{"id":961,"date":"2010-03-04T21:44:33","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T21:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocobeam.me\/playground\/2010\/03\/3some\/"},"modified":"2010-03-04T21:44:33","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T21:44:33","slug":"3some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2010\/03\/3some\/","title":{"rendered":"3some"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Holy Shit.<\/p>\n

Sony acquires the independent studio Media Molecule<\/a>. After Nadeo joining Ubisoft forces, another \u201cindie\u201d absorbed by a big company.<\/p>\n

Next one to end up first party Sony developer, I\u2019d say Quantic Dream?<\/p>\n

Programmers in Japan dev studios are working like crazy and get paid like slaves. Is it news? I don\u2019t know but it gives a sense of what is going on there<\/a> (around 1000\u20ac for 60 hours\/week) and gives us in the West, a sense of perspective.<\/p>\n

Indie Fund<\/a> is up!<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIndie Fund is a brand new funding source for independent developers, created by a group of successful indies looking to encourage the next wave of game developers. It was established as a serious alternative to the traditional publisher funding model. Our aim is to support the growth of games as a medium by helping indie developers get financially independent and stay financially independent. <\/em><\/p>\n

We will soon be announcing the names of the projects we are already backing. Additional details about the need for Indie Fund and the rationale behind it will be shared at the Game Developers Conference in the talk titled Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System that Never Worked<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why is this so important? Well we have these days a good example of this, starring Infinity Ward the developer, Activision the publisher and Call of Duty the game. Rewind:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Infinity Ward created Call of Duty in 2003, a massive success. Activision published and bought the developer the year of their first game. <\/p>\n

Activision of course bought the IP rights and developed some spinoff and expansion packs on every support possible, making as much as possible out of this guerilla game.<\/p>\n

During that time we don\u2019t know what is going on between the developer and the publisher but we can definitely guess how it must be a fight every second with the first one pressurized to do a sequel asap. They do two years later, in 2005.<\/p>\n

Call of Duty works so well, Activision now wants to get one game each year. Infinity Ward refuses because they know they can\u2019t output the same quality in a 12months cycle.<\/p>\n

Activision doesn\u2019t care and because they have the IP rights, they ask another developer to do a Call of Duty game (the third one) which is doing ok, but receives mixed reviews and is definitely not in the heart of the fans of the franchise.<\/p>\n

Infinity Ward says nothing. They\u2019re working on the next CoD called Modern Warfare, which is an even more biggest success in 2007.<\/p>\n

Activision does it again and wants a Call of Duty in 2008 made by another developer. It\u2019s Call of Duty, World at War which receives good reviews but not as good as the Infinity Ward games. Sales are good though.<\/p>\n

Infinity Ward still says nothing. They are working on the 2009 CoD iteration.<\/p>\n

The game is out in November last year: 4.7 million units sold in the first 24 hours<\/strong>. In five days the game grossed half a billion dollars. Fans know the Original Developer did it.<\/p>\n

\"Activision,<\/a>
With Activision, it\u2019s damn funky. *cough*<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The thing is it\u2019s all about people<\/strong>, not ideas<\/strong>. Infinity Ward has an incredibly talented team for sure. Now the Original Developer is mad. They created an IP, they did an outstanding 4th iteration of it, it seems<\/a> that they want to develop another game (fuck, can you imagine working on a realistic war game for seven years??!!) and the publisher doesn\u2019t want to listen to the developer who made them gross more than $1B, on one game. Crazy. <\/p>\n

And like is noting Gamasutra about Activision:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cFor example, now that Guitar Hero is no longer the cash cow it once was, it <\/em>closed Red Octane and made cuts at Neversoft<\/em><\/a>, despite the way those studios have performed for Activision in the past.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I hate this war franchise and don\u2019t want to play it. But I think I hate disrespect of people hard at work and greed over an already successful product even more. The laid off co-founders of Infinity Ward are of course suing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So yeah, when I hear that a developer is bought by a massive publisher, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that great. It often says that it\u2019s the beginning of the End. Starting by the game.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holy Shit. Sony acquires the independent studio Media Molecule. After Nadeo joining Ubisoft forces, another \u201cindie\u201d absorbed by a big company. Next one to end up first party Sony developer, I\u2019d say Quantic Dream? Programmers in Japan dev studios are working like crazy and get paid like slaves. Is it news? I don\u2019t know but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}