Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount... ;

From: Doc Shipley <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Wed Jun 23 11:45:25 2004

Teo Zenios wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
> To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 11:20 AM
> Subject: Re: Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount... ;
>
>
>
>>Interesting the point somone made about the games industry stagnating
>>because there's no innovation any more. I think that's true of the whole
>>industry - the current generation of students are rarely taught the
>>basics and how to drive a GUI. They get good pass marks for doing this,
>>the university's performance figures look good, and that's what the
>>industry on the surface of things think they want. I do wonder quite
>>where things will be in ten years when there's almost nobody left who
>>can actually think for themselves though...
>>
>>Anyway, rant over :-)
>>
>>cheers
>>
>>Jules
>>
>
>
> The games industry is stagnating for the same reason the movie industry is,
> it just costs too much money to make the product anymore so everybody tries
> to copy anything that recently sold well. The only people taking chances are
> the ones with a insignificant budget, which might work for some movies but
> definatly doesnt work for games where eyecandy is what sells.

   There's another huge problem with game development. A guy I work
with in AZ had a new game engine and story plot on the boards, had
tested it running in Linux, and were ready to port to mainstream
platforms. His group found that to gain access to what they needed to
run on XBox and/or Windows, they had to sign developer contracts that
would effectively prohibit sale of their game on any other platform, and
gave Microsoft considerable control over pricing, target market, and
even content and development of the game itself.

   Michael told me that the only upside to the MS terms was that Sony's
terms were much *worse*.


        Doc
Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 11:45:25 BST