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July 24, 2003
Less Innovation? Ooch!
A lot of news has been floating around regarding the <a href="http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=3127747">SEC inquiries into several game publishers</a> (eg, THQ, Activision, Midway, Acclaim). It is important to remember that this is not motivated by any wrongdoing - the SEC seems to just want to "better understand" how they account for sales, etc. Fair enough.
The scary thing, however, is the suggestion that possible changes to accounting practices will <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2003/07/21/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm">lead publishers to be even more risk-adverse</a>. A scary potentiality indeed.
Publishers will likely be checking out this GameSpot list of <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/07200388mph/4.html">movie licenses that might not suck</a>... (Side comment: <a href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0266308"><em>Battle Royale</em></a> sounds like a pretty intense movie!)
More and more developers will start looking into the <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59728,00.html">indie scene</a> for sure.
Posted by della at July 24, 2003 12:28 AM
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Comments
Well, considering the fact that 7 out of 10 games lose money, I'd say that publishers are already pretty risk-adverse already! (sorry, I forget where I got that stat, but I believe it's up-to-date.)
Development costs continue to spiral upwards and until this trend stops I doubt that innovation is going to take center stage in game production anytime soon.
Here's a pipe dream: eventually, computer/console hardware will become so incredibly advanced that the technology will plateau - or at least we will reach a point where it is impossible to tell the difference between a game environment or a movie. Anyone who has seen the E3 Half-life 2 demo might think that it is somewhat close
Posted by: Jeff at July 24, 2003 04:13 PM
Oops. Hit POST by accident. I'm continuing. Sorry!
Anyway, so, my theory goes like this: Once there is no more room for audio/visual improvement in games, there will no doubt be some next-next-next-gen Engine that will be the standard for many years. Sort of the way the Quake 3 engine is still powering games today, but something that will have a lifespan of 20 years or so. At that point, the engine will be quite cheap to license, meaning smaller budget (and hopefully more innovative) games will start getting made.
Posted by: Jeff at July 24, 2003 04:16 PM