The Industry Is Going To Hell

[NovaXpress]

Rupert Murdoch's New Game

Here's a look into the future of the business, when video games are just another small cog in the Viacom, Fox, Disney, etc corporate machines.

[Atarinvader]

i can't believe it!!!1 theshitest shit ever!!!1 what next??? gamez about dog food kool aid or pepsi... imagine a game based on et... rubish!!

 

The industry is just growing up, very much like Hollywood did in the 50's and 60's. Just because more money is being invested and all the Indies are disappearing doesn't mean anything. Hollywood still makes great movies; market forces will always prevail. It’s a fact of capitalism. This year I’ve enjoyed big EA and Microsoft titles more than I have SNK Playmore or Treasure releases.

 

Maybe we should employ Russia to all pull together and create great games for the greater good?

 

Remember that there’d be no Halo 2, Fable, GTA: San Andreas, Half Life 2 this year without big investment. Bloody naysayers.

[sku_u]

While the idea of corporate publishing giants taking over the videogame industry might suck ass in the short term, in the long term it might be a good thing. Given how much shovelware is out there right now and how many sequels there are, this might lead to diversification where you have the crap ass labels like Time Warner and Viacom releasing mainstream crappage titles to unsuspecting kids who's idea of quality TV is American Idol and of a quality film is Mortal Kombat the movie and a new indepent scene where you see some true innovation, (much like we have seen recently in the music and film industries) for people like us who actually prefer quality over quantity and are as amused by a Microvision handheld as we are by the latest greatest RPG.

[christianscott27]

what? we're doomed, fox making video games!!

 

 

And while it's a corporation, not a mogul, Time Warner has taken a greater interest in the industry as well. Last January, Warner Bros. launched a new corporate unit to be more hands-on in the creation and publication of games based on its films and television shows.

 

warner bros. in the gaming industry? good god...why am i having deja vu.

whats next? some major TV network trying to break into game development?

 

[NovaXpress]

Children, the problem isn't big media companies being involved in gaming. The problem is what would happen if we only have 5 or 6 companies in existence. It's done wonders for the music industry, hasn't it?

[Atarinvader]

I think we're very far away from vertical integration, at least now.

 

It's unfortunate, but unless you want the industry to regress back to a technology of yesteryear where one man could programme, publish and distribute a game then it's a necessary evil - the conglomerate.

 

I really don’t think that this will effect creativity; the industry is just taking pointers from other media situations.

[maibock]

We've survived big badass Microsoft from taking over the game industry, we'll be fine.. just fine... peachy, in fact

[Stingray]

Hell Murdoch owns everything else, why not a video game company?

 

-S

[Gregory DG]

Woohoo! Fox News: The Video Game!

[Brad2600]

Woohoo! Fox News: The Video Game!  

 

It would only be cool if I could beat the shit out of Bill O'Reilly and torture Sean Hannity with a cattle prod.

[n8littlefield]

I'm glad WB is getting more involved. They, unlike most movie companies, realized that 99% of licensed games are crap, so they are doing something about it. They have basically instituted financial punishments if a game fails to be good.

 

They are using a cross section of game reviews and internal reviews and if a game fails to reach a certain point, like 60% or 70% score, the game publisher is punished. It even thought to put in that if WB fails to get info like scripts, footage, etc to the developer in time for good development than WB will be at fault for a crappy game. It's a great idea.

[MegaManFan]

Woohoo! Fox News: The Video Game!  

 

What would the goal be - sexually harass your co-workers and avoid a lawsuit to win?

[sega saturn x]

I cant really see this being goof for gamming but who knows maybe they will keep their ideas out and just keep their pocket book in.

[Gregory DG]

Woohoo! Fox News: The Video Game!  

What would the goal be - sexually harass your co-workers and avoid a lawsuit to win?

I was thinking more of O'Reilly with a "Spin Stops Here" gun blasting the Spin Monsters... Hannity whacking the wackos... Colms shooting it up with the BS gun... And Linda Vester, just standing there looking hot.

[Dones]

I'm glad WB is getting more involved.  They, unlike most movie companies, realized that 99% of licensed games are crap, so they are doing something about it.  They have basically instituted financial punishments if a game fails to be good.  

 

They are using a cross section of game reviews and internal reviews and if a game fails to reach a certain point, like 60% or 70% score, the game publisher is punished.  It even thought to put in that if WB fails to get info like scripts, footage, etc to the developer in time for good development than WB will be at fault for a crappy game.  It's a great idea.

 

Good point man. I forgot about that newstory about WB. I don't remember much of it, do you still have a link to it? Do you think [punishing developers] is the way to go about it? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. As far as I know licenesed games suffer heavily from upper management censorship.

 

I read somewhere about how Paramount crippled many Star Trek videogames by enforcing contract clauses which allowed them to heavily censor the games. For example, Activisions's Elite Force series never show a major ST character dying. Raven (the game developer) managed to get around this somewhat by calling deathmatches "holomatches" (and creating completely new characters for the game). Disney had some Nintendo-type censorship in Capcom games like their characters didn't die but "lose tries". I wish I could remember more current censorship examples, but I hope you get the idea.

[liquid_sky]

Woohoo! Fox News: The Video Game!  

What would the goal be - sexually harass your co-workers and avoid a lawsuit to win?

I was thinking more of O'Reilly with a "Spin Stops Here" gun blasting the Spin Monsters... Hannity whacking the wackos... Colms shooting it up with the BS gun... And Linda Vester, just standing there looking hot.

 

It would be a button masher, thats for sure!

[NovaXpress]

They are using a cross section of game reviews and internal reviews and if a game fails to reach a certain point, like 60% or 70% score, the game publisher is punished. It even thought to put in that if WB fails to get info like scripts, footage, etc to the developer in time for good development than WB will be at fault for a crappy game. It's a great idea.

Yeah, great idea. No chance for corruption whatsoever. "Hey EG, we'll pay double for our ads next issue if you slam Batman Begins with a 30% to bring the average down below bonus level" versus "Hey EG, you can sleep with my daughter if you rate my game high enough to rate the bonus."

 

Why be annoyed by the media takeover of videogames? Look at the main complaints of gamers right now:

*next generation systems being released too soon

*too many sequels/derivatives

*too many shitty games based on media properties

*corporations intefering with homerbrew/preservation efforts

*the threat of expensive pay-per-play models

*lack of respect for the creative worker

What's at the root of all these ills and more? The increasing size of gaming corporations, causing decisions to be made by money men instead of beign driven by the demands of gamers and the art form itself. The kind of shit that killed Warner's Atari. A conglomeration of 5-6 companies, all of them small slices of a large corporations, cannot lead to anything beneficial.

[n8littlefield]

I'm glad WB is getting more involved.  They, unlike most movie companies, realized that 99% of licensed games are crap, so they are doing something about it.  They have basically instituted financial punishments if a game fails to be good.  

 

They are using a cross section of game reviews and internal reviews and if a game fails to reach a certain point, like 60% or 70% score, the game publisher is punished.  It even thought to put in that if WB fails to get info like scripts, footage, etc to the developer in time for good development than WB will be at fault for a crappy game.  It's a great idea.

 

Good point man. I forgot about that newstory about WB. I don't remember much of it, do you still have a link to it? Do you think [punishing developers] is the way to go about it? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. As far as I know licenesed games suffer heavily from upper management censorship.

 

I read somewhere about how Paramount crippled many Star Trek videogames by enforcing contract clauses which allowed them to heavily censor the games. For example, Activisions's Elite Force series never show a major ST character dying. Raven (the game developer) managed to get around this somewhat by calling deathmatches "holomatches" (and creating completely new characters for the game). Disney had some Nintendo-type censorship in Capcom games like their characters didn't die but "lose tries". I wish I could remember more current censorship examples, but I hope you get the idea.

 

The best thing I read about it was in a recent PS2 magazine, so I don't have a link. I just think it's about time someone started to make sure that their licenses get turned into good games. I especially like that if the WB does things to mess up the game, they seem willing to accept responsibility.

 

When the WB rep being interviewed was asked about Catwoman (PS2), he actually said if it had been under his watch, due to the short time to make the game, there would not have even been a game at all. Nice to hear that they would rather have no game than hurt their reputation, especially after the Matrix game ripped off alot of people.

 

All licenses have limits, there are certain Star Wars characters that are not allowed to die w/in a game unless movie based, the NFL is now trying to get away from NFL Blitz type games, the NHL severely limits how much fighting is allowed in a game, etc. All licenses have a limit, but it's nice that for a change one of those limits is you can't put out garbage.

[NovaXpress]

Talk is cheap, especially for the suits. It remains to be seen if Warner actually improves anything or is just blowing hot air.

[n8littlefield]

Talk is cheap, especially for the suits. It remains to be seen if Warner actually improves anything or is just blowing hot air.

 

True, I suppose we'll see when the Matrix Online comes out, as it's supposed to be absolutely terrible

[sigma]

I agree with you nova. I shudder to think what it would be like if it were only Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, EA, and Square Enix that made games. Oh, and I'm sure the first game that Murdoch will/would shit out will/would be based on Cops.

[moycon]

This is terrible terrible news.

For sure this will kill off videogaming once and for all.

 

Sad.

 

I like videogames too.

 

Oh whatever will we do Nova? Surely you have some sort of group we can all join to fight this injustice? Remember folks, it Nova's job to inform us what is going to kill off videogames. It's our job to see it doesn't happen. It worked so far gang. Lets band together, make Nova proud and save one of our favorite past times.

 

Don't worry NovaXpress, we'll make sure the industry doesn't go to hell. No-one here wants you to stress.

 

*runs to get Nova a pillow and an Enya CD*

[NovaXpress]

You see kids: while I think way too much about games, Moycon thinks way too much about me.

[J.Max]

Here's my view, for what it's worth:

 

The games industry has become very profitable, and in an era that sees less profit coming from other media areas (DVDs, Music, etc), this was bound to happen. I don't think we have to worry about really good games ever going away, although you might have to look a bit harder to find them. Look at the movies: for every big-budget crapfest (Think "Taxi") there have been smaller independents (think "Lost in Translation" ) which have also been there. And you still get good big-budget movies too! In the last year, sure we've seen Halo 2 and GTA: SA but we've also seen Alien Hominid and Metal Slug 3. The difference is that the audience for western video games is getting larger, so there will be something for everyone.

[JB]

And small independent games are far easier to get, being just a few clicks away on your browser, and free more often than not.

 

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/tt_e.html

Random example.