James Portnow's This Developer’s Life: Questions
May 4, 2009
Dear Reader:
I was going to talk about Login and my speech this week, but so much has gone on I don’t know if I can do it...
Anyway, onto the madness…
Work for Hire
Ever
since I made a passing comment about opening up an iPhone division
we’ve been inundated with work for hire offers… I don’t know how I feel
about this.
On the one hand, iPhone games are a blast and
people have mostly been asking for design docs and specs, and after
all, what could be more fun on the design side then that? On the other
hand we’re not really a work for hire house. But several of the offers
we’ve gotten have been so compelling that I had to say yes. In fact
it’s been so nuts that I’ve recently had to staff up a little to keep
it from being a distraction from our core projects.
So here’s
where I turn to my readership for some advice. I’ve always counseled
against work for hire. In general I think it’s a distracting trap.
But doing work for hire lets me employ more people, which in this
economy seems like a very good thing. It also helps me balance
workload and lets me give people mini-projects that they’re really into
if they get burnt out on their main task.
Thoughts anyone? Anybody in readerland been in a similar situation? Help!
Investors
Bleh…I
can’t really talk about this one in the specific, even though it’s a
big part of my week. Suffice it to say that you never know who’s going
to want a piece of your company. Sometimes it might just be household
names from strange corners…
(It’s been Bizzaroworld the last few days. I promise I’ll relate this as soon as I’m able.)
Conversations
A
designer I very much respect was in town this week. He asked me not to
mention him by name lest he get spammed once I discuss our discussions
on the interwebz, so _____ I’m leaving you out of it. Of all of our
conversations the question I most want to throw at you was probably,
“If you’re looking for fidelity, where should you spend your
development dollars?”
For years this question was
easy to answer, the answer was “Graphics.” but I think we’re past that
point now. I’ll probably end up writing a full length piece on this
question shortly so I won’t go into it too much here, but voice acting,
script writing, sound effects, gameplay testing (this was an
interesting one), and physics all seem to be a better dollar for dollar
investment at this point (in roughly that order) if you’re looking to
increase fidelity. Thoughts anyone?
No E3???
Looks like I might be off in a foreign land during E3 this year. Is this a tragedy? I don’t know.
Login – AKA Something that turned out to be a random rant about Microtransactions…
Alright, I’ll get to Login. Login is that online game development conference,
I'm wont to prattle about lately. I’ll be giving a talk about how
design meets monetization in the MMO world. If you’re interested in
the minutia of how to design to best monetize any specific model feel
free to email me (as that is what most of my speech will be on), but I
won’t belabor it too much here, though there is one specific point I
want to make:
New monetization models open up new design possibilities.
This
seems obvious, but I’ve heard much calumny about how this or that
business model destroys good game design. I hear this most often
aimed at microtransactions. For some reason I’ve heard certain US
pundits espouse that microtransaction games will attempt to grind every
dollar they can out of players. This is true, but it’s true for most
games.
First let’s look at current subscription games. Take WoW
for example. Why is the death penalty in WoW running back to your
corpse? It’s a stupid waste of time… That’s not only a statement,
that’s the reason: the death penalty in WoW is running back to your
corpse because it is a stupid waste of time. That time, in aggregate
has almost certainly amounted to millions of dollars for Blizzard.
But
instead of harping on negatives, let’s look back a little further to
find a positive example. When consoles began to compete with arcades
they were basically asking players to make an upfront investment of 30+
dollars on a game rather than allowing the user to try it out for a
quarter. But that new monetization system allowed for the creation of
many beloved console games that would have been completely unviable at
twenty five sense a pop (most often because the developer wouldn’t make
enough that way).
All new monetization models expand the scope
of what can realistically be designed. All monetization models provide
new territory for great games to be designed. I’ll happily hand grant
that there haven’t been many good micro games in the states yet, but
that’s not the fault of the model…rather it’s our lack of familiarity
with it.
Art Games!!! Wheee!!!
I’m very
interested in the whole “games as art” debate (google me, you’ll find
all too much from me on Gama and Edge about it) but I don’t have the
time to keep up to date on these things the way I used to. I’m
extremely curious what I’ve been missing. Shoot me a list of games
that you think are works of art or just a list of the games that you
“don’t get” (Path still baffles the hell out of me).
I’m out
With
that, I’m off. Send me comments or tips or even requests for what
you’d like to see here (jportnow@gmail.com).
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And as always, check out Gameculture.com for the lastest goings on.
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Work for hire should be fine as long as your contract is sound and you hire only people you think you can trust. Well, I don't know all that much about it--just a few cases I read during my one year of law school.
NEW MONETIZATION MODELSI guess as long as there are customers who are content with paying, and the model keeps the developers and publishers afloat financially, then it's all good. I'm not sure what you would consider a good microtransaction-game. I haven't played many of them, but from what I hear they are pretty profitable (those Korean developers and publishers who focus on microtransactions seem to be doing well enough... right?).
ART GAMES
I think video games can be art, but I really don't like it when people get pompous and start arguing semantics over what is art (this applies to all mediums, not just video games). Pompous, over-the-top artsy folks really get to me.
A lot of games are aesthetically pleasing on the surface level (graphics). But I much prefer games with an involving story. I don't want to sound bias (or point out my own bias, rather), but I think I've experienced a higher amount of engrossing stories with Japanese video games. Of course, there's the occasional Knights of the Old Republic from "Western" studios. There are probably a lot of factors contributing to my personal experience (i.e. I've probably played a disproportionate amount of Japanese games), but I don't think anyone would care for me to get into it.
Fidelity: I would rank sound first, then gameplay testing, then writing, then voice acting, and physics last. Good sound only requires that you have the right guy and allocate more integration time. Testing is a little bit more tricky because it has to be run well, and run early enough to provide useful feedback. Bad writing kills good voice acting. Physics is impossible to correctly estimate the schedule for.
Models: I love seeing new monetization models. I did a pitch recently that involved deep use of microtransactions, and it was a blast to write into the design. I hate the traditional SKU model because you just dump something out onto the market and turn your back away, when many gamers actually want to have an ongoing dialogue; that dialogue only happens should you do a sequel.
Art Games: I think that in commercial gaming we implicitly stay away from integrating the really hard-hitting moral/social/philosophical ideas into mechanics, as they are not "fun" mechanics; they impose other kinds of feelings, and they're rarely subtle. That leaves storytelling for artistic statement, which as we know is in a more subservient position than other mediums. With the "state of the art", we can pick between a sledgehammer or a sewing needle, and almost nothing in between.