I knew there was something this generation that’s been irking on my nerves for a while, but I just couldn’t place my finger on it. Well, that all changed today when Zoe Mode studio head, Paul Mottram, expressed sentiments about the industry that most gamers won’t find surprising: Publishers have been reluctant this generation to go all out on risky or innovative projects exclusive to a console because there’s no clear frontrunner like there was last generation.
In an interview with GameIndustry.biz [via Strategy Informer], Mottram stated that…
"It used to be that ten years ago, it was PS2,"… "So you'd just do PS2 and then maybe some others."… "But now we're finding that everyone is not knowing what platform is going to succeed - we did our first 3DS title - we got Crush onto that, but we had to delay the release of that because of the success of the platform."
I remember when analyst from back in late 2006 were making all kinds of silly predictions, such as the Wii and Xbox 360 being left in the dust due to the established brand name of the PlayStation and that the PS3 would be dominating the market in 2010. Last I checked the PS3 and Xbox 360 certainly aren’t the market frontrunners in the hardware department but they certainly make up for a lot of software revenue that contributes to the billions and billions of dollars that the gaming industry is raking in each year.
Mottram when on to explain the state of the industry, saying that…
"So it's hard for us because none of the platforms are dominant at the moment. The Wii is on the wane, obviously Zumba has done really well on that, and we hope we see some success there, but there's a nervousness which we're seeing from publishers who are traditionally funding some of our products,"… "With the move to digital, what I've seen is people wanting to spend XBLA budgets but expecting retail content. Unless we can address that it's going to be very hard for us to deliver the games we want to make."
Yeah, I bet, ace. The real problem is that innovation has been snuffed out in place of finding the best route to maximize on the Farmville/Call of Duty/Angry Birds paradigm, which is basically establishing a brand that milks in as much money as possible while inciting as little expenditure as they can. You can also toss “creativity” and “innovation” in the same category with expenditure.
Paul Mottram’s thoughts on the industry reflect a sound hindsight of what we’ve seen publishers commit to over the past five years. Gamers have continually heard the phrase “it costs too much” concerning innovation and creativity far too often while at the same time small budget projects like Super Meat Boy and Limbo have gone on to innovate, inspire and manage commercial success.
Even if the PS4 and Xbox 720 do contain Avatar quality graphics, what good is it if most companies are going to maximize their resources on the lowest common denominator: Low expenditure with high returns? Heck, we’ll still be playing games that look like they come off the N64 on the Xbox 720 and paying $40 for them.
You can check out the entire interview over at GameIndustry.biz or visit Zoe Mode to see what other projects they have up their sleeves.
