The recent news about the job cuts at EA prompted some thoughts as well as thinking about the spurt of indie films that have achieved a lot with a very small budget. One of the things that discussed all the time about game development is the cost of development. The cost of tools, team, and all the other associated costs, and yet we see some indie games make it bigger it leads one to wonder.

Does it really cost or does it really need to cost that much to make a game. Certainly big budget Triple A titles spend amazing amounts of money for the building of their products, and yet even these have a tendency to fall short when they roll out. Yet we see low cost indie games or smaller budget games go on to success and prosperity. Is it the lack of funds that prompts that extra something in the creative process that leads these titles to shine?

With studios cutting their work forces, what is the soon to be unemployed to do? Why don’t they go rogue and build their own titles while they job hunt? I suspect a major influx of these previous employed designers, programmers, artists and so forth could make a serious impact on the indie scene, bringing their experience and their own creative vision to the table. We all want to get paid for the work we do, that goes without saying, but the more I watch and think, the more I see a sort of stagnancy in the gaming corporate world.

Like any industry it’s grown and growing bigger and bigger, and with any large system, there’s a vacuum that slowly sucks the life out of it. More and more we hear about user generated content, we hear about the free to play model, we hear about how the industry is growing in demographic and the casual market is making crazy amounts of money when they get it right.

So what’s the magic ingredient? Looking at Farmville and the numbers it generates in terms of users, the believed amount of money it generates and the cost it was for development. Does the industry need to shift from these overkill budgets and focus on the product in terms of creativity and experience and cut costs not on the staff but on the prices paid for the rest. I’d rather pay for quality staff to create an awesome game, and then spend a fortune on the newest shiniest engine.

If Facebook, MySpace, and if the overall casual game market teaches us anything, you don’t need to have the amazing stunning, photo realistic graphics with 3D depth whenever your characters sneeze to capture the players.  Sure it is nice, but required to be successful? Doesn’t appear that way to me, and hasn’t for a while, not anymore anyways, there’s always some example that changes the way we look at things.

It sucks to loose your job, no question, but it doesn’t mean it’s the end, if you want to make games, and then make games; sure it might not be the amazing budgeted game you’re used to, but it doesn’t mean it will suck, just means you need to be more inventive. These days getting into the industry usually requires all kinds of experience, education, previous products delivered and so on. That amuses me considering the origins of the industry was certainly not built by experienced , titles delivered hands, but by people who wanted to create fun, entertaining games.

When did we get away from that?

So many people want to make games, so make games.  You don’t need the company to tell you what to work on unless you’re working for them. You’re cut loose so finally pursue that game idea you’ve had stashed in your old campfire note book since you first killed slimes in Dragon Warrior. The only limit to your creativity is yourself. Sure it costs money to do it the way you exactly pictured it, but if you deliver something that starts building your own momentum, you build upon it and make your own destiny using your own creativity and your own hands.

A renaissance of creativity in the indie space would be delightful, and watching more and more indie titles make it big would certainly be a healthy thing for the industry, I’m tired of seeing 15 sequels of the same tired old game; I personally thrive on the new when it comes to my game playing habits. I don’t mind the usual settings, but I want to see them delivered in a new way, with a new spin.

I want to see something magical come out of no where in our industry all the time and it’s entirely possible. Considering many of the players of games might be rocking the latest amazing title from “Insert studio here” when that experience is over, they loop back to the old games, their favourites from the previous generations. Just because the technology has changed it doesn’t mean that style of game isn’t viable, it just means people aren’t looking back and thinking “hey I loved this; why not make something to recapture the nostalgia?”

It’s never the end, it’s good to have accomplished something before, but it’s what you do next that has real meaning.

Here’s a strange thought, that occurred to me the more I thought about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the different reactions to it, and just the state of the world. Now following along with me while I delve into this thought train for a moment, even though it might not make any sense.

We have various depictions in books, movies, and especially games about different worlds where various realities occur. Such as; people with super powers, psionics, great wars, aliens, apocalypses, and all manner of other alternate-earths/alternate histories. Now of course take into account we have people out their whom really believe in the conspiracies they profess and how the world just seems so wrapped up in a manner of what do we really believe, what is really real and what isn’t.

Now then if it ever came to pass that one of these conspiracies, alternate worlds and so on actually turned out to exist, what would that do to society and really if we were actually living in them the whole time, how does this affect our creative works. It really would turn the whole thing upside down. Would we then stat making games that are based around the world we know it to be now?

Kind of a twisted thought I know, but it reminds me of the Matrix, the real world isn’t real but a creation by the system, which really is just a big life sim to keep humans occupied and then I wonder if our popular fiction and science fiction is left over programming of what our life sim in the matrix could be. Just thinking about this makes one’s head spin.

Of course I don’t believe any of it, but it does lead to some interesting creative thoughts. If our world suddenly changed into one where our fiction was truth, what would we do to make games in that world? What kind of games would those be? It’s like shifting your thinking to decide how to create games that fit as an escape for a game world?

I wonder now if there’s a potential wealth of new games to be created from thinking not outside the box but inside the box and creating to suit the world inside the box for the world playing outside the box.

It’s like this, we live in World X (Real world) but if I lived in world Y and I was a game designer in world Y, what game worlds would I make to fascinate and thrill the people of world Y? So you design your game based on the possible audience of world Y but deliver it to the people of World X, thus you have alt world Z where it’s so far flung no one thought of it before because everyone’s designing games world X.

Did I lose you yet? Probably but that’s okay as the idea will grow on you. I think I’m going to invest sometime thinking about this and maybe I’ll come up with something that would both trill and excite World X and Y. it’s a stretch and my logic is a little off today, but consider what we know.

-          Players like amazing fantastical worlds, Alternate reality worlds, and exciting new worlds to explore and play in.

-          Players want to experience something different, somewhere different.

Both those said, building something different within the framework of something different to begin with could have some pretty amazing results. I’m going to sum up with an example and leave it go as that.

If we lived in an alternate reality where aliens were an every day occurrence and psionic abilities were just a normal part of humanity, and we already fought and prevailed against a zombie outbreak, what kind of video games would be made for the players of that world?

How does that tickle your muse?

Now we all know the argument between what makes a casual game player and a hardcore game player and that particular debate is going to continue raging back and forth probably for the rest of the foreseeable future. And far be it for me to interject my opinion on that one. However, I have noticed something as of late which fairly amusing to me and as you know dear readers, my amusement is paramount to the inner workings of the universe.

Now what is it that amuses me? You ask, well my lovelies, let me enlighten you on this new source of merryment.

There’s this strange creature prowling around the internetz, especially on the social networks which is a curious being indeed. I really don’t think scientists have classified this one yet, but in mind, I’ll refer to this entity as the “Hardcore Casual Player”.

Yes, yes of course it sounds like a very good oxymoron, which I suppose it is, and yet I can find no better terminology having encountered this species in the wild.

Now we all know casual game s, especially on social networks like Facebook and Myspace are essentially short playtime games, you know x amounts of minutes or less. So taking Farmville for an example, you prepare your farmland, plant your crops wait hours to days to harvest, rinse, and repeat. Fairly simple formula for a game and yet can be oddly addictive, mainly due to it’s low requirement of brain use. You drop in, do your business like in many of the similar games and then off you go. Wham, bam, thank you Zynga-Ma’am.

Here’s the punch-line though, there are people, however strange as this is, who sit on Facebook for hours on end engaged in these games, either several over a period of time, or they just spend hours and hours playing the same quick game. I suspect this is an example of the Tetris effect we saw back in the day, but it still boggles the mind.

Many of these games, no matter how fun they may be, have the depth of a drying mud puddle yet they captivate people for unnatural amounts of time and have millions of players.

We talk all the time about replay-ability of games and some games try to highlight this aspect.  Yet these casual, low brain activity games seem to suck the time out of people in copious quantities without the major budgets, massive game worlds and deep stories.

I realize that I believe much of this is due in part to the social aspect of these games, they share with their friends, give them gifts, become neighbours and all the other cute little social bells and whistles that seems to be standard MO for these games. But in the final analysis, there seems to be comfort in repeating simple actions that makes these games so addictive. Sure they might have cute graphics and nice lulling music that doesn’t annoy sometimes, but just sort of fades into the background of doing the same basic chores again, even with your friends.

It’s no small wonder the market for social games is exploding more and more. People eat this shit up with their morning coffee and night time beer. It’s like reality TV shows, sure we know that eventually someone is going to be the only survivor or win the amazing race, yet people are captivated by the events that lead to the conclusion which is sometimes the real reward in user/watcher participation.

I sometimes wonder if we need to take a page from the casual game world and find some way to make our more expansive and yes grindy games just as addicting.

Which brings up another issue, people can spend hours on end doing quests and things on Mafia Wars, but they complain endlessly about the grind in MMOs. If you play an mmo in small does as you do a casual game, of course you’ll be less bored by the grind, but you won’t accomplish as much. So how then can we make the long term grind rewarding enough to entice players to do it as much as they can spend hours in casual games?

Quite a conundrum really, for which I don’t have an answer presently.

One thing I do know is that Hardcore Casual Players are a growing trend, a curious, amusing and bizarre trend but one we must be aware of and make allowances for as we continue to make games, be they epically massive games, or cute casual 4 minute fun blasts. There’s a change in the reciepe, and we need to find that secret ingredient again.