Vivendi Games/Blizzard. Harmonix. BioWare Pandemic. Big Huge Games. All of these companies have recently merged with or been bought up by their respective suitors. It would seem that the flag-wavers of independence are disappearing.
Why is independence held in such high regard? Independence allows studios to create what they want, when they want, and even to kill off a project when they want if they're fed up with it. Independence is often equated with unbridled creativity and innovation.
Put simply, independence in and of itself, and the supposed creativity that comes with it, is what makes independence so great. Many argue that consolidation supposedly kills creativity and innovation.
But not everyone holds this view. At DICE Summit 2008 in Las Vegas on Wednesday, industry vet Mitch Lasky, former VP of EA Mobile and current general partner at VC firm Benchmark Capital, sided with consolidation during a fast and loose on-stage debate.
“Consolidation won’t necessarily take all the risk and innovation out of this business,” he argued.
moscallout"Don't blame consolidation. Blame Sony and Microsoft for jumping the budgets up to $30 million for a console game. That's not consolidation's fault."/moscalloutLasky affirmed that innovation comes from the "margins," or the smaller independent companies that are doing things to push the innovation envelope.
However, he said that when a larger company buys up one of these innovative “fringe” companies, big firms absorb not only licenses and employees, but also an innovative spirit that made an acquired studio attractive in the first place. Support from a large parent company puts these innovative products on a larger stage in front of a larger audience, he said.
But the animated game vet Keith Boesky, principle at Boesky & Company, disagreed with the assumption that innovation carries on after an acquisition.
He argued that the innovation of acquired studios is sacrificed when publishers’ money-driven objectives are thrown into the mix.
“[Big publishers] gotta make their numbers. It’s all about mitigation and growth [to them].”
It’s this “move the needle” kind of business practice that brings about “sequelitis.” The question then arose as to whether or not the average consumer is really that opposed to sequels.
“Conusmers have already voted with their feet,” admitted Lasky, pointing out how some major sequels have bombed.
“Customers aren’t always buying sequels,” concurred Boesky, pointing to Medal of Honor Airborne as an example, the latest in a franchise that used to be the king of FPS combat.
In the end, Boesky and Lasky agreed to disagree about the effect consolidation has on innovation. However, both did agree that innovation comes from companies on the “margin” as opposed to the industry’s big players.
Lasky refused to let consolidation take the heat for killing innovation in games, directing it instead towards other alleged innovation-killers.
"Don't blame consolidation. Blame Sony and Microsoft for jumping the budgets up to $30 million for a console game. That's not consolidation's fault," Lasky said.
It’s that high price of entry that will cause many of the industry’s real innovators to completely avoid working on the major consoles in the packaged goods business.
“At this point, the console game business and PC boxed game business is closed unless you want to dance with the devil,” Lasky added.