What developers think about Scratchware Manifesto?

[obyknven]

The machinery of gaming has run amok.

 

Instead of serving creative vision, it suppresses it. Instead of encouraging innovation, it represses it. Instead of taking its cue from our most imaginative minds, it takes its cue from the latest month’s PC Data list. Instead of rewarding those who succeed, it penalizes them with development budgets so high and royalties so low that there can be no reward for creators. Instead of ascribing credit to those who deserve it, it seeks to associate success with the corporate machine.

 

It is time for revolution.

 

 

Walk into your local bookstore; you’ll find tens of thousands of titles. Walk into your local record store; you’ll find thousands of albums. Walk into your local software store; you’ll find perhaps 40 games.

 

Yet thousands of games are released each year.

 

The only games that fill those 40 slots are those on which publishers have lavished millions in placement and promotion and advertising and marketing dollars. The only games that make it to the shelves are those on which publishers have advanced millions in development funding, because they know that only a handful will succeed, will ever recoup the millions or tens of millions they spend in developing and launching them, because to succeed, a game must pass through the eye of the needle, become one of the handful that make it to the shelves or to the cover of PC Games.

 

When millions are at stake, the publishers become terrified. Each executive knows that greenlighting something offbeat that fails will lose him his job. So they greenlight the same old crap, imitations of what’s on the list this month, simply to cover their own quivering asses. No one will fire them for going with the tried and true.

 

An industry that was once the most innovative and exciting artistic field on the planet has become a morass of drudgery and imitation.

 

http://www.autofish.net/video_games/creation/scratch.html

 

Please, comment it!!!

Edited April 15, 2010 by obyknven

[Tigranes]

You realise that is ten years old?

 

While some of the comments there are still valid, it might be much more worthwhile to discuss and support the indie gaming scene by purchasing indie games and talking about them... there's somethiing already there to be grown and supported.

[obyknven]

You realise that is ten years old?

 

While some of the comments there are still valid, it might be much more worthwhile to discuss and support the indie gaming scene by purchasing indie games and talking about them... there's somethiing already there to be grown and supported.

What has changed since that time? There was a lot of innovative games? Publishers change their policies? There are fewer cancellations of projects?

 

Dragon Age is called the main disappointment of the year, it is similar to Baldur's Gate but worse. Mass Effect degenerated into a shooter. While their games on inertia selling well, but what will happen next? EA will kill the reputation of Bioware, sales fall, and another bankrupt developer team will be more. EA will find another victim for sacrifice.

 

But this is Bioware - a leader in the production of CRPG! If such things were happening with them, what is happening in others developers teams?

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but this is how I see these things

[Hell Kitty]

Dragon Age is called the main disappointment of the year, it is similar to Baldur's Gate but worse. Mass Effect degenerated into a shooter. While their games on inertia selling well, but what will happen next? EA will kill the reputation of Bioware, sales fall, and another bankrupt developer team will be more. EA will find another victim for sacrifice.

 

What? Your location seems appropriate.

[obyknven]

Dragon Age is called the main disappointment of the year, it is similar to Baldur's Gate but worse. Mass Effect degenerated into a shooter. While their games on inertia selling well, but what will happen next? EA will kill the reputation of Bioware, sales fall, and another bankrupt developer team will be more. EA will find another victim for sacrifice.

 

What? Your location seems appropriate.

 

http://www.rpgwatch.com

Look at "Poll Watch Most disappointing game from 2009?".

[Hell Kitty]

Dragon Age is called the main disappointment of the year, it is similar to Baldur's Gate but worse. Mass Effect degenerated into a shooter. While their games on inertia selling well, but what will happen next? EA will kill the reputation of Bioware, sales fall, and another bankrupt developer team will be more. EA will find another victim for sacrifice.

 

What? Your location seems appropriate.

 

http://www.rpgwatch.com

Look at "Poll Watch Most disappointing game from 2009?".

 

Oh I see. Well based on the results of that poll I have no doubt EA is currently in the process of dismantling Bioware.

[mr insomniac]

Funny how, on the very same page, there's a link where RPGWatch gives Dragon Age its Game of the Year Award for Best RPG.

 

Hmm.

[obyknven]

Funny how, on the very same page, there's a link where RPGWatch gives Dragon Age its Game of the Year Award for Best RPG.

 

Hmm.

Funny Yeah! This means: Best RPG of 2009 is disappointing.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/s...&pid=920668

When old games is better than new, it is called the degradation.

[mr insomniac]

Funny how, on the very same page, there's a link where RPGWatch gives Dragon Age its Game of the Year Award for Best RPG.

 

Hmm.

Funny Yeah! This means: Best RPG of 2009 is disappointing.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/s...&pid=920668

When old games is better than new, it is called the degradation.

I dunno, I think it's more a reflection on the reliabililty of internet polls. That poll doesn't even show how many people voted. And in the comments you link to, one person said they almost voted for Risen and they hadn't even played it.

[Bos_hybrid]

Funny how, on the very same page, there's a link where RPGWatch gives Dragon Age its Game of the Year Award for Best RPG.

 

Hmm.

Funny Yeah! This means: Best RPG of 2009 is disappointing.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dragonage/s...&pid=920668

When old games is better than new, it is called the degradation.

I dunno, I think it's more a reflection on the reliabililty of internet polls.

 

All polls are the same, useless.

[Walsingham]

What has changed in the last ten years? Er... games on download. Publishing no longer means you have to go via the high street.

 

I don't think there's anything particularly awry with the industry. They go with mass market shiny stuff because they want to make bucks. Playing indie games is just something which consumers need to get their heads around. And that means getting their heads around shorter games with lower production values but significantly greater innovation.

[Irrelevant]

I think this is because videogames are marketed towards people my age (18-25) and because it does not look like gamers or the videogame media do not remenber or mention the past "I think we've played this before"