BETA | ROUNDTABLE // DEVELOP LEGENDS
“We might start to realise what that gatekeeper sanity check – which was often unwelcome from publishers – was really for and that sometimes it was useful.”
HOBBY CRAFT
Ninja Theory’s Nina Kristensen says Journey (above) is a prime example of a new development sector that is emerging: independent triple-A
Below, left to right: Our cover stars with their original front page appearances – Karl Jeffery of Climax, former Kuju CEO Ian Baverstock, Nina Theory’s Nina Kristensen, Jonathan Smith of TT Games, Marvelous AQL’s Harry Holmwood and Frontier Developments founder David Braben
scale,” she explains, offering seminal PSN title Journey as an example. “Instead of trying to make a game with shooting, fighting, traversal, vehicles and everything that’s popular, these titles just focus on one specific thing. They’re much shorter games and cheaper to make. And their break-even units is around 250,000, so you don’t have to sell much to start making decent money and you can focus on a very specific audience. I think that’s really exciting.” The growth of this space has partially been afforded by the new sources of funding that have appeared since 2000, most notably the recent boom in crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. With these in place, developers aren’t beholden to the publishers – or “gatekeepers”, as one expert put it – that controlled whether or not projects were funded ten years ago. However, Marvelous AQL Europe CEO Harry Holmwood warns that there is a downside to this: “These new funders are starting to realise just how risky games development is – it’s something we’re starting to see with Kickstarter. A lot of the skill in running a games publisher is knowing when to stop a project, because the magic doesn’t always happen – no matter how good the team is.
Holmwood adds that a lot of the indies and new studios we see aren’t interested in games development purely from a business perspective. Instead, unlike 14 years ago, they’re able to afford to do it for more personal reasons. “It’s like anything that straddles pleasure and work, that people would do for fun if they weren’t getting paid for it,” he says. “There will always be people wanting to make games even if they’re not making money out of it.
The industry has changed in positive
ways for developers. It’s publishers for whom the changes have gone the wrong way. David Braben, Frontier
“Look at musicians: anyone can go out and buy a guitar, but they’re not all Noel Gallagher. But a lot of people are making music, playing gigs in pubs. They’re not going to hit the big time, they do it as a hobby. We might see more of a return to games development as a hobby.” TT Games’ head of production Jonathan
Smith agrees: “The tools and the channels of communication for sharing knowledge have evolved so you can now develop games without the massive financial outlay or the investment of becoming a business.” Holmwood adds: “It’s incredible that you now have Unreal Engine, CryEngine and all
these other tools available for practically nothing. Even a few years ago, these would have cost you millions of dollars. It changes the nature of who will go in to making games. Certainly, when I started, computer science was a fairly important part of making games, but now it seems like that’s much less important. You can make a fantastic game and not write a line of code.” But Braben warns that this depends on the type of game. With so many indies using the same low-price tools, games end up feeling very similar to one another. Instead, studios must focus on differentiating themselves from all the other hobbyists. Smith suggests that, while computer science and other technological know-how will help, developers’ advantages need not be entirely skills-based: “Great storytellers or great artists will be able to reach a bigger audience. There is an edge in technology – I think there always will be and should be – and I think that’s an edge we as people who are interested in games are excited about, but there are other edges available.”
THE WAY WE WERE All of the former cover stars present report that their studios are several times larger than they were in 2000. In the case of TT Games, there are roughly six times as many people working there now, although both budgets and operating costs have also increased significantly. There are also new avenues for developers to explore, such as digital updates of previous games and larger, richer projects far beyond what could have been accomplished at the start of the century. “I think the industry has changed in ways that are really positive from a development point of view,” says Braben. “It’s the publishers for whom the changes have gone in the wrong direction.”
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