(This was written out as a script, but I'm throwing it here because I need something to put up.)
So awhile ago, the Extra Credits team uploaded a video outlining their idea of how to increase innovation in the gaming industry and the trade-offs they deem necessary. They raise some interesting points of the indie market vs. the Triple A market, the money involved, and so on and so forth. It’s not REQUIRED watching, but I feel you should at least check it out before moving on with this video, my response video.
My problem with the video comes in when they offer their solution, essentially indie devs sell their soul and creation to Triple A studios like EA or Ubisoft with working conditions that would make Thomas Edison proud.
The first guideline laid out is that the Triple A studio and Publisher gets total and complete ownership of everything that the given indie branch publishes and creates. This is not how you encourage indie devs to enter the industry, by telling them that what they create, they don’t actually own. This is also how we get half baked sequels that don’t have nearly the same heart and soul poured into them that the original predecessor did. For example, look at Star Wars Battlefront by EA Games. Technically sound, yes, but absolutely SLAMMED for being a bland, boring game that failed to live up to Star Wars BattleFront II.
One of the points that they raise is that indie games often lack the support and funding and Triple A games, and they seemingly gloss over things like Steam Greenlight and just how easy it is to get a game on the Google Play Store and the App Store. There also exists online markets such as GameJolt which let anyone submit their game so long as it meets given, fair, criteria. With how often programs like GameMaker Studio and Clickteam Fusion 2.5 go on sale for as little as $15, it’s now easier than ever for indie devs to make and share their games. But with just how easy it is to distribute them, it also creates healthy competition.
Another point they raise is how risky innovation is for Triple A studios. However, they completely defeat this point when they themselves mention how they can afford to bounce back from multi-million dollar flops. Look at Sonic Boom Rise and Lyric and Shattered Crystal. Despite being the lowest selling Sonic the Hedgehog games of all time, there are still games from that franchise coming out. Namely, Sonic Mania and Project Sonic 2017.
The next point they raise is marketing, and how what’s better for us, is in the end, better for the consumer. This is only partially true. There’s a spectrum of Game Developers: The starving artists,the entrepreneur, and the sellout. There’s obviously quite a lot of gray area, but generally, developers fall into those three camps: Making games as a form of artistic expression, to start their own business, or to make as much money as possible with as little effort as possible. Quite a lot of this parallels into the Triple A industry. This leads to the next point - working the team like dogs and keeping them hungry until they get the game out to make the reward of making the Triple A studio a big hit. This is even MORE discouraging and reckless. As an indie dev myself, I would fall somewhere between starving artist and entrepreneur. I love games, yes, but I also REALLY like money. We all do! To assume that every indie dev out there is in it purely for their love of the industry and nothing more is incredibly generalizing and almost a complete turnoff to say that somebody will be making more profit off of my work than I do, despite doing far far less for it than I did.
Of course, I am a firm believer that you shouldn’t criticize a problem without bringing a solution. And I have! My idea for how to increase innovation in gaming is this: Stop buying games that you deem not innovative. Call of Duty, for instance. Some new bells and whistles per new edition, sure, but by and large the games are all almost identical to each other.
As a consumer, your vote is with your wallet. The more you buy a game, the more that tells the developers and publisher that THAT is what you want. And clearly, it isn’t.
Buy more games that take more risks, such as Mirror’s Edge, or Infamous for instance. But that’s just for the Triple A side of the coin, what about indies?
Well, the solution is more or less the same. Stop buying that, as people have put it, “Copy and paste crap” and buy more original and fresh games like Braid or Dust: An Elysian Tail. Great games, and new, fresh experiences, especially compared to a lot of what’s out on the market right now.
Both sides have to give a little. The industry and consumer. Your vote is with your wallet, and if enough votes are casted, then if they want to survive the industry, they have to follow the vote. I’m aware that my solution isn’t perfect and my calls to the fanbase of games like Call of Duty will fall on deaf ears, but if games like No Man’s Sky are any indication, the idea laid out by EC can and will flop, and it can and will flop HARD. This is just my crazy, weird vision for what I think can work.
