An 8 bit mind in a 64 bit world..
That just means what was old, is now new again.
And that's the kind of vibe I'm getting about where the video game industry is going.
The big names are starting to find out that it's very hard to make a Triple-A, big budget game that can make a profit in these days. There are very few Triple-A games that make a profit these days, and most of those qualify under the following:
A) Sports games (Ie, milk the engine over three-four years, adding incremental updates to the game, but otherwise, a glorified data update each year.)
B) First person shooters. (The most famous example has two separate companies working on titles under a brand name, so they don't have to release one every year, they can just alternate companies releases each year from modern to past (or near-future).
C) Something Something"World of Warcraft" (and even they're down a bit from the peak)
Making a big game is a risky venture. We're talking "Bet the Company" sized ventures here. If you're not attached to the hardware makers, or an existing franchise, you guess wrong, it's not just a black mark against the company, it's the epitaph they put on your companies tombstone.
Ask THQ. Despite having some of the games with large followings (UFC, WWE, Saints Row, etcetera), they bet big on some of their releases, they bet wrong, and now they're gone.
Ask Curt Schilling. Kingdoms of Amalur not only killed his company, it wiped out his life savings from playing baseball. And that game wasn't even that bad!
So, what brings me back to "What was old is now new again?"...
The future of gaming may not be the AAA console titles. It may be the rebirth of the PC Generation.
In the past 18 months, we've seen a wave of start ups mining the gold of our PC gaming past to kickstart the next generation of PC gaming.
There's a reason I used that word kickstart in there.
In the past year, we've seen a new Mechwarrior online game, Wasteland II, two Shadowrun games, a remake of Baldur's Gate, and now a new game from Lord British (the "We couldn't call it Ultima but it's a spiritual Ultima-clone" game named Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues), the guys at Obsidian announcing a new mega-RPG tentatively titled "Project Eternity", and a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, called Torment: Tides of Numenera. Not to mention a new crossover single/multiplayer game from Chris "Wing Commander" Roberts.
All of these games completely sidestepped the traditional developer-publisher format. Why? Well, two reasons come to mind.
A) With digital distribution systems such as Steam, GOG, Origin, etcetera, one of the primary reason for publishers (to secure limited shelf space at retail) is null and void. The developer works directly with the retailers, and keeps a bigger chunk of the change for themselves.
B) Most of these games wouldn't be greenlit by cautious publishers anyway (see above, about "Bet Wrong, you're gone"). So, they sidestepped them and went directly to the players. They said "Pay us up front, and we'll make it for you."
THAT'S a game changer. I've heard a lot of griping about Kickstarter and its brethren, that it wasn't aimed at such big projects, that it's squeezing out the little guy, plus since its the hot new thing, EVERYONE is using it to fund their campaigns.. but you know what?
It works.
It really does. Word of mouth is the best advertising possible. Not only does it allow you to sidestep the middleman, and the video game tradition of keeping everything under wraps for as long as possible, it starts the groundswell of support for your game early. People are talking about your game, long before you have to show a demo off at E3 or PAX or what have you. Early adopters/supporters are usually the most active in spreading the word of your game. Not only that, they're a golden pipelne into seeing what a large chunk of your fans want to see in such a game.
And as for the charge that its crowding out the little guy? I disagree. There's enough room in the Crowdfunding universe for Project Eternity, and FTL (a rogue like spaceship game that was funded for 200K, and was one of the top sellers on Steam over the holiday season) There's enough room for the Lord British.. Chris Roberts, and the Subset Games types. Kickstarter and Crowd-Funding in general is big enough for all projects, big and small.
And it's growing.
Here's eight of the biggest video game projects funded on Kickstarter:
Project Eternity (Obsidian) $3,986,929
Double Fine Adventure Game (Double Fine) $3,336,371
Wasteland II (InXile Entertainment) $2,933,252
Homestuck Adventure Game (MS Paint Adventures) $2,485,506
Planetary Annihilation (Uber Entertainment) $2,229,344
Torment: Tides of Numenera $2,213,447 *
Star Citizen (Cloud Imperium Games) $2,134,374 **
Shadowrun Returns (Harebrained Schemes, LLC) $1,836,447
* Current kickstarter, 3 days into a 30 day kickstarter campaign)
** Star Citizen did a lot of its fundraising outside of Kickstarter
Now, none of these games are out as of yet. and to be honest, even the top game on the list, well, if you tried to make a AAA console game for $4 million, you'd be laughed out of every development house in the world, but here's the thing. You don't need AAA sales levels to make these games profitable. This is just the budget you have to work with. Any sales post Kickstarter is pure gravy to the bottom line. And through this medium, there's no guessing about what your consumers want.. THEY'LL Tell you with their wallet. Pitch a cool idea, and if folks like it, they'll fund it.
Over the next 12-24 months, this new wave of Kickstarter funded games will start to come out (Shadowrun Returns is the first game to be scheduled for release, in May or June of this year being targeted for release), but the oldest Kickstarter on that list is just one year old.
And I've gone this whole article without mentioning the king of crowd-funding games. Minecraft entered a purchase-able beta in January of 2011. Since then, it's sold 20 million copies across the various platforms it's been released on. You try to push a game with Minecraft level graphics to any development house, and they will call the men in the white coats on you. But it's sold more copies then just about anything else out there. And its developer, Mojang, is laughing all the way to the bank.
We're in an age where no matter how much glitz, how many polygons and frames per second you can push, doesn't matter as much as an ENJOYABLE experience playing a game.
So.. the future of PC gaming looks a lot better then it did a year or two ago. At a time where there are fewer releases on consoles and no one dares to take a risk, it's good to see the exact opposite on the PC side of the ledger.
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