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Gamasutra has a new article on the possibility of unionization of game developers. (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050322/hyman_pfv.htm)  I've excerpted two passages I found especially noteworthy.


And this guy just hits the nail on the head, multiple times, with a freaking sledgehammer.


Anytime big business gets involved with anything remotely new and exciting, it commoditizes, markets, and streamlines it into a prisonbitch of not-fun-anymore.  Nothing new there, but I'm also not sure that unionization will help all that much.  There are always loopholes.  Factory workers (and, tech workers nowadays) found themselves "outsourced" when they got too uppity.  Exhibit A is the textile industry.  Here's hoping that doesn't happen to game development.

Unionization is not the fucking answer. Unionization did very little to help the automobile industry in this country. Sure, unions have gotten us worker types some good things, like 40-hour work weeks. But they almost always end up causing just as many problems as they might solve.

No, what needs to happen to game industry workers is to get some testicular fortitude, nut up and say "Fuck you" to working 60-100 hour work weeks. That shit's not right. The fact that ANYONE works for people like EA willingly just feeds into that mentality. You know what? If you are decent enough to be getting a programming job at some place like EA, you can take the same skills to a non-game company and make fucking twice that without mandated retardation built into the plan. You won't be making games, but you also won't be shortening your life by years just for the pride of having your name on Madden 2008.

Respect your goddamn selves. Only fucking slaves work at wages and hours the game industry mandates.

The increased production costs are going to be less than might be expected, since one developer working 80hrs in one week is less productive than two equivalent developers working 40hrs each in one week which in turn is less productive than one developer working 40hrs for two weeks.

However, this is an extremely outsourceable industry, although production issues could make outsourcing less attractive.

However, I think none of this is the real answer, I think the answer lies in the stuff Will Wright has highlighted about reducing the cost of content, and the issues raised at GDC in the 'Rant' panel, and replied to by Matt Mihaly on Terra Nova.  I don't think the current system will survive over the long term without some pretty major changes.

Yes.  Lots of studies show that long term, working more than 40 hours a week is counter-productive.  It's going to be neccessary for a culture change though; it's not just evil managers, but also young idealistic devs who want so badly to get into this one, very small, industry.

Where do I send my proposal of marriage? This man's genius makes me mentally shed a tear; someone who is not a gamer finally understands.

what Haemish said.  unions == mediocrity

the OT and other HR disasters publicized about EA aren't unique to game companies -- anyone that makes consumer software can expect to be pumelled occassionally because the products are following the "consumer" market and its seasons and fads.  You have to have serial releases and can't get a year+ to build something unless you're innovating and building new core components.  But it's a management failure when OT happens repeatedly.   Good tech managers know that and realize it costs a shitload more to replace someone good than to throw dozens of contractors at a problem.  What worries me a lot is outsourcers like (Indian) InfoSys who cater to these kind fucked up expectations and make it seem the norm.  That's why more people want some defence (unions).  But I don't think it's realistic

hello BTW :)

Just reading the subject of this thread, here's my response:

Unionization will do nothing but hurt the industry. I don't need to back it up. It's just true. What a bunch of amateur assholes. This is why these fuckers need publishers. They know ZILCH about business. Morons.

We still love you all. Even if you're fucking retards.

What always gets me about the arguments in favor of unionizing gaming shops is when people appeal to history; "Hollywood did it this way, games should do it too." Because, really, Hollywood's business and studio model is something everyone should want to emulate. :roll:

I expect it's all just a part of the maturation process of a young sector; managers in mainstream portions of the tech sector are still working on figuring out how to manage large-scale large-budget software projects and produce products that don't blow goat nuts. Game shops, from what I've seen and heard, tend not to have the discipline or superscalar architecture experience you can find in the better departments of major software companies. Q.E.D.

Wow, who knew all you liberals were so anti-union?

Bruce

Game Quality >>>> Politics

I still don't know what the "answer" is to this problem. I know programmers shouldn't be working 80-hour weeks. They shouldn't put out shit either.

I'd say any given programmer only actually codes about 15 hours a week. If you brought one into the office to do actual coding only 3 hours a day, MON-FRI, you'd probably get more done than an 8 hour a day marathon session 5 days a week.

No matter how hard publishers and managers try, the roman calendar isn't going to spawn another day inbetween tuesday and wednesday. It just isn't going to happen. For any given person, you need to find out how much they work per day, if their work is worth that much to the company, and whether they are a day or night person. If you've got a guy who does his best programming at 1am, let him come in at 1am. If he only does 3 hard hours of programming a day, whatever. Just keep these fuckers happy. If you don't, your game could be the next utter failure. ET for the Atari style.

And while publishers are complaining about costs, if a guy only does 3 hours of work...pay him for only 3 hours of work. They're not copy boys, who are getting paid to "be there." They're being paud to come in and do a specific job.

Have you been in the software industry? Are you familiar with the amounts of useless meetings, thinking and discussion taking place? Start paying people for e.g. coding and none of that will take place.

Also, some think software is an art form: By reducing a software writer to a set of tasks to perform you effectively make them "copy boys", who will shun creativity or innovation because they don't get paid to do that.

The quality of a game is not measured in lines of code.

I vote in favor of cutting out the useless meetings, personally.  Brainstorming is good, but nothing of any worth ever gets accomplished in a meeting.

Grr.  Meetings.

Actually, it depends a lot on the shop. I've worked in a small tech department (6 programmers) and damned if we weren't all banging away for at least half the day; most days, 5-7 hours of coding. The management there, though, was excessively clueful and realized that the best way to manage that team was to give us a problem, approve whatever best solution emerged from the "tech pit", and then get the hell out of the way. I currently work for a much larger shop, but the "hours of coding" are much the same -- when we're coding. We have extensive design and QA cycles built into the development plan, which cuts down on the need for excessive meetings during the coding phase.

Edit: To clarify, I don't work in game development. I work in information security. :)

If unions could actually be something other than strongarm mafias for "teh common man," us liberals who can think beyond 2+2 != 5 might actually consider unions to be a good thing. However, the history of America has shown that unions become bureaucratic power leeches, holding down the worker as much as bending over the business interests.

The game industry doesn't need unions, it needs to learn how to run a fucking business without having to rely on slick shyster business investor types who wouldn't know game design if it bit their tiny little dicks off.

EDIT: Cus spelzin' is hard.

Unions are quite a dilemma, like damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Unions aren't a dillemma. You just don't make one. They're stupid and the people in charge of them are ALWAYS fucking morons.

Correct, the heads of these things end up lining their pockets...BUT, they Do provide real benefits to their members. The alternative would be turning back the clock about 100 years, and I think we all realise how un-fun that would be for blue-collar workers.

I think the clearer alternative is less legal bullshit and more reasonable practices among employers. If every upper level manager in the country wasn't such an asshat, things might work out for the geeks THAT MAKE THIS INDUSTRY WORK. Unfortunately they're all asshats. And there's no fixing it. They know how to suck cock just the right way to get the high paying axe-man job. And they get to control the money.

We're all doomed unless all the *actual important* people step up to the plate and slap some people in the face with their wang. I'm talking about the programmers, artists, and designers by the way.

Come now schild, don't get all Utopian on us. I know perfectly well that you know how capitalism works.

And what happens if a few people, important or not, get uppity with the money men? They get thrown out on the street, with yes-men being hired in their place.

Business people, and all business majors everywhere ever, should just die. They just make life worse for all of the honest people.

That's the best part about this situation.

The money-men can't afford to throw the artists of the field out on the street. The worker bees in game companies are the #1 reason games actually make it off the design docs and onto our computer. As much as I dislike Steam, I think a very large company somewhere needs to make an electronic store where you buy something, download the game, and input the key they send you via email. It can only be used once. If you reformat or whatever, you  log into the store, request a new key and verify like the last 4 digits of your credit card and a password or something. They give you another one time use key.

I mean, that's a rudimentary and easily exploited example. But I'd rather have that than publishers. Companies would probably make more money selling half the number of copies of a game  (with the other half being lost to pirates) if there were no publisher. It's depressing and probably true. I do wonder how much development studios actually make from a box sale. I suspect it's not much. $5? Maybe $8 a box? I'm guessing more like $3. Lame.

Oh, and DRM. That's going to help put the final nail in coffin of the current incarnation of the gaming industry.

By "artist" I am assuming you mean the people with decent skills. That being said, I believe the makers of "Enter the Matrix" and other such filth would disagree. There are tons of people just itching to get into the industry, who are not actually all that good. People like you and I may be the loudest types, but the mainstream plebians are the ones who keep the industry alive. They can release some slop, and while we may hate it, if the average n00bler picks it up, that's a success in the eyes of the business bastards.

But anyway, as usual, I agree with everything you said really....the state of the industry is really quite sad. Errors that fly by as "acceptable' in games wouldn't work in another industry, say the auto industry. The average person bitches a lot more about problems with their car than with their game. Until the average person consistently throws a fit over bad software, I don't see a lot of change on the horizon.

The second people get "uppity" they will get canned, and a new hire will come in and replace them. That's the whole point of unions really, strength in numbers. Otherwise it's a prisoner's dilemma. The best thing overall is for everyone to revolt, the best thing individually is let your coworker revolt so you can move up the food chain when his ass is fired.

Alternate distribution methods is one problem. People wanting to make games that cost 2 million plus is another problem - perhaps THE problem.

If you want to make a game that is going to cost in the millions and you aren't able to finance it yourself, you are going to get screwed, by publishers or by some other form of money men. You can't berate publishers on one hand and stick out the other hand begging for cash.

The days of direct distribution are almost here, you can already buy games on FilePlanet. The bigger issue is where does the money come from? Or alternately, how do you make something for less money?

Let David Bowman, Marc "That French Dude" who designed Wish (laukien?), and Infinium labs show what happens when you toss money at morons.

The first few times it will be important people that need to get uppity. Then other people can chance getting uppity.

Point is: Of all the people on every development team, the lead designer is such a starving artist that he's willing to suck any amount of peen go get his game made. So to all of you lead designers:

You're hurting the industry.

But helping themselves. That's what happens when people, you know, need jobs and stuff. "Hey honey, I lost my job, and am now blacklisted by the industry, but the good news is I've helped make the industry better overall for people that can still work in it."

It's silly to ask and expect people to take one for the team.

I'm not saying I am for or aginast the unionization of industry....

But we might get some real, solid, good results from it. Sure, some management types are going to make out like bandits, but overall, the cogs in the machines will get better conditions, and heck, we might even see a decline in the number of products "thrown out the door" by publishers.

Just a thought.

No, the games industry, from top to bottom, from developers to programmers to games journalists to game players, need to learn some fucking self-respect.

Here's the problem. People who want to make games don't want to be bothered to learn how to run a fucking business. It's as simple as that. The only reason the industry is so parasitically-attached to these vapid, soulless, marketing-speak cockmeat business types is that the business types know how to run a fucking business well enough to keep it from totally tanking. They know how to play the system. Game developers don't want to learn all the ins and outs of that. They just want someone to automagically come and take those problems away from them. Then they get all pissy when they realize that THOSE FUCKERS NOW HAVE THE POWER THAT YOU GAVE THEM. They control the purse strings, so they control the game. They can tell your developer ass when by hell or highwater your game is going to be on store shelves, whether it formats every fucking hard drive it comes into contact with or not. They are the creators of the "release now, patch later" school of thought, but they couldn't do that if they didn't have the power given over by the developers.

No, I'm not saying that all publishers are TEH EVIIL!!!! or that indy game development is the only way to go. I AM saying that without taking some of that power AND responsibility on themselves, game developers are always going to find an unwanted publisher cock in their mouths.

Development houses need to recognize how much money is being generated by these games. And they need to stop signing away all sorts of control just to get their milestone checks. Steam is one way to do it, but there are others that might not have already been used. If your game is good enough, you don't have to sell 30% of your stock to EA. I'm looking at you dumb bastards, DICE.

Game players need to get some self-respect and not buy games they know are totally fucking broken. I'm looking at you, purchasers of Horizons, Ryzom and Matrix Online. Games journalists need to learn what paid journalism really means. Here's a hint, it's not being given free games and jerking off to Lara Croft pr0n the other 7 hours 58 minutes of the work day.

It's all about Respek.

(http://img153.exs.cx/img153/8875/respekknuckles0vx.jpg)

You misunderstand how much power dev houses do have, and the problems as to why they more often than not don't get more.  But it probably is easier to make sexual flames against an entire industry and show graphics than talk about issues.

I don't know what the FUCK you just said, Little Kid, but you're special man, you reached out, and you touched a brother's heart.

What power do the publishers have? A fucking checkbook. That's it. That's the power, and it's a whole helluva lot. But you know? Without a developer house who will sign over their first born to produce a game, that publisher just has money, not a game. Electronics Arts wouldn't be jack and shit if people like Chris Roberts and Garriot had not signed away all the good shit from Origin, or if Westwood had not signed over all the good shit from Westwood. These developers did it to themselves. There's a method and a madness to the EA mantra.

See, most developers just want to do games. They don't want the added hassle. They take it as some kind of dream job to be creating games. As a result, they are blindsided when the industry wants to treat them and their games as a commodity. How could my darling little baby game be treated like cans of olive oil? How? Because you signed the rights away for you, and your entire development team when you signed the contract with the publisher. You know how I know this?

Because there are a shitton more development houses on the scrap heap than there are publishers. Because despite the vast majority of development houses ever bought by Electronic Arts having gone bankrupt, EA is now one of the monolithic profit machines in the industry. Which means those dev houses signed away entirely too much of their control just to be able to make games. In the entirety of the PC game industry, I can think of three development houses off the top of my head that have not signed away a significant portion of the control needed to make decent shit without being assimilated into a borg collective publisher: Blizzard, Valve and Bioware. Can you think of any others? That doesn't mean they don't have a publisher, but it does mean they have some control over how and when and in what form their products get published.

Yes, they also had hit games. Success is a powerful thing. But Origin had hit games before it signed up with EA. So did Westwood. But instead of making sure they retained the control needed to produce consistent quality, Origin and Westwood instead got borged. Tell me that Half-Life 2 in comparison to Half-Life 1 wasn't a better product than Command and Conquer 2 in comparison to Command and Conquer 1. What was the difference?

Publishers are a necessary evil in the game industry, but the development houses have to stop taking the creation of games as a privilege, and see it as a marketable entertainment commodity. That doesn't mean you develop with less artistry, but it does mean you don't knowlingly let someone slave-drive you and your entire team just so you don't have to program database software for a living.

Man, after playing AC1 for the first few months, I will never play a game without respek again.  Preach on, brother.

Publishers have money (and thus power) because consumers gave them money.  Consumers gave them money because a huge number of consumers are sheep, easily misled in a society of disposable income and easily thrown away consumer goods.  You can see where I'm going:  I think consumers (gamers) are a huge part of the problem.

The tactic of "don't buy publisher X's games" doesn't work because the desire for the shiney coupled with excess income overwhelm the self-control of most gamers.  Gamers as a group don't really care what EA, for example,  is doing or the lack of self-respect that developers seem to have.  Bitching at it on a messageboard doesn't count.  EA's games still fly off the shelves, probably purchased by the same people who lament the state of the industry.

Then there's the problem of even horrible games selling enough to turn a small profit.  This removes any incentive for those controlling the money to invest in quality, since they can turn a profit with crap.  Again, gamers are a big part of the problem.  How many people do we all know personally who buy games they hate or never play?  How many MMOG gamers continue to pay monthly fees or continue to buy new MMOG's from the same publishers?  How many of us do that?  Welcome to being part of the problem.

Also, the motives of developers, designers mostly, are self-selecting for being taken by publishers and/or management.  Developers want to make games, and then get paid.  Publishers want to get paid, and oh there's this niggling issue of making games attached.  Unionization will never change that, but neither will developers growing a backbone.  Publishers at this point have a good ol' boy network in place that controls the distribution of product, so good luck distributing your game to stores if you don't play ball.  Hydraulic despotism, anyone?

The only way to solve the problem is to completely eliminate publishers altogether.  I just don't think the existing publisher structure is salvageable.  No union, self-respect notwithstanding, just make them completely unnecessary.  Barring showing up at corporate offices with an uzi and a manifesto, the best way to do this is to distribute games directly, outside of the retail channel.  Then this whole union idea goes away too.

Well if game developers get unionized we know where they will be spending time posting during their union breaks.

No, they carry quite a bit more.  Publishing a game is much more involved than just writing checks.  Knowing the market, knowing how to price, how to package, having contacts, etc.  There is real work involved in putting any product to market, and bad moves at this stage can (and have) cost a good product to not turn profit. 

The other point is of course money, and it cannot be underrated.  Publishers take on a significant amount of risk when they fund development - risk the developers are declining to deal with.  When you surrender risk, you also surrender profit and control.  Certainly some devs fund their own products, but many of them have gone belly up as well.  When games cost a majority of your budget (sometimes even if you get backing), it only takes one mistake. 

It's easy to demonize publishers, but the fact is, I think Romero proved that the inmates running the asylum isn't often the answer either.

It's just Sturgeon's Law again - 90% of publishers are asshats because 90% of the general populace are asshats.  I really don't know what is causing the crisis of project management in the gaming industry, but I would suspect it has something to do with the aforementioned passion that people have for programming and doing art for games making them more accepting of whatever it takes to be on board such an enterprise.  A union would not help that -- it would either not represent the will of the workers, or it'd just be a large amount of developers who care too much to push back on manangement instead of a lot of individual ones.

That, and the fact that while software development is HARD, gaming software development is HARDER because the end result might be bug free but not fun, or fun but not bug free, or neither fun nor bug free, at which point you launch and cut your losses, or do the whole thing over again until it's fun and doesn't crash.

In short, I think it's partially the nature of the beast.  Things might get better, but the basic problems may always be with us.

I don't even want to get into the mistreatment of QA. Those people should be raking in cash money for the detail work they do. If it weren't for them, every game would come out looking like Shadowbane.

Here here.  And it's not just games development either.  I work in the business sector, doing a lot of AI work for financial processing and forecasting.  That's basically another way of saying that my management often has the typical "I don't understand it, so it must be easy" attitude.  If it weren't for the QA people holding back the barbarians, Rome would have fallen already.

Something needs to be a catalyst for changing the industry. Long term I don't see unions being the best thing, but the threat of unions is often enough to make some changes. So my advice. Organize a union.

My spouse works in QA at a major company.  Her complaints with management sound almost exactly like the cries of beta testers for the average MMO... "No, you can't release that!  It only does 3/4 of what you say it does!", etc.  Yet stuff still gets released, "for the good of the company".  'Cause screwing over your customers doesn't make them mad and stop purchasing from you.  Or something.

Alkiera

Well. They can just move to Bangalore India. Every day I read about new 3D shops setting up there. If Hollywood is doing it then the gaming companies can as well. The producer of the movie LOTR just signed a deal with a shop in Bangalore (rather strange considering WETA in NZ did such a good job)


A union would just push more jobs elsewhere.

Unionization of knowledge workers is a pretty recent event.  In fact for those paying attention the last presidential election exposed that the "new" generation of unions for knowledge workers is finally recognized as a growth area and is a force no longer the tail on the blue-collar union dog.

The new guys brokered themselves a lot of power during that election - next cycle it will be very interesting to watch.  What is particularly interesting is that knowledge workers voting patterns tend to parallel traditional GOP Platform policies - something fairly antithetical to the idea of individual worker rights that gave birth to Unions to begin with.

The unions of the 1970s had nothing in common with those of those 1920s.  And the difference now from then is already itself a yawning chasm.  But then even the average air conditioner repairman has as much training as any low-level programmer.

Note, I never said developers should be running the show without any change in their skillset. I said developers need to realize that they have to learn good business practices and learn how to run a fucking business. Romero had neither. He was literally an asshat lunatic trying to run an asylum. Part of the good business practices involves realistic project scheduling and management, but the part that the developers really need from businesses is how to deal with money, how to price things, how to make the deals that either put the box on the shelf or open a your distribution channel some other way.

In short, developers need to learn to be part suit or they will continue to suffer at the hands of the publisher's tit, a tit which is all to often being sucked dry and given with a backhand bitchslap to the collective face. Publishers have allowed developers to be fucking lazy, and as a result of the developers foisting off that responsibility, they've also lost the profits that they should be getting.

So your suggestion is that human's magically evolve into creatures with spines, but no egos?

It's more then my lack of any suggestion what-so-ever, I'll grant you that.

I think globalization is changing the playing field, and rules that hold true in markets with a limited supply of labor are temporarily relaxed or non-existent.  During these times labor from different areas will have wildly different views on what "respect" means vis a vie work schedules and compenstation.  It costing very little to ship digital product reduces the cost of geographically diverse labor in ways that have never been seen before.  Additionally, there being essentially instantaneous communication between geographically diverse labor further reduces the cost of distributed tech labor.  The high-water mark of "respect" is therefore the lowest common denomitor of all labor markets that a business it willing to go to.

I don't know what the answer is.  I have no suggestions on how to make it better.  I haven't read any suggestions in this thread that haven't been tried and failed, or amount to anything more then wishful thinking. (yes, it's much easier to snipe, then to come up with a useful suggestion, apologies)

The only opinion I have is that the next 20 years are going play out in a way unlike any seen before.  While I dispise the news media more then lawyers and almost as much as politicians, I think our best hope lies with reporters doing whats right and continuing to hammer away at stories that highlight how unfun/unfair it is to work in the gaming business.

Unionization is a good step though.  The point of any cooperative is to mass the resources of a demographic to make their voice known and influence their environment.  True, unions like any organization made up of people will often become inefficient/corrupt and eventually are replaced by other organizations more willing to meet evolving needs.

Until there is a framework for a cooperative though there are no choices for the individual aside from suck it up, move on to another industry, or even completely change careers.

General Observation:  The philosophy "I hate unions" is right up there with "I hate government" and "I hate religion".  Venting is cool but as a philosophy it sucks.  In the real world such blanket statements show a flaw in the individual's worldview that hopefully shakes out as they experience more of what the complexity of life is really about.  The original unions were enormously critical to creating all countries' modern middle class - the fact that they became fat-dumb-complacent simply means individual organizations ran their lifecycle and are being replaced by organizations that actually work.

Try the next 5 years. And if you are relying or even expecting the games press to really put any kind of pressure on publishers to stop being complete cockmunchers, you haven't been paying attention to the rotten state of games journalism. As in, it's just about all on the take. It has no scruples, no ethics, and no qualms about giving fellatio in game reviews for continued free game copies, sweet sweet advertising dollars and continued exclusives. The games press has no moral backbone whatsoever.

I'm not asking devs to lose their egos as they gain backbones. Art is 50% ego anyway, and should be. But what they don't need to do is let their ego fuck themselves out of a good deal. See Romero and Ion Storm for clarification. That man could really have changed the industry, but he didn't try to learn how to run a business. And so Daikatana was born.

Fuckhead.

Not relying, just hoping.  Reporters reporting on unfair/unethical business practices seems the least far-fetched impetus to change the industry.


In the end John wasn't a visionary.  He wasn't even a good businesses man.  He just was involved with a bright bunch of people at the right time and got alot of noteriety and money.  He had dreams, but no vision... and he had long hair.  I think he is not important enough to waste teh hate on.

In regards to unionizing - In my opinion, union's just change the barrier to entry.  They just add more talentless cock that young talent needs to suck before they get a chance to make a game.  Unions tend to reward time in the business (any business), rather then talent.  Until someone figures out a way to fix that, I'm anti-union (this also seems to require that human's spontaneously evolve).

From a purely theorectical perspective, unions form when there is a breakdown between those who wish to buy services and those who wish to sell services.  As such, they represent a less efficient business model.  I am unaware of a case where unions were formed to improve the total operating capacity of an industry (by improving the abilities of individual actors, teamsters, etc).  Unions don't form to make better workers, unions form to force employers to improve working conditions.  If the focus was changed, and was proved to improve excellence or capacity in an industry then I'd have to say they were a good thing.  Instead, they just seem to be in place to keep those in the industry (and who have been paying dues the longest) at the highest possible wages for the longest possible time and make a buck for those in charge of the union.

The biggest reason why Romero deserves Teh Hate is that he was such a high profile flameout of the "Design Is Law" philosophy, where the vision of the designer was allowed to drive the process so completely that any compromise with the reality of what was actually technologically and logistically possible was treated as a betrayal of the entire founding principle of the operation.  Since Design is *not* Law, and ignoring reality doesn't keep it from biting you in the ass, it blew up in a very big way, leading to the shitpiles that were Anachronox and Daikatana.  Meanwhile, Ion Storm Austin under Spector was willing to work within the limitations of the process and the hardware, and actually produced a novel and interesting game (Deus Ex).

But he discredited the entire concept that Designers should be allowed to drive development.  Keep in mind that a lot of industry people *wanted* see it discredited (not just execs, but the entire system built on the mythos of the code cowboy and the six-month crunch), so anything less than everything Romero touched turning into million-sellers was going to be treated as a failure.  But because it was such a complete failure, even suggesting that designers should have more decision-making power is a sure way to get the designated adults (producers and senior programmers) rolling their eyes and ignoring everything else you say.  Even pointing at DX doesn't help, as they'll point out that Spector was a Producer, not a designer, and anyway, didn't the sequel suck balls?

Designers need to get a lot more disciplined and realistic, managers as well as visionaries, or we're never going to get out of this rut.

That shouldn't be happening.  The game should be fun and bug free before teh shiney is even considered.  Far too much emphasis is placed on graphics these days.  The games should be built on pen and paper (or at least text/crude graphics) and perfected in that state before even thinking about graphics.

That may mean you are moving your ship date back by a year or more. You want to start any sort of content creation as soon as possible so you can finish your game on a reasonable schedule.

That said, I do think that even very early alpha builds of games should have the fun already there. Look at Master of Orion 3: It was past the original ship date and the game still wasn't fun, and they just kept hoping they could patch the fun in in the last few months. A fun game should be fun with placeholder content.

I think the clearer alternative is less legal bullshit and more reasonable practices among employers.

That shit just doesn't happen if you don't group together and use your collective bargaining power.  That's what unions are all about.  Are all the implementations perfect?  Heck no, but that's humans for you.

Living in Europe, where unions and labor rights are taken much more seriously it's like holy shit: these people can hold down good jobs and have a life too.  Frigging amazing.  6 weeks vacation per year is seen as a right, not some impossible dream.  The average hours worked per week in Europe is decreasing.  The average hours worked per week in America?  Increasing.  We work more per week than any other industrialized nation (I believe even more than the Japanese who are supposedly such workaholics).

And are we earning good rewards for this?  Not really.  Average wages for middle class workers are increasing at a better clip in Europe too  (post figures if you think I'm incorrect here, it's been a while since I followed this closely, but I don't think you'll find I am).  Cost of living is pretty good too.  Overall it basically does what they want it to do.

Europe has its problems too, don't get me wrong.  But having lived and worked there I think I can say that they DO get what they want out of unionization -- a decidedly increased quality of life for workers.

Gabe.

Here's the problem. People who want to make games don't want to be bothered to learn how to run a fucking business. It's as simple as that. The only reason the industry is so parasitically-attached to these vapid, soulless, marketing-speak cockmeat business types is that the business types know how to run a fucking business well enough to keep it from totally tanking. They know how to play the system. Game developers don't want to learn all the ins and outs of that. They just want someone to automagically come and take those problems away from them. Then they get all pissy when they realize that THOSE FUCKERS NOW HAVE THE POWER THAT YOU GAVE THEM. They control the purse strings, so they control the game. They can tell your developer ass when by hell or highwater your game is going to be on store shelves, whether it formats every fucking hard drive it comes into contact with or not. They are the creators of the "release now, patch later" school of thought, but they couldn't do that if they didn't have the power given over by the developers.

If only it were so simple as that.

First of all, there are a LOT of independent game companies that have people who know a LOT about making a business.  There are a lot of people with MBA's and business experience out there and more than a few are passionate about games and even know people who can make them.  I work for a small game company and I know my boss has 20+ years on the business end of the toy industry (he's former VP at Mattel I believe).

Secondly, you can't do shit without that first infusion of cash.  On top of just developing the game there are huge costs for advertising, packaging, etc.  Some small few might make it through some other distribution scheme but, by and large, the market simply isn't paying for that right now and it just doesn't happen.

Every game dev company out there wants to be independent.  And most of them have savvy business people in their ranks (you can't even get a publisher without this).  So that is not the issue, and if you think it is, you are just living in a different reality than the one that game developers currently populate.  Few companies make it, and yes, those who do are the ones who happen to have really big successes to help them.  The other route, that a lot of companies take, is just being bought up and sucked into the fold of the publisher (like Verant).

In short, most of the smaller game dev companies out there would love to actually have a choice about whether to sell out to a publisher.  But the market rarely gives them that choice.  If you can point out some high profile people who fucked it up, then so be it, but that's their problem and I still say that almost every small game company wants desperately to be independent and isn't doing so just because it is not currently economically feasible and not because they are just ignorant of business or have no spines.

You say later that there are a lot of small game companies and only a few big publishers.  That partially misses the point which is that there is a lot of money and a lot of game companies but the money is concentrated in a few hands.  Aggregates hold more control than clusters of independent groups.  It's why human history is dotted with nations.  That's why organization is key.  By concentrating the bargaining power of a group into one aggregate it can rise up to challenge the concentrated influence of the money-holders.  Otherwise, good intentions aside, the publishers will continue to exploit a consolidation of power/money.

Gabe.

You're really touching on a different, though related, issue: unionization of small game companies as opposed to unionization of employees.

I truly don't think unionizing employees will really fix anything, mainly because of the sheer number of new developers that are eager to please and want that first job in the industry at all costs.  Just look at how many TV and print ads are devoted to two-year colleges and trade schools which specialize in game development.  Such fresh-faced, exploitable young'uns will put up with much worse working conditions than a veteran union-member will tolerate.  A union's collective bargaining loses its punch when a company knows they can just hire younger, cheaper talent that doesn't have any vested interest in joining the union.

However, I do think smaller companies banding together in some sort of trade union might do wonders for dislodging the control that some publishers (EA, M$, etc) have on the market.  If enough of them band together, there could be enough shared capital to go after retail space in addition to online distribution.

You're really touching on a different, though related, issue: unionization of small game companies as opposed to unionization of employees.

Yes I am, although I think they go hand in hand.  Europe emphasizes both unions AND regulations that protects smaller businesses.  Organization is important for both.

Just look at how many TV and print ads are devoted to two-year colleges and trade schools which specialize in game development.  Such fresh-faced, exploitable young'uns will put up with much worse working conditions than a veteran union-member will tolerate.

I have to say that said exploitable youngin's aren't really denting the game industry in my experience.  I don't know any who actually have jobs making games, for example, although maybe I just don't talk to the right people.  Mostly I think there are a lot of people out there who think, "that sounds cool, I want to develop games", but there are less who can actually do a decent job of developing game software.  Personally I think that such a school or 2 year college is more sad than it is impressive on a resume.

I actually don't know a ton about it, and it might be a bad example, but I wonder how SAG, the Screen Actor's Guild compares.  It is in a very similiar situation in that it represents highly skilled / or valued people in a field where there are literally millions of wannabes who would be willing to do the job for less.  It is also similar in that it represents an entertainment field, has a market dominated by big studios, etc.  Aren't they still able to get a lot done?

Gabe.

Well, I could totally be talking out of my ass, but in my field most developers have 2 years or less experience and often come from a trade school background (not that that matters, but it fits a certain demographic).  Companies that I contract for will often replace older programmers (older being 25+) for younger ones.  It doesn't matter to the companies that they lose knowledge and experience.  It's like a RAID array of employees to them.  It's the biggest reason that I'm selfemployed.

I'm assuming the games industry is the same.  Heck, I'm assuming all industry is the same.  The industry I left (mechanical engineering) definitely works the same way.  But what's a particular problem with software development is that you're dealing with people who don't see themselves as programmers for very long, hence another factor in their willingness to tolerate crap.  They're upwardly mobile, going after middle-management as project managers, designers, producers, etc.  Programming is dying out as a craft or career (if it ever was).  It's hard to convince a person he needs to join a union when he won't be a member of it for very long, months in some cases.  Contrast that with more traditional trades unions, where people are in them for 20+ years.

I refuse to read threads where StGabe refuses to use the quote function...it just hurts my eyes.

It certainly is very Slashdotty of him, isn't it?

Fuck /. and their ugliness.

Fuck /. and their ugliness.

Not a slashdot fan, sorry.  I just like italics.  Don't want to read my stuff?  No worries.

Gabe.

(http://www.f13.net/sicko/stgabe-quote.jpg)

Meh.  :-D

Gabe.

It depends a lot on the company, I think in general bigger houses tend to churn people over a lot faster. I interviewed at 3DO back in the day and their staff was very young overall. I know a guy who was an artist for EA who said much the same about that.

I think in a big company where you have a bunch of projects running and a bunch of employees it's much more tempting and easy to say to yourself "hey, let's replace everyone making 60k a year with people making 40k a year and we'll double our overall profits!" My impression of 3DO was that the skill level there was very low. (Except in some of the low-level libraries groups) With a smaller company you are forced to see employees as individuals and made to realize that replacing a super-productive guy with a cheap new grad who knows 1/3 as much isn't the deal it seems to be.

With 3DO in particular it's easy to see why the games they produced mostly sucked - low talent produces crap results.

It's been my impression, not that I have been shopping around, that good talent is in pretty high demand at least around here (LA).  But all I really know is what I hear from a few people and what I heard when I was hired.  If they want to go the cheap route, honestly, they'll just hire some guys in India (and a lot of companies probably are doing this for some bits of their projects).  The reason, I would guess, that this isn't done even more is that having a strong core team, that is talent, creative and central to the company, is important.

But obviously, it does depend a lot on the company, the game, etc.  It also depends on what your role is in making that game.  You could be some poor schlep who's job is just to port code to other platforms.  I also don't have a ton of experience yet or across the industry or with larger companies.  I did get to visit a bunch of the SWG devs in Austin though.  There my impression was that their creative input and talent was definitely taken seriously (but was still trumped by the politics going on higher up in the chain of command).  It certainly wasn't like a bunch of code monkeys sitting around waiting for the next orders from up high, much of the design ideas came from across the team.

There's obviously a lot of differences across strata of the software industry.  There are certain jobs that people coming out of tech schools get.  Personally, most of those guys, I wouldn't trust to fix my computer let alone program my games.  There's a difference between having a certain toolset and being able to apply that doggedly to certain tasks (like your RAID array example) and truly having a talent for programming and at the higher end (where a lot, but not all, of the game projects presumably reside) I do think that is recognized.  There's certainly a lot of difference between this (http://www.topcoder.com/?&t=news_events&c=art_04_22_05), for example, and the software industry practices you are talking about (particularly the stuff halfway through the article about how top engineers are at a premium even in East Asia).  It used to be that making a good database was a challenging and novel task.  Now there are 80 bazillion database people out there doing that stuff, using existing packages and not actually having to really think about it but rather just apply stuff they've been taught.  And so database work has become a license-plate manufacturing exercise where once it was a creative exercise.  And as such, tech school grads are well-prepared to go out and tackle stuff like that.  But other industries on the frontier of design (and computer gaming, or at least parts of computer gaming, have always been there) need and want more.

Gabe.

A trades type union, as opposed to an employee's union, is definitely more along the lines of what I mean. Indy game devs have the fatal flaw in that they are all too often, independent. They don't band together. I remember back in the day, EA was essentially nothing but a bunch of smaller dev houses (well, devs really, but a dev house WAS 1 dev in the day) that banded together to publish games. They were able to produce a lot more as a whole because they had more devs. Indy devs and other dev houses not owned by publishers already, should start looking into this. They should start the process of talking with each other, and not just sharing stories around the convention, but actually working together.

Are you telling me that 3 indy dev houses couldn't offer a retail chain 3 separate games as one package deal (at the wholesale level) and get some respect? As well as pooling a knowledge base, they could also pool resources, just like publishers do, only without the forced sodomy. Let go of the rock star autuer mentality, and work together. And yes, I talked about this recently (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1114116951&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&).

I maintain that many of the developers only use publishers as a crutch or a stepping stone.

EA was essentially nothing but a bunch of smaller dev houses (well, devs really, but a dev house WAS 1 dev in the day) ...

Your parenthetical remark is really the heart of the matter.  A dev house used to be 1 dev.  The market used to be drastically different.  It used to be possible to actually sell a game that was masterminded and implemented by a 1-4 people.  Marketing used to be less important.  That really just isn't the case anymore. Virtually no games that consumers are buying, on consoles or PC's, are made by less than 20 people.  Even getting those 20 people together to form one dev house almost always implies taking in money from SOME outside investor (venture captialists, publishers, whatever) which implies losing creative control.

Are you telling me that 3 indy dev houses couldn't offer a retail chain 3 separate games as one package deal (at the wholesale level) and get some respect?

They have to package and advertise said game first.  They have to have marketing people there just to sell it.  Etc.  In many ways it is just not nearly so simple as you make it out to be.  The publishers have the machinery to do this efficiently and the small dev houses don't.  And it's not really a matter of, well, 3 of them could just pool their resources and they'd magically be able to invest the capital to ship a retail quality game.  Why don't authors release books directly to the market instead of using publishers?  Why don't recording artists release music directly to retail outlets?  Because the costs to do this, and the current market, make this (95% of the time) completely infeasible.  And it's the same for publishing games.  The steps (read money suckers) in the process to putting out a game that might actually sell more than a handful of copies and generate real revenue are what get in the way of companies going out and becoming independent right away.

The rock star attitude?  I think that's mostly just hype and stereotypes.  What are you basing this on but a few anecdotes?  Again, I repeat, that pretty much every small game studio wants to be independent and there is an ample supply of gamers trained and experienced in business that would help them do this if possible.  It's more the nature of the market that precludes sma lltime independent projects than it is some bizarre irrationality or "rock star" attitude that runs rampant through the independent dev teams.  You have to actually SELL several games before you feel like a rock star and not just some dude that knows how to write some DirectX code or create nifty 3d models.

Gabe.

I maintain that many of the developers only use publishers as a crutch or a stepping stone.

And I maintain that it is bloody obvious that many or most developers passionately hate publishers and would avoid them if it were at all possible (and it's naive to assume that the only reason they don't is that they are irrational egomaniacs and none of them know a lick about business).

Gabe.

The game industry doesn't like sharing. It's dev houses are mostly all concerned (and some rightly so) that someone is going to come in and steal their ideas and their best people leaving them high and dry. Game devs like to be thought of as auteurs, the visionary behind the classics, like the egotistical directors of "flim."

I'm not talking about 1-man dev shops here, but medium-size, non-publisher exclusive dev houses. Guys like the size Bioware used to be, guys like Ion Storm Austin, Irrational Games, Creative Assembly, people like that. Dev houses that have had some moderate success, most of which has been drained away from them by stupid publishers. Put together a label that contains Irrational Games, Ion Storm, and Creative Assembly games, and take that to the retailers.

"Here, EB, you can get Freedom Force 3, Deus Ex 3, and Total War: Assyria, and we'll even give it to you at a lower per unit cost than you got all 3 of those games separtely from different publishers, because you deal directly with us."

Retailers should be all over that, and if they aren't, they haven't been paying attention to game sales figures.

In short, dev houses need to act like the Image Comics artists did towards Marvel Comics in the early 90's, except without all the egotism and cockmunchery. The things publishers contribute to the party aren't that important to the process, and that includes marketing. Money is the single-biggest thing they offer.

All the dev houses I've mentioned are successful. Once their coalition of indy publishing is established, offering similar benefits to up and coming dev houses is just an expansion of their business.

"Here, EB, you can get Freedom Force 3, Deus Ex 3, and Total War: Assyria, and we'll even give it to you at a lower per unit cost than you got all 3 of those games separtely from different publishers, because you deal directly with us."

That is very far away from the reality of what would be required to directly market to EB.  You would have to convince EB that you have a good game (through a prior record and through paying marketing people).  You would have to package it.  You would have to guarantee a certain amount of advertisng.  Etc.  EB doesn't want to put some Dark Horse on the shelves when it can put up the latest EA releases and have them fly out the door.  And how are the small companies going to offer at lower cost per unit the games that they don't have an existing apparatus to publish in the first place (which means that their own cost per unit is going to be a lot higher).  Think about it: why doesn't Neal Stephenson just sell his next novel directly to B&N?  Is it really so easy to do as you make it seem.

You say, "yeah, well EA and the other big boys basically started by pooling resources of small dev houses".

Ok, well let's stop and think about this a moment.  Are you saying that EA was essentially better and smarter than the small dev houses are now?  And if so, why bother with the dev houses anyway seeing as how EA seems to be so brilliant.  If not ... shouldn't we realize that EA did that then because it was easy to do that then and small companies don't do that now because it's very hard if not impossible to do now?  You give small dev houses so little credit I have to wonder why you even give a shit whether they release games or not.  And in so doing you just reinforce the consumer attitudes that drive this train off the tracks in the first place!  "It's not my fault that all the small game companies are idiots and so I'll just keep buying whatever EA sells me."

Instead of a labor movement maybe we just need a consumer movement.

Gabe.

Consumers are barely smart enough to have bowel movements as individuals, much less as some form of organized mob.

It's going to take a lot of small dev houses combined to even get a meeting with EB. Mid-range houses with a successful title or two? Not so hard. Also, EB gives not two shits about the quality of the game. They care about 1) How much will it cost them, 2) how many can you get, 3) is this going to get crazy ass fundies to protest my stores (i.e. adult games), 4) what are their margins? That's it. Maybe how many returns would this generate, but I doubt that's even an issue on games, only hardware.

1) How much will it cost them, 2) how many can you get, 3) is this going to get crazy ass fundies to protest my stores (i.e. adult games), 4) what are their margins?

And even on a low budget it may well will cost them more from the small dev houses and it will be much less likely to sell (which is probably the most important item and one you didn't list -- EB isn't going fill their store with artsy indie games that no one but hardcore gamers will buy).  The independent group will have higher costs to package and ship units.  They will have much less advertising to build hype to get people to the store (stores like EB live and breath off of game hype).  And they will be lacking the big budget graphics, etc., that isn't just put into games to be evil, but is put into games because it sells boxes.

Consumers are barely smart enough to have bowel movements as individuals, much less as some form of organized mob.

I agree, more or less.  But why are you blaming game developers for this when consumers create the market where small game companies can't sell jack?

Gabe.

Name any industry dominated by publishers where it is at all common for independent authors to directly market their stuff (and actually make any money)?  Umm . . . . right.

Maybe it's not because everyone who doens't work for a publisher is an idiot.  Maybe it's because the market (created by consumers) simply has no place for that right now.  Indie movies, indie music, indie games.  They're all in the same place, more or less.  Success for any of these three is actually squeaking out just enough attention to have someone who actually has capital buy you.  Because the cost of entering the market on your own as a late entrant is simply too prohibitive.

Gabe.

oops

Actually, the indy groups may have more costs to them, but removing the publisher's cut from their cost would probably allow them to offer the product to EB for less than the publisher does. One less hand in the cookie jar means less people to split that money with.

Also, there are instances of indy success. Dave Sim's Cerebus in the mid to late 80's in comic books, in which he sold graphic novelizations of his indy comic directly to comic stores as opposed to going through the distributors.

Also, consumers can only buy what's offered to them in the stores. Guess who determines that? The publishers and the retail chains. There are indy games that would sell but haven't been offered the chance. They might not sell as well as the Blizzard games, but they also don't need that level of success. For MMOG's, just look to Puzzle Pirates and A Tale in the Desert for examples.

Also, there are instances of indy success.

The existence of certain exceptions rules is not a proof of concept for a general principal.

For MMOG's, just look to Puzzle Pirates and A Tale in the Desert for examples.

Both of which picked up publishers, no?  We can either: (a) assume they did this because they are idiots or sellouts or (b) assume they did this because well, they actually needed money and weren't making it on their own.  ATitD barely even makes SirBruce's chart even though it is a very innovative and interesting game (there have been text-based muds that get better numbers).  It certainly is not making that much money.  I don't know about Puzzle Pirates.

All of this hyperbole is based on the naive notion that it is actually easy to market directly to retailers and no one is doing it just because they are stupid.  But that couldn't be further from the truth.  There are lots of really smart people working in the game industry (or who want to work there) and almost all of them would prefer to work independently.  The fact that they aren't succeeding isn't some cosmic anomale and isn't explained by some 1-dimensional characterization of this entire group of people as irrational egomaniacs.  It all has to do with the realities of a market that simply has no room for these guys right now and will have to change if it is ever to do so.

Gabe.

As far as I am aware, most of the money retailers make comes from the purchase of shelf space and display presentation, not retail markup. Publishers (or the indys if that's the route they go) actually pay premium prices (and not simply cheaper wholesale prices) for premium shelf space and even the direction of the box (is it facing outwards, or just the binding showing, or?).

This may have changed, but 5 years ago when I researched it that was the common "cost" associated with getting a chain to carry a product. And it's a hefty pricetag.

Yes.

Publishing houses do a lot more as well, including things like getting products talked about in magazines, getting promo copies into the hands of the right people, having good research on appropriate advertisement, etc.  Publishing houses are a massive resource in any industry.  People can chalk it up to selling out if it makes them feel better, but truth be told, we wouldn't have access to all the game we do without them.

First off, if you rely on Bruce's chart for any accurate numbers of the MMOG industry, more's the fool you.

Secondly, EGenesis (makers of ATiTD) did not pick up a publisher that I'm aware of. Their initial release netted them between 2,000 and 3,000 subscribers, I think. That was DOUBLE what they needed to be profitable. Double. Without a publisher or even a box on the shelf, completely through net distribution and word of mouth. They were profitable enough to release a sequel. If you don't think that is a wildly successful story, you are insane.

It's not about making bazillions of dollars, it's about being profitable, which is a different number for every business. Success does not have to mean getting 1.5 million subscribers, especially when your game is in no way mainstream.

As for Puzzle Pirates, they didn't need a publisher. They got the game released and by all accounts running well without a publisher. Which I'm sure meant when they did go to (or got approached by) a publisher, they were much more able to dictate favorable terms to themselves, as opposed to having to take any shitty deal offered because they needed money. If you can produce a good game without a publisher, that is at least profitable, you can do this sort of thing. It just takes more effort.

It doesn't require that game developers form some sort of employees union to force publishers to not treat them like fucking slaves. Just like consumers buying any old shiney shit that gets pushed out as the next big thing, employees should not degrade themselves to work in conditions they KNOW are bad beforehand. Unions won't give you that kind of self-respect, they'll just dictate that companies not take advantage of your lack of backbone.

They were profitable enough to release a sequel. If you don't think that is a wildly successful story, you are insane.

I think that it's easy to spin your business as a success if you don't count the time that you actually spent on the project.  And from what I understood they did get a publisher or other form of outside investment.  But I could be wrong.  Where did you get the profitability numbers from?  As far as I could tell (from lurking the beta forums), ATitD was a monolithic project worked on by some German fellah (who seemed like an intelligent enough guy) who somehow managed to have 3-4 years to just work on the game and do nothing else.  Ok, that's cool.  But that one or two people can afford to do this, and not actually lose money, is not evidence that there is an opening in the market to challenge Vivendi/EA or really a rationale for railing against game devs that they don't perform magic.  Maybe the problem is not that game devs don't know business, maybe they know it too well.

It doesn't require that game developers form some sort of employees union to force publishers to not treat them like fucking slaves. Just like consumers buying any old shiney shit that gets pushed out as the next big thing, employees should not degrade themselves to work in conditions they KNOW are bad beforehand.

Easy to say, but I'm not sure it has any correlation to reality.  As I allude to above, the life of an independent game developer is probably not nearly as rosy as you make it out to be.  And you are not telling me about all the crash and burns that you never heard about.  For every Kevin Smith there are probably hundreds if not thousands of guys who put together something cool like Clerks and still never made a dime.  Game devs don't exist to please you.  And having a dependable income, the ability to pay for a family, save for retirement, take vacations, etc., well, is sort of important to some people for whatever bizarre reasons.

Gabe.

Game devs exist to make games, which are meant to please me.  :evil: Dance, little man, dance.

ATiTD was done as a garage project by 2 guys. It has never had a publisher. All the numbers about its success were straight from EGenesis itself, when they released version 1 of the game. They needed either 1000 or 1500 users to break even, they got twice that. They did other things while working on the game.

You keep forgetting that I don't want these indy devs to 'challenge' EA. I don't give a fuck (nor do I think it will happen) if EA is still around and putting out shit in 5 years or not. I just want to see more games, more good games, and I want guys like Troika, Looking Glass, Irrational, Creative Assembly, etc. be able to make profits off their games without being hamstrung by publishers. Because when successful dev houses like Looking Glass and Troika, with multiple successful games sold, can't make ends meet, something is wrong with the industry.

You said:
You keep forgetting that I don't want these indy devs to 'challenge' EA

Earlier you said:
Here's the problem. People who want to make games don't want to be bothered to learn how to run a fucking business. It's as simple as that. The only reason the industry is so parasitically-attached to these vapid, soulless, marketing-speak cockmeat business types is that the business types know how to run a fucking business well enough to keep it from totally tanking. They know how to play the system. Game developers don't want to learn all the ins and outs of that. They just want someone to automagically come and take those problems away from them. Then they get all pissy when they realize that THOSE FUCKERS NOW HAVE THE POWER THAT YOU GAVE THEM. They control the purse strings, so they control the game. They can tell your developer ass when by hell or highwater your game is going to be on store shelves, whether it formats every fucking hard drive it comes into contact with or not. They are the creators of the "release now, patch later" school of thought, but they couldn't do that if they didn't have the power given over by the developers.

You could have just said: ok, I guess I changed my mind.  :wink:

Gabe.

How is that changing my mind? Unless you think that by challenging EA, I mean eradicate them from the face of the earth. I just want them to not have to rely on EA and others of that ilk.

I just want them to not have to rely on EA and others of that ilk.

And yet, to actually have a decent chance of eeking out a living, the current market (created by consumers) dictates that this is necessary.  And you blame developers for a market they didn't create where the only way to change that market would mean challenging EA.

Very simple.  Consumers currently go apeshit over the stuff EA goes out.  Therefore no market for Indy games.  Therefore game developers need to sell out to make any money.  Changing that means changing the market to where consumers are willing to consider non big budget stuff which means challenging EA.

Gabe.

id enjoyed runaway success by self-publishing/distributing.  And did so when the internet was a handful of geeks with ISDN.

Why is this so hard now?  Too many choices clogging the market?

Such a shame, Gabe single-handedly killed this thread for me.

News flash: italics make things harder to read, not easier.

Well, let's look at Wolf3D and Doom. They were at the time relatively new, and they were technically excellent for their time. That's not easy to do. Id enjoyed great success, that's wonderful. But unless you can name a dozen more, they are the exception that proves the rule. In the entire lifetime of computer games how many Id style success stories have their been? Not a whole lot. It's not like it was EASY then. It was hard then too!

I would also point out that back in the day people would build their own computers and type in programs they got from byte magazine, and Id was at the tail end of that phase of computer life. For better or for worse the industry is a lot more mature now.

Id's success story is not a repeatable model. They had the right timing and a huge amount of talent.

Out of curiosity: how many of those that want to see Indy developers succeed have played:

Gish
Outpost Kaloki
Dark Horizons: Lore
Breakquest
I of the Enemy (ok, this one is going semi-"pro" I think)
WIK and the Fable of Souls
Void War

I'd venture to guess that at least 90% of this community have never even heard of any of these games, much less purchased any of them, yet they are the current list of "top" Indy Games over the last several months.

And the fact that most of the people here have never heard about them only goes to reinforce the fact that the current market really does need a way to get the information about Indy Games somehow, because current marketing strategies simply cannot compete with publishing houses.

Seconded.  I tried to follow it while ignoring Gabe's posts but he is too integrated into the conversation. I'll just wait till he drops out of it I guess.

At the risk of speaking for other people, that phrase is exactly why you won't get much agreement here.  You're basically defending the way things are now by saying that the way things are now won't allow change.  Who says the publisher model is the best way?  Oh, that's right ... publishers (and you) do.

The "current market" is just a frozen moment in time.  Things can and do change.  Enough people are starting to get pissed off about the publisher model that something will be done about it.  Unions?  Maybe.  And maybe something worse than the publisher model will arise.  But the current publisher model is not stable precisely because it hurts so many people.  You have high profile developers picking up their marbles and leaving the industry, and that's always a sign of change.  Eventually developers will realize that they outnumber publishers even if they don't outgun them (gun ==  money).

ATITD?

If we're focusing on "runaway success" I agree a self-published indie isn't going to threaten Blizzard anytime soon.  "But highly lucrative and a cash cow to spin up to the next level" seems achievable and isn't affected by the factors you observe.

I suspect the problem may be too many devs want to live large with a homerun on their first release, and not take the long established path of growing a business over time.  Like Mythic did.  Heck people still pay to play Gemstone...

Look at it from the perspective of a developer who is a game enthusiast. Sure, I can start small and make a game that may make some profit, then based on the profits of that become a TINY bit more ambitious, and so on...and most likely it will take me years and years to start making the sort of games I want to make.

Growing a business over time is tough in the game industry. It's not like starting a store chain. If I open a store then another and the second does poorly I can close it and the first one is still making some money. For most growing dev houses one failure is enough to sink the business.

I would also hardly call ATITD a runaway success. Some profitability is not a huge success.

I'm a veteran of the dot bomb era.  I could give a rat's ass about a company unwilling to suck it up and grow a business the old-fashioned way.  If I had a rat's ass to spare.  Rationalize it? Sure.  Excuse it.  No.

"Some profitability" is what separates the failures from the winners.

OMG, I can't read Lord of the Rings anymore.  It has italics in it.  Gah!

*smirk*

You're basically defending the way things are now by saying that the way things are now won't allow change.  Who says the publisher model is the best way?  Oh, that's right ... publishers (and you) do.

I'm not saying that.  I don't think that the publisher model is the best, that's for sure.  But it is there because it is the most successful (OMG, more italics!).  That is, consumers are giving bucketloads of money to publishers for doing things they way they do them and until consumers stop doing that there is no reason for the market to magically change.  Alternatives exist (as Stephen Zapp points out) and consumer's simply don't give a rat's ass.

Enough people are starting to get pissed off about the publisher model that something will be done about it.

I never said this couldn't happen.  Markets do change, certainly.  I don't think we'll see these changes coming about easily however.  The book, music and movie publisher relationships are shitty too, and people hate them, and yet they still retain pretty strong control over their markets.  The fact remains that 99% of game consumers don't give a shit or more importantly don't know enough to give a shit and don't think they need to learn any more.  Or even if they do give a shit, they're still not willing to actually change their buying patterns or taking time to actually look at the the current Indy titles.  I admit I'm in the latter category.  I am more likely to buy a game that comes from a smaller game company but I don't really pay attention to truly indy game titles except in the MMO genre or if it's related to work.

Gabe.

"Success" seems to be that one company, once upon a time, didn't lose money.  Err, right.  A lot of people pretend their business is a success by ignoring the fact that they aren't paying themselves.  Somebody opens a store, can't afford to hire anyone and so they work 60 hours a week in the store.  The end of the year comes around and they are excited because they made actual profit.  They fail to mention that their hourly wages come out to around $2/hour or whatever. :P  I suspect but cannot prove that this is basically the case with ATitD. 

And this is like making a movie.  The Kevin Smiths of the world exist.  But for each one of them there are a few hundred or thousand poor slobs who starved for their art and didn't get a dime.  That isn't exactly a viable business plan.  In other words, just because one person or company, once upon a time, did an independent title and made some money does not mean that anyone else who does this is like likely to do the same.

Gabe.

Ok, one more post.  I'd just like to say that one of the most important things that a union can do is simply raise awareness and share information.  One of the things mentioned in the gamasutra article that I think is key is talk of limiting how employees discuss their salaries and work times.  That is the stuff that makes capitalism stop doing the good, happy things that economists would like to tell us it should.  You need available, in your face information so that when two parties are acting in an exchange (game consumer and publisher or developer and publisher, for example), they know the facts.  That's one of the things that a good union will help with.  By having a central, influential group that can share and spread information, and advocate to all the different parties in the game market, you can get a better approximation of what capitalism is supposed to do. 

For example, there is a mention of people at EA saying, "no, there is too much publicity about our work hours right now to go to a 6 day work week".  Yay information.  By making people aware of those conditions you make the conditions themselves have a negative impact on EA's bottom line, which ultimately in a capitalist model, is the only way to get actual change.

Gabe.

That was my line of thought as well. The sucess that Id had allowed them to staff up and move on to bigger and better things. A lot of the indy game makers that make things like puzzle games and the like may technically make a profit but may not really get them any closer to an end-goal.

To me a successful game is a game that turns a decent profit that allows you re-invest in your company without requiring your employees to work for pennies or have day jobs.

There are a lot of "successful" indy bands that turn a small profit where all the members have day jobs. In fact, that's nearly all of them. That's more breaking even than succeeding.

OMG, it's like, not even in the same format or font.

Read the third line of my sig, kthx.

Typical developer response.  Ignore the fact that people have actually taken the effort to say that something isn't working as intended but take the time to respond with an example from a completely different media that serves an entirely different purpose and toss in a put down.

Hey, dipshit, the italics aren't very legible here with the background and fonts that are in use why don't you use the fucking quote system thats in place, works and accepted?

I think also that it has to be not about the money.  That's probably needless to say around here, but in the context of id, I'd say that even if they had never made dollar one, Carmack would still be in his parents' basement banging out new 3d engines.


Because he wants to prove what a special and unique snowflake he is, is my guess.

At some point you need money, unless you are independently wealthy. And people with day jobs just can't get as much done. It's all fine to say that if you really LOVE what you do you will have a day job and shut out the possibility of things like free time and a rewarding family life, but I think that's kind of silly personally. It's not a good solution.

Well a few mistakes above. Here's the real story:

We built A Tale in the Desert with 3 full-time people over a 4.5 year timespan on about $1.1M. Actual cash outlay was a bit less because we did all sorts of stuff like trade company stock for rent and legal fees. Most of the cash came from me personally, credit cards, loans, etc. Also, several outside people invested smaller amounts.

We've handled distribution, the live team, maintenance and billing ourselves. We had other companies do translation (MDO Games for German, Alchemic Dream for French), and Music (Heavy Melody Music.)

We're fine cash flow-wise as long as we're above 1000 paid subscribers. We're around 1500 now, and over the course of Tale 1 and 2 we've been anywhere from 1150 (last day of Tale 1) to 2500 (peak in Tale 2, around day 30.)  Overall, Tale 2 has been 15%-20% better than Tale 1.

"Fine Cash Flow-wise" is not the same as profitable: there's that $1.1M that was invested to build the company and first game. So to an investor, eGenesis isn't yet a success.

BUT - developing the next game is now a *whole lot* easier, because of the knowhow gained and technology created. I've got some fascinating stuff planned for the Tales of Alvin Maker (based on the Orson Scott Card series) - and there's no way I could pull that off without having first done A Tale in the Desert. (Nor would we have had the chance!)

Hey, thanks for the info Teppy. I've always kind of wanted to try out ATitD and become a local magistrate or something and regulate unions and levy taxes....but I've never had people to play along with that I knew (I hate playing alone).

Shoot us a few Beta accounts if you like, I'd be more than happy to give your project a spin around the block....or something, if I have the time.

Here's to the Underdogs of the industry.

PS: Screw those investors and that "profitable" noise; if you're in the black and breaking even, and putting food on the table, and doing something you love, it sounds like a success to me.

Oh man, I hadn't heard anything about a game based on Card's Alvin Maker series.  I'd be all over that.  Is that in beta anytime soon?  I'd dedicate serious time to helping out wherever I could.

Thanks a bunch, Teppy, for wading into what could very well have been a contentious topic for yourself. I've never played your game, mainly because I must have combat in my games, but I've always respected it. I look forward to seeing your Orson Scott Card game, and hoping it has some killin' in it.  :-D

My version of success is based on what Strazos said here: if you're in the black (which does mean paying off the investors), eating well enough (Ramens only 1 time a week), and being paid for doing what you love, that's the best measure of success I can think of.

You forgot about nubile young women and hats made of money!

Hope the new game goes well for ya Teppy. I think you and your team have a lot of interesting things to bring to the genre.

I think we may have to award Teppy a "Not Being a Cockmunch Developer Award."

It's high praise for the industry.

I am so there - any public links yet?

I hope we didn't already give them all away to Arena.Net and Cryptic Studios.

I mean, eGenesis deserves some love, and I hope NetDevil and Destination don't screw things up.