The Business of Making Video Games and Buying Them

(Originally posted for The Voice Of Heard on May 6, 2012)

When you want to buy a video game, what factors do you take into consideration? Would you pay $60 for a new game after launch or buy a used copy at a cheaper price? Would you be willing to pay extra for downloadable content? Do you prefer a game made by a major well-known company or one made by an independent and less well-known company; to be more specific, would you rather have a game developed by people working under a strict corporate hierarchy or one by people who follow their own creative principles? Do you want the game to strictly follow a formula, complete with clichés and traditions, that has been established and followed for a number of years or do you want it to bring something unique and innovative to your gaming experience? Upon reading all of this, I’m certain a single question immediately pops into your mind: why ask so many questions about buying video games? To put it simply, my questions stem from a few recent articles I read that raised some interesting and concerning issues regarding video game development, marketing, and sales.

The official of UK-based video game developer Free Radical Design. This company, known for the N64 classic GoldenEye and its role in Timespliters and Haze, became officially non-existent upon acquisition by Crytek in 2008.

One of the articles concerns a UK-based independent development company called Free Radical Design, which was founded by key members of the team behind Rare’s classic first-person shooter GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64, and how it was nearly dissolved by low game sales, numerous development delays, contract violations on part of publishers, and the departure of several staff members, including one founding member who left the game business entirely, until it was purchased by Crytek. The original members of Free Radical, who were first interviewed by Eurogamer for an exclusive as to what role the sub-par FPS PlayStation 3 exclusive Haze played in their downfall, had explained how their experience in game development became bitter sometime after releasing the first few games of the FPS series Timesplitters. Free Radical had to deal with their projects getting canned by publisher management, increasing difficulty of retaining their IP (intellectual property), the refusal of publishers to invest in and market their games, fruitless meetings, numerous project cancellations, and not getting paid for months at a time. At one point, a key member of Free Radical went so far as to refer to the people who took executive positions at LucasArts in 2008, around the time when Star Wars: Battlefront 3 was still in development, as “psychopaths who insisted on having an unpleasant lawyer in the room [and were only concerned with cost control, not with making games].”

An excerpt from a page in one of Valve's internal employee memos.

When it comes to the job market, it appears that game development within a corporate hierarchy that follows conservative business standards and methods is losing its appeal, particularly among young game developers seeking jobs. Although I’m not one hundred percent sure of this myself, an article from IGN titled “The Future of Game Development” seems to enforce this notion. The summary of this article is that it starts off by briefly goes over how Valve, famous for its FPS franchises Half-Life and Left 4 Dead as well as the relatively new puzzle adventure series Portal, is organized as a developer based on a leaked copy of one of its internal employee manuals. Then it quotes the viewpoints of three developers, each with their own experience in the game development and production business; they also express viewpoints that are sometimes similar and sometimes different than Valve’s.

An article about buying games by 1up has raised some interesting points about different factors that affect consumers decisions on purchasing any video game, new or old. The primary factor is obviously money. As most people know, some too well, an income is not an unlimited supply of money and the troubled fluctuating economy this country is in right now makes it difficult to buy a new game at launch time. Other factors affecting gamers’ ability to buy a new game include prices offered by online stores like Amazon, the price of downloadable content, the availability of collector’s and ‘Game of the Year’ editions, the appeal of AAA and niche games, and how good multiplayer and single player campaigns appear to be, in other words replay value.

I don’t have too much say in regards to game development and economics at the moment. However, I would have to agree with many of the points raised in all of these articles. Though the issue of buying games is simple enough to understand, the issue regarding the business of making games is much more complicated based on the accounts shared by a few people involved in it. I would have to take the pros and cons of working for corporate-structured game companies and developer-run companies into consideration as I currently aim to earn a degree in game development and programming.