More questions

After reading your fantastic article What's Killing Game Development? :) I wonder how you feel about ET:QW (and others) going the in-game ads routine? I was very disapointed. Do you think it's inevitable that games in the future will be so expensive to make that people will not be willing to pay for them and ads is the only way forward?

-Knuckles

I can't say I'm disappointed by in-game ads.

The cost of game development is so high right now and the margins so thin that publishers don't have many other options. Other than EA, most of them are one or two bad years from ending up like Atari.

With competition as fierce as it is and the strength of EA in the market place, prices can't be raised to match costs. Remember, games sold for $50 15, even 20 years ago. How much bigger have development teams gotten? How much more do developers earn? Think of the inflation in gas, housing, movie tickets, cars, food, everything except home electronics over the past decade and a half.

That said, in-game advertising is a band-aid solution to a fundamental problem with the game industry, and is only going to prolong the struggle until some consolidation occurs.

Besides, as a gamer, would you prefer paying an extra $10 or just see and ignore some ads? That'd make a good poll, actually.

Games WILL get more expensive, but not until some publishers drop dead. Whether or not the price increase will see a sales decrease to offset it remains to be seen. If sales decrease as price increases, then the market will take that as a hint that high-budget games are done. We won't see any more $30m, $40m ventures any more, and you can expect graphics and content to take a step back as companies scale back.

Then again, we may see a sales crash just because gamers are fed up with playing the same game all the time. Honestly, how much difference was there between Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2? How long can gamers tolerate "safe" innovations?

-Jakub



What are your thoughts about the online setup used by different games? Specifically, Halo 2-3's matchmaking and the similar service expected in Call of Duty 4 as compared to Gears of War.

Do you think that more companies will attempt a matchmaking setup?

-ZaneZavin

Hey Zane, nice in-depth question there.

I'm not sure what the future is. PC companies seem to prefer the pick your server setup, and console developers are leaning more towards matchmaking. That's probably because console gamers are a bit more casual and they just want to jump in and play a game, and trying to use a search filter interface with a console would probably be quite labor-intensive as opposed to using a keyboard and mouse.

Matchmaking, if done right, I think can be more attractive for 95% of the gaming population than finding a server. If done wrong, it can be a nightmare to use.

One benefit it can have is if you choose to be competitive, you can find competition on a similar level. I just hope companies don't force you to constantly play people of the same skill set, and you have the option of playing up to challenge yourself and learning new tricks, or playing down and enjoying a more relaxed pace. That's something I found missing in ladder StarCraft/WarCraft games on battle.net.

-Jakub