5 ms·

Why not employee owned co-op game development? That doesn't need to be mutually exclusive with unionization.

• Mirioron 8y ago
  This sounds like how things should be done. Many game dev companies basically started out this way. The problem with this is that most (many?) people aren't willing to risk starting a business like this. There's a high chance of failure.
  • pmart123 8y ago
    Do you think the costs and complexity to develop a game this way are too high now? I know there is the occasional Angry Birds, but I would imagine that it would be fairly hard to coordinate the number of people needed to build a serious or complex game? Has any game been developed via Kickstarter?
    • wbc 8y ago
      Well I think this counts as a AAA game, but how "developed" is a bit controversial: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
    • leakybit 8y ago
      I would say it easier than ever to make a game. You have game engines, like Unity and Unreal, asset stores where you can buy graphics, and a distribution system; steam.
    • Tossrock 8y ago
      Pillars of Eternity was successfully funded through Kickstarter, and they just put out the sequel, which also had a Kickstarter campaign.
      • baud147258 8y ago
        I think they got some other funding sources, in addition to Kickstarter.
    • Mirioron 8y ago
      >Do you think the costs and complexity to develop a game this way are too high now? There's two answers to this depending on what you mean by "develop a game". 1. This is the "let's make a game like X, but better" category. If you're talking about developing a game that companies like current day Blizzard do, then the answer is probably yes. These are games that aren't trying to do something new or necessarily even focus on the fun aspect. They are more about making a game of a specific type that has already existed before, but they're just trying to do it better. Usually they don't even try to do it better in terms of how fun it is, but rather how impressive and amazing it is to the player. This is where the push for graphics and all those things comes from. This can require a large amount of investment if you're trying to create a game in a popular genre. These are also the types of games that players usually dream up when they think about their "dream game" (a mash up of other types of games). 2. If you're talking about developing a game that is fun and new, that could seem like a new genre, then I think the answer is no, but with an asterisk. We don't understand game design well enough to be able to argue that something is or is not fun without trying and testing it. We can guess, but sometimes even rather boring activities become fun in a game if done well. We can reason about it after the fact, but we can't sit down with a blank piece of paper, come up with a game design and say "this is going to be fun!" without it falling into category #1. This means that there's plenty of room for people to explore, but it also means that we can't guarantee success. As a result this might require a lot of iteration. >Has any game been developed via Kickstarter? Yes. Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II, FTL, Elite: Dangerous, Factorio, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Divinity: Original Sin, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and many more. Oh, and I guess there's also Star Citizen.
• PakG1 8y ago
  I think such organizations would not be capitalized well enough to make AAA games. Look at the development costs of the most expensive games out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g... And then there's the publishing costs, just as crazy.
  • taurath 8y ago
    Publishing can be free or near free depending on the platform - there’s no need to be on store shelves anymore. For a AAA game though you need to either have a real hit of a game, or a giant marketing budget to convince people their friends will play it. Else, you need have a reputation - making good games is hard.
    • PakG1 8y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the majority of the publishing expenses these days probably do come from marketing.
      • taurath 8y ago
        Not at all weong - just saying there are ways around it. Respawn just launched Apex Legends with a (my estimate) $100k marketing budget to pay popular streamers to play it.
        • spdionis 8y ago
          That probably works only for FPS/Battle Royale games though. I mean, it's crazy that if the 2 or 3 biggest streamers play a game it instantly gets to the top of the twicth browse list. They all play only that kind of game though.
          • taurath 8y ago
            MOBAs were the top of twitch before. I don't mean to imply its easy by any means to become popular based entirely around twitch - but I do think its very possible to go entirely word of mouth if the games is good and fresh. Publishers have a lot of trouble marketing newer game types - they like to stick to what people know. Demon Souls/Dark Souls is a good example, though From Software does have a long history - just not huge hits in the US.
• redisman 8y ago
  Mid-sized game companies have been dying off for over a decade now. Their burn-rate is too high to compete with small shops that churn out casual games and they don't have enough money to compete with the AAA studios so they die off from one failed game. Just look at Runic for example, great hit game series (Torchlight) wasn't enough to keep them afloat.
  • dleslie 8y ago
    This is the saddest aspect of the current state of affairs, I think. Mid-sized companies had the talent and the flexibility to deliver some of the most meaningful and memorable experiences. I hope that smaller publishers, like Devolver, fill that niche.