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[nenjin]

Yeah, I didn't want to get into sustainable growth, since that's rant worth and is pure economics. But it's basically sustainable growth, yeah, and the fact AAA publishers can't conceive of it anymore than Fortune 500 Companies.

I know you guys hate to hear this, but good business is not about making a legendary product that people talk about for years.

It's a bullshit dodge to say good business practices and making legendary products are incompatible. I hold up any game you hold dear as proof, because it's probably a legend and made someone a lot of money.

The problem is people who aren't interested in making epic games make all the decisions. They're not even interested in good business. They're interested in "make more money than god" business. There's a happier medium, but average joe gamer doesn't care enough to change the status quo with their wallet. (Or their torrent client.)

And the quickest way to achieve making more money than god is yeah, first day sales at full price, and fuck all who cares about what the actual product is.

[Aqizzar]

I know you guys hate to hear this, but good business is not about making a legendary product that people talk about for years.

It's a bullshit dodge to say good business practices and making legendary products are incompatible. I hold up any game you hold dear as proof. The problem is people who aren't interested in making epic games make all the decisions. They're not even interested in good business. They're interested in "make more money than god" business.

I didn't say they're not compatible.  I said they're not related.  You can have either one without the other, or both, or often neither.

[Soulwynd]

Blair Witch:
Budget - $60,000
Gross Income - $248,639,099 (Worldwide)
Ratio - 414398% <- This is why.

Avatar
Budget - $237,000,000
Gross Income - $2,039,472,387 (Worldwide)
Ratio - 860%


The thing is, they'd rather made over a billion than nearly 200 millions, doesn't matter the profit rate.

[nenjin]

But how much would they have had to sacrifice to make 2 billion instead of 200 million? Directorial control. Advertising control. Casting control. Not having a producer butting in every 5 minutes talking about what plays to the audience.

One person doesn't need 2 billion to be happy. A board of stock holders does. That's the disconnect for me. The needs and wishes of people who could care less about the impact of their decisions dictates a lot shit on my end, from what I'm ultimately offered to how much I gotta pay. If I at least felt Ubi and some of the other publishers actually had my interests as a consumer at heart, I'd care a lot less. But they really don't. They just trying to find the right primal button to push so I throw money at them, and if they can make a red, a blue and a green button that all do the same thing that I'll purchase eagerly, well....go buy the paint cause we got some buttons to paint.

[Sowelu]

And it's pretty much a pure example of what indie work can produce. It turns many concepts upside down and it worked, for many, to make an interesting film.

It was also, in my own personal opinion at least, terrible.  I thought it was a hack-job driven entirely by gimmicks; a completely unprofessional effort all around.  There have been much better indie movies out there, but usually when I hear something promoted as an "indie movie", I stay away because it means that it's not good enough to stand on its own merit.  There have absolutely been indie games like that...like almost the entire catalogue of < 10$ games on Steam (original price, not sale/discount).

And did any of you actually enjoy Avatar as a mind-blowing movie experience, where you thought "man, the visuals alone made this worth my $?"

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.  They were gorgeous, and well worth going back to see again.  The plot was meh, the characterization was only alright, but the overall experience was awesome and quite memorable.  It's hard to really consider any movie "mind-blowing", but Avatar's visuals are the closest I've seen since childhood.  But then I guess I'm also a sucker for other big-budget movies with helicopters and explosions and exploding helicopters, so it was kind of my thing to begin with...It all comes down to preference really.

I guess I wouldn't call either one of them better or worse at improving the state of movie culture, though.  They both pushed the envelope in different ways.

[nenjin]

Relevant.

Sorry, I link that whenever I can.

There have absolutely been indie games like that...like almost the entire catalogue of < 10$ games on Steam (original price, not sale/discount).

At least the price sets your expectations. I can't count how many $50 dollar titles I've rented, borrowed or pirated that would have left me thoroughly pissed and feeling like I threw my money away. And the price on AAA gaming is only going up from here. Can we really say the same about all the things in the game that should be increasing with the price? They're getting more photo-realistic, more movie-like in presentation and the physics are getting ever more impressive. But they aren't necessarily getting more thoughtful, more complicated or more interesting. MW2 is about as interesting to me as CoD 4. BC2 is actually less interesting to me than BF2. I could kind do that all that day, as I tick off series where game play isn't really evolving anymore so much as it's just refining.

[Aqizzar]

Blair Witch:
Budget - $60,000
Gross Income - $248,639,099 (Worldwide)
Ratio - 414398% <- This is why.

Avatar
Budget - $237,000,000
Gross Income - $2,039,472,387 (Worldwide)
Ratio - 860%

That's the nail right there.  Making The Blair Witch Project is how you get into the business, Avatar is how you stay in the business.

Also, bear in mind the massively increased capital cost in making a regular-market game these days even compared to ten years ago.  You need either a AAA programming team to make an engine, or pay for an engine made by such a team, plus an army of graphics people, playtesters, voice and sound, and network-support staff and servers for online play (because you can't hardly make a game without an online element), just to make a game that looks good enough to compete in the mainstream market, let alone win any real notice.  So, companies like Ubisoft have decided if they're in for a penny, they're in for a pound.  As long as you need a small nation of developers to make a game that can earn large early sales, you might as well concentrate all your developing capacity on those.

But how much would they have had to sacrifice to make 2 billion instead of 200 million? Directorial control. Advertising control. Casting control. Not having a producer butting in every 5 minutes talking about what plays to the audience.

One person doesn't need 2 billion to be happy. A board of stock holders does. That's the disconnect for me. The needs and wishes of people who could care less about the impact of their decisions dictates a lot shit on my end, from what I'm ultimately offered to how much I gotta pay. If I at least felt Ubi and some of the other publishers actually had my interests as a consumer at heart, I'd care a lot less. But they really don't. They just trying to find the right primal button to push so I throw money at them, and if they can make a red, a blue and a green button that all do the same thing that I'll purchase eagerly, well....go buy the paint cause we got some buttons to paint.

Boo fucking hoo, people are in business to make money, and those evil shareholders don't share or care about your specific tastes.  And regarding Avatar, in that particular case, that was one guy's vision and control over a whole project.  Look where that got'em.

[nenjin]

Boo fucking hoo, people are in business to make money, and those evil shareholders don't share or care about your specific tastes.  And regarding Avatar, in that particular case, that was one guy's vision and control over a whole project.  Look where that got'em.

You wanna know why I like indie developers, it's because I can at least relate to them as I give them money, even when they seriously muck it up. I'm buying from someone who both wanted to make money and create something. Stock holders don't give a shit, and I wouldn't give a shit either, if their limited range of caring didn't have such implications for me.

Stock holders have a right to make money, I've got a right to choose where my money goes. But there's a point when greed starts to be felt down the line, and I'm feeling it these days as I seriously weigh the games and their price against what they're about. It's making me not care enough about AAA gaming to buy except in really specific cases. Farcry? Crysis? Medal of Honor? Just Cause? Resident Evil 5? Fuck, I can't even count the number of "AAA" games that have come out that I didn't pay the slightest attention to, except to pirate one or two, and they're in a genre I like and play regularly. I hardly think I'm alone in that crowd. That should concern stock holders, since the whole market (aside from the big successful ones) is contracting.

[G-Flex]

One thing that game (and movie, etc.) publishers don't realize is that they affect what the market wants. It's easy to say "People want AAA games" when you're perpetuating the fact yourselves. Publishers tend to take a given trend (such as "people like high production values" or "people respond well to slick visuals") and distill it to the exclusion of any other qualities. What corporations provide to the public will, in fact, affect what the public wants and expects, over time, and vice-versa. It goes both ways.

[nenjin]

And just to note, I'm not saying focusing on proven IPs with AAA strength is always a bad thing. Assassin's Creed 2 hit a serious sweet spot with me, and almost everything there felt like it was done right (other than the DRM.....) and the game delivered $50 worth of entertainment. I don't know if I can say the same for many of their other chosen IPs though.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I liked AC2 too.  Dunno what the big hate about it is.  Maybe though that's because I got it for PS3, and it was a gift.

One thing that game (and movie, etc.) publishers are very happy about is that they affect what the market wants. It's easy to say "People want AAA games" when you're perpetuating the fact yourselves. Publishers tend to take a given trend (such as "people like high production values" or "people respond well to slick visuals") and distill it to the exclusion of any other qualities. What corporations provide to the public will, in fact, affect what the public wants and expects, over time, and vice-versa. It goes both ways.

Fixed.

[G-Flex]

Fair enough. I guess when they realize it, they're going to pretend they don't anyway.

Of course, I'm not even sure it's intentional; it certainly doesn't have to be. Marketing is intended to accomplish it in the short-term, though, so it's not like it's an entirely alien concept to them on a conscious level.