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GameCentral talks to the creator of Oddworld, gains insight into games industry
- j_m_b 12y agoI had a lot of fun playing Munch's oddysee. I really felt sympathetic to the creatures and wanted to help them. I wish they would make more games... I want to return to Oddworld!
- foldor 12y agoTry reading the article to the end. There is a new game coming out on the 22nd.
- beaumartinez 12y agoIt's a remake of the original Abe's Oddysee.
- georgemcbay 12y agoPlay Stranger's Wrath if you haven't; still my pick for best game that came out on the original Xbox, and there were some fantastic games for that system (eg. Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts, GTA: SA, KOTOR, Riddick, Halos). I'm looking forward to what Oddworld does in the future, though my enthusiasm is tempered by knowing it is difficult to virtually impossible to really recreate the spark of some creative endeavour years later, especially with a different team. Lorne Lanning (as the public face/'director') is clearly the guy everyone thinks of when it comes to Oddworld, but a lot of the magic of those games was down to the sort of decisions that occur in the seams between technology and micro-gameplay design (how the game "feels" to play second to second), which is a completely overlooked talent (Carmack has this talent in spades, but people generally only pay attention to the hardcore technical stuff) and with Oddworld that was coming from Charles Bloom, AFAICT.
- hyperliner 12y agoWould you consider the game appropriate for young pre-teens? (say. 10-12 yr olds?).
- georgemcbay 12y agoI would, but I'm not a parent so take what I say with a grain of salt. The game is technically in the "shooter" genre but it is very stylized and cartoony, not real-world violence ala Battlefield or Call of Duty or the like
- flohofwoe 12y agoThis is the harsh reality for most independent game development teams, except for a few super-star-teams which are able to negotiate non-cut-throat contracts. The publisher pays production cost in advance, and recoups production + marketing cost before the developer sees any royalties, which means the developer can be happy to cover their costs during production and are then suddenly cut off once the game is finished. New money only comes in after the next deal has been signed or when the last game becomes an unexpected break-out hit and earns much more money then forecast (which is very unlikely). If the team can't land a new project for 2 or 3 months it's usually over. It was always hard for independent teams but since about 2009 it's a massacre.
- sillysaurus3 12y agoLuckily, with the advent of digital downloads, publishers no longer provide too much value. They don't own the channel. For example, a copy of FTL costs $9.99, and I'd be surprised if the FTL team doesn't earn at least $7 of that $9.99, if not much more.
- beaumartinez 12y agoFTL is a bit of an outlier in the sense that they were fully funded. If you're an independent studio without that kind of money, you're still at a publisher (or other financer)'s mercy.
- xsmasher 12y ago"The publisher pays production cost in advance" - The publisher is paying the salaries of the developers while the develop. Digital downloads don't help change that equation. Crowdfunding could.
- kaoD 12y agoOf course there's nothing free of tradeoffs. If you want to self-publish, you just don't earn salary while developing (for higher returns later). What GP says is that digital downloads fixed the blatant imbalance of power in favor of developers.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- stonemetal 12y agoA pretty vacuous statement. Where they given 5 million or 50 million in advance? Maybe 5 million copies wasn't enough to pay off their advance. I am ready and willing to believe EA is trying to fuck over everyone humanly possible, but what is the whole story? For instance: If they were given 50 million up front and had a royalty rate of 10% and an average sales price of $30 then that would be 15 million dollars no where near the dollar amount to expect a royalty check.
- vonmoltke 12y agoThe following snippet, "Now fortunately someone told us to do that, and did the same thing, and that's ultimately how we got the company back," he explained. "Because when we were able to prove that things were not what they should be then it was ‘pay us or give us the company back', very simple. And so that's how we got the company back, 100 per cent." makes it sound like this was not the case and that they were, in fact, cheated out of royalties. The article is not completely clear, though, and awkwardly-worded at some points.
- stonemetal 12y agoSure, I was more questioning the amount. Getting the company and all the IP back seems like it would be worth a few million. It just makes me wonder what the real difference in value was.
- foldor 12y agoIf you read the article it states there were "Millions and millions of dollars of error not in our favor." found after doing an audit.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- NickPollard 12y agoMy understanding (as someone who worked in the Games Industry but not on the financial side) is that the developer normally gets an advance against royalties to finance production, so you're right that they need to earn out the advance before they see further royalties. The size of that advance will depend on the size of the studio, production costs etc. - it's probably aimed purely to cover costs and the developer won't really make a profit on that - and then any future royalties would go to the developer's coffers. However, at that point Hollywood Accounting enters the room, and the publisher will do a lot to ensure that most of the 'profit' of the game is actually written off as 'costs' to the publisher, so that they can avoid paying royalties where possible.
- gwern 12y agoWell, that was kind of vague... Perhaps such a sketchy summary makes more sense to industry veterans.
- cninja 12y agoThe original article was more informative: http://metro.co.uk/2014/07/08/oddworld-new-n-tasty-preview-and-lorne-lanning-interview-weve-become-triple-a-indie-4790351/ http://metro.co.uk/2014/07/08/oddworld-new-n-tasty-preview-a...
- hoboerectus 12y agoSee? Corporations are people - rapists, thieves and serial killers, but people.
- walru 12y agoI worked on a game that sold three times that and never saw one. The parent company was 'retooling the royalty structure' for well over a year, even had people come from corporate to tell us the progress of said monetary division. Meanwhile we worked a forced six month crunch, 5-6 days a week - most of those twelve hour days, on the first game and were in the middle of the same for the rushed out sequel. Said parent company no longer exists. *Just as an aside, during said royalty meeting they made note of how the money they were spending on food each night was being deducted from our eventual royalties. :)
- CmonDev 12y agoReminds of Zynga trying to bully/steal the equity back from employees. I think MBA types just don't consider developers to be equals (is "line value generation resources" the right term ?).
- Tloewald 12y agoWhom do MBA types consider as equals?
- kaoD 12y agoMBA types.
- VikingCoder 12y agoClose. MBA types consider MBA types who make more money than they do to be their equals. Therefore, the only way for two MBA types to consider each other equals is for them each to believe that the other makes more money.
- stox 12y agolamprey.
- McDoku 12y agoAnyone with a big enough stick.
- jmount 12y agoSounds like the publisher or studio was accused of being in turmoil back at the time (such as http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8Ex0abZy3ZQJ:www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/10/08 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8Ex0abZ... ).
- teddyh 12y agoThat URL is still valid, there’s no need for the Google cache: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/10/08 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/10/08
- jmount 12y agoOriginal wasn't loading for me at the time, so I didn't feel good sharing what seemed like a link to a site momentarily experiencing trouble.
- keehun 12y agoIs this where stores like Steam can really help indies?
- minimaxir 12y agoEven with Steam Greenlight, indie developers still get a lot of exposure and have a lot of incentive from working with publshers.
- sillysaurus3 12y agoWhat incentive is there to work with publishers?
- flohofwoe 12y agoPublishers serve mainly as a bank, paying the developer an advance which usually goes 100% into salaries. But traditionally have been doing marketing, and some production tasks like testing or localization, sometimes they have more influence over platform owners (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, ...)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- devindotcom 12y agoWhy should we be?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- wjoe 12y agoNot really. It's a direct remake of a Abe's Oddysee, which was a 2D game. Sure, they could redo it entirely in 3D, and that might have it's own appeal if done well, but it wouldn't really be the same game. Abe's Oddysee was a brilliantly made 2D platform/puzzle game, and it's gameplay kind of depended on the 2D design. Personally I'm happy see a remake of the game that works the same, but looks nicer. I'd also love to see a new 3D game in the same world, but it would make more sense as a new title.
- rakoo 12y ago> I don't want to be a slave to these guys who are making tons of money while the developers are not. Heh, they even created games that mirror their own situation.
- mmaunder 12y agoNow fortunately someone told us to do that, and did the same thing, and that's ultimately how we got the company back," he explained. "Because when we were able to prove that things were not what they should be then it was ‘pay us or give us the company back', very simple. And so that's how we got the company back, 100 per cent." I'm really curious about the full story here. Did they sue a publisher to pay them what they owned and they got paid back in their own stock?
- danielweber 12y agoThat paragraph and the one before it are the meat of the article, and they are really confusingly written.
- dreamdu5t 12y agoReminds me of the scene from Bob's Game, "The Meeting": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRrEakRSfSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRrEakRSfSk Bob talks with a game company exec.
- funkyy 12y agoThere are always two sides of the medal. I remember reading article more than 10 years ago about fantasy writer. This guy wrote some story for one of the largest fantasy publishers and he got $2K for it. Deal was made, all good. It was that until 6 months later when his story turn out to be a hit and the company published it again (they were holding the rights to it). So this publisher came to those fantasy circles hating on the company why they never sent him a cheque since they made probably millions from it. Even if he said himself they had all the rights to it and he agreed on contract as it was - he still was mad that he didnt got more. Instead of building business relationship, trying to release more stories for better fee he chose to hate on them. Me myself as indie game developer I wouldn't sign contract that I am not feeling comfortable about. I am selling all rights to my games to publishers, so I can focus on game development only. If one of the games will become next Angry Birds - oh well, I wont be hating on the company, but I would try to come out with joint deal for sequels. I understand there could be mistake in accounting, but regarding some comments - publishers are not charity company. They are profit oriented. So if you have in your contract "you get paid $50K for exclusive rights" then you get paid $50K and nothing else.
- hyperliner 12y agoI agree with your point that people seem to always want more than the deal the agreed to. However, it appears this was blatant theft.
- opendais 12y agohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122/hollywood-accounting-losing-courts.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122/holly... Stuff like this happens regularly when you have a "publisher". So, it really depends how things are structured. Many times royalties are reduced through arbitrary expenditures which is why its a problem.
- jjoonathan 12y ago> Deal was made, all good. Suppose I'm a serial killer and I kidnap you. I say "I'm going to be nice today -- I'll let you choose between dying by pistol and dying by machete. If you don't choose I'll think of something worse." You choose pistol. Am I absolved of the murder because I gave you a choice? Of course not. Choice does not imply lack of coercion. It is perfectly reasonable to be upset that X forced you to choose bad option Y (e.g. where X is market forces and Y is the combination of a shit salary and no equity).
- hyperliner 12y agoThis comes to confirm the old statement of those courses you see on airplane magazines: "You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate." (with the slight addition of "... and we can still steal what you negotiate")
- Liesmith 12y agoExcept they negotiated royalties and EA didn't deliver.
- hyperliner 12y agoTherefore, the addition of "... and we can still steal what you negotiate"
- callmeed 12y agoOddworld was located here in San Luis Obispo and, back in the day, were known as one of the only large-ish tech/dev companies in town (we have a much better tech/startup ecosystem now). Our local weekly did a cover story on Oddworld a few years back [0]. It paints a slightly different picture. Stranger’s Wrath was a "commercial flop" and the 5 million games sold was over a span of several years. I don't know much about the video game industry but I think there's more to it than the Polygon story. [0] http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/7058/the-oddysee-exoddus-and-wrath-of-oddworld-inhabitants/ http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/7058/the-oddysee-exoddus-an...
- forrestthewoods 12y agoIt's not like the terms aren't known up front. Are the terms shitty? Absolutely. Are they a surprise? No. Fortunately there's never been a better time to go indie. More opportunities and more store fronts are accessible than ever before.
- pessimizer 12y agoThe terms don't include that they're going to use creative accounting and outright fraud in order to not pay you royalties.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dang 12y agoUrl changed from http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/9/5883301/oddworld-creators-sold-5-million-copies-in-retail-and-never-saw-a http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/9/5883301/oddworld-creators-so..., which points to this. We also changed the title from [1] to the subtitle of the article (as much of it as would fit). 1. "Oddworld creators sold 5 million copies in retail and never saw a royalty check"
- willvarfar 12y agoOne of the oddworld devs, Charles Bloom, is a guru of compression and has a really fascinating blog you should follow: http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com