You have a AAA studio. What would you do?

[Jackolantern]

If you were the CEO or other chief vision and direction creator for your own multi-million dollar AAA game studio, what would you be working on? Keep in mind it would not just be a blank check to throw away money, but you would be expected to put out games that would make money. If maybe not describing your game idea, what area would you develop for, right now? AAA browser-based game, downloadable MMORPG, PC/Mac FPS, etc.

I would be torn between making an advanced, dual Facebook/non-Facebook interface PBBG supported by item shop with a two-prong marketing campaign both within Facebook and without, and making hardcore-style, yet budget priced, Wii games. Very few hardcore player games exist on the system, but some of the past hardcore titles have failed to sell well. I think it has to do with the price range they are coming out, since the hardcore games tend to cost $50 at release due to being development-heavy, and I don't think the hardcore market wants to invest that much in a single title for the Wii system when they could almost get a 360 or PS3 game for that price. But if you could distill the content requirements for the game down to the base gameplay elements, while still keep the hardcore aspects in place, you could likely release more adult, hardcore titles for $20 - $25. With the amount of Wiis out there, hardcore gamers have to be in close proximity to one, and having a new budget, hardcore-style game with solid gameplay could be very tempting compared to the slew of more child-oriented fare. Plus, even if a game doesn't go over that well, there are budget games being made for the Wii right now with two or three developers for less than $200,000. Definitely not the same risk of making AAA 360, PS3, or next-gen PC games.

[Rastan]

Part of your first idea is actually along the lines of what I am attempting to do sans the million dollar advertising lol. I'm trying to bring a not so cutesy game into the world available directly through Facebooks system and outside of it as well. It is kinda hard not to step over their lines as they want things associated with them to be fairly rated G or at least "Family" types of content as far as I've been able to tell so far. I'm actually sketchy about putting in a chat system because from what I understand from other developers on there they want you moderate the content of the chat fairly strictly. I'm still in the "learning what I need to do to use Facebooks API and such" stage. If anyone does this and wants to tell me whats up feel free lol.

I'm under the impression that console gaming is dying a slow painful death. I think they'll release another series of game consoles but I think PC in the end is going to swallow that market. MMORPG in the WOW LOTRO etc sense I think are going to keep going strong for a good while. I would be tempted to go that way... but only if I had a good idea and a plan set already.

At any rate I am thinking a free/small fee to play system with micro-transactions is the way it will go for a while. That system just appeals to how people spend money in too many ways to easily fail given a good product with good advertising. 60 bucks or more just isn't in the cards for a lot of folks right now I think at one time. Spread that out over a year and I think you can get 100 bucks or more out of that same person. Now if we could just kill the RMT that will infest a large market game the system would be beautiful.

[Jackolantern]

Actually, consoles have experienced constant growth console after console in the last 10 years. Some of the major console record-breakers of this generation (Modern Warfare 2, GTA IV, Halo III) have sold more copies than any other console games before them. PC gaming is, in most ways, superior, but believe it or not there are a lot of non-techie gamers out there who just want to pop a game in and it runs. They want all of the online capabilities packaged and integrated for them out of the box, they like plugging a controller in and it works, they don't like dealing with HDD space just to play a game(although these consoles are crossing that line), they don't like learning what their computers specs are and trying to find games that will run well, etc. It is true you can stay more in step with technology on a computer, typically upgrade for lower, incremental costs, have more fine-tuned controls with mouse/keyboard or use a controller, and more, but the cost is learning about computers. For many gamers who have little other interest with a computer than checking their Facebook, that is just too much to ask. For an average, non-techie gamer, getting a DirectX error when trying to play a new game is a disaster that they may not recover from.

Plus, there is just something exciting about a new generation of consoles that grabs the market's interest like nothing else. A new line of video cards definitely doesn't grab your average gamer the same way, even though it is largely the same thing. Consoles will be around and thriving as long as the game industry (PC gaming included) is thriving, and as long as they can increment the power of the consoles enough to make it worth the upgrade, which may actually be questionable in the next console generation or two.

In the end, game consoles are actually kind of silly. We have powerful computers at our desk, but then we have specialized, single-use computers connected to our TV as well. If it weren't for the first generation of consoles beating the home computer to market, consoles likely never would have caught on, and millions of players would be playing Modern Warfare 2 on their PC right now.

EDIT: And to get things back on track, I didn't realize Facebook had so many regulations on their games. They are really doing a lot of things to push the small guys out it seems. Requiring 24/7 chat moderation basically means you need employees, and for a single-person, no-budget start-up, that really only leaves the option of not launching with chat which could be a serious problem for a lot of game designs.

They are also giving publishers full rights to use those horrible "lead gen" ad systems like Farmville has where you complete "surveys and quizes" for game credits, although they are really just trying to trick inexperienced internet users into signing up for mobile phone subscription scams. Now they have even dropped off the disclaimers were they say you are signing up for a subscription service, and simply tell you they are sending the quiz results to your mobile phone. They make a ton of money off of it, reinvest it in more advertising, and the small guys get pushed down even lower.

But what are you going to do? It is the most powerful way of reaching millions of users for minimal spending.

[Rastan]

I Have been reading a few articles saying that a lot of the big time game makers are getting hesitant to release console games these days due to high cost and low purchase rate. They were speaking about the last few quarters of business tho. I doubt they'll just be gone anytime soon. Like I said I think there will be at least one more generation of game system that catches on real good. Past that tho I just can't see where the market will be for them. It seems more "PC" development companies are the main players in the game market anyways these days. I guess we'll see what happens over the next 10 or so years ^^.

Yeah I've been reading a lot of the dev forums there on Facebook. They definitely don't play around with some stuff. It's like you said tho. Where else are you gonna get hooked into millions of people in an interface that easy to integrate. That's exactly why I am looking into it so hard. I intend to launch my game there. I would like to have an exterior interface to log in... I don't know for certain yet tho. It might just be worth my time to say hey if you wanna play go thru Facebook as far as some things are concerned.

I def don't have plans to allow any crazy ads. If I see it needed to apply ads to it at all for funding I'll definitely just use some non intrusive ads.
I would also like to have a chat as well. It isn't critical but it would be nice to get some heat flying between my games versions of guilds. I start to wonder if I couldn't just filter the chat to an acceptable level. Then maybe I could just sorta watch logs and kick out the problem kids lol. I'm trying to get it where it is competitive and still discourage blatant fighting, cussing, belittling, and the like lol I think there's definitely a fine line there.

Maybe with a little luck tho I can get my game going how I want it to be through their interface. If I get real lucky maybe I'll even turn a dollar and make another one lol.

[Callan S.]

I'd make a game essentially with social change, hiding under a facade of 'kill monsters for phat loot' game. The game would instill virtues of self sufficiency in real life by having the player do a slightly sexed up versions of growing your own food, gathering solar energy, in game, over and over and over. It'd also show how if your dependent on a larger infrastructure you get scared of voting against them, thus undercutting your freedom and the democratic process - players could take a shortcut, relying on private infrastructure, but will find they lose freedoms for it and are even told to do unsavory things, or else they miss out on what they are dependent on. Also there would be some element of birth control in game, since were becoming a plague species.

It'd also instill some sense of providing the opportunity for self sufficiency to third worlds - they'd kind of be like dungeons, but instead of going in and killing dungeons, you go in and set up water filters, solar water pumps, stuff like that. Perhaps under the attempted bullying/thuggery of local corrupt 'government' out to take it for themselves.

Further there would be a philosophical element somehow, to teach people how they can easily fall into confirmation bias and never check to see if they are wrong.

Basically I'd make a game of how I think the world would be alot better off (as far as I can tell), then use the 'repeat the same task over and over' mmorpg model to not train them how to farm the latest wow dungeon, but how they could lead better lives in a world made better. Maybe the message would get ignored, but it's worth a shot. Even if they try to ignore it, the training will be inside them.

And there would be elf chicks with big hooters...

I didn't say it'd be a perfect world... >:)

[hallsofvallhalla]

Where else are you gonna get hooked into millions of people in an interface that easy to integrate.

The internet, believe it or not there are more people on the internet than facebook..weird right?


Jack you are on to something. Wii definitely needs a good adult action game. COD4 for the wii was descent but did not hook me like the xbox360 version.

I would venture towards a MMO browsers based diablo style game. Make it free to play with item shop and have daily contests to win prizes.

The console is not dying and I hope it never does. Not because I like it, but because I want the 13 year old Halo players to stay out of the PC games

Kenetic will bring a huge boost back to to the console in November.

[Cayle]

If you were the CEO or other chief vision and direction creator for your own multi-million dollar AAA game studio, what would you be working on?

What would I do if I had a AAA studio? Sell it and decide on whether to buy gold or silver... seriously, the AAA games market is more like a casino than an investment these days. The only people making money right now are the Blizzard and the F2P social games, but AAA costs just as much as ever to make.

[hallsofvallhalla]

haha good point!

I was actually tempted on putting, "Slowly swindle funds to my retirement"

[Noctrine]

Games have always been gambling. The FB crackdowns started not to long ago, those shitty lead gen advertisements were one of their first issues fewer and fewer games are starting to have them. Or at-least they are starting to have less that are blatantly scams.

I wouldn't touch the MMO market unless some popular cartoon / franchise was paying me to develop it. That market is like playing Russian Roulette with one empty barrel.

I would want to do something interesting, so either this VR mech game that I did some engineering design work on, or make the RPG that fable wants to be.

[Jackolantern]

If you were the CEO or other chief vision and direction creator for your own multi-million dollar AAA game studio, what would you be working on?

What would I do if I had a AAA studio? Sell it and decide on whether to buy gold or silver...

That wasn't an option! For the sake of argument say your eccentric great-uncle Rupert Horn willed you this AAA studio, and challenged you to make $30 million dollars with it, or you get nothing!

The internet, believe it or not there are more people on the internet than facebook..weird right?

I thought we had been through this before The internet is not an interconnected social network platform that allows everyone to share what they are doing with every else. In a lot of ways, it is like a country. The only way to get around and see different things out there is to hop on roads and drive somewhere else (take links). Say you have a restaurant in the middle of nowhere (a mostly un-advertised game). One person comes to eat there, likes it, and tells a couple of his friends. They may go directly to your restaurant, but it is unlikely it will bring that many other people because of all the effort the one eater has to go through to tell anyone else, and it may not get many people any other way because his restaurant was so many miles of road away (so many links away tucked in a corner of the web with little advertising). Now imagine that once that one guy eats there and likes it, that without him putting out any effort to tell anyone, everyone he knows, his entire family, all his friends and co-workers, are instantly telepathically told how much he likes it and can instantly teleport to your restaurant.

If you owned a restaurant, which setup would you want to have? Examples aside, that is why I said "in Facebook and outside of Facebook". It couldn't hurt to have the game present on both sides.