This industry has taken a wrong turn and is now at an impasse.
We need to step back to when small teams of developers made lightweight games. It’s not like anybody’s got the RAM or GPU compute to run some of these newer titles anyway.
Developers, if you’re serious about making a game, take your ideas, leave the company you work for (before they let you go), and make it alone or with friends and close colleagues.
Let’s right this wrong. Let’s make affordable games that run on affordable hardware again.
Developers, if you’re serious about making a game, take your ideas, leave the company you work for (before they let you go), and make it alone or with friends and close colleagues.
People throw this line at devs every time there’s layoffs, and there are a lot lately, but the fact is there just isn’t funding out there right now. To bootstrap that project yourself and hope you make a profit, even with a really good game, is also a huge gamble.
What we really need is one big investor that can accept the publishing plan of:
Give 20-30 small teams budget to survive, some very basic planning assistance and help making contacts; then, go hands off and accept that about 15 of those games will die out. 5 will be good, and 1 will be a giant hit that pays for the others. Next round, the ratio gets better.
I used to think that would be the best approach, but then I watched Star Citizen’s development. Without the pressure of a publisher, the creative leads got to focus 100% on their vision.
Turns out that means unbelievable (to us) scope. creep. Creative visionaries are great at their creative vision, but not so much at managing schedules and running a business. They need to butt heads with someone that cares about the money so that their compromise ends up being the masterpiece we all love.
I think the one gap there is allowing for expansion. I could be making assumptions about Star Citizen’s team size, but one thing a publisher could do is block overhiring.
“Hey, we’d like to make ours an open world game with over 130 quests! Can we have some other content teams on contract?”
“No.”
“…Oh. Well then maybe…? Uh, I guess I’ll adjust my plan.
Honestly, even a failure like “1 team is infinitely making cruft” is not as financially damaging as it sounds, when compared to a high-budget game failing.
So do what Supergiant and Embark did? I agree with the sentiment: it is clear the main thing missing from games is the passion of the people making them. All the great games in the past were made by groups of people with a shared passion and vision, without overbearing corporate greed or executives watering down good ideas just in case they didn’t appeal to absolutely everybody.
However unless someone in that group has a rich relative, or they start early in life (see Arrowhead for example), the reality is it is hard to afford to live for years before finding out your dream project is a failure.
This industry has taken a wrong turn and is now at an impasse.
We need to step back to when small teams of developers made lightweight games. It’s not like anybody’s got the RAM or GPU compute to run some of these newer titles anyway.
Developers, if you’re serious about making a game, take your ideas, leave the company you work for (before they let you go), and make it alone or with friends and close colleagues.
Let’s right this wrong. Let’s make affordable games that run on affordable hardware again.
We can’t do that because we need health insurance.
People throw this line at devs every time there’s layoffs, and there are a lot lately, but the fact is there just isn’t funding out there right now. To bootstrap that project yourself and hope you make a profit, even with a really good game, is also a huge gamble.
And like, you gotta eat while you make it…
What we really need is one big investor that can accept the publishing plan of:
Give 20-30 small teams budget to survive, some very basic planning assistance and help making contacts; then, go hands off and accept that about 15 of those games will die out. 5 will be good, and 1 will be a giant hit that pays for the others. Next round, the ratio gets better.
I used to think that would be the best approach, but then I watched Star Citizen’s development. Without the pressure of a publisher, the creative leads got to focus 100% on their vision.
Turns out that means unbelievable (to us) scope. creep. Creative visionaries are great at their creative vision, but not so much at managing schedules and running a business. They need to butt heads with someone that cares about the money so that their compromise ends up being the masterpiece we all love.
I think the one gap there is allowing for expansion. I could be making assumptions about Star Citizen’s team size, but one thing a publisher could do is block overhiring.
“Hey, we’d like to make ours an open world game with over 130 quests! Can we have some other content teams on contract?”
“No.”
“…Oh. Well then maybe…? Uh, I guess I’ll adjust my plan.
Honestly, even a failure like “1 team is infinitely making cruft” is not as financially damaging as it sounds, when compared to a high-budget game failing.
So do what Supergiant and Embark did? I agree with the sentiment: it is clear the main thing missing from games is the passion of the people making them. All the great games in the past were made by groups of people with a shared passion and vision, without overbearing corporate greed or executives watering down good ideas just in case they didn’t appeal to absolutely everybody.
However unless someone in that group has a rich relative, or they start early in life (see Arrowhead for example), the reality is it is hard to afford to live for years before finding out your dream project is a failure.
You going to personally fund these guys before they’re able to sell something like?