Edited.

[Edited by - rian carnarvon on June 29, 2010 2:46:33 PM]

Nice sentiment, but misguided.

First, it was the North American president. Ubisoft is french. French as in France. The game is nowhere near close to coming out and is not being developed in his region (AFAIK) so there's little reason for him to know about it at this point. Foreign executives being clueless is not exactly earth-shattering news.

Second, BG&E was a financial failure and was never popular. Loved, yes, but never popular. If you're upset at the Hollywoodization of the games industry then the bulk of the blame needs to rest on the consumers who forced it down that path.

People who actually give a crap about the games they play are a small minority; it's not inappropriate for the indie scene to take over when it comes to making games with soul. Why should the mass market cater to the niche market? There's a reason it's called the mass market.

Everyone wanted the games industry to mature but nobody bothered to think of what the implications of that may be. Welcome to Hollywood.

To be fair, there are numerous models the industry could have followed as it matured that did not necessarily involve copying verbatim the Hollywood model.

For example, just throwing it out there, why not create your own industry model? What's so wrong with that? Why the need to follow a model that is disastrous for creativity and unsustainable in the long term?

Sure, we're seeing a shift to a unique model with situations like Steam and the growing popularity of Indie games. In the meantime, however, we're stuck in a rut where the best commercial games came out almost ten years ago, and everything since then has been a watered-down mass market rehash with very little to differentiate between different titles.

Heck, we've even seen entire genre's disappear, or have their top titles shoe-horned into other genre's that they fit poorly *cough* X-com *cough*.

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
Have we become so much like Hollywood's little brother that the best we can do is churn out mass-market slop, axing original or emergent concepts and leaving anything that isn't generic to the Indie developers?

As to be expected now that video games are a multi-billion dollar industry.

Just read this today and it made me laugh:

VG industry is out of ideas

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
To be fair, there are numerous models the industry could have followed as it matured that did not necessarily involve copying verbatim the Hollywood model.

For example, just throwing it out there, why not create your own industry model? What's so wrong with that? Why the need to follow a model that is disastrous for creativity and unsustainable in the long term?

The Hollywood model is probably the most applicable model tbh.

A bunch of rich people pay a bunch of talented people to develop something that will make them money. If they don't think it will make them money, they stop paying them.

Until we figure out a way for the talented people to make the majority of the money, then you're always going to need a money man to back you and pay for the development. Of course with the possibilities of the internet expanding, we might see something where the money man isn't needed to cover distribution and advertising quite so much.

Quote: Original post by way2lazy2care
A bunch of rich people pay a bunch of talented people to develop something that will make them money. If they don't think it will make them money, they stop paying them.

That's not how it works, nor has it worked for a decade.

It used to be that benefactors (usually studios) would bulk fund entire development. Some epic flops unmatched in history came out of it, and some studios folded under this.

Today, movies are funded by investors. They provide X sum for a project which is projected to generate Y% ROI, distributed over lifetime of release. Since it's an investment, risk management is put into place by only investing into franchises and long-term IP. To further reduce the risk, investments are spread out (movie, merchandise, spin-off series, direct-to-DVD, games, ...).

After these investment plans are laid out, marketing studies are performed. Depending on what the trends show, topic of production is chosen. Original titles usually do not get a second look, it's all about existing under-developed IP. Next, the rights to this IP are chosen, and based on market demographic, key producers or similar leaders are chosen. Michel Bay-splosion was excellent for summer blockbuster.

At this point some 200 existing scripts submitted by various writers over past 2 decades are examined, sliced and diced, and recombined to fully fit into both market expectations, competition, various merchandising tie-ins, and similar. After some 5 complete and 30 partial rewrites by a total of some dozen writers, negotiations for cast and other members begin.

Cast is chosen again based on metrics and demographics, actress X would yield 23% more among 14-17 male crowd, but only 11% with 18-21. Since it's a summer blockbuster, opening weekend gross is more important, so actress X is ideal, as <18 crowd will also likely bring in parents. For this reason, script is adjusted to be PG-13.

At this point production costs of 3 off-shore teams rise unexpectedly, so one is scrapped, the second is moved from Asia to Africa so script is rewritten again, the third team is fine.

Half-way through production news leaks that competing studio will launch similar theme, but 2 days earlier. Script is rewritten again to offer distinguishing features, most of changes will be done in post-processing. One of actors gets into a fewd with director and is fired and replaced. Some older scenes are retaken, some are digitally corrected, for the remainder the script is adjusted.

Randomly, lighting technicians union goes on strike, so several on location scenes are scrapped and instead filmed in front of green screen, script is adjusted for that. Pre-final version is submitted to dozen global offices for censorship, approximately 5% of footage is cut, depending on individual country's PG ratings.

It's opening weekend, gross is within 10% of expected revenue, investment is validated. Work on 2 sequels, a TV series and online interactive experience starts, shooting is already in progress while waiting for script, and sequel merchandising blueprints have been delivered to factories to be ready in time. In some two months the script will be finalized and cast slightly adjusted to better adapt to viewers, taking into consideration the shift of 17-18 year olds.


Oh... Artist expression and creativity... Right... Why do you hate economy and free market? Why do you hate freedom?

Quote: Original post by Antheus

Quote: Original post by way2lazy2care
A bunch of rich people pay a bunch of talented people to develop something that will make them money. If they don't think it will make them money, they stop paying them.

That's not how it works, nor has it worked for a decade.

It used to be that benefactors (usually studios) would bulk fund entire development. Some epic flops unmatched in history came out of it, and some studios folded under this.

Today, movies are funded by investors. They provide X sum for a project which is projected to generate Y% ROI, distributed over lifetime of release. Since it's an investment, risk management is put into place by only investing into franchises and long-term IP. To further reduce the risk, investments are spread out (movie, merchandise, spin-off series, direct-to-DVD, games, ...).

After these investment plans are laid out, marketing studies are performed. Depending on what the trends show, topic of production is chosen. Original titles usually do not get a second look, it's all about existing under-developed IP. Next, the rights to this IP are chosen, and based on market demographic, key producers or similar leaders are chosen. Michel Bay-splosion was excellent for summer blockbuster.

At this point some 200 existing scripts submitted by various writers over past 2 decades are examined, sliced and diced, and recombined to fully fit into both market expectations, competition, various merchandising tie-ins, and similar. After some 5 complete and 30 partial rewrites by a total of some dozen writers, negotiations for cast and other members begin.

Cast is chosen again based on metrics and demographics, actress X would yield 23% more among 14-17 male crowd, but only 11% with 18-21. Since it's a summer blockbuster, opening weekend gross is more important, so actress X is ideal, as <18 crowd will also likely bring in parents. For this reason, script is adjusted to be PG-13.

At this point production costs of 3 off-shore teams rise unexpectedly, so one is scrapped, the second is moved from Asia to Africa so script is rewritten again, the third team is fine.

Half-way through production news leaks that competing studio will launch similar theme, but 2 days earlier. Script is rewritten again to offer distinguishing features, most of changes will be done in post-processing. One of actors gets into a fewd with director and is fired and replaced. Some older scenes are retaken, some are digitally corrected, for the remainder the script is adjusted.

Randomly, lighting technicians union goes on strike, so several on location scenes are scrapped and instead filmed in front of green screen, script is adjusted for that. Pre-final version is submitted to dozen global offices for censorship, approximately 5% of footage is cut, depending on individual country's PG ratings.

It's opening weekend, gross is within 10% of expected revenue, investment is validated. Work on 2 sequels, a TV series and online interactive experience starts, shooting is already in progress while waiting for script, and sequel merchandising blueprints have been delivered to factories to be ready in time. In some two months the script will be finalized and cast slightly adjusted to better adapt to viewers, taking into consideration the shift of 17-18 year olds.

how is that not a really long version of what I said?

Quote: Original post by Antheus
Oh... Artist expression and creativity... Right... Why do you hate economy and free market? Why do you hate freedom?

What? Instead of "Beyond Good and Evil" how about "Beyond Love and Hate"?

Quote: Original post by way2lazy2care
how is that not a really long version of what I said?

Artistic expression, I just felt like ranting on MBA-driven nonsense.

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
...Hollywood model.
Why the need to follow a model that is disastrous for creativity and unsustainable in the long term?

Hollywood has been going for over 100 years now, and as far as I can tell its current model has been going strong for what? 20 years or more?

Could you please explain how this isn't long term?