Most gamers may not be too familiar with developer 5TH Cell, but it’s a name they’ll be hearing a lot more about in the future. After releasing such hits as Drawn to Life and Scribblenauts for the Nintendo DS, the Washington-based studio recently put out Scribblenauts Remix for iOS devices and is currently developing Hybrid, a third-person shooter planned for release through Xbox Live Arcade next year.
We recently spoke with 5TH Cell’s CEO and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka about what it’s like being an independent studio today, if review scores really matter, and if the traditional $60 retail model for games is broken.
Is the current business model for traditional video games – the $60 boxed game – a broken model?
Yes, the $60 boxed game is a broken model. It was always broken, it’s just more broken now because games cost so much to develop, produce and market. Before the model was tolerable, because the cost was reasonable enough to allow mediocre selling games to make money. Now it’s just insane. If you aren’t going to be a mega hit at $60, you might as well give up before you even try, because it’s tens of millions down the hole.
Think of it this way: Homefront was an okay FPS – not great, not terrible, just okay. But as a consumer, why would I want to play an okay FPS when I can play a bunch of great FPS titles for the same price? And that’s what the consumers did. While over 13 million people bought Black Ops last year in the US alone, smashing records, less than just 1 million people bought Homefront in the US. The consumer voted with their wallet, right?
But what if you could rent Homefront for $4.99 for 24 hours from your console? What if Homefront was only $30 dollars upfront for the single player and if you liked it you could buy the multiplayer for an additional $30?
All of the sudden it’s not a binary purchase option anymore. Where before you had two options as a consumer, pay $60 or pay $0 for the AAA experience or the okay experience. The market proved that gamers were not willing to pay $60 for Homefront the same way they were willing to for Black Ops, so that is out of the equation.
That doesn’t mean all games have to go this route, there’s still room for the AAA only, but a lot of titles should try a different method. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone involved.
Looks like there is hope for the future. We just need more devs to adopt this way of thought.
Source : Game Informer
