LucasArts big cheese Jim Ward recently told UK's MCV that business practices as recently seen by EA are inexcuseable.
"There's an attitude in this industry that says in order to make a great game, it takes whatever time it takes and it takes whatever money it takes, and that 'that's okay," Ward claimed. "Well it's not okay ? it's wrong. It's not okay in other entertainment businesses. In other businesses it's big trouble... When you have EA failing to bring Superman out with the movie, that's inexcusable. Moving games like Medal of Honor and Godfather out of the fourth quarter -? that's the old way of thinking and you can't do that any more... We've adopted new philosophies at LucasArts which, frankly, the whole industry should adopt. We make kick-ass games, but on time and on budget. Failure on any one of those three points is failure for the project. We are very serious about that strategy and we're able to deliver on it. As a result we're successful on a revenue and a bottom line basis."Yes, it all makes perfect sense from a marketing standpoint, just so long as buggy, unfinished games aren't being foistered on the public.
Source: MCV
It's got more to do with publishers' attitudes than it does with developers' professionalism.
Thanks Jim!
You have taken my favorite video game company from my childhood, and totolly screwed it up.
I dont just blame you, but the fact that you think you make "kick-ass" games makes me laugh my ass off.
Lucas Arts has made like a couple Star Wars games that were "good" not "kick-ass".
And hasnt released anything "kick-ass" since Curse of Monkey Island.
Yeah Jim, releasing games on time and on budget and having them suck (like most of Lucas Arts games) is way better then taking time, and spending more money to make them awsome, GOOD LOGIC THERE!!!
Unfortunately, in my experience dealing with managers like this, you have to expect that everything they say is complete crap.
Or maybe I would.
Indiana Jones!
So is Jim actually saying that a game that isn't finished by deadline should be out-and-out cancelled? Because that doesn't make any sense to me, but it would maybe explain what happened with Sam & Max.
Anyway games aren't like movies (why is Jim obsessed with comparing the game industry to the movie industry? Is the ILM / LucasArts merger happening as we speak?) and they shouldn't be compared. I mean, you can make a great movie using essentially 1960's technology (if you try) and no-one will moan because it's all about the story. If you make a game with anything less than the most up-to-date technology, regardless of how good it is, it will not sell very well.
His strategy of tying games releases to movie and DVD 'events' is great, and EA did drop the ball by not coinciding the Superman game release with the movie.
But if your company begins to release shoody products continually you'll lose that brand loyalty.
There was a time when I could buy a LucasARts game unplayed and without reading reviews (early-mid 90s - DOTT, MI2, MI3, Tie Fighter, Jedi Knight) because I trusted the company.
No longer though, and while there is LucasArts loyalty amongst Star Wars fanboys, it'll only take another period like LucasArts 'Episode 1' era when shoddy games were being released regularly for even the fanboys to show more caution in their purchasing.
Great marketing is fine, so long as it's backed up with great product.
Is there any such company left in the world that is in an "era" of just gold/gem game after gold/gem game?
ID Software is particularly interesting because after so many years they are still leading the technology aspect of games, and all of their games have been financial successes, even if you don't much care for their games. Blizzard has been around for a while and, for some people, they could probably pick up any one of their games without knowing anything about it and enjoy it. The same might be said for Rockstar, but probably just Rockstar North in particular.
And for adventure games, there's always Revolution; though many people's mileage may vary with their games, I always enjoy them. There is also telltale, which hasn't been around long, but I don't think they've steered us wrong yet.
I'm betting on doublefine releasing pure gems every time, but the road so far for them has been kind of tough publisher and sales wise. I'm just hoping the money bags will look at the "best game of year" type stuff instead of the "dismal sales" type stuff.
Those are all pretty much developers though, even if they do publish some or all of their stuff. You can't look at the big publishing companies like EA, or Sierra, or Atari, Take2, and you can probably lump Lucas Arts in there too. The publishing companie's goal is always to get the biggest bang for the least buck and they're usually not particularly adept at doing so, especially as the cost of creating games gets ever higher.
There is a pretty disturbing trend of games released before they're ready. Sometimes the bugs can be worked out in patches, and a lot of the good developers sometimes release loads of patches, but down right crappy gameplay usually can't be remedied. A lot of console games can't be patched either.
Dang, that was long. Sorry.
pre-1998: Lucas Arts games
1998: Grim Fandango + Baldur's Gate
post-1998: Bioware games
2005: Psychonauts! + Bioware games
a few other (sometimes action)adventure games snuck their way into the post-1998 period but would have made the chart too complicated ;)
Sheer brilliance as usual, Mr. Ward.