No it isn't. You can't go ahead and make up a statement say it's equivalent and then say how horrible the original statement is.
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Kotaku: "We Need Better Video Game Publishers" [Update: David Jaffe Responds]
- Thread starter Deitus
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robovanburen
Member
I like the Kotaku editorial more when I imagine that Jaffe wrote it and is now trying to throw everyone off his scent.
jim-jam bongs
Member
I don't want to cite Watergate right now but... I can't think of a way to finish this sentence.
NoirVisage
Banned
Yeah, i had the feeling reading through the thread.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Seriously?
davidjaffe
The Fucking MAN.
Kind of. I have zero issue coming off as spiteful to Kotaku. I think they've earned the reputation they have with me. Their reporting and tactics over the last 2 years or so have made me suspicious enough that I PERSONALLY do not hold them in the same regard (on the whole, not every writer there) as I do other news sites. I simply don't.
I don't think it's wrongheaded as I stand by what I wrote on my blog.
David
Having a negative reaction to someone's opinion is fine, putting words in there mouth and telling them that you know what they are trying to communicate better than they do is not. When you decide that you are the authority on what he is trying to communicate over Jaffe himself then you have perverted and broken down communication and there is no way to have a discourse with you. The only way communication works is if both parties get to define there own intended communications.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
In the end you're no different than any other consumer or Gaffer. I wouldn't back off on my own opinions either.
And as you know by now, some people bait you in to replying but I'm sure you know that
Jaffe said:Not just the game business but ANY business.
And if what you say is true- that there are plenty of folks who can make these games and if TEAM X doesn't do it the way the publisher wants, then they can go to 20 other places to get it done- then while that DOES SUCK MUCH for TEAM X THAT. IS. BUSINESS.
I would suggest- as I do in my blog- that TEAM X gets so good that they can write their own ticket. But until they do, to use your words, because there are plenty of coding monkeys desperate to get their foot in the door, they will have to take a shitty deal or go out of business. THAT. IS. BUSINESS.
The best case is to take shitty deal #1 and knock it out of the fucking park (and in the definition of knocking it out of the park you must include 'dealing with the politics of working with a publisher in such a way that the publisher becomes an ally to the production of the game) and once you hit a home run, make deal #2 less shitty until- eventually- you and your team are in a position to call the shots that matter to you.
I am sorry you don't like it. I don't like it either
I completely agree, but this whole thread was about who was causing that situation and how to improve it. Kotaku say it's down to the pubs exploiting devs with bad royalty deals, etc. You responded with "I reject the tired accusation that it's the publisher keeping game developers down. And I reject that accusation because of the classic line that I am sure you've heard before: you are worth what you can negotiate." which clearly puts the blame on the devs for not negotiating a better deal. And now you've clarified it as "negotiate a better deal or go out of business" because no business pays more than it has to for something. But how does blaming the devs for not being able to get better deals instead of pubs for offering only bad deals make any sense at all?
Bear in mind Jaffe once claimed the whole MSNBC network shouldn't be allowed to report on any Sony products because he erroneously believed the MS stood for Microsoft.
davidjaffe
The Fucking MAN.
I can't stand Leigh Alexander mostly because on her public twitter feed she said really mean, cruel things about the hard working team who made Twisted Metal PS3.
I also think she comes across as elitist, which I don't like. I AM NOT SAYING SHE IS AN ELITIST. I am saying that is- TO ME- how she comes across.
David
CrunchyFrog
Member
They are an exception that proves the rule, and for every 1 example of where you could show the developer having legitimate bargaining power I could probably show you 10+ examples of those who are at the mercy of publishers who misread market trends and consumer demand due to the "unknown" quality of the project in question and thus enforce meddlesome contracts, case in point most of the recent Kickstarter campaigns. Not nearly as much money, but still it demonstrates significant demand, enough to fund some projects more than 4x over their original budget, and in many cases generated far greater word of mouth than any marketing campaign. And even in the former idealist scenario who's to say that the pubs still don't negotiate in meddling clauses to generate that additional 3 points of revenue according to their "focus tests" and "market research"?
So only the publishers get to determine the amount of risk that is acceptable, the consumer gets none whatsoever, and I'm saying that in the context of a creative medium such as this it is a poor way to foster creativity and ultimately leads to the kind of stagnation that we are seeing in the AAA industry today. That's exactly why I'm fine with the KS model, because the end-user, the ultimate arbiter of any creative content gets to determine the kind of content that can get made, and usually in proportion to the amount of actual interest in sad product.
ShockingAlberto
Member
HOW DID YOU POST THIS WITH NO SENSE OF IRONY
ShockingAlberto
Member
Things that are okay
- Wondering aloud if someone is lying because you don't like them and then saying you're not actually accusing them of lying
Things that are not okay
- Interpreting that as an accusation despite the Cheshire Cat grin
- Wondering aloud if someone is lying because you don't like them and then saying you're not actually accusing them of lying
Things that are not okay
- Interpreting that as an accusation despite the Cheshire Cat grin
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
There is some skepticism there for sure which is why I see where Dave is coming from.
I am not deciding what you said for you. If I have ever said that you mean something that you do not then let me know and I will fix it.
What you don't get to do is continue to insist Jaffe means something that he explicitly is telling you he does not mean. That is the literal definition of putting words in someone else's mouth.
That's a weird position to have. If you're proven incorrect or new info has come to light, why not revise your "opinion"? Why even participate in discourse if you won't ever be introspective and open to counter-arguments?
davidjaffe
The Fucking MAN.
Because a publisher will make the best deals it can FOR THEM. A BAD publisher will incorrectly assume that fucking the dev on a deal is a good deal. But a GOOD publisher will realize that a GOOD DEV treated well will be loyal and potentially become a GREAT DEV and so they will not be unreasonable in negotiations.
But I stand by the idea that your are as good as what you negotiate. If you are not a good enough dev to negotiate a good enough deal (either because the biz dev part of your biz is weak or because your not a talented enough group to demand a quality deal) then sorry. That's life in the big city, sir.
I have crazy sympathy but as someone said earlier: it's not a charity.
David
EmCeeGramr
Member
I don't think Kotaku is exactly the bee's knees of journalism either, but there's a difference between dismissively laughing at Kotaku for posting a picture of a cake or banal Twitter arguments in lieu of actual news, and claiming that they're capable of deliberate deception.
Ironically, this reminds me of when Kotaku posted Kamiya's comments about Steam and cloud gaming, implied some pretty stupid things, then acted like they had no idea what the problem was or why people reacted that way since they didn't directly say that Japanese devs were too stupid and backwards to understand PC games.
Ironically, this reminds me of when Kotaku posted Kamiya's comments about Steam and cloud gaming, implied some pretty stupid things, then acted like they had no idea what the problem was or why people reacted that way since they didn't directly say that Japanese devs were too stupid and backwards to understand PC games.
neverknowsbest
Member
Well consider it from the publisher's perspective. What pressures are they facing? The market is tight, therefore, they will demand more from developers. Really, don't blame anyone. Just work your ass off.
Jaffe's saying, "don't believe every cry of exploitation, some developers are simply not worth what they think they are," which is a completely reasonable claim. Game development is very hard, and you don't know how to do it well until you do it well, at which point you probably won't be complaining about unfair deals with publishers, because you'll be too busy working your ass off and proving your worth.
This is basically true of top-level players in any industry or sport, or anything. The people who complain are those B-teamers who don't feel like they're getting their due, because they have an inflated sense of self-worth, because they don't understand how fucking hard the top guys work to be on top. Once you get on top, you don't complain, because you understand how hard it is.
Riposte
Member
Giving a lot freedom as something more than an exception seems like a recipe for disaster. Kickstarters do offer more freedom... on game budgets which amount to lower than 5 million (collected from thousands of people who won't be losing a lot if it busts).
I wouldn't really know for sure, but I think there would be a back and forth between publisher and developer in a healthy relationship. Isn't it the producer's job to allow designers and such to do their magic? If your studio is looked at as nothing more than a bunch of code-monkeys pushing out a tie-in for a shitty kid's cartoon, then you probably don't have a very healthy relationship and one would wonder why you should.
I wouldn't really know for sure, but I think there would be a back and forth between publisher and developer in a healthy relationship. Isn't it the producer's job to allow designers and such to do their magic? If your studio is looked at as nothing more than a bunch of code-monkeys pushing out a tie-in for a shitty kid's cartoon, then you probably don't have a very healthy relationship and one would wonder why you should.
davidjaffe
The Fucking MAN.
I don't disagree with you at all. But isn't that a different topic?
jim-jam bongs
Member
David, don't you feel that your argument could be used to support either point of view though? While I agree that the notion that they are evil for not protecting their investments is somewhat childish, it always appears that the practices of larger publishers really do restrict the range of games being released, at least on consoles where licensing fees make it a tougher place for Indies to thrive. Films, as an example, have a much more diverse financing structure which is more likely to encourage originality.
NoirVisage
Banned
forreal doh.
You've been tenacious in pushing your point, You usually don't have to, you just leave a well thought out post and it speaks for itself.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I posted more than usual, ergo I have a personal agenda?
Jake Tower
Banned
Look up Lockner v New York
NoirVisage
Banned
tenacious was the keyword broski.
We have to see how much better Kickstarter is. Right now it's mostly trading on nostalgia.
If you want something truly new, I don't think the Kickstarter audience is going to respond too well. (Conjecture on my part.)
Seems like catering to the oldschool PC games crowd is the safest bet you can make on Kickstarter right now.
DoubleFine's Amnesia Fortnight is probably the most creative process that involves an audience, but there you just pay for 2-week prototypes and DoubleFine foots the rest of the bill if they like it themselves.
Can you expand on what lessons I should draw from that?
CosmicQueso
Member
A publisher's job is to minimize shareholder risk and maximize opportunity for return on investment. A dev's job is to maximize the return on their own investment.
When a publisher becomes a public entity (not that it worked out in the 38 Studios case), then exploitation, etc. can be argued.
In these cases, however, two private parties negotiate an agreement that they find mutually beneficial. A pub owes no developer anything, nor does a dev owe a publisher anything. However, there have to be gives and takes to come to an agreement.
If a dev can't get a deal it finds acceptable, then it can choose a different project, or cease work altogether. They are not forced to sign agreements. If a publisher finds a dev team to be too high risk, and that dev isn't willing to agree to certain risk mitigating items(such as meta score, etc) the dev team can also walk away.
There's a lot of passion in the discussion here where it doesn't belong. Passion has little place in deal negotiation. Rational thought is much more effective and appropriate. Jaffe's right, this is just business. And the somewhat sensationalist Kotaku piece doesn't change that.
That's not everywhere, however, and this is a bit of a generalization that it's true across the industry. Jim Sterling's latest actually does a nice job of pointing out the whys and all that.
The audience on GAF loves the risk taking new and exciting when it comes to what they purchase. The mass audience, however, is buying sequels to huge franchises more than anything else. Top 10 game sales as a share of the total market has increased 5 years running.
Square Enix took that to an extreme, spending dev and marketing to a point where they needed many millions more sales than the titles could generate in order to crack that top 10 with games like Tomb Raider. That's on Square Enix. Not all companies do this.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Terrible Jaffe viewpoint, really disconnected from reality because he personally achieved success and isnt as answerable to so much bullshit anymore. "Go crowdsource, if you're famous enough it'll work!!!!!"
The very existence of super-big Kickstarters is evidence of mass publisher failings to get better at their jobs and source game devs to tackle gaping markets begging for content and throwing money at screens.
Of course, the other element left out of all of this is: "We need better videogame producers/production managers". The squeezer of the purse strings, the organisers, the " this ships without running over budget because I say so" people. Because thats where a lot of the games industry goes tits up.
The very existence of super-big Kickstarters is evidence of mass publisher failings to get better at their jobs and source game devs to tackle gaping markets begging for content and throwing money at screens.
Of course, the other element left out of all of this is: "We need better videogame producers/production managers". The squeezer of the purse strings, the organisers, the " this ships without running over budget because I say so" people. Because thats where a lot of the games industry goes tits up.
CrunchyFrog
Member
What I'm saying is that there is a fundamental disconnect between publisher risk assessment and actual consumer demand, and also that the majority of publisher risk assessment is predicated, of course, on being a business and maximizing profits instead of fostering creativity and thus unforeseen avenues of profit or catering to still profitable but not AS profitable niche markets. It's this total risk-averse and min-max margins nature that has lead to the homogenization that we see today and will likely lead to a slow and steady decline as the market numbs to these assembly line experiences. I can almost guarantee that no publisher would have ever published a AAA game like Minecraft, or at least not without significant changes, because it was a completely untested area. Yet it was both a huge financial success and fostered a great deal of creative capital. The short of it all is, major publishers today don't take nearly enough risks, they instead foster more short-term profits. Tangentially related, it's probably why that investigative piece found that $10 trillion dollars in offshore accounts. There is a widening gap between investment and expected return that is just becoming ridiculous, see also Tomb Raider's nearly 5 million in sales not being enough for certain profit forecasts.
NoirVisage
Banned
Awesome post, I think that's the heart of the matter..no pun intended.
Articulate, reasonable and logical. I agree with everything.
McBradders
NeoGAF: my new HOME
Jaffe, you are a really rad dude but this is really fucking whack;
It's super short sighted and even completely destructive in regards to nurturing future talent. When you're a start up, regardless of pedigree, how many people are going to lay out cash if they're not you or Cliffy B or the like? Hardly anyone.
The indie scene is not an ideal place. It's easy to get completely fucked by Steam greenlight and for every perceived darling there are a hundred that go unnoticed. It's getting savage out there.
Is that up to publishers to figure out? No of course not, but in their rush to be a AAA powerhouse the B game has suffered and that is where so many have cut their teeth on their way up.
It's super short sighted and even completely destructive in regards to nurturing future talent. When you're a start up, regardless of pedigree, how many people are going to lay out cash if they're not you or Cliffy B or the like? Hardly anyone.
The indie scene is not an ideal place. It's easy to get completely fucked by Steam greenlight and for every perceived darling there are a hundred that go unnoticed. It's getting savage out there.
Is that up to publishers to figure out? No of course not, but in their rush to be a AAA powerhouse the B game has suffered and that is where so many have cut their teeth on their way up.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
If some new information or clarity has materialized then one stands corrected. What I'm saying is that I don't go back on my own words.
Yea, there's a pretty big difference. Kotaku posts some low-quality stuff because they've got that blog-like atmosphere thing going on but they still attempt journalism every once in awhile. Claiming that they'd make stuff up for a story is reaching pretty far. Especially since I can't imagine an article like in the OP really appealing to large audience. If they wanted to make stuff up, make up something that'd actually give you some hits.
CrunchyFrog
Member
The problem is this utilitarian line of reasoning falls short when were talking about a business which is ultimately driven on subjectivity and creativity, which gets stomped in the model of min-maxing and shareholders.
NoirVisage
Banned
So "better" publishers means..?
What does the MS in MSNBC stand for then?
Tummi Gummi
Member
I thought...it does stand for Microsoft. :S
BlastProcessing
Member
The idea that "you are as good as you negotiate" is true under certain ideal circumstances, but there are obvious scenarios where this is not true. If one side is able to consolidate enough power, then there is a tipping point where the other side simply loses all leverage. This is why mining towns are no longer allowed to pay workers in corporate currency, as an extreme example. The entire concept of unions exist because of these situations.
If a publisher views developers as interchangeable parts, there isn't much a developer can negotiate. When Activision can gut Infinity Ward and continue pumping out Call of Duty games with no negative effect on sales, it sends a pretty strong message about who has the power.
Of course, publishers aren't the only reason games fail and of course, this isn't a charity. But I don't think either of those facts impacts the validity of the article much. I would hope publishers would realize that it is in their best intrest to change the way that they interact with developers. Things are changing rapidly and if publishers keep stubbornly charging ahead they will be the ones without a chair when the music stops.
And I think some are getting it. Sony especially seems to be leading the way with their new approach to developer relations. On the other extreme you have EA; a company that keeps acquiring developers then snuffing them out quicker than George pets a bunny to death.
It does.
CrunchyFrog
Member
As stated earlier, ones who take more financial (read: creative) risks. Ultimately, taking more short-term risks means less long-term risk in a creative medium such as this, anyway, as you don't dilute your market to the point where they lose interest in a slightly less risky/novel product but one that may be fiscally necessary due to low returns on other investments.
Business ethics is a completely alien concept to the games industry.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Kickstarter is okay, but for me it's more about a diverse range of options rather than relying on crowd-sourcing. Apple and Google do it right with their app stores on the tablet/smartphone side, and Steam is getting on the trolley for PC gaming with Greenlight, but consoles still suck up the majority of oxygen when we talk about "core" gaming. I was very enthused that Sony decided to make supporting independents a centrepiece of their PS4 proposition, so hopefully that pans out too.
Publishers who have discovered that they can minimise their margins by not spending $100 million on marketing and are open to a broader range of options which make supporting smaller studios with new ideas a viable option.
CouldBeWorse
Member
It might be cruel, but it's how the world works.
Talent is developed in one of two ways in most creative industries (and hell, in most non-creative industries) - independently on your own time and dollar OR at an established company using that company's resources to develop yourself while you are simultaneously providing value for the company.
I'm not sure how the reality of the world impacts the nurturing of future talent. This isn't a charity case where we can get all potential talent to go to the fun playground for 2 years and let the stars emerge. Nearly everyone has to pay their dues through shit jobs and shit products. If/when you emerge from that as a top performer, you can continue to build your reputation until you get to the point where you have more control over your own destiny.
BlastProcessing
Member
The fundamental issue, and it is one that is going away, is that there is only a small number of publishers and they act as gatekeepers. Digital distribution is shattering this paradigm but it is still very much in effect. For example Microsoft's slot system still gives publishers the artificial scarcity that they need to keep their power position. Devs simply do not have the free agency that you ascribe them. Also, your depiction makes a studio into some indivisible unit which is obviously not the case.
In film, a movie is greenlight, spins up and hires it's crew and actors. Each is able to negotiate separate deals based on their individual worth. The technical nature of games means that teams need to stay together to be effective from project to project so the whole team only gets one shot at negotiation and failure to find a paying job means the dissolution of the whole kit and caboodle. This, combined with deals that insure that developers rarely make enough money off of their hits to earn autonomy, creates an environment where publishers wield extreme power.
Which, in a free market sense is fine, right? They earned their position so why shouldn't they reap the rewards? My answer to that is self preservation. The model isn't sustainable and we already see publishers pressured to make everything a mega hit to keep the whole thing rolling.
The industry is changing, and the best way to insure survivability in a rapidly shifting climate is diversity. Which is something that the current model really sucks at fostering.
NoirVisage
Banned
You have a very romantic idea of what a publisher actually is, and what their purpose is,. those kinds of publishers exists, but they're more interested in the growth of the artform than the industry.
BlastProcessing
Member
Double post