Game Development: Does bigger mean better for gaming?
By Ricky Lau
Yoosk Journalist
Today’s blockbuster games are demanding bigger teams and longer development times as technology becomes more powerful, allowing increasingly sophisticated graphics and interaction.
Making games often requires external investment from publishers to finance game development. For an average game, development costs can range from $12 million to $20 million.
Such games were previewed at the London Games Festival 2007. Many were franchises which critics have frowned upon for their lack of creativity and narrow appeal to the stereotypical teenage male gamer.
Rise of the franchise
Sales figures for the top 10 computer games in the UK chart in November show eight out of ten games were based on sequels or “licensed” property, games that source their inspiration from other creative mediums like movies, novels or comics.
A crowd-sourced interview fielded questions from the online Yoosk community, MTyrrell asks about the degree in which financial pressures stifle creativity to Matt Verran, a games programmer. He responded: “With big budgets I expect it becomes more important to manage risk and so doing something that hasn't been tested in the market could be seen as a big risk.”
Sequels can be cheaper to create than new games by having the previous game to build upon rather than starting anew. Technology, game assets and experience can be passed on to the next iteration to shorten development time and costs.
Easy to promote
With the cost of games as high as it is, publishers are becoming more conservative than ever, which has hampered the nurturing of original games and ideas.
Sequels and spin-offs are to some extent easier to market too, as they already have a following. Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy is 9th in the November charts; an intellectual property that is over 20 years old, games that feature Mario appear every year and Mario has appeared in over 200 games since 1981.
“I do think publishers realise that they need some amount of differentiation on their products though, the important thing for them is that they are able to market the game effectively, so having something to compare it to helps them,” added Mr Verran.
The publisher is one of the major stakeholders in games, financing a significant portion of the project and inevitably has a large influence on the final product. The creative control is slipping from developers because of the payment structure and pressure of getting the funds on time.
“Typically [the developers] are required to achieve certain ‘milestones’ through the life of the project and these milestones are tied to [developer’s] payments. This can leave little time for… redesigning when something doesn't work as expected,” describes Matt Verran.
Digitally delivered
The major console manufacturers have responded to escalating development costs by introducing digital distribution channels to lower the barrier of entry for making games on their platforms.
By cutting out the “middle men” and offering better margins than traditional retail, it is an attempt to open up to a wider development community and encouraging new game ideas to flourish in a low risk environment.
A Yoosk contributor asks about the differences in making games for digital distribution compared to the previously mentioned traditional retail route, Matt Verran explains: “...typically [downloadable games] are self funded by the developer rather than beholden to a publisher milestone system. This is because of the nature of the developers involved and because the smaller budgets mean you don’t need a publisher until the game is finished, or even at all.”
The cost of making downloadable games on one of these digital distribution channels at present range from $100,000 to $300,000. Although perhaps out of the reach of an individual, it is much more feasible for a small company and significantly less than is required to make a disc-based game sold in retail channels.
Opportunities
Other new avenues for gaming companies such as mobile phones have created more prospects for inexpensive and “casual” games, which are easy to understand and play.
There will always be a demand for blockbuster titles. Consumers expect to be able to experience ‘next generation’ games to justify the money spent money on the current crop of home consoles.
Smaller developers may struggle to meet these expectations but new ways to buy and play games is opening up innovative methods of funding, allowing more creative freedom with less financial constraints.