Game Industry Jedi and Padawans

[Asmodeusz]

Well, I think it is a good place to post it.

It hit me when I went to the Alan Wake page: http://www.alanwake.com/
For those who do not know it is a game developed by Remedy, who formely worked with 3DRealms on Max Payne and Max Payne 2.
As I said before it hit me. The games name for instance: Alan Wake. Rings a bell? If not, think of 3Drealms game titles: Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, Max Payne [side note: thanks God Prey is not called Tommy Hawk even if it breaks my pattern ;)]. They all refer to the main character of the game just like Alan Wake. It reminded me of Scott Miller saying Tomb Rider should be named Lara Croft instead. Why? Well I suggest you read Scotts blog to find out: www.gamematters.com Anyway, other thing 3DR does is give some qualities of the hero in his name. Duke Nukem says it all - he acts like a self proclaimed duke blowing sh!t out. Shadow Warrior, well he's a ninja. Max Payne, pain to the max (also, inner pain because of the loss of his family - the worst pain - max pain). Alan Wake seemed strange to me, so I checked some facts about the guy. I found out that in the game the dude have problems with sleeping, or he can't tell when he is awake and when asleep: And we got Alan Wake.

Other thing is the game itself. Most 3Drealms games have a key-term that makes the game unique: Duke Nukem - interactivity, Max Payne - bullet time, Prey - portals, Pharaoh's Tomb - wrong name spelling etc. Well did you hear of a psychological action thriller game? Now you have - it's of course Alan Wakes sub title. What I'm trying to point out here, is that Remedy now working on it's own, has assimilated some 3DR policies - or maybe game making strategy. It has used 3DR experience in it's own project, and it being a quite unique experience it's a shameless assimilation on Remedy's side :) (not that it is bad). Do you think Human Head will follow a similar path after releasing Prey? Do you think it is a good thing? Will it work out for Remedy as well as it went for 3DR? One thing to have in mind is that 3DR titles gave them a incredible licensing and merchandising possibility. Will Alan Wake be licensed and ported to mp3 players, or will it be useless crap? Do you think the game world should follow a Master-Apprentice way of working?
Gaming is stupid, but not always.
Or it is in this case? What do you think guys?

Mikolaj "Asmodeusz" Makowski

[Charlie Wiederhold]

I think that the entire gaming industry would be better if more startups were taken under the wings of successful and established companies, yeah.

Unfortunately, many companies also fear this for the obvious reason that Remedy is now competition, as will Human Head be. Most companies aren't willing to take the risk of financially supporting a company, along with helping improve their methods, and then also run the risk of creating their potential direct competition.

Remedy and HH have definitely picked up on many of the Scott/George ideas towards the gaming industry, and they are certainly better off for it. They also bring their own things to the table, and having the feedback loop with someone external that *isn't* a publisher helps strengthen all ideas.

Most of the publishers are fully focused on the bottom line and paying attention to "quarters". By their nature they have to. This is why the Apprentice company can be a very very good situation if you can find it.

I know that there have been a lot of companies that wish to have a similar relationship with 3DR that Remedy had, but Scott/George are very picky and try to make sure the company is run by people that will take the guidance to heart and deliver a top notch product that both companies can be proud of. No reason to take the finanical/time risk on someone that isn't going to see it through and actually listen to what you have to say.

But sadly... almost all Gaming is Stupid... so we go about it the hard way and you see startup after startup being, get excited, and fold a couple of years later having drained millions from the industry in expenses and not really contributing anything worthwhile.

[Asmodeusz]

Now, you exactly pointed out what I meant. In such a competitive market, is it good to raise competition on your back?

One thing to keep in mind is: Remedy is not making a FPS, so they won't be competing with 3DR or HH this year. Anyway here's my theory from the 3DR chat (http://adm.alanwake.net/3drealms/chat/index.php) :


[12:16] <Asmodeusz> Damn, if you read into some of Charlies posts, you could even assume DNF is nearly finished, playable and in debugging
[12:17] <Asmodeusz> So we got January - Prey release around May-April so DNF = October, November
[12:17] <Asmodeusz> Goddamit Dukenator WAKE UP dude!
[12:17] <Asmodeusz> Are you taking notes?
[12:17] <Dukenator> yeah
[12:18] <Asmodeusz> Good
[12:18] <Asmodeusz> So moving on
[12:18] <Asmodeusz> WID
[12:18] <Dukenator> yep
[12:18] <Asmodeusz> stands for Worldwide in December
[12:19] <Asmodeusz> So a US release October, and Europe and Asia in December
[12:19] <Asmodeusz> uh, thats all No home work today.
[12:20] <Asmodeusz> Class is over.


So it means noone is so stupid to put DNF in direct competition with Prey, although can we be sure HH won't be competing with it's next game?

Even worse, WHAT will happen if (God forbid) EA buys HH??????? :eek: :eek:

It would mean 3DR gave it's secrets to satan. Damnit, Gaming is difficult because it involves friendly people, making something meant to be FUN. But the fun ends when there's money involved... :(

[Asmodeusz]

Oh, 2 things more:

1. Please note I took some smileys off my lecture to Dukenator due to the 4 images limitation in each post. I mean it wasn't a very serious talk... :)

2. The editing script rocks. Did I say it before? Good. I say it again - It friggin rocks. I love how the "code" tag instead of fuxoring the thread adds this scroller bar... /me hugs script

[Charlie Wiederhold]

Har! You have students falling asleep in your "Theory of DNF 101" class. ;)

Remedy isn't direct competition, but you never want two Top Tier games released in the same couple of weeks, even if they are in different genres. The ideal scenario is to have the top 12 games be released once a month, but it rarely works out that way.

I hope Human Head nevers gets bought out. The whole goal is to create independent and self sufficient developers. Many developers could be more independent if the would 1) learn from the negotiation techniques of the best developers and 2) not try to do too much for their first couple of titles. Gearbox, despite having some rough moments, is one of the best examples of growing yourself by making small but profitable titles first, taking the profit and reinvesting it in the company, and making use of the deal making techniques that the long time successful independents in the industry use.

And yeah, vBulletin rocks. It's why I was willing to fork over the $$$ for it despite not having anywhere to use it at the time, vs using the PHPBB I could get for free. It's just so much better and the upgrades are gravy.

[Asmodeusz]

That's another cool aspect of mentoring;
The company that until date lived out of smaller, low cost, therefore profitable titles, with financing, experience and support from a Jedi developer, may learn to generate an AAA title, profit from it, and finally go more independent.

I consider it good for everyone, because the worst thing I may imagine in the game industry is... monopoly. Ok, I know it won't happen that easy, (unless EA has something planned already :eek:) so I'll use another word. Oligopoly. Just a few developers, making safe, no-brainer titles. Let's say Duke Nukem 06 Olympic Edition - Duke goes Snowboarding. Fifa 213. Halo 8. Shrek 12.

This would mean no gaming for people such as myself, that consider some game making a form of art.Ambitious, arty, a bit risky (EA faints), and finally milestone games, not always transformed into mountains of cash, but recognized later. These are games such as Unreal 1 was a long time ago: Ambitious, Delayed, Underrated - I still can't understand how Quake 1 got better reviews than Unreal, well but that's an opinion. And I think Carmack is far wrong saying Unreal want's to be Quake. Well maybe a bit today, but Q1 has no plot at all, while Unreal1 was the game that started all the space oddity genre ;)

Anyway, thanks to mentoring and empowering little developers with some succes, the market should always be stable, in terms of free entry especially.

[pjohnsonjr1984]

It is hard for an upstart company in the Game Industry, even if it's established by a well-known or well-established person in the Industry. The pressure to deliver, the cost to produce a game, and the middlemen and developers make the journey to ship a title a costly, demanding and sometimes disasterous process...

What 3D Realms does is it gives a developer worthy of having a fighting chance, a fighting chance. What George/Scott knows in terms of selling a game is priceless, especially if you're an upstart, or a little fish trying to become a better company.

While these companies eventually span their wings and go their way, these companies become independent. If they learned what they needed to, they won't fall to others. Which creates wide diversity in the industry. The more industry the better the result.

[Asmodeusz]

My point exactly. But the question is what will prevail - The Jedi/Padawan way or the EA/EATSYOU way. In my opinion the market will go through a storm in the next couple years. Especially after PS3 and Revolution are released.

[FireFly]

Maybe both models can survive. Ubisoft seems to be doing a pretty good job with its intellectual property, without relying on any specific formula.

[Asmodeusz]

Heh, on one hand we got Splinter Cell, on the other Prince of Persia...
I can't understand how Ubisoft could harm that game (PoP) THAT much on the PC.