Actually I take that back. Garage games has a pretty good model. $100 for the source for a 3D engine, and I believe they'll help you market your finished title for a percentage. Anyway, with a fairly low barrier to entry (free code, tools, cheap hardware and excessive documentation) compared to days gone by, small operations probably have a better chance now than before, despite the staggering cost of making a 'modern' game.
As for Deus Ex: Invisible War, I loved the first one. Please don't tell me they console-ized the sequel. I suspect that Thief III, if it comes out, may suffer the same fate.
On Jan 20, 2004, at 8:21 PM, Marco Thorek wrote:
Jim Leonard schrieb:
It's not the calculators: It's what makes money. You shouldn't be scared
that accountants and suits are ruining the industry; instead, you should be
scared that the core sales of most computer and console gaming are the way
they are. It is a hard pill to swallow that adventure games simply don't sell
enough units to make a profit.
True. It's only that once upon a time the profit didn't matter as much. You could singlehandedly or in a duo write a game and find a publisher easy enough, even if your game was totally obscure. Nowadays profit is the prime directive and who knows better about profits than the suits?
Those managers sure know a thing about finances, but apparently not much
about how the creative side of this industry works. For example, whoever
adviced EA to ship games in DVD cases immediately cut down production
costs, but failed to realize it'll lower the number of units sold, as
there won't be much left that distinguishes a bought game from a warez
version.
It is the same as with the music industry: Some managers found that instead of expensive talent scouting and sponsoring bands that might fail, they should simply manufacture boy- and girlgroups, who specifically cater to the target audience that spends the most money on its idols and music: teenagers. Now the music industry blames P2P for the slump in music sales, instead of realizing we had one too many Boyzone, Westlife, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync et. al., and no real talent in the charts for some time. Imagine Meat Loaf trying to get a record contract these days.
There are a *few* sequels, maybe 5 a year, that are indeed worth playing. I
just recently finished Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, and it was a
surprisingly deep game with a lot of replay value. But that is the exception.
True again. What also irks me as a PC gamer these days is that we are mostly given gruesome console ports. Most recent example there being "Deux Ex: Invisible War." The game may be perfect for the Xbox and its audience, on the PC the graphics, the simplified story and character generation, the idiotic UI and the lack of any depth is horrifying.
Marco
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