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Hollywood business model

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Hollywood business model

Here's a couple links on the Hollywood business model applied to software
projects. It seems appropriate for the latent talent pool here in Santa Fe.
All we need now is a couple of Producers...

http://www.redfish.com/research/HollywoodBusinessModel.pdf (850k PDF)
http://www.purplesquirrel.com/articles/2001/april/articles/grantham.shtml
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareAsFilmMaking

-Steve

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624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828

Friam mailing list

Hollywood business model

I worked as a marketing manager with a group doing video game development
after my stint at Biosgroup. It wasn't exactly your typical game
development environment. It was at the Naval Postgraduate School. They are
producing a video game for recruiting purposes.

I can tell you that the biggest draw we had amongst the game developers we
interviewed was the promise of a stable job. The project was supposedly
funded for 5 years (the qualification 'supposedly' is a long digression).
We were able to get really top-notch game developers because they were very
tired of the game-development job grind.

The young guys whose first and only love was building games were capable of
this pace. People with a bit more experience seemed deadly tired of it.
Like Hollywood, the industry seems built on the surge of young dreamers who
come to make a mark.

I'd suggest that anybody who thinks that this is a good way to structure a
development team or an entire industry consider going into game development.
The cost of entry is relatively low and the potential rewards are lucrative.

-David

[hidden email]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf
> Of Stephen Guerin
> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 12:39 PM
> To: Friam
> Subject: [FRIAM] Hollywood business model
>
>
> Here's a couple links on the Hollywood business model applied to software
> projects. It seems appropriate for the latent talent pool here in
> Santa Fe.
> All we need now is a couple of Producers...
>
> http://www.redfish.com/research/HollywoodBusinessModel.pdf (850k PDF)
> http://www.purplesquirrel.com/articles/2001/april/articles/grantham.shtml
> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SoftwareAsFilmMaking
>
>
> -Steve
>
> ____________________________________________________
> http://www.redfish.com [hidden email]
> 624 Agua Fria Street office: (505)995-0206
> Santa Fe, NM 87501 mobile: (505)577-5828
>
>
> =========================================================
> FRIAM Complexity Coffee listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Museum Hill Cafe
> Archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>
>

Friam mailing list

Hollywood business model

After 12 years of doing AI and VR research, I spent two years doing
video game development before throwing in the towel and going back
to contract R&D where one can actually accomplish something. I'll
explain the experience and what lessons I feel might be learned from it.

"Normal" software applications development companies have about a 50%
attrition rate (that is, 50% of all projects will never be completed).
For game companies, it's about 80%. Of the 20% or so that succeed, most
of those are derivitives of a very few "hits". There are a large number
of small companies (< 10 people) financed off of credit cards that work
in abomidable conditions. Games traditionally must have shelf space in
stores to sell, and there is limited shelf space and it is all owned
by major game publishers, of which there are around half a dozen at
any one time. It is much like the motion picture industry, in that
folks with a good idea "pitch" the game to the publisher, who then
assigns a "producer" in-house to manage the effort. The head of the
game team takes on the role of "director". There are very few Producers
that have the skills to do this, so the good ones are overworked, sometimes
having as many as a dozen projects simultaneously. In my experience (this
happened
three times), when the producer leaves the publisher, most of the
projects under that producer are cancelled and the assets of the project
go to the publisher. The only folks I've known in the industry that
consistently make money are:
1. the folks that the publisher hires to pick up the pieces and
complete enough elements of the game to recoup some of the
publisher's costs (e.g. Lifelike Productions).
2. the folks who become publishers themselves (e.g. Maxis)
3. the really big publishers with a lot of in-house art and programming
expertise who don't contract out. (e.g. LucasArts) Even these
publishers regularly fire large chunks of their staff. Those who survive
get very very conservative about new art and technologies.

Game product cycles are about 12 months, where "normal" software application
product cycles are closer to 18 months. Due to the ever-tightening
schedules
and finances I seldom ended up getting to do what I was hired to do.

So, I'm not very opinionated about this other than to accost strangers
on the street and advise them to Don't Ever Go There. The game business
model
is not sustainable for any but a few. The Hollywood model is somewhat
different, in part because of somewhat longer production times and the
significantly larger amounts of money involved that helps guarantee that
projects are better managed. To overcome the significant
weaknesses in the game model, the following issues would (at a minimum)
need to be addressed.

1. Professional production management, with no producer handling more
than one or two projects at a time. Reasonable schedules with
*informed* buy-in from all involved. Everyone needs to understand
up front what the production values are.

2. Stronger (and balanced) IP contracts. Avoid the "we're all
friends here and don't tease the legal dragon" notions. If there
are uncertainties or open questions, state them explicitly.
Nobody on the project is on a "work done for hire" basis. Everyone
is treated as a professional independent craftsperson who has
some rights to their work and accumulated expertise when the
project concludes.

3. There needs to be some longer term organization that helps establish
and maintain common resources between projects, so that the larger
community of agents is constantly improving and so that any disputes
that arise can be managed. To try to gain some additional perspective
beyond the Hollywood metaphor, over the past few
days I've been looking at the acequia model, which is a decentralized,
community-based system for managing community water resources prevalent
in New Mexico that has roots in moorish Spain. If it looks promising
I will post a summary of how it works and how it might apply.

Dispite my being down on the video gaming business model, I did actually
get a game or two finished and out the door. I think I may have a copy
on a shelf somewhere. I dimly remember one of them where there was
something about the Egyptian god Osiris challenging the player to a
high-stakes game of Parchesi. It was right about then that I snapped and
decided to go work for Bios.

Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf
Of David Williams
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 7:59 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Hollywood business model

I worked as a marketing manager with a group doing video game development
after my stint at Biosgroup. It wasn't exactly your typical game
development environment. It was at the Naval Postgraduate School. They are
producing a video game for recruiting purposes.

I can tell you that the biggest draw we had amongst the game developers we
interviewed was the promise of a stable job. The project was supposedly
funded for 5 years (the qualification 'supposedly' is a long digression).
We were able to get really top-notch game developers because they were very
tired of the game-development job grind.

The young guys whose first and only love was building games were capable of
this pace. People with a bit more experience seemed deadly tired of it.
Like Hollywood, the industry seems built on the surge of young dreamers who
come to make a mark.

I'd suggest that anybody who thinks that this is a good way to structure a
development team or an entire industry consider going into game development.
The cost of entry is relatively low and the potential rewards are lucrative.

-David

[hidden email]

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