The Games Game

The Sky is Falling (July 2005)

Dear Tom,

I've been hearing lately that the game industry is broken, and I wonder if you can respond to these points:

1. Development for triple-A games will be costing over $10M as a matter of routine, once the next generation of consoles comes out.

2. Because of these skyrocketing costs, game publishers are going to get even more risk averse than they already are.

3. It's going to become totally impossible to get an innovative idea published, unless you're a superstar who's already turned out several hits.

4. Given that "genre" is what we call a hit game and the wave of clones that follow in its coattails, aren't we limited to the number of genres that are already out there?

5. Is there any way out of the tiger trap the game industry has dug for itself?

Hoping for a rosier view, because I'm kinda worried what I'm getting myself into...

Dear X.,

Have you ever heard of a movie called Blair Witch Project? It was a totally low-budget affair that totally shocked the film industry by finding a unique approach to the eyes and hearts of moviegoers.

That unique approach (whatever it was - I'm no film historian) is called "creativity." Creativity comes in many forms - it isn't just "wow, I have a totally new idea nobody ever had before." It's finding a way to deal with a situation that others are ignoring, and making it work. It isn't just about new algorithms or new kinds of game play. It's also about new marketing approaches and making brilliant presentations to venture capitalists.

Your arguments all come from Greg Costikyan's rant at GDC 2005. I didn't attend that session, but after hearing enough fire and brimstone from others, I finally checked it out on his site.

1.a. Maybe the costs will go up that high. Maybe they won't.

1.b. There's no rule that says all new games have to cost that much. The costs won't go that high on all platforms and genres. There will still be a market for lower-budget games. On all platforms.

1.c. Given the parallels between movies and games, it's just natural that production costs for games would increase. It's always cost more to make movies than games - at least, the blockbuster movies - so now we're seeing some concomitant costs in games.

2. Of course they'll get more picky about how they'll spend ten or twenty million. There will still be lower-budget games too. Especially when you consider that the number of eight-digit-budget games will necessarily be somewhat low. If one triple-A game cost a hundred million to make, and only one publisher could afford that, would there be only one game on the market? I don't think so.

3.a. It's already very hard. It's not likely to get that much harder.

3.b. We have to get more creative. And not just about genres and game play and stories. We need to get more creative about the whole package: the production process, the marketing approach, the product delivery method.

4.a. That's a cute saying. It has some truth in it, but I don't accept your given. Even if I did, it doesn't necessarily lead to never having any more genres in the future.

4.b. They have a saying in Hollywood: "There are only seven original scripts." Having a finite number of genres isn't a death knell.

5. Yes. See answer 3.b. above.

So you see, the industry isn't falling into a black hole after all.