How the collapse of AAA games would be good for women and marriages (and games)

Ok, that may be overstating it, but if you think about trends in the games industry and their consequences (both in the industry and for consumers) I think there could be some real opportunities ahead. Full disclosure: my background isn’t in business and I’m not really in the industry, but I follow industry news and commentators like other people follow sports and the things they’re saying are very interesting when taken together.

"Well Bob, considering the player stats and design
history, this MMO looks like a big win for Bartle's model

of player behavior"

"...who are you and how did you get in here?"

Games makers big and small
So starting with the triple A games, theres been allot of buzz lately about the “failures” of some AAA games according to their makers that would’ve been great success for anyone else. This was the story for Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6 and was covered nicely by the Jimquisition. To summarize, 1) companies try to make more impressive game to get higher sales, 2) so they invest more in games and create huge teams, 3) and with those huge production costs, the games need more sales to break even, and 4) to hit those sales goals the games have to appeal to the broadest audience. So companies making the biggest, shiniest games also make the least risky games they can, and need those big sales numbers to break even. Meaning they produce very pretty, but increasingly tired (cause new things are risky) games, and can be a loss even with millions of sales. And this can become a cycle where when they don't "flop" they reinvest in a bigger team for the next game, which has to be more broadly appealing and safe, until the "flop" is catastrophic.

"So according to these numbers, as long as everyone in the country
not working for this company buys a copy of
Generica: War of Battle this quarter, we'll be ok."

Now, thats the worst case when this cycle gets out of control. Its not what all big games are looking like, but it is pattern people are seeing, are worried about. Theres talk about  "unsustainable models" and other gloomy terminology. Some big companies are trying to avoid these issues there with additional revenue like microtransactions or making only franchises, but this story isn’t just about the big companies; at the other end of the budget spectrum, allot of exciting things are happening in the indie or smaller studio spaces at the same time. 

There’s been a building narrative about the rise of smaller game makers, from having more access to consumers with Steam (and other digital distribution) to being able to get funding from Kickstarter. Its been helped by indie hits like Minecraft, where a small group (or one person) makes something that’s way too risky for big companies but finds a huge audience and provides a massive return to its producers.

So there’s a stew of articles floating around about the flawed model of larger studios and the increasing relevance of “the indie scene” and smaller studios. This is great news for getting more interesting games, but I think the really interesting opportunity for smaller studios isn’t just in creative or technical risks, but cultural and institutional “risks”.

What does that even...oh right, I forgot the title of the post.

Current problems
The huge investments aren’t the only factor homogenizing games; at a more basic level the same kinds of people ("childless 31 year old white men") tend to be making games targeting the same audience (boys; see below) no matter what kind of game you’re trying to make. Now, that’s not good creatively, since diverse perspectives and approaches should produce more diverse and richer games, but its actually worse than it seems for two reasons: 1) In the linked article (which I highly recommend you read and will be riffing off of for the rest of this post) one thing you'll notice is that the issue isn’t just the exclusion of women, but the turnover rate. With few notable exceptions, if you want a stable life or family, you get out of the game industry rather than actually staying, so it lacks the benefits of having more experienced veterans. 2) The kinds of people being excluded from production and market targeting ARE MOST OF THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

What is wrong with you!?

 Sorry for the caps, but this boggles my mind every time I think about it. According to the ESA, the average age of a gamer is 30 and  45% of video gamers are women. Why why why is everyone still marketing to adolescent boys?

 

Don't give me that look; you are and you know it.
This horse is beaten enough.

I’m not saying that the non-inclusive culture in production isn’t at least as big an issue, and I’ll come back to that, but the aggressiveness of this particular stupidity gets me every time. It isn't doing something bad (both in terms of development of the medium and perceptions of it as juvenile) in order to make more money. I wouldn't like that but I'd understand it. This irritates me because it seems to be hurting everyone involved for no reason. (Yes, technically there may be historical reasons and inertia, but its persistence seems dumb). 

You even get stories about how standard focus tests don't include women though we just said they're 45% of the audience of video games in general. Setting aside larger moral issues, I don't understand this financially. Why discount that much of your potential audience, your potential paying customers? From soulless economics perspective its bad, and with a soul that cares about alienating others and stunting the medium, its even worse.

The generous interpretation is that its simple incompetence rather than maliciousness outdated prejudices.

Ok, we get it, its bad, moving on.

The bigger issue is the culture behind those kind of marketing and design decisions, though. A culture where 5% of the programmers and 10% of the designers are female . Where theres no time for family, and the average person leaves after 5 years for another industries (not job, but a different industry). And reportedly the workers' industry advocates don't actually advocate to actually help.
Maybe culture isn't the right word, but something like mindset or institutional expectations. Theres even stories from QA professionals who note the massive shift in environment between games companies and other software (spoiler: other software is a more stable gig).

Thats not a healthy work environment, and its not a good creative environment. 

Its especially bad when it even trickles down to the high school level, and crushes the dreams of female enthusiasts. That story breaks my heart. (After seeing bad cases of burnout in grad school, anytime someone's passion gets crushed out of them it tugs the heartstrings)

Sorry, its about to get more optimistic, I promise.

Ok, so as the links attest, all that badness has been covered other places (and I'm a fan of PAR). 

Putting it together

But how does this relate to the original trend for smaller developers? 

Because again, smaller projects can take more risks, and its important to make sure we're not just talking about creative risks here (though those are important too).

Because challenging these short-sighted, biased practices is seen as a risk. Part of the reason you see the difficulty in focus testing and stories like this (about how games with female protagonists get less marketing money and don't do as well commercially, but those two variables are confounded, confound it!) is because big companies and their investors see changes to those practices as risky. 

Women? I don't know about this.

Changing things at smaller companies or studios is easier (because theres less invested money at stake) and if they're successful, its more likely other small companies will change too. This is the opportunity I think is getting left out of the conversation about big companies and indies right now; its not just that indies have the freedom to take risks creatively, but have  the freedom to take risks organizationally.
The freedom to try to make things there better as well as to make better things. 

Its...so...beautiful....

Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that good, but it wouldn't take much to be better than it is currently.

And you can even see it in some places now: Indies with more diverse protagonists and perspectives. Those encouraging stories are coming out: like the people at Hawken being open and supportive about discussing gender, and places like Nine Dots trying to have a new model of making games without burnout, and allowing its people to have lives outside of work.

So in short, if there is a shift toward smaller budgets and smaller teams making games, it could set the stage for big improvements in how games are made, as well as the games themselves. There will always be a market for some AAA games, but hopefully if the current model for making them does start crashing, some great things could grow out of the wreckage.

Preferably great things that aren't poisonous.

Let me know what you make of all this in the comments.

photocredit: DarkangelX, buttercup festival, advancedaquarist