Secrets? Who, me? I will say this though. I really doubt that the future trade show will be described as glamorous. It certainly isn't going to be the carnival of yesteryear. But it will be more efficient. How about a little Star Wars inspired humor instead. -hl718
Publishers were wasting far too much money on E3 anyway. It's become a circus and the industry can't afford it any more.
I'm always saying "rising costs will become a huge problem for the industry" since I got here, and nobody believes me.... Now the big players in the industry are pulling out of the E3, a show that gives no actual profit to the participants, with astonishing high prices for stand areas and the irony of ironies: a big dull show with a lot of bling-bling and almost no gaming, directed at the casual share of the market that, oh surprise! cant get into the show because its press-only, yet journalists are composed almost entirely by hardcore, oldschool gamers.:katamari: Yep, E3 is, from the business stand point, a complete waste of resources... I think the expos of the future will be divided in 3 kinds: the individual corporate ones (spaceworld) for the press, the freelance ones (PAX) for the gamers, and the GDC-alike for the industry. The only way I think the E3 may be able to continue is by changing into something like the TGS (which is open for the public) and being held in different cities around the world like the auto-shows, and not only in LA. 100% agree:crying:
Thats the thing. The few E3s of the past were just way overboard and was nothing but a waste of money! The extra spending did not help at all whatsoever in future sales. It has gotten to the point where it is the same thing over and over again and companies keep having to dig into their savings to pay for it because they are not getting back enough revenue to get back what they put it in E3. Besides, they should ahve E3 somewhere other than LA because the Staple Center is simply way too expensive to have even a 11x11foot booth! They should throw here, in Orlando if they are serious in downgrading the glitz and glamour and it is much cheaper to hold here and I can get in :020: I also blame the media for severely dumbing down the industry to the point where the term hardcore-causal-gamer exists and the casual gamer as well as the hardcore gamer we see ourselves cease to exists in their eyes all thanks to the media and stupid marketing agency going with what the magazines and G4 says. That's why we are getting sequel after sequel, cookie-cutter platform game, hardly any innovation. Heck, Wii is seen as the innovative console for the next-gen, but the mass media and most gamer mags still give it the kiddie image that simply turns off 500,000+ early adopters for the console. The 360 is the average console for the average game and the PS3 is seen as the elite expensive console of the future. This is all thru observation and I hope publishers get their shit together if they actually want to start making a profit like the good ol' days.
<begin big-time elite attitude rant> About time, and not a surprise at all. E3 was cool for about the first 15 minutes on the first trip there, since then it's been a task, waste of money, and generally provided no information. I just hate having wanna-be press, mom and pop shop owners, and friends of friends on show floor. It's just horrible when you walk up and you get treated like a nobody because that's what 90% of the people there are. E3 was infected a long time ago, it's about time that the big 4 cut their ties. </end rant>
Oh please. Of course rising costs are an issue for the industry, nobody even once, even vaguely intimated that they aren't. You however feel that this is a sign of the apocalypse, and everyone else doesn't. We have been through this. I'll say this: Nintendo's show sold me on Wii. Exactly how doesn't that help on future sales? Regardless, you're right in that E3 probably was a waste of money for most, and next year it's going to be very different.
Cost above profit destroys any industry, where's the apocalyptic stuff? Rising development costs affect the developers, rising marketing costs hurt the corporation profits, etc... Costs are now THE BIG problem of this industry.... As some user said before, most of the "casual" press (read mainstream sites and magz) barely were at the Wii event, thus most of the market isnt even aware of that console, let alone the wiimote...
You brought up how nobody here believes you when you talk about the impending doom for the industry. Name me an industry where costs and profit aren't a big issue. It was reported on the BBC, I don't know how much more mainstream you can get than that. Good job on ignoring that I was actually agreeing with madhatter that E3 was a loss-maker in advertising terms, though.
Of course not all exhibits went overboard. Some companies still do it right that will appeal to any visitor. But most of what you hear on the net are which one had the sexiest boothbabes, most boothbabes, free swag, etc. etc. More about who was the flashiest than who had an interesting game...
After reading various talks about this new structure and jounalist opinions, I think this might be a better change. Last couple of years I noticed that sites have been getting skimpy when it comes to impressions and demos for games and such at e3. Plus I began to ask, what the point of all these styled booths with crap that doesnt have anything to do with games, when its a industry convetion.
I always wanted to go to E3, but I think this is a change for the better. No more wasted money No more depictions of gamers as standard MTV party goers No more "Casualism" (I hope) Less Hype (Double edged sword, there, though) And Maybe giving the little developers and little people trying to enter the industry a chance.
Too bad I cant sue you for misunderstanding my idea, I could make billons. Anyway, I already told you several times that rising costs are THE problem as in "the only one that can create a crash" in this industry. For example, car companies like GM are in the hole due to poor sales. The VG industry doesnt have that problem, but if costs are getting bigger by the minute, what's the solution? The bigass PS3 price has already show the industry that most gamer's budgets have a limit. Hell! a lot of people I know thinks the X360 is expensive, and its only $399! Developers are already going bankrupt for this, so dont tell me theres nothing to fear about costs. And no, there's isnt an evident crash in the near future, but a decadent industry? I bet yes.... Dude the BBC reports almost ANYTHING! even icecream accidents in the mall... On the other hand, I've seen reports on the PS3 in almost every type of media, all over the world.
I think his issue was more that you are stating the obvious and no one has ever argued the fact that there are huge financial strains on the industry. It doesn't mean the end of it however. The way you claimed to be the only one to state this fact, i.e.: is a completely ridiculous statement.
Yeah I am, but it seems nobody (or at least not the majority) is getting the picture. In any rant about the state of the industry, whats the topic most people argue about? that most gamers blame for a possible collapse?: lack of innovation. Well, if thats the problem then we're already screwed, cuz the industry has been lacking that a while ago. Bulletproof being a best seller and the Dreamcast (among others) being a failure shows how innovation does not means commercial sucess...
No, I think we're all hearing you loud and clear. It does appear that you aren't listening to me, though: I'm tired of arguments where you pull stuff like this out of the air. Show me any post, any thread where I've said developers have nothing to fear about rising costs. To save time, just look at this: That's from earlier in this thread. If you can't argue your point persuasively, it is not ok to just make stuff up instead.
The Dreamcast wasn't all that innovative if you look at the games or the hardware. Granted many of the DC games were good games, but they weren't that unique. Adding a modem allowed for online gaming but aside from PSO, nothing really unique came from that. The problem with the Dreamcast, as we have debated numerous times over the years, was Sega. When the online distribution method really takes off it will mean more innovation and experimentation in gaming, such as we are glimpsing in Live Arcade, but the mindset of most gamers needs to change before that becomes a reliable avenue for developers. The main issue for the games industry in this generation step is the cost of development (especially art assets) vs. the potential returns, or at least that is what most developers are complaining about in conferences. Game prices have actually lowered since the SNES, but development costs have hit the roof. A few badly performing game releases could potentially kill a studio, but there are other options for developers to take AND hardware licensors are taking note and making changes to limit this risk. Microsoft has its XNA platform and Live Arcade as an option for distribution. Sony has been buying up middleware support which it is including in its development tools and is also offering an online distribution system. Nintendo has of course taken a different route and opted to stick with upgraded but familiar hardware and innovate with their interface (which could cost developers a lot of time and money in itself). A developer can also help itself. One way is to change working practices to lower team sizes and general costs incurred because of large teams - out sourcing is one option, as is the use of middleware. If you look at Japan (and read Edge regularly) you'll note that there is a growing community of satellite developers who outsource parts of their game development and act as an outsourcer for others, depending on what they specialise in. Another method is the mentor program attempted by Peter Molyneux in Guildford, where a development team will be supported by external producers who will offer expertise and adjustments to developers to ensure they can maximise their target audience for a game. Unfortunately the mentoring system wasn't very successful in Guildford, but you can see Nintendo using a similar system with Miyamoto to good effect with both internal dev teams and 2nd/3rd parties. Porting games from one system to another is also a lucrative revenue option, as Sumo demonstrates. What is most important is that hardware companies are recognising the cost issues and are offering more support to the development community than in previous generations. Every generation step incurs huge costs at the beginning, change costs money to businesses. The exact same mutterings were heard when the PS2 was launched, but if you look at things now you'll see plenty of small scale developers releasing budget titles and making a fairly healthy income. Exactly the same can happen with this generation, except the lifecycles of both the XBox 360 and the PS3 are anticipated to be longer so developers are going to get more of a return for their investments in this generation of hardware. We are not about to see the death of the industry, far from it! This generation turnover is important to the industry not just because of the predicted upscaling of costs but because we are going to see it become more professional in its outlook and working practices, and ultimately we will see better constructed software because half-arsed attempts will not be tolerated by publishers any longer.
I couldnt say it better Taucias. Hell, I even think we could put that on the magazine. Anyway, about my sources, sorry guys but I been working a lot lately (you can see that by my decreasing number of posts and the fact every single one is after 9PM) so I dont have the time to go trough sites I saw a month or even a year ago, just to take a little bit as a quote. No pun intended, I'm really in a tight schedule... On the subject, outsourcing would be bad since that would destroy the internal development industry. Plus expect quality to go down the first years: I have a contact at Gameloft, they've been using "coding mills" for some time, and have facilities all over the world. Even when most of their products are handheld/cellphone games this guy tells me most of the code mills cant keep up with the work, and in some cases the results were negative. For example he told me about their most recent code mill in argentina: apparently the executive branch when too far with the whole "cutting into expenses" stuff, so the wages there were even below whats considered average in the country. The result? those professional programmers they saw in several meetings wanted at least 4 times more what GL wanted to pay them. Obviously it didnt work, and now GL is stuck with low grade junior programmers that cant even put a tetris clone to work. I think a game developer union could be a great idea, but we need more data to see if it can be done. About the Dreamcast, I only used it as an example with the "among others" because I didnt had enough time to put an entire list. Is that the console is synonymous for "innovation" among most gamers, so, to make it short...
When I say outsourcing, I'm not refering to sweat shop style companies out in the third world. In Japan you will get small developers sharing resources and helping each other in certain areas, e.g. if one has a very experienced AI programmer then that company will take on AI development for a similar sized team lacking that expertise and so on. It's very cost effective because specialists cost a lot more money to hire and the company doing the hiring can recover some of that loss from acting as the outsourcer. Also (good) specialist programmers are hard to find in some places so sharing their skills makes sense. Some people worry about individuality in games developed with this method, but the games design and art assets are almost always in-house, and the core programming of most games is very similar so it isn't really a valid argument in most cases.
Unions will kill the already volatile job-security. All it can do increase job security but pay will be cut in half, then you have union-dues. Outsourcing has already been going on since mid-90's as far as game development goes. The company my friend works for, they hired artists down in Colombia to do the graphic design, 3D models, etc. for their upcoming game. A few years ago his two bosses went to India to look for programmers but they decided to keep the programming all in-house for quality purposes.
