -> tv/audio (mp3/divx/avi/etc), and using the -standard- usb interface for controllers/memory de
So God V2.0 failed? (Score:2, Funny)
Doesn't make sense (Score:2)
I'm sure there's room in the market for independent game developers, and independent publishers, but if they're going to be backed by VC they're either going to be forced to sell out, or forced to go under, after their first hit or miss respectively.
Re:Doesn't make sense (Score:1)
They were trying to play a role currently being played by both the publishers and the developers and sit in the middle somewhere. Whether or not it was a good idea, on the other hand, depends on whether or not developers or publishers felt they really needed something like that.
On the other hand, yes, being backed by VC does make them
*scratches head* (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the industry is set up now so that gamers will find the games they want to be playing without a huge focus on marketing. Buying a console is an investment, no matter how small to some, so it seems that the buyer would want a good return on their investment in the form of quality game titles; thus, they'd go out of their way to find them. Also, game culture on the internet creates a huge amount of word of mouth. While this all applies to more "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) gamers, there are already franchises there to attract the casual gamer's attention, with more being created all the time, and the amount of buzz created by the blockbuster titles is enough to attract the casual game buyer.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how much a company markets a great game (like Ico for instance), it will never be appealing to the majority of gamers, and a company that just copies a model used in the film industry is doomed to fail, because the same principles do not apply to games. People can essentially watch the same movie over and over again, but it takes a lot more to keep games fresh than to change the actors or systematically alter the plot.
Re:*scratches head* (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not really about marketing unless you're questioning the existing model (developer goes to publisher, who takes care of marketing, distribution, and usually financing the project). They were trying to play the part of a go-between for the developers and publishers, isolating the developers a b
CEG, EGO (Score:2)
Geez, I hope not.
The website isn't a testament to games. It's a testament to the guys in the company. Give me a break. I visited the CEG page the moment Blackley left MS and thought the same thing I do now: these guys aren't about the games, they're about themselves. Every interview I've read with these guys is about themselves. CEG, at least to me, looks like nothing but a four man ego circle. Blackley should'v
What about GOD? (Score:2)
Useless (Score:2)
Couldn't ever talk to -anyone- there.
A total waste of (probably someone else's) money and time.
It's too bad (Score:1)
This is a shame... (Score:1)
The reason behind it's inception IIRC, was that developers were getting shafted by publishers who were reluctant to fork over money for production of a product without basically gaining complete control over the product being developed.
CEG was there to try and help guide new startup development companies by providing initial funding and middleware to develop games to construct a suitable demo, which could be th