Company News David Allen bitchi...err, talking about game industry

Tags: Pharaoh Productons

<a href=http://www.warcry.com>WarCry</a> got an opportunity to <a href=http://www.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_sectionalt.phtml?site=15&id=102&colid=2760>talk</a> to <b>David Allen</b> of <a href=http://www.pharaoh-productions.com>Pharaoh Productions</a> about game development industry. Just to remind you, David decided to leave the industry. His reasons could be found <a href=http://www.pharaoh-productions.com/eulogy.html>here</a>
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<blockquote>Most developers are funded by publishers; VERY few are funded by angel groups. The problem starts with the publishers - they are greedy and controlling, and worst of all, they want to do as little work as possible for their huge take of profits. This filters down to the developers who are forced to work hours that are borderline illegal, and required to meet unrealistic milestones. Sleeping bags in cubicles, red bull cans all over the floor. It's ridiculous; and for what? To release sub par products, or copies of previously existing products with a few perks?
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People need to wake up and realize that the industry was originally founded on creativity and innovation paired with technical expertise and vision. Games were designed to offer us a new experience in an alternative 'world' outside of ourselves that we could enjoy. Recent games haven't reflected that at all. Sure there's a few good games out there, but I'd weigh the ration of bad games to good at about 10:1. Welcome to Hollywood!</blockquote>World, world never changes...by itself. It has always been up to individuals to introduce changes and develop them slowly to the point of no return. There are many developers who do their part without blaming everybody for not appreciating their talents.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

Is this the same gimp that was wailing a while ago. Jesus why don't you do something about it. Take out a massive loan or sell a kidney and set up an independant developer/publisher like vogel. Either that or go get your shine box my boots are looking scuffed.

 

I was reading the Vogel interview and his "one game that doesn't sell could put me out of business" comment was pretty scary. Even as an independant developer he's bound somewhat by his own market's expectation. My point being that you're kind of fucked either way.

At least he gets to make the games he wants to make, I guess.

 

So true.
However if he had suceeded he would not talk like that .
He would be too busy with the porche and the 18 year old girlfriend wearing minimal clothes .Welcome to the real world . Where things are tough . Unless daddy had lots of money and a good job waiting for you .
As for the ratio of bad games to good games well this is industry sooting itshelf in the foot.
There are two kinds of people that steal games .
One the people that are too young and have no money.
And the second the ones that are sick and tired of too much hype and too little quality.Those people are adults and could buy games.But they dont.People will only buy a few mega crappy super hyped games like nwn or worse. After that they are either stop bying or the start warezing.
Oh and good copy protection wont help.If the average joe that is sick of buying crap cant break it with two clicks of the mouse then he will not start buying again. No he will do something entirelly different.

And my position ? I am not buying any new game .
I am simply playing Diablo 2 , Alpha Ceuntari and sometimes Arcanum and Fallout.

Because these old games are better than the crap that is out there now.

To even consider buying a new game now i have to see many people in this forum recomending it.

Too much hype has burned me made me a worthless customer in the eye of the game industry.
Oh and i have bought more than 70 shrink wrapped games in my lifetime but i do not think that i will buy a lot more anymore.
Only if something is a real gem only then i will buy it.
Mayby one game per year.

And i do not steal games . Period.

 

Greed indeed, thank you Mr. Smith

So game developers face the same situations and choices that authors and musicians do? I'm shocked. Shocked!

Maybe game devs should unionize. Of course, then US publishers will have their marketing teams create game concepts while the actual coding is done through offshoring.

 

game concepts

you mean like this ?

Huge boobs for female .
Huge guns and muscles for males.

Extreme violence.
As much sexual innuendo as the laws will allow for the certain age group.

A well known license if it does not cost a lot more money.
Or whoring and old game license.

And finally copying the most sucessfull game in the industry even if the last 30 clones of this game have been big flops.(Diablo 2)

Oh yea we have finished with the concept in five minutes now we can outsource the actual coding in India.

Mayby you can outsourse your custumers to India too ?

 

Frankly, I think the guy has a legitimate gripe. Im sure IF he would have been successful, he would not be making such statements. However, news coming out of the industry and current slate of game releases do nothing but support his statements.

 

*sigh*

cb,

Yeah I meant something like that, but without all the obviousness of your post. Sometimes a minimalist approach is taken for a reason.

 

Oooh. Rose-colored nostalgia. How nice.
Its not like that 10:1 ratio hasn't been there since the beginning.

And looking at Demise... my, what amazing creativity and innovation he has. Not to mention that uber technical expertise...
Ah, bitching, it adds so much to life...

 

This guy sounds to me like Visceris with a vocabulary. I bet it won't be long until he decides to make another game, probably with some completely asinine justification that allows him to maintain his flimsy, ill-thought out 'principles' at the same time.

 

I have to agree with Shevek. The only thing that makes his griping laughable is that he's resided over two failed MMORPG projects to date. Yes, publishers are sucking the life energy from the gaming market. I think it'd be hard to say that creativity is under appreciated in the gaming industry. Something comes out, it becomes successful, then every other gaming company starts cloning this game. Because they feel the similarity will drive sales, they don't bother to strive to make it original or even a quality product. The result is that we're offered one quality product and for that, about a dozen crappy knock offs that are no where as good as the original.

 

It's the stupid masses that should be blamed not publishers. Supply n Demand in action, nothing more. It's been a fact for a long time that people want dumbed down games that are easy to play. There's nothing anyone can do about it. Yet there are other ways, Vogel gave us many great games, Zero Sum guys gave us Prelude, Troika gave us Arcanum, etc. So, who needs all that mainstream trash?

 

Unfortunately, it's hard for people to SEE it and clone it when there's no big-hype publisher behind it.

Remember how Interplay and others got stuck in the "RT sells" mentality - because Diablo sold well, and therefore they want to develop in nothing but because they are following the straw man logic. Speaking of which, how about Arcanum and the inclusion of RT because the publisher, Sierra, stipulated that it be in there? Or how about Atari and supporting ToEE, when all it could take is for them to say "Okay" to approve Troika developing further patches for the game on their own, but won't due to the usual publisher bullshit?

So, in essence, yes, publishers are stifling creativity in the gaming industry, and they are also causing the most integral harm to the game industry - requiring that the games be developed with certain features for no other reason than to put them in and regardless of the game's original design and concept.

As for the 10:1, there's always been good and bad releases. In years back, though, was there anything like Daikatana? Or how about the many hyped-up flops in recent years, that got that way NOT through the design or - but the publisher put a shitload of hype behind it. On the point of publishers, he has it right on the money. The fact that he tried to get two MMOGs off the ground with little foundation doesn't help the point.

You've just described nearly all of of the publishers out there. Publishers aren't interested in innovation anymore. They're interested in garbage like Dungeon Shit. Formulaic, trendy, predictable. They're turning what should be art and which started from the love of game creation, and turned it into a lemon-filled version of washing machines. They figure that the games will sell regularly, but then don't bother to support them well enough and that gets the consumer pissed. Then there's the hope that others would learn from Interplay's demise, but that is really a foolish hope.

 

The videogames industry does lack creativity, mainly because publishers don't have the balls to try anything new. "If it sells good then keep making more of it." What was once a vision of creativity and passion is now a industry full of lies and clones. Shit clones.

Sure you can say the game industry isn't the only industry which has it's problems but do roadrunner records tell 36 crazy fists it's music is to loud? Do they tell Christina Aguilera her songs are too related to sex? Fuck no.

Publishers piss me off.

 

Is this about RPG's or gaming in general? 'Cause theres been alot of kick ass titles coming out lately, even from largest publishers.

 

Subversive Outsiders, Volume 1: Christina Aguilera

I seem to recall Christina Aguilera's music not being sexy enough until the suits stepped in to help her develop an image more appealing to her target demographic. As for 36 Crazy Fists, I've always wished that some label would give a bunch of emotional young men a chance to voice their disaffection through loud, angst-laden nu metal and I think it's sad that Roadrunner Records was the only one with the balls to do it.

 

ET! ET! ET! Gooo Team!

ET has got to be the Daikatana of the 1980s. I've read a lot about the 80s game boom and bust (recommended reading: David Sheff's Game Over (either edition), Steven Levy's Hackers), and since last year I've been counting the months until another Atari-style video game market crash. I predict it will be when the new wave of consoles comes out. As much as I don't like the bitching and whining, I think this guy has it right.

 

Re: ET! ET! ET! Gooo Team!

Dear god, you have it right on the money in terms of shit quality, but in terms of hype, not even close. ET was simply a shit game. It defined shit console game before most modern console gamers were born. When it comes to bitching, you're preaching to the choir. I remember a few usenet discussions about the subject. Not pretty at all.

Daikatana was a good example of a shit game that was overhyped and overfunded. It truly is a good example of problems in the industry.

 

Frankly, I think this guy bitches too much.

But to the point - creativity still exists to a great degree in the gaming industry, or people like Peter Molyneux, Will Wright and Sid Meier wouldn't be the leaders in the business. It'd be completely true to say that before The Sims came out, there was no game like it, and it's still selling like hot cakes. The same can apply to other original games like Black & White, and Medieval: Total War, and games which innovated the genres they belong to like Rise of Nations and Homeworld.

Granted, there's a shit boat full of sub-par and half-baked clones of the various successful games that aren't making it anywhere at all. Based on the sheer number of horrible games which exist in the market, I'd hardly call it a fair assessment to say that the gaming industry is in a 'poor state', as our David Allen would have people believe. Saying such would be no different than making a statement like "the movie industry is in the shitter" due to the sheer number of b-movies and straight-to-video releases that outnumber actual theatrical releases, or "the music industry is in the shitter" based on the number of unsold records and (deservedly) unsigned bands, which suck, on mp3.com.

Heh, on a more basic level it'd be like saying 'good looking people dont exist' based on the number of fat people you saw at McDonalds the other day.

This guy has to face the facts: the games that he was working on (Mythica and that other half-baked mmorpg) were going straight into the shitter. There was absolutely nothing innovative about either of those titles that weren't already featured in any other mmorpg. How does he expect anyone to 'appreciate' his creavity if all of his creativity amounts to stuff that other people have already come up with? It's like adding a tiny new rule to chess and calling it by a completely new name and getting pissed off that nobody finds it worth quitting chess for.

Bottom line: the guy's just a sore loser who's trying to find a scapegoat for his own lack of talent. You don't hear Sid Meier whinging about the industry, do you?

 

I find it utterly bizarre how you guys cannot get a *single* fact right about the games he worked on.

 

I deleted my post once I figured out he only made the original version of the game I was talking about.

 

initial observation... a statement of the obvious:

the fact that good games does exist is, at the very least, prima facia evidence that it ain't impossible for a developer to build a good game.

that should be pretty much the end of debate, no? fact that the game development landscape is akin to hobbes state o' nature simply means that the tougher, smarter, and more talented developers will be the ones who survive... so we guess that explains why david allen is where he is.

complaining ‘bout greedy publishers is pointless. the cost of publishing games is significant, and the capital required to publish and distribute a game is beyond the means of most independent developers. can you believe that those damnable publishers actually want to see a return on their investment? those bastards actually want a say in how their money is spent?

anybody got a notions ‘bout the capital an unknown writer needs to “develop” a book? 3 years worth of top ramen, mountain dew and rent for some apartment that would make a native of calcutta weep… is gonna set a guy back how much? if a writer wants to create art, he can write a novel… spend a decade writing, and then spend another decade trying to find a publisher who will not mess with his vision. the aspiring author can work part-time at a gas station or motel or some other place with night hours and lots o’ down time… even better, he can get a teaching job. spend 20 years like norman mcclean writing “a river runs though it.”

now how ‘bout a computer game developer? what kinda development costs is you looking at? can you take ten years to get it right? what kinda leverage do you got with publishers? maybe develop a game while you is working towards your doctorate and teaching your advisor’s undergrad classes? how ridiculous is the notion of a game becoming popular years after the developer’s death? can one guy even make a game? probably needs at least a handful of folks, right?

also, and let us be honest ‘bout this, games is a rather frivolous form o’ entertainment, and if they ain’t fun, then they is pretty much a failure.

somebody who gets into game development with the notion that they is gonna be able to create art w/o having to be concerned ‘bout publishers desires for commercial viability is too dumb to be worth Gromnir’s time.

furthermore, even if we does compare to lit, we can name any number of authors whose works of lit that has been critically acclaimed AND great sellers. Faulkner, and London, and Marquez, and Updike and Vonnegut had their books on best sellers lists… and unlike many authors, their fame has waned but little over the years.

is game development a tough racket? sure it is, but is not like a game developer gets halfway through a project only to suddenly discover that publishers want a game to be commercially viable and available by Christmas. can’t claim that they was tricked into making games for those Evil Publisher w/o knowing obstacles. furthermore, the notion that publishers and the industry makes too difficult to produce commercially viable and popular products is just a cop out to explain away incompetence. the fact that good games does exist is, at the very least, prima facia evidence that it ain't impossible for a developer to build a good game.

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please try to recalls the comments you has made in this thread when a developer you likes makes comments similar to david allen’s.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Games do suck and are largely utterly derivative now a-days. I'll take the gameplay I got from my 486 days any time.

 

Are you so sure that before The Sims there was no game like it?

And Black & White was basically derivatives of a lot of Moleneux's other titles. It might have been the first game where he combined them all like that, but it wasn't as original as Populous, Creatures, or Dungeon Keeper were.

For every one of those, barring B&W which I've covered, how many Starcraft clones were there? Or C&C clones?

Horizons and Dominion, I believe.

Why should he? He's been basically resting on his name since the release of Civilization. Brian Reynolds has been the man behind all his works since then.

 

Like you said, Gromnir, the comments are merely stating the obvious. What makes Allen different from many other developers is that he decided to quit blaming the industry for not making it easy.