Rami Ismail on why hits like BG3 lead to fewer funded games in genre: “Everything that’s successful tightens the noose” | Game World Observer
Rami Ismail on why hits like BG3 lead to fewer funded games in genre: “Everything that’s successful tightens the noose” | Game World Observer
Consultant and experienced developer Rami Ismail has shared his thoughts on the state of the games industry, while expressing some fears and concerns. He tried to outline the issues of the existing system where funding decides what gets made.
The solution is clear: ban all microtransactions.
Let me address some counterpoints as well.
"But what about—"
A L L
"This would cause irreparable damage to—"
#ALL
I like you. 😀
“We’re literally stuck in a system where funding decides what gets made, everything that’s successful tightens the noose, and everything that’s unsuccessful is used as proof that we shouldn’t make more like it,” Ismail noted.
"So if you think things are bad now, wait until you see what’s coming, because as things get forced under larger & larger money-umbrellas for not being able to compete with Genshin/DFO/League /Roblox/etc., they’ll have to care more about promising money with whatever they do make."
Basically, he is saying nothing can beat free-to-play games like Genshin and Roblox, which are earning tons through micro transactions. As for the quote in title, the second part says if you fail it will also lead to fewer games funded in genre.
He also says:
So I don’t know what the answer is & I’ve been looking for it as if my career depends on it because it kinda does. What I do know is that to get better, it’ll either take a full collapse of the industry, or “shorter games with worse graphics made by people paid more to work less”
In other words, as a gamer (specially if you don't play those free-to-play games), there is nothing you can do.
I also find it funny he talks about risk, litterally, if Genshin Impact wasnt a success, Mihoyo would have went under. Blaming another company who was willing to take the risk of bellying up is a dumb stance to have just because you wanted to play it safe.
Thanks for pulling that out.
I get his general frustration with the F2P and making bank on microtransactions, but I think the Larian story somewhat contradicts that even though the road to BG2 was long and difficult. They've slowly been refining the work since the 90s and you can see this reflected in the reviews their games got. Sure, BG3 with that scale was still a risk, but it's built on so much knowledge they've built from the Divinity series that at least some of that seems mitigated.
Couldn't you bet on the full collapse of the industry by not spending money on it anymore (and better, by pirating them when possible)?
I'm okay with the bar being raised.
Not to diss his train of thoughts because it is hard to get money to fund risky projects. What he said is entirely base on the premise that vest majority of games are funded by publisher money, kickstarter or not that's the reality for the longest time.
BUT, the part he is missing is that pitching is very important, the so called "risky" business is a economical/statistical analysis as of late. And you CAN get funding if you propose something that are sound and reasonable. Like today I was surprised that Immortals of Aveum has no microtransactions, even though the gear/resource interface hinted that at one point that's probably considered. So EA, new IP, new engine tech, high spec req everyone spit at, can you come up with a even better counter argument to Rami? The game launched, after checking discord and discussions, consoles seems to run fine and smooth. I meet the 1440p/60fps requirement on PC so I took the plunge bought it this morning. Guess what, it delivered, I only tweaked 2 things, changing boarderless to full screen and disable vsync. Game is running very smooth on 60fps locked even at the big open field scene a youtuber tested yesterday that dips into 40+fps I have no issue at all running at exactly same location he did. (I did change the sensitivity settings on my mouse/in game so I don't feel too dizzy cause there is no mouse smoothing, if your dpi set too high it's actually hard to play. )
Will they be financially successful? I don't know, it's a big gamble for them and EA. But as far as Rami's argument concerned, there is no problem getting funded and stick to your guns as long as you can prove to those doing the internal tests. Believe me, EA game with Denuvo, from dev I didn't heard of, I did my homeworks and then decided to support them and took my risk. This is where I vote with my wallet. It works right after install and I haven't run into bug/crash yet, and I hope this game is successful.
edit: is it fun? I also can't be quite sure yet cause I just got out of tutorial area. But the mechanic is sound, KBM might be a bit odd on how they set the default bindings but you can change those, I did plan to give controller a try later.