"Project Horseshoe" attempts to address game industry ethics

No, this is still not the long-promised part 2 of my actual Diablo III design series, but it does have some application to D3, specifically the state of the game at launch, and I just had to mention it. It all started with this video from Pretty Good Gaming:

The report itself is here, if you want to read the whole thing. It's more about ethical monetization than anything else, and is clearly being driven by the current discussion about loot boxes. As I was listening to the points on this list being read off, though, it occurred to me that several of the "Ethical Monetization Golden Rules" sounded like things that Blizzard could have benefited from knowing before they launched D3.

Kripparrian on Diablo IV

OK, it's yet another digression, but I just heard something interesting come out of the mouth of Octavian Morosan, a.k.a. Kripparrian, a.k.a. one of only two players (the other being his playing partner, Krippi) to kill Diablo at Inferno difficulty in hardcore mode in D3 before Blizzard rebalanced the difficulty modes in D3.

"Diablo 4 won't be able to go in the same direction as the other Diablo's before it, because Path of Exile took over... Diablo 4's going to have to be fundamentally different, which is, in my opinion, more of a reason that it's going to be... a mobile game."

I'm not sure that I agree that mobile is necessarily the future of the Diablo franchise, but I have to agree that something fundamentally different needs to be done if Blizzard want to revitalize the Diablo franchise, now that Path of Exile have taken over the ARPG space in a huge way. Exactly what they might be able to do differently... well, that's the intended topic of this entire blog, isn't it?

OK, OK, I know... enough stalling... I promise that Part 2 of the actual design discussion really is coming. I double pinkie-swear.

Fear and loathing in AAA development

Yes, I know, it's another digression, and not the dissertation on genre definitions and APRG design that I promised you, but I just had to share this interesting article from GamesIndustry.biz on how smaller developers can compete with the AAA videogame companies:

Alex Hutchinson has a lengthy resume in AAA game development [...] One might think such familiarity would make him comfortable working in that part of the industry, but speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the Montreal International Games Summit last month, Hutchinson spoke more of fear in AAA than comfort.

"If you look at budgets, the cost of games has been increasing astronomically over the last decade, but the cost to consumers hasn't really moved, so that's the really scary part," Hutchinson said. "People are looking at the fact it's $100 million to make the game and saying we just can't sell it like that. So then you have to turn around and sell it for $150, or find another way to get some money, or cut the budget. So there's three uncomfortable decisions in there someone has to make."

[...]

"When you're spending a lot of money, you have to justify your project by saying it's going to appeal to a lot of people, which essentially means it cannot be a strong flavour," Hutchinson said.[...] "So it was interesting with Typhoon to say if we trim the budget by a lot, then we don't need to sell as many copies. Which is actually kind of fun, because then we can make something [different]. You're never going to get a $100 million horror movie made, but you can get a $10 million horror movie made, which could be equally brilliant. I think the same is equally true of video games."

It's interesting that Hutchinson draws parallels between games development and the movie business, because there's an old saying that comes from the movies: it can be good, it can be fast, or it can be cheap, but it can only be two of those things.

Ninja Theory proved that it can be both good and cheap, if you're willing to take the needed time in the development cycle. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice took three years to develop, was every bit as good as just about anything that was published by any AAA publisher, and cost a fraction of what a AAA developer would have paid to make exactly the same game. And then they sold it for US$40; no season passes, no pre-order bonuses, no paid day-one DLC, no MTX (cosmetic or otherwise)... no AAA bullshit of any kind. Just an excellent game, made on a sensible budget, sold finished and complete for less than the US$60 that the AAA companies now say just isn't enough for them to turn a profit anymore.

Not only did Ninja Theory make Hellblade cheaply, and sell it at a budget price, they also advanced the art of making video games in the process.