@Ben_Quintero: “Can’t think of another industry where it cost $1M to make and sells for $1. And is something buyers still mull over so much. #videogames”
I wonder if chewing gum would exist today if it cost $1M and a team of college-educated masters of their craft to stamp out 500k sticks and they sold for $0.01 each. I kind of feel like video games might be going the way of chewing gum, sitting in the impulse isle next to People magazine and The Star (is that still around?). The difference however is that Bubble Yum hasn’t changed in like 100 years and they are still selling it. Video games have a very short life and often die with their target console. Then we need to spend more money to create more entertainment value but the flavor of our gum has to be different each time.
This was, strangely, what I awoke to this morning. I thought about all of the hours in my lifetime that I’ve put into video games. I thought about the long nights, the tireless efforts, the mind-melting problems that needed to be solve in order to get the simplest of things to happen on the screen. The hundreds of man-hours that go into the little things that the player is NOT supposed to notice (ie: uncanny valley, visual pops and artifacts, anything that breaks immersion). I thought about all of it. Then, that one quote sprung to mind.
I could be completely wrong here but I just could not think of any other industry where people put this much effort into something and ask so little in return. The closest resemblance may be Hollywood, but even they have some luxuries that we do not. When a film like District 9 is made on a $37M budget, or even some of the horror films being made for less than $1M it makes you think.
It seems like anyone with a Canon 5D DSLR can frame it up and take amazing video that is strikingly professional looking, even if by accident at times. Still, following some basic rule of thirds and understanding aperture go a long way. The beauty of nature and the talent of the people in front of the camera are key elements. Sure, there is lighting and composition but again, lighting and shadows are practically free when you compare them to the hoops we have to jump in the digital realm. In video games, digital artists agonize over the limitations of things like a single shadow-casting light source and a handful of fill lights while an indie film maker just needs an umbrella and a flood light from Home Depot.
I think that the video games industry are some of the brightest stars but you know what they say about the stars that burn brightest… I do hope that we can maintain this pace and I applaud my brothers and sisters. With budgets expected to rise again, new consoles expected to push 6x the horse power (more devilish details to UV-unwrap, paint, sculpt and light), and prices continuing to plummet, I hope we are ready for what lies ahead. The future is a scary place, but we will manage… I hope…
That’s pretty demotivating what you write there
It’s not at doom and gloom as you might think. I am very hopeful that things don’t keep going this way. But it gets harder and harder to convince people to buy games as it becomes easier to make them.
The only way to combat the script-kiddies is to create higher production games (more $) or a “new flavor of gum” every year to stay one step ahead.
It’s possible, but game developers will simply have to work much harder and expect less than any industry to make that happen.
Is it really necessary to fight the script-kiddies? I mean even one of those could come up with a “new flavor of gum”, couldn’t he?
I see the trend definetily going towards free games with buyable Content.
That’s my point though. The easier it is for a script-kiddy to create new flavors the harder it will be to convince them that your product is worth buying. I mean, how much more can we offer? At $1, games are practically free, and many already are free.
Sure you have micro-transactions and in-game item sales, but that also requires that you build enough gameplay (potentially hundreds of hours of free game) for them to stay long enough to want to pay even $1 for some hat or a new skin on their character.
I’m guessing you are a developer so I’m sure you know that 100 hours of gameplay is not exactly 100 hours of development time, more like 100x more. So who is going to pay for the 100 hours of gameplay in hopes to earn $1 from a handful of people? I know Freemium models work, I’m not arguing that. But that model requires huge capital to give away a game after paying for development and waiting to earn it back (maybe) $1 at a time…
Is that the right model for a struggling indie? If free is the only path of the future, who will have pockets deep enough to survive when EVERYONE is free and that gimmick is no longer unique? What will happen when it’s not enough to just say, “hey we are free, try me!” Do we sink even more money to try and create a higher quality game? At what point is free going to break?
Sorry
didn’t mean to get preachy. I just get a little passionate about stuff like this. And I am especially bothered with the new generation of gamers who feel entitled to everything, instantly and for free. They think just because the WWW is open that everything should be free, but people like me have to eat too.