svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pm
Woolfe wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 1:14 pm
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 12:40 pm
Yes, because it's proven again and again, being bought out by a megacorp is always better for the indie. They can work independently - assuredly so, then, and MS makes far better choices than their fans, because they *know* better than the fans, and they have an excellent track record of good decisions and making their indies thrive. One has only to look at FASA STUDIOS, BUNGIE, DIGITAL ANVIL, ENSEMBLE, RARE, LIONHEAD, BIGPARK, TWISTED PIXEL GAMES, etc. All indies bought by MS. Real success-stories! And that's because the head of MS has greenlighted things, and it sure turned out to be for the better. It sure did.
Soooo... whilst I somewhat agree, you do realise that all of those studios produced some great games under microsoft.
I would be curious to see how long they lasted compared to other independent studios. It may simply be that most of those studios would have folded sooner had MS not taken them on. It's not like there isn't a litany of indies that collapse.
Honestly if not for KS, InXile wouldn't be where they are today.
I beg to differ. Most produced very little, and most of what they produced, was not great anymore - compared to the original. Most got shut down. Some fought to get free again; which is strange, no, if it was such a good deal for indies?
Yes you have said all this already, and I said I somewhat "AGREE", just in case you missed it.
But the reality is some of the games these studios released under the MS banner were great. You can beg to differ all you want, but there were a number of successes in that lot.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pm
As for your last part... well, that's a difficult one. Would they have succeeded on their own? I assume it would depend how you look at that. Things actually improved by things like kickstarter and such, because now indies have an alternative, as Inxile and Larian have demonstrated. It used to be, they had to beg money from the same big gamehouses or publishers we're actually talking about, and they often wanted their IP as collatoral as well.
My point was though, that had MS not bought them, there was no guarantee the games they produced would have eventuated, back then they pretty much had to work with publishers or find their own investors, which was often worse than the publishers due to .
This was one of the reasons Kickstarter was seen as a saviour for mid sized Devs. It allowed them to produce something without the need to get publishers involved. It also allowed them to keep their devs between games. Very few small devs that grew into mid sized survived. They either broke apart, stayed deliberately small, or were purchased by a larger company. Now the cynic says that some of those sales were purely about the money, but not all, a lot of companies simply could not continue at the time without the assistance of larger companies.
And yes you are right at that time, during the height of the consoles, the big names, EA, MS, Sony, etc etc etc would buy up the devs and either relegate them to a single task, or take/drive away the talent and let the company die.
Today however quite a few mid sized devs have shown they can operate without the Big names. And the Big names seem to be realising that their behaviour of the past contributed to certain failures of IP, and certainly to a loss of talent.
But don't imagine for a second that this isn't to some degree about money. InXile have grown themselves to a size where 2 commercial failures in a row is not going to fly. The way I see it is that without the KS funds they probably would have sold out some time ago.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pm
So in fact, the reason they disappeared, often was the same, whether they were gobbled up, or they got forced into servitude by loans of the big corps; point is, that most of them went bust because of them. I mean, I'm sure there were some that just couldn't make it on their own as well, granted. But most of them seemed or have suffered the actual lethal blow once they were in the clutches of others, be it by directly being bought-up, or by having the loans and their IP.
Sure, and I am not going to say that there wasn't cutthroat behaviour going on. These companies ARE businesses. But you are taking it to an extreme that it doesn't need to be at.
And microsoft is a company that has had to change in the last years. You may not be aware of the sort of goings on in the MS world, but they are definitely a different company today than they were 20 or even 10 years ago. Apple's success hit them a lot harder than a lot realise. There is a reason Microsoft have now positioned themselves as a service provider, of which their OS's is just another element. They realise that controlling the whole market ends up working against them, so they want to control as much as they can, and then have their fingers in the rest. I don't know if you are aware but there has been a big push to make MS products like Office as the most obvious example, available on IOS, Android, Even moves towards linux.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pm
As for your last part... well, that's a difficult one. Would they have succeeded on their own? I assume it would depend how you look at that. Things actually improved by things like kickstarter and such, because now indies have an alternative, as Inxile and Larian have demonstrated. It used to be, they had to beg money from the same big gamehouses or publishers we're actually talking about, and they often wanted their IP as collatoral as well.
So in fact, the reason they disappeared, often was the same, whether they were gobbled up, or they got forced into servitude by loans of the big corps; point is, that most of them went bust because of them. I mean, I'm sure there were some that just couldn't make it on their own as well, granted. But most of them seemed or have suffered the actual lethal blow once they were in the clutches of others, be it by directly being bought-up, or by having the loans and their IP.
I disagree, pretty much everything I have read or heard (Bryan Fargo even talked about it) was that prior to Crowdfunding, mid sized devs were pretty much screwed. They couldn't hold staff(because they couldn't pay them without an active project, and they generally weren't big enough to be able to do multiple projects at once), so they would lose the talent they had, which meant each project would bring more variables in staffing, plus they were beholden to the publisher's whims anyway, because were invariably the companies that invested the cash, and they would spend lots of resources on showing that they were making progress to the investors etc.
So pretty much everytime they finished a product, they would lose their staff etc, then they would need to bank on the profits of whatever release to ensure they could keep their doors open long enough to start a new project. So if the product didn't do well.... They died.
Crowdfunding has allowed a lot of smaller and mid sized devs to garner cash and support for a product, which then gives them greater bargaining power, both because they don't need as much from the investor/Publishers, but also because they can show an interest in the product immediately etc.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pmOf course, you actually have those that succeeded small, but DID make it. The irony to me, is that once they get big enough, they do the same as the others. Look at Bethesda. It's a pity, but I guess that, unless you fight it actively, the bigger you are, the more inclined you are to lose your touch, zeal and actual game-drive, and thus the 'soul', if you will, of the indie company, and slowly managers and accountants and CEO's of third parties that know nothing of games take over, and from their it goes down the drain, in regard to quality and novelty of the game. IT's just about mass-producing games and moneygrabbing, after a while.
There are some devs that stay deliberately small, as they can manage it better, and any wealth they make allows them to move onto the next game. But at a cost of not being able to do really big games.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pmFallout 79, anyone? Mind you, I'm not saying good games can't come out anymore. I've played skyrim lots, and liked it. But compare the 'feel' of the company now with what it was when they released Morrowind, and you can already sense the difference. Gone are the days, for instance, that you got DLC's and extra stuff for free, and they actually listened to their fans. Now it's: we're asking half of what the game costs for a DLC that gives around 1/20th of the gameplay the main game has. Or: we'll ask 5 dollars for some cosmetic horse armor... that's where you saw it started. It caused outrage then, but now it's a currentl business model/practice for hundreds of games, and people have been lulled into believing its normal. And Bethesda started gobbling up other indies as well.
As I said, I do somewhat agree.
svdp wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2018, 3:27 pmIs that the inevitable fate: either go down, or do the same? Either eat them, or get eaten? Become them, or become nothing?
I dare say there are some exceptions that give me hope, like Larian, but only if you have some 'known' IP (in their case; Divinity) you can still survive, me think, as a pure indie, especially with the alternative ways to get money these days.
Yep Pretty much, and yeah of course there are exceptions. And Larian didn't come from nowhere they built themselves up from a small spot, with a modest return each game, they found there own investors that supported them. They were a long game.
Most business is about the short game remember. I hate it as much as you, but remember that a lot of the people who worked in those great studios went on to other studios/projects. They are still creating, just not the same IP. Which IS sad. But reality is people need to make money to make games.
Welcome to capitalism at its finest.
