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[theBishop]

Some of these companies taking loses need to figure out how to make more products with the technology/assets they already have.

It's been a long time since the huge success of Battlefield 1943, and I don't see other publishers taking note.

Why doesn't Volition do a short, 3-5 hour Coop episode of Red Faction Guerrilla?

When games take 2-3 years to produce, and flop you got to have a backup plan.

 

[Cosmonaut X]

Similarly, "hardcore" gamers seem to want big, epic games. That's why the term "AAA" has gained such common use, because people tend to want event-style launches of major, critically acclaimed productions. The end result: companies like Activision, which focus exclusively on a few, major, "AAA" products and pare away all the rest.

That actually hooks into a point I wanted to make in my post but couldn't quite articulate - over the last generation or two, there seems to be a rejection of the flawed-but-interesting second-tier titles by consumers (and by reviewers) which has gone a long way to killing off the kind of experimentation I'd argue for. If your game has framerate issues, it's marked down and panned. Sub-HD resolution on my HD console? Ugh. Inconsistent graphics? Forget it - I'll wait until it hits the bomba bin.

 

[Opiate]

That actually hooks into a point I wanted to make in my post but couldn't quite articulate - over the last generation or two, there seems to be a rejection of the flawed-but-interesting second-tier titles by consumers (and by reviewers) which has gone a long way to killing off the kind of experimentation I'd argue for. If your game has framerate issues, it's marked down and panned. Sub-HD resolution on my HD console? Ugh. Inconsistent graphics? Forget it - I'll wait until it hits the bomba bin.

Let me put this even more simply: it is clear that "hardcore" gamers like to jump on the hype train for games, enjoy sequels (Final Fantasy Thirteen? Four Grand Theft Auto games in a ten year span?), and love big, expensive production values.

These preferences strongly influence companies to focus on games which can be hyped years before they release (e.g. Assassin's Creed), can be endlessly iterated upon (CoD, Madden) and are enormously expensive to produce (GTA).

Thus, the end result of those preferences is precisely a company like Activision: a company that will focus on their big, massive blockbuster games and will throw away all the rest. Don't like it? Stop asking for it.

 

[Pureauthor]

I think in some ways such demand for solely 'AAA' titles is actively cultivated by the producers, and not only the consumers. For instance, Sony and Microsoft have actively marketed their machines primarily as ways to deliver these 'AAA', top-of-the-line products, thus making consumers more inclined to think of these 'AAA" products as what they should expect from the 360 and PS3.

Of course, it's also possible they were reacting to perceived consumer demand for this in the first place.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

:lol

Waitng. :lol

Hey that's 64,000 people you're laughing about!

:lol

 

[Lonely1]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

 

[evangd007]

Let me put this even more simply: it is clear that "hardcore" gamers like to jump on the hype train for games, enjoy sequels (Final Fantasy Thirteen? Four Grand Theft Auto games in a ten year span?), and love big, expensive production values.

These preferences strongly influence companies to focus on games which can be hyped years before they release (e.g. Assassin's Creed), can be endlessly iterated upon (CoD, Madden) and are enormously expensive to produce (GTA).

Thus, the end result of those preferences is precisely a company like Activision: a company that will focus on their big, massive blockbuster games and will throw away all the rest. Don't like it? Stop asking for it.

What we need is an end to the hype train mentality that has been perpetuated by the game companies' marketing department and the gaming press. But that would involve the gaming press actually acting like real journalists.

 

[speculawyer]

Well . . . if it is any consolation, Rock Band 3 did more than twice as good as Guitar Hero Warriors.

 

[Opiate]

I think in some ways such demand for solely 'AAA' titles is actively cultivated by the producers, and not only the consumers. For instance, Sony and Microsoft have actively marketed their machines primarily as ways to deliver these 'AAA', top-of-the-line products, thus making consumers more inclined to think of these 'AAA" products as what they should expect from the 360 and PS3.

Of course, it's also possible they were reacting to perceived consumer demand for this in the first place.

I agree with this. This changes my argument rather significantly, however.

Instead of saying, "this is what consumers want," I should say, "this is what consumers have been led to prefer." Regardless of whether those preferences were innate (i.e. people prefer them regardless of exogenous circumstances) or have had those preferences instilled in them gradually by publishers (as you are suggesting, and I agree), the end result is the same: this is what people prefer now.

And too, Activision is hardly alone in cultivating these preferences: Sony and MS certainly cultivated these as well, as you suggest, as did EA, Take 2, and practically every publisher that pushes for "blockbuster" releases. Regardless, again, now that these preferences have been cultivated, Activision is the final result: a company that has built its approach to game design around precisely those "AAA," "blockbuster" design values that consumers have come to desire. If you don't like how Activision runs its business, then you should probably stop jumping on the hype train for games that won't release in a year (for example).

Activision (currently hated) and EA (currently loved) are both chasing the "blockbuster" development model, as both CEOs have explicitly admitted: the difference is that Activision has been doing it a whole lot better.

 

[Rated-Rsuperstar]

New! XX. Tony Hawk Shred - 3000

:lol :lol

If that ain't the nail in the coffin I don't know what is. Good riddance.

 

[gdt]

Holy motherfucking cow @ those Rock Band numbers.

 

[teruterubozu]

I don't know. I don't think Activision wants to be a monolithic AAA-only company as some of you are indicating. They want diversification - music games, family games, racing games, superhero action games, movie-based games, etc. It's certainly not a deliberate scorched-earth policy, but poor management of their key franchises other than COD.

 

[Kuroyume]

nvm

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

They were probably the first in the "modern" gaming era to essentially generate massive hype for a title from the ground up. I know Halo was hotly anticipated in Mac/PC circles but that translated to almost nothing in the mainstream when it moved to the Xbox.

 

[soul creator]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

I'm only half joking

 

[jay]

I agree with this. This changes my argument rather significantly, however.

Instead of saying, "this is what consumers want," I should say, "this is what consumers have been led to prefer." Regardless of whether those preferences were innate (i.e. people prefer them regardless of exogenous circumstances) or have had those preferences instilled in them gradually by publishers (as you are suggesting, and I agree), the end result is the same: this is what people prefer now.

Isn't this a big deal though? It implies consumers can be led to want different things, whereas if they had arrived at AAA all by themselves it seems that desire would be less malleable.

 

[verbum]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

How about Final Fantasy way back in time to the 1990's? I remember some hype. I remember Myst, Unreal, Civilization, Command And Conquer, etc on the PC back in the 1990's all trying to be blockbusters and producing sequels.
I can remember how much games press was given to new releases of the popular PC games. And the newsgroups went wild back in the day.

 

[Lonely1]

How about Final Fantasy way back in time to the 1990's? I remember some hype. I remember Myst, Unreal, Civilization, Command And Conquer, etc on the PC back in the 1990's all trying to be blockbusters and producing sequels.
I can remember how much games press was given to new releases of the popular PC games. And the newsgroups went wild back in the day.

For the enthusiast crowd, sure. But actively trying to compare themselves with Hollywood?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

I remember hyping Pokemon Gold and Silver like it was the second coming of Jesus himself.

 

[REV 09]

New NPDs aren't so bad after all. I've received about 3 days of enjoyment and news from this thread where it was previously only 1. We get a nice aggregate list of the top sellers and then the individual numbers trickle in throughout the week...not so bad.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Bionic Commando sold 27k so it looks like Vanquish might have sold worse than Bionic Commando. This is not good.

 

[Mooreberg]

With so many bombs, it makes me wonder how long publishers are going to pretend that every game needs to be $60 (or $50 on the Wii side). People are opening their wallets for games that either have popular multiplayer (COD), a lengthy and deep single player campaign (Fallout), or has some type of new local co-op experience on Wii. There are exceptions when strong branding is involved (Starwars TFU2) but there is a pretty consistent pattern otherwise. Question taste all you like, but people aren't that stupid when it comes to getting bang for their buck.

I wonder who at Sega or Namco thought Vanquish or Enslaved actually stood a chance of selling with the other games that came out during the month.

And it looks like MMA peaked and fell faster than music games. UFC was huge last May, less so this past May, and EA's game just sold like shit. People probably don't want three games like that in the span of 18 months.

 

[REV 09]

With so many bombs, it makes me wonder how long publishers are going to pretend that every game needs to be $60 (or $50 on the Wii side). People are opening their wallets for games that either have popular multiplayer (COD), a lengthy and deep single player campaign (Fallout), or has some type of new local co-op experience on Wii. There are exceptions when strong branding is involved (Starwars TFU2) but there is a pretty consistent pattern otherwise. Question taste all you like, but people aren't that stupid when it comes to getting bang for their buck.

I wonder who at Sega or Namco thought Vanquish or Enslaved actually stood a chance of selling with the other games that came out during the month.

And it looks like MMA peaked and fell faster than music games. UFC was huge last May, less so this past May, and EA's game just sold like shit. People probably don't want three games like that in the span of 18 months.

i kind of agree...unfortunately. Deep single player RPGs that pull me back with DLC or multiplayer shooters are really all that i buy nowadays (plus XBLA stuff and a few PC games). It's all about replay value. Why should i buy a 6 hour sp game when i can rent it? I shouldn't and i don't. Those same games could possibly sell to me at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Kai Dracon]

That actually hooks into a point I wanted to make in my post but couldn't quite articulate - over the last generation or two, there seems to be a rejection of the flawed-but-interesting second-tier titles by consumers (and by reviewers) which has gone a long way to killing off the kind of experimentation I'd argue for. If your game has framerate issues, it's marked down and panned. Sub-HD resolution on my HD console? Ugh. Inconsistent graphics? Forget it - I'll wait until it hits the bomba bin.

I am beginning to come to a theory that there's a big rot in gaming born of a kind of boredom.

The gaming audience is becoming bored and jaded. They are getting inured to products that are mediocre in content and fresh experiences so long as those products are wrapped up in lavish production values for a sort of mindless entertainment.

When a wave of disinterest has gripped a demographic, people tend to flock to a few remaining "tentpoles" - big productions that seem to assure a minimum level of entertainment. They get incurious and stop really being interested in the medium itself, for its own sake.

The serious danger is that this could be the final stage before a genuine collapse; when people lose interest so totally that they move to another pastime/entertainment.

As to /why/ people have become bored and lost all curiosity for interesting gaming experiences, if that is indeed what the problem is, it might have something to do with the game industry trying its hardest to breed and cultivate a certain kind of customer so they can then settle into a comfortable cycle of treating games like soap bars - the whole packaged goods industry mentality argument.

This came up in one of the used game threads a few months ago; the idea that game companies didn't have any problem with used games until the last few years, when used games began to bite them in the ass.

So the argument in that thread went: publishers led customers into buying yearly updates for Madden football (as the example title), only to realize that after a certain point there was so little fresh and interesting content in the next update, that customers had little reason to buy new. Just buy last year's version used if you weren't an existing Madden gamer, or keep playing last year's version until this year's version is in the bargain bin and you're /really/ bored for a trivially new experience.

Perhaps a short way to put it: people have been made stupid, shallow, and disinterested by the way their entertainment has manipulated them. (If you don't think people can be made stupid by their entertainment, brush up on recent American sociopolitical history.)

Some folks may not like to hear it put this way, because everyone on a place like GAF is playing those "stupid making" games too; implied insult. Though they may not be playing them for the same reason that the average game customer is, mind you. The enthusiast may play the new GTA because he just plain plays a ton of games or is independently a fan of the series. But joe average might be buying GTA and only GTA because he's no longer interested in trying anything except what the biggest social buzz has placed in front of him, or whatever ties into a simple audio-visual wow factor (which these days, means whatever looks the most like a hollywood summer popcorn action film).

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

For the enthusiast crowd, sure. But actively trying to compare themselves with Hollywood?

Have you ever seen the commercial for Final Fantasy 7? :lol

Halo:CE wasnt even that popular at launch compared to its sequels, it sold its millions over the next few years largely by word of mouth.

AAA marketing pushes didn't start this gen, or last gen, or with 3d gaming. This is simply the first gen where a large chunk of publishers all grabbed for that brass ring all at once. Companies got too big too fast, and consumer culture has never been socialist. There will always be haves and have nots. The have nots have a choice to make - keep trying to compete with the haves, differentiate from the haves (as Nintendo and Level 5 have done), undercut the haves (popcap games, the app store, indies, xbla/wiiware/psn), or simply trim the fat.

This means that many companies will be more risk averse in the AAA space, or result in more realistic price tiering, and I'm okay with that. Im enjoying lots of gaming and diversity these days at the <$40 level, on both console and PC. Most of these devs don't deserve the same $60 that's being spent on the top of the heap, and many of them don't need the rejection that comes with that baggage.

 

[Kai Dracon]

With so many bombs, it makes me wonder how long publishers are going to pretend that every game needs to be $60 (or $50 on the Wii side). People are opening their wallets for games that either have popular multiplayer (COD), a lengthy and deep single player campaign (Fallout), or has some type of new local co-op experience on Wii. There are exceptions when strong branding is involved (Starwars TFU2) but there is a pretty consistent pattern otherwise. Question taste all you like, but people aren't that stupid when it comes to getting bang for their buck.

I wonder who at Sega or Namco thought Vanquish or Enslaved actually stood a chance of selling with the other games that came out during the month.

And it looks like MMA peaked and fell faster than music games. UFC was huge last May, less so this past May, and EA's game just sold like shit. People probably don't want three games like that in the span of 18 months.

A bit issue I think is that there's a place and even a need for games like Vanquish at least, to keep moving genres forward and setting new standards for things other than how much a game imitates a movie (though Vanquish is no slouch in graphics either). But the cost of development of such games may be incompatible with the size of their current potential audiences.

Somehow, it seems to me that in a more organic and not-totally-fucked-up game industry, publishers would see the need to fund projects for smaller audiences even if the potential sales of those titles wouldn't make a huge profit over cost, or even run the risk of losing a bit; because they'd understand that keeping a variety of people playing their games in general is a good thing. Use a bit of the extra cash you made on your big online military shooter to fund a game for the arcade score attack guys keeps a larger number of people playing video games, period.

 

[flyinpiranha]

^^^^

I disagree. I just don't see the depth and involvement of past games having been something that has disappeared or if it really existed in the first place.

For every mindless shooter this generation there was a mindless platformer last generation. While I see where you're going with the entertainment side of things ... it's been this way for generations in print, television and radio. It's easy to persuade the masses towards something likable when you use the lowest common denominator.

Gaming has reached mass acceptance to a wide audience so of course we're going to see the more low brow games become popular, it's just meeting the need of a lowest common denominator. It doesn't mean the industry is failing or falling or coming to a bubble that is going to be burst.

I just think people have tunnel vision on the NPD when looking at "teh industry" when its really not the be-all and end-all indicator of "the industry". It's like looking at the Billboard top 10 and assuming nobody is making good music anymore.

 

[Archie]

That actually hooks into a point I wanted to make in my post but couldn't quite articulate - over the last generation or two, there seems to be a rejection of the flawed-but-interesting second-tier titles by consumers (and by reviewers) which has gone a long way to killing off the kind of experimentation I'd argue for. If your game has framerate issues, it's marked down and panned. Sub-HD resolution on my HD console? Ugh. Inconsistent graphics? Forget it - I'll wait until it hits the bomba bin.

B tier and/or experimental games have primarily moved to digital distribution platforms.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

B tier and/or experimental games have primarily moved to digital distribution platforms.

Or, you know, handhelds.

 

[Zachack]

Or, you know, handhelds.

I think iOS' heyday of rampant experimentation has slowed down significantly due to market conditions in the App Store.

 

[Mindlog]

http://www.tepg.se/titles/%5BMovie%5DWizard,%20The%20%281989%29_44.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/greggillis/images/1993/mortalMondayAd.jpg

I'm only half joking

I fully agree.

I believe it's misguided to claim that the Blockbuster Chase is a new phenomena. If anything the BC influence on development budgets (not consumers) has created the problem. The biggest influence on consumers is still the online community. This is what happened to the PC market as communities coalesced around fewer titles. However, PC's can still regularly create experimental titles on sane budgets. The consoles' rarely manage or even try to achieve niche success.

 

[Owzers]

Some of these companies taking loses need to figure out how to make more products with the technology/assets they already have.

It's been a long time since the huge success of Battlefield 1943, and I don't see other publishers taking note.

Why doesn't Volition do a short, 3-5 hour Coop episode of Red Faction Guerrilla?

When games take 2-3 years to produce, and flop you got to have a backup plan.

I wish they'd do this more for big games, i just don't get how a lot of games take 3+ years to develop and then are abandoned upon release infavor of another 3+ year project. I want more

 

[Meier]

Wow at the EA MMA number. That's rough.

 

[LCfiner]

I think iOS' heyday of rampant experimentation has slowed down significantly due to market conditions in the App Store.

I disagree. small teams can still have big hits on the App Store with unique titles. and there's still new stuff coming out. Heck, Cut The Rope is a good example. there's all sorts of swiping, tapping and unique interaction models in that game that we hadn't seen combined before.


then there's stuff like Shibuya, which only came out a few months ago. another interesting take on puzzlers.

just because EA and id are now in the game, doesn't mean that unique titles aren't being made (and discovered)


edit: and, expanding the scope further, you responded to a post that said that ALL handhelds have some experimental titles. not just iOS stuff. i think that's certainly true. The DS has some really unique retail titles.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Gaming has reached mass acceptance to a wide audience so of course we're going to see the more low brow games become popular, it's just meeting the need of a lowest common denominator. It doesn't mean the industry is failing or falling or coming to a bubble that is going to be burst.

Video and computer games as they are right now, are not entirely comparable to art, writing, music, or even film. The barrier for entry in creating video games with certain features is very high; the game industry is imitating the Hollywood model right now, because the closest comparison to games is making movies.

Anyone can write a great novel without any funding or requiring widespread success, or appeal to the lowest common denominator. The same goes for music; aside from getting some decent gear for certain kinds of music, the barrier for entry in making good music is really pretty low. A single person can, with a bit of equipment, make the world's greatest music, etc etc.

Film gets trickier; indie filmmakers are very similar to indie gamemakers in terms of the advantages of their agility, but the weaknesses of a limited budget and human resources. Indie filmmakers still have more advantages over gamemakers however - they get to film the world for free, and don't have to create it. Even if they need some effects work, that's getting cheaper and cheaper, and easier and easier, for a single guy or a small team to create on their own.

Computer games are a bitch, though. Sure, one guy can create Minecraft, or 2 guys can create World of Goo, and we shouldn't discount how profound that is. But certain genres of games are locked behind paywalls, in effect; it takes a lot of money, a lot of manpower, and a lot of time, to create those games. If you took all the "hollywood" cut scenes out of Vanquish, for example, even what was left purely in the playable parts of the game would be pretty expensive and time consuming to create and require more than a handful of people.

As each generation of games has come, the problem of cost and complexity has only increased, whereas maturing technology has made it /easier/ and often cheaper to be an artist, a writer, a musician, and even a filmmaker. For the time being, it seems that computer games are still at the mercy of significant financial backing if you want to get into anything 3D related that isn't a special case like Minecraft, or falling back on just using the tech to support an easier to create 2D genre such as Sonic Fan Remix.

But there's a kicker there; shifting audiences and tastes have pushed stuff that is easier for the little guy to compete in, to the fringe; what everyone (speaking generally) wants now, is the big 3D stuff. Unfortunately, it's not just "joe sixpack" or the lowest common denominator. As we've seen from five years of constant moaning about How Bad Wii Looks On My HDTV, hardcore gamers and enthusiasts also largely say that gaming without big budget technology and graphics is unacceptable. And that "mere 2D games" are now just "mini-games" that should cost five bucks and be put on a download service. In that sense, what Opiate said upthread is mostly true - enthusiast gamers have their own blame in the situation.

I personally know plenty of "hardcore" gamers who refuse to buy any Wii games no matter how good they are, because of Teh Graphix, and will spend their money instead of an HD console game that is /worse/ as a game, than something comparable on the Wii. Got into this exact conversation with someone in real life, in fact. Part of being "hardcore" for him was the audiovisuals and Nintendo was "fail" for not keeping up with "real gamers" with pretty graphics. Got him to try Red Steel 2. He said it was really awesome, and even said it was a better game than most of the first person shooters he'd played on Xbox360, but he wouldn't pay money for it. It was too low res. Meanwhile, he had all those HD first person shooters on his shelf.

There are way more enthusiast gamers like that out there than some might believe, and it has nothing to do with gaming having reached a broader audience. The core gamer has changed too.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I believe it's misguided to claim that the Blockbuster Chase is a new phenomena. If anything the BC influence on development budgets (not consumers) has created the problem. The biggest influence on consumers is still the online community. This is what happened to the PC market as communities coalesced around fewer titles. However, PC's can still regularly create experimental titles on sane budgets. The consoles' rarely manage or even try to achieve niche success.

All I'll say further for now, is that for my part I don't think the blockbuster is new; of course it's not. I've been in gaming for 30 years and seen all the cycles come and go.

I do think though, that we may be seeing the result of those 30 years coming to its latest, and newest, head now. Game industry is still young, as many have pointed out before. The last decade especially, has largely been about the effect of spiraling development costs on what kinds of games can be successful enough to support them. For the moment I just think it is leading gaming on the mass market, console side of the fence into an increasingly bad place.

Having seen what I've seen though, I will say this: people on the inside of a bubble rarely are capable of seeing that a bubble even exists. That's why the cycle involving them repeats itself.

More games flop, more studios shut down or are absorbed and broken up, costs keep escalating, out of control, more genres get burned down. Smooth sailing!

 

[flyinpiranha]

^^^

But there is that barrier of entry in any medium. A good book needs to be published, good art needs to find an audience. I know these are not the greatest examples but the point is in there somewhere :lol

I'm not completely disagreeing with your point as I see what your points are, but I think now is even easier and there is less of that barrier than there was before.

While people do 'demand' certain things it's expected. These features are exactly that; features ... that we expect.

I think the biggest example of how the best selling game this generation is a sub HD low rez Fitness game, when did 'gamers' demand that? You can argue that the entry game is set so high because of the HD twins but we are seeing the success of the little guys.

I agree with the cost and complexity increasing but that's what happens in a technologically driven medium. This is expected. But to counter your point look at Portal, Minecraft, World of Goo, Braid ... those things couldn't have happened 15 years ago because the cost of the tech to run it. That's changed now. Look at Xbox Indie platforms. They aren't the runaway successes of the big hitters but that's because there isn't the marketing, isn't the production value that appeals to people.

Same with art, there are better artists on Deviant Art than I see at "art shows", but they don't have the exposure. It's always been about exposure. Tetris was a simple game built by one man and it's because of exposure that it became the world wide phenomenon and (I think) the best selling game in the history of gaming across all the platforms it's been sold on.

I just don't see the blockbusters as the telling sign of the industry is all. I can see how people would, but just because Twilight sells a million tickets doesn't mean there aren't excellent movies out there that are making money.

 

[Drkirby]

Wasn't MS the first company to cultivate the "Block Buster" hype with the Halos? That's what I remember.

Maybe, but that was the natural evolution of the "Killer App" notion, which existed for much longer.

 

[Massa]

Wow at the EA MMA number. That's rough.

I don't know what's gotten into EA lately to do all these clones (Medal of Honor, Dante's Inferno, EA MMA, Create). They had interesting and original ideas two years back. :-/

 

[Gram Negative Cocci]

I don't know what's gotten into EA lately to do all these clones (Medal of Honor, Dante's Inferno, EA MMA, Create). They had interesting and original ideas two years back. :-/

Mirror's Edge and Dead Space were huge sales disappointments. There, that is what happened.

 

[LosDaddie]

The industry will be fine once it figures out what the market actually wants. Devs & pubs are, unfortunately, still finding this out, IMO. The business philosophy of "Infinite Growth" is just not sustainable.

I think Gamasutra hit the nail on the head:

Hopefully what comes out of these issues is a realization that just as not every movie is Avatar, not every game is CoD. If companies develop their games with a sound business model in mind, they can be profitable without being #1 on the sales chart. Look at the free to play MMO's, or Angry Birds, or all of the great indie/XBLA games that are doing so well on the download services. There is opportunity out there for gaming, just not every release can be expected to be AAA and a multimillion seller.

The business model needs to change (obviously). Every game cannot be projected (on a budgetary basis) to have multi-million unit sales, or else it's a bust. That's unreasonable and financially unhealthy. Just because $60 is the standard doesn't mean every game needs to be that price. DLC has been nice, but I think it's time publishers start experimenting with pricing as well. Let's see how a movie-licensed game fares at $40 initially, or maybe how an annual game, like NCAA Football, performs at $40 too.

The market has expanded to the point where having smaller teams develop smaller games for XBLA/PSN/MobileDevices can be profitable. Again, the business philosophy of "Infinite Growth" is just not sustainable. Not every game is going to be a AAA / blockbuster game with CoD/Halo-level sales.

 

[kame-sennin]

Don't like Wal Mart? Stop demanding everything be ridicously cheap and convenient, no matter the cost. Don't like Activision? Stop asking for big, extremely expensive "AAA" productions. Because both companies are mostly the end result of the consumer's values, not the other way around.

This is a good post, but there's a flip side to this. The argument that the consumer determines the direction major companies, and thus the overall market, can take is a strong one, and it's mostly accurate. The problem is that the corollary, that the market reflects the desires of the consumer, is not always correct. The reason for this is that customers can not support products or business models that do not exist. The perfect example is Walmart itself (along with the retail market that existed when Walmart was founded). At that time, customers supported high-end retailers like Sears Roebuch and Woolworths. If we looked at the buying habits of consumers in the 1960's, we would have to conclude that consumers demanded opulent department stores with highly trained and attentive staff. It wasn't until Walmart entered the market with its discount retail business model that customers began to shift their buying habits (and it took decades for Walmart to become the behemoth it is today). No one would have guessed that customers would be willing to give up quality service for low price and convenience until it actually happened.

Returning to Activision, it is fair to say that modern game consumers value AAA action games. But we can not say that they value AAA games the most, or that they would not be willing to make trade-offs unless such options are offered to them.

 

[Cosmonaut X]

B tier and/or experimental games have primarily moved to digital distribution platforms.

I think that's partly true - they're certainly moving there, but a lot of the developers are still struggling away on console/handheld development.

As for whether the move to DD for these kind of games is entirely desirable... I'm not sure. In principle, it should benefit smaller developers, and less polished, more experimental games - and you can certainly point to some notable successes - but I think the issue of limited audience for your titles raises its head. The number of people actually using their consoles online and buying DD titles is still a small percentage of the total userbase, so any dev moving Experimental Game X to DD is instantly limiting their audience and visibility.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

I think iOS' heyday of rampant experimentation has slowed down significantly due to market conditions in the App Store.

And the other handhelds have lots of the previously mentioned titles...

 

[kame-sennin]

The industry will be fine once it figures out what the market actually wants. Devs & pubs are, unfortunately, still finding this out, IMO. The business philosophy of "Infinite Growth" is just not sustainable.

The market has expanded to the point where having smaller teams develop smaller games for XBLA/PSN/MobileDevices can be profitable. Again, the business philosophy of "Infinite Growth" is just not sustainable. Not every game is going to be a AAA / blockbuster game with CoD/Halo-level sales.

Large companies often can not pursue small opportunities. I see a lot of frustration on gaf centered around this issue, "why can't company X experiment with a low budget, high concept game, it would be so cheap?" The problem is simple mathematics. For example, if Company X is publicly traded and worth 1bn dollars, in order to grow by just 3%, it has to gross 30 million dollars in a set fiscal period. That means that only large opportunities can meet the growth needs of the company. They can make an attempt at low-level experimentation, but ultimately, the finite resources of the company will be funneled to projects that are likely to meet the firm's growth targets.

The problem gets more complicated when we factor in the company's stock price. A growth rate of 3% in 2009 may cause Company X's stock price to climb, but in 2010, analysts and investors will have factored a 3% growth rate into the price of the company's stock. That means that if Company X wants their stock to grow beyond the market average, they have to deliver growth rate of 4% or 5% at least. Even worse, the growing size of the company means that revenue needs to grow every year just for the growth rate to remain flat. To put it another way, a 50 million dollar company needs to earn 2.5 million dollars to grow by five percent, but a 5 billion dollar company needs to earn 250 million to achieve the same rate of growth.

 

[bigtroyjon]

Large companies often can not pursue small opportunities. I see a lot of frustration on gaf centered around this issue, "why can't company X experiment with a low budget, high concept game, it would be so cheap?" The problem is simple mathematics. For example, if Company X is publicly traded and valued at 1bn dollars, in order to grow by just 3%, it has to gross 30 million dollars in a set fiscal period. That means that only large opportunities can meet the growth needs of the company. They can make an attempt at low-level experimentation, but ultimately, the finite resources of the company will be funneled to projects that are likely to meet the firm's growth targets.

I don't think you understand how companies are valued.

 

[kame-sennin]

I don't think you understand how companies are valued.

See my edit.

 

[Version 3.0]

customers can not support products or business models that do not exist.

Exactly. Our communication options are 1. buy or 2. don't buy. Sometimes neither of these conveys what we want, and sometimes the product doesn't exist in the first place--which is the endless argument about "hardcore" games and/or marketable franchises on the Wii.

And sometimes, as now, option #1 only counts if you buy at or near launch, at full price. How do we communicate that we want Vanquish but the price is too high? By the time it's discounted, it's been tagged a failure.

 

[bigtroyjon]

That is still not how companies are valued. A companies value is it's stock price multiplied by the number of shares, has nothing to do with revenue directly although clearly that is something investors will strongly factor in.

If a company can cut costs, then revenues do not need to increase.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

You know, better than I thought for RB.
Still :-/.