With a request like that, I’ll have to break my vow of silence.

I write networking and multiplayer code for EA. Most of their games(FIFA, Madden, NBA, NHL, Dead Space 2, Bad Company 2, etc.) use a bunch of it these days.

And like everyone else , I have a hobby game I tinker with. Unlike everyone else, I don’t have a blog about it. There is not enough to show yet.

Forgive my pessimistic comments about your project earlier. I am sure you’ve heard it all, and I am grateful that you press on with the task.

Although sometimes I wonder if a person as talented as you could perhaps scale back your ambitions a tad to give cynics (like myself) *more* hope of one day playing with your creation.

Pfft. Optimist. This is going to be a hell of a long “moment”. I have to admit, however, your attitude is quite refereshing. Still, I don’t believe that any sector is going to go back to their old ways any time soon.

( I AM, but it would be arrogant to assume it. Heh, just kidding. )

About the lucrative thing. Well, the games industry earns more than Hollywood. That’s a lot of money, surely? I’m not saying they can challenge any national banks, but it’s certainly become one of the foremost forms of entertainment on the planet, surpassing movies ( a more mature medium), and continues to grow. I’d say it’s doing pretty darn well!

Ok, sure, not immune to recession. But who is? The Titanic was a very large ship for its time, that didn’t make it iceberg-proof. Doesn’t change the fact that it WAS a very large ship.

Many game devs have lost jobs, and the recession has hit everyone hard. But that’s just a condition of the financial landscape at the moment, not a statement on how successful the games industry is relative to other entertainment industries, surely?

My own method of development may be mismatched with the scope of my project, sure. I know I’m being WILDLY ambitious. But everything is impossible until someone does it, hey.

Do you think one guy could make a 3D MMORPG? Check out Minions of Mirth : http://www.prairiegames.com/

Middleware just keeps getting better and better, it’s GOTTA become possible at some point, when the tools and engines and 3rd party art and so on are mature enough. I think it’s now! And I’m going for it!

( Btw, where do you work/on what titles? I’d love to know, I’m always interested in what other devs get up to and their experiences. Don’t be shy! )

I am having a hard time seeing how a few successful products a year make the game industry ‘fabulously lucrative’. My comparison with the gold mining industry is probably apt. A few guys strike it rich and everyone is all atwitter with pronouncements of perpetual growth and recession-proofitude . Bah, that is so last decade. Before the housing bubble and the general spendo-marathon.

Let’s be realistic and sensible. Nothing is recession proof. I work in the game industry and I know. Thousands of colleagues lost jobs in the last 2 years, (many for good reasons since most of the products being worked on barely made money), and of course you are hearing of studios being shuttered every few days. Sure they are mostly minor studios, but they are a big part of the ‘industry’ because there are so many of them. Most game projects fail to make much money, and those that do(owned by big publishers) have to support the multitude of the ones that don’t. Look at the financials of behemoths like EA, THQ, Activision, let’s not even mention Midway. None of those companies’ profitability comes anywhere close to even a third tier Canadian bank. (Yes I am Canadian, I am sure that explains everything about this post.)

Anyway, good luck with the game Gareth, even though I have a feeling that your own model of development is mismatched with the size of the project you are working on. Never heard of a single guy releasing a technically ambitious 3d RPG before, but hey, you could be the first one!

Well, if you’d prefer, we could compare books and DVDs? Or stereos? Or mountain bikes? Sure, the expectations of use and economic parameters change from good to good, sure.

But NO other good, no matter how long or short its consumption period, benefits from a system where the initial creator gets paid for the initial sale, and gets a cut of all subsequent resales, as far as I know. It’s insane that the games industry wants to be paid many times for a single copy of an item.

Like I said, second hand book stores and libraries have existed for decades. Since the value of books is, like DVDs, primarily from the experience of reading them and not in the physical media, the examples hold up fairly well. People aren’t buying it for the paper, they are buying it for the story inside. And, once consumed, it’s done. So books and the entire publishing industry should also be threatened by second-hand sales, it makes most sense for people who love to read to buy their books second hand or rent them, just long enough to get the story out and then resell it.

Since book sales and second-hand book sales have been around longer than the games industry, we should be able to see a clear example of how second hand sales destroy an industry.

But we don’t, it’s fine. The industry survives. The games industry will survive.

99% of people who are keenly anticipating a title don’t have the patience to wait for it second hand, I reckon (thumbsuck). Only the undecided or those with economic constraints stick it out for the second-hand copy. And then that second hand copy can act like a salesman for further titles. If I pick up an old book at a second hand book sale that looks like it MIGHT be decent and I thought ‘why not, it’s only R10′ and it turns out I love it, then I’m going to look for further titles from that author in the book store, to buy first hand. This has happened to me a few times.

The games industry is being very short sighted about the used games issue, IMO.

Btw, figures on the industries lucrativeness :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood

http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/05/06/video-industry-stock-is-a-better-investment-than-gold

http://videogames.lovetoknow.com/wiki/How_Much_Money_Does_the_Video_Game_Industry_Make

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10400394-17.html

A car driven out of the lot loses a lot more ‘relative’ value compared to a DVDs, because expected use duration of this good is much greater. It’s not unusual to sell a DVD a week after buying it for 90% price, not so for a car.

Some economic functions supply/demand apply to all goods, others are dependent on price and expected use patterns.

Also, I have not seen you provide any data for the games industry being ‘fabulously lucrative’ either . That sounds like a bit of an exaggeration. It’s like saying that the gold industry is fabulously lucrative because if get lucky you can make huge profits. Which is not really saying anything.

The only fabulously lucrative industries that come to my mind is banking or casinos.