Ben Gonshaw: Digital Media Theorist & Game Design Consultant
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FROM ADOLESCENCE TO ADULTHOOD

10th May 2005

Dave Morris once wrote to me saying that we are living "in the last days of the Cretacious". The lumbering dinosaurs and even some of the more spritely little lizards of the current gaming generation are breathing their last. I was saddened to see that Elixir Studios, a former employer, has joined the number of fallen. It's a sad day when independent creatives have to close their doors because publishers are unwilling to fund, what they see as being risky games. The irony is that the independents are the ones behind today's giant IP's. Titles like GTA from little known Lemmings creator DMA Designs, The Sims, or the seminal Wolfenstein all had humble beginnings. Today's marketplace is flooded with clones of those risky propositions that captured yesterday's zeitgeist. If tomorrow's genre staples are to come from today's risky innovation and that very innovation is stifled, then where are tomorrow's shining lights going to come from?   We can already see the seeds of where these games will be born and they strongly mirror that which happened to the movie industry. There is the need for publishers to drive gameplay R&D internally and the issue of what the independent developers of the future may be like.

The Need for Internal R&D   The big movie studios do lots of R&D, writing and reviewing hundreds of original screenplays and outlandish book or play adaptations and 90% of them will never get made. Once in a while, one of them breaks through, such as Donnie Darko, Eternal Shine of the Spotless Mind or Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Does this happen in the games industry?

Recently an anonymous respondent to a gamasutra question of the week has noted that some of the giants still allow a small number of gems to be developed, like Spore (EA) (which one suspects may have more to do with its creator's acumen than the project's inherent merit, no matter how exciting it sounds), Elektroplankton (Nintendo), Sony's Shadow of the Colossus (the follow up to Ico) and a clutch of others manage to struggle through development and onto the shelves. However this is not a common practice. This is because the publishers usually use their internal teams for ponderous but polished remakes but outsource their R+D. They allow the small, independent developers to self-fund demos of potentially interesting new avenues. This way the publishers get their R&D done for free and incredibly the Devcos are lining up, desperate to bankrupt themselves to do it.

As the industry becomes more mature it will realise that this slash and burn practice must cease, or the fertile developers will be quickly used up. A more mature approach is to invest in content R&D in the long-term. This does not mean investing in IP creation, which is the current short-termist view. Publishers mistakenly believe that IP by itself is a viable long-term investment, but the clever branding, beautiful positioning and stylish polish amount to the pattern on the icing. If the cake is the same as everyone else’s who cares about the icing? Even the most imbecilic franchise purchaser will wake up when Final Fantasy Century creaks along. However, if FF-C has a different game beneath it then it may be worth buying and that is what content R&D should be all about. Build lasting brands that can be used to sell new game content, don’t remake the same game ad infinitum.

New-Wave Independents   The second place that interesting new games will come from also happens in the movie industry. When the big boys began to make the movies we all know that the mainstream titles began to fall into neat, well trodden categories (Romantic, Action, Drama, Comedy). Those who wanted to make something that did not fit into those boxes had to turn their backs on the big budgets of the establishment to get their works onto celluloid (or should that be DV?). This was not the end of movies, rather it was a glorious new beginning. The mature industry could create enough interest in the medium for the fringes to make a good living. Perhaps this is the mark of maturity. What begins as a small band of people struggling to make tiny waves in the ocean of media, becomes a giant swell that many consumers surf. At first everyone pulls in different directions, especially the more artistic creators so no real waves form, but the water does get a bit choppy. Eventually commercialism sets in, pointing enough people in the same direction to give the whole exercise momentum. The overall picture is still somewhat erratic, but a critical mass of consensus is forming and anyone moving against it is simply cancelled out or sucked into the body of the building wave. However, once the wave is big enough to have its own form, the rest of the ocean calms enough for new waves to start.   A similar pattern in the games industry is already underway. A core of big budget blockbusters supporting a major industry has, near as damn it, created that big wave, which most consumers will ride through to playstation 4 and beyond. The consolidation and closures are entering their final stages as the businesses stratify into maturity. Once the culling and buy-outs subside, newcomers will be forced to take a different tack. Lacking the $20m+ budgets of the major players, the new kids need to forge a new type of game and a new method for cheap development. There is enough room for medium budget independent games to start going and eventually, when the independents solidify themselves into a Cannes alike, the low budget arthouse offerings will start.   Right now independents can only offer cheap downloadable games or mobile apps, but the scope will continue to expand as they reach greater acceptability and integration into the tapestry of the industry. Check out the links to see how this is already taking shape.

Links   Industry Based New wave cinema, as it was known, could well happen in games and there are already several movements gathering momentum, such as the IDGA, TIGA and others to support the small developer. Some companies are also encouraging this type of growth, notably GarageGames. Experimental Gameplay http://www.experimentalgameplay.com/ There are many people making interesting gameplay demos, here is a centre that focuses on it (plenty of playable content)   http://www.experimental-gameplay.org/ Industry wide experimental gameplay Conferences http://www.indiegamejam.com/   http://www.indiegamescon.com/

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