Money into the sinkhole of games development. The lottery mentality is what keeps investors pumping large amounts of Sales if not in quality, whether you like it or not. There are some in fact who do, but that's beside the point.) But theįact is that your game is almost certainly going to be mediocre, in Think anyone _intentionally_ tries to make a mediocre game?" (Well, We all know that our game has only a small chance of becoming a "hit"Īnd thereby making a profit, yet we fool ourselves into thinking: "Yes,īut MY game is going to be the ONE". Lying to ourselves about the potential chances of creating a "hit" game. In the games industry, this takes the form of The California State Lottery has been called, for example, "a tax on Lotteries are based on the idea that we tend not toīe able to think very rationally about small differences in probability. The economic realities of developing games induces what I call "The Vast majority of projects either never make it to market, or completely But in the smaller companies where I've spent my career, the The same formulaic sports action game or first-person shooter over and Perhaps it's different in the big game publishers, where they crank out Would be foolish to invest in a game company. "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky". One person said that the games industry is Most of my industry colleagues that I've talked to about this haveĮxpressed similar feelings. Games than is made in profits from successful ones. Investment money is actually wasted developing and marketing failed Rather, what I mean is that it sometimes seems like more Lost productivity from people playing games (which I don't consider Wonder whether the computer games industry isn't perhaps a net loss to That never got released, or were pathetically marketed, I sometimes Having been involved in a number of large, multi-million dollar projects Runs out of money before it can finish a game, or is eaten by a largerĬompany which immediately develops a case of indigestion and dies. In some cases, a publisher or development company To get your product placed somewhere where customers will actually seeĪnd this doesn't even include the large number of products that never
When the games industry started, distributors were begging for product,īut now you have to bribe Fry's or CompUSA a couple of hundred thousand Noise and fluff that's clogging up the distribution chain. In other cases, good products wither on the vine because theyĪre inadequately marketed, or because they can't get through all of the
Products themselves are dreck There certainly is a lot of poorlyĭesigned, poorly debugged, formulaic, or simply content free products
Gradually, imperceptibly, transformed from a cozy industry full ofĬreative freedom and fun into a rather unpleasant place to work.Ĭomputer game developers work in an industry where 90% of the profit is And I've come to the conclusion that the industry has I remember theīusts and booms, the changing platforms, the rise and fall of manyĬompanies.
Watched carefully the changing nature of the business. I've been in the industry a long time (since around 1983), and I've "Computer games!" they say, "Gee, that mustīe fun!" At such times I usually pause, thinking "How do I break it to I'm always amused be people's reactions when I tell them that I work in Recent being a massively multiplayer game for SegaSoft's HEAT network.
I've worked on about a dozen projects all Known for the 1986 Amiga game "The Faery Tale Adventure", for which I I've had a lot of fun, as well as a few "hits". My name is Talin, and I've been in the computer games industry sinceĪbout 1983. Imperceptibly, transformed from a cozy industry full of creative freedomĪnd fun into a rather unpleasant place to work." Click below for more. His synopsis: "I've been in the computer games industry since aboutġ983.I've come to the conclusion that the industry has gradually, Talin has written one of the more interesting pieces that I've seen in a while, piercing the bubble of idyllic life that many people, and giving insight into what is, for all intents and purposes an industry.