More Fun To Compute said:Great comment. What gets me about gaming communities, from people on forums to the professional websites, is how many people seem to rate games by how serious and businessman like companies are. Like, they need games to be a serious industry like razor blades and napalm manufacturing more than they want to play and enjoy games. Maybe they have mortgages to pay off or something but that sort of attitude is not very attractive.
This argument was also used by recordcompanies, yet Trent has found a way to produce music, deliver it for free to his audience and still make money. I think he might have an idea or two on how to reform the gamingindustry before it fucks itself in the ass AGAIN.
Seriously, this whole concept of "this franchise sells, let's invest in it and pump out 36 sequels a year" is tiresome. It's a good concept on the short-term, but in the long run, ppl are gonna grow tired of that franchise, and you'll need a new franchise.
I think the best way to about it is the middle-ground. Make money with franchise that sell NOW and use (part of) that money to invest in new franchises.
Besides, I also think Trent is referring to the Activision <> Double Fine situation where Activision would only invest further in Brütal Legend if Double Fine turned it into a Guitar Hero-spinoff. That shit is fucked up. You've got someone sitting at your desk, with a great prototype of potentially a great game and you tell him to turn it into a Guitar Hero-game?
Companies don't need to be run by gamers, I understand these people are in it for the money, but at least have the brains to invest in people that know what they're up to. Activision told Harmonix they wouldn't invest in a Guitar Hero with full-band-play, because Activision believed that kind of game would never sell. We all know what happened.
Activision DOES invest in new franchises. But not enough. Prototype was a potentially great game, but needed a shitload of more polish before being rushed off to the stores because ZOMG INFAMOUS IS OUT!
I agree with a lot on Trent in the interview, except for the Madden: This Year-bit. OK, I don't know about Madden, but over the past 2 years, the FIFA-series has taken leaps and the "owh this is last year's FIFA with extra polish"-feeling is gone. Plus, EA has shown massive balls by investing in a completely new RPG, a open world metal-game with little-to-none-guaranteed sales AND decided to go up against Blizzard mano-a-mano with the Star Wars MMO.