Editorial Troika dev diary part 4 on RPG Vault

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil

<b>Steve Craig</b> of <A href="http://www.troikagames.com">Troika</a> has written up a <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/427/427877p1.html">dev diary</a> for <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/">RPG Vault</a> covering some stuff about his work on <A href="Http://www.greyhawkgame.com">Temple of Elemental Evil</a> as well as the industry itself:
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<blockquote>A friend once told me "The video game industry is a great way to make a small fortune... from a much larger one." Very few games actually turn a profit. The reasons for this are fairly simple; when games take 20 to 40 hours to complete, there is a limit to the number of games the average consumer can buy. Everyone tends to buy the same games, so the few games at the top of the chain that do sell make vast quantities of money, enough to fund the rest. (This is called a 'vertical market' by the marketing types). </blockquote>
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It doesn't help matters when those same marketing types kind of enforce that everyone make the same games, you know.
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Spotted this at <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</a>.

 

[Psilon]

Minor correction: it's Sean Craig according to the diary.

As for marketing idiots, look at Hollywood. Matrix does well, every subsequent action film steals the 360-degree shot. Marketing types believe in the word of "Bob": "Too much is always better than not enough."

 

[Whipporowill]

Heh. It's Steve Moret and Sean Craig, not the other way around Saint. I thought you knew your Troikans by heart. Shame on you for not doing your homework...

Also, anyone hazard to guess what company Sean is referring to? According to troikagames.com he worked at 3DO. Heh.

 

[EEVIAC]

Other than being a little pesimistic, I agree with most of the article. All forms of media go through stages where tycoons/barons/moguls come in with lots of money, hoping to make even more money. And they usually fail, they can afford to. I've been playing games since 1984, I've seen a lot of the tricks and fads - (I remember reading a ZZAP64 review of a game that spent a few paragraphs lauding over the splash screens in the game) - but I think a lot of the people that are pushing for cinematic gaming as opposed to interactive gaming think that the big bang occured with GTA III. Vin Diesel even has his own gaming company now.

My point is that eventually the bosses lose money and write off their debts and leave the medium to its grognard fanatics.

 

[Psilon]

I dunno, Wing Commander III really sparked an FMV craze. IV was definitely more cinematic than interactive.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Heh. It's Steve Moret and Sean Craig, not the other way around Saint. I thought you knew your Troikans by heart. Shame on you for not doing your homework...

Actually, I was half asleep when I wrote that.

 

[EEVIAC]

I dunno, Wing Commander III really sparked an FMV craze. IV was definitely more cinematic than interactive.

I meant that GTA III helped establish gaming as cool - even though the gameplay was defined 15 years earlier in the 1987 release Pirates!. I expect to see a lot more games that borrow GTA III's cinematic storytelling style than open-ended gameplay dynamic. Mafia was spoiled for me just because it was so story orientated. Had the game been more open, with the ability to organize gangs, buy cat-houses, intimidate business owners, etc - the game would have been far better and would have lasted longer on my hard disk.