September 23, 2004
"Game Publishers Sweat Console Change"
This morning, a friend sent me this C|Net article, "Game Publishers Sweat Console Change", whose topic coincides with the discussion we were having yesterday in 511 (regarding the NY Times article "In Video Games, Sequels are Winners"). Whether this has significant bearing on the development of true "indy" games is not entirely clear, but it does seem to indicate that independent game developers who want to compete with the blockbusters on at least some level have their work cut out for them.
An interesting thing that they point out which I have also definitely been noticing is that more games are getting shorter (less entertainment value in terms of hours), and the article attributes this to the rising labor costs due to graphics. Their conclusion from this is that more and more developers will need to reuse code, rather than rebuilding each time; a conclusion they support citing EA's recent acquisition of Criterion Games (Renderware).
Posted by hyang at September 23, 2004 08:53 AM