[MUD-Dev] R&D

[Damion Schubert]

From: Dave Rickey
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
 
>> This is directed towards those of you working on commercial
>> projects: Does your company spend a significant amount of money
>> (compared to your total budget) on research? What areas would you
>> tend to direct your research dollars to?
 
> In general, the games business doesn't spend money on R&D, in fact
> they often go out of their way to avoid anything of the sort.

R&D in the bigger studios is usually divided into two groups: "pet
projects" and "tools and technology groups".

"Tools and technology groups" refers to the initiatives that many
studios have to develop central technologies that are shared by
multiple teams.  Electronic Arts use of central libraries to make
all of their sports games is the best example of this.  However,
since new innovations that benefit the most games possible are at
the top of the priority queue, you're rarely going to see a truly
whacky idea.

"Pet projects" refers to a project that some manager somewhere
likes, funds and defends.  Usually these projects are kept as small
as possible for as long as possible, while the game discovers
itself.  UO and the Sims were both pet projects, and from what I've
heard from Disney, Toon Town probably fell into that category as
well.

This doesn't contradict what Dave said, though.  The concept of pure
R&D for R&D's sake is still pretty foreign to publishers.  Part of
the reason for this is that publishers have a thousand test tubes
that they can try ideas out in: developers.  Many developers need a
deal so badly that publishers can just say something aloud in their
vicinity, such as, "If only we had a massively multiplayer game on
the Game Boy Advance based on the Snow Dogs license, with elements
of game play from Pikmin, Barbie Fashion Designer, and Dance Dance
Revolution."  A developer that is hungry enough will then go and
make a quick and dirty one-month prototype of that game, which
publishers can then decide whether or not to accept or reject at
that point.  Publishers have so much power in the relationship that
developers usually have to pay this out of pocket, although small
prototype deals have been known to happen.

--d

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