The Gaming Renaissance Movement
Gamasutra’s Wanda Meloni believes that all the cutbacks and layoffs in the gaming industry could actually lead to what she is calling The Gaming Renaissance Movement. You know something? I think she is on to something here.
The real story here is there are 6300 industry professionals in North America alone looking for something new. Many people are looking at the current market dynamics and starting their own small development studios. With this desire to branch out on their own, they are part of what I am calling the Gaming Renaissance Movement.
Comments
Publish Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 08:05:00 CDT Read more...
The current rate in which the big publishing companies were throwing money at titles to get the next big graphical sensation has been known for a few years to be unsustainable as a development method.
Even the prettiest of games won't recoup all their fees if they lack the gameplay (see, Mirrors Edge, Crysis etc), which is why the casual market and indie scene has been booming, they've been offering creativity over pure out and out prettyness.
The market for the most part of sheep anyway, but the Wii proves this point, offer something good, and even if the graphics are not up to the current generation, it'll still sell well as they've been told not to expect graphics. More less graphically focused games and the reviewers who do a proper job (eg, like RPS) and focus on the game rather than graphics will soon shape people's expectations.
But this was happening even before the credit crisis. Digital Distro and the rise of middleware technologies has allowed smaller companies to get their project made and distributed so much easier than ten years ago. Look at Blow's use of XNA to make Braid, look at Apple's AppStore, look at WiiWare and DSiWare.
It's going to mean a lot of crap games though, and getting your game seen will be difficult. You're going to need cash for more artists and programmers and advertising, supplied by publishers. And so the cycle will continue.
There are quite a few XNA titles on the 360 - I have a quick look at them sometimes, but they rarely look very interesting. It takes something awesome or much-lauded like World of Goo or Braid before anyone takes notice. Much harder than than something with the weight of a studio or prequels behind it.
While player-created content in something like Little Big Planet is treated quite forgivingly, something for sale gets completely the opposite. Even while games like the above and Plants v Zombies have lower prices and feature a single, fixed resolution (making it easier to program for) they still have had to be absolutely flawless in presentation, style and gameplay - even to people who would forgive a few bug in the major titles.
The Gaming Renaissance Movement
