The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
On the UO2 team, we used to joke that Ultima: Ascension was taking as long to ship as Duke Nukem Forever. Of course, in that time, Richard not only shipped Ascension, but then took a year off, shipped Tabula Rasa and took a side jaunt into space.
Of course, now all such comparisons are moot, as 3D Realms has closed and Duke Nukem Forever will apparently never see the light of day.
The best eulogy is, of course, the list. (Scroll to the end of the page)
Quick lunchtime read for you: Rock Band and Guitar Hero sales are slumping. Was this all a fad? Or are they running out of ‘must have’ songs?
I still play, but my frequency is way down — to usually once every couple of weeks, rather than every other night, and my wife and I are less fanatical about following the latest DMC. The drum kit is pretty close to being relegated to being shoved in the closet, and only pulled out for game nights.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t played Conan since I discovered my female barbarian was nerfed by her own damage animations. That being said, I find articles like this one a little obfuscating. Oh noes! Funcom is down to half its value! Sky! Falling!
Looking at the longer view, we see that Funcom is… exactly where they were before they launched Conan. Which is to say, the launch of Conan probably overinflated their value.
Also note that in both graphs, the graph starts at 15, instead of 0. The net result is that a casual graph reader would think they lost 80% of their value from their peak, when instead they’re down half.
Should Funcom be doing better? Probably. But it’s not nearly as gloomy as the original article suggests.
The internet is all abuzz that Brutal Legend has been dropped by Activision. Given that Brutal Legend combines the brilliance of Tim Schafer and the Jack Blackiness of Jack Black, this makes baby Jesus cry.
Dear people who control the game industry’s money: do something about this.
The Next Sims 2 expansion pack is IKEA themed.
As in overtly IKEA-themed, instead of merely a clever homage.
A lot of action on the music gaming front: Neversoft has announced two new guitar hero games: an all-Aerosmith version, as well as Guitar Hero IV, a version designed to compete directly with Rock Band, complete with drum set and microphone.
Not to be outdone, Konami announced Rock Revolution, their own entry into the music band sweepstakes. A movie can be found here. The game has a heavy focus on drums, but no singing – making it a much less cool party game. On one hand, its art looks cheap and the UI looks unpolished and simplistic, but on the other hand, the songlist takes me right back to the bus ride to school: Scorpions, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, and Skid Row. Cock rock for the win! At least, it speaks to me much more than Molly Hatchet and Deep Purple. Continue reading
You know what myth needs to die? The idea that big companies don’t want to take chances in the MMO space, that they don’t want to do anything other than sword-and-sorcery fare. Let’s take a look at some track records of some of the bigger publishers who have tried to enter the space.
Sony: Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, Sovereign, the Agency, DC Online, PS3 Home.
Electronic Arts: Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, Majesty, Sims Online, Battletech 3025.
NCSoft: City of Heroes, Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Alter Life.
Ubisoft: CyanWorlds (Myst Online), Matrix Online.
Now then, some of these games never saw the light of day, and I can tell you know there are many more that you haven’t heard of from these publishers that never got past the zygote stage. But looking at the actual track record, two facts are inescapable. First, the big guys ARE trying to get into genres that aren’t fantasy, and secondly, their track record of doing so isn’t very good. There are a couple of moderate successes on the list (CoH, SWG), but even those titles weren’t as successful as fantasy titles released by the same publishers.
The big publishers WANT to represent multiple genres – they are taking a portfolio look at it. They want their online portfolio to cover a mixture of costs, ambition, and inherent risk, with fantasy games covering the ‘low-risk’ slot. So they’re all going to make a fantasy game – and good thing they do, that fantasy game has significantly helped cover the costs of the other games in most of the companies cited above.
The more interesting question is, so why haven’t they succeeded? The most obvious answer would be to blame the market – maybe the customers just aren’t THERE for an auto demolition game, for example. I would tend to reject that. I think a better answer is that we dn’t know how to build those other games yet. With fantasy games, we’ve been iterating on that design over decades now as an industry. The next guys building an MMO car demolition game will only be building the second one.
Anyway, for all you startups out there – if you want to get publisher money, I would urge you to look away from fantasy. Not because I think making a fantasy game is a bad idea, but rather because publishers usually have that slot filled internally by their AAA team, but also because they desperately want to fill slots in that portfolio. Still, don’t be fooled into thinking a unique genre is a free pass. You need to be prepared to explain how your title will beat the odds and establish a new genre precedent.
Activision and Vivendi to merge to become ‘Activision Blizzard’, a move that moves the new organization into the new #1 position for the industry.
This was, perhaps, inevitable, but I’m still surprised at the lack of discussion of Cryptic selling the rights of City of Heroes to NCSoft, including handing them a shake and bake live team of Cryptic employees.
This is an interesting next (final?) chapter in the Cryptic-NCSoft history, which includes the launch of a tight, successful (if a little niche) MMO, which drew the interest of the major hitters in the comics industry, namely DC and Marvel. Marvel tried to sue Cryptic, and NCSoft helped provide a legal defense. The matter was settled quietly eventually, but then Marvel attempted the ‘can’t beat em, join ‘em’ strategy, handing Cryptic the keys to the elusive Marvel ghost ship. Continue reading
My new boss thinks that games today are too expensive.
Riccitiello says the $31 billion gaming industry will suffer if it doesn’t start to reevaluate its business model. Game executives at Sony (SNE), Microsoft (MSFT) and Activision (ATVI) must answer some tough questions in the coming years, like how long they can expect consumers to pay $59 for a video game. Riccitiello predicts the model will be obsolete in the next decade.
“In the next five years, we’re all going to have to deal with this. In China, they’re giving games away for free,” he says. “People who benefit from the current model will need to embrace a new revenue model, or wait for others to disrupt.” As more publishers transition to making games for online distribution, Riccitiello says he expects EA will experiment with different pricing models.
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