When an iPad arrives as powerful as a console, streaming to your TV, then what’s the actual value of a console at that point? The market is ”heavily controlled” and that’s not good.
Consoles are speeding toward redundancy thanks to all the more mobile platforms popping up, and are beginning to rival them in terms of power and functionality. Change or die.
”I think that if they don’t, they’re dead,” said Swen Vincke, referring to the minefield of business models. ”Simply, they don’t stand a chance of survival if they can’t adapt as fast as the other platforms can.”
”Imagine the moment where you have an iPad streaming to your TV and it’s as powerful as a console. What’s the USP of an actual console at that point? If you think of OnLive, and they solve all of their logistical problems, why do I need a console?”
”If I was a console manufacturer, and luckily I’m not, I would be asking myself a lot of questions of what I’m doing now, with the market still being so heavily controlled, and asking if that’s really such a good idea,” he continued.
”If you put the console growth curve next to the growth curve of what’s happening at Mac, for instance, I know which side of the battle I want to be.” Power is shifting between publishers and developers, notes Vincke.
”There’s a reason why Activision and EA have a monopoly on AAA development. As a matter of fact, I think they are actually making it a lot more expensive than it should be, because there’s so much waste going on.”
Developer Larian is putting its own in-house publishing team together in order to keep a larger share of revenue for the studio, without losing out on the physical retail market. Larion created the RPG Divinity series.
”There’s an enormous difference between the revenue being made on a game if you do it direct, versus what you get as a developer on a royalty,” said Vincke.
”But if you can get access to the straight revenue that is being made per unit on a game that sells at £39 or £49, and you sell a million units, you have sufficient money to make a AAA game.”
The structure of the EA Partners program is where the future lies for publishers, believes Vincke, as it gives developers a choice of services tailored to them.
”You need marketing, you need PR, and you need distribution, and the rightful model would be that you could employ these services. If I need PR, I go to a PR firm. If I need marketing, I go to a marketing firm,” he says.
”The big shift, and it’s actually already happening, is that instead of the revenue being kept in a bank called ‘the publishers’ the revenue is now going directly to the developer, who is going to employ all of these.”
”So it’s a radical power shift that’s going on, and I think it’s a very good thing for our industry.”
