The Marketplace Recognizes Game Makers

Video game ombudsman Kyle Orland has a short post up describing an American Public Media 'Marketplace' piece discussing the increasing clout of the games industry. From his post: "The piece focuses on the increasing respect games are getting as both an artistic and business force. The reporter, Jeff Tyler, provides a good mix of hard numbers, market analysis and trend spotting."

Recognizes?

[Creepy Crawler]

Erm, I dont think so. Nintendo made its niche and is struggling to stay there. You can thank Pokemon for that. Even popular companies who made the big hits (Square, Enix) have now converged.

Stil, if anything, the BEST games have been made by a "crap sports game maker". Namco. They made a cheap, super-innoative game (Katamari Damacy) and one of the BEST RPG's (Tales of Phantasia). They dont need "recognizion". The sales provide it.

ObHelp: Still, Im looking for the Manga/Book "Tale Phantasia". It's referenced at the end of Tales of Phantasia. If anybody can help, please do so ;)

Maybe I'm doing something wrong...

[tyoob]

I'm a game maker, and nobody ever recognizes me. :(

Well if it's any indication...

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every single mainstream media outlet (CNN, CBS, etc.) has a "games" desk, these days.

Hold on, cause it's only gonna get bigger.

As the old saying goes...

[yuriismaster]

"There is no such thing as bad press." American Media has become sensationalized to the 'graphic realism' of these violent games. They are outraged over how GTA3/VC/SA are teaching kids how to shoot up old ladies and rob, etc.

...and then they realize: "Dang, these video game things are really cool-looking. I'll go buy one."

and then the market watchers jump over them, and the chain reaction has commenced.

Re:As the old saying goes...

[superpulpsicle]

Yeah it's funny how the people who are opposed to GTA and Mortal Kombat are the ones giving the games ridiculous publicity.

Part of the reason why Mortal Monday pulled in one of the biggest 1st week sales ever is because of all these parents complain on the news.

who gives?

[bartok]

I don't mean to troll but who gives a shit about what the marketplace recognizes? Is this News for nerds ot news for investors?

The commercialisation of games

[SimianOverlord]

Actually I disagree with the rosy assessment of TFA. In my opinion the increasing commercialisation and mainstreaming of games is doing harm to the overall artistic and creative development. I see the whole process as analogous to the revolution in the film industry from its origins to mainstream Hollywood today, where about every 3rd film is a crappy big star - big explosion creative graveyard only successful because of the obscene amount of money spent pushing merchandising, made for TV trailers and mock docos, T shirts and other shit.

I'd hate to see the games genre lurching towards that creative oblivion.

We can see the blackened shoots of this future growing in the annual churn out of moneybox sports titles from big companies like EA. They plough these golden eggs into... creating more surebet moneybox sports titles, not risky creative development. They've started buying up small developers who have rights to creative games, cutting their resources and sending out titles that are "good enough" instead of "the best they can do" - just look at The Sims. I personally hate The Sims, but then I'm not a 14 year old girl, and I recognise it as something (that was) innovative and new at its time, something that, like the catflap, was obvious once someone else thought of it. This is despite my distaste at the innumerable expansions packs that became just a bit too contemptuous and greedy.

We're nearing the end of the consolidation phase of the games industry where a few big developers will come to dominate >75% of the market (fuck, they do already). And the big worry for me is, unlike the film industry where Independent developers can create and release their own work without requiring too much expense, games development of the sort of polished titles that came from nowhere and were a huge success is too expensive to be undertaken by anything other than medium sized risk takers, the same risk takers who after one major success will be gobbled up by the huge EA like conglomerates and creatively spayed, then spat out.

One of the first signs of the end of this golden age of gaming we're hardly aware we're living through, will be the creation of a games festival taking a Sundance festival like attitude to promoting the little guy. If there is hope, it lies in modding communities but these rely far too much on existing game engines which will probably in the future be licensed for increasingly large sums, if successful games based on a big-company-developed engine are developed.

Yeah, so I say, I hope to fuck the big monied folks DON'T realise the capitalisation potential of gaming, because all we'll get from it is a brainless litany of formulaic pigswill. If there's enough of it in the trough, the pigs'll never find the odd juicy carrot among all the shit.

Anyway, this might all be bullshit, I don't pretend to be an expert (unlike the guy in TFA) but it's where I see us going.

Hahaha Egg, meet face

[SimianOverlord]

Just below: Independent Games Festival [slashdot.org], a Sundance like festival to highlight all the innovative non-commercial games that are ignored by the mainstream public. First I'd heard of it.

Re:The commercialisation of games

[jackbird]

I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be.
In the past year:
Darwinia
Cave Story
Gish
Dark Horizons Lore (and everything else in the Bravetree/Torque Engine community)
The homebrew shmup otaku offerings (Tumuki fighter, etc.)
Katamari Damacy
Alien Hominid
Popcap
All the interactive fiction festival entries
All the IGF entries
Student games, now that there are game dev schools (see above)
All the modding communities producing high-quality stuff - Natural Selection, ETF, etc.
even the Privateer remake posted the o

Of course, that's how it goes

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course games are gaining more respect. That's what naturally happens when OLD PEOPLE DIE OFF, and are replaced by YOUNG PEOPLE WHO GREW UP WITH GAMES.

It's just like the acceptance of Rock n Roll, or any other "scary" pop trends. (Scary in the eyes of old fuddy-duddies). It takes time but eventually the people in power will have never known a time without video games, and all this brouhaha over violence, etc will go away. But it will take time.

Thanks for the "recognition" ...

[AppleTRON]

... but I think I speak for myself (a sound designer) and most other developers when I say: WHERE IS MY F'N RED CARPET!?!? WHERE IS MY DOM P!?!? Although games have come as close as ever to rivaling box office sales, developers are still second class citizens; underpaid and underappreciated. Oh, except for that "awards show" on Spike TV. Thanks a whole bunch. Maybe I'm bitter, but I think that even though we do what we love, we could still use a little compensation. I'm not saying I want to be famous ...

Halo?

[Taulin]

Halo was the first? People still fail to realize that the one main reason it sold well is because it is one of the few good games for XBox, so was/is a 90% guarantee buy for XBox owners. If it was indeed a masterpiece, PC sales would have also been high. It is a great game, but there are tons of games that are better. Even DOOM should have gotten a star before Halo.