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Monday, April 14, 2008
Respect Isn't Earned...It's Gamed!
I spent over a decade working in videogame development, and though it was a great experience (and, sometimes, not), one thing always bothered me: people who work in the videogame industry just don’t get enough recognition or, well, love. Sure, most of the publishers and developers take good care of their people--I did a lot of work with Electronic Arts over the years and I can say first hand that the gym at EARS is very nice, and “EAts” up at EA Canada makes some very decent food--but I’ve always thought that people in the industry should be getting more.
Let’s take one game, completely at random natch: oh…how about Halo 3. First-day sales were reported at $170 million, with some sources claiming as high as $200 million. Many news outlets compared this with the opening day box office of Spider-Man 3 (reputed to be about $150 million), though as this article points out those comparisons are somewhat fallacious.
Note that I don’t quite agree with either the H3-SM3 comparison or the article linked above. Several months after the fact, it appears that Spider-Man 3 raked in about $900MM worldwide and Halo 3 finished somewhere in the $400MM neighborhood. The difference in pricing ($9-11 for a movie ticket, $60 for a 360 game) is also significant, but I think not truly a relevant comparison. The number to look at here is dollars per hour of entertainment, which at the very least brings the two much closer…and results in Steven King putting us all to shame.
Perhaps the most important number is production cost vs. gross: SM3 apparently cost about $260MM to produce, and based on nothing other than a guess I’d put H3 at $35MM (but could easily be off by 50% or more, in either direction). Comparing ROI as straight dollars brings the two much closer, and in percentage terms H3 comes out well ahead. [Note: you may recall that I spent a dozen years making videogames; I don’t have an MBA or, for that matter, a college degree. I’m sure there are infinite subtleties I’m overlooking here.]
In any event, to level the playing field I consulted IMDB and found a little movie, also released in 2007, with a to-date worldwide box office gross reported at $311MM (and a production cost of $85MM): Ocean’s Thirteen.
Now off the top of my head I can name several members of the Oceans Thirteen cast--possibly even 13 of them!--as well as the director, at least one of the screenwriters, and a producer or two. I’m fairly conversant with the game industry, but I’d be hard pressed to name more than two or three of the people responsible for creating Halo 3. Before you get offended by my ignorance, let me distract you with this: when the “above the line” staff from Ocean’s Thirteen goes to an award show, an after party…possibly whenever they use a public restroom…they get a swag bag worth thousands of dollars. Working in the game industry for all those years, I never even saw a bag that could be used to hold swag, let alone any actual swag.
And here’s one that really torques my undies: free tickets. “Creatives” in the film business get all kinds of discounts--up to 100%--to check out the competition. If you’ve made one reasonably good movie in your life, you’ll probably never have to pay to see a film ever again. In games, the developers are sometimes lucky to get two free copies of their own work. I think it’s incredibly important when making games to be up to date with what’s going on in the industry, current trends and the “state of the art”, but the vast majority of the time this involves a trip to Fry's and paying full retail.
There are all kinds of reasons behind this, from the fact that almost no one in game development looks like Brad Pitt--although I do know one brilliant programmer who’s the spitting image of Joaquin Phoenix--to differences in the underlying cost of goods and the incremental production cost. It’s an interesting subject, and one I may go on about more later (check The Geek’s Garage for updates, if you dare), but I digress.
Unfortunately I am but one man, and there’s not much I can do to change the way the videogame industry works. (Note: If you work for IGDA, AIAS, Spike, or any of the other major videogame award-givers, and particularly if your award show is staged in Las Vegas, please hit me up for help with your swag bags!) They say that every change begins with one step, so I have decided to take the step of offering a discount to everyone in the videogame industry.
This deal is good for anyone who works in games at the professional level, be that on the development side (engineers, artists, designers, etc.), the production side (producers, directors, managers of all flavors), marketing, PR, support staff (hi there Kristen in accounting!), whatever. I’m not above trying to score a little free publicity either, so the videogame press is also welcome to participate. If your job is above the level of being required to wear a blue shirt with yellow lettering on it, you’re good.
So next time you’re in Vegas, find out what it’s like to drive a real exotic car rather than a superbly rendered one. Decompress after your last project and party it up at any of the fantastic clubs in town. Whatever you’re looking for (mind out of the gutter, thank you very much!), we’ll set it up and you’ll save. It’s my small way of recognizing everyone who works so hard, saying thank you, and showing some love. And if in return you want to bring me a free copy of your latest game, you go right ahead…!
Posted by EminenceLuxury at 12:11 PM
