On The Need For New Videogame Funding Models

Thanks to Costik.com for pointing to entrepreneur Gordon Gould's comments on possible new videogame funding avenues, as he notes "the coming console shift to Xbox 2 and the Playstation 3 is going to once again raise the bar on development costs", meaning "a shrinking number of titles per publisher slate w/increased pressure on those titles to be out of the ballpark blockbusters." He suggests that "developers' ability to gain more control over their destiny is handicapped by the relative scarcity of funding sources", but this may be changing, as investors from outside the industry start to fund development (as seen recently at MMO creator Turbine.) However, Greg Costikyan weighs in with a response, arguing that "...even looking at something as goofy and hit-driven as the game industry, an investor is already taking a big risk, and his or her instinct is going to be the same as the publishers': be conservative in what you fund."

unfortunate consequences...

[BTWR]

The unfortunate consequences that this brings, not entirely unjustifiably, is that daring new games will not be made. When every 5 years or so brings a new genre (FPS, violent vigilante games), we'll simply see 10 clones of those, instead of new ideas. When developing a game costs millions of dollars to make, with entire teams of workers to go at it (as opposed to the Atari days when one guy made the whole game), you kinda can't blame them for not taking huge risks.

Even Nintendo's very creative games this generation, Pikmin and Viewtiful Joe, were made (I'm totally speculating) only because they were pet projects of titans of the industry.

Re:unfortunate consequences...

[Luigi30]

Pikmin was Miyamoto. Viewtiful Joe was some of the best Capcom devs or something.

Re:unfortunate consequences...

[BTWR]

thats exactly what I was saying. I knew Miyamoto's name, but forgot the Capcom guy who headed VJ. my point was that these innovative games were only made because of those guy's influence (i.e. they get what they want)

Re:Doesn't this come back to fundemental CS flaws?

[AuMatar]

Sure you can. Reuse parts. Why write a new 3D engine when 7 gadzillion have been made? Why write a new 2D one when even more have been? Sound libraries, networking, the same. Now all you have to do is the artwork and the game itself. Even the art and sound could really be reused.

Smart compiler won't help, the problem isn't optimizing code. Higher level languages don't do anything a library doesn't do. What you need to do is write reusable pieces of code, and then reuse them. Better yet if they're

Oh I'll tell you what the world doesn't need...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't need more ass-hats telling other people to go out and do something while they mind the fort.

How 'bout you take a play from your own book and give up your recreational nannying to go dig a well in Rawanda. 'K

Re:The world doesn't need more video games.

[DAldredge]

I do pay for all that. It is called taxes.

Re:The world doesn't need more video games.

[obeythefist]

Why? So there are more trees to cut down and make into books? So there are more people in homes to buy books, video games and movies? So that people are more educated and can write more books, video games and movies?

Fool!

The risk?

[fatboyslack]

Unfortunately, the innovative interesting new games rarely sell better than run of the mill sequels, or movie franchised add-ons.

All investment is risk, but the key to smart investment is that you try to minimise risk. Not many people worry how their money is multiplied, and to most investors, one computer game is the same as another. They would care little what games are made, as long as their investment grows. Computer Game publishers know this and therefore tune their business plans accordingly.

And, the general gaming public doesn't help by buying $hit games en masse.

It's a little disappointing that the gaming industry seems to be going the way of the movie industry. No risks, nothing interesting except for rare 'arthouse' movies.

The important question is, what can be done?

Re:The risk?

[real_smiff]

I think what can be done, is simply to make simpler games. Do *gamers* get more intelligent every 5 years? no. so why the need for ever more complex games to entertain them. Has anyone addressed this? (i've been out of the loop for a while). If you have a good idea surely it shouldn't cost significantly more to make now than 10 years ago, i.e. to make a better looking version of what you could have done at any time, on a new system with an equal amount of work, by using better tools and higher level languag

Re:The risk?

[Incoherent07]

Agreed. You do start to wonder why, if modern games get better and better with every generation (or so the hype goes), people still even play games from the 1980s. Is it, perhaps, that simplicity has advantages?

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the hardest part of making a game is the artwork. And yet, strangely, the artwork isn't the most important part of the game! (Some will argue that, I'm aware.) The gameplay, dare I say it, is the most important part. If publishers instead concentrated on making good games, and skimped on the artwork perhaps, wouldn't that decrease the cost of the development cycle, and therefore mitigate the whole problem the article discusses?

Re:The risk?

[buffer-overflowed]

No the games aren't fundamentally better just prettier. Gamers have gotten worse and easier to please though(I didn't thank that was possible, people bought Phalanx after all, but apparently it was.).

Take this game for instance: Beyond Good and Evil. It was critically praised, is a fantastic game, and came out for all 3 consoles AND the PC but it didn't sell(you can pick it up for $19.99 on the XBox or GCN).

Good and even good AND innovative doesn't mean sales. So it's always the safe bet, yet another F

X Box 2

[aflat362]

Oh great. I'm still 250 some Mountain Dew points away from getting the original X Box.

So...

[ooPo]

Watch as the industry starts shifting towards handhelds instead of full blown console games. Nintendo stands to make a pile more cash if they can stand up and release an answer to the PSP. It doesn't have to be fancy... just a machine with a reasonable amount of power. The handheld war will be won mainly on price, not raw power.

(before you shout ngage, read where I said about a *reasonable* amount of power...)

Re:So...

[Rallion]

Based on what I've seen so far, I'd take a GBA over a flashy PSP anyway.

I'll tell you when I still think so after E3.

Re:So...

[buffer-overflowed]

They already did, a lonnnggg time ago. It's called a GBA. It's got some good hardware in that little thing too. Oh and it costs at present less than half what the PSP is going to cost. It'll probably drop in price here soon, but you can pick up an SP for $70 new or used if you know where to look(regular for $50). Really nice on the battery life too.

Lots of good games out for it too. In fact, more of em than for any other handheld! A decade of games, some of which are amongst the best/most addictive

Re:So...

[DeadScreenSky]

Yeah, and the GBA has more crap put out for it then what crashed the Atari-dominated games market in the 80s. Even the good games (and there aren't that many) are all just sequels, remakes, or licensed.

Games should be cheaper to make

[xyu]

You'd think hardware manufacturers would make dev kits that make it easy to make games. That way games could be produced faster, hence cheaper.

I remember talk of Nintendo's kit that they used to build Wind Waker and FF:Crystal Chronicles. They were supposed to be able to build games in under a year with it. Anyone know if it is working?

Also, the recently resigned Nintendo president set up some sort of fund to help pay for games:

As reported last year, Yamauchi-san announced plans to establish a game development fund in Japan. Thereby, Yamauchi-san will invest venture capital into budding game developers and related visionaries. [gamersmark.com]

Re:Games should be cheaper to make

[Scorchio]

Errrrrr.. no. The technology is getting more and more complex. Sure, it's easier to write a previous generation game on current generation hardware, than previous generation hardware. Using all the bells and whistles the new tech provides certainly isn't easy.

However, you're spot on about content, though. It seems that we're heading towards project teams with a handful of programmers and a army of artists, animators, modellers and musicians.

Re:Games should be cheaper to make

[alphaseven]

Yeah I don't agree that new technology is driving up the cost of producing games.

Rather, I'd say it was competition driving up develpoment costs. One company spends 20 million making a game that sells millions of copies and makes a big profit, so others companies see that and try to make a blockbuster themselves.

America's Army?

[Thinkit4]

It's nice to see just one big-budget game that isn't copylocked--even if we libertarians cringe a bit.

On the private side, some donationware (freely given) or tipware (allowing you to tip extra if you like it) experiments would be nice.

For fuck's sake, just give us some FUN GAMES!

[Trejkaz]

Stop wasting money developing 5GB of 3D artwork and FMV, and start writing games which are actually FUN. Maybe then you can charge less even, and hey, maybe more people will buy the things when they don't cost $100. People don't give a fuck how much money you pour in making the game competitive with the latest UT clone. People want to HAVE FUN.

Software Publishers

[robbway]

The article focused on console game (including PC) development by video game companies. This is just my opinion, but it appears the game companies have forced this upon themselves. Meanwhile, companies that license titles from independent developers (Real, AOL, Pogo, etc.) seem to obtain software cheaply and quickly. And remove the costs of publishing from the mix. Admittedly this is not great for the independents, cash-wise, and it often produces bombs-to-gem ratio of at least 10-to-1.

As an anecdote, I