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Report - 'Only 80 Games a Year Will Succeed'


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The author of the report, Marc de Gentile-Williams, said, "At 30 years of age, the games industry still suffers from an endemic lack of professional management compared to less mature industries such as the mobile telephony and the internet industries. The high number of bankruptcies - despite favorable market conditions - is testament to this fact.

What is he talking about. IMHO, professional management is exactly what is killing games. Look at EA. Titles based on licensed IP rather than titles based on original content aren't helping the matter much either. Name all the great games that came out in the last fifteen years or so. Probably two out of the entire lot is IP based such as Star Wars and Aliens. I'll list a few (not in any particular order), DukeNukem, Doom, wolfenstien, Half-Life, Wing Commander, Myst, Gabriel Knight, Space Quest, Kings Quest, Freespace, Carmageddon, System Shock, Outcast, Silent Hunter, Homeworld, StarFlight, Gothic, Elder Scrolls etc... Not one of those based on an already established IP. It is the intrusion of managment into the creative process that has made games not so great.

Comparing the mobile telephony and the internet industries to the game industry is just silly also. Everyone wants a mobile phone it doesn't matter who makes it as long as the plan is cost effective but it is just that a phone with one signle purpose to call people you want to call. All phones are the same in that they have numerical push buttons to dial with a mouth piece and and ear piece. Some may come with all the bells and whistles but all have the same basic components. The same can be applied to the internet. However, a game is a different beast altogether. Sure, it's basic component is that it's a game but one with many different functions. It may be an RPG, FPS, Adventure, Puzzle, RTS, MMORPG, Simulation. Not everyone likes all of them where as a phone you pick up dial and talk to someone or log onto the internet and go to the favorite site everyone likes that. A game has to be targeted to a specific group like the RPG group or FPS group. Like me, I don't particularly like RTS's unless it is very very good like Homeworld and I don't like MMORPGs even more than RPGs.

My point being, a single game is going to be attractive and bought by a small group out of the entire game player population. Where as, a mobile phone people don't care as long as it dials out and they can talk. IMHO, you cannot compare the two even in managment style.

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It truly is a shame to watch something like this unfold.

EA has the market cornered except for a few of the larger game companies and I am sure if someone were to call unfair/unsanitary business tactics, the feds and judges would point and laugh.

If I walk into a gaming store one day and see nothing but one or two game companies including EA, I will hurl on spot.

First Microsoft then Wal-Mart now EA. I think a more or less fitting equation would be:

Microsoft + Wal-Mart = EA

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Walmart is already starting to implode, just give EA a few more years. 10 years ago I predicted that Sears, back then the #1 Retailer in America would go bankrupt with their new polcies of eliminating all the Full time help and replacing them with cheaper part time help, and that has already happened. I'm predicting the same fate for Walmart in about 20 years. As for EA, not really too knowledgable with thier Management, so I can only speculate, but it might take 10 years before they are no longer on top. No one stays on top forever.

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