How rising dev costs are killing AAA gaming - Computer Games ...

Harry Potter is huge and a very expensive project, but it was directed by one director, written by one screenwriter and based on a book written by one writer. Not a department of fifty people, directed by a board of executives, sitting behind the screenwriter and telling him what to do. If it was a game, it would never get made and J.K.Rowling could never keep the rights for the title if she was a game designer. She would be replaced with somebody less stubborn and cheaper for the sequel at the first opportunity and the sequel would be utter crap.

THE AMAZING STORY OF STEVE AND JOHN, THE EXECUTIVES

This is how the gaming industry works: One beautiful morning, shareholders of the company wake up and when they turn on their TVs, they see a report on CNN, that the new Call of Duty game is the ?best selling shit evah?. They all call the CEO of their company ? Steve ? a former CEO of a famous shoe maker and ask: ?How is it possible, that we don?t have our own super successful FPS franchise? You don?t want to go back to the shoe industry Steve, do you? And by the way, what does FPS mean??

Steve is pissed off and calls his director of development: ?Hey John we need to release a Call of Duty killer next year. Make me one, buy me one... I don?t know... Do something and do it quick. Here is three hundred million; that should be enough. It can?t go wrong if we throw that much money at it.?

John who never plays games, because he says he needs to keep distance, to make the right decisions, asks his assistant, who is the only person in the building with some understanding of games: ?Hey Bill, we are going to make a Call of Duty killa, any ideas?? Bill has some ideas, he knows some people who pitched their FPS games to the company (unsuccessfully), so he starts to negotiate with them.

In the meantime, John decides that he should try to play this game they are going to copy. His other assistant installs it on his PC and John starts to play the tutorial. ?Damn! This game is so complicated, that even such a clever person like me can?t get into it! And why the hell am I not killing anyone after five minutes? This is supposed to be a shooter, isn?t it? I bet that if they made it more accessible, they would sell a few hundred million more copies... Damn, I?m smart. That?s a brilliant idea! Now let?s get back to online poker.?

In the meantime, Bill convinces one of the best FPS studios with the famous designer Tom to work on the game. They pitch their project to John. He plays Angry Birds during the presentation and has a speech at the end: ?Great job guys, I know you put a lot of effort into it, but we here want to make something special, and we know how to make something special. I was a producer of Lord of the Kings. It was utter crap, but I told them how to fix it and it sold like crazy. I saved it. So let me tell you my genius idea. Those other games are too complicated. Our game is about shooting. We don?t need the other boring stuff like reloading. I want the game to be accessible by anyone, even my grandma. I want my grandma to experience the best shooting she ever had!?

The team looks stunned. Tom tries to raise few questions, but John silences him: ?Man, you have to trust me. Those guys at Lord of the Kings also had doubts, but I know what I am doing. That?s instinct. And BTW, we need to ship in 11 months, that?s the end of our fiscal year. So hurry up, we don?t have much time!?

After the crushed developers are gone, John gets little bit nervous. ?You know Bill, that Tom guy... I don?t really like him that much. Is he really that good?? ?Yes boss, he is the best we could get. He did BOOM. It sold 30 million copies. People love him.? ?Well, that doesn?t make him special. Lord of the Kings sold 40 and I also worked on that other game with balls... what was it called? It sold 30 as well. I have instinct, and it tells me that I don?t trust this guy. What if he screws up?? ?But boss, their ideas are brilliant. You just heard it.? ?Yeah I heard it... more or less.... But we need to make sure that he doesn?t screw up. We will put somebody on his ass. Hire some producer... I have friend at Pepsi who is bored, call him... and what about the story?? ?They have their own writer. He was nominated for a BAFTA two times.? ?BAFTA what? We can?t make Call of Duty killa with some nerd. Hire someone from Hollywood! No. Hire two. Two is better than one. And I want to make sure, that the game mechanics for shooting are gonna be great. We need a shooting director for my game.? ?Yes boss.? ?And you know what? We need to look like we really mean it. Shareholders like that. Are those idiots who were just here really good?? ?Yes boss.? ?Ok, so let?s buy them. That will look cool. And that idiot who thinks his ideas are better than mine will shut up for a while.?

The results are obvious. You have a task for one person, but because somebody is unable to take personal responsibility, you have several people to do that task, because it feels safe. It?s not safe. In fact it?s disastrous. Most of the time, those people will be fighting each other, duplicating their work and protecting their asses. They will hardly produce anything special or try something risky. The fact, that very often, their assignment will change, just because John or Steve changed their minds, which is happening all the time and usually scratches all progress that was made, is also not very helpful. After some time, most talented people leave and all you have is an empty shell of a once famous company and hyper expensive rip-off of some other game. At the end, when the project fails, no one is personally responsible. It failed ?because the market is changing? or the team ?wasn?t good enough?. So the team is laid off and Steve and John are perfectly safe. If it?s successful for some miraculous reason, and against all Steve?s and John?s ?great ideas? and experiments, Steve and John get all the glory (and Ferraris and blow jobs) and the team is restructured (laid off) anyway.

Source: http://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/13729-how-rising-dev-costs-are-killing-aaa-gaming/

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