Ironic then, that this one project already exceeds in quality 90% of what those same game companies are capable of producing?
Not really. You want to know why? Profit margins. Most game companies force people to produce things like "Action Shooter II: Totally not like all the other Action Shooters out there" Because it's a safe bet they'll sell well. It's also the reason MMO's are so trendy now.
They want something SAFE to bet on, they don't consider a cult like following of what? How many people must play DF? a few thousand? to be a safe bet. No matter how much potential it is. Why do you think it took so long for something besides the Sims to be made by Will Right? Despite him having proven himself to be capable of turning out awesome games? Because the producers and funders for the project wanted more SIMS games, they sell well!
This is the fundemental block between Designers and most Producers. There are some AWESOME producers out there, like Dallas Snells (
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,131/) who helped me out when I interned at a game designer camp. But for the most part, producers are the guys from the funding company, not the developer company. That's why big names like EA and Microsoft are cited more than say, Game Forge, or similar, Oh, there are SOME game development companies that have enough success under their belt that they can demand prominence (among them Bungie and Bioware), and others that are both producers AND developers (Blizzard), but by and large the producers take the credit for a game, and basically demand certain things to be put in. You notice how almost every single damn rpg has atleast -1- mine cart level? Producers. If there's something completely random that doesn't seem to fit exactly, it's usually the producer's fault for demanding it be put in. They also take the majority of the cash. Developers aren't paid royalties most of the time, they're paid by the mile stone. They're given a time limit to make stuff, "Okay, when we come back we want you to have A, B, and C, then we'll give you $X". All that goes to funding the game project as a WHOLE, paying people, resources, the whole thing.
So right now, maybe it's a GOOD thing Toady isn't looking for huge backing, because they'd quite likely warp the game into something we'd hate, to make it sell better. Better for him to have a completed project that they won't try to warp and taint first.
Now, it's not all bad. The Screen Writer's Guild, according to my cousin who's a member here in LA, is fighting for recognition rights for developers and game writers. So that they get a slice of the cake. It's going to be a horrible battle, and you can bet the production companies will try to break the developers more than once (Hell, the TV companies tried it on the Screen writers last time there was a writer's strike, and the time before that. They've yet to win, but they've come VERY close).
It's this weird mentality the producers get that because THEY'RE putting money into the game, no actual work, that it's THEY'RE game. They don't seem to under stand the concept of "Hey, if we wanted, we could do this WITHOUT YOU. It would take HELLISHLY longer to get the same quality, but you can't do this without us, we can do this without YOU though."
THe only people really exempt from this are guys who are both producers AND developers (like Blizz, and it's a rare thing when they remain artists over business men), or where they're successful enough to demand what they want or walk out on the company, such as Bungie, Bioware, and a few others. The final kind are the designers who's very NAMES make stuff gaming gold. This is the rarest kind and -every- designer aspires to those heights. We're talking people like Tim Schaffer, Will Wright, and the most holy Sid Meiers. I think toady could get to this level -easy- but I'd prefer that he wait until he's got this polished and finished, simply because I'd LOATH to see his brain child torn apart and remodeled for better sales by some corporate bastards.
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Topic: The future (Read 3911 times)