Some quotes:
Quote:
When I was a child in the London blitz, a blockbuster was a massive bomb that could knock out a neighbourhood. The blockbuster movie, now utterly dominant and crushing better films, is set to destroy the Hollywood studios; the monster is turning on its makers. The blockbuster now costs so much to make and market that no one can afford them any more.
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The studios can no longer afford them but must go on making them. More and more they swallow their pride and split costs with a rival studio. Massive German tax shelter money has kept them afloat for the last several years, but is running out. With stakes this high, they try to buy guarantees: subject matter that the audience can instantly relate to, sequels, films based on TV series that the audience watched as kids, or stars in a storyline that copies last year's big hit.
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To this end, script gurus like Robert McKee have brainwashed a generation of screenwriters into constructing scenarios along rigid lines: introduction of characters, statement of conflict, development of narrative, division into three acts, carefully placed climaxes, conclusion. This contributes to the sameness of movies, and feeds into audience expectations of comfortable patterns and makes them uneasy if a film diverges from that formula. Little by little movies become more and more similar to each other, with marginal variations. One can imagine them evolving like No theatre into a form where only an audience inured to them can discern any differences. "Those Rocky movies," someone asked, "how do you tell them apart?" "It's easy," said his companion "they're numbered."
(You should go read the original article. It's really good. I'll wait)
This was written back in 2003. What's striking is how similar the game industry's current predicament is to the movie industry's past (and arguably current) predicament.
I generally don't like to talk about the business side of game development, because I know nothing about it. So take everything I say here with a very large grain of salt.
We're at the point now where major titles cost somewhere between $20-30 million to make (if you believe the statistics). The trend seems to be that the cost to produce each generation of games grows geometrically, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that it might take up to $50 million to make a game for the next generation of consoles. (Yves Guillemot of Ubisoft thinks it might average around 60 million USD).
In that context: no wonder we see so many sequels. It would be insane to throw that kind of money behind intellectual property that isn't proven. From my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I think that means you'd have to sell upwards of a million units on a game like that to break even (optimistically).
Talking a million people into buying Diablo 3 is a lot easier than talking a million people into buying another hack & slash they've never heard of, even if it's comparable.
The problem is, you can't really innovate much if you're making a sequel to Starcraft or Diablo, because the players won't let you. The expectations for what the game should be are pretty much cast in stone. Look at the fit people threw when they changed the color palette for Diablo 3. Starcraft 2 looks very similar to Starcraft 1, and I doubt that's because Blizzard is at a loss for game ideas. To do any serious innovation, you have to create an entirely new set of IP or risk severely pissing off your fans. The problem is, new IP is risky. Lets say you have a radical new game idea. Do you think it's good enough to sink $20 million into? Are you sure?
So, in my opinion, to suggest that the industry lacks innovation is disingenuous. The real problem is that external factors have made it very difficult for any sort of innovation to be commercially feasible. In this sense it makes a lot of sense that indie games are more creative -- they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you're a big studio, you have a lot of incentive not to be too different. If you're small, being different and daring is the best thing you can do -- because that's the place where you can compete and large companies can't.
Of course, John Boorman was wrong about the movie industry collapsing -- at least for the moment. 2009 was a year of record ticket revenue for Hollywood at 10.6 billion dollars. (Although there are some reasons to think that number is misleading.)
So the question is, can the game industry continue it's geometric growth in budgets? When the next generation of consoles is released, given current trends it's not absurd to think that it may take up to fifty million dollars to create a blockbuster game. Will the audience for those games be twice as large? Will they be willing to pay twice as much? I have no idea. It could well be. I doubt we'll see a dinosaur-like extinction of the blockbuster, but I also doubt the costs can grow forever.
