Assignment 12 - Gettin' Down To Business
Most people are aware of the evolution of video games; way back when they were developed in spare time by a single body to now million dollar budgets with a team rivaling an army (just to summarize).
Not only have the production teams increased but complexity of the games themselves; thus causing costs and production time to rise; your average game's production time ranges from one to four years (maybe longer if you're planning on scrapping ideas 80% through - i'm looking at you Capcom). With a high budget comes higher risks. It's not so much to make a 'good' game as it is to make a 'successful' game and what I mean by this is putting into consideration a target audience and evaluating whether or not the game will actually sell to a mass market. As you know, with this problem at hand creativity is compromised; take Killer7 for example. A stylish, rather 'arty' left-field game that did not sell as well as one would hope. Much money was spent promoting this title around the same time as Resident Evil 4 (an already popular and successful series of powerhouse Capcom) and Killer7 did not live up to their expectations financially. When games aren't as successful as a company hopes for it reduces the likelihood of sequels or future 'new' titles that developers may want to make.
Read forum admin Chompman's response here to a consumer's query on Capcom's decision not to release Harvey Birdman in PAL territories. Fans may be disappointed but it's a sensible decision for a company to make and this happens ALOT with many titles making no noise outside of Japan. Money makes the world go round and the video games industry is no different.
You have to remember it's not just the game that money is pumped into; but also everybody working on that title and we're talking producers/directors; to character artists; level designers; programmers; sound designers; localization teams; testers (alot of mouths to feed). With the evolution of technology coinciding with what is possible in video games production time and costs are no doubt going to rise too - but how 'realistic' do we have to go before games become stale. Nintendo feel it's not enough to simply continue in this direction, which is why the Wii is technically weak, and have developed their controller to breathe life into a stagnant market. I find developers will be challenged with making something 'different' but this creates problems because if it's not popular then money has been wasted and no company wants to risk what happened to Sega (R.I.P.....though it serves you right, the dreamcast controller was atrocious)
Games development in the UK isn't as high as Japan or the US and this is also due to financial constraints and the lack of government support - I suppose it's still a question of whether or not video games are taken seriously and whether we classify them as 'art' and entertainment or something irrelevent to society (shame on you!).
Not only have the production teams increased but complexity of the games themselves; thus causing costs and production time to rise; your average game's production time ranges from one to four years (maybe longer if you're planning on scrapping ideas 80% through - i'm looking at you Capcom). With a high budget comes higher risks. It's not so much to make a 'good' game as it is to make a 'successful' game and what I mean by this is putting into consideration a target audience and evaluating whether or not the game will actually sell to a mass market. As you know, with this problem at hand creativity is compromised; take Killer7 for example. A stylish, rather 'arty' left-field game that did not sell as well as one would hope. Much money was spent promoting this title around the same time as Resident Evil 4 (an already popular and successful series of powerhouse Capcom) and Killer7 did not live up to their expectations financially. When games aren't as successful as a company hopes for it reduces the likelihood of sequels or future 'new' titles that developers may want to make.
Read forum admin Chompman's response here to a consumer's query on Capcom's decision not to release Harvey Birdman in PAL territories. Fans may be disappointed but it's a sensible decision for a company to make and this happens ALOT with many titles making no noise outside of Japan. Money makes the world go round and the video games industry is no different.
You have to remember it's not just the game that money is pumped into; but also everybody working on that title and we're talking producers/directors; to character artists; level designers; programmers; sound designers; localization teams; testers (alot of mouths to feed). With the evolution of technology coinciding with what is possible in video games production time and costs are no doubt going to rise too - but how 'realistic' do we have to go before games become stale. Nintendo feel it's not enough to simply continue in this direction, which is why the Wii is technically weak, and have developed their controller to breathe life into a stagnant market. I find developers will be challenged with making something 'different' but this creates problems because if it's not popular then money has been wasted and no company wants to risk what happened to Sega (R.I.P.....though it serves you right, the dreamcast controller was atrocious)
Games development in the UK isn't as high as Japan or the US and this is also due to financial constraints and the lack of government support - I suppose it's still a question of whether or not video games are taken seriously and whether we classify them as 'art' and entertainment or something irrelevent to society (shame on you!).
posted by The Horror @ 2:23 pm
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