Kotaku laments the game industries lack of testicular fortitude
I wanted to comment on this Kotaku article lamenting the lack of original games on the next-gen consoles, but they have some kind of “exclusive” invite only commenting system. To answer their question;
Is there a way for developers to make the games they want to make and still have publishers be happy with the revenue? New IP rarely sells as well as established IP, but relying too hard on existing franchises isn’t going to bring anything new and exciting to the table, either, is it? Any solutions from the Kotaku peanut gallery?
I say The Long Tail is a possible solution. More sales for original IP (non-hit) titles translates to more money for developers to make original titles.
Lerc
I have been thinking along these lines recently myself. The problem with the long tail is that it is a lesson to be learnt by vendors, not producers. Vendors can increase their revinue by a large amount by increasing the range of titles. From the point of view of developers, the rules change a little. The revinue per title decreases as you go down the tail. The long tail just means that the revinue will be above zero.
Currently there is no definitive place for people to find games in the long tail. There are places like realnetworks, but nothing that approaches the status of amazon as _the_ place to go. Time will probably produce one, and make someone rich in the process.
A few things have been making me think about ultra low budget titles. Games that are designed to be short term amusements. One of the reasons why Arcade games in the 80’s were so much more innovative is because they based themselves on a single simple concept. It’s hard to make an epic game in the same way. The Ludum Dare shows how many different game ideas can be explored quickly. I think it would be interesting to make a game with a total dev budget of $2,000-5,000. The question is could you sell 1,000 copies for $2-5 each.
At the moment I don’t think there is market infrastructure to support it, I think the potential customers exist though.
bitshifter
You are right, the Long Tail means more than zero, but not necessarily enough to cover production costs.
Amazon is a pretty good place for games, only they are the boxed variety. They do stock some casual games such as Bejewelled, but they ship a boxed copy. I guess they haven’t taken on digital distribution yet. As soon as they do, I’m sure they’ll expand their game offerings. They are pretty good for boxed non-casual (full price?) games at the moment.
I think the Long Tail will really come into it’s own when these big retailers start doing online distribution. Unfortunately it seems like that’s some way off.