Lorne Lanning: Q&A Highlights
Continued from part 1 and part 2 of the GameCity Keynote address.
Fragmentary highlights from the Q&A session:
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Amortised art assets will reduce costs.
The splash of brand recognition is necessary, but if an IP lauches first in videogames it struggles. The other way around, less so. The Godfather is an interesting example, making its way from books to films. Coppolla hated the game, but that doesn’t really matter if it worked for the games audience.
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Next gen systems are just no fun to work on from a development point of view. With the PS3 it’s like “So when will they lock that operating system down? The day before we release?” (laughter).
[Some people who see the mod work I've done still ask me "So why didn't you get a job in the games industry a few years ago?" :)]
With these 5 year console cycles, developers have to rebuld their toolsets just to stay still.
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wrt publishers and risk:
(Earlier he mentioned how bad publisher contracts could be, typically with clauses to the effect of “If this is successful, we want to be able to own your company”).
“Let’s see one of us part with $20 million and see how we feel about it. That’s going to be a pretty shitty contract too” (Laughter).
With a $20m budget, you have to sell 2.5m units to break even.