Thursday, May 12, 2005

News: Game Developers Fear Hollywoodization

Despite the big bucks and big audiences rolling into the videogame world, some developers are not happy with the way things are going in their industry, reports CNet.com.

The objections cited in the article are as follows:

* Games are dominated by huge budgets, huge productions, and sequelitis, just like the Hollywood movie machine.
* Another Hollywood similarity: Games are generally created around a limited number of themes: Sports, FPS, strategy, RPG.
* The industry is dominated by a few major players. There are no "small" hardware manufacturers left, and the indie developers are being squeezed by big design studios.
* Games are seldom made by small, dedicated teams anymore, which some people believe stifles creativity.

CNet gets a different opinion from a senior Microsoft Xbox executive, J. Allard, who notes that developers have access to Microsoft and open-source tools that take away a lot of the nuts-and-blots drudgery of design, and allow them to focus on creative aspects. Also, the executive points out that Hollywood has been into big-budget productions for decades, yet still indie films like "Clerks" manage breakout successes.

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