First Impressions?

[Superpig]

Interesting thing about innovation.

The way the industry works is currently undergoing a change, at least on the development side: we're seeing the rise of "middleware." Middleware is basically just technology or content produced by a third party. Examples would be game engines (such as Quake, Unreal, HL, Renderware, Auran Jet, Gamebryo), physics engines (such as Havok), MMO server foundations (such as Butterfly.Net); or on the content side, asset "packs," containing a load of resources that you might want for a "WW2" game, or a "Space" game.

In the old days, all your stuff was made in-house. That's just not cost-effective any more - whatever you make takes time, and that means costs in terms of wages. Would you rather hire 5-6 people for 6 months and have them develop you a physics engine, or would you rather pay 40 guys with PhDs in Maths and Physics a license fee for Havok? It's a question of costs, but with the increase in the popularity of middleware, competition in the market is starting up, which means prices will fall.

So that's what's happening to iD and Epic, ultimately - they're moving, whether they want to or not, from being game developers to being middleware providers. You bet your ass that iD will make more money out of the people licensing the Doom engine than they will out of the game itself. That doesn't mean that they'll stop producing games entirely - I really doubt that would happen, as a bestselling game is the best way to advertise your technology. But if I were you, I wouldn't expect them to be innovating gameplay. They'll be providing technology for other people to do that.

I agree with CClimax that Uplink was a hit because of the gameplay; however, I must warn against the inference that "AMAZING 3D GRAPHICS" and "TEXTURING SO GOOD YOU CAN TASTE IT" actively prohibit good gameplay. They don't. You can have a fantastic gameplay mechanic wrapped in a fantastic-looking package - you'll probably have fantastic sales figures as a result.

Of the two, though, which is easier to measure - graphics or gameplay? Take a set of 5 games from across the past 5 years, and try and put them in order of "best gameplay." Then try and put them in order of "best graphics..."

That's why the publishers tend to push the developers to work on the graphics instead of the gameplay (and yes, that is what happens. I could tell you some horror stories...). They reason that even if the gameplay is so much better than other games on the market, consumers won't be able to tell very easily, so why bother? Why not push the graphics, the first thing that people will see when they pick up the box, look over their friend's shoulder, or open a reviewing magazine?

It's not, in the end, about graphics vs. gameplay. That's a misdirection; it's really about commercialism vs. artistic integrity. Films suffer from it too - the directors and writers are forced to 'dumb down' their films because the suits worry that the audience won't understand, and so won't buy the DVD. (Tell that to Donnie Darko.)

There are actually very few studios that aren't locked in contracts with publishers and have the resources to "do an Introversion," as you say, Darksun. iD and Epic, maybe, but as I've said I don't think we should expect anything much more than tech demos from them in the near future. Valve? Could be - remember, nobody's actually played HL2 yet, so maybe they're going to unleash massive gameplay innovation on us. Although, it might be worth keeping an eye on Microsoft - if they've got the chutzpah to launch their own console, they'll probably think nothing of producing some original games.

"Bedroom programming" is just another name for "budget development" (See also: garage programming, homebrew development). Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's good. When it *is* good it's frequently very good, but the hit/miss ratio isn't great. Look around for the number of people posting their Pong clones on their personal sites, and you should get what I mean.

How can it all be resolved? Lower development costs. That's the only way it'll happen - developers will be able to spend an extra 6 months polishing a game, without causing the publishers to scream bloody murder at the extra milestone payments they'd be making. More powerful tools, as well - so that they only need 2 months instead of 6. And finally, lower to-market costs - it costs quite a bit to actually box up and ship a game that nobody buys (hence the shift from 'regular' boxes to DVD-style cases). The internet's helping with that last one - systems like Valve's Steam will make it very cheap to actually deploy a game. You'll still have administrative and marketing costs, but they'll be lower, meaning that publishers will be happier about taking risks.