No E3 for me...
So I'm hearing all these reports from E3 from friends and the media, and I'm trying to convince myself, "It's okay. I'm glad I'm not there. I'm enjoying sitting in my cubical for ten hours a day working on user interfaces to the database. This is FUN. This isn't stress, this is me being giddy from being free of all the booth babes, parties, hype, and glimpses into the new games and game systems. Who needs it?"

Indeed. Instead, I'll just watch Star Wars Episode 3 a few times! Hah! Except I'm not. We've got free tickets to see it bright-and-friggin-early on Saturday morning. It's the first time I've missed opening day on a Star Wars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. Ah, well. I mean, it's not like I don't know how it ends. I mean, it's like Titanic: The ship sinks. And Anakin turns into Darth Vader. Beyond that, though, I've been trying to be incredibly spoiler-free. I really hope Jimmy Smits has more to do as Bail Organa this time. And I wonder if we find out what happens to Padme. I expect not, as in Return of the Jedi we know that she lives at least until Leiah is old enough to remember her.

So moving from Star Wars back to E3 (man, how come geek brains don't explode this week?), the big rumors from the indie game development perspective is about how the XBox 360 and Nintendo Revolution (isn't 360 degrees a complete revolution...? Curiouser and curiouser...) WILL be supporting indie game development. This won't mean that they'll be handing out free dev kits to any 14-year old who believes he can whip out Halo 4 in his bedroom. But it does mean that it's possible for a serious independent studio to see smaller games on these new platforms without needing Electronic Arts (or any other publisher) to act as the gatekeeper.

In the meantime, you have Electronic Arts VP of Communication Jeff Brown loudly proclaiming that his empire is now safe from barbarian invasion from the indies. "It is now impossible to 'Blair Witch' this business." He's thrilled it's going to be so much more expensive to develop content for games that it'll cut out all but the deepest-pocketed players.

This sort of country-club snobbery - praising the exclusivity to only the rich - really chaps me. But it's more interesting because it flies in the face of what Microsoft and Nintendo really seem to be thinking. And it's also flying in the face of a recent study that revealed that the fastest growing segment of the market was casual games - particularly the older female demographic The writing is on the wall - and Microsoft and Nintendo seem to be getting the picture. They are evolving with the market and setting themselves up to reap the benefits (Microsoft has ALREADY been doing this, with the XBox Live Arcade. Sony did this once upon a time, with the "Net Yaroze" or something like that, but it was much more limited).

EA, on the other hand, is frantically telling consumers not to bother looking elsewhere for entertainment, because only THEY and a few others have the ability to bring you realistic hair and watery eyes. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, are what makes a great game.

I don't buy it. I don't really even feel too annoyed by that statement. True, I'm frustrated by the skyrocketing cost of developing competitive content - but consider this: The average cost of a major motion picture is SUBSTANTIALLY more (by 5x-10x) the projected cost of of a major videogame release. Blair Witch was done for what would easily be considered an "indie" budget (around $20k, from what I heard). It seems to me that the barrier-to-entry for Hollywood movies is still a couple of decades beyond the barrier for videogames, yet Blair Witch was still able to make Hollywood giants weep.

But you still caught me talking about a major Hollywood movie release at the top of the blog, didn't ya?

I don't pretend that there's gonna be some big indie revolution that'll sweep the world, and that legions of players will suddenly grow bored with Halo VI and will instead scour the net in search of low-budget balloon-popping games. But I think it's clear that while the indie-games "market" (can something that wild and varied really be called a market?) - particularly casual games - are growing into a real money-making source.

The portals understand it - they are frantically trying to establish their own "Mini-EA" style empires now, throwing lots of venture capital around to build themselves up as a nice little consortium that can dictate terms. Nintendo and Microsoft seem to be understanding it - they aren't just throwing a bone out to indies, they are really trying to capture some very real revenue. It's gonna make for a very interesting 5-6 years, that's for sure.

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:27 PM (Permalink)