[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry (Was: A rant for Vanguard)

[Christopher Allen]

Nick Koranda wrote:
> I think the game design process is so expensive now a days, at least
> for the "AAA" games that you cant mimic the music industries style of
> creation.  I would imagine that the game industry in part would do
> well to find ways to place the creation process in the hands of
> individuals or small groups and let lots of "bands" (dev groups)
> create their "albums" (small MOGs) and let the playing community
> decide which are big hits.      

Skotos has tried the "band" model of small game development for over 6 years,
with very mixed results. The problem is that it still takes a lot of work to
make a game, and once completed, small games rarely have the critical mass to
become profitable even when quite innovative. And our games are quite easy and
inexpensive to create as they are web graphics and text, no 3D graphics.

I think to date that over a dozen "bands" have gone through our Skotos-Seven
development process, and only three have shipped - Lovecraft Country (horror
roleplaying), Ironclaw, and the Lazarus Project. A fourth game close to
shipping, Mortalis Victus, doing an alpha and a beta, but the team imploded
before being able to get to gold. BTW, note that of those only Lazarus Project
is its own brand -- all the others are licensed from RPG games. 

I'm not giving up on this idea, but there are a lot of obstacles, and many are
not obvious.

-- Christopher Allen