Taking a moment to address other issues. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine regarding a post on http://www.damonpayne.com/ titled "A war on excellence" Well I ended up writing a long response to it, which I have since decided to post since I put so much work into it. To be clear I consider Damon a very good friend, along with a person whose opinion is well thought out, and deserves consideration. I say this because if someone reading my blog chooses to add a comment on his site that is not done in a respectful manner, my next post will be entitled "Bashing the Douche Bag who just posted on DamonPayne.com" with that, here is my response:
His response is pretty consistent with what he believes. I understand his position on leaving banks alone, and there is some merit to the idea that thanks to the bailout people who have been irresponsible get saved at the expense of the rest of us. That's why I'm glad this money has thus far been handed out in the form of an investment, so hopefully later we can get some of it back.
Regardless of that, I think the bailout was necessary. The problem with letting banks fail is that it erodes confidence in the U.S. banking system, if that is lost, we really are in severe trouble and the economy would take years longer to recover.
As far as operating in the same Laissez Faire attitude, I think it’s interesting that even Greenspan testified last week that more regulation of the banking industry would apparently be necessary. He also said that he was "shocked" at the level of irresponsibility of executives in the financial sector, and attested it to the fact that they were given bonuses purely on quarterly results, with no incentive to protecting equity or liquidity. He testified that this method of operating had basically destroyed the notion that businesses will do what is in their best interests, an idea that had been a basis of his approach to economics for 30 years.
It's unfortunate that this happened at the end of his career, and that he has taken the lion’s share of the blame for this crisis. I really still consider him to be one of the most brilliant economic minds of our century.
As far as his complaints about taxes, what he is saying matches the same trickle down economic policies that we have seen over the past several years, and he saying it because he has been taught that if you lower taxes on "upper class", it will stimulate business growth, which will add jobs and benefit everyone. And he isn't wrong when he says that raising taxes on small business owners should result in smaller growth for their businesses, but at the same time when many people say this I believe they ignore other aspects of the economy, in order to make their statement true and scare the hell out of people. My argument is basically that a full two thirds of our economy is consumer spending, this is a fact, and it is not in dispute. So looking at that, I would argue that is you send more money towards the people who make less than 250,000 a year they will turn around and spend more, which should raise demand for the goods and services and business produce, which in turn should cause them to expand their business in order to meet demand, whether they are being taxed more or not. It also means that rather than just gaining increased revenue from lower taxes, they will have to compete more for the opportunities out there. I think we can all agree that competition still benefits everyone.
Now I'm not saying that this theory is foolproof, far from it. If the people who make less then 250,000 a year use the extra money to shore up their debt, which they should do, that isn't the same thing as putting money back into the economy, and we don't receive the benefit that is supposed to counter the negative effects of taxing small businesses more. Also as stated before many businesses are hooked on quarterly numbers, and as a knee-jerk reaction will tend to want to lay off people, which again, benefits no one. Also, like farmers depending on subsidies, business owners learn to depend on lower taxes. Following my theory, their perspective is going to have to shift towards competing more for the extra money that's entering the economy through consumer spending. This takes time, and if what I'm suggesting works there will probably be a period of added instability before anyone sees the benefits I am hoping for. This scares people.
Either way, though conservatives will point repeatedly at Jimmy Carter as an example of how Democrats handle rough economic times poorly, economic growth has historically been greater under democratic presidents. Lets all hope this is the case this time. And if not, let’s hope the people in positions of authority in this country have the poise and the wisdom to change their approach. I really do like Barack Obama. I’ve been a supporter of his since he launched his campaign is Springfield Illinois. I have also volunteered for his campaign several times. I think he has provided leadership to the Democratic Party, which resembled a failing disorganized ragtag mob in my eyes back when his campaign was launched. In my opinion John Kerry was something of an empty suit, and finally for the first time in my life I actually see a candidate that I can be proud to support.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
News Flash: I am Beautiful
Thanks to what Im assuming is some type of Glitch in the system. I have temporarily been made extremly attractive. I will continue to exploit this until their IT department corrects what is most certainly a grevious error.
News Flash: Game developers play by the same rules as everyone else
Cliffy B. of Epic Games recently conveyed the following thoughts on the pc gaming industry, obtained via http://www.avault.com/news/cliffy-b-industry-blind-to-visionaries/:
As far as Hollywood goes, I don't necessarily agree with his analogy. Although actors and directors have screwed up and come back many times. Several have also ended their careers with one bad movie. Kevin Costner was on a roll before Waterworld.
Cliff Bleszinski is concerned that the game industry does not tolerate “visionaries” within its ranks. Talents like Ken Levine, Peter Molyneux, Chris Taylor or Hideo Kojima are praised and revered when they complete their games and the money rolls in, however, unlike the movie industry which gives directors a “time out” whenever their movies flop, if developers take one side step or in some cases a misstep, then it’s straight to the dog pound for them. The game industry does not support failure.
Mr. Bleszinski has been putting in overtime doing double duty working on Gears 2 and also serving as Executive producer for the up and coming Gears of War film. He’s had the distinct pleasure to see how business models work on both sides of the fence. Cliffy B notes that there is an order and structure in Hollywood that simply doesn’t exist in the gaming industry. As far as he’s concerned, it’s the Wild West in all of gamedom.
I think Cliffy B needs to remember that he is an employee for a game developer, not a rock star. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that developing games is an expensive process with costs going into the millions of dollars. In any industry, risking that much money and failing will quickly put you on the outside.As far as Hollywood goes, I don't necessarily agree with his analogy. Although actors and directors have screwed up and come back many times. Several have also ended their careers with one bad movie. Kevin Costner was on a roll before Waterworld.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Starcraft 2 Trilogy?
It has just been brought to my attention the Starcraft 2 is apparently going to be a trilogy, with each campaign being sold as its own game. According to Activision/Blizzard, this is to “allow the development team the opportunity to focus its energy on providing players with a deep, rich story and fully fleshed-out Starcraft universe characters for all three factions.” Personally I think that’s a load of crap, and this decision was made to bring in more money.
In their defense however, this decision does not mean that Starcraft 2 will be bad, or that the 3 games will not be worth it. By doing this, Blizzard has raised the bar. Now each campaign alone has to be good enough to justify the price tag. Well see if they can pull this off.
I also have to mention, in regards to my “death of PC gaming post” PC developers have to look for new ways to deliver their products in order to compete with consoles . It could be very possible to see more things like this in the near future.
In their defense however, this decision does not mean that Starcraft 2 will be bad, or that the 3 games will not be worth it. By doing this, Blizzard has raised the bar. Now each campaign alone has to be good enough to justify the price tag. Well see if they can pull this off.
I also have to mention, in regards to my “death of PC gaming post” PC developers have to look for new ways to deliver their products in order to compete with consoles . It could be very possible to see more things like this in the near future.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Death of PC Gaming?
So there has been a lot of fuss over the past year over the “death" of the PC gaming industry as more and more developers, such as Epic, are moving toward consoles. Some people, mainly on the developer/publisher side blame this on piracy, while the people on the gamer/player end basically complain that their are no innovative titles anymore due to games being originally designed for consoles. So I figured I would take a moment to give my two cents on the topic.
Where as in the past PC games greatly outperformed consoles in terms of graphics/framerates, systems like the Playstation 3 and Microsoft xbox have in essence closed that gap. It can still be argued that a pc can render graphics at higher resolutions and with more frames per second, which they can, however it really doesn't matter anymore. The average customer doesn't want to benchmark their consoles performance and compare numbers, they want to be wowed with graphics and effects. Today's systems more than accomplish that.
Also adding to the difficulty of developing for PCs is the ever changing range of hardware that's available. The xbox you buy today will essentially be the same as what was available a year ago. It will use the same hard drive, the same video and sound card. On the other hand, PCs are in a constant state of flux. With just the graphics cards alone, you have ATI and Nvidia releasing a new chipset 2 or 3 times a year. Each time one is released, it is sent out to several manufacturers, each of whom designs the rest of the card and drivers to accommodate the hardware they have created. Add to that various processors, motherboards, sound cards, and other components, and you are looking at a significantly increased time in beta testing to ensure as much compatibility as possible.
So what does all this mean for developers? Well to start off lets look at how the publisher/developer relationship works. Typically when the publisher decides to sign on with a developer, they usually advance royalties to them to help cover the costs of development. After the game is released, roughly 10-15 percent of the sales for each game goes back to the people who designed it, the publisher keeps the rest. However it is important to note that the developer doesn't actually start getting paid until their advance is paid off. So if a company was advanced 2 million dollars and is receiving a 12% royalty, they have to make just over 16 million dollars in sales just to break even. At $50 a game, that would come out to about 320,000 copies.
Now take into account the extended development time, and the fact that cutting edge graphics can shrink your customer base based on how many PCs can actually run a game, and you can see how companies get into trouble. Really it just comes down to a simple matter of cash flow, which is what is responsible for most start ups going out of business. If you don't sell a million copies in the first fiscal quarter following its release, you may very well run out of money before your sales can catch up to accommodate your costs. When a developer goes bust following the release of a game, this is usually the culprit.
So is the PC gaming industry doomed? In my opinion no, but companies are going to have to adapt to their new environment, just like an other industry. Following this are some examples of changes in mentality that need to take place.
1. Graphics are secondary to gameplay ALWAYS. Players will forgive a game for not having the latest graphics and special effects if the gameplay is enjoyable. On the flip side, they will not forgive a game that is not entertaining to play, no matter how pretty it looks. Also the better the graphics, the less people that posses the hardware to play it.
2. Consider 3rd party engines when possible. Unless you have a proven team that you have the utmost confidence in that can build a games engine at cheaper cost that you would have to pay to buy it, take advantage of others proven work. even if it costs a little more, it will free up much needed time for gameplay balancing and enhancements. The Quake 3 engine is a perfect example of this, as it was used in medal of honor, call of duty and soldier of fortune 2. EALA, formerly known as Westwood, used the engine from CNC Generals to mate Battle for middle Earth.
3. Digital Distribution methods. This venue could end up being a savior for PC game developers. Take one of my favorite developers, Tilted Mill, who has currently released 2 of their games on steam for $20. Even though the price may seem to low to support a business, compare the terms to the deals involving publishers. At 12% , out of a $50 game, the company will receive about 6 dollars. Now whereas with steam, even if valve charged 25% per game sold, which they don't, you would still be looking at twice as much profit per sale. In addition, you can retain the rights to your game, rather than handing them to the publisher.
4. Actively support user created content. Releasing mission editor tools is probably the best decision game developers have made in the past decade. Dedicated fans have created hundreds of excellent maps and mods for dozens of games, at a rate no company could touch. It is important , however, that a forum be available to organize, rate, and identify exceptional work.
So to close, the PC gaming industry is not dying, however competition from consoles is only going to increase, so its up to game companies to make the most use of the strengths they possess.
Where as in the past PC games greatly outperformed consoles in terms of graphics/framerates, systems like the Playstation 3 and Microsoft xbox have in essence closed that gap. It can still be argued that a pc can render graphics at higher resolutions and with more frames per second, which they can, however it really doesn't matter anymore. The average customer doesn't want to benchmark their consoles performance and compare numbers, they want to be wowed with graphics and effects. Today's systems more than accomplish that.
Also adding to the difficulty of developing for PCs is the ever changing range of hardware that's available. The xbox you buy today will essentially be the same as what was available a year ago. It will use the same hard drive, the same video and sound card. On the other hand, PCs are in a constant state of flux. With just the graphics cards alone, you have ATI and Nvidia releasing a new chipset 2 or 3 times a year. Each time one is released, it is sent out to several manufacturers, each of whom designs the rest of the card and drivers to accommodate the hardware they have created. Add to that various processors, motherboards, sound cards, and other components, and you are looking at a significantly increased time in beta testing to ensure as much compatibility as possible.
So what does all this mean for developers? Well to start off lets look at how the publisher/developer relationship works. Typically when the publisher decides to sign on with a developer, they usually advance royalties to them to help cover the costs of development. After the game is released, roughly 10-15 percent of the sales for each game goes back to the people who designed it, the publisher keeps the rest. However it is important to note that the developer doesn't actually start getting paid until their advance is paid off. So if a company was advanced 2 million dollars and is receiving a 12% royalty, they have to make just over 16 million dollars in sales just to break even. At $50 a game, that would come out to about 320,000 copies.
Now take into account the extended development time, and the fact that cutting edge graphics can shrink your customer base based on how many PCs can actually run a game, and you can see how companies get into trouble. Really it just comes down to a simple matter of cash flow, which is what is responsible for most start ups going out of business. If you don't sell a million copies in the first fiscal quarter following its release, you may very well run out of money before your sales can catch up to accommodate your costs. When a developer goes bust following the release of a game, this is usually the culprit.
So is the PC gaming industry doomed? In my opinion no, but companies are going to have to adapt to their new environment, just like an other industry. Following this are some examples of changes in mentality that need to take place.
1. Graphics are secondary to gameplay ALWAYS. Players will forgive a game for not having the latest graphics and special effects if the gameplay is enjoyable. On the flip side, they will not forgive a game that is not entertaining to play, no matter how pretty it looks. Also the better the graphics, the less people that posses the hardware to play it.
2. Consider 3rd party engines when possible. Unless you have a proven team that you have the utmost confidence in that can build a games engine at cheaper cost that you would have to pay to buy it, take advantage of others proven work. even if it costs a little more, it will free up much needed time for gameplay balancing and enhancements. The Quake 3 engine is a perfect example of this, as it was used in medal of honor, call of duty and soldier of fortune 2. EALA, formerly known as Westwood, used the engine from CNC Generals to mate Battle for middle Earth.
3. Digital Distribution methods. This venue could end up being a savior for PC game developers. Take one of my favorite developers, Tilted Mill, who has currently released 2 of their games on steam for $20. Even though the price may seem to low to support a business, compare the terms to the deals involving publishers. At 12% , out of a $50 game, the company will receive about 6 dollars. Now whereas with steam, even if valve charged 25% per game sold, which they don't, you would still be looking at twice as much profit per sale. In addition, you can retain the rights to your game, rather than handing them to the publisher.
4. Actively support user created content. Releasing mission editor tools is probably the best decision game developers have made in the past decade. Dedicated fans have created hundreds of excellent maps and mods for dozens of games, at a rate no company could touch. It is important , however, that a forum be available to organize, rate, and identify exceptional work.
So to close, the PC gaming industry is not dying, however competition from consoles is only going to increase, so its up to game companies to make the most use of the strengths they possess.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Peter Molyneux, former idolized developer turned crybaby
So Peter Molyneux managed to create this miniature contraversy when he stated that the "PC gaming industry was in tatters" or more specifically:
"If you look at the gamer market on PC, I'll be quite honest with you, it's in tatters. There aren't that many releases on PC. There are some high points like Crysis and what Blizzard is doing, but other than that you are restricted to The Sims and World of Warcraft, they seem to be dominating the PC side."
To which the president of the PC gaming alliance responded:
"We respect Peter Molyneux as one of the legends in the industry, but we think he is way off-base with his assessment of the PC gaming industry.
In fact, the PC Gaming Alliance just released the findings of our Horizons research report in August and it shows that the industry is stronger than ever. An industry with 10.7 billion in revenue during 2007 is hardly in tatters.
Beyond the financial aspect of this, the PC is still the world's leading platform for gaming. There are plenty of AAA titles like Conan, Warhammer Online and Spore, as well as smaller games that appeal to people beyond the console audience. And even though there are many AAA titles in the pipeline for PC, the success of an industry can't be measured in AAA titles alone."
My take on this? Sales of Peter Molyneux's games are not low because of the Sims or WOW, they are low because his games quite honestly suck.
For those of you who have never heard of him, Peter made his career off of 3 very innovative titles. Those would be populous, dungeon keeper, and syndicate. However after he sold off Bullfrog to create Lionhead studious, his games went sharply downhill. First was Black and White, what was to be a next generation Populous that featured intelligent "pets" that could be trained to carry out your will, along with a gesture recognition technology that was designed to eliminate icons. Unfortunately, this game basically turned into a semi functioning group of features that did not work to well together. Following this was Fable, a 3rd person rpg which was released without many of the features Peter had promised in interviews. It received a 4/10 on gamespot, with similar reviews from other sites. I'm not even going to get into Black and White 2, suffice to say that if I was on that project, I would ask to have my name removed from the credits due to embarrassment.
So why were so many of his games so bad lately? In my opinion it can be summed up in one statement.
" Being Immersed in a living world"
Peter Molyneux is obsessed with being immersed in a living world. In fact, he wont shut up about it. Hes so convinced that everyone wants to be immersed in his living world that that's all he focuses on. In his mind this is the most important thing, and so impressive is this idea to him that he is convinced that players will abandon gameplay, which is secondary, just to wander around his living world doing things most games would never let you do.
Now lets look at this approach. hmm...gameplay secondary...probably not a good idea. And in my opinion, this leaves players wandering around finishing random quests with no real sense of accomplishment, after all, the designer didn't really care about the quest, so why should you. Playing Fable was like being stuck in a J.R.R. Tolkien novel after the ring was destroyed, your basically wandering around the woods staring at proverbial hobbits, and nobody cares.
"If you look at the gamer market on PC, I'll be quite honest with you, it's in tatters. There aren't that many releases on PC. There are some high points like Crysis and what Blizzard is doing, but other than that you are restricted to The Sims and World of Warcraft, they seem to be dominating the PC side."
To which the president of the PC gaming alliance responded:
"We respect Peter Molyneux as one of the legends in the industry, but we think he is way off-base with his assessment of the PC gaming industry.
In fact, the PC Gaming Alliance just released the findings of our Horizons research report in August and it shows that the industry is stronger than ever. An industry with 10.7 billion in revenue during 2007 is hardly in tatters.
Beyond the financial aspect of this, the PC is still the world's leading platform for gaming. There are plenty of AAA titles like Conan, Warhammer Online and Spore, as well as smaller games that appeal to people beyond the console audience. And even though there are many AAA titles in the pipeline for PC, the success of an industry can't be measured in AAA titles alone."
My take on this? Sales of Peter Molyneux's games are not low because of the Sims or WOW, they are low because his games quite honestly suck.
For those of you who have never heard of him, Peter made his career off of 3 very innovative titles. Those would be populous, dungeon keeper, and syndicate. However after he sold off Bullfrog to create Lionhead studious, his games went sharply downhill. First was Black and White, what was to be a next generation Populous that featured intelligent "pets" that could be trained to carry out your will, along with a gesture recognition technology that was designed to eliminate icons. Unfortunately, this game basically turned into a semi functioning group of features that did not work to well together. Following this was Fable, a 3rd person rpg which was released without many of the features Peter had promised in interviews. It received a 4/10 on gamespot, with similar reviews from other sites. I'm not even going to get into Black and White 2, suffice to say that if I was on that project, I would ask to have my name removed from the credits due to embarrassment.
So why were so many of his games so bad lately? In my opinion it can be summed up in one statement.
" Being Immersed in a living world"
Peter Molyneux is obsessed with being immersed in a living world. In fact, he wont shut up about it. Hes so convinced that everyone wants to be immersed in his living world that that's all he focuses on. In his mind this is the most important thing, and so impressive is this idea to him that he is convinced that players will abandon gameplay, which is secondary, just to wander around his living world doing things most games would never let you do.
Now lets look at this approach. hmm...gameplay secondary...probably not a good idea. And in my opinion, this leaves players wandering around finishing random quests with no real sense of accomplishment, after all, the designer didn't really care about the quest, so why should you. Playing Fable was like being stuck in a J.R.R. Tolkien novel after the ring was destroyed, your basically wandering around the woods staring at proverbial hobbits, and nobody cares.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Debut
So here I am, posting things here because I hate myspace and all of its ad laden pages. Also facebook walls confuse me. I never know where I'm actually writing anything. So anyway ill start posting some mediocre rant momentarily.
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