Now, to talk more about game design stuff that I learned at school. This is where things get really convoluted. Most everyone (including I) have had this romantic notion of video game design. That is, you think of a game, hire the employees necessary to make it, and then copied are distributed worldwide and you all walk away $800 million richer. No, it's much more complicated than that.
What's the number one thing that sells a game? MARKETABILITY!!!!!
If you want a major publisher to market your game for you, it begins with the pitch. The "best game idea" doesn't always get selected. It's all about creating that illusion of "fun" for the previewers. Get your hands on some great pitchmen & laser shows and sell that game to the guys. Find ways to inspire the audience. For instance, games like Super Mario Bros. or The Sims sound boring on paper (play a fat plumber/go to the bathroom 4 times a day) but you need to flex your creative muscles in order to sell a reasonable product. In general, the best games are the ones that are the easiest to pitch and are most likely to produce sequels/spinoffs (easy to reproduce success).
Then again, I'll never know how the hell this game got past the producers.
Okay, so now we assume that the game has been green-lighted and production is under away. Hire your 100+ employee team and start plugging away at this! This is where marketing REALLY hits home. Up until the official release date, publishers are finding ways to pique the public's interest in the game via screenshots, videos, interviews, demos, etc. released in timely intervals. Interest is measured from numerous variables including stats from Game Journalists (GameSpot, IGN, GameSpy) and discussion topics on message boards (GameFAQs and NeoGAF). Sometimes, devs will even post in these forums with the sole purpose of stirring game interest or garnering public opinion.
DO NOT DOUBT FOR A SECOND THAT GAME DEVS DON'T DO THIS. THEY MAY BE EAVESDROPPING ON YOU OR ME AS WE SPEAK!!!!
With consumer interest at its max point by release date, the game will go on to sell the most possible copies. Now this is something that I loathe but is apparently a big f'n deal in the industry: DO NOT DELAY OR PUT OFF THE RELEASE DATE! The schedule that the publishers have in place "guarantees" max sales at a given release date. To push it later would get rid of some that interest that you've worked to build up thus far. This means less copies sold (as well as more money to pay employees). So sadly that's how the big game devs work--release the game half-finished, patch it later, but sell lots of copies anyway.
This brings me to my next point. Let's take a look at the most wanted games of the Christmas 2011 season. Modern Warfare, Gears of War, Madden, Assassin's Creed, Batman, Zelda, etc. Now, to tell you the truth, these games are going to sell lots and lots of copies. Modern Warfare 3 will probably sell more than 7 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, a record set by Black Ops a year ago.
And certainly, upon the game's release, the bitching and whining will begin. You can almost see it a mile away--people buy Modern Warfare 3, love it, then all the glitches, game exploits, and "lack of skill" come through and then everyone hates the game.
This is the public's opinion of the game in a span of three months. So people don't like Modern Warfare 3...so what? Does Activision really care? You've already bought the game so what does it really matter? And odds are you'll go on to buy that expensive DLC no matter how "lousy" it is. Even worse, you may be charged more money upon the game's release...see Gears of War 3's Season Pass.
EDIT: I know it's late but here's three fun Reddit pics I found:
EDIT: I know it's late but here's three fun Reddit pics I found:
DLC is fun.
You don't just get the game in one piece, you get it in a million pieces...
You don't just get the game in one piece, you get it in a million pieces...
As a matter of fact, you can defy the whole game design process with a single good marketing scheme. I know I'll touch a nerve here, but games like Homefront, Duke Nukem Forever, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), all mediocre games that sold a lot anyway because they had name recognition or were in the limelight. So remember, marketing is a BIG DEAL these days.
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Okay, I'm making it look like members of the mainstream gaming industry are greedy a-holes who take no pride in their work. That's not true. But this is part of the reason why we get unbalanced or flawed games--because there's little to no incentive to go back and correct things when they're already out on the marketplace. Hey Treyarch, are you going to go back and patch up some of Black Ops' flaws just before Modern Warfare 3 is released? No, because Black Ops means nothing now anymore--it's in the past, no one cares, it's vestigial...
Also, see the Cracked.com article on flaws in the game industry, particularly the part about creative bankruptcy. Why get creative and bust their asses on something really convoluted when a straightforward FPS/shmup/platformer will sell just as much? Taking chances doesn't pay off as much as it did in the past.
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Now one more peculiar topic. We're on the subject of MMORPG's--World of Warcraft the most glaring example. Now MMO's are a different animal altogether since you have to keep the game good in the long-term in order to keep subscriber sales up. So that's well and good, right? But MMO servers are shut down all the time. NOT FAIR, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE ITEMS I WORKED FOR OVER ALL THESE YEARS??? Read the Terms of Use under "No Ownership Rights in Account":
In other words, all the stuff you "own" in the game you're just borrowing from Blizzard. The day they close the servers, you can't sue them for anything because you never owned any of that stuff in the first place. It's brutal, but it's right there in permanent ink. Big servers cost a hell of a lot of money to run anyway so it's a given that they'll pull the plug on the game some day. When the game ceases to be profitable, then Blizzard will move on with it...
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Okay, enough of this discussion, it's depressing. Hey, they are providing a service for many people so they deserve what they get paid. I'm not begrudging anyone here. Although I am turned off by many mainstream games nowadays because of their lack of ingenuity....kind of like a processed vegetable that is available for anyone to eat but has lost all of its nutritional value.
EDIT: Let me reiterate a bit. Not every big-name title is bad. Some are actually good and wholesome--everyone rallies around the game's icon (Nintendo games like Mario & Zelda come to mind). But the trend nowadays is if you pump enough money into marketing & production values, that means the game is somehow "better." I don't always agree with this. They say that money can't buy happiness, therefore, money can't buy games that can buy happiness, mirite? Or is this a logic FAIL?
Like I said before, it would be nice to flex your creative muscles and work on whatever games you want, but it's not that easy anymore. As a matter of fact, in the never-ending debate in which games are or are not art, I say that games err toward NOT art. Why?
Take a look at things that are labeled "art." Paintings, sculpture, music, poetry, literature, plays, etc. These are things that one or a handful of people have worked on. They would create these things to express themselves, to feel good, not to "sell out" or become rich.
Now let's take a look at movies/film/cinema, etc. Now that's a beautiful medium. We've had great movies that you could call "art" such as Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Godfather, etc. But would you say that ALL moves are art? Like would you label films such as Epic Movie and White Chicks as art??? Like games, movies have cashed in for a long time...some good, some bad, but only a handful are truly memorable over the years.
Alright, now how about our beloved video games. Well, stepping through the production process, the whole game is filtered through the minds of so many individuals...the producers, the artists, the programmers, the publishers, that it's no longer any one person's "baby"--it's just this massive abomination that many people have their fingerprints on (the more employees, the worse it gets). Then it's sold to millions of people for $60 a pop. Is that how art works? I thought art was about observing in a museum or listening to in a theatre, not paying lots of money to run home and blow up all sorts of crap on your TV (and curse out little kids thousands of miles away). And then when the game's run its course, you lose the CD or sell it to GameStop for $2. Yeah, so much for "art appreciation."
This is not to say art has never been monetized or that all games are not art. But with the way that games are so consumerized I tend to think it's arrogant that gamers are so quick to label every game as a piece of art.
Kind of sucks that you can't make a game just for "yourself." Something you can say is your own "baby." Things that I worked on alone such as Counter-Strike maps and Forza 3 cars...things I can say are "mine"--that I did to entertain myself and anyone else interested. Or not even just yourself--maybe you and some good friends or a team you know very well. That's what I thinking about. But with the resurgence of the indie game market (miniscule game studios making games like Angry Birds, Minecraft, Super Meat Boy), I think aspiring game devs have a bit of freedom to defy the traditional rules of corporate game design. Just don't expect to make any super-huge 3D games unless you have connections with a damn good producer/publisher.
...sooo, "JUST WIN, BABY!!!" Al Davis, 82 years old.
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