Reaffirming Design
Core Talent Games And Other News
By Tim Carter (1 Feb 2009)
I'm still chugging away, working on stuff that reaffirms the
importance of design in game development. To that end, a busy
fall and early winter. Here's what's up...
Core Talent Games
I'm CEO of a startup,
Core
Talent Games Ltd, (CTG) dedicated to free-agent,
project-based game producing. In a nutshell we are adapting the
film model to game development. The key word is "adapting" - not
pasting the film model directly on to game development.
We launched in early fall, and attended
GameON:
Finance - a conference on finance for the game industry -
here in Toronto.
We are game design talent. One of our partners is a designer
in San Francisco (worked at some of the gamedev studios out
there). One a designer-programmer outside of Toronto (has done
indie wargames through Matrix Games). Plus, we are just adding
an entertainment accountant who knows how to structure film
deals.
Our early response: some earnest attention and tire-kicking
from game industry veterans - have some meetings lined up for
GDC.
One high up veteran said there's been a lot of talk about
bringing the film model to game development, but you guys are
actually doing it. Well, there's a lot of parties doing it, too,
or trying to. We're trying to bring the whole talent scouting,
packaging and "screenplay development" thing into games (which,
for the life of me, I've never been able to understand why the
game industry does not do).
As of this writing, we are closing in on our first option
deal with a name designer and speaking with others - but it's
all very hush-hush.
GameON: Finance
Great conference.
A thing that leapt out was an incongruity between
messages among presenters.
First, Wanda Meloni, intelligence-gatherer on the game
industry from DFC, reporting that the coming game industry was
about "content, content, content" and "Content is King". (Other
stats from her presentation
here...)
This followed by Canadian venture capitalists and angel
investors saying, "We don't invest in content."
That is they might as well say, "We don't invest in what is
now driving the game industry."
What's wrong with this picture?
Basically, it's an old story. Canadian money people see games
as "high tech". This is also the attitude of a lot of
educational groups toward games: tech, tech, tech. (That and
social networking.)
Admittedly, tech is important. But tech alone is about
quarter of any game project. The other three quarters are art,
producing and (my favourite) design. Design I feel is the most
misunderstood - it's like directing in film, very intangible.
Because you can't measure it (like you can the framerate of an
engine, the essential look of art assets, or the production
scheduling of producing), its value is ignored, downplayed or
otherwise not given attention. But design is fundamental. That
old saying, even if you lose your car keys in the dark,
sometimes you look under the streetlight because the light is
brighter there - but the keys ain't there, they're in the
shadows. Design happens there - lighting the shadows to find the
keys.
Anyway, game content content content is new genres, new
narratives, new essential ways of playing (aka interfaces). New
design.
If you have an idea for a game, in Canada you can get
scientific R&D funding for it, provided you're making a new game
engine or something tech-oriented like that - not just a "mere
game". (But there are enough engines out there to licence, why
bite off that monster to chew?)
I've been in senior university faculty discussions where
technology developers talk about how their new research project
"can be applied to games", but in the next sentence make it
adamantly clear they do not play games - viewing games almost
with a veneer of contempt over their perceived frivolity. Again,
what's wrong with this picture? (Yes, many games are
frivolous, but you can say that about movies, books, music, et
cetera. It's not an excuse to put down a medium. Me: I think
games are going to revolutionize the way societies debate and
make key decisions. But maybe that's just me...)
So what's going to happen to an industry (i.e. Canada's) that
puts all its investment eggs in the tech basket at a point when
tech is losing traction as a driving factor (there is a glut of
game technology out there)? Short answer: it's going to miss the
boat.
However, this may just be a symptom of top-down command-style
investment (like the kind you expect from government
committees). Certainly, there must be private investors out
there who invest in new content made by Canadian game
developers. Think BioWare (oh wait... they're owned by Americans
now...). Well, I'm sure there are a few other examples.
However, to be sure, investing in content is risky. (Though
wanting to get into the game industry as an investor but also
wanting to avoid that risk brings up the "looking under the
streetlight" point again...) To facilitate investing in
pioneering game content, we've set up Core Talent Games - to
mitigate risk by us scouting out good content (designs) early,
then packaging projects in slates.
Okay, rant's over. You get my point.
XFunc Design Work
I will continue my design work through XFunc. Indeed, I'm
negotiating with some parties to do some interesting new serious
games.
Since Core Talent Games' model gels with the whole XFunc
prospect (a focused game design supplier who is detached from
any given technology platform), I can bring XFunc projects into
the CTG pipeline and package them with external providers
(programming suppliers, engine and middleware, art suppliers,
other designers as required), and probably also raise money that
way (though not under the CTG design submission goals - i.e.
working with clients on a supplier and/or partnership basis
instead of taking total ownership of a submitted design for a
good contract, which is what CTG does).
In the meantime, I've been continuing my design consulting
work on the pandemic game out of the US.
Stay tuned for more updates. |
