Once, when game development was a relatively new endeavor, it was (relatively) easy to develop a video game, or so I've read. Minimal numbers of personnel, minimal amounts of money, even for the time, a good (or bad) idea, and you could begin development and have a working game in a fraction of the time it takes nowadays. Now, that's not really the case. Nowadays, you hear about three to four year development cycles and huge, move sized budgets for video game projects. Take Square Enix, (once Squaresoft for those who've been playing console RPGs as long or longer than I.) spent the equivalent of a Hollywood movie's budget on Final Fantasy VII, which I shouldn't even need to mention as one of the most well-known games of the last decade. Gone were the days of small game development...or were they?
One thing is undisputed: Somewhere along the line, video games became something more than just primitive entertainment, much like films became more than still-camera scenes of everyday life, accompanied by live music. Games, like many other entertainment mediums were swallowed whole by big business. How big is big business? Try to the tune of $22 billion last year alone. Games are now seldom made for fun, but more often than not, are made for profit. Forums and blogs are bathed in buzz and terms like IP, SKUs, Content delivery, DLC and more corporate shenanigans. Now, as much as this sounds like the beginning of a rant about the soullessness of the industry, or how big companies shouldn't turn a profit; it isn't. Today, I plan to talk a bit about the fans. Or more specifically, ones that develop their own games.
Indie development has really gotten a turn in the limelight, with competitions like the Independent Games Festival, or all those "develop a game in 24 hours" contests. When indie content is original content, everything is fine. But the moment development crosses the intellectual property proverbial "line in the sand" not surprisingly, the publishing companies, and gatekeepers of IP don't like it much. This has led to many, many fan made projects getting fancy cease & desist letters from publishers, and getting cut down before they see the light of day, leaving fans to wonder what could have been. Fox did it to a Aliens-themed total conversion mod. In fact, shutting these games down has happened a fair bit in the last few years or so; Square shut down the Chrono Trigger 3D remake, Chrono Resurrection, despite not touching the series since Chrono Cross, And Vivendi shutting down a King's Quest sequel created by fans to give some sense of closure to the series, despite not having touched the series since acquiring the property, and having no proper game in the series since 1998. Even Games Workshop shut down V40k, a java program that allows people to run modules to simulate the warhammer 40k tabletop game without spending hundreds of dollars on pewter figurines.
Again, don't get confused here. I'm not complaining about this. If it infringes on their IP, they have every right to shut it down. My complaint is that it's such a waste. A waste on both parties' parts, in truth. Despite my love of consoles, there's one thing that keeps me coming back to PC gaming (besides MMOs): the customization. For instance, I'm starting up Oblivion again, and the amount of modded content is just ridiculous. It's like that with virtually any western PC game you can think of. PC game dev companies welcome modded content as a way of extending the life of their games, and in some cases modders have even been hired to staff, and had their work purchased. Valve, in particular, is known for doing this; Counterstrike in particular is an example of why hiring modders can work in a publisher or developer's favor. Even in Japan, doujinshi games, usually based on existing anime or manga, though sometimes originals themselves fill thousands of tables at Comiket.
And yet, look at most console developers and publishers. C&D letters when they could have just bought the properties or the fan developers and made money at the same time.
There's little chance any corporate bigwig is reading this, but all the same...Why don't they smarten up?
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I think that corporate "bigwigs" do look to indie developers and modders quite often. Portal was a game that was originally created by some students who were then hired by Valve and given a bigger budget to create a commercial game.
Many indie developers and modders aren't necessarily doing their work for the "love of the game" or just for fun - many are actually people looking to get hired in the industry and the work they do (especially if it becomes popular) is a portfolio. Fan oriented work can sometimes be very good... but often it can also be detrimental and even insulting to the original game. I don't really blame devs/publishers for trying to protect their work. That being said, if the fans work really is good, they can often end up in a more positive spotlight by the company or even getting hired in the industry.
Yeah, you're right, fan work is not always the best. But look at the CT remake I mentioned. The game looked AMAZING, but rather than buy the assets, Square shut them down, and pushed out a lacklustre DS port years later.
This is a pet peeve of mine; I understand that if a fan puts out a game, slaps "Final Fantasy" on it and tries to sell it, Square has every right to get involved. And yet, how long can a company completely ignore a franchise, knowing full well that there's demand for more, yet act indignant when someone else tries to fill the niche that they've willfully been ignoring?
I think the problem is that the law has to look at this stuff from the perspective of property, and ultimately it's so much more than property-- it makes up a major part of people's childhoods, identities and so forth. Legally Square has a right to shut down a CT project, but from any perspective other than the legal one, it feels wrong. You can't create something, hope it will be so successful that people will make it a part of themselves, and then shut them down when they express the part of themselves that you helped create. If you just want to make money, sell a taco; once you create characters that people care about, the extent to which you still "own" that world becomes very dubious-- from an intellectual perspective, if not a legal one.