Hopes for MacSoft

[Sid]

The custodians of our Civ3 future, MacSoft, may be having more difficulty that I thought. This is a quote from the regular chat that Tuncer Deniz, of InsideMacGames, has with Glenda Adams from Westlake Interactive:

"Tuncer: A few days ago I mentioned in my State of the Game articles some of the changes MacSoft is going through. Basically Infogrames laid off their Creative and Marketing department, leaving just Production. What are your feelings on what is going on at MacSoft?

Glenda: We're really hoping for Macsoft to make a comeback, we always had a great relationship with them. It's sad that problems with the parent company (Infogrames) have caused difficulties for what was a well run and profitable division (as far as I know)."

Gee, now I’m really hoping that Europa Universalis is all that I want in an empire-building game + I’m hoping that MacSoft do get the resources from their parent company to be more responsive to our -- their customers’ -- needs + I’m hoping that people like Al Schilling and Nate Birkholz still have jobs.

The full interview is at:
http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=185

 

[dojoboy]

Damn! Infogrames is one big ! I don't really know, I just have always wanted to use that emoticon.

 

[gfeier]

I share your hopes that MacSoft will rise from the ashes again, but I think the whole game industry is in deep trouble. Simply put, it's too easy to steal a game. Want a prediction for six years down the road? Here it is:

Virtually no games are sold any more (except for consoles). All new games are playable only on line. You pay first or you don't play. Bye-bye warez guys. :die:

 

[ejday]

Originally posted by gfeier
...Want a prediction for six years down the road? Here it is:
Virtually no games are sold any more (except for consoles). All new games are playable only on line. You pay first or you don't play. Bye-bye warez guys. :die:

I'll see your "six" and raise you "one" - for the one guy it takes it takes to code a simple program and let it go. Sharware or freeware, there will always be alternatives, even if they aren't as pretty. Maybe less eye candy... but the fun and the thinking will still be there, maybe even more than we currently find in all the over-blown, pre-ordered, hype-machine disappointments foisted Mac and PC users alike.

The gaming industry hasn't been immune to the profit-margin driven, reality-distortion field afflicting the rest of the US corporate world for the last 15 years. What do we hear? That big games are becoming more like movies to produce. You need millions in capital, a staff of a hundred or so, eight months of advertising before it hits the shelves... and why? Is it really amazing entertainment? Not really, no. Are we going to buy schlock because it's there? Not if we can help it. Unfortunately, the few gems that do come out will either be washed away when the rest of the company swirls down the drain, or be forever locked away from open-source fans because some lawyer thinks the concept can be repackaged down the road and he can get rich off of it. (God bless the Marathon open-source warriors)

Sad, but true. The "creative division" got laid off? Remember when there wouldn't be any games at all without a "creative division"? Two or three decent releases and the game company got suckered into going public. Big mistake (in the long run). Now the "creative department" has to answer to the shareholders, who are (on average) so clueless about this market that they can't figure out where Virtual ends and Reality begins. Either the MBAs haven't played a game since checkers got the vibrant red to offset the black --or-- (*gasp!*) they're only in it for the money (which means, gentle reader, that they don't flying fart about you wasting your time as long as you've wasted your money first). Does this sound familiar: we demand that every subsequent release break the records of the last record-breaking release. Could it be that all the eye-candy (and no gameplay) releases out there came out that way because a group of suits got a five-minute presentation on how the game "looked" without ever actually sitting down, installing it, and playing a game through? Could it be they collared a focus-group of Lowest Common Denominator computer users (the ones that complain to the help line that they can't find the "any" key)? Could it be that after the suits broke off the "coffee cup holder" from their computer, that they executed the project to the best of their own, creative abilities? (read: Death By Committee) Could it be that they gave an over-the-shoulder massage to morph a good concept into a design that got the least amount of complaints from the 25% of the population that has been chewing lead chips instead of potato(e) chips? Could it be that the game industry really is run more and more like the movie industry (the same one that is complaining about runaway production to Montreal)? If so, on both fronts, thank goodness for the Indie producers. Thank goodness for the first "Blair Witch" (not the second) and the "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding"s... and guys that code and release shareware online. Maybe after a "market correction" or two, after a dose of reality, the quick-srike, golden-parachute, perk-pandered CEOs will go back to the snake oil they oozed from and the "creative department" will get the chance to explore their creativity.

Nah.

Not that I have an opinion on it or anything.

My six-year prediction: Half the people will still be supporting the M$-style, on-line only pay-per-play nazis gfeier foresees... and the other half will dabbling with some pretty cool small-studio projects that can save on distribution by catering to those folk who have both an internet connection and an interest...

[sorry. Stepping off my soapbox now...]

 

[gfeier]

Good points ej. At least Mac users will always have Ambrosia (I hope).

 

[Trabpukcip]

BTW warez will never die... and consoles are rarely protected against it. So far aonly nintendo's consoles haven't been victim of wide-copying. Remember what happennes to dreamcast? The exact same think is happenning to the PS2 and Xbox. It is now possible to copy theses consoles games and it is even possible to find the games on the net... give me 10 minutes...:flamedevi

But for those of you who are not aware of what is going on the web... I think will see very soon the Gamecube and Xbox emulators.

 

[gfeier]

Originally posted by Trabpukcip
BTW warez will never die...

No, but it may commit suicide. What do you do when there's nothing new to pirate? :suicide:

 

[Beamup]

Originally posted by gfeier
No, but it may commit suicide. What do you do when there's nothing new to pirate?

You end up forcing the gaming industry to change the way it works. The current way of looking at copyright is, most likely, essentially doomed. Since it has become so easy to duplicate and distribute information, and is getting even easier quite quickly, the idea of charging people for copies of that information (such as a computer game, a musical recording, or a book) is starting to become unworkable. Consider Napster - massive amounts of effort were put into shutting it down. Did it really do any good? No, because it was promptly replaced with Limewire and so on. Once it becomes sufficiently cheap, easy, and convenient to duplicate and distribute the information, people will take advantage of it, and you can't effectively stop them. If it's enough cheaper to get music that way, people will get their music that way instead of by buying CDs.

Games have been less susceptible to this so far, simply due to the fact that the amount of data in a game is MUCH greater than the amount of data in a song, and the costs of duplication and distribution are correspondingly greater - downloading a full CD is still impractical for the vast majority of people. But, as Internet technology continues to improve, that protection will continue to erode.

This does not mean that the game industry, or the music industry, or any other industry is "dying" or "dead." They will simply have to change the way they work. There's an analogy you can make between this and the early days of commercial radio. Then, there were people saying that radios would kill the music industry because anyone could listen to the radio, and you couldn't charge them for doing so, so there was no way for performers to make a profit from their music anymore. There were even people who wanted to forbid transmitting music over the radio to prevent people from listening for free. But, if people want to do something, they will and you can't stop them - take Prohibition, for example.

So, a way had to be found to simultaneously let people listen to music over the radio for free while still allowing composers and performers to make money off of it. And a way WAS found - putting commercials into radio broadcasts. By analogy, it could be suggested that games, music, and so on will have to change in a similar way. Not necessarily today - information technology isn't THAT good yet - but over years.

The fundamental point is this. If people CAN get something for free, it's not really feasible to try and force them to keep paying for it anyway. So, you have to find some way for copyright holders to make a profit (or else people will stop writing books/games/music and there won't be any more) despite that.

I've been a bit long-winded here, I suppose, but I thought people might be interested. Oh, and none of this is original thought of my own - it's mostly the fruit of some long discussions with my dad (an economics professor who specializes in how information technology is affecting economics).

To sum up what I've been saying, in brief: Warez cannot be stopped effectively. So, a way needs to be found for, e.g., Westlake to make money even if people get warez copies of Civ 3.

 

[Sid]

For the culturally inept on the other side of the Pacific, what is 'warez guys'? Is it as in 'warehouse'? commodification?

 

[gfeier]

Originally posted by Sid
For the culturally inept on the other side of the Pacific, what is 'warez guys'? Is it as in 'warehouse'? commodification?

No, it refers to "cracked" copyrighted software available for free on the net, as in theft.

 

[BuddhaBubba]

Hrmm...this is a good discussion...

just one thing I'd like to add...I believe that Hackerz would still be able to produce Warez even when all the games are online...

simply put, they will hack into the servers and steal the game files...

no information on the internet can be perfectly protected which is why it truly is the pinaccle of our whole concept of "freedom of expression"

btw, ej ... I do love your concept of shareware games and you abhorance of mass-produced crap games ...

So, in six-years I probably see warez still existing (cuz c'mon, you think hackerz are gonna quit after all these years?, they just find new ways, no system is ever completely fool-proof safe) and mass-produced crap still existing, and also the gems that occasionally pop up out of no-where...and probably Civilization 4 ... hehe ...

In other words, I don't see a complete revolution in the gaming industry (everything going to pay-to-play online isn't a revolution, it's just a shifting of marketability). Rather, I see a little bit of a recession right now in terms of the overall economy of the gaming industry but as all things we love, it will survive...

Yes, it will survive...

But as always, Caveat Emptor

(btw, does anyone remember the latin phrase for "know thyself"?)

 

[Beamup]

Originally posted by BuddhaBubba
In other words, I don't see a complete revolution in the gaming industry (everything going to pay-to-play online isn't a revolution, it's just a shifting of marketability).

The exact sort of thing I was talking about, phrased in perhaps more elegant terms.

(btw, does anyone remember the latin phrase for "know thyself"?)

"Temet Nosce." I love The Matrix. Next May is such a long time.

 

[gfeier]

Originally posted by BuddhaBubba
Hrmm...this is a good discussion...

just one thing I'd like to add...I believe that Hackerz would still be able to produce Warez even when all the games are online...

simply put, they will hack into the servers and steal the game files...

Not if I was designing the system (even though I hate dongles).

 

[Hellfire]

Okay, this is a good discussion, but please get off the idea that pirates are the cause for the game industries problems.

pirates are always falsely figured into lost sales for computer software. 95% of software pirates would not have purchased the software even if the software were 100% uncrackable. These people consist of all sorts of personalities, but the bottom line is you wouldn't have gotten the money out of them anyway.

There was an absolutely great article (might be a bit ranty but I think it explains the problem as I see it well) about the state of the gaming industry lately. I can't find it but you might be able to find it on macgamer.com, I know I read it.

It basically states that the problems with games lately are #1 the amount of complexity games are going for lately, and #2 the fact that the development life cycle is helping developers shoot themselves in the foot. The games come out with numerous bugs, people get disillusioned over these really bad buggy games and the next time they release software, no one buys it.

I know that the troubles with Diablo 1 and 2, combined with the unimpressive plotline for WC3, caused me not to purchase WC3. Diablo in the beginning had some really glaringly stupid bugs. They say it was stable, but as you dove deeper into the game, you started to see really dumb problems. The game didn't crash, but when you are trying to create a good character and then find out that some damage calculation or key skill was bugged and did like 2 pts of damage when you expected it to do 200 was terrible. Worse, they continued to rebalance and change skills after the release siting that they were "broken" when quite simply people found ways to use a skill which was the #1 best way to play. Every patch seemed to require people to create a new character from scratch. It was very frustrating.

Now I won't patron Blizzard because of poor design and bugs.

Firaxis is going in that direction. They promise to reconcile the interface design problems in Civ3 in PTW. How silly. I have to PAY to resolve that?????? It made me scream.

And I'm still waiting for 1.29 because I'm sick and tired of getting my ass kicked on monarch because the AI trades techs rampantly and I can't keep up with the technology tree. Yes I play at lower levels because of this, but its a problem at ALL levels of the game so its something thats a pain to overcome.

And I'm not blaming Brad for not releasing the patch. I'm blaming Firaxis for letting software out like this without good testing. The AI should never had had rampant tech trading unless it was built into the level difficulty. That is, no rampant trading at Warlord or Chieftan levels.

It's getting to the point that people release PC software and simply say "We'll patch it later." This is a dumb idea. You have my money, and I have a broken game. Not funny.

The problems with sales the industry has are its own fault. What's worse is that porting companies which simply power the code wholesale are taking the first fallout. As mac users we tend to be more discerning. We want quality, but when we get a faulty game, we don't buy from that maker again, and then sales plummit and that is used as an excuse for not porting another game by another company because mac sales suck.

Why most companies are going to online games is because of constant revenues. Everquest, for the past, what, 3 years at least? Has people paying $10 a month to play. Thats $120 a year for a 3 year old game vs $50 for a brand new game which in 3 years is worth less than $10 and doesn't have high sales.

Online games can also take these evolutionary steps and call them part of the game and justify the price of subscription. Keeping the customers happy with constant changes is what they want in a perpetual game. In a stand alone game all I want is it to work as advertised.

So the software industry changes to provide what they can based on customer input, and PC stand alone games go by the wayside.

 

[Sid]

Great points Hellfire.

I applaud the sentiments in your signature.

 

[gfeier]

You pretty much nailed it, Hellfire, but I maintain that the piracy problem is worse than you make it out. More to the point, it's perceived as worse by the gaming industry. I'm afraid the golden age of playing strategy games solo against your computer may be ending soon. At least we'll get Master of Orion III and Europa Universalis II first.

 

[eeZee]

Sure, hackers will always find ways ... but it's up to us honest gamers to buy the games and not to steal them. i've been buying my games since the begining, because i was aware, that if i'm only using pirated warez the companies making my favourites games will stop to make games for my mac.

 

[dojoboy]

You guys seem to know a good deal about the gaming industry. I know very little about how it operates, but learning. Personally, I believe there will always be SP games for computers. Why? Because, there will always be a person, like a Sid Meier, who wishes to create something wonderful and unique, to create something that can not be done when all the players are human. Advancements in artificial intelligence may allow for someone to create challenging diplomatic options, AI "cognitive" processes, etc.

In regards to hackers on the internet, I believe the gaming industry could help themselves by embracing this cyber-Barbary Coast. How? I don't really know, but who better to "safeguard" creative efforts than the hackers themselves.

 

[gfeier]

Originally posted by dojoboy
In regards to hackers on the internet, I believe the gaming industry could help themselves by embracing this cyber-Barbary Coast. How? I don't really know, but who better to "safeguard" creative efforts than the hackers themselves.

Trouble is, by the time they get smart enougn to understand why your idea has merit, another crop of 14-year-olds comes along who haven't figured it out yet.