Games would probably suck if developers didn't care about money

[pippin]

Money itself doesn't make games, nor the men who manage this money. The problem is men with money don't want to lose it, so they force wo/men with computer skills to do a certain thing so it can be profitable.
That's why many early 80s synth pop people were closet prog rockers.

 

[Visbhume]

Alternative hypothesis: making a very good game is difficult and depends a lot on luck. People can't replicate their earlier highs because lightning doesn't strike twice. And we don't remember the people who failed at producing even one good game.

 

[Jaesun]

Not always. Riven was made when the creators were already sitting on a ton of money, but it's a better game than Myst.

But then again, the Renaissance flourished during shitty sanitary and political conditions.

Quite true.

 

[Telengard]

Quick thought: it's extendable to other media too, hungry Spielberg and Lucas made Jaws, Raiders of the Last Ark and Star Wars. Old, fat trillionaire Spielberg and Lucas made War Horse, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Phantom Menace.

Quicker thought: See Valve since 2007.

You're forgetting THX 1138 (which shows Lucas doesn't know what he's doing) and American Graffiti (which made him an instant millionaire and is credited for starting the Summer Blockbuster).

Spielburg OTOH only has Duel and the Sugarland Express as major releases beforehand, so he probably still badly wanted money when he entered into Jaws.

 

[Telengard]

In the bigger picture, it might be better to relate game making teams with sports teams, since there are a lot of similarities and more people understand sports better than they do artistic endeavors.

The young and broke teams have heart, but heart doesn't win games (despite what Hollywood movies say). But simply dumping a bunch of money at the system in order to buy up all the "best players" doesn't win games either. Winning games is a crazy balance between owner ability, coach skill, scout perceptiveness, team leader empathy, teamwork + skill of the frontrunners, and depth of the bench. If all those pieces fit together in the right way, you've got yourself a winning team.

Money is what fuels the system, but its absence or abundance isn't what makes a winning team. It's how long that balance can be maintained that makes a winning team. As the fuel, money can and sometimes does upset the balance. But so can ego (Lucas, Molyneux, etc) and any number of other things.

 

[Flanged]

Art from adversity? This is news?

 

[Explorerbc]

I'm sure there are hundreds of other companies that were in deep trouble and made shit in the end which resulted in their closure.

Some of them while being under pressure decide to take risky decisions and try to be innovative, and when that succeeds they try to capitalize on it and end up doing worse in terms of quality. But it is not a universal rule, there are various different examples in the industry.

 

[Excommunicator]

It's not about money, but trust a financial analyst to see it that way.

As others have said in various ways, it's about perspective or "being grounded". Money is one scarce resource among many that reminds people that the project must come before the designer. Ego must be reigned in. When the designer puts themselves first, they allow the project to be neglected. Time, money, design objectives, company philosophies, personal obligations, strictures of the vision, audience expectations, cultural sensitivities and of course ego... these are all things that contribute to the limitations of that working environment. The reason why they're so fundamental in the success of projects is because designers never teach themselves the skills of managing these things from the start. They rely on the outside limitations to prompt them how and when X must be reigned in due to Y. If a designer disciplines themselves from the start, long before those limitations come into play then they will be able to keep a rein on things even when those hard limitations (such as money) are no longer an issue.

One last point to be made is that any designer out there who is more motivated by money than by the desire to simply create is and never will be a truly good designer. They might succeed every now and then due to being opportunists who know when and how to strike, but their design abilities are probably way below what people attribute to them.

 

[mastroego]

So many variables dictate the fortunes of misfortunes of any business. Only a small fraction is actually under our effective control.
It there's ONE thing I've learned through my own working experience, it's this one.

So, I can only judge a paradigm.
For instance, EA has a "commercially immoral" business paradigm, which borders on pure scamming.
Scamming the gamers is what they actually intend to do.
Most of their games will be shit, some won't, despite everything (e.g. Mirror's Edge).
Their paradigm remains shitty though.

 

[sser]

Believe it or not, this is actually quite common in the writing industry. You probably don't realize it because most books you see on the shelves are those that "stuck", but publishers throw fistfuls of money at all kinds of authors looking for the next big thing. Writers, suddenly awash in cash, find their creative impulses numbed. The quality of their work (if there was any to begin with) and/or the productivity of their day-to-day writing takes a nosedive. They burn out. They release another book or two which is unequivocal shit, and then the publishers bail and you never see that author ever again.

Kingdoms of Amalur, IMO, is one of the best examples of too much money torpedoing a game. They paid millions out to old industry guys just to come up with "creative" fantasy fluff, ended up with generic fluff, and a large red line on their finances. Instead, they could have given the work to hungry as fuck interns or one of the gajillion writers bouncing around the interwebs, and then given the artwork to one of the gajillion great concept artists just as well, and they would have not only paid 99% less money, they would have undoubtedly had a unique and interesting result instead.

 

[nomask7]

Believe it or not, this is actually quite common in the writing industry. You probably don't realize it because most books you see on the shelves are those that "stuck", but publishers throw fistfuls of money at all kinds of authors looking for the next big thing. Writers, suddenly awash in cash, find their creative impulses numbed. The quality of their work (if there was any to begin with) and/or the productivity of their day-to-day writing takes a nosedive. They burn out. They release another book or two which is unequivocal shit, and then the publishers bail and you never see that author ever again.

Writing is pretty hard work. Once you've used up your ideas, who can blame you if you start having trouble performing? Especially with a deadline ticking like a time bomb. Nothing to do with money.

In music, great composers tended to become better or remain as good as they became older, more established, and more experienced. I don't perceive a relationship involving quality and money.

Do game designers even get to design anything these days? From what I gather, it's more like someone above them says they want a certain kind of game with certain features and certain kind of content and story and so on, and then the designers start from there. They seem to get more freedom in expansion packs in some cases (MotB, HotU, SoZ, SI), hence the higher quality there?

Do game designers ever become rich unless they have their own company? I think they're all pretty much trying to stay relevant for as long as they can, but that usually means doing what someone else wants them to do.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Believe it or not, this is actually quite common in the writing industry. You probably don't realize it because most books you see on the shelves are those that "stuck", but publishers throw fistfuls of money at all kinds of authors looking for the next big thing. Writers, suddenly awash in cash, find their creative impulses numbed. The quality of their work (if there was any to begin with) and/or the productivity of their day-to-day writing takes a nosedive. They burn out. They release another book or two which is unequivocal shit, and then the publishers bail and you never see that author ever again.

That's why many best-selling authors are mostly busy with developing and maintaining their brand, while a dozen nameless guys actually write their novels. Much like in academia.

 

[nomask7]

That's why many best-selling authors are mostly busy with developing and maintaining their brand, while a dozen nameless guys actually write their novels. Much like in academia.

Jesus... How many capitalism fanboy nonsense wizards does this thread need? Has either of you even written a book or are you just too rich and successful?

Just the logic in your argument is completely zany. A small advance deal handed out to nobodies does not equal "awash in cash (sic)", unless by "awash in cash (sic)" you mean these writers can now suddenly buy food instead of gathering it from garbage cans behind supermarkets.

Seriously though, I've been trolled, right? This thread could not have all this bullshit in it as a natural occurrence. Who is it? Who masterminded this thread? Is it you, jcd?

 

[Sykar]

Plenty of games are good to great without having a AAA budget. OP fails.

 

[adrix89]

The problem with AAA development is that everyone is incompetent monkeys who have no idea what they are doing or on what planet they are from.
It's not even about motivation since I'm sure plenty of shareholders are breathing down their neck and the managers down the developers.

As for guys who got filthy reach for some reason and are masturbating with their IP, yes they are pretty much out of creativity, they are probably too lazy and complicit.
What they could have done if they weren't stupid is use that pile of cash to fund how many projects they wanted and also free the IP.