Signs are accumulating that the industry is going to shift towards lower-budget projects because the blockbuster-centric model has become unsustainable on multiple levels - cost+time risks, a uncertain future consumer market, technology hitting a plateau of diminishing returns, and, of course, growth in online+downloadable. With lower budgets, the projects are less sexy, but also have less room for catastrophes, crunch included.
I believe that this kind of future environment is more likely to encourage sustainable practices. Studios working consoles and retail are traditionally forced towards heavy turnover because the market economics dictate it. But in a low budget and predominantly online market, a small studio suddenly has a lot of room to make an impact on their own, without leverage.
Most studios really do want to hang on to their people, and this coming decade may be when that becomes the norm.
Aren't some games today (such as the Halo series) breaking all sorts of records for revenue? It seems the blockbuster model just arrived to video games.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Note that right now the movie scene is more blockbuster than it's ever been, while at the same time the indie scene is blooming.
When lots of people focus on superexpensive, it means that a lot of talented people suddenly get interested in the cheap indie scene. Look at the games of Rod Humble, who used to work for Sony and is now doing some of the best stuff in the indie gaming world.
They have been saying this for a while about music, its been happening but slowly.
The main reason it's not moved significantly to lower-budget is because the major labels have so much influence on the marketing channels. Its incredibly cheap to make an album now and autotune a good single. But labels can make or break an artist purely through marketing.
Most people rely on radio, music videos and reviews from big publications to find music. Its the same with magazines, review sites and events for gaming.
As long as one company can manufacture PR and buzz on a huge scale then the Blockbuster model will still exist. Most people simply don't put the effort in and casually buy what sounds popular - and that's completely reasonable.
"It's the same with magazines, review sites and events for gaming."
If a game isn't fun, people won't play it for long. Spore is an example. Googling for 'spore fun' reveals quotes from people along these lines:
Yeah, its a pointless game, but still fun at the same time. Sure, you have goals, but they’re just there to get your creations moving. And really, they’re boring as hell and wouldn’t last if it weren’t for the creation aspect. The only redeeming gameplay modes are the cell stage and the space stage. The other ones are short, easy, and a chore.
And another:
I played the game for maybe 10 hours. For the first 30min its pretty cool.. i mean being a cell is kinda fun... simple eating and running away. When you get to different stages like creture, tribal, civ, and space.. first few minutes is not too bad when you get to try the new stuff.. but soon after you know how the stage works, its gets repetitive and boring. The concept is pretty sweet that you get to evolve and design your own creature and buildings and vehicles.. but the game gets repetitive and boring. It gonna take a lot of time and trust me youll just get bored of it.
Spore had an insane amount of hype and PR surrounding its launch. They even had a public demo of Robin Williams creating a character before much was known about the character creator. And yet, Spore appears to have fizzled out, and rightly so. Consumers might put up with DRM if the gameplay is good, but DRM + boring gameplay = 1 1/2 stars on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1...
So the PC/Console gaming scene isn't very similar to the music scene, mostly because games have to keep people's attention for more than 4 minutes (or ~1 hour for an album).
However, casual gaming is an entirely different beast, and does share a lot of similarities with the music industry. But all I'm saying is, if a game is bad, people are going to find out.
That 1 1/2 star rating on Amazon is pretty meaningless because most of the 1 star reviews were from people JUST railing about the DRM regardless of whether they'd played the game or not.
I'm no friend of DRM, but if I were Amazon, I'd have deleted those reviews because of their specious nature.
I didn't like Spore all that much myself, however there's another Will Wright game that I didn't like all that much: The Sims. I thought that was boring as hell, but a lot of people seemed to like it, so you might understand why EA thought it would be wise to advertise the game heavily.
The difference was expectations. The Sims billed itself as a life simulation game, and as such it was a very fun one. Spore claimed to be a revolutionary worldchanging game. People called it the Citizen Kane of games. It was the end-all be-all to the history of gaming, the game that did it all. Turns out it was just a lifesim game, and a lot of people who thought they were playing the best game ever stopped playing within a day. I know I did, and I'm still a bit mad at Will Wright for that.
I have trouble buying that the technology is hitting a plateau. If that happens then what you will see a couple houses make a killing off blockbusters while the rest of the industry are making "safe" projects. But I wouldn't hold my breath on that either.
I believe that this kind of future environment is more likely to encourage sustainable practices. Studios working consoles and retail are traditionally forced towards heavy turnover because the market economics dictate it. But in a low budget and predominantly online market, a small studio suddenly has a lot of room to make an impact on their own, without leverage.
Most studios really do want to hang on to their people, and this coming decade may be when that becomes the norm.