Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Matt Chat with Chris Taylor – and the Undetermined Future of Gas-Powered Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 28, 2013

This is… sobering. And very frank.

I wasn’t really a big fan of the Dungeon Siege series. But I have played WAY too much Supreme Commander 2, and Total Annihilation back in the day. I really enjoyed attending a talk by him many years ago at GDC.

The interesting thing to me is the “vicious cycle” Chris Taylor describes. The traditional publisher model that leads to businesses going under.  This was pretty much all there was in the industry in the era in which I started my career. This was – and is – the situation in what I call the ‘mainstream’ games industry (which is a little bit of a misnomer, but I use it to differentiate it from ‘indie’ – mainstream really refers to the industry players and process, not the audience for the games).  It’s a circumstance caused by limited distribution channels that a few key players could monopolize, and it’s what indie – and the various aspect of indie including crowd-sourcing – emerged to solve.

That’s why big studios, who come out with hit game after hit game, surprisingly disappear. The deck is stacked against independent (as opposed to “indie”) developers. Their “advances” are really just loans against their royalties, and the royalty rates are designed to minimize payout for all but mega-hits. In fact, much of the time the publisher magnanimously forgives part of the advance, never seeing it fully repaid, and coincidentally never paying the developer another dime – while itself making plenty of profit. Effectively, the independent studios become “work for hire” studios that have little hope of ever getting ahead, while accounting procedures prevent them from doing much ‘padding’ to help them sustain themselves in-between projects. This is also why we have such a hiring / layoff cycle in the industry – without any real hope of back-end royalties, studios can only afford to pay their employees while they are actively working on a publisher-funded project.

And, from Taylor’s tone, it sounds like it is leading to the death of Gas-Powered Games.  From how he describes it in this interview, if the Kickstarter for Wildman succeeds, they have a chance of ‘beginning again’ as a leaner, meaner indie studio.

Overall – while the video is extremely long (I listened to it more than I watched it), it provides some very human insight into the industry. Matt supplements this interview with a a plea from Neal Hallford (long-time RPG designer). Neal offers some anecdotes explaining why Chris Taylor is an awesome guy, and how the community wants this guy to remain in the industry employing people and making games.  It’s something to consider.  It was enough to make me back the project, even though I’m not personally much of a fan of Taylor’s RPGs.


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



  • Brian 'Psychochild' Green said,

    And you didn’t even touch upon the most important part: the IP rights. Publishers hold on to those and exploit them. That means that crappy Uwe Boll Dungeon Siege movie only benefited Microsoft, not Gas Powered Games. (Whatever benefit it might have had. I’m sure Microsoft got a check for that travesty.)

    That’s the real power of indie: being able to control your own IP and then exploit it if you want. Remember, George Lucas built his multi-billion dollar empire mostly because he kept the rights to make toys from the Star Wars movies. Of course, movie studios (and publishers) are keen to avoid that happening again, as it makes people less willing to submit to their system in the future.

  • Anon said,

    “Neal offers some anecdotes explaining why Chris Taylor is an awesome guy, and how the community wants this guy to remain in the industry employing people and making games. It’s something to consider.”

    Is it really?

    I’m sure he is an awesome guy. Just like 95% of all the other designers, programmers, artists etc.
    But why exactly should he stay in the business whereas hundreds of others (have to) drop out when their companies bust?

    And, no, I don’t say that because I don’t consider the original Dungeon Siege (and its “expansion pack”) to be true milestones of (CRPG) game design.
    It surely was an entertaining – and especially comfy – gaming experience with nearly no loading times (probably thanks to its crass linearity) and especially the mule for the inventory.

    Personally, though, I’d wished to have more Looking Glass folks around today but to each his own, I guess.

  • McTeddy said,

    Wow… this interview was amazing overall. I’ve seen the heartbreak and frustration of mainstream development from the point of view of the low level troops… but seeing a higher up rant about it is something else.

    Watching this makes it pretty clear why so many developers are closing their doors these days.

  • BarryB said,

    This is also why we have such a hiring / layoff cycle in the industry – without any real hope of back-end royalties, studios can only afford to pay their employees while they are actively working on a publisher-funded project.

    This was a point Brad Wardell made in an interview I had with him several years back. It was before Elemental or FE, and he’d approached the current rights holders for MoM about making a followup. I wish I could have conveyed the amazement that came across in his voice (the magazine only permitted a strict interview format for the column) while explaining that the legals insisted on all rights to followups, all royalties, and only offered a (relatively) small upfront payment. Which is pretty much what you describe. Of course, Brad didn’t accept this. Good for him. Others sadly do, on a regular basis, because it means game development as regular work. At least until the game is produced, and you’re out in the cold, again.

    Thank all that’s holy and unholy for new methods of distribution that circumvent publisher and pipeline monopolies.

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