In this current economic downturn the gaming Industry is booming.

Run_to_da_hills

While every thing else seems to be going downhill according to reports the game consul industry has picked up immensely in the last year. Nintendo had record sales in 2009.

Apparently a similar trend was also reflected during the Great depression of the 1920ies with the movie industry when people just wanted to escape.

I can also see this business flourishing in Ireland with so many on the dole sitting at home playing with their kids Nintendo WII's while they are at school.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/why-gaming-is-banishing-the-blues-1452067.html

andrew

I remember seeing some chart showing the % change in different industrys durring the Great Depression. Nearly every industry was in the negative, apart from the Liquor industry (but considering there was prohibition during the Depression..I think..then that probably skews it a lot).

Run_to_da_hills

andrew wrote: »

I remember seeing some chart showing the % change in different industrys durring the Great Depression. Nearly every industry was in the negative, apart from the Liquor industry (but considering there was prohibition during the Depression..I think..then that probably skews it a lot).

We almost have a prohibition with our off sales in Ireland. :mad:

nesf

There was an Economist article last month about this: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815694

thebman

nesf wrote: »

There was an Economist article last month about this: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815694

Just felt it necessary to add that EA and Activision are in the crapper because their games are crap and rushed and not tested properly.

Its too competitive a market for a publisher releasing consistently buggy, mediocre games to survive.

Valve woiuld be the company to look at IMO. They make a game and release it for 35-60 euro. Then for the next 4-5 years they release free updates to the game and offer free online play on Pc for their games. They have stated that whenever they announce new free maps or new characters they see a surge in sales. Its an interesting model.

Valve also allow people to make their own levels for their games. Portal actually started out as a mod by college students and they were later hired by Valve to make it a more polished product and released for sale.

Its not the first time Valve has hired users making mods and it seems to be a good way to create a recruiting ground for good employees.

EA have treated workers like crap for years and only gotten crap out of them as a result. Gaming is really a case of people only buy quality products and you can only get quality products by having employees who care about the product and they'll only care if they are treated well and not exploited.

fergalr

The games industry is doing well at the moment because it's in the most lucrative part of the console cycle.
Also, yes, games tend to be *relatively* recession proof - that is, relative to other industries - but it's the part of the console cycle that's the big issue.

brim4brim:
I disagree with most of what you posted.

Just felt it necessary to add that EA and Activision are in the crapper because their games are crap and rushed and not tested properly.

First off, when we talk about the games industry, we talk about consoles. Your comment about bugs would seem to reference the PC market? The PC market is minor in comparison. The console titles tend to be well tested. Or are you saying EA and Activision have been releasing buggy console games recently?

EA have treated workers like crap for years and only gotten crap out of them as a result.

EA haven't treated their workers *that* bad, by games industry standards. EA is a big company, and the scandals of malpratices in some divisions aren't universal across the company. While the rest of the company isn't the best place to work, I don't believe it's substantially worse than games industry norms - at least that's what came out around the time of the EA spouse controversy.

Also, when you look at it from a financial point of view - and this is the economics forum - EA is one of the most successful games businesses ever. Their business model is proven in the games industry, and widely copied, and from a financial point of view, is much more successful than Valves. While Valve make excellent titles, EA has grown to become a much bigger company, because they have produced an excellent scalable games business model to appeal to the mass market.

Gaming is really a case of people only buy quality products and you can only get quality products by having employees who care about the product and they'll only care if they are treated well and not exploited.

This is not true. A majority of gamers buy anything that's polished and correctly marketed/branded. A huge amount of sales have been generated by EA through the years by pushing the same game year in year out with minor refinements.
Eg, Fifa 95/96/97 etc.

Games companies continue to also ship mediocre licensed properties.
They have done since the days of the Commodore 64.
This is because poorly produced licensed games still sell very well. (Example, Quantum of Solace, metacritic score 65/100 outsells Okami, metacritic score 93, 5:1).

So I think your statement about gamers only buying quality products is wrong.

Also, EA, who you accuse of producing low quality products, are possibly the most successful games publisher in the world.

What you say is much more true about the PC market - perhaps that was what you were referring to?

thebman

fergalr wrote: »

The games industry is doing well at the moment because it's in the most lucrative part of the console cycle.
Also, yes, games tend to be *relatively* recession proof - that is, relative to other industries - but it's the part of the console cycle that's the big issue.

brim4brim:
I disagree with most of what you posted.



First off, when we talk about the games industry, we talk about consoles. Your comment about bugs would seem to reference the PC market? The PC market is minor in comparison. The console titles tend to be well tested. Or are you saying EA and Activision have been releasing buggy console games recently?




EA haven't treated their workers *that* bad, by games industry standards. EA is a big company, and the scandals of malpratices in some divisions aren't universal across the company. While the rest of the company isn't the best place to work, I don't believe it's substantially worse than games industry norms - at least that's what came out around the time of the EA spouse controversy.

Also, when you look at it from a financial point of view - and this is the economics forum - EA is one of the most successful games businesses ever. Their business model is proven in the games industry, and widely copied, and from a financial point of view, is much more successful than Valves. While Valve make excellent titles, EA has grown to become a much bigger company, because they have produced an excellent scalable games business model to appeal to the mass market.



This is not true. A majority of gamers buy anything that's polished and correctly marketed/branded. A huge amount of sales have been generated by EA through the years by pushing the same game year in year out with minor refinements.
Eg, Fifa 95/96/97 etc.

Games companies continue to also ship mediocre licensed properties.
They have done since the days of the Commodore 64.
This is because poorly produced licensed games still sell very well. (Example, Quantum of Solace, metacritic score 65/100 outsells Okami, metacritic score 93, 5:1).

So I think your statement about gamers only buying quality products is wrong.

Also, EA, who you accuse of producing low quality products, are possibly the most successful games publisher in the world.

What you say is much more true about the PC market - perhaps that was what you were referring to?

On the Valve side yes I'm referring to the Pc market (it should be noted that LBP is essentially a console version to allow user generated content and levels) but EA have been releasing buggy games on Console and Pc alike for years. The Fifa franchise took a heavy beating to PES in recent years and is only now recovering due to PES having poor online play.

I don't think EA will last TBH. Most of their business model involves buying companies that have existing successful IP's and then rushing the follow up releases to cut costs and releasing a version of the game that drives the followers of the IP away from the market. Go on to any gaming forum and post a threat entitled EA are great and you will have a stream of posts shouting you down. They are at their peak and only have one way to go at this stage IMO. If you watch this video http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/457-Mirrors-Edge you'll quickly see that EA are basically openly mocked in the industry for their poor games. Sales will only last for so long if a company is annoying its market. Just look at the back lash for Spore or EA's downloadable content for a lot of their titles.

As for movie tie in's, there is only so long the market will fall for that nonsense. It isn't sustainable to release poor products. The only reason that is working at the moment is because the market is still growing. I'd like to see statistics on the repeat customers of movie tie in games because I imagine they will at most buy one or two of them before branding it as all trash and moving on to other genres of the industry. I think movie tie ins will die a couple of years after the market stops growing.

Okami is a niche product IMO and doesn't have mainstream appeal. How did GTA do? Or COD4? How did those games do compared to the Superman movie tie in game or the Ironman game?


I don't really know the significance of the "casual market" since these new gamers could and probably will disappear in a few years once the initial fun factor of using a touch screen or motion controls wears off. On the train to work, the people using DS's seem to only ever play Brain Training which I imagine will get old after a while. The real question is whether these people will bother exploring the market further or will it just be left to gather dust.

I am failing to see how the greatness or crappiness of EA is a topic suitable for discussion in this forum...

Fat_Fingers

Deleted User wrote: »

I am failing to see how the greatness or crappiness of EA is a topic suitable for discussion in this forum...

LOL, i was wondering the same thing.

leninbenjamin

brim4brim wrote: »

Just felt it necessary to add that EA and Activision are in the crapper because their games are crap and rushed and not tested properly.

Its too competitive a market for a publisher releasing consistently buggy, mediocre games to survive.

Valve woiuld be the company to look at IMO. They make a game and release it for 35-60 euro. Then for the next 4-5 years they release free updates to the game and offer free online play on Pc for their games. They have stated that whenever they announce new free maps or new characters they see a surge in sales. Its an interesting model.

Valve also allow people to make their own levels for their games. Portal actually started out as a mod by college students and they were later hired by Valve to make it a more polished product and released for sale.

Its not the first time Valve has hired users making mods and it seems to be a good way to create a recruiting ground for good employees.

EA have treated workers like crap for years and only gotten crap out of them as a result. Gaming is really a case of people only buy quality products and you can only get quality products by having employees who care about the product and they'll only care if they are treated well and not exploited.

This is exactly what's wrong the the games industry imo. For an entertainment sector, there is very little casual consumption. Development budgets are becoming too big and thus the prices are becoming somewhat prohibitive. the industry is in a unique position to profit from the recession, but the current dominant business model is actually exceptionally flawed.

fergalr wrote: »

First off, when we talk about the games industry, we talk about consoles. Your comment about bugs would seem to reference the PC market? The PC market is minor in comparison. The console titles tend to be well tested. Or are you saying EA and Activision have been releasing buggy console games recently?

the PC games market is still included as part of the sector. one of the reason's the PC market is so small is because of piracy, and the industries response to it. somewhat ironically perhaps, the PC market is still probably the best fitting model in terms of expanding the market to include more casual gamers, as it does not require a specific piece of hardware. but very few within the industry still actively target the PC market, yet Valve are a perfect showcase of how lucrative the PC market can be.

fergalr wrote: »

and from a financial point of view, is much more successful than Valves.

utterly pointless comparison. Until recently, Valve were a developer. EA have been a publisher for years.

now, it's only in the last couple of years that Valve have gone into publishing games in earnest through Steam. And isn't it odd that the rise of the first real online only game publisher should occur at a time when EA are struggling?

EA are going the way the music record labels went when faced with the internet, distorting their sales figures to hide an outdated business model.

fergalr wrote: »

This is not true. A majority of gamers buy anything that's polished and correctly marketed/branded. A huge amount of sales have been generated by EA through the years by pushing the same game year in year out with minor refinements.
Eg, Fifa 95/96/97 etc.

in a bizarre way, you're both right. the exponentially increasing development budget means people buy more expensive products less frequently, but at the same time everyone knows a good IP will still generatoe the sales regardless of the product. it's a bit of both.

fergalr wrote: »

Games companies continue to also ship mediocre licensed properties.

but less and less. the industry is rapidly changing. there was a time when development budgets are so small a developer could simply churn out games and would still make money if only 1 in 10 were a success. nowadays the failure of a single game is enough to bring down even some of the stronger development houses.

fergalr wrote: »

Also, EA, who you accuse of producing low quality products, are possibly the most successful games publisher in the world.

Were. watch this space, they are slowly loosing their grip on the market, and that usually takes 2 to 3 years to translate to sales due to the development period.

fergalr wrote: »

What you say is much more true about the PC market - perhaps that was what you were referring to?

his remarks a still relevant. the PC market is still a small sector of the overall. most publishers have simply abandoned it, but Valve have shown how profitable a good business model targeted at it can be. the PC market is a perfect case study of how the industry really fails to get to grips with how it's own markets function.

brim4brim wrote: »

I don't think EA will last TBH. Most of their business model involves buying companies that have existing successful IP's and then rushing the follow up releases to cut costs and releasing a version of the game that drives the followers of the IP away from the market.

Agreed. their model made sense in a time of relatively small development costs but they are slowly going the way of the dodo. Mirror's Edge is a good example of the state of EA today. they are living off the back of their IPs, but the development costs mean the IPs are becoming less and less lucrative. EA are in the odd position for an industry leader where they need to start learning how to make games.

fergalr wrote: »

I don't really know the significance of the "casual market" since these new gamers could and probably will disappear in a few years once the initial fun factor of using a touch screen or motion controls wears off. On the train to work, the people using DS's seem to only ever play Brain Training which I imagine will get old after a while. The real question is whether these people will bother exploring the market further or will it just be left to gather dust.

the casual market is everything. the last few years have shown how simply targeting the hardcore gamers becomes unsustainable. market expansion is a must, and this can only really be fulfilled by attracting more and more casual gamers.

you're Brain training remarks really touches at the heart of my argument. Nintendo have finally created the platforms through which to reach the casual gamers. the DS and the Wii sales are romping away the others, yet the developers and publishers haven't a notion to make money from it. they point to the fact 'but people only play Brain Training, or Wii sports, and don't buy any more games. There's actually no money to be made...', which is utter nonsense. The fact remains they have taken no time to get to understand this new market sector, they have really failed advertise aggressively for it, and ultimately they have failed to come up with those casual games that this new market sector is willing to spend so much money on.

Deleted User wrote: »

I am failing to see how the greatness or crappiness of EA is a topic suitable for discussion in this forum...

no offense here, but that's such a typical attitude with respect to the indsutry. Fact is, 'the crappiness of EA' determines how much money there is to make, how well they use their resources... it all comes down to economics, whether those outside (and inside, i have to say) the indsutry like it or not.

thebman

Deleted User wrote: »

I am failing to see how the greatness or crappiness of EA is a topic suitable for discussion in this forum...

Don't know either TBH but if it was in the console forum, we'd just have Sonies are teh b3st posts or your ghey if you don't like the xbox type posts

At least I can read all the sentences in this thread.

Anyway, there is no doubt that the games industry has huge potential even during a recession. With that in mind, shouldn't we be doing more to attract these "highly skilled" jobs? Since they will make our economy stronger.

We already have some companies here like Blizzard tech support/call centre and Havok physics engine was developed in Ireland, so why don't we give massive tax incentives for more of these companies to locate to Ireland?

Scotland has a huge number of games companies in it and I suspect it is precisely for this reason.

There is a lot of money and jobs to be had in this industry and there is fook all courses or incentive for them to locate here at the moment it seems.

Run_to_da_hills

Im surprised Nintendo haven't come out with a credit crunching sim. One on the Irish Banking sector would do well.

leninbenjamin

brim4brim wrote: »

Anyway, there is no doubt that the games industry has huge potential even during a recession. With that in mind, shouldn't we be doing more to attract these "highly skilled" jobs? Since they will make our economy stronger.

We already have some companies here like Blizzard tech support/call centre and Havok physics engine was developed in Ireland, so why don't we give massive tax incentives for more of these companies to locate to Ireland?

Scotland has a huge number of games companies in it and I suspect it is precisely for this reason.

There is a lot of money and jobs to be had in this industry and there is fook all courses or incentive for them to locate here at the moment it seems.

same reason this thread got poo pooed. nobody takes the industry seriously. For most people, the only time they do take games seriously is when they talk about how such a bad influence it is on our children. Feck the effects on the economy, pandering to the games industry doesn't generate votes. there have been plenty of lobby groups trying to get the grants offered to the arts extended to the games industry, but they aren't even let in the door (which makes no f*cking sense either, as 70% of those who work in games development are solely artists).

leninbenjamin

leninbenjamin wrote: »

same reason this thread got poo pooed. nobody takes the industry seriously, and then for most pople the only time they do is talk about how such a bad influence it is on our children. Feck the ecoomy, parnedering to the games industry doesn't generate votes. there have been plenty of lobby groups trying to get the grants offered to the arts extended to the games industry, but they aren't even let in the door

Havok are here right?

Quite a bit of software for the games industry is written here. I worked for a firm that finds the staff to do it.

Same old problem though - too expensive for most people to get Irish programmers to do the work, hence they farm it out to the far east.

leninbenjamin

Deleted User wrote: »

Havok are here right?

only because they were founded here, they would never have come here otherwise.

Deleted User wrote: »

Quite a bit of software for the games industry is written here. I worked for a firm that finds the staff to do it.

not as much as we like to think. it's primarily just localisation and testing stuff, which is well down the food chain frankly.

Deleted User wrote: »

Same old problem though - too expensive for most people to get Irish programmers to do the work, hence they farm it out to the far east.

bollocks to that. the opposite is the case with Havok, they can't get people who are talented enough to come here regardless of cost. outsourcing isn't near as effective in the games industry as it is in other industries, you then have to set up specific roles to coordinate the outsourced workers, then time is wasting correcting the work (even though it may have been done perfectly to the written spec) to the artists conceptions etc. etc.

thebman

leninbenjamin wrote: »

bollocks to that. the opposite is the case with Havok, they can't get people who are talented enough to come here regardless of cost. outsourcing isn't near as effective in the games industry as it is in other industries, you then have to set up specific roles to coordinate the outsourced workers, then time is wasting correcting the work (even though it may have been done perfectly to the written spec) to the artists conceptions etc. etc.

That and a very small percentage of people are actually good enough at programming to be hired in the games industry so outsourcing can't really work, they can only share the projects across the best from a number of countries in a lot of cases and try to get them to co-ordinate or move them all to one location (ie. Ireland) where they get grants for doing it (if we try to attract them).

I agree it isn't taken seriously especially on the art front which is ridiculous when you consider, you can't get more creative than creating an entire world from scratch including physics. Its at least as artistically driven as the movie industry.

Even if we only offered grants for non-violent games or innovative games only (however the fook you'd judge that), it would be something since this is where Nintendo's new market wants games and it is proving to be a big market, why not aim for it?

Flamed Diving

You always get pretty good music during recessions as well. Plenty of musicians with no job so they have plenty of time to practice, write songs, etc.

thebman

Flamed Diving wrote: »

You always get pretty good music during recessions as well. Plenty of musicians with no job so they have plenty of time to practice, write songs, etc.

Yes but thanks to Your a Star those days are sadly gone

Run_to_da_hills

Turn the Dell complex at Raheen into an amusement arcade.

BroomBurner

Doesn't the gambling profession increase it's take during bad times?

leninbenjamin

BroomBurner wrote: »

Doesn't the gambling profession increase it's take during bad times?

that's the myth, but it's far from an established fact. from what i hear there's a drop off in the serious money, places like Vegas, Monte Carlo and all those seem to be taking a major hit. I think it's harder to get information on the likes of the local betting shop, but i'd be surprised if they weren't down. I think what's likely to happen is that as unemplyment increases there'll be more people who spend their days in the betting shops, but i can't see how that would necessarily translate to increased revenue.

Run_to_da_hills

BroomBurner wrote: »

Doesn't the gambling profession increase it's take during bad times?

The National Lotto was spawned during the 80ies recession.

fergalr

brim4brim wrote: »

Go on to any gaming forum and post a threat entitled EA are great and you will have a stream of posts shouting you down. They are at their peak and only have one way to go at this stage IMO. If you watch this video http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/457-Mirrors-Edge you'll quickly see that EA are basically openly mocked in the industry for their poor games. Sales will only last for so long if a company is annoying its market. Just look at the back lash for Spore or EA's downloadable content for a lot of their titles.

Hang on a moment here.
My point is that you've said that in gaming people only buy quality products.
You've also said that the largest most succesful games publisher (8th largest software company in the world) doesn't make quality products.
Now you can definitely say that in future EA won't do as well as they did in the past - I'd probably agree with you that the market is changing.
But where I originally took you up was were you said gamers only buy quality products. That's not true, or at least, hasn't been true for the past 20 years, as we have established.

brim4brim wrote: »

As for movie tie in's, there is only so long the market will fall for that nonsense. It isn't sustainable to release poor products. The only reason that is working at the moment is because the market is still growing. I'd like to see statistics on the repeat customers of movie tie in games because I imagine they will at most buy one or two of them before branding it as all trash and moving on to other genres of the industry. I think movie tie ins will die a couple of years after the market stops growing.

I remember people were making this exact same argument in the pages of commodore 64 magazines 15 years ago. I specifically remember a review for Lethal Weapon on the commodore 64 in around 92 moaning about how people always bought low quality licensed games just because they were licensed and how it wasn't sustainable. So, you can well make that argument, and maybe you are right about what happens next, but all the data in the past, right up to 2008, shows that gamers do not just buy quality games. That's all I'm saying, and I think I'm on pretty good ground.

brim4brim wrote: »

Okami is a niche product IMO and doesn't have mainstream appeal. How did GTA do? Or COD4? How did those games do compared to the Superman movie tie in game or the Ironman game?

Gamers do buy quality games too, not denying that. Just saying they also buy rubbish ones. Gamasutra or one of those sites published some good data on this as well a while back...
Again, you mention the Ironman game. Completely panned critically. The best data I can get only is that it sold about 400k copies on Wii, vs Okami, critically lauded through the roof, selling 200k copies on Wii.

All I'm saying is that it's not like gamers only buy quality games, at all, by a long shot. Maybe this will change, but it's certainly not a realistic assessment of the market as it stands, or has stood, over the past 20 years.

brim4brim wrote: »

I don't really know the significance of the "casual market" since these new gamers could and probably will disappear in a few years once the initial fun factor of using a touch screen or motion controls wears off. On the train to work, the people using DS's seem to only ever play Brain Training which I imagine will get old after a while. The real question is whether these people will bother exploring the market further or will it just be left to gather dust.

I think casual games is going to be very big in future.
However, i think Nintendo in particular have done the market a huge disservice, by getting them to buy into the Wii, and then staving them of quality casual titles.

fergalr

Deleted User wrote: »

I am failing to see how the greatness or crappiness of EA is a topic suitable for discussion in this forum...

When you discuss the economics of an industry, why people tend to buy products within that industry is surely suitable for discussion?

Whether EA as one of the biggest entities in the industry succeeds because of quality or otherwise, and whether it's future outlook is good or poor is surely suitable for discussion?

Are the market forces in the games industry etc suitable for discussion here? I'd say it's probably more suitable here than the games forums, but if not, I apologise, not familiar with the forum.

At the time I posted that, the topic had degenerated into 'EA make crap games'

However, in the interim, some economics has come to light!

fergalr

leninbenjamin wrote: »

the PC games market is still included as part of the sector.

Yes, but as it's such a small part of the sector by sales, what happens in the PC market isn't really worth discussing when discussing the overall economics of the industry - you certainly can't use it to make arguments about the games industry in general.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

one of the reason's the PC market is so small is because of piracy, and the industries response to it.

How big a role piracy plays in that is very much a matter for debate - it's hotly argued from time to time.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

somewhat ironically perhaps, the PC market is still probably the best fitting model in terms of expanding the market to include more casual gamers,

As opposed to the Wii which was bought hugely by the casual market? If you mean 'expanding the market' in terms of generating gameplays, I might agree. But if you mean 'expanding the market' in terms of generating revenue from casual gaming, well, the PC casual market has some way to go before it approaches even just hardware Wii or DS sales to casual gamers.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

as it does not require a specific piece of hardware. but very few within the industry still actively target the PC market, yet Valve are a perfect showcase of how lucrative the PC market can be.

Developers and publishers don't target the PC market as much as consoles because it isn't as lucrative to do so. Not because they are stupid, or don't realise it's there.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

utterly pointless comparison. Until recently, Valve were a developer. EA have been a publisher for years.

The reason I even contrasted Valve against EA, was because brim4brim was talking about the games industry, talking up Valve and knocking EA. I think Valve is a great company, but it's a small niche player vs EA. The fact that valve is pretty much a developer (this is changing with steam) is basically what I'm saying - they aren't in the same ballpark of business success as EA.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

now, it's only in the last couple of years that Valve have gone into publishing games in earnest through Steam. And isn't it odd that the rise of the first real online only game publisher should occur at a time when EA are struggling?

EA are going the way the music record labels went when faced with the internet, distorting their sales figures to hide an outdated business model.

I do think that online publishing is the way forward, eventually. EA know this too, and will be watching that well. I would be very hesitant to write them off, they are an extremely smart and successful company. Again, and I struggle to get this across, while valve might well be taking over a good chunk of the PC market publishing with online distribution, you aren't going to see Steam on console any time soon. So, I'd guess that strategically, EA don't really care all that much what steam does.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

in a bizarre way, you're both right. the exponentially increasing development budget means people buy more expensive products less frequently, but at the same time everyone knows a good IP will still generatoe the sales regardless of the product. it's a bit of both.

Development costs aren't increasing exponentially - at least not as I understand the term. Development costs of AAA titles has increased a lot though, agreed. A lot more so than the costs of licensing IP. This will tend towards more IP based titles in the future, because licensed titles sell games. They decrease risk.

leninbenjamin wrote: »

but less and less. the industry is rapidly changing. there was a time when development budgets are so small a developer could simply churn out games and would still make money if only 1 in 10 were a success. nowadays the failure of a single game is enough to bring down even some of the stronger development houses.

Were. watch this space, they are slowly loosing their grip on the market, and that usually takes 2 to 3 years to translate to sales due to the development period.


his remarks a still relevant. the PC market is still a small sector of the overall. most publishers have simply abandoned it, but Valve have shown how profitable a good business model targeted at it can be. the PC market is a perfect case study of how the industry really fails to get to grips with how it's own markets function.

I really don't agree.
I don't think the failure to cater to the PC market is a sign of stupidity or lack of ability to get to grips with markets by the big players. I think its just that they have made a smart business decision to focus - in this times of big projects and high risks - on the console market, and ignore the niche PC market. Yes, it can be profitable, but it's small beans to big publishers. If you are going to develop a game with the production Values of HL2 at all, why bother target PC if you could target console instead?

Agreed. their model made sense in a time of relatively small development costs but they are slowly going the way of the dodo. Mirror's Edge is a good example of the state of EA today. they are living off the back of their IPs, but the development costs mean the IPs are becoming less and less lucrative. EA are in the odd position for an industry leader where they need to start learning how to make games.

The development costs mean the IPs are becoming less and less lucrative? How so? IP, as we've agreed, tends to increase sales and guarantee a certain minimum of sales, even of bad products.
As development costs have shot up so much, surely the value of IP as a way of decreasing the risk - and it's all about decreasing risk when your putting so much money in the pot - increases?

the casual market is everything. the last few years have shown how simply targeting the hardcore gamers becomes unsustainable. market expansion is a must, and this can only really be fulfilled by attracting more and more casual gamers.

you're Brain training remarks really touches at the heart of my argument. Nintendo have finally created the platforms through which to reach the casual gamers. the DS and the Wii sales are romping away the others, yet the developers and publishers haven't a notion to make money from it. they point to the fact 'but people only play Brain Training, or Wii sports, and don't buy any more games. There's actually no money to be made...', which is utter nonsense. The fact remains they have taken no time to get to understand this new market sector, they have really failed advertise aggressively for it, and ultimately they have failed to come up with those casual games that this new market sector is willing to spend so much money on.

I do think people have a point when they say that casual isn't as ready to fork out a revenue stream as the established hardcore market.
But I definitely agree with you here when you say that the new console casual market hasn't been catered for yet. It's amazing, to me, how nintendo have dropped the ball here. They always do this, get successful and then freeze.

fergalr

brim4brim wrote: »

Anyway, there is no doubt that the games industry has huge potential even during a recession. With that in mind, shouldn't we be doing more to attract these "highly skilled" jobs? Since they will make our economy stronger.

We already have some companies here like Blizzard tech support/call centre and Havok physics engine was developed in Ireland, so why don't we give massive tax incentives for more of these companies to locate to Ireland?

Tax incentives, as I understand it, have to be quite carefully done in this area so as not to fall foul of EU laws. I think the french incentivise their games under some sort of culture get out though, so it can be done.

I'm not sure I'd do it though, if I was in government. I'm not sure games industry companies have positive expectation. Genuinely. (I exclude middleware etc from that). I'm not sure it's possible to start a AAA games project for a new console, without an established ip, and that the chance of making money times the money made works out worthwhile.

Afaik, we have very little industry here that's worth talking about. Like so much of the multinational much heralded irish tech industry, it's not the good jobs thats here, for the most part, it's the lower end of the development market.

At the same time, I have to be careful to say here, we should definitely have invested a lot more in encouraging indigenous tech companies of all colours to setup here - might be too late now, but that's a real missed opportunity.

Scotland has a huge number of games companies in it and I suspect it is precisely for this reason.

There is a lot of money and jobs to be had in this industry and there is fook all courses or incentive for them to locate here at the moment it seems.

Just because there's a lot of money in an industry doesn't mean the industry is profitable to enter.
There's a lot of money in the national lottery each week too.

fergalr

brim4brim wrote: »

That and a very small percentage of people are actually good enough at programming to be hired in the games industry so outsourcing can't really work, they can only share the projects across the best from a number of countries in a lot of cases and try to get them to co-ordinate or move them all to one location (ie. Ireland) where they get grants for doing it (if we try to attract them).

I don't agree with this either.... (sorry)
In games, programming is only a small piece of the pie. Art is also huge, particularly in next gen titles, and that can be, and has been, very successfully outsourced.
Also, I don't agree with your statement about a small percentage of people been good enough at programming - well, I mean, of course they are, there's only a small percentage of people that are programmers, but aside from that - I think we've plenty enough programmers here to start a games industry, what's missing are the other bits, the business end of things, the art, the ability to produce and stitch it all together etc. Those are not trivial skills, programming is only a tiny part of it (not by effort, but by business need).

I agree it isn't taken seriously especially on the art front which is ridiculous when you consider, you can't get more creative than creating an entire world from scratch including physics. Its at least as artistically driven as the movie industry.

The industry is taken about as seriously as it deserves to be from an artistic point of view. It's entertainment, not art, and what's produced is produced accordingly. There are artistic games every now and again with real artistic merit - I'd agree they get tarred with the same brush, which they shouldnt - but the vast majority of whats produced as little to no artistic merit.
I think it'll be huge in the future, but not yet.

Even if we only offered grants for non-violent games or innovative games only (however the fook you'd judge that), it would be something since this is where Nintendo's new market wants games and it is proving to be a big market, why not aim for it?

Violent games sell. Innovative games don't sell.
If you want to start a fledgling industry, from an economic point of view, don't hamstring yourself from the get go.

Dont be at yourself

But I definitely agree with you here when you say that the new console casual market hasn't been catered for yet. It's amazing, to me, how nintendo have dropped the ball here. They always do this, get successful and then freeze.

I'd have to dispute that. The casual, or non-traditional gamer is incredibly well-catered for at the moment. Lifestyle titles like Wii Fit and Brain Training are amongst the most successful titles on the market, and they're aimed squarely at the casual market. Nintendo broke the door down with those titles, and the market has quickly been flooded with similar titles... Sight Training, Big Brain Academy and many more. Indeed, if you go into a bookstore in Japan, you'll likely be met with an entire section dedicated to 'lifestyle software' for the DS, ranging from e-books to crosswords to recipe books.

Where Nintendo have perhaps failed is in turning these non-traditional gamers towards the more traditional games. However, seeing as Nintendo has effectively cornered the non-gaming market, they're understandably probably reluctant to do so!

Anyway, to make a more general point about the games industry and the Irish economy:

Ireland is surely in a prime position to become a hub for the games industry. In the last few years alone it has produced industry-leading software in Havok Physics and DemonWare, and done so with very little in the way of incentives. While there's a slim chance in the current climate of Ireland becoming the home of AAA developers and publishers, I do feel that it could offer the kind of services that are increasingly being outsourced - stuff like Havok, or creating art assets, or localisation and Q&A.

There is young, highly-skilled, talented workforce out there, and Ireland is well positioned as an English-speaking country in the EU to offer these kinds of services to developers across the world.

Interestingly, 50 of the jobs Cowen secured on his trip to Japan are from a Japanese games company which is expanding its European HQ in Dublin. More of that, please!

nesf

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I'd have to dispute that. The casual, or non-traditional gamer is incredibly well-catered for at the moment. Lifestyle titles like Wii Fit and Brain Training are amongst the most successful titles on the market, and they're aimed squarely at the casual market. Nintendo broke the door down with those titles, and the market has quickly been flooded with similar titles... Sight Training, Big Brain Academy and many more. Indeed, if you go into a bookstore in Japan, you'll likely be met with an entire section dedicated to 'lifestyle software' for the DS, ranging from e-books to crosswords to recipe books.

Where Nintendo have perhaps failed is in turning these non-traditional gamers towards the more traditional games. However, seeing as Nintendo has effectively cornered the non-gaming market, they're understandably probably reluctant to do so!

I completely agree, from a business perspective why would Nintendo want to give these people a reason to buy an Xbox or a PS3? They've got the casual lifestyle niche all to themselves (to the best of my knowledge) with the Wii and the DS.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Interestingly, 50 of the jobs Cowen secured on his trip to Japan are from a Japanese games company which is expanding its European HQ in Dublin. More of that, please!

He actually did some work? Oh dear, I know a lot of people on Politics who'll be disappointed by that..

fergalr

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Anyway, to make a more general point about the games industry and the Irish economy:

Ireland is surely in a prime position to become a hub for the games industry. In the last few years alone it has produced industry-leading software in Havok Physics and DemonWare, and done so with very little in the way of incentives. While there's a slim chance in the current climate of Ireland becoming the home of AAA developers and publishers, I do feel that it could offer the kind of services that are increasingly being outsourced - stuff like Havok, or creating art assets, or localisation and Q&A.

We've had a lot of success with middleware in the past in this country; this is in no small part thanks to a bunch of projects that came out of Trinity and turned into companies, with smart people in them. I think there's great scope for continued success in that area.

We've got a fair amount of localisation and QA here. I don't think there's a future in that. Maybe in the localisation, but I think we're too expensive for that long term, and would see the eastern european countries taking all of that once they get up to speed. The QA can be done anywhere and will move soon.

I wouldn't say we're going to be a hub for the games industry. But we can definitely continue to provide ancillary services. I think we are too late to become a games industry hub, in that there's very little to attract international companies to risk developing a AAA title here, that boat has sailed, with scotland and canada on it, and cheaper economies than us are going to provide the low end art outsourcing.

There is young, highly-skilled, talented workforce out there, and Ireland is well positioned as an English-speaking country in the EU to offer these kinds of services to developers across the world.

In the Irish tech industry, we have a very tiny highly skilled, talented, expensive workforce. We also have a much larger, but not highly skilled, expensive workforce.
We don't have a culture of encouraging innovation, or excellence. We don't have easy access to capital, we are risk adverse, we don't have a culture of encouraging business success, our work ethic is only middling, our government support is misplaced, our universities are underfunded, and the CAO points for the tech courses have been way down for the last 5 years.

On the other hand, the hard times will force us to adapt and innovate to survive, so that's a positive. Also, as the tech jobs disappear, we'll see more startups and hopefully an increasing indigenous industry. The disappearance of the irish economic mirage might also enable us to learn to compete in the real world.

leninbenjamin

fergalr wrote: »

Yes, but as it's such a small part of the sector by sales, what happens in the PC market isn't really worth discussing when discussing the overall economics of the industry - you certainly can't use it to make arguments about the games industry in general.

It's not just about the sales though. the PC market is still very much the test market, it's like the S-class of cars. what happens in the PC market eventually filters down. Steam paved the way for Xbox live and the like. the PC platform still serves as a huge platform for innovation, the sales are only one aspect in relating it to the other markets.

fergalr wrote: »

How big a role piracy plays in that is very much a matter for debate - it's hotly argued from time to time.

indeed, i personally think it's having much less of an impact than developers realize. but the problem is, the developers themselves will still blame imaginary piracy for the failure of their PC game rather than realizing the port was ****, or the game had hardware issues, the DRM was excessive etc. etc.
any developer harps the same tune on the PC piracy issue.

fergalr wrote: »

As opposed to the Wii which was bought hugely by the casual market? If you mean 'expanding the market' in terms of generating gameplays, I might agree. But if you mean 'expanding the market' in terms of generating revenue from casual gaming, well, the PC casual market has some way to go before it approaches even just hardware Wii or DS sales to casual gamers.

you're missing my point here. the wii has huge penetration of the casual gamers market. but, in terms of platforms, the PC actually has much more pentration. developers are missing out on a massive market here. think of how popular the netbooks have become over the past year.

fergalr wrote: »

Developers and publishers don't target the PC market as much as consoles because it isn't as lucrative to do so. Not because they are stupid, or don't realise it's there.

the question i ask is why isn't it as lucrative? and why do the likes of some companies like Valve, Blizzard and others still have it as their lead platform if this were really the case? have a read of this

fergalr wrote: »

The reason I even contrasted Valve against EA, was because brim4brim was talking about the games industry, talking up Valve and knocking EA. I think Valve is a great company, but it's a small niche player vs EA. The fact that valve is pretty much a developer (this is changing with steam) is basically what I'm saying - they aren't in the same ballpark of business success as EA.

small player? Newell said back in May that theirgrowth through steam was nearly 200%. that's not to be sniffed at and has EA and the console makers very, very scared. the PC market has over 260 million players. that's more than the consoles combined. and they still can't make money from it? something is wrong with that picture...

fergalr wrote: »

Development costs aren't increasing exponentially - at least not as I understand the term. Development costs of AAA titles has increased a lot though, agreed. A lot more so than the costs of licensing IP. This will tend towards more IP based titles in the future, because licensed titles sell games. They decrease risk.

anyone i've talked to in the industry says otherwise. as the standards customers expect increase, costs do exponentially. many have compared the current state of the games industry to that of Hollywood in the 1920 and 30s. Filmmaking became so expensive that the producers were whittled down into a few big studios. The story is similar here to an extent, except the games industry has the under-exploited casual market.

fergalr wrote: »

The development costs mean the IPs are becoming less and less lucrative?

you've missed my point. as the costs have increased so much, the profit potential brought to the table by IPs has decreased. the other factor is that the market is now saturated with IPs, which means that any IPs have little to distinguish them from the other titles in the market, which imo means they've been devalued. This is still only a theory i have right now, it'll take another development cycle or two to see if i'm onto anything.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I'd have to dispute that. The casual, or non-traditional gamer is incredibly well-catered for at the moment. Lifestyle titles like Wii Fit and Brain Training are amongst the most successful titles on the market, and they're aimed squarely at the casual market. Nintendo broke the door down with those titles, and the market has quickly been flooded with similar titles... Sight Training, Big Brain Academy and many more. Indeed, if you go into a bookstore in Japan, you'll likely be met with an entire section dedicated to 'lifestyle software' for the DS, ranging from e-books to crosswords to recipe books.

i see your point, but at the same time that's only largely been the case in Japan. secondly, lifestyle games are very much a niche within the context of casual games. imo there's far more scope for the market yet.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Ireland is surely in a prime position to become a hub for the games industry. In the last few years alone it has produced industry-leading software in Havok Physics and DemonWare, and done so with very little in the way of incentives. While there's a slim chance in the current climate of Ireland becoming the home of AAA developers and publishers, I do feel that it could offer the kind of services that are increasingly being outsourced - stuff like Havok, or creating art assets, or localisation and Q&A.

There is young, highly-skilled, talented workforce out there, and Ireland is well positioned as an English-speaking country in the EU to offer these kinds of services to developers across the world.

Interestingly, 50 of the jobs Cowen secured on his trip to Japan are from a Japanese games company which is expanding its European HQ in Dublin. More of that, please!

all you've done there is speak the party line. the reality is very different. our workforce isn't as highly skillled as we like to believe. We've devalued our degrees to increase the number of graduates. Our ability at numbers and math is largely apalling due to failures at second level. And more importantly, we aren't producing enough of these graduates in the key areas in which we could expand. You talk about growth in this area, but the biggest issue is can we hold on to what we have? Havok have made serious noises about leaving in the past year due to their inability to get the expertise here they need. It seems no one has been listening.

fergalr wrote: »

I don't agree with this either.... (sorry)
In games, programming is only a small piece of the pie. Art is also huge, particularly in next gen titles, and that can be, and has been, very successfully outsourced.
Also, I don't agree with your statement about a small percentage of people been good enough at programming - well, I mean, of course they are, there's only a small percentage of people that are programmers, but aside from that - I think we've plenty enough programmers here to start a games industry, what's missing are the other bits, the business end of things, the art, the ability to produce and stitch it all together etc. Those are not trivial skills, programming is only a tiny part of it (not by effort, but by business need).

programming is the most demanding part of it though. When the artists go home at the end of a day's work, the programmers have to stay behind and make the days build incorporating the work done for the day. turnover is huge, 90% of programmers leave the industry after 8 years or something like that. we're lacking programmers just as much as anythihng else.

fergalr wrote: »

The industry is taken about as seriously as it deserves to be from an artistic point of view.

i thought this was an econoics forum? why has the money it generates not got anything to do with it? it works for the film, TV and music industries, so why not the games?

thebman

leninbenjamin wrote: »

programming is the most demanding part of it though. When the artists go home at the end of a day's work, the programmers have to stay behind and make the days build incorporating the work done for the day. turnover is huge, 90% of programmers leave the industry after 8 years or something like that. we're lacking programmers just as much as anythihng else.

How does that compare to the rest of the IT industry though? Most people leave the industry very early and the people behind move up into project management usually from what I can see.

You could argue that this is because of the learning curve for new technologies but from talking to older people in industry, it is usually because of mistreatment by employers over the years that drives them out of the industry in the end.

On some of the bigger projects in the past few years in gaming, programmers have been literally living in the office. One company had a shower in the office so they wouldn't have to go home and they just worked, showered and ordered in pizza for the last few months of the project to meet the deadline.

Its no wonder people leave the industry if this is how the workforce is treated TBH.

leninbenjamin

brim4brim wrote: »

You could argue that this is because of the learning curve for new technologies but from talking to older people in industry, it is usually because of mistreatment by employers over the years that drives them out of the industry in the end.

all that and more. poor pay relative to other sectors. crunch periods that sometimes require 80+ hour working weeks that can last for 6 weeks at times. frequently unsocial working hours. ridiculous last minute changes of spec from publishers. ridiculous demands from producers. working with so many different artists who have no concept of time and lack the ability to express themselves in real understandable terms. the inability to have a social life. the soul destroying experience of having a project culled by the publisher for no discernable reason... the list goes on.

the games industry will never be like a normal working environment though where you just do you're 9-5 and be done with it. the amount of passion that the employees have for these projects, the financial pressures (these days, one failed game is usually enough to kill an independent developer), the rapidly changing expectations from consumers... to say they are badly treated isn't entirely true, as all employees tend to know what's expected of them from early on and in most cases would freely accept this type of working environment in exchange for working on something they can feel real passion for. but that doesn't mean they can't stop themselves burning out.