Psst... 'cause they make money!

WHAT!? this isn't news, tell me when halo 4 is coming !!!

Because publishers are going to put their money behind a sure payoff.

It's simple. It's a business.

It's the same reason that WW2 has become a GENRE that is not going away. It's easier, and 99% of the time, more profitable to be "safe" than innovative.

I don't get what the GTA picture has to do with the article. It isn't a bad game in the sense that the article is talking about "bad games."

@nikolaj:

I hope you enjoyed your time of commenting on this site.

@hotcoffeeburns:

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. "bad games" as it is used in the article means "low quality games"

I know most people get the core concept here, but I don't think people actually understand the full idea illustrated. So take a peak.

Year: 2006

Location: North America

Okami sells 230k

Over The Hedge? Just 90k short of ONE MILLION copies.

At the end of the day, you need to make money.

Too many people involved in the production of games. It's hard enough to get fifteen people on the same page... trying to get one-hundred people to agree on anything is impossible.

Game design is done mostly by committees bosses, marketing people, and a few actual game designers get stuck in a room and eventually out pops a "game"; in my experience nothing good has ever come from a committee.

None of us is as dumb as all of us.

@nikolaj: That sounded like sarcasm... though I'm not really sure.

Regardless,

*bows courtly*

I call part of it the Lemming approach.

Once a hugely successful game gets released (e.g. Halo). Bunches of people run right after it, hoping to make a game that's like it so that they can share in its success. This is regardless of whether they are any good at making the game, whether they reuse any of the games gameplay mechanics correctly, whether they understand what the real appeal of the game was in the first place, and whether many other game developers are doing exactly the same thing, leading to an overcrowded market that's extremely hard to differentiate yourself in unless you made the original game that sparked it all off.

It raises an interesting question. The obvious answer to this is money. Video games are a business and businesses need to remain profitable to continue operating. I'd say that these studios sign on for the bad licensed games so that they can make money and then go on to do the projects they really want. At least, I'd like to say that, but no developer really springs to mind that did the licensing thing and then went on to do an original IP.

Well, from wha@hotcoffeeburns: From what I heard, the PSP ports to PS2 were saturated in bugs, and added nothing really to the table.

@nikolaj: True,this are not news but come on,Halo 4?. (N)

Agree, most companies go with "sure bets", instead of trying something new with some chance to screw up.
I wish it would be different, so we could get more games like Portal, Okami, ICO, SoTC & etc....

A single game takes a HUGE amount of work, people, technology and money to create.

It's not a job you can have fun with. You gotta MAKE MONEY.

I saw the making of the last Fantastic Four game. The way the designers talked about it and the love and care pouring out the mouths of these game creators, for what they were creating. Got you excited and made it seem like it was gonna be a really good game. Then the critics destroyed it and most gamers agreed it as crap. So I asked myself, did these designers really have good intentions or were they just going through the motions?

Three reasons:

1. Art costs money.
2. Shovelware doesn't.
3. Uninformed customers will buy whatever's on the shelf.

It's as simple as that. For all the hardcore gamers pride themselves on only playing (what they feel to be) the best of the best, there are hordes of parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles out there who will literally buy _a_ game based on the idea that it fits a theme that Junior might be interested in. Oh, he likes cars? Well, anything that involves racing should suffice. Does he have a favorite team? Sports titles of whatever sort will do. And they'll move enough product that way that they'll turn a profit more easily than most high-concept games. The good stuff is more risky. If you do it right, you'll pull in a lot more money than you can with shovelware, but you have to do it _right_, or you could easily end up taking a loss.

It's the same with music. Old and boring bands keep releasing music on major labels because it's safe. Many major record labels don't want to take a chance and risk a loss on new bands or different music.

That's why true innovation is hard to achieve. It takes balls to back something new and different.

@nikolaj: This is why.
Videogames are a business just like any other.

href="#c5170085">Purple Dave:
Unfortunately its going to be like until videogames become as accepted as movie or tv shows in our culture, and even then just look at how many crappy movies and tv shows there are...@

For your consideration:

+ Watch video

To the topic at hand, you don't hire a bunch of wishy-washy indie devs who think they have a killer idea that sucks. No business takes wild risks. Calulated risks maybe, but the majority of projects should be stable enough to carry the entire company.

Of course, this means that some of the good ideas fall through. Conclusion: original ideas that get pitched had better actually be good. Otherwise, the stupid ideas are going to dilute the good ideas.

Well on the other hand, look what Bioshock did. Of course, the BIG difference that creative IP from an established team of Devs will see the light of day.

Why put your company in jeopardy when you can surely bet on your AAA franchise?

1 word: Suits.

@Fyren: Well, yeah, but it wasn't just the dev team that did it. Bioshock was like System Shock 3.5. There was a pedigree to go along with the studio.

If the public was more educated on using metacritic and buying games based upon it, crap games would stop selling altogether... studios would have to start taking risks and trying to make quality products in order to survive...

Consumers don't base their purchasing decisions off critical reviews... if we could change that... the industry would be so much the better for it

@Fyren: Indeed. Bioshock SHOULD (but probably won't) remind the suits (why do these people have the power? WHY!? :() that making a genuinely great, ambitious & original game and making money needn't be mutually exclusive objectives. You CAN have your cake and eat it.

Yea it's money issues these days, shame since John Carmack got started by turning Mario into something else but now everyone and their grandma can do that and it's not enough to get you a job any more.

I've got a great idea for a game!
But, allas... it shall never be realized...

Q: 'Why Do Good People Make Bad Games?'

A: Because stupid people control almost all of the money.

/Why do good people make bad movies?

They are called the unwashed masses for a reason.

Really, look at TV (American Idol), Films (Wild Hogs), Music (Hannah Montana), and books (John Grisham). Those are all trashed by critics and the like, but are still hugely popular and successful. Lots of people don't think about their entertainment, they just consume. And, from a business perspective, I've got a much better chance of making a sweet return on my investment catering to that big group that wants something safe and familiar than that smaller critical group.

Does it suck? Sure. Can it be fixed? Based on the history of humanity, not a snowballs chance in hell.

Because most gamers enjoy crass, brainless and non-"thought provoking" games with no class like GTA? /snap

@Purple Dave: @dry-roasted-peanuts: What they said. Bean-counters are the reason.

Because we don't have the technology.

At the end of the day, games/gaming is big business. The companies who distribute these games are only interested in making money. And that is something I fully support. You can't make money by releasing titles which only appeal to a niche audience, no matter how original and groundbreaking they might be. Some might argue that this attitude is stifling the industry as a whole, but what's the alternative? If you were the CEO of a company like EA (Perhaps a bad example), would you take big risks on games without mass appeal? I doubt it.

It's all well and good for people like Brandon Sheffield to make comments like those above, and in an ideal world, the games and revolutionary ideas he's talking about would be implemented without a moments thought, but those ideas simply aren't financially viable.

Personally, I think that game developers are well aware of this fact. They're people that care passionately about the games they make and have worked hard so that they can be a part of this incredible industry. They do an admirable job of developing ideas, stories and concepts and then adapting them to fit into such snug genres as FPS, RTS or MMORPG. They understand how the industry works.

So, to answer Brandon Sheffield's comments, you can't 'take that plunge', because your game simply won't receive funding. I think the real challenge is to disguise the kind of games he is talking about behind the visage of the accepted genres. The casual gamer can then appreciate it as a fun distraction, while the hardcore gamer can delve deeper into its story and appreciate more fully its artistic value. It has to appeal to both markets. That's just the nature of the beast.

I'll tell you exactly why good people make bad games.
First off, a lot of times they are designing for themselves, instead of for the public. As long as the designer thinks it is fun, then who cares...right?
Secondly, bad bad shoddy management. The key to a successful project is the leadership. Failing to manage a project causes delays, causes work to get crammed in at the last minute, and causes failure to hold people accountable all during the project.
Lastly, it is just bad work ethics. People slack their way along for months, with little coherant effort to show for it. Instead, they'd rather think they were awesome.

@GHamilton:

What complete and utter horseshit.

There are a million reasons why a talented games developer can produce a bad game, and invariably the truth is far less exciting than you might imagine. It rarely has anything to do with individual developers being lazy though - you simply don't know what you're talking about.

I just love all these armchair experts who've never made any kind of game (good or bad) sharing their wisdom though.

Why is the GTA image up there? An Atari ET screenshot wasn't available? What are you trying to say?

TWO WORDS:

MARKET RESEARCH.

the bane of creativity and art's existance.

CEO's want money. Plain and simple.

@ErskinPig: yup that's true about gaming in general. Companies.."hint hint EA"..that have the funds to try new things should be the ones inspiring the indie companies not the other way around.
[i23.photobucket.com]

Easy, To make money

@Darthvinder: Pretty sure that was sarcasm to show the type of people that cause publishers go with a sure bet like Halo, rather than doing something new and interesting. But whatever...

GTA isn't a bad game though...and regarding nikolaj's post, people, its called sarcasm, lighten up a bit.

@kiigan:
True. The GBA ports for both LEGO Star Wars games were put together very nicely, and the DS version of LSW2 looked like it could have been a very cool companion game to the main PC/console version, but between the developer's apparent inexperience with programming with a 3D engine on the DS (vs. simulated 3D on the GBA), and a firm deadline imposed by Lucasfilm, they released the most unplayable game in DS history. I'd still love to get my hands on a debugged copy of it, someday.

Yeah games wont get better if things will lean to just making money oppose to let people take risks.
My risk now is to quit school and learn game development so I can make an awesome sandbox game, that involves a lot of murders.

Ideas are easy. Making them into fun games is HARRRRRD!.

The End

why do bitter writers who have never made games get to comment on games?

As Robert Heinlein once stated, "The answer to any question starting, 'Why don't they' is almost always, Money.

Games, like movies and music have a heavily hit driven business model. An additional problem that the games business finds is that it's far more seasonal as well. If you want to make money in the business you need to work on what will sell, and the most reliable method to do so is licensed properties and sequels to successful franchises.

My only conclusion is that Maggie has never played a GTA game because they're like by far the best games on the planet and took big risks in creating a whole new genre of video game. It takes balls to release a game like GTA3 which has shit graphics, no story, and the most glitches ever, not to mention horrible controls, and yet still be heralded as the most fun video game ever made.

The GTA picture is misleading. Looking at it and reading the headline, I initially thought the post would discuss why good (as in good natured) developers with no psychological problems could create "bad" games like GTA with killing and carjacking etc.

GTA doesn't fit at all into what this topic is about so I have no idea why it's there.

'Why Do Good People Make Bad Games?' Because those people claiming to be 'good' are really egotistical megalomaniacs who are out of touch with what is fun for the rest of us.

Publishers, publishers, and publishers. They are the ones who make the money, and they are the ones who hire the development companies.

There are very few developers who are large enough to make a game on their own and can be guaranteed to get it published.

@nikolaj: There goes the bandwagon.

In reference to the article, you just need to look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES. That explains everything.

@Passa: You just mean the first one right? Because TMNT 2 and 3 were badass and two of the most fun games ever made for the NES (specifically TMNT 2: The Arcade Game). Yes, I bought the seasons of the show on DVD and still have the action figures from just 11 years ago.

I think it has to do with time constraints and sometimes just a bad product. Has anyone had the guts to play "Jumper" yet?

Ugh, one of THESE debates. Almost as bad as the "are games art???" one!

In the end, it's the consumers who buy the games- who give these publishers and developers and evil villians in large mirrored towers money.

And the sad truth is, most people who buy games want this shit- the "bad games". Otherwise, they wouldn't sell.
I don't mean you, dear Kotaku reader- most of the time it's Joe Mainstream Gamer who doesn't read reviews (not that most reviews would give an honest opinion anyway), and basically relies on marketing and the back of the box.

But marketing can only do so much. It's still Joe Mainstream's choice at the end of the day, and he's what fuels the demand for bad games.

@collusioned:
Exactly. And after your first comment, all other comments are pretty much redundant. :)