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Games don't need venture capitalism

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Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#31

Post by hresvelgr »

bhb916 wrote: post #21
hresvelgr wrote: post #18

Games in this day and age ideally need generous government subsidy to be successful. I feel we're a long way off universal basic income worldwide so at the very least, something like an artist's living wage provided by the government is a necessity to produce good independent video games. Most professional indie developers tend to survive rather than thrive, barely kept afloat by money from publishers who also have t…

Quite the contrary, the world you envision isn't nice to think about at all. It's impractical, inefficient, wildly haphazard, and, worse than that, would produce the exact opposite of what you're looking for. The profit motive might not be aesthetically pleasing to you but it provides the vibrant indie marketplace we see today.

My inspiration for the idea was VicScreen[1], an Australian Victorian state government agency that funds film and interactive media projects. In the past they have funded half of a project's development budget but I'm unsure of their procedures as of now. Cult of the Lamb[2] was partially subsidised by VicScreen as an example. There is a selection process but the money comes with few strings attached, mainly attribution.

> The profit motive might not be aesthetically pleasing to you but it provides the vibrant indie marketplace we see today.

At what cost? My main point, ignoring my objectionable proposal is that video games could use better patronage from actors that aren't entirely profit driven. Having spoken to indie developers myself, there is a palpable constant stress living proposal to proposal with their business hanging in the balance at all times. That may very well be the nature of the market and some might say, so be it. I feel removing that stress to perform would probably offer better results, but who knows.

I am idealistic and I don't think art should be subject to the same conditions as the average business because the inherent value proposal is intangible and varies wildly to all that experience it.

[1] https://vicscreen.vic.gov.au/

[2] https://www.cultofthelamb.com/

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#32

Post by minimaxir »

TillE wrote: post #30
minimaxir wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palworld is an extreme lightning in a bottle and is not a consistent model for game development success. For every Baldur's Gate 3 and Among Us, there are thousands of games that never reach that level of popularity. It's a similar survivorship bias as typical VC.

I've seen a couple people refer to BG3 as if it's some out-of-the-blue success. Larian has a strong history of consistent success, and reached another level by licensing an extremely popular franchise. Similarly, nearly every AAA franchise game will do very well. Maybe there are some ups and downs, but overall it's boringly predictable. I can absolutely guarantee that GTA6 will be one of the best-selling games of all…

BG3 was an iteration into a niche genre (CRPGs) where previous iterations in that genre underperformed (Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin). Everyone, including Larian, was surprised.

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#33

Post by tranceylc »

kyriefh wrote: post #28
orbital-decay wrote: post #25

> the all-time concurrent user (CCU) record on Steam was just claimed by Palworld Was it? PUBG had > 3.2 millions concurrent players at the peak, and it's about 1.3M for Palworld. Sure it's growing faster but it's still nowhere near that.

you're correct, this was a basic error on my part - it's #5 all time ( https://steamdb.info/charts/?sort=peak ). apologies / thanks for the catch, and i've fixed the text

Insane that the gap between #1 and #2 is almost double.

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#35

Post by Ekaros »

minimaxir wrote: post #32
TillE wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a couple people refer to BG3 as if it's some out-of-the-blue success. Larian has a strong history of consistent success, and reached another level by licensing an extremely popular franchise. Similarly, nearly every AAA franchise game will do very well. Maybe there are some ups and downs, but overall it's boringly predictable. I can absolutely guarantee that GTA6 will be one of the best-selling games of all…

BG3 was an iteration into a niche genre (CRPGs) where previous iterations in that genre underperformed (Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin). Everyone, including Larian, was surprised.

Not really. Divinity Original Sins and Divinity Original Sins 2 both did well enough for studio like Larian. I think they expected the BG3 to do similar, maybe somewhat better.

Trajectory was there. BG3 is an iteration of those two games and earlier ones.

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#36

Post by jokethrowaway »

hresvelgr wrote: post #31
bhb916 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the contrary, the world you envision isn't nice to think about at all. It's impractical, inefficient, wildly haphazard, and, worse than that, would produce the exact opposite of what you're looking for. The profit motive might not be aesthetically pleasing to you but it provides the vibrant indie marketplace we see today.

My inspiration for the idea was VicScreen[1], an Australian Victorian state government agency that funds film and interactive media projects. In the past they have funded half of a project's development budget but I'm unsure of their procedures as of now. Cult of the Lamb[2] was partially subsidised by VicScreen as an example. There is a selection process but the money comes with few strings attached, mainly attribut…

Art is a sort of enjoyable endeavour for the artist and I certainly wish I would be paid to paint or make a videogame - but the world has way too much art being produced and it doesn't need another one - so I can keep writing crap react app for 300k and my soul or make a game for 50k (or go indie and likely starve).

In particular I think fiat currency and inflation drives the industry to stupid investments trying to follow trends and make money before your cash loses value - and those stupid investments turn into bad work practices. It's no chance work quality keeps going down (we're on a downhill spiral in every sector, from construction to tech, if you ask me what I've seen in the past 20y).

Art, being the antithesis of working badly, dumbed down significant (modern art anyone?) and become just a vessel to store value, more than something good made by masters.

Something intangible like a game license, despite still being art, is caught between two fires and turns into the one hit the most.

Basic income won't solve anything, it will just make everything more expensive and will shift even more money into the hands of the government.

Until we get rid of governments (likely with a painful crash, after we collapse on our own, after a 50 years slow decline) the situation is not going to improve in any way.

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#37

Post by OfficeChad »

hresvelgr wrote: post #18

Games in this day and age ideally need generous government subsidy to be successful. I feel we're a long way off universal basic income worldwide so at the very least, something like an artist's living wage provided by the government is a necessity to produce good independent video games. Most professional indie developers tend to survive rather than thrive, barely kept afloat by money from publishers who also have t…

[dead]

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#38

Post by OfficeChad »

Gigachad wrote: post #12
jmyeet wrote: post #6

This is ancient Internet history at this point but does anyone remember Rovio? In the early days of the iPhone/iPad they made a large amount of money with the Angry Birds franchise, even licensing the IP to a movie (or was it 2?). In 2011 Rovio took ~$40 million in VC funding and I distinctly remember thinking "well, that's over". Creative ventures don't scale. You cannot reduce them to a magic and infinitely-repeata…

I think you actually can reduce a lot of it to a formula. Most major games that come out are basically a modern remake of something that already exists and was popular. Just rehashing the same concepts and improving them is a pretty solid strategy. This strategy won’t create the Minecrafts and Stardew vallies, but it covers the bulk of game development.

[dead]

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#39

Post by meheleventyone »

zokier wrote: post #34

Isn't the traditional publishing model essentially same as VC? Publishers invest in game projects, acknowledging that many will be duds but some will be hits?

The significant difference is the way the investment is recouped. Publishers take revenue directly whilst VCs take equity in the studio. VCs also expect a much larger return so they’re primarily interested in finding the next “forever game” like League or WoW and money printing businesses like F2P mobile studios.

Re: Games don't need venture capitalism

#40

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

hresvelgr wrote: post #18

Games in this day and age ideally need generous government subsidy to be successful. I feel we're a long way off universal basic income worldwide so at the very least, something like an artist's living wage provided by the government is a necessity to produce good independent video games. Most professional indie developers tend to survive rather than thrive, barely kept afloat by money from publishers who also have t…

> Games in this day and age ideally need generous government subsidy to be successful.

Like buying everyone in the CCP a copy of FTL: Faster Than Light? (Apparently the team behind FTL was operating out of Shanghai.)

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