• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Cliffy B: "The Middle Class Game Is Dead" (GDC)

B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-03-cliffy-b-the-middle-class-game-is-dead

"Middle class games" that fall between AAA and indie stools don't stand a chance in the current climate, so says Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski.

During his 'Rise of the Power Creative' presentation at the Games Developer's Conference in San Francisco today, Bleszinski explained that in the current cluttered market, middling titles that don't do enough to stand out are going to fail.

"I'm going to go on the record and say that I believe the middle class game is dead," he said, before drawing an analogy with the movie business.

"It needs to either be either an event movie – day one, company filed trip, Battlefield: LA, we're there. Avatar – we're there. The Other Guys starring Will Ferrell and Marky Mark? Nah, I'll f****** rent that, I don't really care - right?

"Or it has to be an indie film. Black Swan – I'll go and see that. I'll go to The Rialto or I'll go to the AAA Imax movie. The middle one is just gone, and I think the same thing has happened to games."
Click to expand...

I've been thinking this for a few years now. It really seems that the industry has collapsed to the point where he is exactly right, hence the closing of like a jillion studios and rampant job losses.
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
Which is why the current game climate is terribly unsustainable.

I feel that even a layman could point out what's wrong, but no one is going to be willing to take the risks to fix it.
 
V

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
We've reached this conclusion in a lot of previous thread discussions about this subject.
 
B

Buckethead

Banned
The Other Guys was awesome fuck you Cliffy B.
He's correct but rationalizing it? *finger wag*

Maybe one day the game industry will have proper executives running the companies, but now we'll just have to stomach this period of horseshit military FPSs.
 
N

neverknowsbest

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
Which is why the current game climate is terribly unsustainable.

I feel that even a layman could point out what's wrong, but no one is going to be willing to take the risks to fix it.
Click to expand...
Take the risk of making more mediocre games?
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Buckethead said:
The Other Guys was awesome fuck you Cliffy B.
He's correct but rationalizing it? *finger wag*

Maybe one day the game industry will have proper executives running the companies, but now we'll just have to stomach this period of horseshit military FPSs.
Click to expand...

Executives can't make gamers buy games. Blur failed and was awesome. That wasn't the executives fault.
 
P

Penguin

Member
Where does Saw fit in this analogy?

It is a middling movie franchise, that sees great results...

Anyhow, he makes it sound like a good thing. It really is bust or boom for games these days.
 
E

Empty

Member
is black swan really an indie film, though. i'd consider that a middle film in terms of budget and box office success.
 
I

itxaka

Defeatist
Well, not everybody has millions to pour on one game and are lucky to be backed by MS with millions in marketing.

Im kind of mad that one of the guys who contributed to this is talking about it. If it wasn't for blockbuster games and companies pouring mikllions we could still have a middle class in games. Now seems to be AAA games, sent to die games and smaller games.


Examples?
Click to expand...

The ball
Penumbra

A couple of examples. Not indies games but also no "put 20 million into marketing" games.
 
R

Red

Member
Penguin said:
Where does Saw fit in this analogy?

It is a middling movie franchise, that sees great results...

Anyhow, he makes it sound like a good thing. It really is bust or boom for games these days.
Click to expand...
But it sticks out because of its pure gore porn concentration.
 
A

Agyar

Member
His movie analogy is a bit wonky but his point is simple enough to enough understand without it. And I agree.

With limited time and budget, even the most dedicated gamers simply cannot play everything and with so many games available, it is very easy to avoid anything that's less than spectacular. While there are many cases where these "middle-class" games are fantastic, it's certainly a riskier prospect all the way from pitch to shelf and with both other ends of the spectrum (AAA and indie) taking money hand over fist, publishers aren't going to tolerate that kind of proposition.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
A quick search shows that The Other Guys made 170m at the box office. Not bad.

"Middle class games" that fall between AAA and indie stools don't stand a chance in the current climate, so says Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski.
Click to expand...

How is that any different from previous gens? People flocked to the FF7's and Mario 64's of the world while the middle end titles just sank. If anything this gen is a step forward because it introduced smaller downloadable titles for devs that aren't able to work with massive budgets. We're now seeing more and more devs set up or change into DD only companies.
 
M

Mrbob

Member
Lathentar said:
Examples?
Click to expand...

Torchlight, Magicka, Trine, Super Meat Boy as more recent examples. Paradox titles in general are doing well on PC digital.

If Cliffy is talking about console games I might agree. PC gaming has evolved beyond the big budget title though. Those are still there but the most interesting titles on PC tend to be the mid level game.
 
K

Kafel

Banned
Yeah, that's the reason why so many turn indie now.

The AAA obligation, plus the metacritic stupidity pressure, the industry is becoming mad.
 
N

ntropy

Member
atlus-logo.gif
disagrees.
 
B

Buckethead

Banned
BenjaminBirdie said:
Executives can't make gamers buy games. Blur failed and was awesome. That wasn't the executives fault.
Click to expand...
Flood the market with shit, standards drop, people will consume whatever you push to them.

Empty said:
is black swan really an indie film, though. i'd consider that a middle film in terms of budget and box office success
Click to expand...
Budget = $13 million.
Revenue = $228,121,040

That's nothing. Aranofsky is a well-known director, so buzz and distribution will carry it, but yes still small/indie.
 
L

Lathentar

Looking for Pants
itxaka said:
Well, not everybody has millions to pour on one game and are lucky to be backed by MS with millions in marketing.

Im kind of mad that one of the guys who contributed to this is talking about it. If it wasn't for blockbuster games and companies pouring mikllions we could still have a middle class in games. Now seems to be AAA games, sent to die games and smaller games.
Click to expand...
What was he supposed to do? "No, don't give me millions of dollars to make a game that will make your platform stand out!"

Basically its AAA games with huge budgets (almost always sequels), licensed games and smaller, tightly focused games sold at a discounted price.

As mentioned above, you can't make an average non-licensed game and expect it to sell for $60 dollars against the AAA competitors. There are far too many AAA games at the 60 dollar price point for the "middle class" game to sell.
 
U

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
Mrbob said:
Torchlight, Magicka, Super Meat Boy as more recent examples. Paradox titles in general are doing great on PC digital.
Click to expand...
I don't think any of those are "middle class" games.
 
D

DodgyGeezerFella

Member
Id say the problem is the "middle class" games ask the same price as "AAA" games, and publishers are too scared to sell for less to avoid making the game look lesser than rival games.

Edit - My understanding of "middle class" games to be things like FEAR 2, Singularity, Just Cause 2, Red Faction Guerilla etc.
 
T

ThirtyDegrees

Neo Member
This is a problem with the game industry itself and not with consumers and the comparison to Hollywood is a weak one.

A movie can still earn quite a bit of revenue, and even turn a profit based upon rental and DVD sales (even discounted) if it fails in its box office run. There are also many profitable direct to DVD releases.

The film industry even has matinees for first run box office films, meaning that even AAA huge budget titles are often seen for less than "full retail" price.

Of course, the console gaming industry has decided to forgo any channels other than $60 boxed retail releases for every single game.

A secondary market has been set up to mimic some of the alternative channels that film has (Blockbuster, Gamefly, used games) but the games industry has decided to ignore or show outright hostility to those channels instead of embracing them.
 
B

bluemax

Banned
WonkersTHEWatilla said:
What's a middle-class game?

Hearing that term, I think of Just Cause 2. I loved that game.
Click to expand...
If the place I used to work had a fraction of Just Causes budget we couldve survived off it for like 2 years and probably wouldve put out 4 games in that time frame.
 
C

Clott

Member
Another reason that's leading me to think that the industry wont survive a new generation right now. In another 2-3 years when things have matured even more will be have a chance. If we make another jump to fast now, we will be left with EA and Activision.



Edit: when I think middle class I think Two Worlds II.
 
G

Gravijah

Member
Mrbob said:
Torchlight, Magicka, Trine, Super Meat Boy as more recent examples. Paradox titles in general are doing well on PC digital.
Click to expand...

I'm sure he considers titles like that that "small" or "indie".
 
H

hamchan

Member
Mrbob said:
Torchlight, Magicka, Super Meat Boy as more recent examples. Paradox titles in general are doing great on PC digital.
Click to expand...

Don't those fall closer to the indie side? Also helps that they're $10. I think what CliffyB is talking about is B or C-tier games that think they can sell for $60.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Buckethead said:
Flood the market with shit, standards drop, people will consume whatever you push to them.
Click to expand...

What.

This implies there had to have been a point in gaming where there was ONLY garbage and it lasted long enough to get the majority of gamers to FORGET there were once upon a time good games.

When exactly was this?
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
neverknowsbest said:
Take the risk of making more mediocre games?
Click to expand...
Of making games that are not going to sell 12 million.

Everyone is so drunk on the idea that every action game needs to sell like God of War (Capcom) or every game with conflict in it needs to sell like Call of Duty (Dragon Age 2) that no one's just willing to put a game out there that doesn't cost $50 million to make and probably won't do CoD numbers.

I mentioned Dragon Age 2 earlier. Bioware went fucking nuts with that game in an effort to try and sell it to a bigger audience than the two million+ selling original.

The industry's definition of "standing out" has somehow warped in to "Let's throw money until it's like everything else." That's the tragedy. Blezinski says unless it's an event or an indie film it stands no chance and he's right. The problem is, everyone has decided instead of changing that mentality, we're only going to get events and things desperately trying to be events.
 
I

itxaka

Defeatist
Lathentar said:
What was he supposed to do? "No, don't give me millions of dollars to make a game that will make your platform stand out!"

Basically its AAA games with huge budgets (almost always sequels), licensed games and smaller, tightly focused games sold at a discounted price.

As mentioned above, you can't make an average non-licensed game and expect it to sell for $60 dollars against the AAA competitors. There are far too many AAA games at the 60 dollar price point for the "middle class" game to sell.
Click to expand...

I'm not accusing him, but he is part of it whatever he likes it or not.

I'm putting this one into consoles. They are the culprit for this as they set the 60$ standard price for everything, AAA or piece of shit.

I wonder why no more companies put out 40$ games but I guess that licensing costs, publisher and such makes it impossible to do.
 
J

JdFoX187

Banned
zoner said:
What sets Battle of LA apart? It just looks like Independence Day
Click to expand...
Yeah...except they look nothing alike.

On the topic at-hand, I think THQ has the right idea with their $40 initiative, or whatever the price was. Not every game needs to be priced at $60. Judging by a lot of sales figures, a lot of games seem to sell much more after they've been discounted rather than at full price. The market is already adjusting with places like Amazon giving $10/20 gift cards away for most games and constant B2G1 or B1G50% promotions popping up every month or so.
 
Z

Zhengi

Member
This is partly the gamers' fault and partly the industry's fault. There were viable options for game companies to take that did not require going down this road, but they insisted upon it and here we are at the crossroads.

The only good thing is that handhelds at least are still a good source in finding some of those middle games, but I am afraid that we are just headed in the same direction as the console industry with newer and better tech.
 
A

Alts

Member
Mrbob said:
Torchlight, Magicka, Trine, Super Meat Boy as more recent examples. Paradox titles in general are doing well on PC digital.
Click to expand...

Super Meat boy is certainly an indie game.

Someone mentioned Atlus, and I guess they put out a lot of "middle-class" games. But they're supported by a pretty devoted niche fanbase.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Devolver co-founder talks about competing with live service AAA titles for players' time and why indies may have a harder time on Xbox and PlayStation
Opinion Business Game Dev
10
827
Hypereides replied
Small games can be good for AAA studios, and "directly contributed" to big RPGs like Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, says Obsidian's Josh Sawyer
Opinion Game Dev
44
3K
vaibhavpisal replied
I'm sorry, but I'm good on visual fidelity. Focus on simulation fidelity instead.
Opinion 2
77
3K
HL3.exe replied
WB Games crucial to company's success | MK1 has sold over 3 million copies | Plans for more monetization in their games
Business Sales-Age
27
2K
WitchHunter replied
I've completed my 20th re-reading of The Lord of the Rings.
2
60
4K
NecrosaroIII replied
Top Bottom