Dylan Cuthbert, founder of Kyoto-based Q-Games and mastermind of the PixelJunk gaming label, has lashed out at the business model of the world's largest games publishers.
"The model of games funding at the moment is fundamentally broken and biased towards making publishers stinking rich. Just look at the bonuses and wages of execs at EA for example, I could make the entire PixelJunk series, including series 2, two or three times over on the EA boss’s income bonus."
Cuthbert also decries the 'top-down relationship most publishers have with their devs:
"Luckily we haven’t been on the receiving end of that so far -- touch-wood -- but I see a lot of devs in a lot of pain primarily because of publisher-related problems."
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(((Now I know what you're thinking - what is the Dizpinion? Well, here's the Cliff's Notes version...)))
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We saw a similar conflict and resolution in the music industry. And guess who won that [or is currently winning]?
The consumer.
Piracy at the consumer end of the spectrum, combined with a backlash against the overmarketed and overhyped mainstream companies [publishers and distributors] caused a situation where purchasers were growing tired of overpaying for crappy music [20 bucks for a lame cd with 2 good tracks?!]. They found an alternative medium where they held the power to locate, share, and consume media that they found enjoyable without it being shoved down their throats [for stupid amounts of money]. On top of all this, at the same time as piracy became a legitimate possibility, digital recording technology had advanced to the point where the technlogy was readily available for purchase by your average Garage-Band Joe-Schmoe.
This created the perfect storm for the propagation of lots of music [some good some bad] without interference from corporate moneymakers. We all know you can go see Joe Schmoe's Garage Band at the local bar for a 5 dollar cover, just like you have for the past 50 years. That hasn't and won't change - but some things did. Even at the top of the artistic ladder, the product became marketable directly to the consumer without a middle man and with the relationship being based on the artist and the listener. Of course things like current MTV or American Idol or iTunes are the last bastions of these corporate Britney Spears pushers, but the majority of tech-savvy generations turned their radio dial to another station lonnnnnnnnng ago.
A similar phenomenon is occuring, albeit at a slower pace, in the gaming industry.
Just look at the popularity of things like Steam and D2D. Note how marketing in general is producing less bang for the buck. These corporate fat cats try and convince you that they know what you like without even giving you a choice to decide for yourself.
What if you were frozen in a block of ice for the last 20 years and were unfrozen yesterday, and some dude tells you that Nintendo no longer makes 2d adventure games like Mario or Metroid, but now focuses on making aerobics and fitness and calisthenics games for fat middle aged people [the same people who became fat by giving in to the McDonald's marketing machine].
These companies want to see you spending money every month to treadmill down the same staircase with the same exact wizard's hat on [they may change the color once in a while as a carrot-stick]. These companies want to see you pay money for that same stupid hat in different colors every month until you're 80, rather than produce a new game every couple of years. Or they'd be happy to see you buy a new version of Pokemon every year rather than put out a thoroughly balanced game that engages the player on a deeper level for a longer period of time.
You can see where the big names are going [DLC, pay2play, micropayments, pay-for-beta, pay-twice-as-much-for-a-limited-edition-box-with-a-cloth-world-map-inside, you name it].
These guys are trying to figure out a way to make you spend the extra $50 for a fake guitar. We're talking about useless junk like Babysitter Deluxe Tycoon 5: Noob Of The Year Edition.
I used to laugh at people when they said they're playing games like Combat Arms, but now I at least respect them for gaming in the trenches, for going down the less polished, less shiny, less hyped path. I shudder at the thought of what could happen to BF:BC2 if EA takes away too much creative freedom from DICE, but I also cheer at the promise of something new and worthwhile without having to spend 300 bucks on a stupid console. Or buying a specialized controller. Or having to spend 20 bucks a month to play. Or spending even 10 a week to keep up with the powergamer-DLC-Joneses.
