The bullshit of the video game industry
Justifying On Disc DLC - Cliff Bleszinski
Online DRM - Blizzard (Diablo 3)
Bullshit in Sheeps Clothing - Online Passes, DRM under the guise of Limited edition/MMO
Breaking the Bones of the Business - Taking microtransactions from free to play games, and using it for triple A bull shit.
-
Shoddy practices:
SQUARE ENIX
ACTIVISION
Ubisoft
EA
Warner Brothers (also responsible for giving MERP a Cease and Desist, was going to be a great LOTR mod created by fans for free)
Consoles:
NEW GENERATION, SAME BULLSHIT
PlayStation VITA
Xbox One out of Ten (AKA Xbone)
The Death of Ownership
THE SOLUTIONS:
DAMN FINE COFFEE ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT YOU CAN AVOID
PERFECT PASTA SAUCE A GOOD THEORY THAT APPLIES TO VIDEOS GAMES
DARK SOULS AND DARK SALES PLAN A BUDGET WISELY BY KNOWING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
My take:
What the video game industry needs, is someone willing to take responsibility for a games artistic direction and putting your foot down & saying no to bad ideas that don't mesh with creative leads vision, and getting to the heart of the matter of which gameplay elements work well together through having a devoted set of play testers. The games lead designer should have the final say (and he alone, no publisher telling what can and can't be in the game..). A lead designer should be involved with the writing and the actual testing of the game.
Play Testing
Publishers should make money & expect to, but they don't really know anything about games as evidenced by the continuing fuck ups mentioned in the video links above. The only thing publishers know is what people tell them, using focus groups only lead to generic games with mediocre sales.
The only assurance that publishers should get, is the resume of the lead designer (if hes made good games in the past, that sold decently, it doesn't have to be millions of copies, but 200 thousand is pretty decent profit when combined with a small budget!). The rest of the great designers will come from those publishers who are willing to take risks.
Publishing
EC Fund
Some the best entrepreneurs of other industries, are those that take riskier ventures that seem to be great ideas, because the entrepreneur has experience in advertising (so that it's strengths are focused on) and know alot of people in the industry to make sure it gets in stores.
In other industries trial test is a cheap yet effective strategy, by having a small number of it on sale can be used to show the manager of a store (and by extension the entrepreneur) that it can sell. With video games that would be beta testing & with easy way for people show their satisfaction & feedback (alpha funding proves invaluable for Indie development teams, micro-transaction proves a lucrative business model, Kickstarter shows that donation perks and milestones are great incentives for customers).
Crowdfunding
Microtransaction
Starting a game is only really necessary if you a general idea whats it's about, it doesn't have to be anything detailed.
Pre-Production
How To Start Your Game Narrative
Word Choice
Depth and Complexity
Gamasutra is a site you should read regularly, as it gives lots of advice and indepth view into game design, also I find Yahtzee's column to be very informative on good game ideas and some theories he's had on what aspects of a game there are.
Like the 3 different kinds of elements that makes up a game (a way to put into formula, why people play games): Context Challenge and Gratification and the follow up article Why Easy Games Fail Yahtzee's Game Theory
My Take on Game Theory:
I pretty much agree with the Game Theory. The only real exception to easy games failing at being a good game & how important challenge is to making all the elements work, is when it comes to self improvement. You know like exercise? where you can't fail, you simply do it to improve yourself. The only way to fail is to not meet your own expectations,
ie self imposed limitations. That's really hard to put into a game because it requires no real objectives and many tools for creativity, where your essentially left up to your own devices to create or do whatever it is you want or good at. Plan your own projects ect
Minecraft for instance, but even it has higher difficulty levels like survival, hardcore mode.
For those who believe that self imposed restrictions are not enough for a good game or just don't "get it". Sims is also like that.
Stories:
