If you're expecting an explosion of titles when next gen rolls around, think twice. THQ's out-going executive vice president Danny Bilson - the man often credited for the publisher's spree of new IP and "core" releases over the past few years - has said that the traditional industry's future lies with fewer, higher quality games with long digital content tails.
"Only the strongest and best will survive, and they will survive and flourish and grow," Bilson commented in a characteristically fiery interview with Eurogamer. "The core gamer is not going away. I'm one of them. If you give me something that has the value of $60, and I feel that value, I'm going to pay for it.
"There's not going to be the old PS2 days, and giant shelves of massive amounts of games," he went on. "There will be very specific titles that will have huge investments financially, both in production and marketing, and they will flourish and do well.
"It's like the movie business. The blockbusters will be very profitable and flourish, and anything that's not probably won't be profitable and probably won't get a sequel. You'll still see experiments and trying to build new franchises, but not in the quantity we've seen in the past. I believe the quality is getting better all the time."
THQ has had to learn these lessons the hard way - the company reported huge losses at Christmas, thanks in large part to the catastrophic performance of the UDraw tablet, but has seen share prices soar following a strong Q4.
Asked what he thought of the pre-owned market, and of rumours that next generation hardware will sport built-in "anti-used" systems, Bilson commented: "I don't really know. I have no information that the next consoles have any influence on second hand games. I'm being honest with you."
"Second hand games are probably good for the consumer and probably not so good for publishers. That's an old story. But if I tell you I work for the consumer I have to respect that and find ways to make our games more valuable and give you a reason to keep them."
Nourishing injections of DLC remain the safest way of retaining customer loyalty. "We're going to release more of the game post-launch with DLC. We're going to give you free DLC at times. We're going to have paid DLC. But everything we do has to have value, and every game we ship is the beginning."
"This is something I'm talking seriously about now with the studios. Extended content shouldn't be an afterthought. It shouldn't in any way feel to the consumer we took stuff out of the game to sell it to them later. We can't do that at all. But if we give them an IP or a game they love, we could give them more of it over time if they choose to buy it, and that will keep them from wanting to sell it back to move on to something else."
"Ultimately it goes back to the benefit to gamers and to us, which is quality, quality, quality. If we give you a great experience, you're going to treasure it, keep it and want more over time as long as you feel there's real value and we're not being exploitative, which is our job, right?
"It's all about great games. I'm starting to call [them] live games. You have your initial one, and then there's more of it available. With Saints Row: The Third we did well with that in terms of different scales of content. You could buy a mission or vehicles or costumes - whatever you're interested in.
"The game is almost like opening up a shop, and you can choose to shop for more or not, or you can sell it back if you want. It's all about freedom of choice for the game and ultimately it's all about good. It just has to be really good.
"So the core gamers are ultimately going to benefit," Bilson concluded. "I don't think the quantity of games is important to us as the quality of games we can love, because when they're really good we can plan for a really long time and get a lot of value out of it. I mean, I'm still playing Skyrim."
Is he on the money? Give the full piece on EG a read - Bilson knows how to talk.
7 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 31 May '12 said:
Didn't I read Bilson has left now? They've reshuffled the THQ bosses or something? Or is he the guy in? Were you being literal when you said 'out-going' boss?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this guy is SidTheSloth, same ideas.
OXM ETboy on 31 May '12 said:
He's been laid off, yes - I've made the "out-going" bit a link. Shame.
krisskross on 31 May '12 said:
Nope. It makes sense but if its just going to be AAA games next time that are continous franchises getting more and more polished then i'm out. At this point I think everyones fed up of playing those sort of games. Like when I play them I appreciate that the graphics are great and the gameplay is smooth but there seems to be very little creativity in the industry right now and i'm fed up of playing the same thing but with nicer looking graphics!
Hence why I am adoring Dragons Dogma at the moment. Fantastic game, feels so fresh!
SidTheSloth on 31 May '12 said:
Erm, not entirely the same ideas... I don't want less games so they make more Halo's/CoD's etc, far from it! Just if there are fewer choices people are more prepared to take a risk!
Bugger all was about when the first crackdown came out and people bought it, i know i certainly did, because of lack of other options. If it came out now would it do half as well? Not so sure it would as the market is beyond saturated... I'd write more but i don't want to - Dragons Dogma is calling!
Bezza89 on 31 May '12 said:
Oh, thought that is what he meant.
SidTheSloth on 31 May '12 said:
He could have, i read the article far too quickly, i had too in order to stop the pain ringing in my ears from looking at anything but DD!
Re-read it, it was reading it too fast and what Mr Kross said above that made me think he meant something else. He sold a good story about making DLC good value and stuff we want to buy and then completely undermined himself by referring to the saints row the third DLC which was anything but good value. Good fun, but still a rip-off for what was included...
Grummy on 31 May '12 said:
What he is saying makes sense, and he's hitting the right soundbites 'high quality core titles' and 'planned DLC' and 'value for money'. But he's glossing over a few things.
First up, Quality and value for money are not a consistent grade, what I love, you may hate. There are some people who hate Skyrim after all, and our very own Rugmonster adores Dark Souls, and prefers it to Skyrim, and yet I consider it one of the absolute worst games that has ever been made. We all have our own preferences, we're not all going to love a small handful of Triple A titles.
Second, new IP's are rarely supremely polished first time out of the gate, so there has to be an acceptance of second and third tier games, it can take 2 or 3 iterations for a franchise to really show its colours, I don't believe that there's been a single new IP this generation that hasn't undergone changes with each new installment, although I will say I think this gens new IP's have been pretty consistently high quality, we've been lucky in that regard, but they've still needed time to develop into franchises and iron out the kinks as it were. In Bilson's world, it appears there would be no time or life for a new IP to be anything but perfect. I don't agree with that.
Third, there will always be a market for 2nd and 3rd tier games. A lot of the Central and Eastern European developed RPG's for example, games like Two Worlds, Risen and Witcher are not Triple A titles, and they have a lot of problems, but they're built to a smaller budget and developed for fans of the genre, they will always have that particular market, and the future of the industry won't change that.
Fourth, he's completely overlooked the onset of Kickstarter projects, which make pretty big money. Minecraft is the ultimate example of course, but the whole premise is beginning to take off in a big way, a lot of independent teams are making games in this way, this is a big part of the future of games, and it's one that Microsoft should be supporting, finding good independent games, help fund them, then get exclusivity and put them out on XBLA. They could and should have done this when they introduced the XNA a few years back.
Bottom, line, whilst what he is saying is essentially correct, he is wrong in one particular place, it won't be 'fewer better games' and that's it, it'll just be a smaller selection of Triple A titles leading the market, there will still be a place for 2nd and 3rd string titles.