Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Steel Swords and Grass Roots

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 7, 2011

As I’ve said before, I reject the notion that computer RPGs have been “evolving.” I will stop short of saying that a devolution is taking place, as the mainstream game companies continue to design for the lowest common denominator. I actually think there’s a bit of a good thing going on there, as while said games may feel watered down or “dumbed down” by long-time fans (and to the author of this rant, I say, “Welcome to the party, pal!”), I think it is awesome that RPG-style games are being made accessible to a larger audience.

The only problem is that it has been become all-or-nothing affair. Business realities being what they are, nobody’s willing to gamble with the formula too much these days.  It’s a big sucking gravity well that pulls developers towards a zone of safety, and the bigger they are they more forcefully they get pulled in. So instead of seeing just some mainstream role-playing games going one way, they all seem to be doing that.

There is an (unfortunately decreasing, I think) audience out there that fondly remembers the games of yesteryear, and have been long awaiting the release of the next AAA game that addresses their needs. Many haven’t discovered indie games that are making just those kinds of games. Many others are already familiar with (some) indies, but they reject the indie games because they lack the production values and budgets of the big game studios… who are making games for a different audience and only throwing the occasional bone to the old fanbase. Instead, they just are waiting for the big boys to finally come around and make that old-school, classic western- style RPGs with modern AAA production values.

Hey, I’d love that too, I won’t lie. But I’m not holding my breath.

Let’s look at the economic realities: Let’s say there is a potential audience out there of 100,000 old-school CRPG fans who would love to play something like that feels like an old-school dungeon crawler like … Oh, let’s pick Might & Magic VI: Mandate of Heaven, but upgraded with modern AAA production values along the lines of Bioware’s and Bethesda’s latest.  I’m talking a big, epic production with old-school gameplay, top-tier graphics, and really focused on the PC gamer instead of being “consolized.”

The minimum development budget for a game of this quality would probably be about $10 million today. Ten million divided by 100,000 comes out to $100 per copy of the game… assuming 100% of the audience buys the game, and the company in question doesn’t want to make a profit (or have a safety margin). Nobody’s going to do that.  Could the company get 50,000 people to pay $200 – $400 for the game? I doubt it. They’d get a lot of people pirating it using the justification that it is “too expensive,” I’m sure.

Now, back in the day games like Ultima IV (I think) cost $80 a copy. Adjusted for inflation since 1985, that comes out to about $165 in today’s dollars. I don’t think a game developer’s going to be able to get away with that today. But I could be wrong. Hey, if I could be convinced that the game is my dream come true, I might be willing to pay that much, but that would take some serious convincing. I don’t think that’s very likely today.

So then you’ve got the indies – the small studios. I think they are only real hope for making these kinds of RPGs – the kind the big publishers are unwilling to make anymore.  But economic realities govern the indies, too. They have to put food on the table and pay the rent or mortgage just like everybody else. I don’t think any indie RPG developer out there is getting rich making these things. The numbers I’ve seen – shared with the public and privately with me – don’t seem to indicate huge potential riches waiting to shower upon the indies who “just get it right.” At least not immediately.

But they do indicate potential for growth, I think. As the mainstream, AAA industry goes further and further in one direction, they are leaving a lot of gamers behind, and a lot of fertile territory left to be moved into by the indies. I believe the audience is still there.  I think there’s potential for a new audience as well.

I think we’re gonna get there. As the market grows, as more people become aware of indie games, budgets will grow and the number of new experiments will increase. It won’t be perfect. A lot of expensive, painful messes will be made in the meantime. But I see the indies – players as well as game-makers (and in the indie world, the line between the two is very thin…) lurching in that direction… and in totally new directions as well.

That’s exciting to me. Somewhere out there, someone is getting an idea for an RPG that does something totally cool that I’ve never seen before, and haven’t even considered. I really hope they finish it and that I actually end up hearing about it.

But as this is kind of a grass-roots thing, gamers need to do their part. Indie developers don’t have the budgets to compete with the big boys for attention, or to compete against the marketing messages that quality is synonymous with detailed blood-splatter effects and expensive, famous vocal talent. So it’s going to take gamers getting vocal about their games – on forums, blogs, wherever –  and voting with their wallets for the kind of games they want to see more of. And getting vocal with developers as well. Indies are typically far more accessible than the big publishers, and it’s even possible for fans to take a direct involvement in the development (and even sales – and, believe it or not, profits, through affiliate programs) of the games.

These are exciting times. The games “industry” seems to be changing in a fundamental way.  And we’re all a part of it – gamers and game developers. Consider yourself invited to participate.


Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 9 Comments to Read



  • Andy_Panthro said,

    It seems you and I share similar feelings on this matter!

    I doubt I will ever want to be rid of mainstream cRPGs, such as they are, but I do like the way indie developers provide gaming experiences that the mainstream developers shy away from.

    Marketing is the main difference as you state, and that’s one of the reasons I read your blog, as well as places like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Cliffski’s showmethegames.com.

  • Craig Stern said,

    Nicely done–I liked this one. Then again, I started writing a post almost exactly like this yesterday, and in response to the exact same article, so I guess I WOULD say that. 🙂

  • SteelRiverSavior said,

    I think the main problem is that modern consumer culture doesn’t give people reasons to think that they are directly contributing to the fall of creativity when they buy the products they buy. People just don’t think that way anymore. And certainly not about games.

    No one thinks that they could help the industry by not being a part of the millions of dollars that goes into the large studios like EA that make such disappointing, 20 hour-long games that have been dumbed down so much.

  • Noumenon said,

    Playing World of Warcraft: Cataclysm costs $145 (you must buy WoW, all three expansion packs, and one month’s subscription). People can afford $165 games, just as they could in 1985, but it takes creativity to get them to pay it.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    True. I remember when I canceled my EverQuest account waaaaay back in the day, and realized how much money I’d put into it with now nothing to show for it but some boxes with pretty cover art.

    And with the prevalence of premium DLC now, it seems single-player game publishers are angling to get a piece of that action as well.

  • Demiath said,

    While I whole-heartedly support the general argument for non-stop indie brilliance in this brave new world of games publishing, maybe a slight nostalgia-cleansing reality check is in order. I love Might & Magic VI as much as the next guy…but the fact is that it’s a pretty dumb game. This is especially true when compared to, say, the supposedly consolized Dragon Age 2 played on Hard difficulty, which is currently wiping the floor with me as soon as I let my guard down and make any blatantly non-tactical combat moves. In fact, semi-classic dungeon crawlers like MM6 – with their particular brand of simple, click-heavy mechanics – are precisely the kind of games that would most likely spring forth from the seedier parts of free-to-play MMO market if it weren’t for the fact that these had already been created years ago and thus are now, somewhat arbitrarily, deemed “too old school” for a new generation.

    Maybe MM6 was simply not the best example to use for this particular blog post, but my point is that it’s deceptively easy to buy into a popular narrative about the recent history of the RPG genre which blinds us from both the differences and similarities between then and now.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Points taken and acknowledged. I’ve mentioned that myself a couple of times, so I try not to get too rose-colored-glassesy about the older games. Thanks for being there to call me to repentance if I do.

    I was really looking for a f’rinstance that wasn’t too recent ( Wizardry 8 ) or too trite (Ultima IV… which was already remade as a Dungeon Siege mod). But that was all secondary to the point, which was that the rift between big-budget productions and indies digging for lost treasure in classic game styles isn’t going to narrow very quickly unless folks support the indies.

    Not that I perceive that as being much of a problem right now. Just kind of ongoing cheer-leading and evangelism.

  • DGM said,

    If you’re referring to Lazarus, that was Ultima 5. Or did they redo 4 as well?

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    Yep, I was thinking of Lazarus, my bad – convoluted that and the Flash-based Ultima IV in my brain.

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