The changing needs of the games industry
There are a couple of major trends we’re seeing in the commercial side of game development at the moment (and for the last year or more), both of which have a pretty dramatic impact on the sorts of games that are being funded at the moment. Given the usual development schedule of between 2-4 years, this means we’ll really start to see the impacts of these strategies from the major players show up on shelves in the sorts of titles we have avaliable in the next 12-18 months.
So, what two elements am I talking about?
The first is the splitting of the market in terms of profits. While there used to be a decrease in sales between the number 1 selling game and the number 10 selling game, they tended to (historically) be in the same ballpark. No more. These days, a really enormous blockbuster (think a GTA, or a Halo, or a Call of Duty) absolutely dominates the charts. There’s a huge cliff between number one and number three at any point.
The second trend we’re seeing is the rental market. For every copy of a game that gets sold, it may get resold three or four times – usually at only 5-10% off the cover price! All of the profit from those sales goes to the Electronics Boutiques and Gamestops that are responsible for the second hand market. None of it goes back to the developers and publishers. Again this is something that’s been present for a while, but is rapidly becoming endemic. Often you’ll see second hand copies on sale the day after release! In fact, game stores offer serious incentives for you to purchase and return your copies as soon as possible.
What does this mean for publishers? It means they’re changing the sorts of games they’re making in response. The first point means they’re focusing on hits and putting all their energy behind guarenteed blockbusters. Which basically means we’re seeing huge campaigns promoting sequels and followups, as they’re safe bets. We’re also seeing a lot of studios following the EA Sports model of yearly updates. If you want to put your big cash behind the safe IP’s, then you want to make sure they’re coming out nice and regular.
Of course, it takes new IP’s to build franchises which can be exploited in this fashion – but that’s a different topic for a different time. It is worth noting that Ubisoft seem to have found an excellent balance however – there were a couple of years there where they were leaning very heavily on Prince and Splinter Cell to drive their sales, but that’s relaxed to a much broader strategy where they try to bring something new to the table each time a major franchise sees a new release.
Secondly, we’re seeing a focus on strategies that either reduce resale or get some cash coming in even if there is a copy is resold. In other words downloadable content – either free or paid for, and multiplayer content. The DLC helps to keep you playing (or grabs some extra cash from you even if you’re playing a secondhand copy) and multiplayer content is notoriously sticky.
However, the rush to multiplayer has it’s own perils – because multiplayer content is only sticky IF it’s got a huge community behind it. Which moves us back to the problem of following hits yet again – players flock to best in show multiplayer, but tend to ignore anything other than the best.
I don’t necessarily have an easy answer to the current hard questions facing the pointy end of the business. That said, I do think this makes clear a set of opportunities developers have these days.
First and foremost – take risks and lots of them. The potential reward is huge if you succeed – a new francise is a licence to print money, if it’s a hit maker.
However, take *cheap* risks. There are a lot of places to prove out a concept other than a 50 million dollar headline title. You can make a lot of smaller XBLA or PSN games for that sort of cash, and in the process find the ones that catch fire for you. It’s not as simple as that alone, of course – but we’re definitely seeing the payoffs for the studios that are focused on building IP rather than simply resting on their headliners.
Exercising the Creative Spark
Had a great chat with Janine Cahill of Future Journeys today in which we covered a great range of interesting topics. The one that stood out to me was creativity exercises and the various approaches to creating a workplace with a sense of fun and spontenaity.
I then brought up Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies, and the more recent example of similar thinking, Jesse Schell’s Deck of Lenses. Both of these represent a great way to integrate some new thinking and perspectives into your routines, especially in places where you might get stuck – either in a rut, or just stalled completely. There’s a difference in approach between them – but they’re more similar than they are different.
What I find most interesting about these sorts of approaches (apart from the ease with which they conceptually adapt to technological solutions) is the potential benefit to our thinking of adding a random element, especially when you’re working in a creative field. Of course, I tend to think all fields are creative fields, but that’s my bias showing through. Enforced randomness is something that’s hard to find in the whirl of day to day business, but there’s nothing wrong with planning fortuity. One of the things I do is add appointments to my calendar that say things like “Take a step backwards and look at things differently” – which is a great opportunity to utilise a tool like the Oblique Strategies, or to look over Noah Falsteins 400 project which even without an update for the last 3 years or so, still remains a great list of things to think about.
