Downloadable content
A game can be developed in a modular way -- designed
to support future levels, game modes, new assets such as vehicles, etc. The key
is to make these add-ons available via paying subscriptions or micropayments.
Paying for downloadable content for a solo game is not too popular today with western
gamers, but this may change. The concept is already accepted by millions of
players who pay their monthly subscriptions for massively multiplayer games.
On the other hand, the use of microtransactions to
generate revenue is quite common in Asia, so much
so that we can talk about the emergence of a truly alternative economic model.
It boasts the advantage of being an efficient weapon against piracy, a scourge
plaguing Asia on a scale beyond
the awareness of many studios.
It is probable that a sufficient number of
players will accept purchasing online content, assuming said content is of high
enough quality relative to the price. The game design will need to be adaptable
enough to allow such add-ons.
Personally, I have great faith in the emergence of
micropayments (purchase of a map, game mode, character accessories or
equipment, episodes, etc.) as a new economic model for our industry. It will
not replace the current model; but rather, complement it.
A closer collaboration between game design teams and
marketing teams in the earlier project stages will be a crucial point in facing
up to this challenge. I will bee investigating this further in a future
article.
Merchandising
Today's games feature rich and popular universes,
which may yield products taking many forms: action figures, manga and comics,
ornaments, school supplies, ringtones, animated series or even novels,
theatrical screenplays, or the much wider broadcast of video game tournaments. Yes, you
read correctly.
I am convinced that we will get there. Some games will give
more compelling shows than others, in the sense of being watched and understood
by viewers.
 The multiplayer modes of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
and Chaos Theory, on which I have worked as lead level
designer, would work particularly well. Why?
Firstly, because the game's rhythm
is slow (it's a stealth game after all!), it thus allows a spectator to
understand the action he's seeing on screen.
Secondly, the game offers so many
tactical options that each playing session will feature great diversity.
Lastly, game situations often take a cinematic dimension. Watch a good player
drawn in multiplayer match of Chaos
Theory and judge for yourself.
Online distribution
New distribution modes have arisen over these past
years: the buy-and-download mode, the games-on-demand mode and the try-and-buy
mode.
Buy-and-download refers
to buying a game and downloading it, as the name says. By all appearances, this
mode of distribution does not bring anything new to the traditional sales model
beyond the fact that the buyer does not have to leave the house. However, its
real potential lies elsewhere.
Online distribution allows for greater flexibility in
sales price and thus for better adaptation of price according to demand. It
offers the possibility of bringing back "old" titles.
Most of all, it
allows for custom tailoring of offers, since a digital distributor can get to
know its clients better than a traditional seller (thanks to the analysis of
their consuming habits) and thus can communicate with them swiftly and
directly. This formula has shown great success on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Games-on-demand suggests
a different economic model. The player pays for a monthly subscription, affording
him unlimited access to a vast number of games. The leaders of this market are Metaboli in Europe and GameTap in the United
States.
This formula,
growing in scale in Europe, allows publishers
to generate revenue without any burden of cost. It works for older games as
much as for newer ones, since experience shows that the impact on traditional
sales is minimal.
Last but not least, the try-and-buy model is also self-explanatory: players download the
game and try it, and may buy it online if they enjoy it. This formula works
best with casual titles with low downloading volume.
High loading times would
likely deter potential buyers and accrue high bandwidth costs for the
publisher. This model is thus poorly adapted to big titles, but works perfectly
for less ambitious games or games relying on micropayment.
|
Printer-Friendly Version
I also hope that "fast gaming" doesn't devolve following the quantity over quality mantra. The high number of shovelware on current consoles is already a sad sight.
@Anonymous: There will always be people willing to do what everyone else isn't; in the case you're projecting, there will always be people wanting to make larger, more epic games then a "fast game". There will be enough people left in the world to keep at least a few of those profitable.
In regards to fast games, I think its important to look at history. In the 60s, there was a huge surge of fast movies being made... later dubbed exploitation films, they were cheap, choppy, and had only one major selling point. It wasn't the end of the movie industry, the movie-goer simply had to realise that not all movies were made with the loving care of a talented director. The trend eventually subsided, although there are still and always will be cheap, crappy movies on the shelves.
Conversely, however, the video game industry has already made that mistake in '84... we flooded the market with cheap, crappy games and consumer confidence was shot. Enter the crash. Now that the medium has matured a little bit, people know they aren't toys for tots, they are intelligent forms of story telling. It's going to take a bigger blow to break consumer confidence. As long as good games are still being made regularly, I think consumers will eventually see the difference between a good game and a game that's only after their $9.98. Especially when we reach a point where the parents who buy games are gamers themselves.
I've worked on projects that fit this bill - we were given less than 9 months and a fraction of the budget of a typical AAA title to turn out a piece of licensed crapola where it was expected from the very beginning that hitting the release target (the movie premiere) would necessitate creating a sub-par game experience. It broke my heart because the franchise involved was one of my childhood gems - I desperately wanted to make a killer game but the suits tied our hands in so many ways that it was completely impossible given their budget and timetable.
Let's hope this Megatrend is on the way out.
Until people stop parting with their money on crappy titles because of timing with a movie. That trend will stay.
One thing I think is very unfortunate is the focus on money over everything else. This type of focus does not lead to creative quality. It can still happen, of course, but focusing on money rather than artistic creativity means that such an outcome is more of an accident than an intent. This is true for any media and I'd say that games already suffer in the same ways that older media have suffered.
The real problem here, unfortunately, is the very nature of our industry. Movie industries don't need to constantly rerelease new content because they do a great job at preserving the integrity of the content they've already created. Let's look again at what the movie industry is doing right.
-Name a classic movie... how about Citizen Kane.
-Now name a classic video game... Donkey Kong.
-Now go to a store and buy each of those.
There are 3 places within walking distance of my house where I can buy Citizen Kane. I'd be lucky to find Donkey Kong at a flea market.
Right now you're probably saying one of two things:
"Donkey Kong was an arcade game, you can only buy ports"
To which I would respond that Citizen Kane was a film, but was later reformatted to VHS and then to DVD. Citizen Kane was made 67 years ago and I can still easily get ahold of it. Donkey Kong was made only 27 years ago and I can't find it.
Or you might be saying:
"You can download it from _______"
Which is a fine choice for you and me. I can also download Citizen Kane, but what about the average customer who thinks the internet is a series of tubes.
We need a way to preserve our games, other than in our hearts. There's no reason a developer should have to put as much effort into a game as they do for it to be thrown away in the next hardware cycle.
For this to happen, we'd also have to stop fighting our own hardware. By the time developers learn how to really get some great games out of a new console, we get a few hits and we move on. Movie technology has remained essentially the same since the time of Citizen Kane. This has allowed movie makers to branch out and do wild things, because the technology is all a given.
Game makers, on the other hand, have been making the same damn games over and over again, with new technology. You can't expect a ballet if you keep pulling the rug from beneath the dancers' feet.
As a console gamer, I really don't like the solution, but what else can we do. We have to eliminate the 'console war' and make universal consoles that can play any game. With the step towards digital downloads, these consoles would be able to play any game that's ever been made, the only problem is getting them to play games that haven't been made yet.
This sounds a lot like a PC, huh?
But at the same time, on a PC I can play a 20yo game fine. I can't do that on a console, as much as I love them.
I guess we just have to wait and see, because I think its too early in the life cycle of our industry to make any solid predictions about the future. Baby steps.
-To a degree, consoles are becoming largely backwards compatible within a companies' library (Wii can emulate all old Nintendo consoles plus some other companies' consoles, 360 can emulate original XBox, PS3 can sort of (sometimes) emulate PS2 and PS1 games)
-With the Wii, you can download old games already. (and possibly other major consoles; I'm not familiar enough to say)
-A copy of a PC game that was actually produced 20 years ago won't work on current day computers; like old games, they're tied to hardware that can support them from that time.
-Having Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo come together into a room and agree on a unified console where they get equal profits will never happen in a million years.
Moore's Law is breaking... in a sense...
Basically, people are keeping their PCs alive for longer. It seems that PCs are kept alive for 7-ish years now. In the early 90's, a PC's lifespan was assumed to be 3 before it was closeted.
Plus, people are buying smaller/cheaper "PCs". The most extreme example are netbooks like the Eee.
What this means?
A new game must find a way to use a computer with 8 GB RAM, Intel's latest hyperthreading quad-core, and dual 16:9 32" monitors.
The same game must also run on a 512 MB Eee netbook with a single-core 1 gig processor and a 7" screen. Or, it must run on a PC bought 7 years ago. Both are roughly equivalent (other than screen size).
In other words: The CPU/GPU/Memory/Pixel usage of a game must scale by around a factor of 16.
In the long run, this means that while Intel/AMD may be doubling the speed of their chips every 18 months, the AVERAGE still-running CPU doubles in speed every 24(ish) months.
I think companies are starting to realize this, with things like Virtual Console releases and remakes (Bionic Commando, etc.). X-Com: Terror from the Deep was recently released on Steam - I bought a copy!
You'll see more of this in the future from some big-name players...
Dave Endresak , Henti Smith, many of you share my sentiments.
I know I speak on the subject of "East and West" allot; not to undermine the talent and hard work over hear (in the west), but to emphasize the importance of incorporating and adopting some of the eastern game design philosophy over hear(in the west) to address these issues, or "mega BS trends". These trends are not actually "trends", more like after-effects, of not recognizing games as an intellectual and artistic expression.
Who decided, that photo-realism is necessary anyway? Many IP that have benefited from long term success have not been remotely, photo-realistic. Mario, Zelda, FF, SF, Disgiea, and many other "AAA"-- class IPs. The emphasis is on "class" as opposed to "game". They are AAA class IPs, and not stand alone AAA games for next gen platforms. These IPs are adapted to whatever platforms are available at the time, with success. Designers must get their minds off of photos, and heads out of the sandbox.
In short: we have to move away from this idea of "sandbox" games and photo realism, and put our efforts into "character design", aesthetics, etc. Substance is the key to longevity. There is no other way.
I just don't understand why this seems to be such an enigma hear in the west?
Glad to see that the 'unfair' balance issue was addressed as it's commonly seen as the main detractor from f2p, microtransaction games. It's a valid point, and something that each publisher will have to address individually. Whether or not these titles and methods will shake out as the industry 'best practice' remains yet to be seen.
One thing games like gta and oblivion have is a large play space that's designed for much more re-use. Apart from the normal way this is leveraged for the initial retail release - giving the players enough interesting gameplay elements within that environment so the can 'do what they want' - there is the opportunity to increase games life time semi-cheaply by adding downloadable content (or modifications by the community) in the form of added variations of existing 'stuff' (cars/weapons) or
'missions/quests' (addition structured goals).
ie that kind of content can be more quickly produced than a new map/environment.
Oblivion is a good example for both dlc/community content, and GTA on the PC (pre IV) for community content (it will be interesting to see what comes of GTAIV PC).
On the other end (pure?) of sandbox games you have the Sims and soon Spore, also Little Big Planet, which increasingly leverage community created content, supported by in game tools and in game sharing/downloading of that content.
Media Molecule has mentioned they'll be keeping an eye on what the community is creating for Little Big Planet, and hope to bring in those users that prove to be talented in creating levels.
Then you have another couple of examples, the Halo 3 forge in-game editor and the in-game editor for the upcoming Farcry 2.
You mentioned Epic, there considerable efforts in both releasing in-house and supporting community content go back to the original UT.
There most resent step is making it possible for the community to port mods form the PC to the PS3 version of UT3.
Apart from Valve softwares long term modding support and bringing in mod teams wholesale to create commercial versions/sequals of their mods (counterstrike, a whole topic in itself, the q1 team fortress team). Valve has considerable after release support for most of their titles (in a couple of cases releasing several entire in-house created game mods for free for hl1), more recently you can see the continued support of TeamFortress 2 with more maps, gametypes and even additional weapons and abilities for their classes. I think in a soon to come update they are including a community created map.
Another interesting example is Quake 3. A pure multiplayer game that (like previous id titles) had it's life time extended by community mods and maps.
Now id software has taken another look at game, added some polish, got feedback from the remaining community on tweaking the base rules. They have built a player community portal/stats and matchmaking website and will be rereleasing the game playable through that site.
I half-agree with the Automatic Integration of Character Animation because it is, absolutely, the best way to bring more immersion. However, it is a double-edge system exactly like Euphoria [like it is in GTA 4]. From a visual stand point it's awesome, but from an interactive point of view it is very bad. In Assassin's Creed, the Technology behind is crazy, but the fact the you do not have to climb the wall yourself, you just go upward and the character is doing everything for you. You don't have to jump and press climb again, you just give a direction to your thumbstick. Imagine running 40 minutes in a call od duty map where your character is doing all the jump and climbing himself: it would be boring... Zzzz ZZzz. The best example I've seen recently concerning that type of system was "The Darkness" produced by Starbreeze. The hands of the character adjust their position depending of the nearest obstacles, what let you take a cover without having to scrap the gameplay by introducing a 3rd person cover system that breaks up the FPS genre.
On the other hand, Euphoria was also great, but once an NPC is hit by physic he breaks up the Interactivity if he is disturbed while trying to stand up to his primary "idle". It would be hard to take advantage of this sytem in a Boss Fight by example, but perfect for crazy death sequences.
Jarad Hansen brought a good point by stating FORGE in Halo 3, but also I think it is the major mistake (more like a controversy) in Halo 3. I didn't work on the game to confirm the following... just my feeling, but it seems (from a player perspective) that the Level Design behind the Halo 3 multiplayer maps looks half-done to give more possibility with Forge for the player who wants to use it. If it is the case, it would be a positive point for a negative point... But I don't buy a game to play half-done maps.
However, Forge is an outstanding tool for any Halo 3 player.
I agree with with the Automatic Integration of Character Animation.
Thanks...